The nation’s top public health agency is losing most of the scientists in a prestigious, but lesser-known, laboratory program that has become a mainstay of outbreak responses.
The fellowship program was hit hard during the layoffs coming to many federal departments, according to five Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the cuts.
The program had been created about 10 years ago to help the CDC remedy embarrassing lab-safety failures. The cuts may not have an immediate impact, but they likely will haunt the nation in the months to come, said Stephan Monroe, a former CDC official who oversaw the reform of the agency’s lab services.
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