Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff is pushing the Trump Administration to rehire CDC staff vital to public health.
Today, Sen. Ossoff joined Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock and Senate colleagues urging U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to reverse course on recent decisions to indiscriminately fire critical public health employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“We write to express our deep concern with the Trump administration’s recent decisions to indiscriminately fire critical public health employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), based in Atlanta, Georgia,” Sens. Ossoff, Rev. Warnock, and the group wrote to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “These actions have not only led to unnecessary turmoil, fear, and chaos for public health officials, experts, and employees at the CDC, they also threaten our national security.”
According to The Associated Press, last month, nearly 1,300 probationary employees at the CDC were fired. The AP reported the move “chaotic and difficult to track” with the lack of information provided to the public. Just weeks after hundreds of agencies workers were laid off, the CDC rescinded their decision, telling dozens they could keep their job.
With the United States facing a widespread of infectious disease threats, several public health experts have sounded the alarm on the mass firings posing a major risk to our nation’s response to emerging infectious threats.
Sen. Ossoff continues working to support the health and safety of Georgia families.
Last month, Sen. Ossoff blasted President Trump’s mass firings at the CDC.
Sen. Ossoff argued forcefully against Senate confirmation of radical Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who had publicly compared the work of the CDC to “Nazi death camps.”
Click here to read Sens. Ossoff and Rev. Warnock’s letter to Secretary Kennedy.
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