Trump health staffing, funding cuts slow cyclospora response

Cases of cyclospora are rising as the Trump administration’s historic cuts to staffing and funding at federal health agencies meet chronic underfunding at the state and local level. 

It’s a complicated and chaotic mix of issues that have converged to hamper the government’s reaction and response, experts and former federal officials said.  

Some state and local health departments are experiencing layoffs and hiring freezes, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has suffered a “brain drain” of staff and expertise due to the Trump administration’s efforts to take an axe to federal spending. 

The CDC lost roughly one-quarter of its employees in 2025 through reduction-in-force (RIF) cuts ordered by the Trump administration.  

“When you lose 25-30 percent of [CDC] staff and 80 percent of senior leaders and have no careers in the office of the director, there is an impact,” said Debra Houry, former CDC chief medical officer.  

While there were no specific RIFs that hit the CDC’s Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria, many staff left because of the government-wide “fork in the road” incentive, as well as broader uncertainty over the division’s future. 

Fewer staff has meant all aspects of the outbreak investigation were likely slower.   

“I would say that the CDC probably has not been out front with this outbreak. It’s really been driven by states like Michigan putting out information,” said Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “I think that the CDC is poorly resourced. They have they don’t have the same amount of personnel or expertise that they once did, and so they are kind of in a slow response mode.”  

For instance, Michigan has reported more than 6,000 cases while the CDC has verified only 1,645 domestic........

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