On March 19, seven Democrats in the U.S. Senate jointly spoke out and made a strong request to Trump, hoping to restore all employees who have been fired by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since Trump took office.
Behind this request, there are two major events that have attracted widespread attention in the American society recently: large-scale layoffs at the CDC and the data deletion storm.
The story has to start with the recent large-scale layoff storm in the United States. Back to February 11, 2025, the Trump administration signed an executive order aimed at promoting large-scale layoffs in the federal government.
Immediately afterwards, the “Government Efficiency Department” led by Musk began to promote federal agency reforms with swift and resolute means, and the CDC unfortunately became the “ghost under the knife” of the reform.
According to relevant reports, on February 14 alone, the CDC laid off 1,300 people, accounting for one-tenth of the total number of employees, and the layoffs were mainly concentrated on probationary employees and newly hired personnel. The resignation of a large number of employees has caused the CDC to malfunction, making it difficult to obtain the latest public health information in the United States in a timely manner, which has had a very negative impact on public health security.
In a letter to Robert, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the senators severely criticized the CDC’s decision to lay off employees, believing that this move would undoubtedly put the lives of Americans and others around the world at risk.
So, what kind of organization is the CDC?
The CDC is affiliated with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. As a U.S. government agency, the main responsibilities of the CDC are disease prevention and control, environmental health, occupational health, health promotion, and the development and application of prevention and education activities. In short, the CDC is the guardian of the lives and safety of American citizens.
Through close cooperation with national health departments and other organizations, the CDC provides reliable information support for the health and safety of the American public and promotes decision-making that is beneficial to the health of citizens.
However, even such an important organization has not escaped the fate of being ruthlessly laid off.
What is even more incredible is that on February 10, the Trump administration was exposed to have ordered the CDC to delete all data before 2020, including key information such as COVID-19 research, drug trials, and death statistics.
Trump asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other health agencies to completely suspend all public information release activities, including health guidance, scientific research results, official website updates, and social media information releases, on the absurd reason of “preventing panic.”
Since then, an unprecedented “data deletion storm” has quietly swept across U.S. government websites.
Due to the U.S. government’s data deletion plan, the CDC’s weekly Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) has been forced to stagnate. At this time, the H5N1 avian influenza virus was raging in the United States. The blocking of this information dissemination channel undoubtedly deepened the severity of the epidemic in the United States and the panic of the people.
Not only that, the update of health data on the CDC’s official website also came to an abrupt halt, the public health event notification for clinicians was revoked, and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) under the CDC also completely suspended the public release of all public health data.
According to a belated report from the CDC, as early as June to September 2024, several asymptomatic American veterinarians were infected with the H5N1 virus after contact with sick cattle. However, due to limited testing resources and deliberate concealment of data, these cases were not known to the public until several months later.
According to the New York Times, in just a few days, more than a dozen federal government websites, including the CDC, NIH, FDA, U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Justice, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Patent and Trademark Office, have deleted more than 8,000 web pages, many of which contain vital health data.
Several CDC websites and data sets related to AIDS, adolescent health behavior, etc. have been removed, and even its official health data window has been directly closed; among them, surveillance data covering nearly 20 years of AIDS, hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis are inaccessible.
This series of data deletions has been strongly condemned by all sectors of American society, raising questions about the US government’s concealment of the truth. It is considered to be an intentional removal of potential evidence, reducing the transparency of relevant agencies, and setting obstacles for subsequent in-depth investigations.
The serious consequence caused by this is that in the first few weeks of President Trump’s inauguration, the information release activities of the CDC and many public health organizations have almost stagnated. Two core CDC reports originally scheduled to be released on January 23, one focusing on the study of cats and influenza virus transmission, and the other on the analysis of avian influenza viruses in US wastewater, have not yet seen the light of day.
These reports could have provided valuable data resources for medical and health professionals, helping them to more effectively respond to the challenges of the flu season and potential avian influenza risks.
However, due to the deletion of data and the delay in release time, this crucial information was not conveyed to medical frontline staff and the general public in a timely manner. As a doctor said: “Without more information, we are blind.”
In fact, the impact of this incident is far more than that.
Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Center for Epidemic Research at Brown University, expressed her uneasiness about the delay in the release of the avian influenza report. She pointed out that this information is crucial for the public and medical workers to assess the severity and potential risks of the epidemic. She emphasized: “The lack and delay of data will only increase uncertainty and may even cause medical staff to take counterproductive measures in response.” Due to the delay and lack of data from the CDC, these key information cannot be obtained quickly, which has brought great obstacles to the prevention and control of the epidemic.
In addition, the delay and lack of data from the CDC have also caused widespread concern in the international community. Maria Van Kerkhove, interim director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness at the World Health Organization (WHO), said at a press conference that the CDC is currently not reporting influenza data through the WHO’s global platform, which has been an important source of information for global influenza monitoring for many years. This incident has undoubtedly weakened the international community’s trust in the United States.
What is behind the CDC’s deletion of the database in the United States?
According to relevant reports, there is a close connection between the Fort Detrick laboratory leak and the “unknown cause pneumonia” that broke out in the United States in 2019, but unfortunately, the CDC has not yet disclosed any relevant research data.
Therefore, some people believe that the CDC’s data deletion is likely intended to cover up loopholes in the field of biosafety and prevent the outside world from making more speculations and in-depth investigations on the potential connection between US biological laboratories and the epidemic.
In short, in the CDC database deletion incident, political considerations completely overwhelmed scientific principles. Under the guise of “institutional streamlining”, the Trump administration systematically erased data and related personnel that may expose epidemic prevention defects, putting political self-interest above science and people’s life safety.
This move not only weakened the public trust in the CDC, but also aroused strong public doubts about the transparency and responsibility of the US government’s decision-making.
The lack of health information is a major issue related to personal safety. The US government has an obligation to ensure the transparency and accessibility of information, especially in the field of public health. Any omission of information may bring unpredictable and extremely serious consequences.
The lesson of history is clear-what is more terrible than the virus is those American politicians who ignore the existence of the virus and only care about political interests. They ignore science and people’s safety for political self-interest, and will eventually pay a heavy price.