How huge health funding cuts in Washington ‘put lives at risk’ in communities – AP News
Source: Associated Press
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
The Trump administration is cutting health spending on an unprecedented scale, pulling $11 billion of direct federal support and laying off tens of thousands of workers at national health agencies that support local public health work. It wants billions more slashed. (AP Video: Mary Conlon)
A dentist cleans the teeth of a child in the public health department’s mobile dental clinic visiting Starmount Elementary school in Charlotte, N.C., on March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon)
A mobile health unit is parked outside of Independence High School in Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
A student receives a vaccination inside a mobile health unit visiting Independence High School in Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
Mecklenburg County Health Department Director Raynard Washington speaks during an interview in Charlotte, N.C., on March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon)
Children walk through a sports field in Independence Park under the skyline of Charlotte, N.C., on March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Americans are losing a vast array of people and programs dedicated to keeping them healthy. Gone are specialists who were confronting a measles outbreak in Ohio, workers who drove a van to schools in North Carolina to offer vaccinations and a program that provided free tests to sick people in Tennessee.
State and local health departments responsible for invisible but critical work such as inspecting restaurants, monitoring wastewater for new and harmful germs, responding to outbreaks before they get too big — and a host of other tasks to protect both individuals and communities — are being hollowed out.
“Nobody wants to go swim in a community pool and come out of it with a rash or a disease from it. Nobody wants to walk out their door and take a fresh breath of air and start wheezing,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
But local health officials say they now have no choice but to do a lot less of it. The Trump administration is cutting health spending on an unprecedented scale, experts say, including pulling $11 billion of direct federal support because the pandemic is over and eliminating 20,000 jobs at national health agencies that in part assist and support local public health work. It’s proposing billions more be slashed.
Children walk through a sports field in Independence Park under the skyline of Charlotte, N.C., on March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon)
Together, public health leaders said, the cuts are reducing the entire system to a shadow of what it once was, threatening to undermine even routine work at a time when the nation faces the deadliest measles outbreak since at least the 1990s, rising whooping cough cases and the risk that bird flu could spread widely among people.
The moves reflect a shift that Americans may not fully realize, away from the very idea of public health: doing the work that no individual can do alone to safeguard the population as a whole. That’s one of the most critical responsibilities of government, notes James Williams, county executive in Santa Clara County, California. And it goes beyond having police and fire departments.
“It means not having babies suffering from diseases that you vanquished. It means making sure that people have access to the most accurate and up-to-date information and decisions that help their longevity,” Williams said. “It means having a society and communities able to actually prosper, with people living healthy and full lives.”
Just outside a Charlotte, North Carolina, high school in March, nurse Kim Cristino set out five vaccines as a 17-year-old girl in ripped jeans stepped onto a health department van. The patient barely flinched as Cristino gave her three shots in one arm and two in the other to prevent diseases including measles, diphtheria and polio.
Like many other teens that morning, the girl was getting some shots years later than recommended. The clinic’s appearance at Independence High School gave her a convenient way to get up to date.
A student receives a vaccination inside a mobile health unit visiting Independence High School in Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
“It lessens the barriers for parents who would have to be taking off from work and trying to get their kids to a provider,” Cristino said.
The vaccinations also help the community around her. The teen won’t come down with a life-threatening disease and the whole community is protected from outbreaks — if enough people are vaccinated.
The Mecklenburg County department, with “Protecting and Promoting the Public’s Health” emblazoned on its van, is similar to other U.S. health departments. They run programs to reduce suicides and drug overdoses, improve prenata
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