In addition to large reductions in the staff of the Centers for the control and prevention of diseases, the Trump administration has asked the Agency to cut $ 2.9 billion of contracts for contracts, according to three federal officials with knowledge of the matter.
The program of reducing the costs of the Administration, called the Department of Efficiency of the Government, asked the public health agency to cut around 35 percent of its expenses for contracts about two weeks ago. The CDC was told to conform by April 18, according to officials.
The cuts further promise a knee tendon an agency that already moves away from the loss of 2,400 employees, almost a fifth of his workforce.
Tuesday, the administration fired the scientists of the CDC focused on environmental health and asthma, injuries, prevention of violence, lead poisoning, smoking and climate change.
The officials of the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The abrupt cut of 35 % of the contracts would be difficult for any organization or activity, said Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, who recommended the Biden administration during Covid.
“Of course, any manager can find small savings and improvements, but this type of requests are of the size and speed that breaks down organizations,” he said. “This is not the way of doing good for the public or for public health.”
The largest CDC contract, about $ 7 billion a year, goes to the children’s vaccine program, which acquires vaccines for parents who may not be able to allow them.
This program is mandatory by law and will not be influenced by the cuts, according to a high official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But other CDC contracts include computer expenditure and other technologies, security guards, cleaning and management services. The agency also takes people to build and maintain specific data and research projects.
In recent years, contracts have also supported activities related to Covid-19, said an official.
Separately, HHS last week abruptly interrupted the CDC subsidies of about $ 11.4 billion to the states that were using the funds to keep track of infectious diseases and to support mental health services, the treatment of addiction and other urgent health problems.
At least some of the doge contracts now asks the agency to stop may no longer be implemented because the people who supervise them have been fired.
This is not the first time that Doge asks the agency to cut funding.
Previously he had asked the CDC to cut subsidies to Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, stating that those institutions had not been able to act against anti -Semitism in the campus.
“Funding and contracts are the mechanism with which we do things,” said a CDC scientist who asked to remain anonymous because of the fear of retaliation.
“They are cutting the arms and legs.”