by 
Bri McNulty is conducting public health at a conference in Iowa.
Liz Orton
Hide caption
Schakel Caption
Liz Orton
Cancer Outreach employee Bri McNulty, 23, was one of the 750 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that was abruptly ended in mid-February by e-mail, in the midst of a whole series of federal personnel dismissal.
On Tuesday, McNulty received an equally surprising e -mail to take her back. She was one of an unknown number of probation staff on the CDC to be asked back in a dutiful E -mail.
McNulty was part of the Elite Public Health Associate Program of the Agency, assigned to the Iowa Cancer Consortium, a small group that worked on efforts on the entire state to combat the second highest cancer rate in the country.
New plans
McNulty says that her cohort of public health employees included 66 people. People in the Laboratory Leadership Service program had also restored their job, according to NPR report.
But McNulty has been busy making other plans since that bomb in the mid -February was fell through the efforts of Elon Musk.
She contacted a former employer in Penn State and soon received a vacancy. She has made arrangements to move from Iowa City, where she has been since the end of 2023. She has even found a new place to live near the new track.
“Yesterday morning I had signed the offer letter,” McNulty told NPR on Wednesday. “I signed my lease for an apartment and I was in the Fedex parking lot to give my CDC laptop and everything back.”
McNulty decided to check her e -mail on the laptop one last time. Then she saw the subject line: “Read this e -mail immediately.”
“You must be employed again under your previous work schedule. Our apologies for every disruption that may have caused this,” the E -mail is partially.
Bad romance
McNulty says she wasn’t sure what to think of everything.
“It’s sketchy again because the e -mail comes from a contact that we don’t have,” she says. It came from Employees-Encdc.gov. “And it was not signed by anyone either. It just says:” Thank you, “and that is the e -mail. And also, the apology for every disruption that may have caused this is only salt in the wound, if I am honest.”
McNulty grew up with dreams in public health on the CDC. Watch the movie Infection lit her curiosity and the pandaemia strengthened that dedication.
McNulty says that Dream Job Soured is suddenly like a bad romance.
“The way I think about this a bit about this is that this has been such an abuse relationship in the sense of Like, we have been released and now this is the job or the offensive partner, such as randomly texting, asking what we are planning,” says McNulty.
Not a word for her boss
Kelly Wells Sitig is executive director for Iowa Cancer Consortium and had been the boss of McNulty until three weeks ago. Sittig says that CDC has not informed her about plans to return McNulty or the Elite Public Health Associate program from the agency that sponsored her.
“There is so much uncertainty and lack of clarity, not only in this situation, but I think that in many other ways about resources that will be available for things such as cancer management, but also broader, public health, health care research,” says Sittig.
Bri McNulty decided not to take the CDC task back. But it is not because of a lack of it, or the work.
“I don’t trust the job to come again,” she says. “And I personally came to this point of CDC, is not the table for me for me for me, but it will be off the table for the next four years.”
McNulty says she hopes that those who work in public health, like they will concentrate on surviving to see better days.
“We cannot concentrate on progress when they try to dismantle all these agencies and organizations,” says McNulty. “So we have to concentrate on ensuring that we don’t lose what we already have. But we can’t think about going further.”
CDC spokespersons did not respond to requests to ask for comments.
Scalpel versus ax
On Thursday, President Trump indicated that cabinet secretaries would have more control over jobs in the future.
In a post on social media he wrote: “[N]Ow that we have my cabinet in place, I have instructed the secretaries and leadership to work with Doge on cost -saving measures and staff. While the secretaries the people who work, learn and understand for the different departments, they can be very accurate about who will stay and who will go. We say the ‘scalpel’ instead of the ‘ax.’ “
The president repeated some Trump voter and Iowa Cancer Patient Kathie Kathie Evenhouse told NPR last week. “It’s hurtful for the good things to cut it off – but I think we should do something,” said Evenhouse. “I think it could have been done with a scalpel instead of an ax.”
