Health experts warn Trump cuts to the CDC could hurt overdose prevention: ‘A step backwards’ | Trump administration

Throughout the country, public health officials working to prevent overdose deaths may be only a month to prepare financing deductions up to 140 million dollars for Trump administration’s Disease Control and Prevention Centers (CDC). reported.

US overdose deaths began to fall for the first time in 2023. Climbing for over twenty years.

CDCs Overdose data action (OD2A) The cooperative agreement, which was initiated in 2019 during the first Trump administration, provides financing for overdose “prevention and surveillance strategies .. Public Health officials, Guardian to effectively reduce fatal overdoses, agencies should work together to follow the interventions such as substance use disorders, overdoses and changes in drug supply, and the distribution of overdose reverse drugs. The OD2A financing has made such a solid response possible.

Biden administration The program expanded In 2023, he gave 90 states and local public health departments for five years.

“Financing was largely used for surveillance, in other words, to obtain data on the opioid crisis that informs the problem of public health response, Brand says Brandeis University Opioid Policy Research Cooperation Medical Director Dr Andrew Kolodny.

“In general, our surveillance data on the opioid crisis is terrible. One of the reasons why the opioid crisis was as severe and why until recently, I can say that it has continued to increase every year every year for about 25 years, because the problem had a very weak survival.”

However, now, health officials are concerned that the money may be exhausted at the end of the first two -year cycle on September 1.

For the Chicago Public Health Department (CDPH), which received $ 3.4 million a year in OD2A financing, Temporary Commissioner Deputy Dr. Jenny Hua said they were preparing for the worst.

“We are planning a script. The preferred scenario is that the whole prize has started in August, but he is not sure whether it is likely.

Hua said, “What is said about this money is that at least half of it is available next year. The problem is that for a series [the CDC’s] Collaborative agreements with local health departments and state health departments receive this money with monthly increases that have never been before. “

Also CDC now He doesn’t have enough money at the same time to distribute.

A spokesperson of the Department of Health and Human Services, CDC is connected to the O2da program, and said: uz We are working closely with our financing partners in the next month, at least with the first grant awards that may include less than the full year of the financing.

“Such a fog makes it incredibly difficult for us to make financing decisions and allocate our resources, Hu Hua said.

CDPH has used the OD2A financing to present the same daily substance use disorder treatment to patients via Telealth and planned to expand recovery residences for treatment.

“Are you pulling the plug? Which tea leaves should we read, to know which action to take?” Hao wondered.

Kolodny said that it is particularly important to maintain the financing of many factors related to overdose deaths because “You can currently talk to five different experts and you will get five different explanations about why deaths are not falling.

Surveillance means not only the number of deadly and non -deadly doses in the US, but also the prevalence of substance use disorders, including opioid use disorder. Historically, this was the mission of substance abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Samhsa), which provides other addiction and overdose prevention services but provides this agency. It also faces financing deductions.

The OD2A financing also progressed towards the supervision of “emergency medication threats çıkan, which usually comes in the form of new adultery in street medicine supply. Unexpected substances, including tranquilizers and powerful synthetic opioids such as nitazeses and nitazenes and carphenanyl, may cause more dangerous overdoses and poisoning because they are not yet well understood.

Nevertheless, many health departments throughout the country Don’t watch the street medicine supply.

Street drug supervision can help the authorities quickly intervene when overdoses increase. Partly thanks to the OD2A financing, Chicago Health officials immediately became aware of an increase in overdoses on the west side of the city last May.

Laboratory analysis revealed that Virgo is associated with the presence of medetomid, a powerful veterinary sedative in the street drug supply. In June, the CDPH launched the command system of Summer Opioid response, which is a coordinated effort with public messaging. About contaminated drug supply, Distribution of Naloxon and Pharmaceutical Test Kits and expanding access to treatment. This effort reduced the emergency reactions with overdose by 23% last summer. A report on the program.

According to a spokesman, the Los Angeles Public Health Department uses OD2A financing for “community -based drug control ;; “Los Angeles District Public Health Department Announced recently In 2024, the most important decrease in the history of La County, he added a 22% decrease in drug -related over -dose deaths and poisoning ”.

The spokesman for Maryland said that the deductions may mean the dismissal of 28 public health employees, which means that they no longer have the capacity to monitor non -fatal overdoses and will lose most of their capacity to monitor fatal overdoses.

According to Kolodny, who states that financing cuts are “annoying ,, to monitor the number of people who died of an overdose is“ naked minimum ”supervision.

“Trump has been particularly popular in some parts of the country, which suffered the most of the opioid crisis. So he may think that his administration will do everything he can do to end this problem. And I think it’s a step back,” he said.

Financing the prevention of overdose not only saves lives, but also saves money, Kolodny said: “Opioid crisis Ask a trillion dollars a year, And I do not create this number. This is a number from the cost analysis on the number of partially lost life. “

Kolodny will continue to disappear until you really understand what triggers over -dose deaths. “We shoot in the dark without data.”