IDSA criticizes White House 2021 budget cuts that leave US open to disease outbreaks

While the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has prompted a public health emergency declaration in the United States and renewed global concerns over pandemics, the White House 2021 budget would cut programs that help prevent infectious disease outbreaks and earned the ire of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) in the process.

IDSA experts pointed out that the current budget proposal would cut as much as $2.9 billion to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and $708 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), putting additional strain on preparedness and control efforts at home and abroad. While IDSA lauded the $58 million set aside for opioid use-related infection efforts, $716 million for HIV response, and $66 million to address vector-borne diseases, the cuts to infectious disease funding would put the public at risk, it said.

“IDSA encourages Congress to increase the federal commitment to combatting a multitude of serious infectious disease challenges,” the organization said in a statement.

Specifically, IDSA called out five areas in the fiscal year 2021 budget that it found problematically underfunded. One major area, which has concerned experts for years, is antimicrobial resistance. The latest budget slashes funding for research and antibiotic pipeline support at the same time infectious and deaths linked to drug-resistant pathogens are on the rise. IDSA notes it also cuts public health interventions designed to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use and encourage surveillance.

Other areas of concern included a reduced NIH research budget, cuts of $1 billion to global HIV programs, and reduced funding for USAID, which would reduce funding for efforts to contain emerging infections like COVID-19 and Ebola, as well as slash global immunization efforts. The White House hasn’t just hit immunization overseas, though: IDSA also noted the proposal would see CDC vaccine programs flat-funded at large, while still providing for an influenza executive order and acute flaccid myelitis efforts.