The fate of addiction treatment hangs in the balance with Kennedy’s HHS overhaul [Video]

A little-known federal agency that touches the lives of people across the United States by funding the 988 crisis line, naloxone distribution and addiction treatment may be weakened and possibly eliminated in the proposed overhaul of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s plan, the $8 billion Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, would be absorbed into a new office, where its more than 700 staffers would co-exist with employees from other agencies responsible for chemical exposures and work-related injuries. In all, five agencies are to be swallowed up under what will be called the Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA, echoing Kennedy’s Make …