Boston (May 5, 2026) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), top Democrat on the Primary Health and Retirement Security Subcommittee of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today wrote to Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Dr. Jay Bhattacharya with concerns over the CDC’s pause on diagnostic testing services for dozens of infectious diseases, that occurred at the end of March. The CDC’s testing program is critical to monitor the spread of infectious diseases, which informs prevention and response efforts across the country. Accordingly, it is alarming for the agency to suddenly announce that the country’s leading laboratory is no longer conducting diagnostic testing for dozens of infectious diseases such as rabies and mpox.
In the letter, Senator Markey wrote, “This announcement comes in the wake of an unprecedented year of turmoil at the CDC, which included mass layoffs and the ousting of its Senate-confirmed Director after less than a month. According to data from the Office of Personnel Management, the CDC lost more than 3,000 employees since the beginning of President Trump’s second term. This represents a cut of roughly 25 percent to the agency’s workforce, including about half the staff in CDC’s rabies and poxvirus labs. These are not the conditions under which a healthy institution conducts a routine quality review, but rather the conditions under which a gutted institution suspends essential public services.”
Senator Markey requested answers by May 19, 2026, to questions that include:
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