'We want to rebuild trust': fired CDC workers form group to combat Trump's war on science

Source: The Guardian

Sun 22 Feb 2026 08.00 EST
Last modified on Sun 22 Feb 2026 11.38 EST


Abby Tighe thought she had landed her forever job. She joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in December 2023, managing a national youth substance abuse prevention program. The project focused on rural communities, and Tighe, whose family is from Appalachia, was proud to be using her public health training to support often-overlooked parts of the country. “The CDC was different than anywhere else I’ve worked,” says Tighe. “People didn’t care about their own ambitions as much as they cared about the larger mission. It was always my dream to work there.”

That dream ended a year ago, when Tighe received a form email on 14 February letting her know the Trump administration was firing her. Classified as a probationary worker, she was one of the first to lose her job in what quickly became a dramatic downsizing of the CDC workforce. To date, the current administration has either fired or is in the process of firing more than 4,000 CDC employees – a third of the agency.

While they battled to get their jobs back, Tighe and several other fired CDC employees banded together to create an improvised mutual aid network they called Fired But Fighting. But as the months dragged on, Fired But Fighting’s members watched as the administration, under the direction of Robert F Kennedy, the US health secretary, transformed the agency into something scarcely recognizable. Rather than focus on fighting for jobs that may no longer exist, they decided to grow into something new – to advocate for public health the way the CDC had always done it.

“We saw there was a need for an organization that stands in the gap,” says Aryn Backus, a former CDC health communication specialist who was fired on the same day as Tighe. Last October, the group rebranded as an advocacy organization for evidence-based, nonpartisan public health and formed the National Public Health Coalition. The idea for a new name – less confrontational and more inclusive – had come in part from Jerome Adams, Donald Trump’s first-term surgeon general, now a sharp critic of the administration’s public health policies, who warned Tighe’s team during a web call last May that they would struggle to win over Republicans with the word “fighting” in their name.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/22/fired-cdc-workers-trump-war-on-science