Coalitions of California and other states sued the Trump administration on Tuesday for its plans to cut billions of dollars in federal public health grants to make states more resilient to infectious diseases and alleged that management has overturned its powers through refund funds allocated by Congress.
The pullback in funds is a devastating blow to local health departments, many of which are dealing with large new outbreaks from Covid-19 to bird flu and measles. Institutions in California alone will lose nearly $1 billion.
“Congress has explicitly authorized funds for grants to help our country stay healthy and protect us from future pandemics,” California ATTY. General Rob Bonta said that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified health agencies in all 50 states, including California Public Health, that it suspended more than $11 billion in grants, previously providing support for state infectious disease responses to support the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the pandemic subsided, states have been using funds for a range of infectious disease initiatives.
The lawsuit, filed against the Department of Health and Human Services in the Federal Court of Kennedy and Rhode Island, was filed by California, 23 other states and the District of Columbia, is the latest in a series of lawsuits filed by Democratic-led states.
Previous lawsuits in several states also claimed that Trump was illegally seizing powers of funding belonging to Congress, rather than executive branches. Tuesday’s lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration violated the Executive Procedure Act and sought a temporary restraining order that would immediately restore public health funds to the level previously allocated.
Bonta’s office said the cuts, including $972 million in California funding, would cause “irreparable harm” to states.
It said the California Department of Public Health will lose $800 million in part to vaccinate 4.5 million children and improve logistical preparations to guide patients and injured patients from hospitals to other available health facilities in emergencies.
The California Department of Health Services will lose $119 million to prevent drug use and other early interventions in health services, the office said. It also said the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health will lose $45 million in part to prevent the spread of measles and bird flu.
A county spokeswoman said the cuts would eliminate staff who alleviate the spread of the disease in homeless shelters, schools, prisons and work sites; the work of the county mobile infectious disease team has reduced the number of elderly people providing vaccines and other health care to home residents, housing developments, seniors in senior centers, and others limited to living facilities; and prevented upgrades to county data systems and other infrastructure needed to track infectious diseases and share timely outbreak information with the public.
Aside from increasing the likelihood of system failure in emergencies, some of these system upgrades are already in progress, meaning that cutting funds now will waste past investments.
The CDC’s funding cuts are part of a larger effort to fundamentally reduce federal spending by Elon Musk, an advisor to Trump and Trump’s “efficiency”, in part to pay what critics call tax cuts that will disproportionately benefit the rich.
Musk is the richest person in the world and his government efficiency ministry, which is not a real government department, has been granted access to sensitive government facilities, computer networks and other data and has the right to cut it into the government budget – California is also filing a lawsuit.
The CDC cuts are not the first public health person. Kennedy also announced plans to reduce the health department’s workforce by about 20,000 employees, and the Trump administration reportedly intends to close various health and public service buildings, including California.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-san Francisco) issued a statement Tuesday decrying her so-called “report decision to close” Kennedy’s statement in San Francisco’s Regional Office of Health and Public Services, which she called “a leading vaccine attitude maker for vaccines led by the Trump administration”, a past homage to vaccine psecudecience, rejected adoption of medical experts and criticized the vaccine.
“By closing our regional offices, the Trump administration will choose to put the health and safety of Bay Area residents and all Californians at risk, gut important public health initiatives, such as the Ryan White AIDS/AIDS program, and potentially work hard by Californians,” Pelosi said.
Kennedy “has an extreme view of public health that is not out of touch with the vast majority of American people,” she said. “Shortsighted” closure will “directly harm our most vulnerable communities and make America’s pathological pathological more painful,” and she and others will fight closure and other cuts on public health.
Tuesday’s lawsuit is the ninth lawsuit filed by Bonta’s office against the current Trump administration. In at least six cases, it also supported litigants against the government.
California has had zero H5N1 bird flu since last March. 38 people in the state have been infected with the virus, most of whom are dairy workers exposed while working with infected cattle or milk. However, the two are children. The cause of their infection has not been determined. The virus also infects 758 dairy herds, accounting for more than 75% of the state’s total dairy herds.
There have been eight cases of measles in California since the beginning of the year, in addition to thousands of cases of seasonal flu, Covid-19, norovirus and other respiratory viruses.
