Washington, D.C. — The federal office created to close the gap in Black health — the one that funds work on infant mortality — had about $12 million moved out of it this year to help pay for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s security detail, the Wall Street Journal reported Sept. 22, citing people familiar with the matter and a document it reviewed.
The Office of Minority Health was established in 1986, a direct outcome of the Heckler Report, the landmark federal study that documented how much more often Black Americans and other people of color got sick and died than white Americans. The office funds state minority health offices, health data collection, and grants aimed at closing disparities, including programs to reduce infant deaths. Its budget runs about $75 million a year.
Kennedy’s security costs rose from about $10 million in fiscal 2025 to about $17 million in fiscal 2026, according to the Journal. The Journal reported that Kennedy, at his own request, is protected by the U.S. Marshals Service rather than the HHS inspector general’s agents who have guarded past secretaries, and that HHS told congressional appropriators of the transfer from the minority health office earlier this year.
HHS didn’t dispute the transfer. “Secretary Kennedy faces a security environment that differs significantly from that of previous HHS secretaries,” spokeswoman Emily Hilliard told the Journal, saying his protection reflects the threats he faces, his extensive travel, and the security required for him to carry out his duties nationwide.
The same office has also been cancelling grants. Sixteen nonprofits, universities, and county and state grantees received termination letters, which said the office is now focused on the root causes of infertility and other reproductive health conditions, and on promoting physical activity. The letters went out in August, according to the submitted brief and the Journal’s account; the cancellations were first reported in early September. One grantee, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said its program to reduce infant and maternal deaths among Black families in the Arkansas Delta will likely end without the funding. Hilliard denied a direct connection between the cancellations and Kennedy’s security costs, saying the decisions reflect HHS priorities and programmatic assessments.
More reductions may be coming. The administration’s fiscal 2027 budget request would cut the Office of Minority Health from about $75 million to $45 million.
The chairs of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus responded in a joint statement: “Let’s not mince words, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. took money from babies to beef up his entourage”.
The stakes behind the ledger are longstanding: Black infants in the United States die at more than double the rate of white infants, according to the most recent federal data.
The 2027 budget is being written in Congress now. If you work at a clinic, an HBCU, or a nonprofit that received a letter from the Office of Minority Health this year, we want to hear from you.
Drafted by News Observed Editorial AI, human reviewed and published.