Federal Office Focused on Climate Change and Health has Zero Funding

In recent years, the medical community has increasingly recognized climate change as a leading threat to public health. The Lancet, a top medical journal, warned last year that global warming is set to become the “defining narrative of human health” — triggering food shortages, deadly disasters and disease outbreaks that would dwarf the toll of the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly a year after the Department of Health and Human Services launched the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, Congress has not provided any funding, forcing it to operate without any full-time staff at a time of worsening climate disasters across the country. Without full-time staff, the climate office has received personnel on loan from other federal agencies such as the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. Read more from the Washington Post here.