Posted on 02/14/2025 1:19:02 PM PST by Engraved-on-His-hands
Half of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service officers — a group known as the CDC's "disease detectives" — were among the cuts made Friday by the Trump administration, multiple health officials tell CBS News.
The cuts are among the thousands of probationary workers being let go this week across the federal government as part of efforts to shrink the federal workforce overseen by President Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, task force headed by billionaire Elon Musk.
The CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service or EIS officers are hired in annual classes through a competitive process.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
The recent cuts (which I've heard as 200,000 firings of probationary workers who have been at their job less than two years) are a good start to cutting a bloated bureaucracy. However, the Epidemic Intelligence Service (or EIS, for short) is actually a two year internship program in which medical professionals take huge cuts in pay to volunteer to go to the very worst situations in the very worst countries of the world. There they are tasked with investigating and containing disease outbreaks and epidemics. They are public servants, not bureaucrats.
I have said before that one of the better approaches to improving the CDC is to weed out a certain percentage of the bureaucrats that have never been through the EIS program. Cutting the EIS program in half is counterproductive and loses out on dedicated professionals who are sacrificing their current pay in order to serve. Making drastic cuts in the EIS program instead of cutting bureaucrats in the CDC who have never been through the EIS program in essence removes the cure while propagating the disease--both in terms of epidemics around the world and also in terms of government bureaucracy. It makes little sense and is a poor approach to cutting government bureaucracy or improving government efficiency.
When a problem comes along
You must whip it
Hospitals have pathology labs.
Just for the record, how many diseases and pandemics did those people prevent? Take your time.
Of course it is a power response to the partisan and soulless disease departments in the covid panic. In time it can be adjusted to reality.
I can hear the Democrats screaming already. But, think about it. They did a piss-poor job of finding the Chinese lab where all of this started and, if they did, they kept it from us. Fauci and others at CDC should be fired for saying that Ivermectin use is illegal when it has been proven to be effective against COVID. It is this Ivermectin fiasco that makes me think Fauci and others at CDC were in bed with Big Pharma.
These “disease detectives” are the same guys that crossed their eyes and said that the SARS Cov 2 didn’t have some of what it has in it.
If they were worth their pay, they’d have simply stated facts, not put out the approved party line.
TOO BAD!!!! The CDC lost all credibility with their behavior during the COVID crisis.
Just another corrupt bureaucracy!
Slash away.
If we’re sending them over there, we’re probably sending them to track the newest diseases we’re testing out.
More should have been cut for sure, but the reaction to such deserved cuts may not be worth it right at this moment.
Prevent? At least the people in the EIS--none.
Keep from spreading and shut down? The people in the EIS--A lot.
The "disease detectives" don't say anything. They go to third world hellholes and try to contain cholera, malaria, dengue fever, etc., etc.
You’re forgetting the CDC’s role in the Covid 19 fiasco.
We need a lot more information to evaluate these cuts.
With leftists they often claim a program has certain objectives which is only partially true—they often have hidden some “poison pills” in them.
Too bad Trump can’t fire scarf lady Birx.
(Should have the first time.)
Hopefully these were the masking and 6’ distancing idiots.
CBS aka Continuous Bull Shit
I’m guessing they weren’t all cut...the ones who do that job.
And if they were, perhaps some will be hired back once there is more time to evaluate what is needed.
Unfortunately, the dems, after 50 years, left Trump no choice but to burn first and ask questions later.
There will probably be some instances where something not so great might happen and it will be blamed on the cuts.
But we’re 36 trillion in debt.
ALL of our lives and our younger generations are at stake.
Still, I hope the very important jobs are filled again sooner than later...and without politics involved and with the best people.
I’m guessing they weren’t all cut...the ones who do that job.
And if they were, perhaps some will be hired back once there is more time to evaluate what is needed.
Unfortunately, the dems, after 50 years, left Trump no choice but to burn first and ask questions later.
There will probably be some instances where something not so great might happen and it will be blamed on the cuts.
But we’re 36 trillion in debt.
ALL of our lives and our younger generations are at stake.
Still, I hope the very important jobs are filled again sooner than later...and without politics involved and with the best people.
"Disease detective." A relatively new CDC-driven lingo for epidemiologists. The staff being dismissed are probationary federal employees, which is part of a cost-saving strategy.
But back to the lingo, "disease detective:"
"Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to get clues and analyze data to Solve the Outbreak and save lives. In this fun, interactive app you get to try your hand at becoming a Disease Detective. You'll travel the world chasing outbreaks like the ones real-life CDC Disease Detectives help fight. Should you quarantine the town, send for more lab results, or alert the media?"When we were kids, did we all aspire to be disease detectives?Play Solve the Outbreak on the CDC Website Today! Solve the Outbreak is now available on desktop computers in the web browser.
But now we are supposed to conclude that the Trump-Vance administration is doing harm by cutting some probationary staff? No!
They are cutting OUR "disease detectives." Poor "doc" Columbo! Alas for "doc" Poirot! "Doc" Kojak!
Small item: An epidemiologist generally has a masters like MPH with a Bachelors in a related field. These are not physicians being turned loose. They are PROBATIONARY. So do the news articles say, usually well down into the text.
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