Mass. to lose $100 million in federal public health funds
New Hampshire officials did not respond to a request for information about how the cuts affected that state.
The losses are the result of the Trump administration's decision to pull back more than $11 billion in
The news comes just days after the National Institutes of Health terminated tens of millions in health research grants nationally. On Friday Fenway Health, one of the state's community health centers, lost five grants supporting research into infectious diseases in the gay and lesbian community.
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'It's really been not a good week,' said Dr. Kenneth Mayer, medical research director at Fenway in an interview Wednesday afternoon. 'It's kind of an assault on public health in many ways.'
In Massachusetts, the grant money supported treatment and testing for respiratory diseases, such as bird flu, programs to improve vaccine uptake, and support for community health centers, according to a statement from Governor Maura Healey.
'Massachusetts depends on this funding,' Healey said. 'Donald Trump was elected and promised to make life cheaper, healthier, and easier for people, but he's taking us backwards on all of those fronts.'
In the same statement, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll said the state does not have the resources to replace all the CDC funding lost.
Rhode Island officials said their grants also supported work to address health disparities.
The
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'We are working very closely with the Governor's Office and the Rhode Island Attorney General to explore all options to safeguard the funding that supports the critical work done by the Department of Health,' Wendelken wrote.
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On Tuesday, federal health officials said they would cut billions in COVID-related funding and that the CDC had begun sending out the termination notices to local and state health departments on Monday, according to the
'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 US Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
'The state is going to have to make a decision,' Neronha said. 'Either we're going to continue doing this work at the state's expense, or not do it at all.'
Christopher Gavin and Alexa Gagosz of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Jason Laughlin can be reached at
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