CDC and Federal Public Health Capacity

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has temporarily paused more than two dozen types of diagnostic testing at its own laboratories — including tests for rabies, monkeypox, Epstein‑Barr virus, varicella zoster (chickenpox and shingles), and rarer pathogens like the parasites behind “snail fever” and the virus that causes “sloth fever,” the agency disclosed this week. An HHS spokesperson called the halt a temporary step during a “routine review” of lab quality and said some tests should resume in coming weeks, but the head of the Association of Public Health Laboratories noted this is the largest such pause he has seen and said the reasons are “not totally clear.” The move follows a dramatic CDC downsizing over the last year, with overall staffing estimated to be down 20%–25% through layoffs, retirements, resignations and nonrenewed temporary posts, and with the poxvirus and rabies labs reportedly losing about half their personnel while the malaria branch was “gutted even more,” according to a coalition of current and former CDC workers. Some specialized state labs in places like New York and California can cover portions of the work, but the pause underscores how federal backup testing and surveillance capacity for high‑consequence diseases has been weakened in the wake of the agency’s COVID‑era failures and subsequent restructuring. Public‑health professionals are treating the pause as a worrying signal if it becomes permanent, given CDC’s role as the last line of defense when commercial tests are unavailable or fail.