On the coffee table at her home in Atlanta, Sarah Boim has a pile of documents from her old job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are printouts of her employment records.<\/p>\n
Boim lost her job in the first big wave of CDC firings \u2014 more than 1,000 people were suddenly let go<\/a> last February.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the termination letter. I also printed off my performance review from 2024,\u201d she said. \u201cI knew I wouldn\u2019t have access to it, and everything was so chaotic that I needed proof of what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Boim worked in the National Center for Environmental Health\/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry<\/a>, handling communications about radon, substances known as forever chemicals, lead poisoning, and other health threats.<\/p>\n Rereading her termination letter, she still can\u2019t believe what it says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe agency finds you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge, and skills do not fit the agency\u2019s current needs, and your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the agency,\u201d the emailed letter reads.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that floored me,\u201d Boim said, \u201cbecause my performance was rated outstanding, and I even got a raise. It was just deeply insulting. So I was more upset than I think I was prepared to be.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump administration later brought back some of the workers who were fired in the first round, but it has also cut more staff and funding.<\/p>\n The CDC has been without a permanent director for more than six months. Recently the Trump administration made Jay Bhattacharya the CDC\u2019s interim director<\/a>, while he also runs the National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n The leadership uncertainty comes amid a year of disruption and dismissals at the Atlanta-based institution, from which more than 3,000 public health workers are now gone. That includes staffers the Trump administration terminated and workers who accepted early retirement.<\/p>\n Ripple effects of the turmoil are still hitting the Atlanta region.<\/p>\n By the end of 2025, the CDC had lost roughly a quarter of its workforce.<\/p>\n Boim now works as a contractor in the health field, while also working a non-health-related freelance job. But she mourns the cuts at the CDC, and how the loss of expertise and resources will trickle down to communities. A significant portion of CDC funding<\/a> goes directly to states and local public health departments<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will cause generational harm, which always makes me tear up,\u201d Boim said. \u201cThe harm that\u2019s going to come to people that don\u2019t even know what CDC was protecting them from.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut for Atlanta, there\u2019s a lot of us; there are thousands of CDC employees that live here,\u201d she added. \u201cWe are your friends, your neighbors, your family, and \u2014 with the lost income \u2014 it has an impact on local businesses also.\u201d<\/p>\n At the SriThai restaurant across the street from the main CDC campus, more than a third of the customers are CDC employees, said manager Nathan Chanthavong.<\/p>\n The restaurant saw a \u201csmall dip\u201d in business in 2025 after the mass firings, and also during the government shutdown, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cTypically, we would get a catering order for the CDC. We saw it less, less, and less. It\u2019s not a really big impact, but catering is a big order; it is a lot of money,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it does affect us.\u201d<\/p>\n The CDC falls under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHHS under the Biden administration became a bloated bureaucracy, growing its budget by 38% and its workforce by 17%,\u201d HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said of the cuts and attrition. \u201cThe Department continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration\u2019s Make America Healthy Again agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the mass firings began, former CDC workers and their supporters have protested outside the agency\u2019s main entrance every Tuesday<\/a> during the afternoon rush hour.<\/p>\n On a recent Tuesday, a bigger crowd than usual \u2014 about 75 people \u2014 lined up along the sidewalk. It had been a year since the first massive cuts, which occurred in mid-February 2025. CDC workers dubbed it the \u201cValentine\u2019s Day massacre.\u201d<\/p>\n Protesters waved handmade signs with slogans such as \u201cWe love CDC workers\u201d and \u201cSave Public Health.\u201d Passing drivers honked in solidarity.<\/p>\n Among the protesters was Ben McKenzie, who is still employed as a CDC researcher.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been heartbreaking to see so many talented, able colleagues be forced out or leave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Current employees also need support, he said, especially after a man opened fire on CDC buildings last summer. The gunman killed<\/a> DeKalb County police officer David Rose before killing himself.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve all felt the emotional impact of being targets,\u201d McKenzie said. \u201cRight now, to work at CDC is in a lot of ways to be a target.\u201d<\/p>\n Multiple CDC employees told KFF Health News and NPR the federal government has yet to fully fix the damage to the windows and buildings hit in last year\u2019s shooting.<\/p>\n McKenzie helps run a mutual aid group<\/a>, one of several that have sprung up in Atlanta. He said the group has distributed more than $200,000 to help former CDC workers with rent and other needs.<\/p>\n This article is from a partnership with <\/em>WABE<\/em><\/a> and NPR<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\nUSE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n