7 CDC workers fired this week had been assigned to NYC, health officials say

Seven of the 1,300 staffers who were fired from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the weekend were assigned to work at New York City’s health department, in areas including immunizations and tuberculosis research, city health officials said Wednesday.

Those staff members represented about a third of the 20 city health department workers funded by the CDC, according to Chantal Gomez, a spokesperson for the city health department. Gomez said the city was “looking into options that allow these staff members to continue their valuable work with the agency.” She did not say where funding for their salaries would come from.

Their duties included city immunization efforts and data analysis on the spread of tuberculosis, as well as case management for patients with the disease and preparation for public health emergencies, Gomez added.

“Those seven staff are people with tremendous expertise and expertise that the health department needs,” said Dr. Michelle Morse, the city’s acting health commissioner, at a City Council hearing about infection diseases on Wednesday.

Morse said communication with the CDC “halted completely” for several weeks after President Donald Trump took office, but added that it has since resumed. The ability to easily swap data and communicate with the experts at the CDC is essential to the city’s efforts to monitor and prevent infectious diseases and respond to outbreaks, she said.

The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the staffers who were fired or any lapse in communication with the city health department.

When asked by City Councilmember Lynn Schulman what the health department would do if communication with federal agencies is cut off again, Morse said, “We are learning to be nimble and adapt in many ways to this new context, although it has been very challenging.”

The city health department receives about $600 million a year in federal funding, which represents about 20% of its budget, Morse said. She said she expected the federal government “will uphold the contracts and commitments that it's made to New Yorkers.”

“If that changes, we are planning to work with City Hall, the [Office of Management and Budget], and you all at the City Council to make sure our work can continue to protect the health of New Yorkers,” she added.

New York state also helps fund local public health efforts, and Morse called on state lawmakers to restore cuts made to the city's public health funding under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In 2019, the state reduced its public health matching funds for New York City from 36% to 20%, which Morse said has resulted in the city losing upwards of $90 million a year.

Several local public health experts and former city health officials echoed the call to restore the state’s public health funding in an op-ed in AM New York on Wednesday.

State Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas of Queens and State Sen. Gustavo Rivera of the Bronx have introduced legislation this session to restore the funding to the city.

Gov. Kathy Hochul did not directly respond to questions Wednesday about whether she supports restoring the state’s public health funding for the city. But she noted she has worked with the state attorney general to file lawsuits challenging federal cuts under Trump and said New York “will maintain close collaboration with cities, localities and counties to protect the funding of critical services that New Yorkers rely on."

Other federal public health cuts are also affecting New Yorkers. The World Trade Center Health Program, which provides medical monitoring and treatment for those affected by the 9/11 attacks, is losing about 20% of its staff because of employees being fired or taking buyouts at the CDC, according to a joint letter that U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand sent Monday to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The senators asked Kennedy to restore the cuts.