DOGE Fired These CDC, NIH Workers. Now They’re Speaking Out.

In a chaotic purge by the Trump administration, thousands of employees at federal agencies were let go in February over Presidents’ Day weekend. The layoffs primarily targeted probationary employees, workers generally within the first year or two of their employment.

MedPage Today spoke with two of the fired health workers: Amy Chroeng, MPH, formerly of the CDC, who learned about the firings via social media even before her leadership team knew; and Julie Cakici, PhD, who was informed that her NIH contract had been terminated — and that she had 1 hour to log off from all federal systems.

In this video, Chroeng and Cakici talk about their work at CDC and NIH, how the purge has affected them, and discuss their hopes for their careers and former programs.

Following is a transcript of the video (note that errors are possible):

Cakici: What’s happening is not looking at fraud, waste, or abuse. It’s just coming in with a sledgehammer when a scalpel would be necessary.

Chroeng: It was really upsetting. The whole situation, not only to be fired, but to have it be done in that way was terrible.

Cakici: Hi, I’m Julie Cakici. I was a contractor with the NIH’s All of Us Research Program. I was a health science policy analyst with the policy office in our team for ethical, legal, and social implications.

Chroeng: My name is Amy Chroeng. I was a public health analyst at the Injury Center in the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, or the CDC. I provided policy and partnership support for injury prevention, specifically around topics like suicide, drowning, and older adult falls.

Cakici: It was just before 4 p.m., and I got a call from my contracting agency, and I immediately thought that there’s no way that this could be good, and he immediately started by apologizing for doing this with such short notice late on a Friday. But he told me that my contract had been terminated, and that I needed to be logged off of all federal systems by 5 p.m., so I had just about an hour to sort all of that out.

Chroeng: I actually found out about the firings from social media because it was blasted all over the news; 1,300 probationary employees from CDC set to be fired today. That was well before my leadership team, my division, knew about what to do or were briefed on who was on that list.

It was upsetting for me because I knew it was coming since the administration changed, but it was really heartbreaking to hear it from the news before my own center leadership kind of knew what was going on. But eventually, my division director called me personally to let me know that my name was on a list of probationary employees, that I was going to be terminated.

What was even more upsetting was I didn’t get the official termination letter from HHS until 9 p.m. the next day, so on Saturday. That was upsetting because it was kind of like making somebody wait well into the weekend when they’re not supposed to be working to tell them that they’re being fired. It’s kind of cruel. It was really upsetting, the whole situation, not only to be fired, but to have it be done in that way was terrible.

Cakici: My hope for the department, just that it survives. It’s no secret that there is a grudge against science by this new administration, and Republicans are wanting to cut as much of the federal budget as possible to make tax breaks for the rich. I really just hope that our program continues and carries on because it’s the largest cohort of people whose DNA has been sequenced, who have shared ongoing medical records. It’s a treasure trove for biomedical research, and it would be absolutely devastating to see that program cut short.

Chroeng: For my department, for the Injury Center as a whole, I just hope it stays up and is able to continue the work. Injury Center also works on homicide, rape, child abuse, opioid deaths, so I hope that Congress and the American public realize that those are the issues that cause… the leading causes of death in the first half of life. And if you were to remove the Injury Center, you’re removing a lot of really great preventative services, a lot of great research and data that can help prevent the death of a lot of Americans in the first half of their life.

Cakici: The job market is rough, you’ve got tens of thousands of federal employees and contractors who are super well qualified. We’ve all been basically civil servants, we didn’t get the highest salaries, we wanted to do something that made lives for people in this country better. So it’s a hard change to think about going into industry. The most likely transition would be to go be a professor, [but] there’s lots of hiring freezes going on with the cuts to funding with NIH. Right now I just don’t want to be dependent on NIH or government funding in any way.

Chroeng: I got into public health so that I could help Americans be healthy, to prevent unnecessary death, and I really hope that I get to continue that work — if not in the federal government in some other aspect, because regardless of the administration, regardless of where I work, that’s always going to be my goal and my mission personally.

Cakici: Working at the NIH went from being the dream job to being really stressful…. To treat anyone that way, let alone everyone, trying to belittle people, make them feel like they’re pariahs of some sort when they’ve really just been sacrificing and trying to keep this country running. It’s gross, it’s shameful, and it’s not the country that I envisioned.

Chroeng: A lot of the probationary employees were cited to be terminated based off poor performance, and that our knowledge, skills, and abilities did not align with the current administration. And that was just not true. A lot of us have well-documented evidence, have great referrals, that speak to our performances being great.

And it’s not easy to be a federal employee. It is so hard, it is so competitive, a lot us worked so hard to get here, put a lot of years in graduate school, professional school, and fellowships that didn’t pay great in order to get these roles. And to have it removed from us without any justification is really heartbreaking. They need to do something about this and get good workers in fields that they want to work in to continue impactful public health.

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