Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

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That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith Rogers.

Amidst the thousands of personnel in the HHS cuts last week were a significant number of

CDC employees who were dismissed, resigned, or asked to leave. Dr. David Fleming served as

deputy director for science and public health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

from 2000 to 2003 and has had a long career in global and public health strategies.

In this episode, he talks with me about the CDC personnel cuts and some of the critical

programs that may no longer exist and deeper concerns about what this means overall for

America's health. A reminder that these podcasts are a conversation

between the participants and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins University. Let's listen.

Dr. David Fleming, thank you so much for coming on Public Health on Call today. We're going to

talk about the recent cuts at the CDC, but to start us off, tell us about your

background.

Sure.

I have worked at CDC a couple of times in my life, first as an EIS officer back in last

century, actually, and then I was also the deputy director there during Jeff Copeland's time

and the beginning of Julie Gourberian's time.

My career there has really been

in public health broadly. My mom would tell you I've been unable to hold down a job, but I've had

...