Earlier this year, Kennedy canceled nearly 700 CDC grants across the country. Those grants, worth about $11B for local public health, have deliverables focusing on things like vaccination programs, reducing health gaps between groups, updating old systems to track diseases, and hiring community health workers.
At first, the cuts hit both red and blue states about the same. But then, attorneys general and governors in about two dozen states with Democratic Attorney’s General (including Arizona) took the federal government to court.
Judges blocked many of the cuts via injunctions (so far), and the results between states that sued and those that didn’t are huge. States that joined the lawsuits (like AZ) got back almost all of their CDC money (80%). States that didn’t sue got back less than 5%.
The federal government wanted to cut 17 CDC grants in Arizona, worth more than $239 million. Because Attorney General Kris Mayes joined the lawsuit, Arizona county health departments kept nearly all of that funding (so far) – losing just one grant.
That’s especially important because CDC money makes up more than half of what local health departments rely on to do their work.
These lawsuits are still working their way through the courts and a final decision on the legality of Kennedy’s cuts is yet to be determined. But, for the time being Arizona is receiving help from having a talented Attorney General interested in doing what she can to protect Arizona’s public health infrastructure.
