The Trump administration’s abrupt termination this week of Rhode Island’s remaining $31 million in federal grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could significantly undermine the state’s ability to prevent and respond to infectious disease outbreaks, state health officials said Friday.
The CDC grants, allocated during the COVID-19 pandemic, were helping Rhode Island pay for vaccinating children, tracking a variety of infectious diseases, addressing pandemic-related health disparities as well as providing staff and equipment for the state laboratory.
“These are all grants that are related to planning for the next pandemic,’’ state Health Director Jerome Larkin told The Public’s Radio. “If we lose these grants, we will significantly impair our ability to prevent a pandemic, or, if a pandemic occurs, to respond in an adequate, timely fashion.”
Rhode Island’s measles vaccination program, Larkin said, protected the public last January, when state health officials reported the first confirmed case of measles in the state since 2013. The infection was in a young, unvaccinated child who had recently traveled abroad.
Rhode Island was able to avoid a measles outbreak like the ones in Texas and New Mexico, he said, because vaccination rates among school age children in Rhode Island exceed 97%, creating what’s known as herd immunity.
“I can assure you that if we had had lower vaccination rates,’’ Larkin said, “that we would have a measles…epidemic right now, similar to the one that’s in Texas and New Mexico.’’
The grants also paid for tracking and responding to respiratory pathogens, foodborne illnesses, HIV, hepatitis C, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and tuberculosis, the state Health Department said.
Rhode Island’s $31 million in CDC grants pay for nearly 11% of the state Health Department’s roughly $292 million budget. The CDC grant funding is among the billions of dollars provided to states nationwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s unclear how many Health Department jobs the grant cuts will impact, Joseph Wendelken, a department spokesman, said. Some jobs are 10% grant funded, he said, while others might be 70% or more.
“I’m incredibly worried” about the cuts, said Dr. Philip A. Chan, an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at Brown University. The abrupt loss of funds is coming on the heels of the pandemic, he said, which depleted the ranks of public health staff. “People are going to lose their jobs,’’ he said. “I’m worried about the morale of people in public health.”
Larkin, the health director, has been “working closely” with representatives of the state Office of Health of Human Services, Gov. Dan McKee’s office and Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Nerhona to determine how to respond to the cuts, Wendelken said.
“The claw back of funds that had already been allocated to Rhode Island is very concerning,’’ McKee’s office said in an email. “Our legal team is digging into this matter further and working with both RIDOH and the Attorney General’s Office to discuss the State’s options.”
