For Our Health warns the proposed HHS budget cuts put Americans at risk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For Our Health, a nonpartisan public health advocacy initiative, strongly opposes the Administration’s proposed 2026 budget cuts that would devastate the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). While the Trump Administration’s decision to restore funding for the National Institute for Health’s Women's Health Initiative is a necessary correction to a harmful mistake, it does nothing to change the catastrophic reality of the broader 2026 budget proposal that puts the health and well-being of Americans at risk.

“Slashing one-third of the HHS budget is reckless and will certainly cause harm to Americans across the country,” according to Kathleen Sebelius, former HHS Secretary and Governor of Kansas. “Candidly, I never dreamed that this level of destruction to critical American health systems would ever be proposed.”

As widely reported by the media and health organizations, the proposed budget cuts—set to take effect in October 2025 if approved—would, among other changes, reduce funding by 44% for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 40% for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and 19% for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Dr. Mary Pittman, formerly CEO of the Public Health Institute and a co-founder of For Our Health, drew specific attention to the consequences of eviscerating the CDC budget. “Let’s be clear—when the next pandemic from an infectious agent breaks, if this budget passes, we will be largely unprepared, and needless deaths will happen,” Pittman noted. “The CDC will be late detecting, tracking, and responding to it, and the states will not have the resources to do it at the state level. Time to action is everything in an outbreak of disease.”

FOH reviewed the administration’s budget proposal and outlined three major threats:

Everyday Americans will face increased health risks.

The proposed cuts will create immediate harm to health and food safety services that are relied on by all Americans, including children, seniors, and those in rural areas.

Specific examples (not all inclusive):

Food safety at risk – Reduction of staffing and resources for routine food safety inspections and medical products’ effectiveness – creating immediate and long-term consequences for the populace.
Children at risk – Elimination of Head Start programs for early childcare and education, lead poison monitoring in schools, the elimination of oral health that affects children disproportionately and causes multiple lifelong health impacts.
Seniors at risk – Elimination of chronic pain division and chronic disease programs to improve health treatments for heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and smoking cessation.
Rural communities at risk – Elimination of programs that keep rural hospitals open and clinics staffed, including rural hospital flexibility and at-risk grants, rural doctor residency development programs, and state offices of rural health to ensure healthcare access.

Medical research and treatment innovation will stall.

The proposed cuts will halt progress on current medical research and destroy funding for future disease prevention and treatments. Pandemic preparedness will be damaged, promising new treatments will be delayed or terminated, and ground-breaking medical treatments will go undiscovered.

Specific examples (not all inclusive):

Pandemic preparedness at risk – CDC funding cuts will impair the response to new health threats, including a pandemic, such as a measles outbreak, given reduced staffing for detection, laboratory testing capacity, and epidemiology to assess the spread of disease.
Loss of evidence-based care research – The elimination of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) as a standalone independent agency will halt research that improves care quality, patient safety, and healthcare system efficiency—ending initiatives that help reduce preventable hospitalizations and improve outcomes for vulnerable populations.
In-progress new therapies at risk – Elimination of FDA resources to review (for safety and effectiveness) promising new devices, drug treatments, and other products will delay or halt FDA approvals of new treatments while patients continue to suffer.

America’s biomedical leadership will be devastated.

The proposed cuts would severely undermine the U.S.’s global leadership in biomedical research, jeopardizing scientific advancement, economic growth, and innovation in healthcare.

Specific examples (not all inclusive):

Medical innovation halted – The proposed 40% reduction to NIH funding would force the termination of hundreds of ongoing research grants across cancer, Alzheimer’s, infectious diseases, and other critical areas. Programs focused on pediatric rare diseases and genomic research would be especially vulnerable.
Top talent at risk – Elimination of training grants and early-career investigator awards would drive young scientists out of the field, damaging the research pipeline for a generation.
Global competitiveness undermined – China and other nations are actively investing in biomedical innovation. The proposed cuts would cede U.S. leadership in fields like mRNA technology, AI-driven diagnostics, and regenerative medicine.
Breakthroughs delayed – The budget eliminates entire NIH centers such as the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), which accelerates the development of new treatments and brings research from the lab to clinical settings faster. The impact on patient care would be both immediate and long-term.

Sebelius said the cuts also threaten to erase U.S. standing as the leader and gold standard of research. “These cuts will have a decades-long impact. China is eager to take the place of the U.S. as the world’s leader of scientific research if given the opportunity. They will gladly step into any vacuum we create,” she said.

Call to action

For Our Health urgently calls on the Administration to halt these harmful cuts and restore full funding for essential health services. Congress must also reject this proposal. Now is the time to strengthen—not dismantle—America’s essential health systems. Continued investment in frontline health systems and a well-supported, skilled workforce is critical to safeguarding the health and well-being of every community.

The stakes are extraordinarily high. For Our Health pledges to continue advocating for policies that prioritize the public’s health, science, and research, safeguard communities, and ensure America’s readiness for current and future health challenges.

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APHA is fighting back against threats to public health. See what we’re doing.

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The American Public Health Association champions optimal, equitable health and well-being for all. With our broad-based member community and 150-year perspective, we influence federal policy to improve the public’s health. Learn more at www.apha.org.

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Operating as an initiative of the American Public Health Association (www.apha.org), For Our Health (www.forourhealth.org) brings together prominent experts and senior leaders in public health, health care, health sciences. and social services to speak in support of public health and against policies that undermine evidence-based health initiatives, weaken scientific institutions, and endanger public health protections.