A couple days after a shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters, public health workers referred to Aug. 8, 2025, as a turning point in a tumultuous past few months for the agency.
Many feel targeted and traumatized by the shooting. Clustered together at Piedmont Park on Sunday, they called for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“He, along with others in this administration, have sown distrust among the American people, dehumanizing CDCers and pointing to us as villains,” said Abby Tighe, a founding member of Fired but Fighting, a group of former public health workers. “That, combined with this administration’s constant attack on federal workers, emboldens people to commit atrocities like we saw on Friday.”
The group also called for the resignation of Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought.
In a statement emailed to CDC employees on Saturday morning, Kennedy called the shooting “unsettling.”
“The shock and uncertainty that follow incidents like this are real, and they affect us all in different ways,” the statement said.
Recently appointed CDC director Susan Monarez also put out a statement online. A subsequent post pointed staff to the 988 suicide hotline for counseling.
CDC staff were given the option to work from home on Monday, according to a spokesperson with the HHS, who wrote that the agency “remains fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of CDC employees.”
Some current staff said they would be working from home all week.
On Sunday, Tighe described her anxiety as her child was also on lockdown during the shooting at a nearby day care relied on by employees of the CDC, Emory University and the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta.
“I’m just I’m so grateful and thankful for the teachers and the staff there for keeping 90 children safe,” Tighe said.
The CDC Royball campus in Decatur was mostly empty when employees at home received news of a meeting between Kennedy and Monarez on Monday afternoon.
Some working from home expressed anger and surprise over the unexpected visit. As of publication, a virtual, previously scheduled all hands meeting for CDC staff is still expected to take place Tuesday.
Hundreds of employees of the CDC in Atlanta were on campus Friday when dozens of shots were fired at the building in DeKalb County from a store across the street.
Several windows of the CDC building were damaged in the attack. Staff say they hid inside the sprawling campus for hours under an active shooter alert that went out around 5 p.m. and advised people to “Run”, “Hide” or as a last resort, “Fight.”
Officials identified the gunman as a 30-year-old man from Kennesaw. National reporting citing law enforcement and a family member suggest he had health concerns over the COVID-19 vaccine. There has been no additional motive or findings released by officials for the attack yet.
The group on Sunday held a moment of silence for DeKalb County police officer David Rose, who was shot in the attack and later died at a nearby hospital.
The gunman also died by gunshot wound.
For Elizabeth Soda, a physician in the CDC’s National Centers of Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, the shooting has changed her perspective.
“I know that I’m taking a risk by speaking publicly, but this is it,” she said. “For me, the line has now been officially crossed and I can’t afford to stay silent anymore.”
It was Soda’s first time speaking out since the new administration started laying off staff and cutting research funds.
Citing her First Amendment rights, Soda condemned “the misinformation spreading about life-saving public health actions like vaccinations” and “the removal of critical CDC staff who work on topics like gun violence and mental health.”
Gun violence was listed as a public health crisis by the U.S. Surgeon General in June of last year. Now, a freeze from the Office of Management and Budget means over a dozen research projects on firearm injury and death prevention are at risk of losing funding or being canceled completely. The projects were launched under the CDC’s Injury Center and include work being done at Emory University.
A chaotic year
The CDC faced its first major blow in February when more than 1,000 probationary CDC workers had their positions terminated as a result of cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Many later had their positions reinstated.
(Credit: Sofi Gratas/GPB News)
Then came April 1, the start of the Reduction in Force (RIF) that largely eliminated departments focused on maternal mortality, HIV prevention, asthma and environmental health and other work. Staff at the Food and Drug Administration and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration were also included in the layoffs.
Many RIF’ed employees have also since been reinstated. While celebratory for some, the bringing back of employees hasn’t eased a feeling of confusion and uncertainty, especially paired with the overhaul of key CDC panels and functions.
Soda said after the shooting, she feels an even deeper lack of urgency from federal officials.
“I don’t know how we move forward from this,” she said. “There are amazing people, amazingly dedicated public servants that work at CDC and they’re going to rally. They’re going to come back because they believe in their mission, but it’s hard.”
This article comes to Now Habersham in partnership with GPB News
