More on the elimination of the CDC’s traumatic brain injury team: the federal budget, a lawsuit, the NFL missing in action
By Malayka Gormally. This article first appeared in our 5/20/25 Concussion Update Newsletter; please consider subscribing.
Since our May 1 article, CDC’s Entire Traumatic Brain Injury Team Eliminated, President Trump has sent his 2026 budget request to Congress, and it includes the elimination of the budget for the CDC’s TBI team. The House Republicans passed the bill, and now it goes to the Senate for consideration. This situation is unprecedented, as the budget has not yet been approved, yet the five-person team was already eliminated through an April 1st Reduction in Force (RIF). According to an anonymous TBI team member we are in contact with, the TBI team was put on paid administrative leave, with their jobs ending on June 2. The Washington Post reported that, on April 28, a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by a “nationwide coalition of labor unions, local governments, and nonprofits,” asserting the RIFs were illegal. On May 9, Judge Susan Illston issued a temporary restraining order for “the Trump administration to halt mass layoffs of federal workers for at least two weeks,” writing that “‘To make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, any president must enlist the help of his co-equal branch and partner, the Congress.’”
Even if the lawsuit is successful, there is not much of a route forward if Congress approves the budget cuts, including those for the CDC’s TBI team. Journalists at NBC, MSN, and the Sports Business Journal have called out the NFL for not commenting on the proposed budget’s elimination of the TBI team. The Brain Injury Association of New York State sent staff members to Capitol Hill to advocate for the New York delegation to support the bipartisan letters from Reps. Luttrell and Deluzio to preserve brain injury programs, including the programs run by the TBI team, Heads Up, and the National Concussion Surveillance System. We recommend that our community support the advocacy efforts of the Brain Injury Association of America by signing their advocacy campaigns here and here. Concussion Alliance is meeting with other nonprofits and stakeholders to see what can be done to preserve the Heads Up online concussion resources, particularly the training courses for youth coaches.
Concussion Alliance is working to protect brain injury programs in the federal budget; this includes protecting budget allocations for the TBI team’s Heads Up online resources and trainings and the National Concussion Surveillance System. We urge our community to support US Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who has released a “Dear Colleague” letter addressed to the Senate HELP Committee, urging the protection of federal funding for vital brain injury programs. Please sign this form created by the Brain Injury Association of America: the form takes your information and auto-populates the letter, addressing it to your senators.
