Zoe Berg, Staff Photographer

After losing over $150 million in federal public health funding last week, Connecticut joined 22 other states in suing the Trump administration over what it calls a harmful and unlawful rollback.

The cuts, announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on March 27, terminated grants that supported programs across the Connecticut Department of Public Health — or DPH — the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services — or DMHAS — and the Office of Early Childhood. The rescinded funding had enabled initiatives such as newborn screenings, infectious disease surveillance, immunization campaigns and community-based addiction treatment. Several of such programs had longstanding ties to Yale through research collaborations, public health partnerships and training pipelines for medical and public health students, concerning researchers and professors across the university.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong joined attorneys general from states including California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and Pennsylvania in the lawsuit, which seeks an immediate injunction to prevent further terminations and reinstate the grants. The complaint alleges that the administration’s actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act, which prohibits federal agencies from making abrupt policy changes without public notice or justification.

Connecticut’s legal response has drawn support from Yale faculty who see the lawsuit as a critical step toward preserving public health infrastructure. Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, assistant professor at the School of Medicine, said she supports the legal challenge and sees it as essential to protecting Connecticut’s health infrastructure.

“It’s a good sign that the state is taking this seriously and pushing back,” she told the News. “But I worry that without immediate relief, the damage to public health capacity and research will already be done.”

State officials have said the funding terminations will force the cancellation of dozens of contracts, including 48 local immunization partnerships and regional behavioral health services, according to the press release from Gov. Ned Lamont. 

The grants, authorized by Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic, were designed to bolster long-term infrastructure for disease monitoring, rural outreach and public health modernization, according to Lamont’s press release. Now, health providers and local agencies are bracing for service disruptions as programs wind down.

“These abrupt and unexpected cuts to our health system are going to have a devastating impact on our ability to fight disease, protect the health of newborns, provide mental health and addiction treatment services and keep people safe,” Gov. Lamont said in a March 27 press release.

In the press release, Lamont emphasized that the rescinded funds were not short-term emergency relief, but multi-year investments intended to sustain long-term public health readiness. 

Commissioner of Public Health Manisha Juthani said the grants helped build “core public health functions,” and warned that the loss of funding would severely limit the state’s ability to detect and respond to emerging threats.

The state’s preliminary review shows that several programs are already paused or shuttered, including mobile vaccine clinics, newborn screening enhancements and genomic surveillance equipment installation. The Office of Early Childhood’s Family Bridge Program, which sends nurses to visit families of newborns, is also slated for defunding.

Dr. Sandy Chang ’88, former dean of STEM education and professor of Laboratory Medicine, said the effects of the funding cuts are likely to ripple through both the public and academic health systems.

“All the public health initiatives that Connecticut has been doing — immunization, early cancer detection — are going to go away,” he told the News. “It’s going to impact the most needy people, the people who need critical care and are supported by these initiatives.”

Chang added that beyond community-level consequences, the rollback of funding may hinder clinical research collaborations and preventative medicine programs at Yale and other academic institutions. Many of these programs depend on state and federal support to operate, especially those serving vulnerable populations in New Haven and other underserved regions.

Public health experts have also raised concerns about Connecticut’s future preparedness for pandemics or other health emergencies. According to the state’s impact assessment, the termination of electronic disease reporting and syndromic surveillance tools will limit the state’s ability to track outbreaks in real time or coordinate with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Chang said the sudden removal of infrastructure funding puts the state in a weaker position to respond to future disease outbreaks. 

“Preventative medicine, future pandemic response—all of that’s going to be curtailed,” he said. “If there’s another COVID — or something like it — we’re crippled. Not just us, but the CDC and global monitoring efforts as well.”

Yale faculty have also highlighted the consequences of these changes for research and workforce development. Ramachandran noted that some public health staff funded by these grants have already been laid off, including those working on newborn screening programs. She said the effects of the cuts will extend beyond service access.

“This funding is critical not just for delivering public health interventions, but for evaluating whether they actually work,” Ramachandran said. “We’re going to see a huge narrowing of the pipeline of people coming into academic medicine and research.”

Ramachandran added that the loss of surveillance capacity may further strain healthcare systems already dealing with increased respiratory illness. She cited the recent severe flu season in Connecticut, which left hospital emergency departments over capacity, as an example of the risks posed by limited state-level coordination and real-time tracking tools.

Economists are also critical of the cuts. Jason Abaluck, a professor at the School of Management, said that federal public health and NIH funding consistently show high social return on investment, especially in biomedical innovation and pharmaceutical development. He noted that reductions in funding are likely to reduce research productivity and innovation across the country.

“You get a lot less research, and that research is on the margin clearly worth that spending,” Abaluck told the News. “Even if only a small portion of NIH grants lead to new drug development, the health and economic value generated is significant.”

Abaluck explained that while the $150 million in lost funding represents a small fraction of Connecticut’s economy, the targeted removal of low-cost, high-impact prevention programs could lead to higher downstream costs — both in healthcare spending and public health outcomes.

The multistate lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, expands on these concerns. The plaintiffs argue that the Department of Health and Human Services provided no rationale for terminating the grants, failed to consult with stakeholders and ignored the severe consequences to state and local health systems.

“The Department’s abrupt decision to terminate funding for vital public health infrastructure programs threatens the health and safety of millions of people,” the complaint reads. “These funds were lawfully appropriated by Congress and relied upon by states and territories across the nation.”

As litigation over the funding cuts proceeds, state officials say they will continue to evaluate which programs may be preserved or restored through alternate means. Faculty members like Ramachandran believe the lawsuit is a necessary step, but warn that even a successful legal challenge may come too late to reverse the short-term damage. 

“Programs have already stopped, and people have already lost their jobs,” she said. “The long-term effects may last far beyond this funding cycle.”