Trump Has Quietly Throttled an Agency Devoted to the Safety of American Healthcare

The Trump administration has effectively shut down most of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s activities, closing the spigot on federal funding estimated to have saved thousands of lives and billions of dollars over the past 27 years by improving medical practice. In a July 15 letter, the small Department of Health and Human Services agency known as AHRQ told researchers it was halting at least 104 grants, many aimed at improving patient safety. Although Congress appropriated $345 million for AHRQ for this fiscal year, the agency has spent less than $15 million on grants and hasn’t issued a new one in over a year, according to a review of federal records. About 75% of agency staffers have been fired or quit since President Donald Trump took office last year, according to HHS. Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have sought to slash the federal government’s investment in biomedical research, terminating grants and forcing scientists out of agencies across the health department. The gutting of AHRQ strikes some of the administration’s critics as particularly shortsighted, though, because of the agency’s noncontroversial focus on patient safety and its overall ...