US health officials reverse course and reinstate $1.9bn to mental health and substance use

Health department unexpectedly announced nearly $2bn in program cuts Tuesday before rolling back decision

US health officials reversed course and began reinstating nearly $2bn in cuts to mental health and substance use programs on Wednesday night, one day after they unexpectedly announced the immediate shutdown of programs.

The reversal is a blow to the agenda of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, who has made aggressive and legally contested cuts to health agencies in the first year of the Trump administration and has proposed folding the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Samhsa) into a new agency he would call the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA).