Trump administration cuts funds for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment

The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues.

The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent infections like syphilis and emerging threats like bird flu.

State health departments began receiving notices on Monday evening that the funds, which were allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic, were being terminated, effective immediately.

“No additional activities can be conducted, and no additional costs may be incurred, as it relates to these funds,” the notices said.

For some, the effect was immediate.

In Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have received orders to stop work supported by three grants that helped fund the response to the widening measles outbreak there, according to Katherine Wells, the city’s director of public health.

On Tuesday, some state health departments were preparing to lay off dozens of epidemiologists and data scientists. Others, including Texas, Maine and Rhode Island, were still scrambling to understand the impact of the cuts before taking any action.

In interviews, state health officials predicted that thousands of health department employees and contract workers could lose their jobs nationwide. Some predicted the loss of as much as 90 percent of staff from some infectious disease teams.

“The reality is that, when we take funding away from public health systems, the systems just do not have the capacity, because they’re chronically underfunded over the decades,” said Dr. Umair Shah, who served as Washington State’s health secretary until January.

The news of the cuts was first reported by NBC.

The discontinued grants include about $11.4 billion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as around $1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, known as S.A.M.H.S.A.

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