NBC News
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, in English) are withdrawing 11.4 billion dollars of the funds that were assigned to the State and Community Health Departments, to the Non-Governmental Organizations already international beneficiaries to respond to the Covid-19 Pandemic, confirmed on Tuesday the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS, in English).
“The Covid-19 Pandemia is over, and the HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayers responding to a non-existent pandemic of which the Americans forgot years ago,” said the HHS Communications Director, Andrew Nixon in a statement. “The HHS is giving priority to the financing projects that will fulfill the mandate of President Trump to deal with our epidemic of chronic diseases and make the United States become a healthy country.”
The Department of Human Health and Services supervises 13 agencies, including CDCs, which are responsible for protecting the health of the nation. The notices began to be sent on Monday, and the beneficiaries have 30 days to reconcile their expenses. The figures are subject to changes.
The fund cutting occurs immediately after other cuts under the direction of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including the cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for research on why there is reluctance to vaccines, LGBTQ populations and support for HIV prevention.
“Now that the pandemic is over, subsidies and cooperation agreements are no longer necessary, since its limited purpose has been exhausted,” said the termination notices sent to the beneficiaries on Monday and shared with our sister chain NBC News.
The Federal Public Health Emergency ended on May 11, 2023. More than 1.2 million people in the United States have died because of COVID-19, according to CDC. Although the infection has slowed down and the disease has become milder, hundreds of people continue to die every week because of COVID-19, and prolonged symptoms of the disease continue to cause weakening medical problems in some cases.
The recovered funds were being used largely for COVID-19, vaccination, health workers in communities and initiatives to address the health disparities of the pandemic between high-risk and unattended populations, including those composed of racial and ethnic minorities and rural communities, as well as global COVID-19 projects, according to indications that the address of the CDC sent by email to the email Tuesday.
The CDC reviewed a list of subsidies and cooperation agreements on the COVID-19 provided by the HHS and identified the programs that were no longer necessary, as indications.
It was not immediately available from a list of projects whose funds were withdrawn.
In recent years, financing to face COVID-19 had been used for other critical functions in state health departmentsaccording to a senior CDC official who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency.
In a statement to NBC News, Kristina Iodice, Communications Director of the Department of Public Health and Environment of Colorado, echoed the concern, noting that the cuts could affect more than the programs for the pandemic.
“We are concerned that this sudden loss of federal funds threatens Colorado to trace COVID-19 and other emerging diseases, modernize disease data systems, respond to outbreaks and provide critical access to immunization, dissemination and education, which leaves communities more vulnerable to future public health crises,” he said.
Nine state health departments They confirmed that they had received the notification of the withdrawal of funds.
Greg Flynn, director of relations with the media of the Department of Health of the State of Mississippi, said that the State was currently working to evaluate the possible impacts on our agency. ” Haley talk, public information officer of the Utah Department of Health, commented in an email: “We are evaluating the impact.”
Until now, the HHS has made the largest budget cuts throughout the Government under the Trump administration efforts to radically cut federal funds, according to a calculation on the Internet site of the Government Efficiency Department.
The HHS He also canceled 877 million dollars in subsidies to the Texas Department of Health and 482 million dollars to the Florida Health Department, among other cuts this week, according to the Doge portal.
