This week, Congress is voting on final Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 appropriations legislation that will fund programs at the Department of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education. This final legislation comes after months of deliberation that resulted in the federal government being shut down for 43 days in the fall and a continuing resolution that expires on January 30, 2026.
Prevent Blindness is dismayed that Congress has included a $2 million cut to the Vision and Eye Health program (also known as the Vision Health Initiative, VHI) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Reducing VHI’s budget from its current level of $6.5 million to $4.5 million in FY26 takes away nearly one third of the total funding currently available to conduct basic public health functions- including community-level intervention programs, surveillance, and public health coordination- which help people avoid preventable vision loss across the country.
Since its establishment in 2003, the VHI has created a more effective public health approach to vision loss and eye health promotion by integrating vision health into broader disease prevention and health promotion, identifying and preventing problems through community-based strategies, and improving upon and collecting our only source of critical national vision health data.
According to the VHI, vision loss ranks among the top 10 causes of disability and approximately 7 million Americans have vision impairment that is not correctable with eyeglasses, 1 million of whom are blind. Rates of vision loss and eye disease are expected to double by 2050 due to population aging and increases in chronic diseases, such as diabetes, that can lead to vision loss.
“While it’s disappointing that Congress has chosen to divest in basic public health programs that show real impacts for communities and their constituents, the CDC’s VHI is still an integral part of our nation’s basic public health approach to preventing avoidable vision loss and blindness,” says Jeff Todd, President and CEO of Prevent Blindness. “We appreciate that Congress did not eliminate or consolidate many of the CDC’s vital programs, including the VHI, as was proposed in the President’s budget request last spring, and that the National Eye Institute (NEI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) remains funded at $896 million.”
“At a time when chronic diseases like diabetes, glaucoma, myopia, and others are on the rise, cutting spending will undermine the progress we have made in preventing avoidable blindness and translating important research findings to community-level interventions,” adds Sara Everett Brown, Senior Director of Government Affairs at Prevent Blindness. “However, the end of a fiscal year means the start of another, and so we look forward to working with Congress in Fiscal Year 2027 to re-invest in our collective eye health at meaningful levels. We thank our Congressional champions for their continued support and our advocates for taking action to protect this vital vision program.”
