'Terrifying': Trump cuts CDC's drowning-prevention team [View all]
Source: Politico
05/26/2025 06:00 AM EDT
Water safety officials usually spend Memorial Day weekend warning families that more toddlers die from drowning than any other cause. This year, fewer people will know about the risk. In April, President Donald Trump laid off the team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention responsible for tracking and publicizing drownings. That team also worked with partners like the YMCA and the American Red Cross to get at-risk children into swimming lessons. That collaboration has halted.
The cuts come at a perilous moment. Drowning deaths rose during the pandemic, hitting 4,300 in 2023, the most recent data, compared to around 4,000 in 2019. They rose even more among the youngest children, ages 1 to 4, for whom drowning is the No. 1 cause of death — numbers published by the soon-to-be-terminated team.
“I can’t tell you how many media calls we got after that report was released, because I think it was a shocking number to people, and they wanted to know what’s going on,” said Amy Hill, who works on Chicago’s water safety task force, referring to a CDC study released last May. “When the CDC issues a report like that, people pay attention.”
States will continue to report drownings through the CDC’s National Vital Statistics System, but the data will no longer have a team to analyze it. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said the Trump administration was not ending its support for drowning prevention efforts and that HHS would continue to support them.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/26/the-pools-open-trumps-laid-off-the-team-that-helps-protect-swimmers-00363426
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