966 - "CDC is a horrible place to be at this time"
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2025
⏱️ 14 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
About this episode:
Following months of personnel cuts, funding terminations, and escalating violence, CDC employees face a new hurdle with the government shutdown. In this episode: Yolanda Jacobs, president of the union chapter that represents more than 1,000 CDC employees, offers an inside look at how employees are grappling with these challenges and shares how those of us outside the CDC can offer support.
Guests:
Yolanda Jacobs is a health communications specialist at the CDC and the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883.
Host:
Dr. Josh Sharfstein is distinguished professor of the practice in Health Policy and Management, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryland's Health Department.
Show links and related content:
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With new cuts at CDC, some fear there's 'nobody to answer the phone'—NPR
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Supporting the Public Health Workforce in Challenging Times—Public Health On Call (October 2025)
Transcript information:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:31.7 | Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith-Rogers. |
| 0:34.0 | Today, an insiders look at the challenges facing employees of the Centers for Disease |
| 0:38.2 | Control and Prevention. Part one comes from a mainstage conversation in September at the annual |
| 0:43.4 | Bloomberg American Health Summit between Dr. Josh Sharfstein and Yolanda Jacobs, president of the |
| 0:48.6 | chapter of the American Federation of Government employees that represents more than a thousand CDC |
| 0:53.3 | employees. |
| 0:59.7 | In part two of today's episode, Dr. Sharfstein catches up with President Jacobs about the most recent dismissals of CDC employees during the federal government shutdown. |
| 1:04.1 | Let's listen. |
| 1:05.8 | Hi, Alanda. |
| 1:06.5 | Hi. |
| 1:07.3 | Thanks so much for joining me today. |
| 1:09.3 | Thank you. |
| 1:10.5 | Now, your chapter has more than 2,000 members? |
| 1:14.9 | Yes, we have about 2,300. |
| 1:17.6 | Tell me about them. |
| 1:18.8 | They consist of employees from the IT fields, health communication specialists, biologists, epidemiologists. |
| 1:28.3 | We even have a couple of EIS officers. |
| 1:32.3 | So it's a range of positions across the agency. |
... |
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