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Two significant programs that invested in research on diabetes, dementia, obesity and kidney disease have ended since the start of the Trump administration.
- April 7, 2025, 9:27 a.m. ET
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spoken of an “existential threat” that he said can destroy the nation.
“We have the highest chronic disease burden of any country in the world,” Mr. Kennedy said at a hearing in January before the Senate confirmed him as the secretary of Health and Human Services.
And on Monday he is starting a tour in the Southwest to promote a program to combat chronic illness, emphasizing nutrition and lifestyle.
But since Mr. Kennedy assumed his post, key grants and contracts that directly address these diseases, including obesity, diabetes and dementia, which experts agree are among the nation’s leading health problems, are being eliminated.
These programs range in scale and expense. Researchers warn that their demise could mean lost opportunities to address an aspect of public health that Mr. Kennedy has said is his priority.
“This is a huge mistake,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the co-director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
Decades of Diabetes Research Discontinued
Ever since its start in 1996, the Diabetes Prevention Program has helped doctors understand this deadly chronic disease. The condition is the nation’s most expensive, affecting 38 million Americans and incurring $306 billion in one recent year in direct costs. With about 400,000 deaths in 2021, it was the eighth leading cause of death.
