General views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
Tami Chapel | Reuters
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pulling back $11.4 billion in funds allocated in response to state and community health departments, non-governmental organizations and international beneficiaries, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Tuesday.
“The Covid-19 pandemic is over. HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars in response to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans have been moving for years.” “HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver President Trump’s mission to address our chronic disease outbreak and make America healthy again.”
The HHS oversees 13 agencies, including the CDC, which are tasked with protecting the health of the country. Notifications begin to go out on Monday, with winners having 30 days to harmonize their spending. Numbers are subject to change.
The fundraising slash comes just after other cuts under New Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This includes cancellation of vaccine hesitancy, LGBTQ population, and hundreds of millions of dollars of grants for research into HIV prevention support.
“With the pandemic over, grants and cooperation agreements are no longer needed because their limited purpose has run out,” read the termination notice sent to the awardees on Monday and shared with NBC News.
The federal public health emergency ended on May 11, 2023, but more than 1.2 million Americans have died from Covid according to the CDC. The infection has slowed and the illness has become more mild, but hundreds of people die from covid each week, and long covid symptoms continue to be debilitated in some cases.
The closed-back fund was primarily used for covid testing, vaccinations, community health workers and initiatives to address community health disparities among high-risk and underserved populations, including racial and ethnic minority and rural communities, as well as global community projects, according to points of discussion emailed Tuesday by CDC Leadership.
The CDC reviewed the list of Covid grants and cooperative agreements offered by HHS and identified programs that are no longer needed, according to points of discussion.
The list of projects for the cancelled fund was not immediately available. Greg Flynn, director of media relations for the Mississippi Department of Health, confirmed that the state has received notification of its funding decision and is “currently working to assess the potential impact on our agency.”
“We are currently assessing the impact,” Charla Haley, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Health, said in an email.
So far, HHS has made the deepest budget cuts across the government under the Trump administration’s efforts to fundamentally cut federal funds, according to tallies listed on the Department of Government Efficiency website.
HHS also cancelled $877 million in grants to the Texas Department of Health, $482 million in the Florida Department of Health, and $482 million in the Florida Department of Health, according to the Doge website.
