{"id":923,"date":"2025-04-03T18:15:54","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T18:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/?p=923"},"modified":"2025-04-04T14:26:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T14:26:01","slug":"staff-working-on-childhood-lead-exposure-and-cancer-clusters-fired-from-cdc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/03\/staff-working-on-childhood-lead-exposure-and-cancer-clusters-fired-from-cdc\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff working on childhood lead exposure and cancer clusters fired from CDC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Staff members who fought childhood lead exposure and those who worked on cancer clusters were among those fired from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a now former employee told The Hill.<\/p>\n

The entire permanent staff of the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice was cut, according to one person who was among the approximately 200 fired from the division.<\/p>\n

This division works on issues such as asthma and air pollution, climate change and health, childhood lead poisoning and cancer clusters. <\/p>\n

The former employee noted that these divisions do crucial work to protect public health, pointing out, for example, that it helped discover lead contamination in applesauce pouches<\/a> that were popular with kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The person also noted that the division had staffers who would be able to help respond in case there was a nuclear event such as an attack or nuclear plant meltdown.<\/p>\n

“Within this division, we house all the experts who do things like chemical, radiological or nuclear response activities. So for example, if there were a nuclear detonation within the United States, or a dirty bomb, our division would be the one who would lead that response,\u201d they said. \u201cThose people were targeted as well. There are no survivors.”<\/p>\n

The person said the division may still have contractors but that there\u2019s no staff for them to work with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, National Center for Environmental Health Director Ari Bernstein said in an internal email that the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice had been \u201cslated to be eliminated in its entirety,\u201d E&E News reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The workers who were let go include epidemiologists, scientists and administrators who manage grant programs. <\/p>\n

Other experts also raised concerns about the impacts of the cuts. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was just the wholesale elimination of the division that eliminates, essentially, the program that protects children from lead, from air pollution and asthma, from emergencies like fires,\u201d said Patrick Breysse, the former director of the National Center for Environmental Health, which houses the environmental health division.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are going to suffer from this for decades,\u201d Breysse told The Hill. <\/p>\n

The firings come amid broader cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as the HHS, which houses it.<\/p>\n

The Hill has reached out to the HHS for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The department also seeks to let go of about 10,000 additional workers as part of reorganization efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the cuts as part of his plan to streamline the agency and \u201cmake America healthy again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, critics argue that cutting many of these jobs will actually make the nation less healthy. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the way we make America healthy again. This is how we make America sick again,\u201d said Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.<\/p>\n

Nathaniel Weixel contributed. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Staff members who fought childhood lead exposure and those who worked on cancer clusters were among those fired from the Department of Health and Human Services...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":924,"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions\/924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thenewamore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}