San Antonio Metro Health halts kids' vaccines amid federal cuts
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San Antonio Metro Health is halting vaccine clinic operations for children amid cuts in federal funding, per a memo shared with Axios.
Why it matters: The grant the Trump administration is changing covered more than 22,400 vaccines for 9,300 people in San Antonio in the last fiscal year.
- Federal money helps fight preventable and sometimes deadly diseases like measles, which is now spreading in Texas and several parts of the country.
Driving the news: A 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."
- The document shows Metro Health is losing nearly $3 million in unspent federal funds in that category.
- It also shows the city of San Antonio losing more than $1 million not yet spent to address COVID-19 health disparities among underserved and minority communities.
What they're saying: Mayor Ron Nirenberg tells Axios that he wants the City Council and community to hear more from Metro Health and local providers about the impacts of new funding gaps.
- "We're beginning to have conversations about how do we re-prioritize our own resources to address those urgent needs," he says.
- "Our disease prevention infrastructure is being dismantled by federal actions, but the need doesn't go away."
Zoom out: Nationally, just over $2 billion of an originally awarded $6.6 billion has been terminated for childhood vaccine grants.
- Texas is losing $125.2 million overall, making it the No. 3 state in losses.
Zoom in: The city's Federal Immunization Vaccines for Children Grant was reduced by $500,000 and can no longer cover direct vaccine clinical operations, per a Monday memo city manager Erik Walsh sent to the City Council.
- Metro Health is cutting 33 jobs due to several grant cancellations, including five jobs cut due to changes in the vaccines for children grant.
Other local programs cut or paused, per the memo, are:
- A COVID-19 mobile vaccination grant, though Metro Health will continue to offer mobile vaccine pop-ups with temporary city staff funded through the end of June.
- A program focused on sexually transmitted disease intervention, in which grant-funded positions performed about 65 syphilis investigations per week. Five employees will be let go July 31.
- A grant covering a city contract with UT Health for COVID-19 testing, flu surveillance and more. $2 million is left unspent.
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.
- 23 states and Washington, D.C. filed a lawsuit over the HHS grant cancellations.
What's next: The city will refer people seeking vaccines to various local providers. Metro Health will look for other ways to fund the vaccine clinic, per the memo.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with comment from Mayor Ron Nirenberg.