Media reports earlier this month claimed that the Trump administration was endangering public health by downsizing or eliminating the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) — an arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tasked with disease investigation.
“CDC ‘disease detectors’ among hundreds fired as Trump administration ramps up agency cuts,” NBC News reported Feb. 16. The day before, Forbes reported that the Trump administration laid off EIS workers, “threatening science and public health.”
Oregon Public Broadcasting reported, “Upheaval and firings at CDC raise fears about disease outbreak response.”
However, the CDC confirmed the layoffs didn’t happen and the program is not on the chopping block.
“To date, all of the officers in CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) remain in their positions,” the CDC said in a statement provided to Healio. The CDC further confirmed that there have been no layoffs of EIS staff, in an email sent to Chemical & Engineering News.
Epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher said claims that EIS was being downsized or eliminated are “another example of Big Pharma-sponsored legacy media fabricating a story to discredit Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the administration.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate confirmed Kennedy, former chairman of Children’s Health Defense, as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“It appears that the primary purpose of this smear campaign is to sow distrust in the new administration in an attempt to interrupt important policy implementation,” Hulscher said.
The CDC did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Media reports claim ‘outbreak of layoffs’ hurting public health
According to the CDC, the EIS is the agency’s “globally recognized applied epidemiology training program.” Since 1951, the agency has trained “over 4,000 disease detectives who have investigated and responded to a wide range of public health challenges and emergencies.”
According to Medscape, the responsibilities of EIS officers include “traveling throughout the United States and globally to gather and analyze first-hand scientific data on disease epidemiology that inform public health policy.”
The agency’s logo, featuring the worn-out soles of a pair of shoes, is intended to symbolize the program’s fieldwork under sometimes challenging circumstances.
EIS offers a two-year “hands-on service fellowship” that is targeted toward “future public health leaders.” Each year, it hosts “the nation’s flagship applied epidemiology conference.”
Chemical & Engineering News reported that layoff fears at EIS ramped up after the Trump administration issued an executive order on Feb. 11 that directed federal agencies to proceed with significant reductions in their workforce.
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NPR reported on Feb. 17 that some EIS employees were “explicitly told they’d be terminated.” In a Feb. 20 report, The Atlantic cited unnamed EIS fellows who were “bracing to be let go” — though ultimately, “the pink slips never came.”
These fears came in the midst of significant workforce reductions in several public health agencies overseen by HHS, including the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Chemical & Engineering News reported.
In a play on words, Medscape reported that an “outbreak of layoffs” spared the EIS.
Citing a 2024 Gallup poll, Hulscher said the conflicting news reports about EIS’ plans to lay off staff contribute to growing public distrust of mainstream media.
“As of 2024, 69% of Americans have no trust or very little trust in mainstream media,” Hulscher said. “Thus, these interference efforts are doomed to fail.”
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