The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that it obtained an internal White House budget document dated April 10 that seeks to slash $40 billion, or one-third of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) discretionary budget.
The bombshell report reveals the HHS budget draft calls for cuts and major restructuring of the agencies. The internal document, a proposal by the Office of Management and Budget, outlines the administration’s priorities for the upcoming fiscal year 2026 budget request that will be sent to Congress. It goes beyond the massive cuts that have already taken place throughout HHS since April 1. The agency has lost about 20,000 of its workforce, including staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). It has also consolidated the 28 divisions into 15 new ones.
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According to the Washington Post, the additional cuts listed in the document would further reduce the NIH budget by more than $47 million, a 40 percent cut, and consolidate its 27 institutes and centers into eight. The CDC would see its budget reduced by $4 billion, or 44 percent, and would eliminate all chronic disease programs and domestic HIV work.
The decision to slash the chronic disease programs will be a setback for HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s focus on “Making America Healthy Again” and reversing chronic disease.
In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a commission to investigate and address the root causes of America’s escalating health crisis with a focus on childhood chronic diseases. “We must re-direct our national focus, in the public and private sectors, toward understanding and drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease,” the executive order said. “This includes fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety. We must restore the integrity of the scientific process by protecting expert recommendations from inappropriate influence and increasing transparency regarding existing data. We must ensure our health care system promotes health rather than just managing disease."