Federal Funding Pulled From Campaign To Prevent Infant Sleep-Related Deaths
The Trump administration's decision to end federal participation in the Safe to Sleep campaign comes as recent data show sudden infant deaths rising. Also: Education Department grant cuts, animals in federally funded research, PEPFAR cut impacts, and more.
Medill News Service:
NIH Ends Role In Safe To Sleep Campaign To Prevent Infants Deaths
The Trump administration has cancelled federal participation in Safe to Sleep, a 30-year campaign to prevent babies from dying in their sleep, STAT and the Medill News Service have learned. (Belkoura, 4/30)
Politico:
Education Department Cancels Grants That Won Bipartisan Support After Uvalde Attack
The Education Department is cutting approximately $1 billion worth of federal mental health grants approved by Congress in the wake of a 2022 Texas elementary school mass shooting. The agency concluded the funding conflicts with Trump administration priorities. The department’s decision, announced by an agency official late Tuesday in a written notice obtained by POLITICO, centers on grants included in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that were meant to help states and higher education institutions train mental health professionals who could then work in local schools. (Perez Jr., 4/30)
Stat:
NIH Plans To Reduce Animal Testing In Federally Funded Research
In a significant move, the National Institutes for Health said it would reduce its reliance on animals in federally funded research and instead prioritize investment in human-based alternatives, the second time this month that a key government agency has taken such a step. (Silverman, 4/30)
KFF Health News:
Federal Cuts Gut Food Banks As They Face Record Demand
Food bank shortages caused by high demand and cuts to federal aid programs have some residents of a small community that straddles Idaho and Nevada growing their own food to get by. For those living in Duck Valley, a reservation of about 1,000 people that is home to the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, there’s just one grocery store where prices are too high for many to afford, said Brandy Bull Chief, local director of a federal food distribution program for tribes. The next-closest grocery stores are more than 100 miles away in Mountain Home, Idaho, and Elko, Nevada. And the local food bank’s troubles are mirrored by many nationwide, squeezed between growing need and shrinking aid. (Orozco Rodriguez, 5/1)
CIDRAP:
PEPFAR Funding Cuts Will Lead To Up To 74,000 Excess HIV Deaths In Africa By 2030, Experts Warn
The Trump administration's executive order to suspend funds intended to prevent and treat HIV in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) will result in 60,000 to 74,000 excess deaths over the next 5 years—and possibly many more—a mathematical modeling study published late last week in eClinicalMedicine forecasts. On January 24, 2025, the US government froze all foreign aid programs, including the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), for 90 days. (Van Beusekom, 4/28)
Fierce Healthcare:
Trump's First 100 Days: A Pulse Check On Healthcare
The opening months of President Donald Trump’s second term in office have brought a clear paradigm shift across healthcare—both inside and outside of the federal government. Since his opening salvo of executive orders, the president and his administration have been pushing to overhaul the funding and oversight of care delivery. Mainstay health programs have been on the chopping block, international collaborations have been severed, public health research priorities have been shifted and non-government organizations supporting politically contentious services or practices have been outright targeted. (Muoio, Tong, Beavins, Gliadkovskaya and Minemyer, 4/30)
More health news from the Trump administration —
Stat:
Trump Order Targeting DEI In Medical Accreditation Sparks Concern
A new Trump administration executive order targeting the use of “DEI-based standards” to accredit universities could shake up the small club of groups that set standards for the nation’s medical schools and residency programs. (McFarling, 5/1)
MedPage Today:
International Doctors Forgo U.S. Medical Meetings, Citing Detention Fears
Some international doctors are skipping medical conferences in the U.S. this year out of concern over the Trump administration's treatment of foreign visitors at the country's borders. While none of the American medical associations contacted by MedPage Today reported a major dip in conference attendance this year so far, at least one doctor in the U.K. suspects that fewer international physicians will attend the upcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in late May. (4/30)
Axios:
Hospitals Begin To Grapple With Tariff Fallout
Hospitals across the country are starting to reckon with the effects President Trump's tariffs are having on medical supplies like syringes and PPE, and in some cases freezing spending and making other contingencies. (Reed, 5/1)
