As most people who follow the news know, the House of Representatives, with a majority of Republican members, are legislating big reductions in the federal government budget. In addition, the President's budget for 2012 also proposes budget reductions. Environmental health services (EHS) is not spared from the budget axe.
EHS, a relatively modest program at CDC, is among those to be reduced by the President. EHS is targeted for a cut of about 1/3 of their budget. EHS provides significant expertise and technical assistance to state and local environmental health programs. It runs a leadership program that brings together a number of state and local personnel to help them develop more effective programs. It maintains expertise in areas like lead poisoning, rat control, reducing bed bugs,food safety, and bioterrorism that it uses to help state and local programs. It helps universities find opportunities for students to start environmental health careers.
The implementation of the food safety modernization efforts, the childhood lead poisoning program, and the healthy places programs are also threatened with severe reductions. These are the efforts most needed to improve Americans health status by eliminating environmental causes of disease and disability.
The National Environmental Health Association has responded to these concerns with letters to Congress and to the agencies. You can get more information about NEHA's responses at http://tinyurl.com/neharesponsetobudgetcuts.
This is only a first step. If you are concerned about maintaining expertise at the federal level to prevent illness, consider contacting your State's senators and your representative. The House has a web page to make this easy at https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml. Senators contact information is found here.
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