The impact of recent cuts to federal programs on pulmonology and respiratory health will range from asthma care to smoking cessation to the prevention of environmental and occupational health risks, according to a press release from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA).
The cuts come as rates of asthma and allergic diseases in the United States continue to rise, said AAFA president Kenneth Mendez in a statement.
“Losing CDC [US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] personnel dedicated to asthma means fewer experts working on asthma surveillance, public health initiatives, and air quality protections, leaving millions of Americans even more vulnerable,” he said.
“Key public health programs that clinicians depend on to provide resources to their patients, such as smoking cessation, environmental health, vaccination, and others, may be lost entirely at the state and local levels,” Mendez said in an interview.
“The elimination of all staff at the CDC’s National Asthma Control Program (NACP) effectively guts this program and means the state governments and nonprofit organizations that use NACP resources will no longer have access to them,” Mendez told Medscape Medical News. “The NACP grants are funded through August 31, 2025, with no guarantee that funding will be extended for the state or NGO [nongovernmental organization] recipients,” he said.
“The NACP supported 29 state, territorial, and municipal health departments and four nongovernmental organizations to ensure the availability of and access to guidelines-based medical management and pharmacotherapy for people with asthma,” Mendez said. In the absence of federal programs, organizations like AAFA can provide some resources to clinicians and patients, Mendez said.
“While we cannot replace the work of entire federal programs and thousands of support staff, we can offer information, guidance, and a network for patients to connect. We encourage healthcare professionals to explore our resources at aafa.org and reach out to us as needed,” he said.
However, “There is no viable replacement for the CDC’s programs,” Mendez emphasized. “The work they do cannot be replicated by private corporations, state health departments, or nonprofit organizations; these critical programs must be restored,” he said.
To that end, AAFA urges clinicians and patients to join the campaign and help protect pulmonary health programs that affect all Americans.
Navigating Changes in Care
Looking ahead, “Clinicians should start exploring alternatives for providing resources to patients,” Mendez told Medscape Medical News. “AAFA is among the groups able to provide relevant information to patients on issues such as symptom management, treatment options, and Asthma Action Plans,” he said. “It is imperative that clinicians and other stakeholders act now to preserve resources and materials and develop alternative sources for guidance and support,” he added.
Reduction or elimination of programs and experts in areas of environmental health, smoking cessation, and occupational safety will increase healthcare costs and result in worse health outcomes.
The nonprofit Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Foundation also issued a statement expressing concerns about the impact of funding cuts and staff reductions on pulmonary health and urging government officials to allow continued support for COPD from the US Department of Health and Human Services.
“The COPD Foundation is extremely concerned with widespread reports of major staff reductions across the US Department of Health and Human Services, including in the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products and the Centers for Disease Control’s Office on Smoking and Health,” the Foundation leadership wrote.
“These resources are critical to addressing the public health crisis of lung disease in the United States, where 16 million Americans have been diagnosed with COPD and millions more remain undiagnosed,” according to the statement.
Clinicians and Communities Will Be Stranded
“The impact of the cuts to essential programs like research on workplace-related diseases — think occupational asthma or silicosis — will be massive,” said Alexander Rabin, MD, a pulmonologist and critical care physician at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, in an interview. “These federal experts have the know-how and experience to protect patients from injuries and emerging threats; if these programs disappear, state and local communities and respiratory clinicians, who rely on federal guidance, will be left in the lurch,” he said.
“State and local public health authorities and academic institutions will try to take up the slack, but with draconian cuts planned to all manner of research, the damage to patients’ long-term health will be severe,” said Rabin, who recently co-authored an essay in The New York Times on the impact of recent federal actions on pulmonary science. “Covid-19 showed how under-resourced our public health authorities were. Now imagine what will happen if another respiratory epidemic takes hold,” he added.
In response to planned federal actions, clinicians need to stay engaged and speak out to try to prevent cuts to essential programs, Rabin told Medscape Medical News. “Once programs are slashed, it will be very difficult to rebuild them,” he said.
Rabin had no financial conflicts to disclose.
