CDC to disburse delayed funds including for overdose prevention, staffers say : Shots

The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Ben Hendren/Bloomberg/Getty Photos

The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention will have the ability to absolutely fund the Overdose Information to Motion or OD2A program forward of a key price range deadline, in accordance with a CDC senior chief. A second CDC employees member confirmed that “there have been developments and we’re more likely to have full funding,” though they didn’t have particulars on when the funding would turn into accessible.

Each spoke to NPR on the situation of anonymity as a result of they concern retribution for talking to the press with out authorization. Some staffers at CDC expressed to NPR that this seemed to be excellent news, though the funding scenario was nonetheless fluid and complicated.

NPR reported final month that the Trump administration was withholding $140 million from the OD2A program, which state and native public well being departments depend on to decrease overdose deaths from fentanyl, methamphetamines and different medication throughout the U.S.

Beforehand frozen funding for different CDC applications, together with rape and home violence preventioncan also be getting launched, the senior CDC chief mentioned.

Funding, 30 days at a time

The delays have been a part of a broader challenge with funding at CDC. As NPR reported in Junefor months, CDC waited for the $9 billion Congress meant for the company for fiscal 12 months 2025. Within the meantime, it obtained small quantities of cash each 30 days to cowl payroll and different restricted bills.

The senior chief described the method like receiving cash “with an eyedropper.”

With no pot of cash to distribute out to numerous facilities and divisions, the CDC could not ship out the discover of awards that state and native well being departments want to have the ability to do their work and know they are going to be reimbursed for it.

“Most state well being departments get most of their funding from the feds — in Alabama’s case, we get greater than two thirds of our funding from federal grants, predominantly CDC,” Dr. Scott Harris, who runs Alabama’s well being division, advised NPR in June.

Deadlines missed

Well being departments throughout the nation sounded the alarm as deadlines approached or handed for CDC funding of HIV prevention, most cancers registries and overdose prevention applications.

Now, most of these applications throughout CDC apparently can proceed, together with OD2A. Grantees for the OD2A program, who had been advised in July they might be receiving solely half of their funding, will quickly be advised they are going to obtain the complete quantity, in accordance with the senior chief at CDC.

The information comes after advocates had been warning for weeks of the harms that delayed or partial funding to this system may have. If full funding is definitely coming, “it will be welcome, however it’s not with out the toll that it is already taken,” says Sharon Gilmartindirector of the Secure States Alliance, a nationwide membership affiliation for the sector of harm and violence prevention. For instance of the toll, NPR reported on an area well being division in North Carolina that laid off employees due to CDC funding delays, solely to have the funding come by way of weeks late with out rationalization.

“I do not suppose anyone will really feel assured till they’ve cash in hand,” Gilmartin provides. “And I will be trustworthy, I feel the priority is that — if that is what we went by way of this 12 months, even when funding comes by way of, are we going to be doing this once more subsequent 12 months?”

There was no accessible rationalization from the Trump administration or the Workplace of Administration and Funds for the delays or the discharge of the funding. OMB and the Division of Well being and Human Companies didn’t reply to NPR’s request for remark.

The CDC senior chief describes the discharge of funding for the company as a reduction. “It is nice we now have our apportionment,” they inform NPR.

Some funds frozen

However there is a new funding problem. A number of dozen particular CDC applications have now had their price range traces frozen on the path of OMB, in accordance with the senior chief at CDC. The information of the frozen funds was first reported by the Wall Road Journal.

The frozen applications are principally within the Nationwide Heart for Power Illness Prevention and Well being Promotion, in accordance with the senior chief at CDC.

An inventory of frozen applications reviewed by NPR consists of those who deal with tobacco use, diet, bodily exercise and weight problems, college well being, inflammatory bowel illness, extreme alcohol use, continual illness training and consciousness, nationwide diabetes prevention program, oral well being, epilepsy, and extra.

“What does all of it imply?”

Funding for 5 applications on the CDC’s Damage Heart was frozen by OMB as properly, together with youth violence prevention, adversarial childhood experiences, firearm harm, harm management analysis facilities, and harm prevention actions. Gilmartin of the Secure States Alliance says it is arduous to grasp why these applications have been focused. “I am unable to give you an ideological cause why you’ll wish to reduce funding that helps optimistic early childhood,” as an illustration, she says.

The senior chief at CDC says there are some large questions for OMB and the Trump administration: “How will we interpret all of this? What does all of it imply?”

There have been complete groups fired in the course of the dramatic discount in drive throughout HHS in April that seem to have full funding, the senior chief says, such because the Rape Prevention and Schooling Program.

Equally, there are applications with their price range traces frozen by OMB which might be absolutely staffed, and nonetheless different priorities set forth in President Trump’s 2026 price range, they are saying, which leaves the impression that there is not any overarching technique.