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Shah joined Maine CDC in June 2019 and led its efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. He will replace Debra Houry, who joined in 2021, and will report to U.S. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. His appointment, which comes a day after the United States extended COVID-19's status as a public health emergency, is part of a broader ongoing revamp of the agency's structure. (1/12)

Dr. Nirav Shah, the director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention who became the face of the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, is leaving for a high-ranking post in federal disease control, officials said Thursday. Shah, who has been with the state since 2019, has been appointed principal deputy director at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and will take over that role in March, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills said. Shah will be second in the CDC’s hierarchy under Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. (Whittle, 1/12)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along with Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Katherine Clark and Lori Trahan, issued their letter to Joaquin Duato, CEO and chairman of the board for Johnson & Johnson. “Our constituents across Massachusetts are experiencing a shortage of infant and children’s Tylenol and Motrin products as this challenging cold and flu season rages on, compounded by a surge of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and COVID-19,” they wrote. (Choi, 1/12)

Florida will seek to provide consumers more flexibility in buying prescription drugs and more information about their costs under a legislative proposal that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday he will ask lawmakers to approve. (1/12)

As part of the $1.7 trillion government spending bill that President Biden signed late last year, Congress authorized a pilot loan repayment program for people who work in infectious diseases and health emergency response — an incentive that advocates say could attract more people to the lagging fields. (Joseph, 1/13)

In a federal lawsuit filed Thursday, the two groups said that the agency has yet to act on a California cleanup plan for the Los Angeles area some six years after it was submitted; they allege that a decision is also unlawfully past due on whether Allegheny County, Pa., now meets the annual standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air. In the suit, they ask a federal judge to set deadlines for final action on both. (Reilly, 1/12)

The proposal is in response to a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, which has repeatedly pushed EPA to crack down on PVC, which has been linked to a range of health risks. But in its response, the agency said the group's petition "does not provide sufficient evidence" that regulating PVC as hazardous waste would have a meaningful impact on reducing exposure to phthalates. (Crunden, 1/12)