The fund cuts proposed to the centers for disease control and prevention in the federal budget of fiscal year 2026 will lead to important negative health impacts for millions of Americans, said a coalition of former federal health officials.
These proposed fund cuts are not related to the “Big and Beautiful bill” that is arriving through Congress.
The press conference was organized by former students and friends of the CDC and fired, but fighting, an informal network of public health defenders. The latter has created a website that exposes the budget cuts proposed to the CDC.
The Campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considered a meeting of the Advisory Committee in Immunization Practices, it takes place on June 25, 2025 in Atlanta.
Mike Stewart/AP
The former officials spoke during a press conference on Wednesday, pointing out that the proposed budget would reduce the budget of the CDC in more than half (54%), taking it from $ 9.3 billion to $ 4.2 billion.
“Instead of investing in these lifeguards, the current budget leaves the US people to pay the price with their lives and money,” said Brian King, a former health official of the CDC and the food and medicines administration, who worked in the prevention of tobacco.
The state and local health departments would also be largely affected by the proposed cuts with more than half of their budgets from federal dollars, the defense group points out. Approximately 80% of the CDC National Budget is provided with these smaller local health departments.
Around $ 4.7 billion was provided only in 2023 in grants to support health departments, hospitals, universities and non -profit organizations throughout the country, the group said.
As a result of the cuts to the Funds of the CDCs for the local health departments, “the Americans will be more sick and will lose their lives unnecessarily,” predicted Dr. Tom Farley, former health commissioner of Philadelphia and New York City.
The Gateway center of the National Health Institutes (NIH) is seen in the rain in Bethesda, Maryland, June 8, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
One of the largest cuts would be for the prevention of chronic diseases, said former officials, including tobacco prevention, HIV prevention and injury prevention, which includes drowning, a main cause of death in young children.
“Successful [HIV prevention] The programs on which Americans have depended for decades to help protect their own health and the health of their families and their local communities now run the risk of being irreversibly damaged, “said Dr. John Brooks, a former CDC official in charge of the agency’s response to Covid, Mpox and HIV.
