Trump administration allegedly funnels $86M intended for a teenage pregnancy prevention program to an unrelated company with ties to the government

NPR is also reporting that members of the government — including staff at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — are former employees at Guidehouse.

The defunding

Created in 2010, the TPP has historically distributed about $101 million in federal grants annually to organizations that run programs to reduce teen pregnancy and improve sexual and reproductive health.

For the past 16 years, the bipartisan program provided federal funds through a public, competitive process, and money historically went to organizations that ran evidence-based programming to reduce teen pregnancies.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, since 2007 teen birth rates have dropped by about 72%. The Pew Research Center attributes the decline in teen pregnancy in part to better sex education and better access to contraceptives.

But in June, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) canceled 53 of the 67 existing TPP grants, totaling about $67 million, just two years before the five-year grants were set to expire. According to NPR, termination notices sent to grant recipients said the programs no longer aligned with agency priorities and “[normalized] sexual activity for minors.”

The program was then restructured and the administration instead sent out requests for programs that promote abstinence rather than pregnancy prevention and reproductive health.

On Aug. 18, a federal judge blocked the HHS from implementing sweeping changes to the program, after three impacted programs filed a lawsuit.