Nearly half of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s staff working on developmental disabilities and birth defects was laid off this month, multiple officials tell CBS News, wiping out teams working on research about adults with cognitive disabilities and sickle cell disease.

Work likely to be halted by the cuts includes the collection of data for studying Americans with sickle cell, a painful blood disorder that predominantly affects Black families, as well as supporting testing for its more dangerous complications.”If it is not restored, it will disrupt life-saving public health programs, halt critical research, and increase preventable hospitalizations, complications, and deaths. Its elimination runs counter to the Administration’s stated commitment to addressing chronic disease,” said Dr. Belinda Avalos, president of the American Society of Hematology, in a statement this week.Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has expressed openness to restoring some programs he gutted, like the CDC’s lead poisoning experts, though for now they have yet to be reinstated.