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A federal team tasked with preventing, investigating and responding to public health illnesses on cruise ships has reportedly been dramatically slashed amid budgetary cuts by the Department of Health and Human Services. All full-time employees in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) have been laid off, leaving just 12 U.S.
Public Health Service officers left to handle current and future ship inspections, CBS News reported Thursday citing multiple officials. According to the CDC’s website, every vessel that has a foreign itinerary and carries 13 or more passengers is subject to these random inspections at least twice a year to ensure they are operating with and maintaining public health standards. Nearly 200 of these inspections were carried out last year, according to online records.
There have been 12 illness outbreaks on cruise ships so far this year, the vast majority of which were norovirus outbreaks. Some VSP inspectors were responding to two of these outbreaks when they were laid off, according to CBS News’ report. An HHS official reached for comment Friday told HuffPost that the VSP’s “work has not stopped” despite the cuts and that the team is now primarily staffed by the Commissioned Corps of the U.
S. Public Health Service, or USPHS Commissioned Corps, “who were not subject to the reduction in force.” The VSP “continues to monitor and assist with gastrointestinal outbreaks and track and report these illnesses,” a spokesperson said.
The HHS did not respond to questions about the total number of VSP employees laid off, the number of USPHS commissioned officers left handling the VSP’s work, or on the amount of money the cuts save. Though some of the VSP’s funding comes from the CDC’s overall budget, ship owners also pay a fee to cover the costs of the ship inspections. Last September, the CDC announced an increase in these fees, reasoning that more inspectors were needed due to increasing ship sizes and more complex features.
In addition to these inspections, the VSP reviews ship design and construction plans for compliance with public health standards. It monitors data on illnesses and investigates and responds to outbreaks. It also trains cruise ship leaders, staff and designers on public health practices, and collects evidence to support environmental public health practices on cruise ships, according to the CDC’s website .
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We hope you'll join us. Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages. The job cuts follow HHS Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. announcing late last month that approximately 10,000 full-time employees within his department would be laid off in a bid to save taxpayers $1.8 billion per year as part of President Donald Trump ’s efforts to reduce government spending.
He partially reversed this decision days later, while announcing the rehiring of thousands of workers who he said “should not have been cut.” He claimed this “was always the plan,” however. Last month, the CDC also asked about 180 fired employees to come back to work after they were laid off amid Trump’s sweeping cost-cutting efforts.
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