Local and state agencies brace for impact after Trump Administration announces budget cuts to public health departments
ILLINOIS (KBSI) – Some health officials are calling it a ‘devastating blow’ to the US Public Health System after the Trump Administration pulls funding from public health departments.
The Trump Administration has announced budget cuts regarding funding to public health and infectious disease preparedness. States across the country bracing for impact.
Shawnna Rhine is the Community Outreach Coordinator for the Southern Seven Health Department she says they are unsure of just how big or how long of an impact this will make.
“Right now, we’re not exactly sure how these cuts are going to affect health departments, not just for southern seven but health departments throughout the nation” says Rhine.
The termination of funding pulls back $125 million in funding for the Illinois Department of Public Health and 97 local public health departments, which had been allocated for the epidemiology and laboratory for infectious disease control and other uses.
According to the Illinois Department of Public Health the funding was awarded to Illinois through 14 separate budget lines in the federal bipartisan Cares Act passed during the first trump administration as part of Covid funding. In addition to rescinding $125 million in previously approved investments, the current trump administration is also blocking $324 million for future work to prevent and treat infectious disease in Illinois.
Rhine says many programs will be affected by this.
“The programs that we are seeing it impacting a lot of different programs within a health department” says Rhine. “We talk about vaccines, we talk about outbreak surveillance, monitoring future outbreaks and making sure that we don’t have those problems here, but it also could impact when it comes to testing for West Nile virus and making sure that our ticks are getting tested properly.”
The US Department of Health and Human services said in a statement “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker posted a statement to his Facebook page “This decision to terminate already awarded federal funding will cause immeasurable harm and disruption to the health and safety of the people of Illinois and generate larger expenses in the longer run,”
Rhine says right now local and state health departments throughout the nation hold a lot of uncertainty
“All we know is that funding has been rescinded, again we are looking at funding that was anticipated over the next several years because we’re not getting that so were trying to figure out exactly what is happening, what programs we are seeing here at Southern Seven Health Department, how they are going to be impacted” says Rhine. “Again, this is going to be affecting health departments throughout the country, not just Illinois.
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Trump administration says it will pull back billions in COVID funding from local health departments
