The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found itself in disarray after inadvertently distributing layoff notices to several of its seasoned disease specialists, among them officials steering efforts against active measles and Ebola outbreaks.

The layoffs were made as part of a sweeping federal purge ordered by President Donald Trump during the ongoing government shutdown.

More than 1,000 CDC employees received termination emails on Friday in what was the largest mass dismissal in the agency’s history.

However, just the next day, on Saturday, federal health authorities were hastily working to rescind what they confessed were ‘mistaken’ dismissal notices sent to crucial teams at the forefront of global health protection, as noted by The Washington Post.

As relayed by several agency members, the unexpected reduction-in-force notifications severely impacted essential sectors responsible for infectious disease monitoring, outbreak interventions, vaccine strategies, and safeguarding employees.

Entire departments, including the CDC’s Global Health Center, its immunization leadership, and the acclaimed Epidemic Intelligence Service—renowned for dispatching ‘disease detectives’ globally to combat viral challenges—were momentarily disbanded.

By Saturday afternoon, a high-ranking federal health official, who wished to remain unnamed, stated that some layoffs were issued ‘by mistake’ and would be undone, particularly for those involved in managing measles, Ebola, and international outbreak coordination.

The official did not specify how many employees would be reinstated, or how quickly the reversal notices would reach them.

‘These dismissals included people currently leading critical public health operations,’ said Debra Houry, the CDC’s former chief medical officer, who resigned in August over what she described as the Trump administration’s ‘politicization of science.’

Houry said roughly 1,250 employees received notices, adding that many of those emails went to scientists whose work was indispensable to U.S. health security.

‘Some of the best-trained epidemiologists in the world were told they no longer had a job,’ she said.

Among those who initially received layoff notices, according to multiple agency insiders, was a senior official with nearly three decades of experience overseeing epidemic response efforts involving Ebola, Marburg virus, and mpox in Africa. 

The unnamed career public servant who has led multi-agency task forces spanning a dozen outbreaks.

Another dismissed group included the 2023 and 2024 classes of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, who are typically the first responders when a novel disease emerges. 

Two were preparing deployment to an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo when their termination emails arrived.

The leadership of CDC’s Global Health Center – including the entire office of its director and six international regional offices – was also ‘wiped out’ before some of those cuts were hastily walked back, according to Houry.

‘When you eliminate those teams, you’re essentially blinding the country to what’s happening overseas,’ she said. ‘These are the people who spot a threat before it reaches our borders.’

The CDC purge was part of a larger federal layoff initiative announced on Friday, when the Trump administration began cutting more than 4,000 government positions across multiple departments, far exceeding the standard furloughs typical of government shutdowns.

The White House budget office said the mass firings were meant to ‘rein in growth’ and eliminate ‘wasteful and duplicative entities.’ 

Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon defended the cuts, saying all employees receiving notices were ‘designated non-essential’ and that the moves align with the president’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ agenda.

But even some Republicans recoiled at the scope of the purge. 

Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the dismissals ‘completely unnecessary and reckless,’ while Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said they were ‘poorly timed’ and ‘punitive toward the federal workforce.’

The layoffs follow a series of devastating blows to the CDC this year, including the public firing of Director Susan Monarez in August and a violent shooting attack on its Atlanta headquarters, in which a gunman motivated by vaccine conspiracy theories killed a police officer and sprayed bullets into multiple buildings.

Morale has plummeted. Several top scientists including Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases resigned earlier this year, citing political interference. 

Daskalakis compared the agency’s latest structural purge to ‘deleting the operating system of a computer.’

‘The hardware and software are there, but nothing can function without that core,’ he said. ‘I fear what will happen with the next outbreak or human-generated biological threat.’

His former division, responsible for immunizations, influenza surveillance, and respiratory virus tracking, was among those that received termination notices on Friday.

The firings also hit the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) — the agency’s flagship scientific publication that has guided public health decision-making for more than 70 years. 

Officials said those layoffs were later determined to be the result of a ‘miscoding,’ though by Saturday the editor-in-chief and several staff members had not yet received confirmation their jobs were safe.

The MMWR, which was suspended for the first time ever in January amid the administration’s freeze on external communications, is relied upon by hospitals, clinics, and researchers worldwide for up-to-date disease data and policy recommendations. 

The disruption comes amid an alarming resurgence of measles across the United States, which has reached its highest level in 33 years, with over 1,500 cases recorded – many in under-vaccinated communities across Texas, New Mexico, and the Arizona-Utah border. 

Officials fear that firing epidemiologists at the height of this outbreak could cripple containment efforts.

Even with some layoffs now being reversed, insiders say the damage has already been done. 

Many employees fear the rehirings will be selective and politically motivated.

‘This was an act of chaos disguised as cost-cutting,’ said one senior health policy adviser. ‘You can’t simply erase the nation’s disease defenses and hope to rebuild them overnight.’