US health officials reversed course and began reinstating nearly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/14/trump-cuts-substance-use-mental-health">$2bn in cuts to mental health and substance use programs</a> 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). There was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/14/trump-cuts-substance-use-mental-health">immediate outcry</a> about the effects of shutting down vital programs amounting to one-quarter of the budget of Samhsa. The cuts would have affected overdose prevention and reversal, mental health and substance use support for children, mental health training and support for first responders, support for pregnant and postpartum women, and recovery support programs. <aside class="element element-rich-link element--thumbnail"> Related: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/15/childhood-brain-cancer-trump">Kids with brain cancer were already in a life and death struggle. Then came Trump</a> </aside> Some programs received reinstatement letters late on Wednesday night, while others are still waiting for official notice that their programs could resume, sources told the Guardian. Representative Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the House appropriations committee, seemed to confirm the reversal in a <a href="https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/delauro-statement-hhs-reinstating-billions-addiction-and-mental-health-grants">statement</a> late on Wednesday. “After national outrage, Secretary Kennedy has bowed to public pressure and reinstated $2 billion in SAMHSA grants that save lives,” DeLauro said. “These are cuts he should not have issued in the first place,” and they “created uncertainty and confusion for families and healthcare providers”, DeLauro said. An administration official also confirmed to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/health/samhsa-funding-cuts.html">New York Times </a>that money was being restored, but did not say why. It was not immediately clear if all grants were re-established. As lawmakers continue to negotiate over the federal budget, some suspected that the move was a political play. “Congress holds the power of the purse, and the Secretary must follow the law,” DeLauro added in her statement. “Today, first responders tackling the fentanyl crisis spent the day planning layoffs instead of helping people,” Patty Murray, a Democratic Washington senator, <a href="https://x.com/pattymurray/status/2011630444333437245?s=46">said on X</a> when reports first indicated the cuts were being reversed. The cuts caused “absurd, pointless chaos” from Kennedy and the Trump administration, she said. While the reversal was a victory for organizations providing substance use and mental health services, US officials may continue making deep cuts to the health programs upon which millions of Americans rely, experts said. “This reinstatement of funds is a good thing for the American people and we should view these actions in their whole,” Dr Sunny Patel, a former senior official at Samhsa and associate professor at the Thrive Center for Children, Families, and Communities at Georgetown. “This administration has shown its political project to systematically dismantle the behavioral health system.” The administration has made sweeping cuts to budgets and staff at health agencies, and the confusion and instability will worsen children’s behavioral health, Patel and Matthew Biel <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/federal-cuts-dismantling-children-s-behavioral-health-systems">wrote</a> in Health Affairs on Wednesday. Shoring up health amid repeated uncertainty and cuts “requires vigilance and sometimes outrage”, Patel said. As the reversal shows, he said: “Advocacy works.”

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

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

A 60-year-old man with no history of mental illness presented at a hospital emergency department insisting that his neighbour was poisoning him. Over the next 24 hours he had worsening hallucinations, and tried to escape the hospital. Doctors eventually discovered the man was on a daily diet of sodium bromide, an inorganic salt mainly used for industrial and laboratory purposes including cleaning and water treatment. He bought it over the internet <a href="https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/aimcc.2024.1260">after ChatGPT told him he could use it in place of table salt</a> because he was worried about the health impacts of salt in his diet. Sodium bromide can accumulate in the body causing a condition called bromism, with symptoms including hallucinations, stupor and impaired coordination. It is cases like this that have Alex Ruani, a doctoral researcher in health misinformation with the University College in London, concerned about the launch of ChatGPT Health in Australia. A limited number of Australian users can already access the artificial intelligence platform which allows them to “securely connect medical records and wellness apps” to generate responses “more relevant and useful to you”. ChatGPT users in Australia can join a waitlist for access. “ChatGPT Health is being presented as an interface that can help people make sense of health information and test results or receive diet advice, while not replacing a clinician,” Ruani said. “The challenge is that, for many users, it’s not obvious where general information ends and medical advice begins, especially when the responses sound confident and personalised, even if they mislead.” <aside class="element element-rich-link element--thumbnail"> Related: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/08/specialist-doctor-fees-are-forcing-australians-into-impossible-choices-advocates-say-urgent-change-is-needed">Specialist doctor fees are forcing Australians into ‘impossible choices’. Advocates say urgent change is needed</a> </aside> Ruani said there had been too many <a href="https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjleader/2025/09/19/chatgpt-is-not-your-doctor-dietitian-or-therapist-why-we-urgently-need-safety-evaluation-standards-for-generative-ai-in-health-but-who-will-take-the-lead/">“horrifying” examples</a> of ChatGPT “leaving out key safety details like side effects, contraindications, allergy warnings, or risks around supplements, foods, diets, or certain practices”. “What worries me is that there are no published studies specifically testing the safety of ChatGPT Health,” Ruani said. “Which user prompts, integration paths, or data sources could lead to misguidance or harmful misinformation?” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=copyembed&amp;CMP=emailbutton">Sign up: AU Breaking News email</a> ChatGPT is developed by OpenAI, which used the tool HealthBench to develop ChatGPT Health. HealthBench employs doctors to test and evaluate how well AI models perform when responding to health questions. Ruani said the full methodology used by HealthBench, and its evaluations, are “mostly undisclosed, rather than outlined in independent peer-reviewed studies”. “ChatGPT Health is not regulated as a medical device or diagnostic tool. So there are no mandatory safety controls, no risk reporting, no post-market surveillance, and no requirement to publish testing data.” An OpenAI spokesperson told Guardian Australia that the company had worked in partnership with more than 200 physicians from 60 countries “to advise and improve the models powering ChatGPT Health”. “ChatGPT Health is a dedicated space where health conversations stay separate from the rest of your chats, with strong privacy protections by default,” the spokesperson said. ChatGPT Health data is encrypted and subject to privacy protections by default. Sharing with third parties will happen with user consent, or in limited circumstances outlined in OpenAI’s <a href="https://openai.com/policies/health-privacy-policy/">privacy policy</a>. The chief executive of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia, Dr Elizabeth Deveny, said rising out-of-pocket medical costs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/the-cost-of-care">and long wait times to see doctors</a> were driving people to AI. She said ChatGPT Health could be useful in helping people manage well-known chronic conditions, and to research ways to stay well. AI’s ability to give answers in different languages “provides a real benefit to people who don’t have English proficiency”, she said. Deveny is concerned that people will take advice given by ChatGPT Health at face value, and that “large global tech companies are moving faster than governments”, setting their own rules around privacy, transparency and data collection. “This is not a small not-for-profit experimenting in good faith. It’s one of the largest technology companies in the world. “When commercial platforms define the norms, the benefits tend to flow to people who already have resources, education, and system knowledge. The risks fall on those who do not.” She said a failure of governments to act had left health consumers to navigate the social transformation brought by AI largely alone. “We need clear guardrails, transparency and consumer education so people can make informed choices about if and how they use AI for their health,” she said. “This isn’t about stopping AI. It’s about acting before mistakes, bias, and misinformation are replicated at speed and scale, in ways that are almost impossible to unwind.” <figure class="element element-embed" data-alt="Pointer"> <iframe class="fenced" srcdoc="&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;script src=&quot;https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2025/01/21/article-button.js&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;"></iframe> </figure>

Calls for clear guardrails and consumer education before wider rollout of OpenAI’s health advice platform

‘Not regulated’: launch of ChatGPT Health in Australia causes concern among experts

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

‘Not regulated’: launch of ChatGPT Health in Australia causes concern among experts

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