Public health experts in Georgia are speaking out against furloughs at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention they say have left hundreds of employees at the agency unemployed as the federal government shutdown enters its third week.
Federal employees began receiving reduction-in-force notices, the technical name for layoffs, on Friday. Initially, about 1,300 CDC employees received notices, but many of the firings were reversed the next day. According to the National Public Health Coalition, a group of terminated CDC workers and their allies, about 600 layoffs are expected to be permanent.
The cuts initially impacted a wide range of departments, including the CDC’s flagship publication, known as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the agency’s Washington office, the National Center for Health Statistics, and leaders working to contain infectious diseases like measles and Ebola. At least some of the employees in those departments have since been reinstated…