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us department of health and human services
House GOP Votes Down Amendments to Restore Funding for Meals on Wheels, AIDS Prevention
"They're happy to give even more to the wealthiest with giant tax breaks," said Rep. Mark Pocan, "but when it comes to helping people in need, there's never enough to go around."
Sep 10, 2025
House Republicans have struck down a pair of amendments to fully fund the Meals on Wheels program and AIDS prevention as part of this week's markup process for the fiscal year 2026 US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) budget.
The amendments were proposed by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) to the bill recently released by the House Appropriations Committee, which proposes to cut HHS funding by 6%.
Part of that funding comes from Meals on Wheels, the charity that provides an estimated 250 million meals each year to senior citizens unable to cook for themselves. The charity says that 9 in 10 of its providers receive some amount of federal funding and that for 60% of them, it represents more than half their operating budget.
According to Pocan, who spoke Monday on the House floor, the Republican bill underfunds the food assistance program by $600 million, which he says is likely to cost 1.9 million people their access to food.
"Republicans in the appropriations process are leaving seniors to starve," Pocan said.
Combined with the $187 billion already cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which Republicans passed in July, Pocan said it amounts to "the largest cut to food assistance in our nation's history."
Pocan juxtaposed these cuts with the "extravagant dinner" hosted this weekend at Trump's new, private White House "Rose Garden Club," which White House social media shows featured "steak and a fudge-filled seven-layer cake."
"I guess the theme of the White House event was 'let them eat cake,'" Pocan joked.
When he proposed the amendment as part of the markup process on Tuesday, Pocan spoke about his elderly mother's experience relying on the Meals on Wheels program when she dealt with mobility issues.
"I would hope that this is something where we could get together and say, 'Yeah, this should be a priority... We respect our seniors and we're going to show that through Meals on Wheels," Pocan said before his House colleagues.
Every single Republican on the Appropriations Committee voted against the amendment.
Republicans also unanimously struck down Pocan's amendment to restore nearly $2 billion for AIDS prevention cut from the House GOP bill, which makes up 25% of the total budget cuts to HHS.
In June, the Foundation for AIDS Research projected that Trump's proposal to cut $1.3 billion worth of HIV prevention funds "could cause an additional 144,000 new HIV diagnoses, 15,000 deaths, and 128,000 more people living with HIV in the US by 2030."
The Appropriations Committee budget goes even further than Trump's proposed budget released earlier this year, cutting over $1.7 billion worth of AIDS prevention funding.
It calls for the total elimination of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding to combat HIV and cuts $220 million allocated to Trump's own Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative. It also eliminates $525 million from the Ryan White Program, which provides grants to over 400 HIV/AIDS clinics providing care and treatment.
"This is not a bill for making America healthy again, but a disastrous bill that will reignite HIV in the United States," said Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute. "Eliminating all HIV prevention means the end of state and local testing and surveillance programs, educational programs, and linkage to lifesaving care and treatment, along with PrEP. It will translate into an increased number of new HIV infections, which will be costlier to treat in the long run."
After Republicans voted down his amendment to reverse these "devastating" cuts, Pocan wrote on X, "They're happy to give even more to the wealthiest with giant tax breaks, but when it comes to helping people in need, there's never enough to go around."
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RFK Jr. Is 'Compromising the Health of This Nation,' Say 1,000+ Staffers Demanding Resignation
"Under Secretary Kennedy's leadership," said the employees, "HHS policies are placing the health of all Americans at risk, regardless of their politics."
Sep 03, 2025
After a deadline passed for the nation's top health official to pledge to protect the federal public health workforce, more than 1,000 current and former employees of the US Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that "it's time for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign" from his position leading the agency.
The employees addressed their letter to Kennedy, President Donald Trump's health and human services secretary, as well as members of Congress, warning that since HHS staffers spoke out in a previous letter last month about a shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Kennedy has continued "to endanger the nation's health."
The number of signatories on the initial correspondence has grown to more than 6,800 since 750 employees signed it in August, with federal workers endorsing the concerns it raised about how Kennedy is "sowing public mistrust" and spreading misinformation about immunizations, including the measles vaccine and mRNA vaccines like the Covid-19 shot that's credited with saving millions of lives.
"Secretary Kennedy did not respond to the letter, and HHS released a statement accusing us of politicizing a tragedy," wrote the HHS workers on Wednesday. "To be clear, the HHS workforce is nonpartisan, implementing science-based policies developed under both Republican and Democratic administrations. We believe health policy should be based on strong, evidence-based principles rather than partisan politics. But under Secretary Kennedy's leadership, HHS policies are placing the health of all Americans at risk, regardless of their politics."
The letter listed ways in which Kennedy has doubled down on harming the nation's public health infrastructure since a gunman fired more than 500 rounds of ammunition into six buildings on the CDC's main campus in Atlanta, killing a police officer before he turned the gun on himself. The shooter was reportedly motivated by his "discontent" with Covid-19 vaccines and believed he and others had been injured by the immunization.
Since then, Kennedy's employees said, the secretary has:
- Facilitated the firing of Dr. Susan Monarez, the Senate-confirmed CDC director, after reportedly clashing with her on vaccine science;
- Caused the resignations of public health officials at the CDC;
- Appointed idealogues "who pose as scientific experts and manipulate data to fit predetermined conclusions," including mRNA vaccine opponent Retsef Levi, the leader of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' Covid-19 work group, and ACIP member Robert Malone, who "has made multiple inaccurate claims regarding Covid-19 and measles";
- Refused to be briefed on vaccine-preventable diseases by CDC experts;
- Disparaged the American Academy of Pediatrics for recommending the Covid-19 vaccine for children; and
- Made "ongoing verbal attacks" on the HHS workforce, including by stating, "Trusting experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy."
The workers noted that they "swore an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution and to serve the American people" and are bound to "speak out when the Constitution is violated and the American people are put at risk."
"Thus, we warn the president, Congress, and the public that Secretary Kennedy's actions are compromising the health of this nation, and we demand Secretary Kennedy's resignation," said the HHS employees.
Should Kennedy refuse to resign, the workers wrote, the president and Congress must appoint a new secretary of health and human services—"one whose qualifications and experience ensure that health policy is informed by independent and unbiased peer-reviewed science."
"We expect those in leadership to act when the health of Americans is at stake," said the employees.
Last week, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote an op-ed in the The New York Times demanding Kennedy's resignation, citing Monarez' ouster and warning of the danger of Kennedy's "advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts."
"Covid is just the beginning," said Sanders. "Mr. Kennedy's next target may be the childhood immunization schedule, the list of recommended vaccines that children receive to protect them from diseases like measles, chickenpox, and polio."
The signatories of Wednesday's letter, who work at HHS agencies including the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the office of the secretary, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, noted that in addition to the named signers, anonymous employees endorsed the letter.
The signers "speak for countless others across HHS who share our concerns but who chose not to sign out of well-founded fear of retaliation and threats to personal safety," reads the letter.
The signers also urged members of the public to join the push for Kennedy to resign or be removed, calling on them to use the 5 Calls platform to contact their elected representatives and demand Congress take action to "hold him accountable for his careless statements and actions that are endangering the health and safety of every American."
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'Endangering Every American's Health': 9 Former CDC Chiefs Sound Alarm on RFK Jr.
Their "astonishing, powerful op-ed," said one professor, "drives home what we are losing and what's already been lost."
Sep 01, 2025
Nearly every living former director or acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from the past half-century took to the pages of The New York Times on Monday to jointly argue that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "is endangering every American's health."
"Collectively, we spent more than 100 years working at the CDC, the world's preeminent public health agency. We served under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations," Drs. William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle Walensky, and Mandy Cohen highlighted.
What RFK Jr. "has done to the CDC and to our nation's public health system over the past several months—culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as CDC director days ago—is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced," the nine former agency leaders wrote.
Known for spreading misinformation about vaccines and a series of scandals, Kennedy was a controversial figure long before President Donald Trump chose him to lead HHS—a decision that Senate Republicans affirmed in February. However, in the wake of Monarez's ouster, fresh calls for him to resign or be fired have mounted.
This is powerful. Nine former CDC leaders just came together to defend SCIENCE.Maybe it’s time we LISTEN TO THEM—not the loud voices spreading MISINFORMATION.Science saves lives. Lies cost themwww.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
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— Krutika Kuppalli, MD FIDSA (@krutikakuppalli.bsky.social) September 1, 2025 at 10:35 AM
As the ex-directors detailed:
Secretary Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence, and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he's focused on unproven "treatments" while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill-prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of US support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez—which led to the resignations of top CDC officials—adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.
Monarez was nominated by Trump, and was confirmed by Senate Republicans in late July. As the op-ed authors noted, she was forced out by RFK Jr. just weeks later, after she reportedly refused "to rubber-stamp his dangerous and unfounded vaccine recommendations or heed his demand to fire senior CDC staff members."
"These are not typical requests from a health secretary to a CDC director," they wrote. "Not even close. None of us would have agreed to the secretary's demands, and we applaud Dr. Monarez for standing up for the agency and the health of our communities."
After Monarez's exit, Trump tapped Jim O'Neill, an RFK Jr. aide and biotech investor, as the CDC's interim director. Critics including Robert Steinbrook, director of Public Citizen's health research group, warn that "unlike Susan Monarez, O'Neill is likely to rubber-stamp dangerous vaccine recommendations from HHS Secretary Kennedy's handpicked appointees to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and obey orders to fire CDC public health experts with scientific integrity."
The agency's former directors didn't address O'Neill, but they wrote: "To those on the CDC staff who continue to perform their jobs heroically in the face of the excruciating circumstances, we offer our sincere thanks and appreciation. Their ongoing dedication is a model for all of us. But it's clear that the agency is hurting badly."
"We have a message for the rest of the nation as well: This is a time to rally to protect the health of every American," they continued. The experts called on Congress to "exercise its oversight authority over HHS," and state and local governments to "fill funding gaps where they can." They also urged philanthropy, the private sector, medical groups, and physicians to boost investments, "continue to stand up for science and truth," and support patients "with sound guidance and empathy."
Doctors, researchers, journalists, and others called their "must-read" piece "extraordinary" and "important."
"Just an astonishing, powerful op-ed that drives home what we are losing and what's already been lost," said University of Michigan Law School professor Leah Litman. "We are so incredibly fortunate to live with the advances [of] modern medicine and health science. Destroying and stymying it is just unforgivable."
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