By Leah Douglas
(Reuters) -The U.S. consumer product safety agency will stop collecting data on injuries from incidents like car accidents and adverse drug effects due to staff cuts at the CDC, according to an agency email seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the situation.
The 47-year-old National Electronic Injury Surveillance System collects data from a representative sample of 100 hospital emergency departments across the country.
Injury is the leading cause of death for Americans under 45 years old, and data from NEISS informs product recalls, safety standards and other public policy to prevent injuries and deaths.
The change is another disruption caused by President Donald Trump’s elimination of 10,000 jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., which has upended public health research and the agency’s bird flu response and drug review system. HHS has said another 10,000 people left voluntarily.
On Friday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission will stop collecting data on injuries from motor vehicle crashes, falls, alcohol, adverse drug effects, aircraft incidents, work-related injuries, and other incidents through NEISS, according to the source.
The change will reduce the program’s data collection by 20% to 65%, the source said.
The CPSC did not respond to a request for comment.
For its first 22 years, NEISS collected data only on injuries linked to specific products, like lawn mowers or household chemicals.
In 2000, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention entered into an agreement with CPSC to expand the data collection to other types of incidents, in an effort called the All Injury Program. The AIP is ending because of firings at CDC, according to an email sent to participating hospitals and data contractors on April 11.
“Unfortunately, due to the recent reductions-in-force and budget cuts across CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the AIP supported portion of the NEISS is coming to an end very quickly,” the email said.
“This will be an abrupt transition as CPSC does not have the resources to wind down AIP in an orderly and structured manner,” the email said.
Some of the data collected by the NEISS-AIP program is also gathered in some form by other agencies, like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. But the NEISS-AIP data can be more comprehensive because it captures injuries at the hospital level, said the source.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in WashingtonEditing by Bill Berkrot)
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