A group of 30 senators is pressing HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reverse the cancellation of roughly 150 federal patient safety research grants and restore the funding behind them.
In an Aug. 12 letter led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the lawmakers called on HHS to rescind terminations that took effect July 15 and disrupted nearly 200 research programs across 30 states. All 30 senators are Democrats.
The grants were awarded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the only federal agency dedicated to health services research. The senators said the agency has obligated just 5% of its extramural grant funding since Oct. 1, leaving roughly $200 million unspent for the fiscal year.
“This unprecedented action … undermines decades of taxpayer investments to improve healthcare delivery, patient safety, and health outcomes for all Americans,” the senators wrote.
The letter cited projects cut midstream, including maternal emergency training in Connecticut, fall-risk reduction in rural Colorado hospitals, an effort to curb unnecessary antibiotic use in Utah and research using AI to predict hospitalizations in Wisconsin.
The senators set an Aug. 25 deadline for a response and laid out several demands. Among them: Restore the canceled grants, obligate the AHRQ’s full fiscal 2026 appropriation, submit a spending plan for the remaining $200 million by Oct. 1 and provide written assurance that arbitrary cancellations will not recur.
HHS has defended the cuts. An agency spokesperson previously told Becker’s that the AHRQ “determined that certain non-competing continuation grants and jointly funded grants would not receive continuation awards,” citing a statutory requirement that the AHRQ director judge whether continued funding serves the federal government’s interest.
Independent tallies of the cancellations continue to climb as grants are verified. As of mid-August, a tracker maintained by AcademyHealth counted 117 canceled grants across 32 states, representing $264.2 million in total award value — including $123.8 million already invested.
The letter is the latest pushback against a steep contraction at the AHRQ. The agency’s staff fell from about 300 in 2024 to roughly 90 — the sharpest workforce cut of any HHS subagency as of February — and its grant review panel has not convened in a year. The Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal would fold the AHRQ into a new Office of Strategy and cut roughly one-third of its funding, describing its research as “wasteful and duplicative.”
Two physician groups sued HHS in August 2025 over the grant stoppage, arguing it violates statutory funding requirements.
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