CDC layoffs cripple national injury and overdose tracking, leaving prevention efforts in doubt

Editor's Note

Sweeping layoffs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have gutted the agency’s ability to track overdoses, injuries, and violent deaths, Axios October 15 reports. The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, once a cornerstone of public health surveillance, now operates with roughly one-third of its original workforce after the Trump administration’s mass reductions.

According to the article, only about 250 of the center’s 700 employees remain, and those left face workloads that experts say are impossible to manage. The agency’s overdose and violence prevention teams, already strained, may no longer function effectively. The operations team that manages state overdose data and the National Violent Death Reporting System have been eliminated, while the loss of the science office halts the publication and validation of critical research. Sharon Gilmartin, executive director of the Safe States Alliance, called the losses “tremendous,” emphasizing the blow to local health departments that depend on real-time federal data.

The layoffs are part of broader cuts across the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Since January, roughly 3,000 CDC employees have left through layoffs, retirements, or attrition. The Trump administration framed the reductions as efforts to end “wasteful and duplicative work,” though confusion has surrounded the process. More than half of the 1,300 initial termination notices were later rescinded, and some employees received multiple reduction-in-force notices within the year.

Among those affected are staff from the CDC’s Washington office, which liaises with Congress, and the CDC Library, which supports access to global research. Former CDC leaders told the outlet these losses cripple the agency’s ability to gather and interpret the latest science. Offices across HHS were also hit, including those overseeing substance use, mental health, and biodefense preparedness.