Health
Federal Agency Dedicated to Mental Illness and Addiction Faces Huge Cuts
Every day, Dora Dantzler-Wright and her colleagues distribute overdose reversal drugs on the streets of Chicago. They hold training sessions on using them and help people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction return to their jobs and families.
They work closely with the federal government through an agency that monitors their productivity, connects them with other like-minded groups and dispenses critical funds that keep their work going.
But over the last few weeks, Ms. Wright’s phone calls and emails to Washington have gone unanswered. Federal advisers from the agency’s local office — who supervise her group, the Chicago Recovering Communities Coalition, as well as addiction programs throughout six Midwestern states and 34 tribes — are gone.
“We just continue to do the work without any updates from the feds at all,” Ms. Wright said. “But we’re lost.”
By the end of this week, the staff of the agency, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, could be cut by 50 percent, according to senior staff members at the agency and congressional aides who attended briefings by Trump officials.
With just under 900 employees and a budget of $7.2 billion for large state grants and individual nonprofits that address addiction and mental illness, SAMHSA (pronounced SAM-sah) is relatively small. But it addresses two of the nation’s most urgent health problems and has generally had bipartisan support.
The agency’s broad mandate includes overseeing 988, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which fields millions of calls through state offices; regulating outpatient clinics that dispense opioid treatment drugs such as methadone; directing funds to drug courts (also called “treatment courts”); and producing nationwide annual surveys of substance use and mental health issues.
It provides best-practice training and resources for hundreds of nonprofits and state agencies, and helps establish centers that provide opioid addiction prevention, treatment and social services. It is also a federal watchdog that closely monitors the spending of taxpayer-funded grants for mental health and addiction.
Both President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the federal health secretary, whose portfolio includes SAMHSA, have been outspoken about addressing the country’s drug crises. Mr. Trump has invoked overdose fatalities as a rationale for imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. Mr. Kennedy has often discussed his ongoing recovery from heroin addiction. During his presidential campaign, he produced a documentary about the impact of addiction in the United States that also explored different treatment options.
While the rates of U.S. overdose fatalities remain high, they have been declining consistently since 2023. Many drug policy experts say SAMHSA is the federal agency most directly responsible.
“Cutting SAMHSA employees without understanding the impact is extremely dangerous, given the behavioral health crises impacting every corner of our nation,” Representatives Paul D. Tonko of New York and Andrea Salinas of Oregon wrote in a letter to Mr. Kennedy, signed by 57 Democratic House members.
Reductions in staff, they argued, could lead to a surge in relapse rates, a strain on the health care system and poorer health outcomes overall.
Asked about the pending cuts, a spokeswoman for SAMHSA replied: “The important collaboration facilitated by SAMHSA’s regional offices continues, regardless of personnel changes, and SAMHSA staff remain diligently responsive to partners around the nation.”
On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it was reducing its number of regional offices, which house agencies that include SAMHSA, from 10 to four.
Proposals to shrink staff sizes across government departments are due Thursday. In the last month, SAMHSA’s staff was reduced by roughly 10 percent through layoffs of workers in their probationary period, a designation that included people recently promoted to new positions. Last weekend, the agency’s employees and other personnel overseen by Mr. Kennedy received emails offering $25,000 to those who left their jobs by this Friday, characterized as a “voluntary separation.”
In interviews, a dozen current and former SAMHSA employees, including executives, said the threat posed by layoffs and policy shifts is beginning to be felt at sites everywhere, from the heart of troubled city neighborhoods to rural outposts. Some newer SAMHSA projects scarcely underway are in jeopardy, like one to map Chicago housing projects to better distribute the lifesaving overdose medication naloxone, and others to establish systems to speedily relay suicide intervention calls to on-the-ground response teams.
They said it was unlikely that funding for centers focused on treating the mental health or substance use disorders of specific populations, such as Black and L.G.B.T.Q. communities, would be reauthorized.
Regina LaBelle, the former acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy during the Biden administration, called the staff cuts “ shortsighted.”
“It might reduce numbers, but it also reduces oversight and accountability,” she said, by hindering the agency’s ability to monitor grant funds and collect behavioral health data.
During the Biden administration, the agency’s budget and staff grew substantially, a development that mental health and addiction experts described as an attempt to make up for persistent underfunding. In 2019, just before the onset of the pandemic, SAMHSA had about 490 full-time staff members and a budget of roughly $5.5 billion. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 70,630 overdose deaths that year.
In March 2020, the pandemic bore down. Over the next three years, annual overdose fatalities soared to well over 100,000. Mental health problems surged, including deaths by suicide. The increases to SAMHSA’s budget had bipartisan support.
Now there is widespread talk that the Trump administration may fold SAMHSA into another health agency or return staff numbers and grant funds to 2019 levels, even though rates of overdose deaths remain significantly higher than in 2019. According to the most recent C.D.C. update, between September 2023 and September 2024, roughly 87,000 people died of drug overdoses.
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Eating processed meat like ham, sausage and bacon may be linked to a higher risk of certain types of cancer, according to new research.
While health organizations have already confirmed that processed meat can contribute to colon cancer, this study looked closer at cancers in the upper digestive tract, where the link has historically been less clear.
To understand these connections, researchers from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), one of the world’s largest long-term nutrition and cancer cohorts, tracked the health and diets of 450,112 people across Europe for an average of 14 years.
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The study group included 131,426 men and 318,686 women, according to the study’s press release.
During the follow-up period, 876 people developed stomach cancer and 215 people developed esophageal adenocarcinoma, which is cancer of the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach.
For female participants, eating both processed meat and white meat was linked to an increased risk of developing the disease. (iStock)
Researchers tracked where the stomach cancers grew, separating them into the upper part of the stomach near the throat and the lower part of the stomach.
The researchers also sorted the tumors into two categories based on how the cancer cells appeared under a microscope: intestinal, which forms more organized structures, and diffuse, in which the cells are more scattered throughout the tissue.
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After adjusting for other lifestyle factors, the researchers found that for every extra 30 grams of processed meat a person ate per day, their overall risk of stomach cancer went up by 9%. Eating that same extra 30 grams a day was also linked to a 13% higher risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma.
A standard single slice of regular deli-sliced ham or lunch meat averages around 28 grams, according to USDA data and nutritional tracking databases.
An extra 20 grams of white meat, such as chicken and turkey, was linked to a 12% higher risk of cancer in the main body of the stomach. (iStock)
An extra 20 grams of white meat, such as chicken or turkey, was linked to a 12% higher risk of cancer in the main body of the stomach, the researchers noted.
The study also revealed differences between men and women. For male participants, only processed meat showed a clear, statistically significant link to a higher risk of stomach cancer. For female participants, however, eating both processed meat and white meat was linked to an increased risk.
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These findings align with global health benchmarks, particularly those established by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.
The agency has long classified processed meat as a known human carcinogen, primarily due to its strong, well-documented links to colorectal cancer.
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However, health organizations have also consistently pointed to a potential, yet less definitive, relationship between these meats and cancers of the stomach.
Eating 30 grams of processed meat a day, or the equivalent to one slice of ham, was linked to a 13% higher risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma. (iStock)
Further scientific investigation is needed to confirm the findings and to account for other underlying risk factors, such as certain stomach infections, which could interact with dietary habits.
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A key limitation of the study is its reliance on self-reported diets, which can sometimes lead to inaccuracies in how participants recall their meat consumption over time, the researchers noted.
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The findings were published in the International Journal of Cancer.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers requesting comment.
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Yoga is known to boost relaxation, strength and flexibility – and now a new study has found the practice could improve cancer survivors’ quality of life.
A randomized trial led by the University of Rochester Medical Center found that a four-week yoga program significantly reduced insomnia, fatigue, anxiety and mood disturbances after cancer treatment.
The findings were presented last week at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.
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The study was conducted across multiple U.S. community cancer care sites, including 410 adult cancer survivors averaging 54 years of age. Around 75% were breast cancer survivors, and none of them had practiced yoga regularly within the prior three months.
A randomized trial led by the University of Rochester Medical Center found that a four-week yoga program significantly reduced insomnia, fatigue, anxiety and mood disturbances in cancer survivors. (iStock)
The participants were randomly assigned to two groups. Half of them received only standard survivorship care without the yoga, while the other half received standard care and were also enrolled in the Yoga for Cancer Survivors (YOCAS) program.
As part of the YOCAS program, the survivors completed two instructor-led 75-minute yoga sessions each week, including 18 Gentle Hatha yoga and Restorative yoga poses, breathing exercises and mindfulness training.
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Based on questionnaires completed by the patients, the survivors in the yoga group experienced “moderate-to-large” reductions in overall mood disturbance, “small-to-medium” reductions in anxiety and “medium-to-large” reductions in fatigue, the study found.
The improvements in mood and fatigue appeared to be linked to yoga’s beneficial effect on sleep quality, according to the researchers.
As part of the YOCAS program, the survivors completed two instructor-led 75-minute yoga sessions each week, including 18 Gentle Hatha yoga and Restorative yoga poses, breathing exercises and mindfulness training. (iStock)
“This indicates that cancer survivors have an option to alleviate these cancer-related side effects at the same time, without adding another drug,” lead investigator Yuri Choi, PhD, of the Wilmot Cancer Institute, University of Rochester Medical Center, in Rochester, New York, told Fox News Digital.
The study did not reveal any major safety concerns or serious adverse events related to the yoga practice.
“This indicates that cancer survivors have an option to alleviate these cancer-related side effects at the same time, without adding another drug.”
The study did have some limitations, chiefly that the findings are preliminary and have not yet been peer-reviewed for a medical publication.
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“The sample in our clinical trial was relatively homogeneous, with most participants being women (96%), breast cancer patients (75%), Caucasian (93%), and having some college or higher education (82%),” noted Choi.
“We are adapting our intervention to reach all cancer patients and survivors, including the creation of a mobile app to reach people in rural communities.”
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The research also excluded patients with metastatic cancer (whose disease had spread to other parts of the body).
The total study was only four weeks, so more research is needed to determine long-term benefits.
If the findings are confirmed by peer-reviewed publications, this could lead to recommendations for structured yoga programs as a non-drug supportive therapy for cancer survivors, the researchers noted. (iStock)
If the findings are confirmed by peer-reviewed publications, this could lead to recommendations for structured yoga programs as a non-drug supportive therapy for cancer survivors, the researchers noted.
Some yoga studios may use different names for Gentle Hatha and Restorative yoga, such as Foundations Yoga or Healing Yoga, Choi noted.
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“Survivors should also look for certified yoga instructors who have experience working with cancer patients/survivors or individuals with other challenging health conditions,” the researcher advised. “They should not be afraid to ask their oncology team for referrals to qualified instructors in their community.”
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Choi also noted that the research did not reveal whether other types of yoga, such as heated-room or rigorous-flow yoga, are safe or beneficial for cancer survivors.
The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute.
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