United States| The CDC files
How DOGE is driving America’s public-health guardians mad
Internal emails and interviews portray a workforce seized by fear and confusion
Protest against job cuts at US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, USA.
Photograph: EPA
ON A NARROW road on the main campus of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lies Building 21, the crescent-shaped headquarters of America’s premier public-health agency. In a room lined with television screens researchers monitor the measles outbreak that killed a second American in the southern plains last week and the bird-flu epidemic now ravaging flocks in every state. The agency’s leadership occupies the 12th floor. Military-grade security ensures that only authorised visitors and the CDC’s local workforce of roughly 5,000 civil servants have access.