On August 25, 2026, the federal office responsible for improving health outcomes among minority Americans sent letters cancelling more than half of the grants it was funding.
Sixteen grants. $38 million over four years. The recipients had already been paid for two of those years.
The reason given was that the work no longer matched the administration's priorities. Going forward, according to the letters, an award has to directly advance "reducing overmedicalization in health care by addressing the root causes of infertility." The letters listed those causes: hormonal imbalances, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, low sperm count, low testosterone and erectile dysfunction. Programs promoting "regular physical activity and exercise" also qualify.
NOTUS reported the terminations on September 4.
What the cancelled grants were doing
- Cancer screenings.
- Home visits by nurses to women who had just given birth, to check on the mother and the newborn.
- Suicide prevention among first responders.
- Reducing obesity among Native American youth.
- Blood pressure monitoring at home for people with hypertension, paired with fresh produce delivery.
- Preventing infant and maternal deaths among Black families in the Arkansas Delta.
None of that is a boutique concern. CDC figures for 2024 put the maternal death rate for Black women at 44.8 per 100,000 live births, against 14.2 for white women — more than three times higher.
Jillian Fabricius co-directs Illuminate Colorado, which sends nurses into new mothers' homes. Her reaction to the letter was the reaction of someone who assumed this was uncontroversial.
"It was news to us that maternal and infant fatality prevention wasn't a priority."
Christopher Joseph runs EngageWell, which administered a grant that helped hypertension patients monitor their blood pressure at home and delivered fresh produce to 150 New Yorkers every two weeks under a program called Food as Medicine. Feeding people vegetables to control blood pressure is close to the literal text of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again agenda, and Joseph said so.
"When MAHA came about we thought great, this aligns with their priorities."
The grant was cancelled anyway.
What is left
The Office of Minority Health now lists two funding opportunities for the year: one for lupus research and one for chronic disease among Native Americans. Under the previous administration it funded dozens of grants a year.
The administration tried to shut the office down entirely last year.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to NOTUS's request for comment.
The trade being made
Set the two lists side by side.
Cancelled: screening people for cancer. Checking on new mothers and their babies. Keeping first responders from killing themselves. Getting produce to people with high blood pressure. Keeping Black infants in the Arkansas Delta alive.
Prioritized: low sperm count, low testosterone, erectile dysfunction, and encouraging exercise.
There is a coherent argument for federal research into declining fertility. There is no version of that argument that requires cancelling postpartum nurse visits to pay for it, and the letters do not attempt one. They simply say the old work no longer counts.
What the record shows
The federal office charged with minority health cancelled 16 grants worth $38 million on August 25, two years into their four-year terms, because the work did not address infertility or exercise. Among the cancelled programs were cancer screenings, postpartum nurse visits, first-responder suicide prevention, and infant and maternal mortality prevention among Black families in the Arkansas Delta. The office now advertises two funding opportunities for the entire year, where the previous administration funded dozens of grants a year.
Source
HHS Cancels Infant Mortality, Postpartum Grants to Focus on Sperm Counts, ED, by Paige Winfield Cunningham and Eric Katz, NOTUS, September 4, 2026. Photo: Rogelio V. Solis / AP.
