Can I still get a COVID vaccine? What to know about federal changes
While the full impact of recent federal changes to COVID vaccine recommendations won't be known for months, many who want to get the shots are likely to face new hurdles, health experts say.
The federal government no longer recommends the COVID vaccine for healthy children or pregnant women, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a longtime vaccine skeptic — announced Tuesday.
This follows last week's announcement by the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that the FDA will limit access to the COVID vaccine to adults 65 and older and people with underlying medical conditions only.
The changes circumvent longstanding public health protocols for how vaccine recommendations are made to the American public, which for decades have been shaped by scientific advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The advisers — an outside panel of doctors, vaccine researchers and other public health experts on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — review vaccine data and make recommendations to the CDC director.
The administration's unilateral decision to restrict access to the COVID vaccine was made without this input. It likely means millions of Americans who are not part of the recommended groups — such as healthy adults under 65 and healthy children — may find it harder to get the shots and may have to pay for it out of pocket, which can cost around $200. Health insurers typically only cover vaccines that are recommended by the federal government.
'That is probably the biggest issue,' said Dr. John Swartzberg, a clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at UC Berkeley School of Public Health. 'The vaccines may not be as readily available, and won't be for free, and insurance companies may not pay for them.'
How exactly this will play out at pharmacies and health care providers is not yet clear. Much of it will depend on how individual insurers and providers proceed. Insurers could decide to continue covering the vaccine for everyone even though the federal recommendations have changed. Providers could keep making the vaccine available to everyone, but start requiring people to show they are over 65 or have an underlying condition — which is what providers had to do in early 2021, when vaccine supply was scarce and had to be prioritized for the highest risk people.
'Big providers like Kaiser Permanente could decide they're going to make the vaccine available to pregnant women and children and encourage people to get it,' said Dr. Art Reingold, a professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley School of Public Health who previously served on the federal vaccine advisory panel to the CDC. 'If you're fortunate enough to have that kind of provider, presumably your access to the vaccine won't change. If, on the other hand, you are in a system that decides, 'The federal government is not recommending it and we're not paying for it,' that's a problem. So it may depend on what kind of health insurance you have and where you get your health care.'
Blue Shield of California, one of the largest health insurers in California with nearly 6 million members, said Wednesday it will continue to cover the COVID vaccine for everyone 6 months and older.
'Despite recent federal policy change on COVID-19 vaccinations for healthy children and pregnant women, Blue Shield of California will continue to cover COVID-19 vaccines for all eligible members,' the insurer said in a statement. 'The decision on whether to receive a COVID-19 vaccine is between our member and their provider. Blue Shield does not require prior authorization for COVID-19 vaccines.'
Kaiser Permanente on Wednesday said it is following current guidance for the 2024-25 COVID vaccine, which recommends the shot for everyone 6 months and older.
"We are aware of the potential for changes to COVID vaccination recommendations by federal health agencies," Kaiser said in a statement. "At this time, no formal guidance has been issued by the CDC for the 2025-26 respiratory virus season. We anticipate formal guidance following the June 2025 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices."
Healthy adults under 65 and healthy children may need to get a prescription from a doctor or pharmacist to obtain the vaccine. This may be considered off-label use, which means a medication is prescribed for something other than what the FDA has approved it for.
'Health care providers can prescribe medications and vaccines that are off label, but whether you can easily find someone who will, or whether that'll obstruct your access … I don't know whether there will be additional obstacles other than having to pay for it, which for many people is a big obstacle,' Reingold said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Harvard Business Review
27 minutes ago
- Harvard Business Review
HBR's Best Practices for Supporting Employee Mental Health
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, people across the globe faced new anxieties about their health, families, income, and stability. For company leaders, all that upheaval put worker mental health into the can't-ignore category of issues affecting their organizations. External forces affecting employee mental health have continued to proliferate since: The fast pace of AI implementation is changing the shape of many careers, geopolitical tumult brings worry about stability, and murky and shifting economic outlooks can lead to cost-cutting measures like layoffs. In short, your people have a lot to worry about right now. A new survey from the workplace wellness consultancy Mind Share Partners in partnership with Qualtrics of over 1,100 U.S. employees found that 90% of participants reported 'at least minor levels of one mental health challenge,' with the top three stressors being U.S. politics, global events, and personal finances. As a leader, you're likely feeling it, too: A 2024 Businessolver survey of 3,000 CEOs, HR professionals, and employees found that 55% of CEOs reported experiencing a mental health issue (such as anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout, and obsessive compulsive disorder) in the past year. It's time for leaders to recommit to supporting their employees' mental health—and their own. HBR's archive has plenty of strategies for how to do it right. Change Systems, Not Individuals Companies are making larger investments in employee wellness programs than ever; however, data suggests those programs aren't actually resulting in better well-being outcomes for employees. According to a trio of authors drawing on a wide body of workplace wellness research, individual-level interventions like well-being apps and employee assistance programs are likely to be ineffective unless paired with systemic interventions. To take a more holistic approach to workplace well-being, the authors suggest leaders become 'behavioral architects' by embedding well-being strategies—and support—into all levels of the organization. Consider changes like increasing flexibility (even trying a four-day workweek) to give employees more control over their work-life balance, putting together volunteer-led 'well-being champion networks' to provide them with peer support, and training managers to support their team members' mental health. Consider Identity Workplace mental health expert Morra Aarons-Mele points out that 'work is about people, and people are messy and difficult.' That may appear obvious at first glance, but identity —the interrelated elements that make up our concept of ourselves—is a critical dimension of how people experience and talk about mental health challenges. Employees from younger generations may be more comfortable discussing mental health than their older counterparts, for example, and men may feel more stigma around mental health than women do. Aarons-Mele has a few suggestions for how to counter these differing perspectives: Create an organization-wide shared language and baseline of knowledge about mental health. Ensure men are visible in mental health conversations. Create opportunities for people who share lived experiences and dimensions of identity to connect with one another. Look to Your Own Leadership Behaviors As a leader, your day-to-day behaviors can inadvertently cause your employees undue stress and anxiety. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic put together a list of five common behaviors to watch out for. For example, are you adding unnecessary complexity by making employees guess at what you'll do next? Are you telegraphing pessimism, leading them to assume a situation is worse than it is? Being more aware of how your actions affect your employees can help you 'bring out the best in people even in the worst of times,' according to Chamorro-Premuzic. And while many conversations about mental health have moved out of the shadows and into the open over the past few years, both stigma and concerns about repercussions persist. As a leader, you have influence, and discussing your own mental health can make your employees feel more comfortable discussing theirs. As Kelly Greenwood, founder and former CEO of Mind Share Partners, puts it, telling your own story 'reduces stigma and normalizes the ups and downs of being human—especially as a high-performing professional' and 'positions vulnerability as a strength instead of a weakness and shows it's possible to succeed and thrive with a mental health challenge.' Greenwood offers a guide to crafting an authentic, compelling story for employees in a way that's both inclusive and protective of your own boundaries. Improve Uptake of Programs Storytelling may also help increase employee participation in the mental health programs you've invested in. A team of behavioral scientists and organizational behavior scholars recently conducted a study of 2,400 employees at the Swiss pharma company Novartis to test their participation in the company's peer-to-peer Mental Health First Aid support program. While plenty of employees had volunteered to be mental health first aiders (i.e., a source of support for colleagues), overall uptake in the program remained low. The authors presented participants with various anonymous stories of their colleagues accessing the program, varying in severity from work-related stress and anxiety to depression and panic attacks caused by external factors. Their initial findings showed that 'simply hearing about colleagues' struggles [could] normalize access to mental health support at work and increase uptake of an existing peer-to-peer support mental health program by as much as 8%.' That might not sound significant, but the authors note that at a large corporation like Novartis (comprising approximately 78,000 employees), the increased uptake could translate to 2,000 employees making use of the resource. Don't Neglect Your Own Mental Health To be effective at leading others, it's critical that you take care of yourself. If today's roller coaster of uncertainty is (understandably) making you anxious, Morra Aarons-Mele emphasizes how important it is that you address it: 'If you don't look your anxiety in the face at some point, it will take you down.' Instead of ignoring it or trying to push through it, she offers a four-stage process for managing your anxiety. First, you'll do some reflecting, looking inward to better understand what you're feeling and why. Then, you'll start developing tactics for managing your anxiety, including (healthy) compartmentalizing and connecting with others. Next, you'll learn how to be vulnerable with peers and employees—without oversharing or letting the conversation go off the rails. Finally, you'll put together a support system outside the organization to help gut-check your decision-making and advise you on more sensitive situations. Doing this, Aarons-Mele notes, 'means you'll have better workdays, both when things are status quo and during transitions and tough times.' . . . The past few years have taught us a couple things: It's not reasonable to expect employees (or yourself) to check their emotions at the door when they come into work, and simply spending money on interventions like wellness apps isn't sufficient on its own to support them. As a leader, taking a more holistic view of your employees' mental health—and working through and sharing your own experiences—can make them feel more engaged and improve the health of your organization. More Resources
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Facing sky-high medical bills? Your hospital may have overcharged you
After Blake Pfeifer, a veteran plumber in Colorado Springs, Colorado, underwent emergency stomach surgery at a nearby nonprofit hospital in 2022, he struggled to understand the bills flooding in for his weeklong stay. The initial charge for the procedure at the University of Colorado Health Memorial Hospital Central was $104,000, his records show. Because Pfeifer had no insurance and would be paying out of pocket, he was quoted a discounted price of $58,124. He said he called the hospital to get clarity on the bills but got nowhere. He began paying some of them and was pursued by a collection agency on others. Then he sought the help of a patient advocacy group. 'I've always paid my bills,' Pfeifer, 63, said. 'I wanted a little better explanation.' The group he worked with, Patient Rights found that some of his charges were far higher than the amounts UCHealth reported under a federal price transparency rule that went into effect in 2021. And that wasn't the only notable finding: Only 25% of Pfeifer's charges showed up on the hospital's required price list and therefore could not be compared at all. Pfeifer's experience is not uncommon, according to patient advocates, public interest lawyers and Medicare data. The burden of medical debt, a problem faced by 100 million Americans, has pushed many to delay medical care and even file for bankruptcy, research shows. Making these obligations even more ruinous, patient advocates say, is that many may be based on inaccurate health care bills. These discrepancies occur even as hospitals must list prices for care on their websites. The price transparency rule, initiated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, requires facilities to 'establish, update, and make public a list of all standard charges for all items and services.' Implemented under the first Trump administration, it aims to help consumers shop for care and compare prices before they go to the hospital. Now, four years after the rule went into effect, hospital billing seems 'intentionally complex,' said Cynthia Fisher, founder of Patient Rights 'Hospitals and insurance companies alike have even hired many middle-player firms to be able to maximize their margins and profits at every single patient encounter,' she added. 'Sometimes what we're finding is the charges like Blake's that are billed are far beyond even the highest rate that they have within their hospital pricing file.' It adds up to an increasingly costly health care experience for Americans. A West Health-Gallup survey published April 2 found that 35% of respondents said they could not access high-quality, affordable health care — a new high since 2021. UCHealth is a nonprofit hospital system with 14 hospitals in Colorado, southern Wyoming and western Nebraska. In its financial filings, UCHealth says its discount program for self-pay patients like Pfeifer 'reduces uninsured patients' liabilities to a level more equivalent of insured patients.' Some of Pfeifer's records conflict with this description. Pfeifer received 10 common blood tests, known as a metabolic panel, and was billed $104 for each. By comparison, UCHealth's public price data shows it charged insured patients between $6.52 and $52.89 for each test in 2022. In another case, Pfeifer was charged $99 for a blood culture to measure bacteria, the records show, while UCHealth's pricing data listed a range of charges for insured patients of between $8 and $61. For a phosphate level blood test, Pfeifer was billed $30, while insured patients at UCHealth were charged between $3.72 and $22.02. Under Colorado law, violations of hospital price transparency requirements are a deceptive trade practice. Dan Weaver, a UCHealth spokesman, said in a statement that the health system 'does everything possible to share prices and estimates with our patients, encourage insurance coverage, assist patients in applying for Medicaid and other programs that may offer coverage.' Regarding Pfeifer's case, Weaver said he could not comment because the hospital had received notice from a lawyer representing Pfeifer that he may file a claim against it. He said the hospital disputes what is in the lawyer's notice, but he declined to specify what exactly it disputes. Weaver pointed to the state of Colorado's 2024 report stating that UCHealth hospitals 'are fully compliant with transparency requirements.' For 2022, when Pfeifer received care at UCHealth, the document showed the hospital providing his care received a 'fair' transparency rating by the state, above 'poor' but below 'good.' Weaver added that CMS, which determines hospital compliance with transparency requirements, 'has not cited UCHealth or our hospitals for noncompliance.' Enforcement actions are exceedingly rare. CMS' website lists monetary penalties against only 27 hospitals in the four years since the requirements began. (There are 6,000 hospitals nationwide, according to the American Hospital Association.) A December 2024 report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found that nearly 40% of the 100 hospitals it studied were not complying with the price transparency requirements. Colorado law allows patients to sue a hospital bringing a debt collection proceeding against them when they believe the facilities have violated price transparency requirements. Steve Woodrow, a Democratic member of the Colorado House of Representatives and a lawyer at the firm Edelson in Denver, represents Pfeifer. 'What happened to Mr. Pfeifer unfortunately repeats itself and plays out across the country thousands of times every year,' Woodrow told NBC News in an interview. 'We now have a situation where people are afraid to get medical care because of the financial ramifications.' Last November, the Justice Department alleged that UCHealth had overbilled Medicare and TRICARE, the health insurer for U.S. service members and their families. Between November 2017 and March 31, 2021, the government alleged, providers at UCHealth hospitals submitted inflated Medicare and TRICARE claims for 'frequent monitoring of vital signs' among patients in the emergency department. UCHealth agreed to pay $23 million to settle the allegations without an admission of liability. Weaver, the UCHealth spokesperson, said the hospital system settled to prevent a lengthy and costly legal dispute. 'UCHealth firmly denies these allegations,' he added, 'and maintains that its billing practices align with the guidelines set forth by the American College of Emergency Physicians.' While UCHealth is a nonprofit, it has generated rising revenues and earnings recently. Net patient revenues at UCHealth, its securities filings show, totaled $8 billion in fiscal 2024, 17% higher than the previous year. Operating income was $523 million, an increase of 58% over 2023. UCHealth's charges for care are higher than most other nonprofits', Medicare data shows. In fiscal 2022, the most recent figures available, UCHealth charged patients 6.6 times the hospital system's costs for care. That is far higher than the 4 times, on average, that U.S. nonprofit health systems charged for care that year, according to Ge Bai, a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Weaver, of UCHealth, said the hospital system's charges are competitive with others. 'Last year alone, UCHealth provided $1.3 billion in total community benefits including about $570 million in uncompensated care,' his statement said. It's problem enough for patients who are overcharged or billed incorrectly for health care. But when hospitals sue to receive payment for those bills, such lawsuits often result in default judgments, legal experts say, issued to patients who don't appear in court or respond. Default judgments can have dire consequences, including wage garnishments. UCHealth has sued thousands of patients using third parties or debt collection middlemen in recent years, a practice that is examined in new research by academics at the George Washington University Law School, Stanford University's Center for Clinical Research and Fisher's group. The study, 'Hospitals Suing Patients: The Rise of Stealth Intermediaries,' found UCHealth and one debt collection firm brought 12,722 lawsuits against patients from 2019 to 2023. Legal records analyzed by the authors suggested 'many of the collection efforts were based on unsubstantiated and inaccurate billing records.' The use of legal middlemen is a national trend and allows hospitals to hide their involvement, avoiding the bad publicity these lawsuits can bring, the research contends. Last year, Colorado lawmakers enacted legislation barring hospitals from suing patients under debt collectors' names, after an investigation into the practice by 9News, an NBC affiliate, and The Colorado Sun. Barak Richman is the Alexander Hamilton professor of business law at George Washington Law School and a co-author of the study. 'What this research shows is people are being pulled into court where a power imbalance takes advantage of them,' he said. 'There needs to be a lot of deliberative thought into what to do about courts as it relates to medical debt.' In a statement about the study, UCHealth's Weaver said those suits make up a 'tiny fraction of our patient care — in fact, more than 99.93% of all patient accounts are resolved without a lawsuit.' He added: 'This study, based on older data, does not reflect the changes put in place in recent years to minimize billing errors, ensure patients are aware of our financial assistance options, and are well informed of their medical bills.' Damon Carson, a small-business owner in Longmont, Colorado, was sued by a collection company after he received an outpatient endoscopy at a UCHealth hospital in his town. The suit came while he was disputing the hospital's charges as excessive. A self-pay patient along with his wife, Traci, Carson tried to be a savvy shopper before he went in for the procedure in 2021. He asked for price estimates from several providers, and the nearby UCHealth facility provided one totaling $1,448, according to a court document. Carson paid upfront. 'I had the procedure and everything was fine,' Carson told NBC News. 'Then the bills started rolling in.' Additional charges of $4,742 drove the total cost for the procedure to around $6,200, a court document shows. Carson said that when he questioned the bills, noting the far lower original estimate, the hospital told him the add-on costs reflected the removal of growths found inside him during surgery. A UCHealth spokesman said the original estimate for Carson's care was accurate and that he was told there might be additional charges and signed an acknowledgement of that, which the hospital provided to NBC News. (Carson says he recalls no discussion of the potential for additional charges.) When Carson refused to pay, he was sued by Collection Center Inc., a debt collection firm that has often filed lawsuits against patients on behalf of the hospital, the academic study shows. In 2023, Carson and the collection firm conducted a mediation, according to court documents. Carson wound up paying only one-third of the additional charges to settle the case. 'I was surprised they caved that fast,' Carson told NBC News. 'Traci and I could easily have paid the $4,000 and our lives gone on. But this was a principle thing.' Fisher, the patient advocate, said the outcome of Carson's case is revealing. 'No one should ever pay that first bill,' she said. 'The onus of proof needs to be on the hospital and the insurance company to prove that they have not overcharged us.' This article was originally published on
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
The Trump administration is making the country less safe for domestic violence victims
Over the last four decades, the United States has built a web of federal policies and funding to address domestic and intimate partner violence, a pervasive health and safety crisis. In just 130 days, the Trump administration has put that safety net in jeopardy. Funding pauses, cuts, firings and information purges have destabilized the infrastructure that helps victims of abuse. At the same time, federal teams dedicated to preventing sexual violence are being decimated. Departments in charge of administering grants that fund shelters for those fleeing assault have been deemed 'duplicative, DEI or simply unnecessary.' The first budget recommendation proposed by the administration of a man found liable for sexual abuse suggests eliminating the team tackling rape prevention and education. It takes a limited view of who is worthy of help to flee abuse. These changes limit how federal funds can be used to support survivors and emphasize criminal consequences for perpetrators over a more holistic view of justice. The federal government has long recognized domestic violence and violence between romantic partners as a critical public health and safety issue. Four out of every 10 women say they've experienced violence at the hands of an intimate partner, according to a survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Among men, a quarter reported being victims. Intimate partner violence can be deadly, particularly for women: More than half of all women homicide victims are killed by a current or former partner, according to a CDC study. In 1994, Congress recognized violence against women as a national crisis and passed a law that supercharged the government's funding and attention to the issue. They haven't solved the problem — but lawmakers and advocates say the Violence Against Women Act and its predecessor, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, have been essential to the protection of victims and the decline in violent crime. Federal grant programs are the lifeblood of domestic violence services programs — and they have been threatened since the day Trump returned to office. His executive orders on gender and 'illegal' diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility led to lists of banned words. Federal departments raced to sanitize their communications, eradicating decades of research and data. Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget issued a short-lived freeze on funding distributions pending evaluation of programs for compliance with executive orders. Nonprofits that relied on federal funds to provide services to victims of domestic violence scrambled for legal advice: Was their budget at risk because they had a pride flag on their website? Did they also have to erase all mentions of banned words? The National Domestic Violence Hotline, which is largely funded by appropriations from the Department of Health and Human Services, removed resources for LGBTQ+ survivors from its website. The majority of state domestic violence coalitions, the umbrella organizations that support direct service providers, took their websites offline — though when asked if it was related to Trump's actions, most declined to answer on the record. So far, there has only been one reported case of a grant from the Office on Violence Against Women being revoked, but hundreds of grants already issued by the Office of Justice Programs were abruptly canceled because they no longer aligned with the administration's priorities. Even while some of the cuts were reversed, the moves created uncertainty that makes it impossible for victims services organizations to plan, increasing the stresses of work that is already difficult and traumatic. Then it was not just current funding, but future provisions that came under fire. The Office on Violence Against Women removed all open notices of funding opportunities from its website on February 6. New versions weren't released for three months, disrupting the grant cycle that must conclude by September 30, the end of the government's financial year. Revised notices included major changes to department priorities and a longer list of activities ineligible for funding. The U.S. attorney general has the authority to prioritize areas for grantmaking. Notices posted before Trump took office didn't have any; now applications are given bonus points in the review round if they 'combat human trafficking and transnational crime, particularly crimes linked to illegal immigration and cartel operations' or seek to improve services in small towns, rural areas or tribal nations. The section defining what is ineligible for funding has ballooned. In addition to complying with executive orders on gender and DEI, the new restrictions put forth a more limited view of interventions around domestic violence. Activities that 'frame domestic violence or sexual assault as systemic social justice issues rather than criminal offenses (e.g., prioritizing criminal justice reform or social justice theories over victim safety and offender accountability)' are banned, as well as activities that 'discourage collaboration with law enforcement.' Initiatives that 'prioritize illegal aliens over U.S. citizens' are also not allowed. Rita Smith, an international expert on violence against women, is publicly raising the alarm about these changes. As the Office on Violence Against Women announces new grants on LinkedIn, Smith reshares them to her large network with a warning. 'I think if people apply for these grants and they get them, it may open them up to the kind of scrutiny that they're not used to getting from the Department of Justice,' Smith said in an interview. She's worried that organizations will be subject to intrusive data collection or information gathering, especially around the immigration status of their clients. Smith used to work in direct services, and now has a more administrative role in the movement against domestic violence. 'We never required anyone to show us their immigration papers,' she said. 'We didn't ask for documentation if people said they were in danger. If they processed through the intake questions that we had, and we determined that they were in danger, we gave them shelter.' 'We didn't ask them for a green card. We didn't ask them for visas. We just brought them in to make them safe.' The administration's priorities conflict with some recent moves to better reach diverse populations. The 2022 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act created a funding scheme for culturally specific service providers, which are tailored to the needs of Asian, Black Native American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander or Latinx survivors. But how are those organizations supposed to operate when DEI is banned? How can nonprofits supporting LGBTQ+ survivors do their work without acknowledging the trans community? Guidance remains piecemeal and oftentimes unofficial — no one knows exactly how to bulletproof their organization. Smith sees the new restriction on funding as a way to redefine who is a victim in the eyes of the federal government. The requirements are so onerous that it can make it hard for nonprofits to serve their purpose: helping people escape violence. Some organizations have made the decision to refuse federal funds because it comes with conditions antithetical to their mission. But the gaps left will be hard to fill. When the Trump administration fired nearly every federal employee within the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention, it did away with the only team at the federal level working specifically on domestic and intimate partner violence prevention. The program they oversaw — called DELTA, or Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancements and Leadership Through Alliances — was first created in 2002 to harness federally funded research and expertise on the causes of intimate partner violence, along with the connections of state and local domestic violence groups, so fewer people become victims in the first place. Getting that work off the ground asked already strained groups trying to serve victims to shift some of their energy to prevention work, but staff at the CDC at the time, and until April, remained committed to what one laid-off worker referred to as the 'cultural norms change' that's a key part of preventing domestic and intimate partner violence. Under DELTA, which currently funds 13 state-based domestic violence networks, the CDC helps state groups implement prevention programs and measures how successful they are at preventing violence. 'If you remember taking a class on healthy relationships, or seeing PSA about domestic violence, or anything like that in your school or communities — those are some examples of our prevention work,' said one former federal worker within the Division of Violence Prevention who was part of the administration's 'reduction in force.' They declined to be named out of fear of losing their remaining federal benefits.'People, I think, sometimes take it for granted, because it's just something that's there. But those kinds of things are going to go away, and no one is going to be there to teach our kids about healthy relationships or help communities reshape the norms around what's acceptable in how we treat one another.' 'All of that stuff will be gone.' The administration has not clawed back funding for the current budget year from the 13 DELTA states, but staff in those states are doing without the expertise of staff at the CDC. The Trump administration has proposed slashing DELTA altogether next year, alongside the other programs under the Division of Violence Prevention, calling the spending 'duplicative, DEI, or simply unnecessary.' The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which receives nearly half a million dollars in funding through DELTA, said the funding cut would be 'catastrophic.' DELTA 'is the only dedicated federal funding source for the primary prevention of domestic violence and a critical tool for driving real, lasting change,' said Jennifer Beittel, a spokesperson for the group. Hema Sarang-Sieminski, the executive director of Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts sexual assault and domestic violence coalition, said their CDC grant managers were all laid off. She found their advice and expertise invaluable; the team created resources for working with LGBTQ+ survivors and culturally specific communities. Jane Doe Inc.'s grant was for five years, and Sarang-Sieminski just reapplied, as required for year two. It's unclear what support her organization will have moving forward. Of the 61 million women nationwide who say they've experienced violence at the hands of a romantic partner, 16 million reported first experiencing it before they turned 18. The administration's staffing cuts and proposed budget cuts would also hit the CDC's team focused on teen dating violence. That team developed a program called 'Dating Matters,' the first comprehensive teen dating violence prevention effort in the United States using funding appropriated by Congress. The funding came after several high-profile cases of dating violence, in particular the 2005 death of Rhode Island student Lindsay Ann Burke, whose boyfriend was convicted of her murder. Her parents became advocates for teen dating violence education efforts, arguing that their daughter may not have had enough information about the dynamics of abusive relationships before her death. One longitudinal study on 6th through 8th graders across four cities that adopted the CDC's Dating Matters model for middle school found that by the 11th grade, the program had no only reduced dating violence, but also sexual violence, harrassment, substance use and delinquency. In 2024, the team published a guide specifically for LGBTQ+ youth, who face higher rates of dating and sexual violence. In January, after Trump took office, those resources were deleted to comply with the executive order on 'radical gender ideology.' By April, the whole team had been laid off. An update and rebrand of the Dating Matters program was slated to publish later this year, but it's unclear who will carry it to the finish line. 'Dating Matters consumed a lot of my life and it was destroyed for no reason whatsoever,' said Sarah DeGue, senior scientist in the Division of Violence Prevention, who led the CDC's Dating Matters program for the last decade. 'American teens are in the midst of a mental health crisis. … This is the absolute worst possible time to eliminate effective programs and resources that teach kids healthy relationship skills.' DeGue was part of the administration's so-called 'reduction in force.' Since leaving the CDC, she has started her own consulting firm focused on violence prevention and is uploading deleted resources to her firm's website. The former CDC employee who declined to make their name public said they hope lawmakers can intervene to protect the work. 'I believe that there are still people in Congress, in our government at that level who care… But not the Trump administration. I don't believe that at all.' In his first term, Trump only floated cuts to the Office on Violence Against Women and didn't follow through. Now, groups are acutely aware of how many people will suffer — and die — without the funding that makes their services possible. Two prominent lawsuits are challenging the constitutionality of these specific cuts. The American Bar Association won a preliminary injunction in a case alleging its five grants from the Office on Violence Against Women were canceled as retaliation for suing the administration. The $2 million of outstanding grants were to employ seven people to provide training to legal practitioners working with survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. FORGE, the only domestic violence services nonprofit dedicated solely to assisting transgender and nonbinary survivors, relies on the federal government for 90 percent of its operating budget. In February, it joined other LGBTQ+ organizations in suing the Trump administration over the constitutionality of the executive order about gender. In April, the Office of Justice Programs canceled FORGE's grants — over $500,000 in total —to produce a toolkit for providers working with trans victims of crime and a project addressing anti-trans hate . Arguments in FORGE's case were held on May 22 in a California district court. An order is expected soon. The federal funding freeze in January spooked Jane Doe Inc., Sarang-Sieminski said. Worried about conflicting with executive orders, the nonprofit took its website down. But after two days, it put the site back online. Reflecting on their core mission of racial equity is what changed the staff's minds, Sarang-Sieminski said. The site still has sections tailored to LGBTQ+ and immigrant survivors and speaks about building a more equitable world. 'It's so through and through who we are that we felt like there's nothing that we really could possibly take down that would protect us in any meaningful way,' she said. Taking down the website would 'only do further harm to communities who are counting on us to speak up and to be present and available when others refuse to.' 'What keeps me up at night is thinking about the stories we will tell about this time looking back,' Sarang-Sieminski said. 'This is liberatory work, and what we want to see is a world where we can all thrive. And to me that means not leaving folks behind and standing up for our fundamental principles around this work.' Half of the organization's funding is dependent on federal grants, but she doesn't want that to 'cloud our judgment around our values.' On Thursday, Democratic Reps. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin and Debbie Dingell of Michigan, and Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, will join a coalition of intimate partner and sexual violence groups for a day of action on Capitol Hill to discuss the importance of federal funding. Both Moore and Dingell have led several letters to the administration pushing back on funding delays and staffing cuts. 'I am horrified,' said Moore, who has detailed her experience as a victim of domestic violence. 'Maybe it's not intentional, but it's very dangerous as a survivor of domestic violence — a survivor in the days where there was no crisis line to call, … no information to be able to stand up for yourself. There was no shelter to go to.' 'We've made so much progress in the last decade,' Dingell said. 'We're going backwards, and it really scares me.' Domestic violence services remain operational throughout the United States. Confidential, anonymous help is available 24/7 through the National Domestic Violence Hotline at (1-800-799-7233) or online. The post The Trump administration is making the country less safe for domestic violence victims appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
