Trump administration eviscerates maternal and child health programs
Source: The Guardian
Sat 5 Apr 2025 05.00 EDT
Last modified on Sat 5 Apr 2025 05.02 EDT
Multiple maternal and child health programs have been eliminated or hollowed out as part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) layoffs, prompting alarm and disbelief among advocates working to make Americans healthier. The fear and anxiety come as a full accounting of the cuts remains elusive. Federal health officials have released only broad descriptions of changes to be made, rather than a detailed accounting of the programs and departments being eviscerated.
“Pediatricians, myself included, are losing sleep at night – worried about the health of the nation’s children,” said Dr Sue Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “The one that stands out to me is the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. There is no way to make our country healthier by eliminating expertise where it all starts, and it all starts at maternal and child health.”
The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, announced HHS would eliminate 10,000 jobs as part of a restructuring plan. Together with cuts already made by Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency”, HHS is likely to lose 20,000 workers – roughly one-quarter of its workforce. “We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl,” Kennedy said. “We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.”
Piecemeal and crowd-sourced information, which has filled the vacuum left by a lack of information from the health department, appears to show maternal health programs slated for elimination, many without an indication of whether they will be reassigned. The Guardian asked HHS to comment on the cuts but did not receive a response.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/05/maternal-child-health-cuts
= new reply since forum marked as read
