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The outcome was heralded for years as a victory for public health work. But earlier this month, Massachusetts officials received notification that the entire staff of the federal lab had been laid off, erasing a significant node in the nation’s network to identify and track public health threats, state officials said.
As the Trump administration reshapes how the federal government finances and communicates scientific findings, Massachusetts’ health laboratory is now at a crossroads, facing dramatic changes to its mandate and uncertainty over its future. The state is in a legal battle to protect nearly $84 million in federal funding the Trump administration is trying to claw back. Meanwhile, the state could face other significant additional cuts in Congress’ coming budget. While all of this is unfolding, the lab’s staff is struggling to figure out how to perform in-house work the feds used to reliably handle.
Congress’ budget could force some public health programs to shutter, but how widespread the cuts will be remains unknown, said Dr. Robbie Goldstein, the state’s public health commissioner.
“We can’t put anything on an untouchable list right now,” he said as he joined leading DPH staff on a recent visit to the lab building. “That’s not the happy answer the folks in this room wanted to hear.”
At stake, health officials said, is their ability to mount a well-informed, nimble response to public health challenges. Operating without the CDC’s full partnership is akin to being blindfolded.
“With their limited presence, we are limited in our understanding of what’s going on, even around us in our neighboring states,” said Nicolas Epie, the lab’s director.
The federal Department of Health and Human Services in a statement to the Globe described the layoffs and lab shutdowns as part of a streamlining effort that will ultimately strengthen the CDC.

The Massachusetts Public Health Laboratory is the hub of the state’s public health work. Doctors, hospitals, and health officials statewide look to it for information about the germs, environmental contaminants, or food borne illnesses that might have made someone sick, how best to treat them, and what they mean for the health of the rest of the state. Each year, roughly 300,000 samples pass through the lab, tracking illnesses such as HIV, tuberculosis, avian flu, and COVID-19.
The lab is housed in a scaffolding-encased brutalist office tower in Jamaica Plain, where more than 400 epidemiologists, virologists, chemists, microbiologists and other workers help assemble microscopic clues into a coherent picture of the state of health in Massachusetts. During a visit to the lab in April, workers said they were trying to maintain a stoic focus despite the news from Washington.
“It doesn’t matter what’s going on in the country,” said Erika Buzby, a veteran microbiologist and supervisor of the 8th floor molecular biology lab. “We just have to keep going.”

One floor beneath, workers carried racks filled with dozens of samples for inspection in the sexually transmitted infections lab, the same one responsible for identifying the worrying gonorrhea infections. Next door, behind a door warning of biohazards, staff hunkered over counters to review the results of tuberculosis bacteria analysis. Cases of TB, a bacterial infection of the lungs, increased by 13 percent in Massachusetts in 2024 compared to the year before.
“Samples are coming from a lot of the hospitals all over the Commonwealth,” said Bernie Chirokas, director of sexually transmitted diseases and mycobacteriology.
Workers here raise their voices to be heard over the loud droning of air coolers that keeps machines operating smoothly.
“It’s the constant hum of public health,” said Goldstein. “What we’re nervous about is that we will be silenced here.”

The $84 million for the lab is what remains from an almost $776 million CDC grant allocated in 2019 that was expected to last into 2026.
That money is supposed to help pay for data system modernization, supply stockpiles and upgraded equipment, a needed compliment to a multi-year renovation project nearing conclusion. Near the top of the wish list is a biosafety cabinet that protects staff from samples of infectious agents. The current cabinet is so old executives fear just moving it during the renovations could break it, putting workers at risk.
The lab’s grant makes up the bulk of the more than $105 million in CDC funding for Massachusetts public health services that is at risk, according to a DPH affidavit shared with the Globe. The Trump administration announced March 26 it intended to reclaim the money by April, saying it was no longer needed because the pandemic was over. It’s loss, though, would hobble programs supporting community health, children’s vaccinations, and addressing health disparities. Nearly $5 million for substance use programs from a different federal agency is also in jeopardy.
One example of the lab’s recent pivot toward self-sufficiency is a new viral genetic sequencing program to track how different strains of hepatitis C are spreading. It’s a service the CDC used to perform through another program kneecapped by layoffs this month, according to a notification state officials received from the CDC on April 3. Massachusetts set aside funding for the testing program well before Trump’s election in part, Goldstein said, because the state foresaw what another Trump presidency might mean for public health. President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who now leads HHS, had campaigned on promises to shake up public health institutions.
“We didn’t know which way the November election was going to go,” said Goldstein, who worked for the CDC before joining state government. “We had to prepare for what could be a very friendly environment for public health and continued investment, or a very hostile environment.”
Another attempt to replicate federal functions locally is a proposed program to recommend vaccinations for adults and a fund to help purchase them.
To be sure, Massachusetts health leaders acknowledge the state’s lab alone can’t fully replace federal public health resources. And there are challenges ahead without an established communication workflow between various health leaders across the nation to share intel and spread warnings.
Avian flu gets attention as a possible threat, but experts said a novel virus isn’t the only worry when it comes to what public health crises may lie ahead.
“It could be a food borne pathogen,” said Dr. Larry Madoff, medical director of the bureau of infectious disease and laboratory sciences. “It could be a mosquito borne pathogen.”
“I’m actually worried about the every day suspects,” said Catherine Brown, state epidemiologist and public heath veterinarian, “measles, or the increase of tuberculosis cases that we’re seeing, drug resistant gonorrhea, or the EEE (Eastern Equine Encephalitis) outbreaks that we have regularly in Massachusetts.”
Tackling an outbreak, whether a new virus or an old foe, without the resources and reach of some cancelled CDC programs is intimidating, said Epie, the lab’s director.
“The world is not as compartmentalized as it was before,” he said. “We cannot protect ourselves without ever knowing what’s going on in other countries as well.”
Jason Laughlin can be reached at jason.laughlin@globe.com. Follow him @jasmlaughlin.
BROCKTON, Mass. (WJAR) — Four people were shot on Friday night after hundreds had gathered to watch a World Cup match in Massachusetts.
Police said the shooting happened just before midnight on Main Street in Brockton.
Officers said the victims were taken to the hospital.
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Police have not said if there were any arrests.
BOSTON, (WPRI) — A somerset man has been cited for allegedly causing a deadly wrong-way crash in Boston late Saturday night.
Just before midnight, troopers from the H9 Barracks were called for a report of a multi-vehicle crash on I-93 North before Exit 15A.
A preliminary investigation showed that the driver of a 2004 Cadillac Escalade, identified as 81-year-old Antone Carvalho, of Somerset, entered Route 93 North at Exit 15B and drove southbound in the northbound lanes.
Two vehicles, a Honda Odyssey and an Audi A4, attempted to avoid the Carvalho and crashed into each other.
Four people in the Honda Odyssey, were taken to a Boston-area hospital for evaluation.
Shortly after the initial crash, police say Carvalho collided head-on with a Chevrolet Cruze.
Carvalho and the other driver were taken to Boston-area hospitals for their injuries
The driver of the Chevrolet Cruze, identified as a man in his 20’s from Haverhill, died from his injuries.
Carvalho will be issued a summons to appear in court at a later date.
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Norman Rockwell painted Stockbridge so often that the real Main Street now looks like one of his canvases come to life. That is the trick these Massachusetts towns pull off. A whaling-era cobblestone lane on Nantucket and a Revolutionary common in Concord do the same thing in different accents. Each one packs its best landmarks into a few blocks you can cover on foot. The eight New England streets here all sit under 50,000 residents and earn their reputation the honest way.
Fewer than 2,000 people live in Stockbridge, yet its Main Street may be the most recognizable in the state. Credit Norman Rockwell, who lived here and painted the view down the street so many times it lodged in the national memory. The white clapboard buildings, the old inns, and the big shade trees are all still right where he left them, and people still use them.
The Red Lion Inn has welcomed guests on this corner since 1773, and its long front porch is the street’s anchor in every sense. A short walk away, the Norman Rockwell Museum holds the largest collection of his work and even his relocated studio. Naumkeag adds a Gilded Age cottage with terraced gardens climbing the hillside. Come December, the town recreates Rockwell’s famous “Main Street at Christmas” scene with vintage cars parked along the curb, which is about as close as a real place gets to stepping into a painting.
Edith Wharton built her dream house just outside Lenox, and the writer’s eye for proportion seems to have rubbed off on the whole town. The center is small enough to park once and walk, with bookshops, cafes, and galleries shoulder to shoulder under the trees. Under 10,000 people live here, and the place wears its Berkshire elegance lightly.
The Mount, Wharton’s 1902 estate, runs as a house museum and public garden and hosts readings and outdoor events all summer. Ventfort Hall, a Jacobean-style mansion built for a sister of J.P. Morgan, fills in more of the Gilded Age story. Just up the road, Tanglewood draws crowds every July and August as the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, so a quiet shopping street can be ten minutes from a world-famous concert lawn. Few towns this size balance that kind of culture against that little traffic.
On April 19, 1775, the shot heard round the world was fired a short walk from where Concord shoppers now buy their morning coffee. That is the strange gift of this town. Its pretty village center sits below 20,000 residents, and its old houses, churches, and civic buildings look calm until you remember what happened among them.
Minute Man National Historical Park preserves the battle road and the fields where colonial militia turned back British regulars. Old North Bridge marks the spot itself, with Daniel Chester French’s Minute Man statue standing guard. Concord also raised more than its share of writers, and Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, where she wrote “Little Women,” still opens for tours. Two miles south, Walden Pond holds the woods Thoreau made famous, an easy swim or walk that closes the loop between the town’s history and its quieter ideas.
The streets in Marblehead’s Old Town were laid out for foot traffic and fishing nets, not cars, so they bend and narrow and dead-end at the water. The town tops 20,000 residents now, but the historic core feels far older and more intimate. Washington Street and the lanes around it run past brick sidewalks and preserved houses, with the harbor flashing into view between rooftops.
The Jeremiah Lee Mansion, a grand Georgian house built in 1768 for the wealthiest merchant in colonial Massachusetts, still keeps its original hand-painted English wallpaper. Old Burial Hill rises above town with weathered colonial gravestones and one of the best harbor views around. Abbot Hall, the brick town hall with the clock tower, houses the original “Spirit of ’76” painting. Walk the waterfront and the reason for the whole town becomes obvious. Marblehead grew up facing the sea, and it never turned away.
Federal-era sea captains built their fortunes at the mouth of the Merrimack, and their three-story brick blocks still line the streets of downtown Newburyport. The Main Street feeling here spreads across several streets rather than one. Under 20,000 residents keep the center humming, with shops and restaurants filling old facades right down to the riverbank.
Market Square and State Street form the heart of it, a tight grid of brick that survived a great fire and a wave of 1970s urban renewal to come out the other side intact. The Custom House Maritime Museum, set in a granite 1835 building, tells the port’s seafaring story. Waterfront Park gives you a bench and a view of the boats. A few miles out on Plum Island, the Parker River refuge at Joppa Flats turns the same trip into prime birdwatching, so a downtown afternoon can end with herons instead of storefronts.
A plain red fishing shack on a granite pier may be the most painted building in America, and it sits right in Rockport’s harbor. Locals call it Motif No. 1, after an art teacher who got tired of seeing his students paint it. The town runs under 10,000 residents and folds its best parts into a few tight blocks by the water.
Main Street leads to Bearskin Neck, a skinny peninsula crammed with galleries, candy shops, and lobster shacks that ends with the open Atlantic. Front Beach puts sand and water within a short stroll of the shops. The Shalin Liu Performance Center, opened in 2010, built a concert hall with a wall of glass behind the stage, so the ocean becomes the backdrop for a string quartet. You can wander from a storefront to a harbor view to a gallery without ever breaking stride.
Great Barrington wired the first downtown in the world lit entirely by alternating current, back in 1886, and the place has kept that forward lean ever since. Under 10,000 residents fill a center that feels genuinely busy, with restaurants, bookstores, and galleries spread along Main Street and Railroad Street. It looks like an old Berkshire town and behaves like a young one.
The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, a restored 1905 theater, books films, concerts, and live broadcasts year-round. The Housatonic River Walk threads a half-mile greenway along the water right behind Main Street, the work of volunteers who spent decades clearing a once-polluted bank. Just outside town, Monument Mountain offers a short climb to a quartzite ridge and a long view over the Housatonic River valley, the same trail Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne hiked together in 1850.
Whaling money built Nantucket’s Main Street, and the cobblestones laid to keep wagon wheels out of the mud are still there to rattle your suitcase. The island stays well under 50,000 year-round residents even at the height of summer. Brick sidewalks, weathered shingles, and window boxes give the downtown the texture of an old port rather than a new outdoor mall.
The Whaling Museum, set in an 1847 candle factory, explains how a small island once lit the lamps of the world, right down to a full sperm whale skeleton. Brant Point Lighthouse marks the harbor entrance and ranks among the most photographed beacons in New England. Straight Wharf keeps the working waterfront within steps of the shops, and the Oldest House, built in 1686, anchors the streetscape in the island’s first century. Every detail down to the gray shingles seems to point back to the same seafaring story.
What ties these eight together is not a shared look but a shared honesty. Stockbridge and Lenox lean on Berkshire culture, Concord carries the weight of 1775, and Great Barrington keeps reinventing itself. Marblehead, Newburyport, Rockport, and Nantucket all grew up facing salt water and never lost the habit. The best Main Streets here are not stage sets. They are working downtowns that happen to be worth a long, slow look.
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