Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health of the Nation, has said that addressing an “epidemic” of chronic disease would be an cornerstone or its Make America Healthy Again agenda, or invent alarming statistics as urgent.
On Friday, President Trump published a proposition budget that required to reduce the financing of the centers for disease control and prevention in almost half. Its chronic disease center was completely scheduled, a proposal that was a shock for many state and city health officials.
“Most Americans have some type of ailment that could be consulted chronicle,” said Dr. Matifadza Hlatshweayo Davis, director of health of the city of St. Louis.
Of the proposed cuts, he said: “How do you reconcile that trying to make the United States again healthy?”
Last month, the Federal Health Department reduced 2,400 jobs from the CDC, whose National Center for Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion extends with the Larst budget within the agency.
Lead poisoning programs, quitting smoking and reproductive health were discarded in a reorganization last month.
In general, the proposed budget would reduce the funds of the CDC to approximately $ 4 billion, compared to $ 9.2 billion in 2024.
The Budget Plan does not mention the Public Health Fund, a program of $ 1.2 billion. If that figure takes into account the tasks, the cut can be even greater than what Trump’s proposal indicates.
The agency would also lose a center focused on preventing injuries, including CAA by firearms, as well as HIV surveillance and prevention programs, and subsidies to help states prepare for public health emergencies.
According to the proposed budget, the cuts are necessary to eliminate the “duplicates, DEI or simply unnecessary programs.” The Congress prepares the federal budget, but given the republican majority and their fidelity to Mr. Trump, it is not clear how much its proposal will change.
The CDC officials had been told that the functions of the Chronic Diseases Center would move to a new organization within the Health Department called Administration for Healthy America.
And the proposal published on Friday seems to assign $ 500 million to the Secretary of Health in part “to address nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, excessive dependence on medicines and treatments.”
But in the CDC, the budget of the chronic disease center was almost three times larger. And even if part of the chronic disease center is resurrected in AHA, it is unlikely that the new iteration involves the scientists of the CDCs relocated to Atlanta.
“The real experts of the subject, who manage the programs, could not be there in the CDCs,” said Dr. Scott Harris, state health officer of the Alabama Public Health Department. “We certainly do not have the same level of experience in my state.”
The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comments.
The CDC’s chronic disease center directed programs aimed at preventing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease. But the center has also sown initiatives further, ranging from the creation of rural and urban hiking routes to ensure that healthy options such as salads in airports are sacrificed. He also promoted well -being programs in marginalized communities.
Dr. Davis, the director of Health of St. Louis, said that her department was already staggering cuts to programs to stop and reduce the lead venom and health disparities, as well as the rescue of more than $ 11 billion that had been have been had been
“I would take Covid-19 back in the blink of an eye about what is happening at this time,” said Dr. Davis.
In the proposed budget, the Administration suggested that the eliminated programs would be better managed by the States. But the state health departments already administer most of the chronic disease programs, and the three quarters of the funds of the CDC center support them.
The loss of these funds “would be devastating for us,” said Dr. Harris, the health officer in Alabama.
The State has one of the highest rates of chronic diseases in the country, and about 84 percent of the budget of the Department of Public Health comes from the CDC, Dr. Ir. Harris said. Around $ 6 million are allocated to chronic disease programs, which include the detection of blood pressure, nutritional education for diabetes and the promotion of physical activity.
If those funds were cut, “I am now lost to tell you where that would come from,” he added. “It seems that nobody really knows what to expect, and we don’t really request any opinion about it.”
The Minnesota Department of Health has already fired 140 employees, and the more can be affected if more CDC funds are lost. The cuts to the prevention of chronic diseases will affect the elderly, vaccine clinics and public health initiatives for American natives in the state.
“The federal government’s actions have left us in a weak limb without a security network under us,” said Dr. Brooke Cunningham, State Health Commissioner.
Until recently, “there seemed to be a shared understanding at the local, state and federal level in which health was important to invest,” said Dr. Cunningham.
The work of the CDC Chronic Diseases Center touches American life in many unexpected ways.
In Prairie Village, Kan., Stephanie Barr learned about the center 15 years ago, working as a waitress without health insurance, she discovered a lump within the size of a lemon.
Through the National Program for the Early Detection of Breast and Cervical Cancer of the CDC, he was able to obtain a mammogram and an ultrasound, and the staff members helped her register on Medicid to receive treatment after a biopsy determined that the bulge was malignant, more. Barr said.
“It was Caht in time,” Barr, now 45 years old and cancer free.
Since that program in 1991, it has provided 16.3 million detection exams to more than 6.3 million people without affordable access, said Lisa Lacasse, president of the American Cancer Society Action Network.
The organization is one of the 530 health associations that have signed a petition asking the legislators to reject the HHS budget, which reduces discretionary expense by approximately one third. The signatories said the cuts “effectively” the nation’s research and public health infrastructure.
The budget also proposes to dismantle disease records and surveillance systems.
“If you do not collect the information or maintain these surveillance systems in progress, it does not know what is happening, it does not know what the trends are,” said Dr. Philip Huang, director of Human Services and Health of Dallas County in Texas.
“You’re losing all that story,” he said.
In a previous position as director of Chronic Diseases of Texas, Dr. Huang said he worked closely with experts in CDCs that successful the use of tobacco among Americans.
“Eliminating the smoking office and health is simply crazy if you still want to address chronic diseases,” he said.
Smoking remains the main cause of prevention death in the United States, causing more than 480,000 deaths every year, according to CDC
More than one in 10 American adults still smoke cigarettes regularly, but rates vary drastically by region, and CDC surveillance helps the target cessation programs to the areas.
“Smoking rates have decreased, but if the federal government takes away the gas, tobacco companions are ready to appear again,” said Erika Sward, a Lawacy Assistant Vice President in the American Association of Lungs.
He warned that tobacco companions are constantly developing new products such as nicotine bags, whose use of adolescents doubled last year. “Much more money will be needed to put the genius again in the bottle,” he said.
The CDC Chronic Diseases Center works with communities and academic centers to promote effective programs, since the creation of direct lines to reach Iowa youth in rural areas to train members of black churches in Columbia, SC, to lead the exercise and nutrition and nutrition and nutrition and nutrition and nutrition and nutrition and nutrition and nutrition and nutrition.
In the rural area of Missouri, paths of paths to walk in the “boot heel” have been developed in the southeast of the state, an area with high rates of obesity and diabetes, said Ross Brownson, a public health researcher at Washington Research intion Whois Whois Whois Whois Whois Whois Whois Who Whis Who Whis WHO WHO WHO WHO WHOIS WHOIS WHOIS WHOIS
“There is a strong evidence now that if the ability to walk a community changes, people will get more physical activity,” said Dr. Brownson. “There will be no health clubs in rural communities, but there is nature and the ability to have paths to walk, and the earth is relatively cheap.”
With the support of CDC, in Rochester, New York, deaf and deaf training should direct exercise and well -being programs for other people with hearing impairment that cannot easily participate in other kinds of gymnastics.
In San Diego, researchers are testing ways to protect agricultural workers from exposure to ultraviolet rays and heat -related diseases.
“Once they are awake and started, they are driven by the community and do not depend on the government,” said Allison Bay, who recently lost his work by managing such projects in the CDCs
The reorganization of the CDC also eliminated lead venom programs. Lead poisoning is also “one of our greatest threats to public health in the city of Cleveland,” said Dr. David Margolius, director of public health of the city.
CDC do not directly finance Cleveland’s main programs: financing comes from the State. “But just having the federal experience to ask for help to take us to a future without lead, I mean, yes, that has a great impact on us,” he said.
