
HHS Job Cuts: Entire CDC Team Focused On Infertility And IVF Is 'Gone'
As part of these cuts, the CDC is saying that the entire team overseeing Assisted Reproductive Technologies has been let go. What does this mean for the future of infertility and IVF research in the U.S.? Barbara Collura, President and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, spoke with ForbesWomen editor Maggie McGrath about these questions and others that exist in the wake of the layoffs.
'All the data collection [on IVF outcomes] and all of that work is going to stop,' Collura said. 'When you think about IVF, what are the outcomes? These things are about a year out, so I would say that we're probably going to not have the data from the last year they've collected.'
Collura also noted that the cuts to the CDC's ART team could undermine President Trump's ability to deliver on his February executive order around IVF access.
'In February, President Trump came out with an executive order that's asking his domestic policy council to come up with recommendations' on IVF access, Collura explained. 'The folks at CDC who got laid off are a resource to the president in order to fulfill these policy recommendations. If we're going to lean all in on IVF, as President Trump has said, why get rid of the people closes to you who know the most?'
To watch the full interview, head here or watch the video player above.
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The Hill
12 minutes ago
- The Hill
Tick-borne disease spreads, causing meat, dairy allergies
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The Hill
42 minutes ago
- The Hill
CDC funding changes inject ‘chaos' into local health programs
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That practice stopped when the agency received a two-month apportionment through the end of the fiscal year, according to CDC employees, but some grants were delivered late while others are still being blocked. 'Everything is weeks, if not months behind schedule,' a CDC employee with knowledge of the funding situation said. Another employee noted the extra layers involved in getting funding out the door, including new external reviews being conducted by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 'With every single award requiring DOGE review, there is fear the award may not be made before the end of the fiscal year and lapse of funds,' the employee said. Raynard Washington, director of the Mecklenburg County Public Health Department in North Carolina, said his agency laid off six workers — including half its disease investigators — after grants for HIV prevention and surveillance programs expired at the end of May with no information about future funding. The grants were eventually restored about a month later, but to date the department has only been able to bring back half of the people it laid off. 'So now we're behind, and cases are still being reported every day that have to be investigated,' Washington said. 'The more time that people may have been exposed to HIV and don't know it, or syphilis and don't know it and are getting tested and treated, those delays actually translate to potential illness.' Meanwhile, the Trump administration is preventing CDC from funding tens of millions of dollars in other awards, including for public health emergency preparedness, chronic disease prevention and education, academic prevention research centers, gun violence, and tobacco use. That means activities like training hospital staff and other health workers alongside first responders to prepare for a natural disaster are on hold. Washington said North Carolina had to lay off its team working on tobacco prevention efforts because the funding had dried up. 'These are not delays that we expect, given that Congress has appropriated funding for these initiatives,' Washington said. 'And these are things that — despite the political swings in Washington — have largely received bipartisan support, and so you don't expect that there was going to be gaps.' Philip Huang, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services in Texas, said he was waiting for nearly 30 percent of the promised award for public health emergency preparedness. The state doesn't know if that money is ever coming, Huang said. 'So, it makes it very difficult for us to plan. And many health departments don't have much buffer. If you plan and keep everything fully operational with all your staff now, and then you don't get the [remaining funding], then you're not going to be able to last through the year,' Huang said. 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The Hill
42 minutes ago
- The Hill
Pesticides test MAHA-MAGA alliance
The 'Make America Healthy Again' (MAHA) movement could be on a collision course with its Republican allies over pesticides and toxic chemicals. MAHA is strongly aligned with the Trump administration, having cheered its anti-vaccine actions and food safety reforms. In general, the movement has been deeply skeptical of Big Pharma, Big Agriculture and Big Chemical. And cracks are beginning to form. MAHA-aligned groups and influencers are particularly raising alarms about provisions in a House appropriations bill that they say will shield pesticide and chemical manufacturers from accountability — and ultimately make Americans less healthy. Meanwhile, a draft of the administration's 'MAHA report' reportedly omits any calls to prevent pesticide exposure, also disappointing advocates. 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The New York Times reported last week, based on a draft that it obtained, that a forthcoming iteration of the Trump administration's MAHA positions does not call for new restrictions on pesticides and describes existing procedures as 'robust.' MAHA-aligned activists recoiled. 'The MAHA draft report stating that the EPA's [Environmental Protection Agency] pesticide review process is 'robust' is the biggest joke in American history. And it's not funny. It's deadly,' wrote Zen Honeycutt, founder of the activist group Moms Across America, in a post on X. Meanwhile, a Republican-authored House Appropriations bill seeks to block pesticide labels that go beyond what the EPA uses based on its current human health risk assessment. During a markup last month, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who chairs the Interior-Environment Appropriations subcommittee, said that the measure says that 'states cannot require a pesticide label that is different from the EPA label.' 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'The way the law works currently is states have the power to do additional addendums, and that's where you see, say, a state requires an additional setback so that you can't spray within 250 feet of a school, or you're required to wear additional types of [personal protective equipment],' he continued. 'Those types of restrictions are usually included in a label addendum, and those types of changes and those types of tweaks would be essentially prohibited by this language.' MAHA opponents have particularly expressed concerns over the implications that barring such labeling could have on the ability to sue pesticide companies over inadequate labels. 'Having no access to courts is absolutely devastating and, in my view, unconstitutional,' said Holland, with Children's Health Defense. 'I'm very distressed by this idea that this administration might, for 2026, establish liability protection.' Democrats likewise pushed back on the provision. 'This rider would effectively gag our public health agencies, preventing them from updating labels or rules to reflect new evidence of cancer risks from pesticides,' Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said during the markup. 'This bill is a big middle finger to cancer patients.' Also causing controversy is another provision related to 'forever chemicals,' toxic substances that have been linked to illnesses including cancer and have become widespread in the environment. The measure seeks to bar the EPA from enforcing a draft report that found that food from farms contaminated with these chemicals may pose cancer risks. Lexi Hamel, a spokesperson for Simpson, said in an email that the bill 'prohibits funding from implementing, administering, or enforcing the current draft risk assessment due to the major technical flaws in the assessment.' But she said it does not block the EPA from 'continuing to work on identifying ways to clean up PFAS and keep communities safe' and that an amendment changed the bill so that it no longer blocks the agency from finalizing its findings. In a follow-up statement shared through a spokesperson, Horsfield said the provision is still a problem. 'The risk assessment will still have to be implemented and enforced,' he said. 'The draft risk assessment will need teeth … Allowing EPA to finalize the draft risk assessment, but preventing them from implementing it is an exercise in futility.' MAHA activists have slammed both provisions, saying in a letter to President Trump that GOP support for the measures is 'unconscionable.' However, Tony Lyons, president of the MAHA Action PAC, said he does not blame Republicans for pesticides in the environment. 'I don't think that this is something that comes from the GOP side. I think that this is a case of the Democratic Party looking to blame Republicans for it,' Lyons said. While the pesticide issues have generated some sparks between MAHA and MAGA, the administration has taken a number of other actions to also reduce restrictions on the chemical industry more broadly. Trump himself exempted from environmental standards more than 100 polluters, including chemical manufacturers, oil refineries, coal plants and medical device sterilizers. The EPA, meanwhile, has put chemical industry alumni in leading roles and has said it wants to loosen restrictions on emissions of various cancer-linked chemicals. Asked about Trump's move to exempt polluters from Clean Air Act rules, Holland said 'there's clearly tensions' within the GOP coalition. 'Those factions, if you will, more protective of corporate and more challenging to corporate, are both striving to get the president's ear, and I don't think they've come to a complete, sort of settlement agreement,' she said.