Duckworth, Durbin Join Democratic Colleagues in Demanding HHS Rescind Cancellation of Lifesaving Research Grants That Improve Patient Safety and Care

Duckworth, Durbin Join Democratic Colleagues in Demanding HHS Rescind Cancellation of Lifesaving Research Grants That Improve Patient Safety and Care

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] - U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) joined U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), along with 26 of their Democratic Senate colleagues, in demanding that Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. reverse the Department's destructive cancellations of lifesaving health research grants administered by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Congressionally appropriated funding for AHRQ grants benefitted critical research and initiatives to advance effective healthcare delivery, such as training for rural healthcare workers in Connecticut, testing the use of artificial intelligence in hospitals in Wisconsin, improving autism screening and services for Black children in North Carolina and equipping primary care providers with effective chronic pain treatment in Virginia.

In a letter sent to HHS Secretary Kennedy, the Senators raised concerns about the impact of HHS's mass cancellations of these research grants, writing, "This unprecedented action, which has led to the disruption of nearly 200 different research programs across nearly 30 states, undermines decades of taxpayer investments to improve healthcare delivery, patient safety, and health outcomes for all Americans. We demand that you immediately rescind these cancelations and ensure that the funding Congress appropriates to AHRQ is invested in health research in accordance with the law."

The Senators continued, "We want to be clear: Democrats and Republicans did not work together to appropriate funds for AHRQ as a gentle suggestion for the Department to follow at their discretion or leisure. We provided this money with the explicit instruction that the Department faithfully support life-saving research to improve access and health outcomes for Americans. We did not appropriate these funds so that money could remain unspent while Americans suffer and our healthcare system struggles."

The Senators called on Kennedy to immediately restore full funding to research projects affected by the cancellations and ensure AHRQ's full FY26 appropriations are obligated as required by law.

Along with Duckworth, Durbin, Blumenthal and Baldwin, the letter was signed by U.S. Senators Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Tina Smith (D-MN), Jack Reed (D-RI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Gary Peters (D-MI), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Mark Warner (D-VA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM).

The full letter is available on Senator's Duckworth's website and below:

Dear Secretary Kennedy,

We write to express our profound concern and unequivocal opposition to the recent mass cancelations of lifesaving health research grants administered by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) as well as the year-long refusal to faithfully execute the Fiscal Year (FY25) and Fiscal Year (FY26) appropriations laws. This unprecedented action, which has led to the disruption of nearly 200 different research programs across nearly 30 states, undermines decades of taxpayer investments to improve healthcare delivery, patient safety, and health outcomes for all Americans. We demand that you immediately rescind these cancelations and ensure that the funding Congress appropriates to AHRQ is invested in health research in accordance with the law.

On July 15, 2026, approximately 150 AHRQ grantees received a generic form letter notifying them that their grants were canceled, effective immediately. For many, this was the first notice or communication that they have received from AHRQ in nearly a year. The grant cancelation letters cite regulations that require the Agency to consider the grantee's progress and management practices and the availability of funds, yet none of the notices substantively address any of these factors. Instead, these cancelation notices list a series of Agency priorities that do not appear in the subsections cited. Further, many of the grants that were canceled were explicitly investigating the topics that AHRQ has described as a priority. The cancelation letters, which were sent to a broad range of grantees, use the exact same language, which is evidence that the agency is categorically denying grants without making individual grant determinations.

A small sample of the research programs that were just devastated include:

• Work in Connecticut on training rural healthcare workers to better respond to maternal medical emergencies;
• Research in New York on how to improve healthcare delivery systems for patients to access home dialysis;
• A program in Colorado that reduces risk factors for patient falls in rural hospitals;
• Work in Utah to reduce antibiotic overuse at hospital discharge;
• Research in Wisconsin testing the use of artificial intelligence to improve the experience of hospitalized children and their families;
• A grant in North Carolina that improved autism screening, diagnosis, and services among Black children;
• Research in Maryland to improve patient safety via telehealth;
• Work in Virginia to equip primary care providers with more effective chronic pain treatment to reduce reliance on opioids; and
• Research in Michigan on patient financial burden after a COVID-19 infection.

This is just a fraction of the important work that has been permanently discontinued, despite years of work and millions of taxpayer dollars that were invested to advance our understanding of effective healthcare delivery.

This recklessness is not the only crisis facing the Agency. Since October 1, 2025, the Agency has only awarded 5 percent of the funds available for extramural grants. Grantees were left in limbo, without notice or clarification, in some cases for over a year. Programs across the country were forced to layoff staff, discontinue research, shutdown programs, or not pursue new research opportunities at all. In 2025, AHRQ lost 80 percent of its staff, including the vast majority of those working to vet grant applications and work with grantees, so there is no one left to adequately manage the programming mandated by statute.

We want to be clear: Democrats and Republicans did not work together to appropriate funds for AHRQ as a gentle suggestion for the Department to follow at their discretion or leisure. We provided this money with the explicit instruction that the Department faithfully support life-saving research to improve access and health outcomes for Americans. We did not appropriate these funds so that money could remain unspent while Americans suffer and our healthcare system struggles. AHRQ has saved our country billions of dollars in healthcare costs and improved patient safety. Abandoning this work is antithetical to the mission of the Department.

The agency's actions over the last year are an outrageous abuse of administrative power that will leave Americans sicker, poorer, and dying from preventable causes. Each of these canceled grants put real life patients further from the care that they need.

At a time when medical errors kill hundreds of thousands of Americans annually, when healthcare costs are crushing family budgets, and when we face unprecedented health challenges, your department has chosen to sabotage the very research designed to solve these problems. This is not leadership-this is sabotage of public health. And it must end, immediately.

We call upon you to take the following immediate actions:

1. Rescind all recent grant cancelations and restore full funding to all affected research projects;
2. Ensure that AHRQ's full FY26 appropriation is obligated for health services research as the bipartisan majorities of Congress and President Trump's signature intended;
3. Provide a detailed explanation to Congress within one month of receiving this letter regarding the decision-making process that led to these cancelations, including any written criteria, instructions, funding plans, rankings, spreadsheets, analyses, or other documents used to identify or select affected grants;
4. Explain how the priorities identified in the non-continuation notice were applied to grants that were terminated and explain why grants focused on listed priority research areas were selected for non-continuation;
5. Provide to Congress a spend plan to ensure that the approximately $200 million remaining in funding for extramural research grants are awarded before October 1, 2026, including any contract arrangements with other federal agencies and a description of how such contracts advance research on health care costs, quality, and outcomes;
6. Provide to Congress a detailed description of the number of employees at AHRQ that are performing grants-management functions, including issuing awards, processing continuations, and monitoring awards for compliance as of August 6, 2026, September 30, 2025, and January 1, 2025;
7. Provide a written assurance that such arbitrary cancelations will never happen again.

Countless researchers who have devoted their careers to improving healthcare for all of us have watched years of painstaking work and hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer investments destroyed overnight. The scientific and health pipelines that have been demolished will take decades to build back and may never be recovered.

The American people deserve a healthcare system informed by the best available evidence. They deserve research that makes their care safer, more effective, and more affordable. Congress has provided the resources to support this vital work. It is your responsibility to ensure these resources are used as intended.

We look forward to your response no later than August 25, 2026.

-30-