Dr. Don Weiss isn’t taking his reassignment lying down.
As Gothamist reported two weeks ago, the senior epidemiologist was removed from his post as director of surveillance at the New York City health department’s Bureau of Communicable Disease — a division charged with aiding outbreak responses. His transfer came shortly after he criticized the city’s messaging around monkeypox, and he was moved to the Division of Family and Child Health.
Now, Weiss wants to be reinstated, and he has enlisted the help of the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower advocacy group that has represented such high-profile figures as Edward Snowden — who leaked information about electronic snooping programs run by the National Security Agency — and Phyllis McKelvey, who sounded the alarm about faulty food safety inspections while at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
On Monday, the watchdog group sent a letter to New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan informing him that Weiss is seeking his old job and that he will be “using city and state laws, rules, and regulations protecting whistleblowers to help him get that and other relief.”
Patrick Gallahue, a spokesperson for the city health department, told Gothamist “staffing decisions are based on operational need.” But the letter from the Government Accountability Project asserts, “The reassignment is a demotion; Dr. Weiss is a victim of unlawful whistleblower retaliation.”
David Seide, an attorney with the Government...
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