Environmental health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are being brought back to work in a partial reversal of a massive restructuring effort at the Department of Health and Human Services.
In April, HHS announced it was placing some 10,000 employees on administrative leave, including 2,400 in CDC alone, with plans to lay them off this month. That announcement would have dissolved the entire environmental health division and its branches on climate, water and food, lead, air pollution, data tracking, and emerging hazards.
HHS sent letters Wednesday rescinding those reduction-in-force (RIF) notifications to more than 450 employees, including some in the National Center for Environmental Health.
“Breaking news — our Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice has been reinstated and all our prior reduction in force memos canceled,” division Director Erik Svendsen wrote on LinkedIn. “Thank you all for your support, patience, and solidarity during this incredibly difficult time for our division, programs, agency, and our broader environmental public health system in the USA. We are looking forward to returning to our work, and to supporting environmental public health programs all across the USA. Today is a good day.”
