�������ýҕ�l

Erica Schwartz was confirmed Wednesday as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making her the second permanent leader of the agency since the second Trump administration took office. (Cirruzzo, 8/5)

Dr. Erica Schwartz will be the first Black woman to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, promising that she will show “radical transparency and unwavering scientific integrity” in the role. But she faces political headwinds and practical challenges as she starts the job. (Rodriguez, 8/5)

The White House is lobbying Congress for a reprieve from a ban it approved last year on potent intoxicating hemp products, seeking a delay whose beneficiaries would include the son-in-law of Susie Wiles, President Trump’s chief of staff. Under pressure from the administration, senators tucked the delay into a stopgap spending measure they are working to pass this week in an effort to head off a government shutdown at the end of September. (Vogel, Jewett and Diaz, 8/5)

Federal health officials held closed-door conversations with prominent technology companies last month as the health department and its subagencies aim to safely boost adoption of clinical artificial intelligence. (Aguilar, 8/5)

The Trump administration has awarded a $150 million contract to give legal representation to migrant children traveling alone to the U.S. to a small Texas law firm with ties to the administration but little experience in immigration law, prompting legal aid groups who’ve long represented those children to warn that the move could make them vulnerable to deportation. ... The providers have increasingly raised worries that children won’t have the experienced legal help they need at a time when the administration is intensifying efforts to remove people from the country. (Santana, Gonzalez, Mayes-Osterman and Foley, 8/6)

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the first mRNA flu vaccine, enabling use of a technology that will make it easier to rapidly target a widely prevalent or particularly virulent strain of the virus. The approval of the vaccine, called mFLUSIVA, which is manufactured by Moderna, follows a series of blows to mRNA research directed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including the cancellation of 22 projects meant to develop vaccines with mRNA technology through the government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. (Jewett, 8/5)

Vaccine maker Moderna said late last week that a phase 3 trial for its investigational mRNA norovirus vaccine candidate did not meet statistical criteria for early success. But the trial will continue. (Dall, 8/3)

As vaccine hesitancy continues to rise, fueling a record-breaking resurgence of measles, among other public health threats, an online tool launched this week aims to help people better understand vaccine safety. The free and interactive tool -- called "What's the Risk?" -- was created by the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) and Unbiased Science. (Henderson, 8/5)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into the American Academy of Pediatrics, alleging the organization may have promoted childhood vaccines for financial gain. According to a Wednesday announcement from Paxton’s office, the investigation centers on whether the nation’s largest professional association of pediatricians issued vaccine recommendations influenced by financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies rather than scientific evidence. (Taylor, 8/5)

A Senate committee is set to vote Thursday on whether to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress and refer him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution over his refusal to answer questions at a hearing last week focused on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. (Tucker, 8/6)

COVID czar Anthony Fauci cannot be prosecuted for asserting his Fifth Amendment rights in a recent hearing, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) wrote in a letter to colleagues, arguing the former government scientist’s pardon does not undermine his constitutional protections. The letter comes ahead of a Thursday vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, when Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) will push to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for failing to answer questions after he was subpoenaed to appear for a hearing last week. (Beitsch, 8/5)

On the eve of a planned vote by a Senate committee on whether to hold Dr. Anthony S. Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions at a hearing last week, the chairman of a separate panel said that he has obtained a copy of Dr. Fauci’s cellphone. “Hopefully, this device will address many of the questions he refused to answer at last week’s hearing,” Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, wrote on social media Wednesday night. (Stolberg, 8/5)

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Wednesday that his office, alongside two other red states, issued a subpoena to former Covid czar Anthony Fauci for records tied to grant money, awards and book deals, among other areas of investigation. A pandemic diary kept by Fauci, a consistent GOP target for his Covid-era decision-making, was released just before a Senate hearing last month in which he declined to answer questions Homeland Security Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Just hours after the hearing, Uthmeier announced a Florida investigation into Fauci. (Sarkissian, 8/5)

PolitiFact compared Anthony Fauci's private writings with what he said publicly about COVID's origins, school closures and masks. (Tuquero, 8/4)

Steven Quay, MD, PhD, is reportedly in final vetting for the job of director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a position formerly held by Anthony Fauci, MD, for decades. So, who is he? Quay is the founder, CEO, and chairman of Atossa Therapeutics, a biotech company based in Seattle that's focused on breast cancer treatments. But he also made a name for himself during the COVID pandemic by promoting the lab-leak theory of COVID origins. (Fiore, 8/5)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: �������ýҕ�l Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: Watch: Democratic Senator Proposes A Fix For American Healthcare — Covering All Kids

In this “How Would You Fix It?” interview, Julie Rovner, �������ýҕ�l Health News’ chief Washington correspondent and host of the What the Health? podcast, sat down with Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, to discuss his proposal to grant all kids access to health coverage. Kim, who serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said it is “a real dereliction of our duty that we have not found a way to be able to ensure that every child is able to go see a doctor when they need to without breaking the bank.” (Rovner, 8/6)

After decades of procrastination, Congress is beginning to grapple with a Social Security shortfall set to slash benefit checks in six years unless lawmakers fix it. But instead of discussing actual fixes, a Senate Finance Committee hearing Wednesday focused on how to kick-start the painful debate to come. (Thompson, 8/5)

The Department of Health and Human Services began the process of decertifying a multistate organ procurement group a year after a federal investigation found the organization prepared dozens of patients for organ recovery while they were still alive, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Wednesday. The cases included a Kentucky man, T.J. Hoover, who was brought to the operating table in 2021 for organ recovery even as he was thrashing in bed, crying and shaking his head. A congressman likened the account to a “horror movie” during a congressional hearing in July 2025. (Wu, 8/5)

UnitedHealthcare is making moves in Medicare Advantage for 2027. The UnitedHealth Group subsidiary is considering departures from 34 counties in 12 states, according to a preliminary list the company distributed to third-party marketing organizations last week. That represents 1.2% of the counties where it sells Medicare Advantage policies this year. UnitedHealthcare is the only Medicare Advantage insurer in three of the counties it may exit. (Tepper, 8/5)

A decades-old spin on traditional employee health benefits is making a comeback. Cigna Group subsidiary Cigna Healthcare, UnitedHealth Group subsidiary UnitedHealthcare division and a bevy of insurers and emerging companies are offering “level-funded” products to employers desperate to reduce rising healthcare costs. (Tong, 8/5)

Sentara Health has formally notified Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Virginia that it intends to allow some of its commercial, Medicare and Medicaid agreements to expire if the companies cannot reach a deal for a new contract. The dispute could affect nearly 380,000 Anthem members in Virginia. (8/5)

Massachusetts is investing nearly $1.4 million into a new initiative aimed at getting older patients out of the hospital faster. Seven hospitals will partner with aging services organizations and use the money to help patients line up nonmedical services such as meals, medication management and transportation after an inpatient stay. The program, if it is successful and overcomes long-term funding challenges, could serve as a model for other states and health systems grappling with delayed discharges. (Eastabrook, 8/5)

The fate of the No Surprises Act's independent dispute resolution (IDR) clause continues to hang in the balance as it winds its way through the courts. The No Surprises Act, signed into law in 2020 by President Donald Trump, was intended to protect patients from unexpected bills for care from out-of-network providers and to ensure fair contracts between health plans and physicians. It requires health plans and providers to resolve their billing disputes by establishing an IDR arbitration process in which the insurer and the provider each come up with an offer and an independent third party chooses one of the two. (Frieden, 8/5)

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a novel type of treatment for narcolepsy made by Takeda, backing a drug class that scientists hope can transform the treatment of sleep disorders and potentially address a broad range of neurologic conditions. (Chen, 8/5)

Last year, a little-known Chinese startup took center stage at the American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy annual convention in New Orleans. Speaking before a sprawling conference hall for the presidential symposium, HuidaGene CEO Alvin Luk presented data from one of the world’s first trials to test if CRISPR gene editing could treat children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, an intractable, fatal disease. (Mast and Yang, 8/5)

Two and a half years into his tenure as Emergent BioSolutions CEO, Joseph Papa is executing another round of restructuring to align the business with “current business realities.” The Narcan maker will lay off 93 employees across all areas of the company and remove 21 open positions, the company said Wednesday alongside its second-quarter earnings report. (Liu, 8/5)

Bank of America spends more than $250 million a year covering GLP-1 weight loss drugs for its employees, CEO Brian Moynihan told CNBC on Wednesday, saying the rapidly rising cost is a worthwhile investment in his workforce. (Son and Constantino, 8/5)

Voters in Kansas and Missouri have long filled their legislatures with Republican lawmakers who oppose abortion. Those same Kansans and Missourians, when given the choice, have also voted in favor of abortion rights. And though the word “abortion” did not appear on the ballot in either state on Tuesday, voters resoundingly shot down Republican-backed ballot measures that could have made it easier to ban the procedure in the future. In Kansas, voters rejected a proposal to start electing Supreme Court justices, and in Missouri, voters declined to make it harder for residents to amend the Constitution. (Smith and Klein, 8/5)

The Connecticut State Board of Education adopted new guidance Wednesday encouraging schools to implement bell-to-bell restrictions on cellphone and personal technology use. The new guidelines follow an unsuccessful attempt in the General Assembly this spring to impose a statewide bell-to-bell ban on cellphone use in public schools. (Peck-Suzuki, 8/5)

The Connecticut Department of Correction has agreed to end its longtime practice of in-cell restraints under a settlement announced Thursday, following years of criticism over the treatment of incarcerated people with mental illness in Connecticut. The settlement, reached with the American Civil Liberties Union and Disability Rights Connecticut, resolves a yearslong case challenging the department’s use of in-cell restraints on incarcerated people with mental illness. The agreement requires DOC to revise its policy, provide staff training on full-stationary restraints and report their use to the ACLU. (Chau, 8/5)

Advocates urged the state to invest in community-based alternatives to nursing homes for people with disabilities before attempting to enter Gov. JB Pritzker’s Chicago office in the West Loop on Wednesday. More than a dozen activists, mostly those in wheelchairs and on mobility scooters, raised a chant of “let us in” as they blocked the building’s doorway at 555 W. Monroe St. Illinois State Police pushed back, telling the crowd to leave. (Anastasakos, 8/5)

A Chicago lab owner pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring with fugitive ex-Loretto Hospital executive Anosh Ahmed in a COVID-19 testing fraud scheme that generated tens of millions of dollars in government reimbursements over a two-month period in 2021, much of which was for tests that were never performed. (Meisner, 8/5)

Dr. Masahide Kanayama, a Manhattan surgeon and an expert in endometriosis, received an 18-month suspended sentence after a court found him guilty of damaging the sites. (Notoya and Raj, 8/6)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Medicaid Work Rule Leaves Homeless People In The Cold

Tywon Pugh has seizures that make it hard to find and keep a job. “They called me a ‘liability to the job site,’” Pugh said, recalling the words of his manager when a seizure cost him his last job at a fast-food restaurant in this western Montana city. When the 46-year-old lost work in the past, his wife of 10 years covered their rent and he tended to their home until he found another job. But his wife died last year. Soon after, Pugh became homeless. His problem with alcohol became worse, which made managing his seizures more difficult. (Houghton, 8/6)

A new specialty pharmacy serving senior living communities has opened in Roanoke. SpecialityRx packages medications and delivers them directly to nursing homes and assisted living facilities. (Schabacker, 8/6)

New Mexico health officials are warning that as summers grow longer and hotter, people living and working outside face mounting and often invisible risks. Emergency department visits for heat stress have doubled since the early 2010s, said according to state data and epidemiologist Daniella Matthews-Trigg, program manager for the Mobile Homeless Response a Program which is a part of the New Mexico Department of Health Environmental Health Epidemiology Bureau. (Kinsey, 8/5)

The Red Cross has declared a national blood supply crisis after blood donations fell to a four-year low this summer. Extreme heat is one environmental factor affecting donations. (Fernandez, 8/5)

A deer found near Stillwater, in Washington County, Minnesota, has tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD), marking the first case for that county, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced yesterday. A landowner reported the sick doe to the DNR, who retrieved it and had it tested after it died on July 16. The positive result was confirmed this week. (Van Beusekom, 8/5)

The world’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak is spreading faster than efforts to fight it, the head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday during a visit to Congo where some health workers are striking over a lack of pay. (8/6)

Dozens of Congolese health workers at the epicenter of the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record staged protests Thursday to demand payment for their wages, abandoning several health facilities even as aid workers warn that the disease is still spreading at an alarming rate. (Bagalwa, 8/6)

Mexico's health ministry ​is testing food ‌and water at more than a ​dozen hotels in ​the tourist hub of ⁠Quintana Roo ​after British health authorities ​reported cases of cyclosporiasis in travelers who ​had stayed there, ​the ministry said on ‌Wednesday. The ⁠ministry said that results from the laboratory analysis would ​be ​released ⁠once testing is complete. Mexico ​has logged ​33 ⁠cases of cyclosporiasis, which causes stomach ⁠illness, ​across several ​states. (8/5)

Missouri health officials confirmed Wednesday that the state is now included in a nationwide outbreak of cyclosporiasis linked to lettuce grown in central Mexico, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not publicly announced the change. (Fentem, 8/5)

The U.S. food supply is “among the safest in the world,” said Steven Mandernach, the Association of Food and Drug Officials’ executive director. “It’s always been among the safest in the world. I see nothing that has changed. ”But it’s notoriously difficult to answer in real-time whether our food is getting less safe, food safety experts said. (Czopek, 8/5)

Taylor Farms has regularly downplayed problems after being linked to outbreaks in the past. (Tolan, Abou-Ghazala, Devine and Lah, 8/6)

Cases of a potentially deadly fungus have been detected in 27 states so far this year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As of the week ending July 25, there have been 3,437 cases of Candida auris (C. auris) identified. This is about 1,000 fewer cases than the 4,290 figure detected at the same time last year. California has recorded the most cases with 873, followed by Texas with 433 and Tennessee with 283. (Kekatos, 8/6)

The order in which a person was born may have an impact on their risk for developing disorders or diseases, a new study has found. Those born first carry a higher risk for neurodevelopmental conditions, such as autism and ADHD, and food allergies, according to a new study of more than 10 million individuals published in Nature. Second-born children, per the research, carry excess risk for substance abuse and gastrointestinal issues. The researchers tested more than 569 diseases to find out which ones, if any, were more or less likely between first-borns and second-borns. (Soriano, 8/5)

Kids with pet dogs get fewer respiratory tract infections and require fewer rounds of antibiotics than children not exposed to canines, a new study says. Microbes from dogs appear to provide some protection to children, helping them remain healthier on average, researchers reported recently in the journal Pediatric Allergy and Immunology. (Thompson, 8/6)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Listen To The Latest ‘�������ýҕ�l Health News Minute’

Katheryn Houghton reads the week’s news: Some older adults are seeking roommates to help them age in place. Plus, doctors say they shouldn’t be the ones determining if someone is too sick to comply with Medicaid’s new work rules. (8/6)

A new UCLA study published in Science Advances describes a previously unrecognized way the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein can push the immune system into dangerous overdrive. (8/5)

Women with vaginosis are around three times as likely to also test positive for gonorrhea, chlamydia or other bacterial sexually transmitted infections, a new study says. (Thompson, 8/4)

A higher body fat percentage is linked to lower sperm counts and changes in the balance of testosterone and other male hormones, researchers reported July 29 in the journal Human Reproduction. (Thompson, 8/4)

Bone growth among transgender and gender-diverse adolescents slowed compared with peers during pubertal suppression, but partially recovered after starting gender-affirming hormone therapy, a systematic review and meta-analysis showed. (Monaco, 8/3)

Novo Nordisk said Friday that its investigational anti-inflammatory drug did not reduce the risk of major heart events in a pivotal trial, raising questions about the increasingly popular approach of targeting inflammation to prevent cardiovascular complications. (Chen, 7/31)

Men who used the PDE5 inhibitor tadalafil (Cialis) for lower urinary tract symptoms had an increased likelihood of developing glaucoma-related clinical events, according to a large retrospective study. (Bankhead, 8/5)

Patients with inflammatory bowel disease were at increased risk for several psychiatric disorders both before and after diagnosis, according to results from a Swedish cohort study. (Bassett, 8/5)

In an early-stage clinical trial, six participants with peanut allergy showed improved tolerance to small peanut exposures up to four months after they received fecal microbiome transplant using stool capsules. (Chan, 8/5)

Elimination of measles in the United States in 2000 was a landmark public health achievement. Twenty-five years later, the country has already reported more cases this year than it did in all of 2025, a stark reminder that public health victories can be reversed. (Noel T. Brewer, 8/6)

According to the Government Accountability Office, there are about 9 million Medicaid recipients who are working full-time, and 7.5 million who receive SNAP benefits. (Kathryn Anne Edwards, 8/5)

Influencers on social media are sharing content that claims to help followers self-diagnose complex medical conditions ranging from A.D.H.D. to autism. And the data reveals that the effect of self-diagnosis is far-reaching. (Nadja Spiegelman, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and Mary H. K. Choi, 8/5)

Once in a while, a scientific paper poses a question that we already know the answer to. That’s the case with a new study in Nature Medicine titled, “Is AI actually improving healthcare?” (Priya Abani, 8/6)

American drinking habits are changing. So is federal guidance on alcohol consumption. (8/3)