Health department warns CDC cuts could remove $1.1M from tobacco control; seeks recovery-housing pilot and aftercare navigators

Department of Health officials on April 17 told the Vermont Senate Appropriations Committee that federal changes at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention threaten roughly $1.1 million in annual tobacco-control funding and that proposed state budget moves could reduce cessation and prevention services that the department says have driven Vermont’s strong quit-line outcomes.

Maura Cook, introduced for the record as division director for health promotion and disease prevention at the Vermont Department of Health, told the committee the CDC Office of Smoking and Health was eliminated and that, as a result, “we are now looking at $1,100,000 less,” in federal support for tobacco control. Cook told the committee the department currently funds tobacco control at about $3.7 million and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention historically provided about $1.1 million of that support.

Why it matters: Cook and department staff said cuts of this magnitude would force reductions in premium quit-line services, youth and school programming and community coalitions,…