King County is already feeling the effects of cuts to the federal Health & Human Services Department led by RFK Jr.
SEATTLE — On a press call hosted by Sen. Patty Murray Friday morning, a representative with Public Health – Seattle & King County revealed that multiple of the agency’s grants were abruptly terminated this week amid the fallout of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s cuts to the federal Health & Human Services Department.
An announcement came on Thursday that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would restructure the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the near future, starting with 10,000 layoffs and the shuttering of entire agencies. RFK Jr. promised to do “more with less.”
Already, $11 billion in public health funding has been revoked for cities and counties, including grants right here in Washington.
Dr. Faisal Khan with Public Health – Seattle & King County said his agency learned Monday morning that three federal grants were abruptly canceled, meaning dozens of community health workers, who Faisal called critical in linking vulnerable members of the public to services, are now at risk of losing their jobs.
“We have spent years training them, embedding them with community-based organizations across the region,” Faisal said. “That is simply not something we can reconstruct if funding should return in a few months time.”
Faisal’s concern was echoed by several other experts on the call, which included former employees of the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. They fear that if the government continues to push out a generation of qualified public health employees, the public will feel their absence for years to come.
“These are highly trained, public health professionals – they have moved on, they’ve got busy personal and professional lives,” Faisal said. “We have just shot ourselves in both feet at the same time.”
Faisal said he worries about the fallout of future cuts, and how it might impact King County’s ability to respond to a public health emergency like the ongoing measles outbreak in the United States. One case recently had 300 close contacts that public health professionals had to investigate.
“At this point in time, all we can hope for is some reconsideration of this ill-considered decision, but quite frankly, it is looking pretty bleak,” Faisal said. “We’re having to look at a systematic disassembly of public health services that we’ve built up over many, many years, if not decades.