States are losing billions in federal childhood vaccine funding
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States and cities are losing over $2 billion in childhood immunization and vaccination funding as part of broader cancellations of pandemic-era federal public health spending, per government data.
Why it matters: Federal money helps fight preventable and sometimes deadly diseases like measles, which is now spreading in several parts of the country.
Driving the news: A 42-page U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) document lists a sweeping variety of recently terminated public health grants, with about six pages dedicated specifically to awards for "immunization and vaccines for children."
- Of those grants, just over $2 billion of an originally awarded $6.6 billion has been terminated nationally.
- Some other terminated grants are also related to childhood vaccination, including some funding vaccine hesitancy research.
Zoom in: South Dakota (about $35,000 cut per 1,000 people), Wyoming ($35,000), and Alaska ($22,000) are losing the most funding on a per-person basis.
- Florida (about $226 million), California ($176.3 million) and Texas ($125.2 million) are losing the most funding overall.
What they're saying: "We're talking about contractors losing their contracts and not being able to get paid, people who were working on vaccination programs not there anymore, and all of the supporting infrastructure that these funds provided evaporated in an instant," says Josh Michaud, associate director for global health policy at health policy research and news organization KFF.
- Yes, but: States also get separate federal money for immunization efforts through programs like Vaccines for Children, Michaud notes — though many were counting on these grants as well.
The big picture: The childhood vaccination cuts are part of a Trump administration effort to claw back billions of dollars in federal public health grants stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
- "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," HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a late March statement.
- The White House is also cutting funding to other vaccination efforts and organizations, including Gavi, an international group whose work has saved millions of children's lives.
What's next: 23 states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit this week over the HHS grant cancellations.
- The cut funding "provides essential support for a wide range of urgent public health needs, such as identifying, tracking, and addressing infectious diseases; ensuring access to immunizations; fortifying emergency preparedness; providing mental health and substance abuse services; and modernizing critical public health infrastructure," per the suit.
