Less than two weeks after a gunman opened fire at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, the agency is facing renewed turmoil after leaders announced a new panel to review the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. At the same time, staff are reporting harassment in the wake of the attack and absorbing the impact of more than 600 job cuts that have dismantled entire public health programs.
This week, officials confirmed that the suspect — who fired hundreds of rounds at the CDC’s main campus on Aug. 8, killing a police officer — had attempted to enter the CDC visitors center two days prior, in what investigators believe was reconnaissance.
The shooting came just days after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revoked federal funding for mRNA vaccine research — a move celebrated by anti-vaccine groups. Investigators have said the suspect was fixated on distrust of COVID vaccines.
In the days since, employees say they have been targeted with harassing phone calls. Callers have asked, “Are you resilient?” before playing the sound of gunfire. The taunts, drawn from the agency’s own post-shooting messaging, have left staff shaken.
Against this backdrop, the CDC announced a new panel chaired by MIT professor Retsef Levi to investigate concerns raised by critics of COVID mRNA vaccines. Restef himself has been outspoken in his criticism of the vaccines. Leadership framed it as an effort to counter misinformation, but many employees view it as a concession to disinformation narratives.
The panel’s creation has deepened unease inside an institution already under strain.
In a letter sent after the attack, staff urged Kennedy to stop spreading inaccurate health information, affirm the CDC’s scientific integrity and guarantee workforce safety.
On Thursday, more than 600 CDC staff were officially let go, part of a wave of reductions in force approved by a federal judge earlier this month. Entire branches in the Division of Global HIV and Tuberculosis were eliminated, including teams that worked on preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission. Maternal and child health services, oral health programs, and the CDC’s long-running Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS) were also cut.
The VACS program, nearly two decades old, has provided countries with critical data to measure the prevalence of violence against children and to design interventions in response. “The data we collected was catalytic,” one researcher said. “Overnight, that work is gone.”
The layoffs extended into injury prevention — a bitter irony, given that the agency was just targeted in a mass shooting. Staff who studied firearm-related deaths, concussions in young athletes, and fall prevention in older adults were among those dismissed.
“Injuries are a leading cause of death,” said a veteran scientist whose unit was eliminated. “Preventing them will result in fewer deaths. It’s that simple. But our entire team was wiped away with a single letter.”
Other programs eliminated had decades of history. Global HIV prevention and treatment efforts date back to the 1990s, with CDC technical assistance shaping care for millions worldwide. Oral health and maternal-child health branches have likewise been longstanding pillars of domestic prevention work. Their abrupt closure, staff say, erases systems that took generations to build.
Employees say the process itself has been isolating. “It’s been alienating and lonely,” one longtime worker said. “People we’d worked with for decades became afraid to even talk to us, and we were just cut off.” Another added: “We’re not just lazy federal bureaucrats. We’ve poured our hearts and souls into this work, showing up day after day to keep people safe.”
For many employees, the message is stark: the CDC is being asked to investigate its own scientific foundations, even as the misinformation driving hostility against the agency goes unchecked.
