Last week, Jackie Griffith showed up at her office at the Collin County Health Care Clinic in north Texas ready to start her day — answering emails from local doctors before heading to a nearby high school to go over the latest vaccine record requirements.  Instead, the 60-year-old registered nurse was called into her director’s office and told to pack up her belongings. The federal government had yanked funding, she learned, and her position — supporting vaccination efforts for uninsured children through a network of more than 60 providers — was gone. Across the country in New Hampshire, Kayla Hogan, 27, was hearing the same. She worked for the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, onboarding clinics and hospitals into a data system that would help them administer free childhood vaccines. Now that project was in jeopardy, threatening the process of getting children vaccinated. The cuts that ensnared Griffith, Hogan and many others whose work touches vaccines in dozens of states were part of $11.4 billion in funds that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services pulled back from state and community health departments last week, included in the larger slashing of federal government under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. More than $2 billion was taken from “Immunization and Vaccines for Children” grants, which support the delivery of vaccines to children whose families may not be able to afford them,  according to a list HHS published.   Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist with a well-documented history of promoting misinformation, promised ahead of his confirmation as HHS secretary that he would not take away vaccines. Since taking office, however, he has repeatedly downplayed the severity of measles currently sweeping the country — outbreaks that have hospitalized scores of children and left at least two dead. He has publicly pushed unproven treatments, including vitamin A regimens that have reportedly sickened children, and offered limp public support for vaccines themselves — despite vaccines offering the safest, most effective way to prevent many infectious diseases. Under his leadership, HHS has overseen mass firings across federal health agencies, including staff responsible for outbreak response and vaccine access; canceled or postponed meetings of independent vaccine advisory committees; and ended vaccine education campaigns. The funding cuts under his watch go further, turning his rhetoric into reality and weakening the systems that deliver lifesaving preventative care. Through sweeping reductions to state and local health agencies, the new administration is quietly dismantling the fragile, interconnected infrastructure that moves childhood vaccines from the federal government to providers and, ultimately, administered to children.   The cuts have hit health departments and medical providers, the data systems that track immunizations and the nonprofit coalitions that make the whole system run. They come at a moment when public health officials and advocates say that despite federal assurances, childhood vaccines are under attack. “It will impact every aspect of immunization: community outreach, education, health fairs, mobile clinics and public health nurses,” said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers. “It’s catastrophic.”  Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., sued HHS and Kennedy this week over the funding takebacks.  HHS did not respond to a request for comment. Ostensibly, the federal cuts were aimed at Covid-era projects that were no longer necessary.  “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” the department’s director of communications, Andrew Nixon, said last week. While an early wave of Covid funding focused on testing, vaccines and addressing health disparities, as the pandemic waned, state health departments were allowed to shift that money to other underfunded programs — including grants that support childhood vaccinations.  Those grants supplement Vaccines for Children, a federal entitlement program established by Congress in 1994 in response to a deadly measles epidemic, which remains intact. But its successful operation relies on the “Immunization and Vaccines for Children” funding, which received a temporary boost from reallocated Covid dollars — until that money was pulled back last week.   Now, the cuts have forced public health departments across the country to lay off staff, cancel vaccine clinics, shut down education and outreach programs, and halt critical physical and virtual infrastructure upgrades, according to news reports, declarations filed in the federal lawsuit against HHS and results from a survey conducted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials and shared with NBC News.  More health coverage: news Mar 28 Top FDA vaccine official Peter Marks resigns in opposition to RFK Jr. Trump administration Mar 28 Fact check: RFK Jr.'s faulty advice on bird flu  Health & Wellness Mar 27 Measles vaccination rates may be lower than thought, risking ‘elimination status' In Dallas County, Texas, the health director said the cuts compelled the cancellation of 50 community vaccination events — including many in schools with low measles vaccination rates amid a rising outbreak.   In Minnesota, the Health Department announced it would lay off 170 employees after losing more than $220 million in federal funds. Among the casualties is the state’s immunization registry, which will no longer be upgraded — leaving Minnesota with one of the most outdated tracking systems in the country.  In California, the Health Department said in a federal filing that it would be unable to provide childhood vaccines, including for measles, to millions of children, roughly half of the state’s youth.  And in Washington state, the Health Department announced that in response to $20 million in grant cuts targeting immunization programs, it would furlough or lay off 46 workers and suspend its mobile clinic operation, known as the Care-a-Van. The 104 canceled clinics were expected to administer 2,000 vaccines to vulnerable kids, including those in rural areas and homeless populations. “We’re just going to have to think strategically about how we reach those really difficult-to-reach populations,” Lacy Fehrenbach, Washington’s chief of prevention, said at a media briefing.  The National Association of County and City Health Officials survey captured further impacts: A department in Ohio said it plans to halt training on vaccine hesitancy. One in Indiana will lose two nurses who travel to schools to vaccinate children, so parents don’t have to miss work. A Texas agency will not be able to replace old equipment as planned.  The cuts also threaten a less visible but critical part of the vaccine infrastructure: the data systems that public health departments use to record and share immunizations. Vaccines for Children relies on these systems to order doses, approve and track distribution, and monitor safety.  Health departments in Pennsylvania and elsewhere said in declarations filed in the federal case that the cuts would prevent them from operating or upgrading these systems, forcing states to rely on outdated, cumbersome platforms. Poor data systems can leave parents and providers without access to vaccination records and increase the risk of missed or duplicate doses.  Rebecca Coyle, executive director of the American Immunization Registry Association, noted that these systems were born out of a measles outbreak that claimed the lives of 89 children in the early 1990s, including an 11-year-old girl who died after being denied a vaccine — despite her father’s efforts to get her immunized — because the clinic couldn’t locate the right records. While much attention is given to parents who hesitate or outright refuse to vaccinate, it is the children without access to vaccines who offer the clearest path to closing immunity gaps, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.  “The way we get from 60% of our population vaccinated to over 95% is by focusing on people who, for a variety of reasons, have difficulty getting vaccinated,” he said. “That includes the homeless, low-income individuals, and people without a primary care provider.”  These funding cuts, Benjamin said, degraded the ability to reach those populations “literally overnight.”  Immunization coalitions — nonprofits that connect public health departments with communities to improve vaccination rates — play a key role, too. Now their work mostly supported by state and federal dollars is at risk.  The cuts caused “immense damage” to Indiana’s Immunization Coalition, according to its executive director, Lisa Robertson, who said in a statement that its budget — funded through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via the state Health Department — was slashed entirely for this year and reduced by 75% for the next fiscal year.  “The clawback of funds will have real-life consequences,” Robertson said. This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: U.S. stocks plunge as Trump’s tariffs wreak havoc across global economy Stellantis idles plants in Mexico and Canada due to tariffs Far-right activist Laura Loomer told Trump to fire national security team members in Oval Office meeting ...read more read less