With CDC injury prevention team gutted, 'we will not know what is killing us'

Source: NPR

April 21, 2025 12:24 PM ET


Before they were fired, staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were about to launch a new data system to improve how the U.S. tracks concussions. They were planning to release updated guidance on diagnosing traumatic brain injury in children and publish new findings on drownings after natural disasters. They were combing the web for data on suicides to forecast trends and studying changes in how people are injured during car crashes.

All of this came to a halt when health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directed sweeping layoffs to the Department of Health and Human Services this month. Much of the federal workforce focused on injury and violence prevention was cut, according to researchers, advocates and five former employees whose jobs were eliminated.

NPR is not disclosing their names because they are still on administrative leave and not authorized to speak to the press. Entire teams based at the CDC's injury center that focused on motor vehicle crashes, child maltreatment, rape prevention and education, drowning, traumatic brain injury, falls in the elderly, and other issues were eliminated.

"A lot of the work we do will not be picked up by anyone else," one senior health scientist who lost their job tells NPR. Sharon Gilmartin, whose nonprofit Safe States Alliance works closely with CDC and state health departments, knows of more than 200 positions that were eliminated at the CDC's injury center.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/21/nx-s1-5371519/cdc-hhs-injury-prevention-federal-layoffs