July 27, 2025

The Honorable Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Secretary
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC  20201

Re: The Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) program

Dear Secretary Kennedy:

              We, the member organizations of the FED UP! Coalition to End the Opioid Epidemic, believe that the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) Program is vital in the fight against the opioid epidemic. There has been confusion about whether $140 million will be withheld from OD2A; as a result, some involved agencies are halting planned programs.

              Our organization was formed in 2012 by parents from across our country who had lost children to the opioid epidemic and who first met at FDA Advisory Committee meetings about new prescription opioids. These bereaved parents came, at their own expense, to tell the FDA that it had underestimated the dangers of prescription opioids. They formed FED UP! to do everything they could to engage the federal government regarding issues that they considered vital in the opioid epidemic.  Since then, most of our work has been connected with agencies now under your control.

While we have frequently criticized federal government programs, we believe that OD2A is uniquely valuable. Components of street drugs change rapidly; OD2A helps local and state health departments collect timely and comprehensive data on drugs and drug overdoses and use those data to enhance overdose prevention. Much of the work of OD2A involves building partnerships among public health, healthcare systems, law enforcement, first responders, and community organizations, allowing them to take rapid action based on the collected data.

It is tempting to believe that we have the opioid epidemic on the run. Overdose deaths have diminished. The DEA attributes this decrease to its hard work fighting the cartels, leading the cartels to have to spread their product more thinly. Fentanyl powder purity and the dose of fentanyl in counterfeit pills have both decreased.  Naturally, we are pleased with these results, but there are many threats that could rapidly exacerbate the opioid epidemic. The cartels have a history of shifting products when things get hard. Ten years ago, the preponderance of opioid deaths were from heroin. The cartels replaced heroin with fentanyl because it was a more dependable product and, given its higher potency, easier to smuggle. Overdoses with even higher potency opioids, such as carfentanil and nitazenes, remain uncommon but are on the increase. 

OD2A acts as a DEW line in our effort to counter those threats.

We urgently request that you review this situation and make sufficient funding available to OD2A to allow it to perform its critical function. We would certainly be willing to meet with you and/or your team to discuss our concerns about OD2A as well as other ways we can collaborate in addressing this national health emergency.

Sincerely,

Daniel Busch, M.D., M.P.H.
Chair, FED UP! Coalition