The Department of Health and Human Services has suddenly cancelled more than $12 billion federal grants to states that are used to track infections, mental health services, addiction treatment and other emergency health issues.
Cuts are no longer haming the state's health department, which is already underfunded and suffers from competing demand from new threats such as chronic disease, revival infections such as syphilis and avian flu.
The state health department began receiving notifications on Monday evening that funds allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic have been terminated and are closing soon.
“As it is related to these funds, additional activities cannot be carried out.
For some, the effect was immediate.
In Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have been ordered to suspend support for three grants that will help fund a response to the spreading measles outbreak there, according to Katherine Wells, director of public health.
On Tuesday, some state health departments were preparing to fire dozens of epidemiologists and data scientists. Others, including Texas, Maine and Rhode Island, were still rushing to understand the impact of the cuts before taking action.
In an interview, state health officials predicted that thousands of health department employees and contract workers could lose jobs nationwide. Some people have predicted as much as 90% of staff losses from several infectious disease teams.
“The reality is that when you take money from the public health system, the system is chronically underfunded for decades, so the system is incompetent,” said Dr Umai Shah, who served as Washington's health secretary until January.
The news of the cut was first reported by NBC.
The repealed grants include approximately $11.4 billion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and approximately $1 billion from the Department of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, known as Samhsa.
Congress has approved funding for the state's public health program as part of the Covid relief bill. In fact, the funds were first used to test and vaccinate against the coronavirus, and to address health disparities in high-risk populations.
However, last year, It was also allowed to fund other looming public health concerns, including testing and monitoring for other respiratory viruses, arranging vaccines for children and uninsured adults, and preparing for health emergencies.
On Tuesday, federal Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said in a statement:
Government-wide Trump administration grants and contract cancellations have led to numerous lawsuits from states and nonprofits, which are still in their early stages. The health grant in question will be approved and applied by Congress, and the termination of which could lead to new lawsuits. Several states said they are exploring legal options.
“We continue to assess the full impact and remain in touch with the Attorney General and 49 other states facing similar challenges,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy said in a statement.
The surplus funds are the boon of the cash-strap public health sector, seeking to modernize the squeaky system.
For example, Alaska was applying some of the funds to purchase lab equipment and update electronic records, eliminating the need for state epidemiologists to manually fill out patient details. Other states have built systems that link surveillance data from hospitals and labs to health departments.
Obsolete data systems have prevented responses to COVID and MPOX outbreaks in many states.
“We had the opportunity to update some of these things that we desperately need to update in order to make it more efficient public health response,” said Dr. Anne Zink, who resigned as Alaska's chief medical officer in August.
But now, with grants cut, the project remains unfinished and the tax money previously invested could be wasted, she said.
In some states, the funding has also helped research chronic diseases, with its presence increasing the risk of severe consequences and death from the coronavirus.
Samhsa's funds were not allocated to the Covid programme and were intended to address mental health and substance use issues. The pandemic has led to factors that have contributed to the surge in overdose deaths, from around 70,000 in 2019 to overdose deaths in 2022, exceeding 111,000.
The peak overdoses fell to around 87,000 in the 12 months ended in October, according to the latest federal data. Some of the sharpest declines came from states such as West Virginia, Michigan and Tennessee, all of which strongly supported President Trump in the presidential election.
Brian Hepburn, executive director of the All American Association of Directors of the National Association of Mental Health Programs, said many states have applied funds to build 988 suicide lifelines and other crisis services. However, he said few people used it to fund ongoing services because the state understood funding was subject to time constraints.
In Colorado, supplementary funding in the Covid era supported around 60 programs, including the Crisis Response Team program. Services for adults with severe mental illness and young adults with early onset of psychotic disorders. and peer support counselors for people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. Colorado had committed the remaining $31.5 million grant to support providers of these services.
“So many times these are lifesaving programs and services, and we are concerned about the well-being of those who have come to rely on this support,” said Danette R. Smith, Commissioner for the Colorado Department of Behavioral Health.
The grants from SAMHSA were scheduled to expire in September, but several community grants from the CDC were intended to last until 2026 and 2027.
The state has since prepared grants, saying, “It happens early and it's obviously very destructive to have it not been notified.”
Some states, like Kentucky and South Carolina, rely heavily on federal funds to implement health programs, while others, such as New Jersey and California, do not. Still, most people and data systems tracking disease outbreaks are funded by the CDC
The sudden decision “will not have the opportunity to move people into other means and the state government will say, 'In the next budget cycle, we'll add positions in X numbers,'” said an official with close knowledge of the impact of being asked not to name because they feared retaliation from the Trump administration.
“It's essentially millions of dollars spent saying that a project can never be finished,” the official said. “It's like throwing money out of a window. It's a complete waste.”
Teddy Rosenbluth contributed the report.
