Hundreds of laid-off CDC employees are being reinstated
[June 12, 2025]
By MIKE STOBBE
NEW YORK (AP) — More than 460 laid-off employees at the nation's top
public health agency received notices Wednesday that they are being
reinstated, according to a union representing the workers.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed reinstatement
notices went out to the former Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention employees, but provided few details.
About 2,400 CDC employees lost their jobs in a wave of cuts across
federal health agencies in early April, according to a tally at the
time.
Whole CDC programs were essentially shut down, including some focused on
smoking, lead poisoning, gun violence, asthma and air quality, and
workplace safety and health. The entire office that handles Freedom of
Information Act requests was shuttered. Infectious disease programs took
a hit, too, including programs that fight outbreaks in other countries,
labs focused on HIV and hepatitis in the U.S., and staff trying to
eliminate tuberculosis.
An estimated 200 of the reinstated workers are based in the CDC's
National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis
Prevention, HHS officials confirmed. Staffers at a CDC lab that does
testing for sexually transmitted diseases are being brought back, said
one CDC employee who wasn't authorized to discuss what happened and
spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Also reinstated are an estimated 150 employees at the CDC's National
Center for Environmental Health, including people staffing a lab that
works on lead poisoning, according to the union and employees.
Layoffs at federal agencies were challenged in lawsuits, with judges in
some cases ordering federal agencies to halt terminations of employees.
Officials at HHS have never detailed how they made the layoff decisions
in the first place. And they did not answer questions about why the
notices went out, or how decisions were made about who to bring back.
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Michael Beach protests President Donald Trump's proposed cuts to
health services outside the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta on Tuesday, June 10, 2025.
(Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
 HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said
the agency was streamlining operations and that “the nation’s
critical public health functions remain intact and effective.”
"The Trump Administration is committed to protecting essential
services — whether it’s supporting coal miners and firefighters
through NIOSH, safeguarding public health through lead prevention,
or researching and tracking the most prevalent communicable
diseases,” he said.
The reinstatements don't undo the damage being done by Kennedy and
the Trump administration to federal public health, said members of
Fired But Fighting, a group of affected CDC workers who have helped
organize rallies in Atlanta. The most recent was in the rain on
Tuesday, at which some attendees called for Kennedy to resign.
“Bringing a few hundred people back to work out of thousands fired
is a start, but there are still countless programs at CDC that have
been cut, which will lead to increased disease and death,” one of
the group's founding members, Abby Tighe, said in a statement.
This is not the first time that employees at the Atlanta-based
agency were told they were being terminated only to then be told to
come back. After an earlier round of termination notices went out in
February, about 180 CDC employees in March were told to come back.
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