Drowning prevention program comes to a halt at the CDC

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NPR

August 27, 2025 6:00 AM ET



For the past few years, a small team of health scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been tasked with answering basic statistical questions like: Who is drowning? Where is it happening — in lakes, rivers, swimming pools? And what works to prevent it?

The team was starting to answer some of those questions when it was put on administrative leave in April, according to two former CDC officials familiar with the program. They requested that NPR not use their names because they fear retaliation from the Trump administration for speaking to the media.

Now, those results may not come to light, since the Trump administration terminated the CDC's drowning prevention experts this month and has proposed eliminating the program in its fiscal year 2026 budget request.

"If this program saved one life, it would be far more than the total cost of the program," says Jim Mercy, former director of the Division of Violence Prevention at the CDC, who retired in 2023. "The irony is that these and other programs [at the CDC] were cut under the motivation of creating greater efficiency."

Read more: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/08/27/nx-s1-5509976/drowning-prevention-program-halt-cdc