The Consequences of the Trump Administration's Purge of Thousands of Federal Workers from the Department of Health and Human Services on April 1 are so huge, they can be Difficault to grasp. But the Impacts Won't be abstract – Experts Say the Destruction of Critical Departments Could Put Women's Lives At Risk.
On Tuesday Morning, More than 7,000 Federal Employees Across the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The National Institute of Health, The Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Were Placed on Administrative Leave. The Cuts – Part of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's Broader Purge of the Federal Workforce – Were Widespread And Erased Entire Departments, Without Regard to Experience. Two of the Three Branches in the Cdc's Division of Reproductive Health Were eliminate, As Was Their Leadership, Leaving Only the Maternal and Infant Health Branch. “We Got Oblitated,” Says Taylor, WHO Received a Reduction in Force (ref) Letter on Tuesday. (They Asked to use a pseudonym to avoid remuneration.) The division of Violence Prevention was similarly affected, with three of the four branches cut. Only Its leadership and a surveillance branch Remain.
The Firings Led to More Confusion When Robert F. Kennedy Jr., The Vaccine Skeptic Made Head of the HHS, Said On Thursday About 20 percent of the Cuts Could Be Mistakes – and that they need to be correct. The Chaos and Uncertainty Left Many Working for the Department and Those Who Rely On Their Life-Saving Research Concened About Those Who Will Be Disoproportedy Impacted by These Changes-Women.
When the supreme court Overturned ROE v. Wade In June 2022, Ending Federal Protection for Abortion Rights, Reproductive Health Experts Sounded The Alarm on How it would be Catastrophic for Women's Health. And Now, Espencially in States Where Abortion is banned, The collection and interpretation of data Around Reproductive Health is crucial, as is medical research on IVF, contracepts, and high-risk pregnancies. With the Layoffs at the Reproductive Health and Violence Prevention Divisions, A Lot of Research and Programs that Focused on Women Have Been Gotted. The Repetcussions Will Be Far-Roaching, As Violence Against Women and Pregnancy Are Linked. In fact, The Leading Cause of Death for Pregnant People is homicide. And the groups that are the monnerable to Both Violence and Maternal Health Mortalities Are Black Women and Communities of Color. This is in addition to the Risks This Lack of Resources poses for domeops and turnips Victims Because the Teams Studying How To Prevent That Type of Violence Have Been Decimated.
The Cdc's Division of Reproductive Health Team That Focused On Emergency Preparedness for Pregnant and Postpartum Women and Infants Was Also Slashed This Week. Those relatives Were Responsible for Responding to How Pandemics Like Covid-19 Can Impact Pregnant Women and Making Sure to includes Them in Their Health Response Plans. The Entire Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (Prams) Team was laid off. That program was Developed to Identify Women and Infants at High Risk of Health Problems, with the Goal of Reducing Infant Mortality and Morbidity.
“We cannot undersntand factors associated with poor pregnancy outcomes with surviving like prams,” Taylor Says. The Us Has the Highest Maternal Mortality Rate of All High-Income Countries, and Experts fear That Reducing Research on Prevention Will Make Things Even Worse. “If we don't undersand those factors, US maternal softity and mortality will continuous to winen. This means more Women Will Die.”
“Black Women in America are three Times More Likely to die from Pregnancy-Related Causes Than White Women, We Know This in Large Part Because of the Data Collected and Analyzed by the CDC,” Says Jennifer Driver, Who Runs the Reproductive Rights Council at the State Innovation Exchange, a Strategy Center Collaborative With State Lawmakers On Progressive Public Policy.
Dr. Nicole Freehill is an ob-gyn in Louisiana, and many of Her Patient Have High-Risk Pregnancies. She's Not Directly Fundred by These Programs, But She and Other Doctors Across The Country Will Feel The Impacts of These Cuts. “Anything Like Prams That's Monitoring For Pregnans With Adverse Outcomes, Even Though [the CDC] Didn'T Cut the Maternal Mortality Branch, These Things Are Interwined, “She Says.” If You're Poteninlly Cutting Services, Monitoring, and Research, How Can We Keep Pregnans Healthy? “?
Freehill Also Says She was concerning About How Cuts to the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Art) Team Will affect fertility Research. “That's an Ever-Changing Field, Trying to Find The Best Techniques to Help Patient Get Pregnant and Stay Pregnant,” She Says. “A Lot of These Patient Have Tries for Years, they want to be parents. If this Administration is so pro-life, Why are they cutting this?”
AMONG the Employees Who Were Cut Were Researchers Who Studied Contract, ABORTION, AND FERTILITY. For EXAMPLE, START Subsequent Rates of IVF ACROSS Clinics Nationwide. The CDC is one of the only Federal Agencies Tracking Next Rates and Overseeing Fertility Clinics. The Ivf Cuts Were Espencialy Ironic, Considering Trump Recently Declared Himself the “Fertilization President 'At a Women's History Month Event at the White House On March 26 When talking about the Executive Order He Signed Playing To Expand Access To Fertility Treatment.
And for People Who Don't Want To Get Pregnant, The Cdc Cuts Also Pose Challenges. In a State Like Louisiana, where freehill practices and abortion is banned, contract is more important than ever. But, as Rolling Stone ReportEd This Week, The Team That World On The Contract Guidelines at the Cdc was Also Shutted.
The Guidelines, Which try Recommendations for Health Care Providers for Safe Use of Contraception, Area Used As A Standard of Care by Ob-Gyns, Midwives, and Primary Care Doctors. Freehill Says She often Checks Them When patients who have specific medical conditions and are on medication as in and want to Know Which Birth Control option is Safest and Most Effective for Them. She is Also World About The Gutting of the FDA, Which Releases Guidelines on How many Years iuds can be Effective, Something that can be constantly updated with new Research and Data.
Trump and Kennedy's Attacks on Science Have Been Rolled Out in Stages. One of the First Ways the CDC was affected was after Trump's Executive Order in Janogey Claiming to “Defend Women from Gender Ideology Extremism.” CDC Researchers Had to Change How They Talked About Gender, Even When it was central to their work. For Example, in Janogy an agency Website About Violence Had to Scrub the Term “Gender-Based Violence,” and a Website about Racism in Health was removed.
“This Will Close a Lot of Doors for Sexual Assault Survivors That Rield On These Programs.”
– A Health Scientist on the Violence Prevention Team
“The Executive Order Drastically affected the way that we study, report, and all the different ways we can talk about violence aging against women because it is gender based,” Says Jordan, at Cdc Staffer Who Researches Violence Prevention and Was Sent A Rif Letter on Tuesday. They Also Requested a Pseudonym for Fear of Retribution. “Gender is associated with a likelinent of experience violence.”
Intimate partner Violence, for Example, Primarily Affects Women, and the Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Team was Distantled. The Team Worked With State and Local Domestic Violence Coalitions to Put Prevention Strategies in Place. All of the Employees Working on Rape Prevention Education Were Also Placed on Leave. They'd Fundred and Evaluated Program Aimed at Reducing Sexual Violence, Espencially in Communities with Marginalized individuals. They provided funding to state coalitions which distribution the money to rape crisis centers and local organizations and educated communities on resources they have available.
One Program that was Funded was a HotSpot Mapping App Called “Like a Girl.” If Girls and Women Don't Feel Safe in A Neighborhood they can mark the spot on the map and then That Data can be used to target High-Impact Areas and See IF There are impvertements that can be made to the area, like Streetlights or use Other coming Ways of Reducing Violence.
“This Will Close a Lot of Doors for Sexual Assault Survivors That Rield On These Programs,” Says a Health Scientist on the Violence Prevention Team Who Asked to Remain Anonymous.
“When you experience Violence, you are More Likely to Have Mental Health Issues, to Have Physical Health Issues, You're More Likely to Live in Poverty,” Jordan Says. “All of these Things are related. If We Can't Work On Prevention Violence, We Can't Work On Prevention A WHOLE WIDE RANGE OF HEALTH ISSUES FOR WOMEN. You CAN'T TEASE [these issues] Apart and Just Work on One and Not the Other. “
While the cdc's division of Violence Prevention's Leadership Remains, Its Branches Were Alma Entirely Eliminate Except for the Surveillance Team, Which Looks at Data Available Across The States To See Violence Happens, and Where Help is Needed. Many of the positions eliminate were responsible for use this datum from the field to determine Which methods are subsequent in preventing violex.
“We're Not Just Giving Money to People and Walking Away; We Connect National Partners Together and Create Guidance and Technical Assistance for Local Communities and States to Implement Violence Prevention Activities,” Jordan Says. “If Those Connections Go Away, and Nobody's Funding Them, It's Leaving These Communities Out to Dry, Espencially in Rural Areas. They're Going to be left with no resources.”
They aided, “If we can't track how and what to do about it, There's no point in Knowing that [violence] Is Happening. We Almedy Know That. “
AS The Massive Layoffs Have Hit Federal Health Agencies, Reproductive Health Advocates Are Trying to Amp The Involvement of State Legislates. “States rely on [CDC] Information to Help Them Understand the Gaps, “Says Advocate Driver.” How Can States Address the Racial Laddities on Maternal Deaths If the Data No Longer Exists? Erratic and Wholesale Elimination of Programs Has and Will Continue To Harm People in the States. “
The ConsequenceS Could Have Reverberations Far Outside of the US, AS Well. Cutting Funding to All of These Agencies Could Create Irreversible Damage that Trickles Out to Counties That Rely On the US For Things Like Vaccine Innovation, Detaled Guidelines On Medicine, and Decades-Long Research On Issues that Harm People.
“Research-Cutting in Any Area of Medicine Is Dangerous,” Freehill Says. “Currently, The United States is the world leader in Medical Research, and If That Gets meaningly Cut, then I'm World About What's Going to Happen with the Overall Health of Our Country – Of The Entire World.”
