May 05, 2025 02:36 PM UTC

Pettersen Pushes RFK Jr. to Protect Overdose Prevention Program

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Trump administration continues its quest to cut funding for programs that help keep Americans alive, Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen (D-Lakewood) is making a specific request to preserve overdose prevention programs that are on the chopping block.

As John Aguilar reports for The Denver Post:

Pettersen implored U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. not to slash funding for naloxone in a letter the Colorado congresswoman sent Monday.

The medication has proven extremely effective in stopping opioid overdoses, a leading cause of death among young people. The Lakewood Democrat personalized her letter, which was shared with The Denver Post ahead of it being sent to Kennedy, by invoking the traumatic experience her mother went through battling a decades-long addiction to pain pills after suffering a back injury.

“In one year alone, my mom overdosed more than 20 times and even overdosed three times in a single day. But she is one of the lucky ones,” Pettersen wrote. “Time and time again, she was administered naloxone, and eventually, she was finally able to receive the treatment she needed.”

The congresswoman asked for a meeting or a phone call with the Cabinet secretary to “discuss how to best help people survive this epidemic and get into recovery.”

The Trump administration is in the midst of proposing cuts to HHS’s funding and planning layoffs at the massive health agency as part of a larger effort to dramatically downsize the federal government…

…Specifically, Pettersen asked Kennedy to spare the potential elimination of the Overdose Prevention program and the First Responder Training program under the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration as part of the administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget request. [Pols emphasis]

You can read the full text of Pettersen’s letter HERE.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been doing exactly what (most) Democrats feared when he was nominated for the Cabinet position in the Trump administration: Rolling back health and safety programs in favor of junk science and conspiracy theory nonsense. As USA Today reports, 19 states — including Colorado — have filed a lawsuit opposing proposed food safety cuts at HHS:

New York Attorney General Letitia James and 18 other Democratic state attorneys general are filing a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by shrinking its size and laying off employee who oversee the nation’s food and health care systems.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in March announced a major restructuring plan including the consolidation of divisions from 28 to 15 and elimination of 20,000 full-time employees, saying it would save taxpayers $1.8 billion per year.

In a statement on May 5, James said the states’ lawsuit in Rhode Island U.S. district court takes aim at Kennedy Jr.’s “reckless, irrational, and dangerous” efforts that erase decades of public health progress and leaves the federal government “unable to execute many of its most vital functions.” It also decried the federal employees at HHS who were locked out of their work emails and computers on April 1, as well as abandoned experiments, canceled site visits and trainings and shuttered laboratories.

In related news, European nations are trying to lure America’s brightest scientific minds across the pond in the midst of continued funding cuts at HHS and throughout the federal government. As The New York Times explains:

As the Trump administration slashes support to research institutions and threatens to freeze federal funding to universities like Harvard and Columbia, European leaders are offering financial help to U.S.-based researchers and hoping to benefit from what they are calling a “gigantic miscalculation.”

“Nobody could imagine a few years ago that one of the great democracies of the world would eliminate research programs on the pretext that the word ‘diversity’ appeared in its program,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Monday.

We may not be making America greater, but we’re well on our way to becoming sicker and dumber.