#healthIT friends: Don't miss the nuggets buried in here about ASTP/ONC

The proposal would put ASTP under a new Office of the Chief Technology Officer and slash its budget to $9 million

hmu at brittany.trang@statnews.com or btrang.01 on Signal if you know more

Details:
https://www.statnews.com/2025/04/16/trump-draft-budget-proposes-nih-consolidation-40-percent-cut/

The Trump admin is seeking to deeply slash budgets for federal health programs, a roughly 1/3 cut in spending by the Dept of HHS ($121 billion$80 billion.)

The proposal would the NIH budget ~40%: $47 billion$27 billion. It would consolidate NIH’s 27 institutes to eight.

A new, $20 billion agency named the Administration for a Healthy America would be created.

*The proposal would the CDC’s budget by ~44%, from $9.2 billion$5.2 billion, & would eliminate all of the
#press #hhs

Leaked budget document outlines how RFK Jr. may cut up #HHS to build new "Administration for a Healthy America"

https://www.statnews.com/2025/04/16/trump-hhs-cuts-leaked-budget-draft-reveals-details-administration-for-a-healthy-america/ via @STAT

RFK Jr saying the quiet part out loud…

In an article about autism, he talks about how autistic people will never pay taxes, hold a job, go on a date etc. “worthless”. Useless eaters.

This is straight up eugenics.

It’s also wrong. Many people with autism or disabilities can do ALL these things, but our worth should not be predicated on that.

Everyone has intrinsic value regardless of economic ability or contribution.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/robert-kennedy-jr-autism-rates-press-conference-cdc-hhs-vaccines/

RFK Jr. was born January 17, 1954.

We have seen the number of autism diagnoses since 1954 go up significantly (because people have a better understanding of autism and just didn't see it clearly before).

RFK Jr. causes autism. Have we tried turning him off and seeing if that lowers the number of people who have autism? How can we know if we don't try?

Federal workers at some HHS agencies have been told to get rid of any signage and digital content related to COVID. This is very 1984. If you can’t mention it, you can’t fund it and you can’t have outbreaks of it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DeptHHS/comments/1jzyl2d/asked_to_scrub_all_covid_content/

Health and Human Services Systems Are in Danger of Collapsing, Workers Say

The purging of IT and #cybersecurity staff at the Department of #Health and Human Services could threaten the systems used by the agency’s staff and the safety of critical health data.
#hhs #Musk #Trump #maga #takedown #medicine

https://www.wired.com/story/department-health-human-services-possible-collapse/

Support workers at #FDA who were laid off earlier this month were told they weren't needed; their work was being done by others at #HHS. Now the agency is finalizing plans to contract out their work, @alexander-a-tin.bsky.social reports. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-replace-laid-off-employees-contractors/

#HHS just ramped up the #TrumpAdministration war on #trans kids just trying to live and be themselves.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/oni-blackstock-md-mhs-2851b115b_this-new-hhs-whistleblower-site-launched-activity-7317716309847269376-2S7Z?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&rcm=ACoAAANA28QBHwbJmjSwvWUjDyUnAO7OwvCOPsk

"Thousands of grants, including many at public universities and on topics as politically benign as Alzheimer’s, have been caught in what critics say is an unprecedented slowdown of the American research system that is threatening to upend universities and halt progress toward medical innovations, treatments and cures."

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/one-countrys-leading-alzheimers-projects-jeopardy-rcna199788

HHS Systems Are in Danger of Collapsing, Workers Say
https://www.wired.com/story/department-health-human-services-possible-collapse/

"HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s visit to the FDA Friday was supposed to introduce him as a trusted leader to agency employees. It did anything but."

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/11/rfk-jr-hhs-fda-deep-state-00286826

In the quest for government efficiency, HHS layoffs have axed an office that has spent 3 years on an efficiency initiative set to launch this spring.

UDS+ would save community health centers time & money by digitizing a quality reporting process, putting these centers on the cutting edge of health tech. But the program is now in limbo.

Scoop from me for @STAT:
https://www.statnews.com/2025/04/14/hrsa-community-health-center-modernization-limbo-hhs-cuts/

DEAR GOD.

#RFKJr IS NOT A DOCTOR. HE HAS NO FORMAL MEDICAL TRAINING.

And he's pushing junk/quack "science", "miracle cures", AND PRAYER as cures for deadly contagions like #Measles... praising a doctor in #Texas who is seeing unvaxinated children WHILE HE HIMSELF HAS THE (incurable) DISEASE.

AND CONSIDER: RFK is running just one dept (#HHS). The guy who appointed him is running THE ENTIRE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THE SAME WAY (from #NationalSecurity to the #Economy.)
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/-how-is-it-possible-that-you-have-this-job-rfk-jr-s-incompetence-becomes-too-glaring-to-overlook-237213765616

US measles cases surpass 700 with outbreaks in six states. Here's what to know - Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed in a televised Cabinet meeting Thursday that measles cases were plateauing nationally, but the virus continues to spread mostly in people who are unvaccinated… #Measles #vaccines #PublicHealth #RFKjr #RepuublicansDidThis #RepublicansOwnThis #virus #ChildhoodDiseases #HHS https://apnews.com/article/measles-outbreak-texas-rfk-new-mexico-kansas-vaccine-e904ec9781f1d164c73afe4ab71774fe

Incompetence personified! - RFK Jr. wants to target chronic disease in US tribes. A key program to do that was gutted - #RFKjr #PublicHealth #HHS #tribes #NativeAmericans https://apnews.com/article/healthy-tribes-rfk-chronic-disease-native-american-1b7f0a2da601fb54cd8cfa0a7a3c4b0c

"As cuts sweep across federal health agencies, the Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children (ACHDNC) has been terminated.

Notably, the ACHDNC...is responsible for the Recommended Uniform Screening Panel (RUSP), a standardized list of dozens of conditionsopens in a new tab or window the HHS secretary recommends states screen for as part of their universal newborn screening programs."

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/115070

"Kennedy has erroneously called fluoride 'an industrial waste' and blamed its addition in drinking water on health issues including arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders and thyroid disease. Health experts widely agree that fluoride — a common, naturally occurring mineral — at regulated levels is a major benefit to public health."

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/10/g-s1-59452/hhs-rfk-fluoride-drinking-water-epa