More than ten data-gathering programs tracking deaths and diseases have been eliminated amid sweeping layoffs and proposed budget cuts during the first 100 days of U.S. President Donald Trump’s new administration.
Among those let go at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were experts monitoring abortions, pregnancies, workplace injuries, lead poisoning, sexual violence, and youth smoking, according to the Associated Press.
“If you don’t have staff, the program disappears,” said Patrick Breysse, former head of the CDC’s environmental health programs.
Federal officials have not disclosed exactly which surveillance programs were cut. Instead, an unnamed Health and Human Services spokesperson referred AP to the Trump administration’s new budget proposal, released Friday.
While short on specifics, the budget slashes CDC’s core funding by more than half and vows to focus solely on emerging and infectious diseases. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy added that other CDC functions will shift to a future “Healthy America Authority.”
Kennedy argues the cuts aim to curb wasteful spending, stating in a New York Post op-ed that expanding budgets in recent years had not translated into better public health outcomes, but rather more bureaucracy and duplication.
However, public health experts warn that the eliminated programs are neither redundant nor expendable.
“If America wants to become healthier again, how will we know if we cancel the programs that help us understand these diseases?” asked Graham Mooney, a public health historian at Johns Hopkins University.
The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics—which generates key indicators like birth rates, mortality trends, and life expectancy—appears to have been spared. But other critical tools have not.
For example:
- The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, which collected data on maternal behaviors and outcomes, lost all 20 staff members. It was essential in studying maternal mortality.
- Programs tracking IVF (in vitro fertilization) and abortions were also dismantled—an ironic move given Trump’s stated intention to expand access to IVF.
- The childhood lead poisoning program, which supported local investigations into exposure risks—including a recent outbreak from contaminated applesauce—was also cut.
- The Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, operating for 23 years, monitored cancer and climate-linked illnesses and has now been shut down.
In some instances, the cuts don’t eliminate jobs but instead cease the collection of certain health data entirely.
Notably, transgender status is no longer recorded in CDC systems monitoring violent deaths and youth risk behavior, despite the well-documented vulnerability of transgender people to violence.
“Without data on trans individuals, it becomes much harder to identify the extent of their risk,” said Thomas Simon, a recently retired senior science director in CDC’s violence prevention division.
These sweeping eliminations, critics say, leave America blind to significant health threats, all in the name of fiscal discipline.
