Researchers who study sickle cell anemia, autism, and more were all laid off this month from the CDC, thus, preventing potentially lifesaving research in its proverbial tracks, according to multiple CBS news sources.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly “wiped out the entire leadership team atop CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.”
He also eliminated key support staff who were “responsible for a federal database tracking state-level rates of adults with disabilities.”
"If it is not restored, it will disrupt life-saving public health programs, halt critical research, and increase preventable hospitalizations, complications, and deaths. Its elimination runs counter to the Administration's stated commitment to addressing chronic disease," Dr. Belinda Avalos, said of the sickle cell research cuts.
The disease affects roughly 100,000 people in the United States, more than 90% of whom identify as “non-Hispanic Black or African American,” according to the CDC’s own data.
Another area of research that faced major cuts, autism. The CDC’s website claims 1 in 36 children and 1 in 45 adults are on the spectrum and CBS reports those numbers “are on the rise.”
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A CDC official, who survived the cuts, spoke to “America's Most Watched Network” on the condition of anonymity, and noted, "There seems to be a step back to see developmental disabilities, like autism, being only in childhood. The branch provided key public health expertise for disability in adulthood, where people spend most of their lives."
Even sectors of the CDC which hail from Kennedy legacy were eliminated in the cuts. “CDC staff overseeing a partnership with the Special Olympics — an organization founded by Kennedy's aunt, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and now chaired by his cousin, Timothy Shriver.”
For those in the CDC who survived the layoff, they are “expected to be merged into Kennedy's new Administration for a Healthy America agency.”
According to the report, “Kennedy has expressed openness to restoring some programs he gutted, like the CDC's lead poisoning experts, though for now they have yet to be reinstated.