ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Thousands of workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have left their jobs since January as part of the Trump administration's effort to drastically reduce the government workforce. NPR's Pien Huang went to visit the CDC in Atlanta to see how it's handling the shifts of the past few months.
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PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Every year, the CDC has a conference to celebrate the work of its disease detectives. It almost didn't happen this year. The Epidemic Intelligence Service training program was on a list of expected cuts in February, but then it was spared. Eric Pevzner, chief of the program, says they pulled the meeting together.
ERIC PEVZNER: So yeah, we got late approval to have the conference given the change in administration, and something that would normally be planned over a period of about six months, they did in about six weeks.
HUANG: The agency's disease detectives train for two years before going off to serve as public health leaders across the country. The conference presentations are a rite of passage.
PEVZNER: We've got over 80 scientific presentations, over eight TED-style talks.
HUANG: The program started more than 70 years ago and has trained more than 4,000 people. Many come back to the conference year after year. It usually feels like a big family reunion but not this time. Dr. Ken Castro, a CDC alum now at Emory University, says people are anxious about the staffing and budget cuts.
KEN CASTRO: What's their future going to be? It's uncertain. What are the people who we just finished training going to be doing? It's uncertain. So that is the challenge that we're all facing.
HUANG: Around the conference, he sees a lot of empty chairs. Many people who would have been here got pushed out, and those remaining feel like they're being watched. Castro says that's why they canceled a satirical review, usually a conference highlight.
CASTRO: They feel too vulnerable to be making fun out of any figure of authority. That, to me, is part of the reign of terror that we're living under.
HUANG: In an email requesting comment, an HHS spokesperson said, the agency's restructuring is a necessary strategic effort to align with public health needs reflecting responsibility and forward planning, not instability.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORNS HONKING)
HUANG: The mood was livelier a few miles up the street by the main gates of CDC campus, where people were gathering to support the agency. Michael Beach worked behind those gates for decades.
MICHAEL BEACH: I was a deputy director of the group that covers food, water and fungal diseases. It was the most gratifying work that you can imagine, and you made a difference every single day.
HUANG: Now he's retired, out here in a T-shirt and hiking boots, holding a sign that says, save the CDC.
BEACH: To cut the scientific staff to the bone, to close laboratories, cut off all of the data coming in about maternal health, about violence, about environmental health - those sorts of things...
(SOUNDBITE OF HORN HONKING)
BEACH: ...Are going to have a huge impact on the health of this country.
HUANG: This weekly protest has been happening every Tuesday since February, but Mike Arnold, an advocate against vaccines, has been here for years. On a recent Friday, he's standing on the same corner by the CDC entrance by himself with his many signs. Some show his support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new health secretary...
MIKE ARNOLD: Yes, he's a gift from God.
HUANG: ...Others show his opposition to vaccines, claiming they cause autism, which is a view that has been debunked. Arnold says he feels mixed about the layoffs.
ARNOLD: I don't like to see administrative people laid off, security people, that sort of thing - maintenance people. I feel sorry for them. The scientists and doctors - no, I don't feel a bit sorry for them.
HUANG: Because of cuts to CDC programs for lead poisoning, asthma, disease detection and, yes, vaccines, public health experts warn that people will get sick or die. Pien Huang, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAJ TOURE SONG, "CONSCIOUS LOVE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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