US pulls back $12 billion in funding to state health departments

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Funding cuts affect infectious disease and mental health programs

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State officials criticize decision, citing public health risks

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US Senator Murray urges reversal, warns of job losses and health impacts

By Kanishka Singh, Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON, March 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services canceled around $12 billion in federal grants to states that were allocated during the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal department and state officials said on Wednesday.

The grants were being used to track, prevent and control infectious diseases, including measles and bird flu, as well as track mental health services and fund addiction treatment, said lawmakers and state governors, who sharply criticized the move. Public health officials in Lubbock, Texas, received orders to stop work supported by three grants that helped fund the response to the widening measles outbreak there, said a spokesperson for city public health director Katherine Wells.

"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," the federal health department said in a statement.

U.S. Senator Patty Murray said on Wednesday that notices started going out on Monday to state health departments, including Washington state which she represents, to inform them that funds allocated during the COVID-19 pandemic were terminated. President Donald Trump's administration ended more than $11 billion in funding awarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and roughly $1 billion by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, she said.

Washington state lost more than $160 million in funding to its health department, Native American tribes and other groups, Murray said in a statement that called on the administration to reverse the decision, which she said put more than 200 jobs at risk.

"Senselessly ripping away this funding Congress provided will undermine our state's ability to protect families from infectious diseases like measles and bird flu and to help people get the mental health care and substance use treatment they need," Murray said.

The Illinois Department of Public Health and 97 local public health departments had $125 million in funding pulled, money that had been allocated toward preventing and controlling emerging infectious diseases including measles and bird flu, Democratic Governor JB Pritzker's office said on Wednesday.

In Massachusetts, the money was used for tracking mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues, Democratic Governor Maura Healey said in a statement. The Trump administration, since taking office on January 20, has attempted to cut costs and dismantle many critical programs and some agencies in the name of preventing what it calls wasteful spending. Several programs have been removed and agencies gutted as a result, with tens of thousands of federal workers losing their jobs. The federal health department is headed by vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has pledged to tackle chronic disease and whose nomination and confirmation to the role had raised alarm with medical experts over his views. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Additional reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Matthew Lewis)