The Department of Health and Human Services has terminated seven grants totaling millions of dollars to the American Academy of Pediatrics, escalating its confrontation with the group, which is suing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy.
The grants supported initiatives aimed at reducing sudden infant deaths, improving teen and young adult health, preventing birth defects, such as fetal alcohol syndrome, and identifying autism early, according to an academy spokesperson.
The cuts were first reported by The Washington Post.
In an emailed statement, Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesperson, said the grants “were canceled along with a number of other grants to other organizations because they no longer align with the Department’s mission or priorities.”
When NBC News asked about the agency’s priorities, Nixon responded by sending links to “about” pages on websites of HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration.
Mark Del Monte, the academy’s CEO and executive vice president, said the group learned this week that the grants had been terminated and was now exploring “all available options, including legal recourse.”
“The Academy is proud of this work, and of the staff, pediatricians, and partners who were engaged in these important programs,” he said in a statement. “The sudden withdrawal of these funds will directly impact and potentially harm infants, children, youth, and their families in communities across the United States.”
Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy expert and professor of law at the UC Law San Francisco, said the agency could face legal trouble if it doesn’t provide a reasonable explanation for the grant cuts, adding that the government can’t use funding as a tool to punish free speech.
Reiss added the agency’s move aligns with other actions by the administration, including mass job cuts to departments involved with protecting the health and safety of the public.
The cuts “shows callousness towards children’s health and lives, and is not what we want or expect from our health department,” she said.
In July, the academy, along with several other major medical organizations, sued Kennedy and HHS over actions they called a “public health emergency that demands immediate legal action and correction.”
The suit followed several high-profile moves by Kennedy that, critics say, has undercut vaccine confidence in the United States. That includes firing all of the members of a key vaccine panel of experts, known as Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and replacing them with new members, many of whom are critical of vaccines.
In response, the academy, which had participated in the panel’s meetings as a liaison member, announced in June that it was boycotting the meetings.
Late Tuesday, the CDC formally adopted that panel’s recommendation on the hepatitis B vaccine, rolling back decades-old guidance that all newborns get their first dose within 24 hours. The new recommendations say women who test negative for the virus can consult health care providers about whether their babies get the vaccine that early. (Acute cases of hepatitis B in children plummeted by 99% after the CDC introduced the guidance for newborns in 1991.)
The CDC, under Kennedy, also removed a recommendation that children and pregnant women get a Covid shot.
After decades of leaning on the CDC, many states have shifted toward guidance from newly formed public health alliances and professional medical groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics.
