At 6 a.m. on March 25, Philip Huang, director of the Dallas County Health and Human Services department, got a devastating email. Millions of dollars in federal grants that the health agency had were suddenly gone.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had just rescinded about $12 billion from thousands of state and local health agencies, including Huang’s.
Some of that money was part of a COVID-19 recovery program that health departments were using to beef up testing for many diseases, including bird flu and measles as well as COVID-19. In Dallas, it was going toward a public health lab to expand such testing. Also on the