By Carla K. Johnson, Associated Press
An little-known federal agency that affects the lives of people through the United States by funding the crisis line 988, the distribution of naloxone and the treatment of drug addiction can be weakened and possibly eliminated in the proposed overhaul of the United States Ministry of Health and Social Services.
In the plan of the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the administration of the Toxicomian and mental health services of 8 billion dollars, or Samhsa, would be absorbed by a new office, where more than 700 staff members would coexist with employees of other agencies responsible for chemical exhibitions and work -related injuries. In total, five agencies must be swallowed under what will be called the administration for a healthy America, or AHA, echoing the Slogan Make America Healthy Again in Kennedy.
The merger of Samhsa in a larger agency “will increase operational efficiency and insurance programs are carried out because it will decompose artificial divisions between similar programs”, according to a press release from the HHS.
“Millions of Americans who obtain mental health and substance consumption services depend on Samhsa, even if they have never heard the name of the agency,” said Brendan Salonerer, a drug addiction researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
During Kennedy’s confirmation hearings, he said that he has been addicted to heroin for 14 years and has been recovering for 42 years. He called for treatments assisted by drugs such as Suboxone (Buprenorphine) and Medically necessary methadone – but also said that he considered that the ordered stallion was 12 -step programs like anonymous alcoholics and anonymous narcotics. During his presidential campaign, Kennedy had proposed a network of “healing farms” where people could work while recovering from dependence.
Samhsa was created by Congress in 1992, so the closure is illegal and raises questions about Kennedy’s commitment to deal with dependence and mental health, said Keith Humphreys, researcher at the University of Stanford.
“Burning the agency in an administrative blob without a clear objective is not the way to highlight the problem or coordinate an answer,” said Humphreys.
Other experts said that Samsha paralyzing could block the progress of overdose deaths. The agency regulates methadone clinics and pays forms of prevention of drug addiction in the 50 states.
“There is a reason why we have reduced an overdose in this country, it is because Samhsa has done its job so well,” said Dr. Ruth Potee, medical director of seven methadone clinics in Massachusetts. “My jaw falls to this news.”
Noting the 24% drop in drug overdose deaths during a recent 12 -month period, the former Tsar de la drug de la Maison Blanche, Dr. Rahul Gupta, said that he feared that the bureaucratic overhaul slows the momentum.
“A crisis in worsening overdoses is the last thing our nation needs,” said Gupta, who served under President Joe Biden.
The announcement follows weeks of layoffs and layoffs that have created an atmosphere of shock and fear among the researchers funded by the government and the federal health employees.
Saloner said that the revision of a large organization could be carried out in a way that leads to better services for people, “but I am disturbed by the absence of a deliberative process which seems to create chaos and drive truly talented people outside the federal workforce.”
The Department of Health and Sciences of the Associated Press receives the support of the scientific and educational group of the media from the medical institute Howard Hughes and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
