WASHINGTON (AP)—About 300 protestors, many of them current or former federal employees, rallied Tuesday outside the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Amid frigid temperatures and light snow, attendees chanted slogans like “Funding, not freezes” and carried signs which proclaimed, “Protect civil servants because they protect you!”
Among the protesters was Ellen Bak, a former scientist with the National Institutes of Health who was terminated. Bak said her research into stem cells had essentially been lost. And since she was the lab manager, the rest of her team’s research has been slowed as they absorb her admin duties.
“The sheer amount of money and time and testing and care and effort,” she said. “Is it all just gone?”