Hundreds of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) employees are losing their jobs after a federal judge ruled on August 12 that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was barred from terminating employees at only six CDC divisions. The court’s prior ruling had protected all CDC staff.
The litigation stems from HHS Director Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s efforts to terminate thousands of HHS employees. In March, Kennedy announced that 10,000 of the department’s workers would be laid off, including 2,400 staff from the CDC. Kennedy, who has long peddled health disinformation to the public, has made numerous false claims about vaccines, COVID-19, chronic diseases, and autism.
Shortly after the layoffs were announced, Kennedy said that some people were mistakenly termina