US Senate Democrats demand reversal of CDC mass firings

By Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Seven U.S. Senate Democrats demanded on Wednesday that President Donald Trump's administration reinstate all of the employees it fired from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since he took office.

The decision to fire hundreds of CDC employees has put the lives of Americans and other people across the world at risk, the senators wrote in a letter, seen by Reuters, to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"Despite the CDC's critical responsibility and record of keeping Americans safe, one of your very first actions as Secretary was overseeing the firing of an estimated 750 public servants at CDC," they wrote.

"We are deeply troubled by the complete disregard for public health and health promotion displayed by these mass firings."

The letter, which was signed by Senators Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff, Ron Wyden, Chris Van Hollen, Ben Ray Lujan, Jeff Merkley, and Angela Alsobrooks, also demands Kennedy make clear to Congress how many CDC employees in total were fired since Trump took office and how many were reinstated.

It also asks if any programs at the agency had been eliminated, what factors were considered when laying off staff, how the firings have affected public health preparedness, among other questions highlighting the opaque nature of the firings, part of a wider purge by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk of the federal bureaucracy that saw 25,000 people lose their jobs.

A federal judge ruled last week that the mass firings were illegal and ordered workers reinstated. The Trump administration in court filings said that federal agencies were working to bring all of them back.

"While we are encouraged to learn that some recently fired CDC employees have since been reinstated, we urge you to immediately reverse all firings, to reinstate all CDC personnel who were unfairly and recklessly terminated, and to halt all additional mass terminations at the CDC," the Senators wrote.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by David Gregorio)