�������ýҕ�l

A federal judge ruled that the swift takedown of health information across several government webpages earlier this year was illegal and vacated agencies’ directives to do so. ... In an order filed Thursday, U.S. District Judge John Bates described the case as an example of “government officials acting first and thinking later,” writing that HHS and the Office of Personnel and Management, which had issued the memo directing webpage takedowns, had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” and in contrary of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). (Muoio, 7/7)

The Department of Health and Human Services emailed staff a “whistle-blower questionnaire” asking them to report cases of discrimination due to past diversity, equity and inclusion directives, according to an email obtained by POLITICO. The email asks staff five questions about whether they’ve witnessed people nix grants or contracts “with discriminatory language” and if they knew current and former staff who were passed over for promotions or hiring due to “race, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability or genetic information.” (Nguyen, 7/7)

The Department of Veterans Affairs said Monday that it will no longer be forced to conduct a large reduction in workforce, unlike several other federal agencies that were forced to make mass layoffs because of the Trump administration’s U.S. DOGE Service. In a news release, VA said that it was on pace to reduce its total staff by nearly 30,000 employees by the end of this fiscal year, a push that the department said eliminates the need for a “large-scale reduction-in-force.” The announcement marks a significant reversal for the Trump administration, which had planned for months to cut VA by roughly 83,000 employees, according to plans revealed in an internal memo circulated to agency staffers in March. At the time, VA Secretary Douglas A. Collins said in remarks shared to social media that the cuts were tough but necessary. (Alfaro, Natanson and Kornfield, 7/7)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Workplace Mental Health At Risk As Key Federal Agency Faces Cuts

In Connecticut, construction workers in the Local 478 union who complete addiction treatment are connected with a recovery coach who checks in daily, attends recovery meetings with them, and helps them navigate the return to work for a year. In Pennsylvania, doctors applying for credentials at Geisinger hospitals are not required to answer intrusive questions about mental health care they’ve received, reducing the stigma around clinicians seeking treatment. (Pattani, 7/8)

Fogbow is working with combatants to deliver food to some of the world’s most desperate and inaccessible places. Aid groups warn of unintended consequences. (Houreld, 7/8)

Inspectors charged with safeguarding America’s drug supply say they are reeling from deep cuts at the Food and Drug Administration despite promises by the Trump administration to preserve the work of the agency’s investigative force. Dozens of people who help coordinate travel for complex inspections of foreign drug-making factories have been let go, and though some have since been rehired, inspectors said the ongoing strain of policing an industry spread across more than 90 countries has exhausted staff and could compromise the safety of medications used by millions of people. (Malis, Dailey, Leite, Cenziper and Rose, 7/7)

How the new health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is dismantling the agency. (Interlandi, 7/8)

The Trump administration has withdrawn its plan to rewrite a ban on the last type of asbestos still used in the United States. The Biden-era ban was a victory for health advocates who had long fought to prohibit the carcinogenic mineral in all its forms. Last month the Trump administration said it planned to reconsider the asbestos ban, which would have delayed its implementation by several years. But late Monday, it withdrew that filing. (Tabuchi, 7/7)

In January 2021, after a nitrogen leak at a poultry plant in Georgia killed 6 workers and injured scores more, federal investigators arrived at the scene. The team, from a small federal agency called the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, traced the fatal leak to a freezer part that had been bent out of shape. A series of recommendations to improve safety followed. Now, the White House is planning to eliminate the agency, allocating $0 for its budget starting in 2026. Even industry groups are opposed. (Tabuchi, 7/8)

Six leading medical organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and the federal Department of Health and Human Services, charging that recent decisions limiting access to vaccines were unscientific and harmful to the public. The suit, filed in federal court in western Massachusetts, seeks to restore Covid vaccines to the list of recommended immunizations for healthy children and pregnant women. (Mandavilli, 7/7)

After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became the nation’s top health official in February, pediatrician Jeff Couchman started getting a lot of questions from worried parents. “They’d ask: ‘Are vaccines going to be available? Can we give my kid every possible shot today just to make sure?’” said Couchman, who practices at Mesquite Pediatrics in Tucson, Arizona. (Smith and Amponsah, 7/7)

Thimerosal, often referred to by its brand name Merthiolate, is an organomercury compound used for its antiseptic and antifungal properties. Thimerosal can be found in various medical applications, some of which include immunoglobulin (Ig) preparations, skin test antigens, and antivenins. Despite being used in vaccines since the 1930s, thimerosal has been heavily scrutinized by the public, especially since the early 2000s. Several agencies and news articles have raised concerns about the frequent use of thimerosal as a vaccine preservative, stating mercury exposure and cautioning against its use, especially for children and pregnant or lactating mothers. (de Souza, 7/7)

Republican lawmakers — including the speaker of the Utah House — stood with about 60 demonstrators at the Orrin G. Hatch U.S. Courthouse on Monday, just before a trial was to begin for a plastic surgeon charged with running a COVID-19 fraud scheme. Several of the demonstrators dressed in red, white and blue, and held American flags and handwritten signs in support of Dr. Michael Kirk Moore Jr. One sign read “Is this what we do to heroes?” while another said, “coercion is not consent.” Another sign, quoting an X post attributed to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine opponent and now Health and Human Services secretary, read: “Dr. Moore deserves a medal for his courage and his commitment to healing!” (Moilanen, 7/7)

Unlike other kids in Massachusetts, students living in one Boston suburb won’t be able to go back to school next month unless they’ve had their chickenpox and measles shots, as well as other routine childhood vaccinations. “Any student not fully vaccinated without exemption will be excluded from school,” Newton Public Schools Superintendent Anna Nolin wrote in a memo last month. The directive followed a chickenpox outbreak among students, as well as rising threats of measles, Nolin said. (Edwards, 7/5)

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday praised a company that makes $7-a-pop meals that are delivered directly to the homes of Medicaid and Medicare enrollees. He even thanked Mom’s Meals for sending taxpayer-funded meals “without additives” to the homes of sick or elderly Americans. ... But an Associated Press review of Mom’s Meals menu, including the ingredients and nutrition labels, shows that the company’s offerings are the type of heat-and-eat, ultraprocessed foods that Kennedy routinely criticizes for making people sick. (Seitz and Aleccia, 7/7)

It’s not uncommon for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to mention sperm counts when he makes a public appearance. In recent television interviews, political speeches and congressional hearings, Kennedy has repeatedly claimed that teenage boys today have half the sperm that men in their 60s do — a stat that’s not exactly accurate. Kennedy has cited the talking point as evidence of a broader health crisis in the U.S. (Bendix, 7/3)

Less than three months after he declared war on synthetic food dyes, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has already secured the cooperation of the makers of some of America’s most colorful culinary products. If they fulfill their promises, Jell-O snacks, Kool-Aid beverages, and Lucky Charms cereals, among a host of other foods, will be rid of synthetic dyes by the end of 2027. But the candy industry and its most colorful chocolate treat, M&M's, are a big obstacle standing between Mr. Kennedy and the ability to claim total victory. (Gay Stolberg and Creswell, 7/7)

A federal judge on Monday granted Planned Parenthood’s request to temporarily halt Medicaid funding cuts to the group’s health centers under a provision of Republicans’ new tax and spending package. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s ruling marks the first known instance of a federal judge limiting enforcement of any part of the “big, beautiful” bill, which President Trump signed into law Friday. (Schonfeld, 7/7)

President Trump's tax and spending bill sets in motion nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other health policy changes that could loom over the midterm elections. But the real effects likely won't be felt until well after the ballots are cast. (Goldman, 7/7)

Republicans just delivered Donald Trump a “big, beautiful” legislative win. Now they’re fretting it will lead to some ugly electoral losses. GOP lawmakers are warning that slashing spending on Medicaid and food assistance will cost the party seats in the midterms — threatening their razor-thin House majority — by kicking millions of Americans off safety-net programs. (Kashinsky, Howard and Schneider, 7/6)

Republicans swiftly approved President Trump’s tax cut bill last week, despite a full-court press from doctors, hospitals, and patients to beat back some of the largest health care cuts in American history — more than $1 trillion in all over the next decade. (Payne, 7/8)

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said the best way for people to get health insurance is to get a job while discussing the massive tax cut legislation, which dramatically upends health care, signed into law by President Trump. During an appearance on CBS News’s “Face The Nation,” Hassett was asked about Americans’ concerns that about 12 million Americans could lose Medicaid coverage, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). ( Scully, 7/6)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: �������ýҕ�l Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: Trump’s Bill Reaches The Finish Line

Early Thursday afternoon, the House approved a budget reconciliation bill that not only would make permanent many of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, but also impose deep cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and, indirectly, Medicare. (Rovner, 7/3)

Tyler Sherman, a nurse at a rural Nebraska hospital, is used to the area’s aging farmers delaying care until they end up in his emergency room. Now, with Congress planning around $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years, he fears those farmers and the more than 3,000 residents of Webster County could lose not just the ER, but also the clinic and nursing home tied to the hospital. ... If those facilities close, many locals would see their five-minute trip to Webster County hospital turn into a nearly hour-long ride to the nearest hospital offering the same services. (Beck and Haigh, 7/4)

Ten years ago, Nancy Winmill’s son survived an opioid overdose. In her search for support, she found almost nothing available in her Burley, Idaho community. “I had no idea what to do or where to go. I had no help. I had no resources,” Winmill said. (de Figueiredo, 7/6)

President Donald Trump’s new budget bill is expected to push almost 12 million Americans off their health insurance, creating long-term financial issues for states and health-care providers, according to a S&P Global report. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act makes substantial cuts to Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income and disabled people. In the long term, that reduced funding could hurt the balance sheets of state governments and hospitals alike, according to the report released Monday. (Kaske, 7/7)

As President Donald Trump intensifies his targeting of undocumented immigrants, the GOP megabill passed Thursday takes aim at those here legally by revoking their access to subsidized care. Under current rules, those immigrants — green card holders, refugees, survivors of domestic violence and individuals on work and student visas — can purchase health insurance on the Obamacare marketplace and receive tax credits to offset the cost. (Chu, 7/4)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Journalists Assess Health Impacts Of Trump's Megabill, Who Will Feel Them, And When

�������ýҕ�l Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed how cuts to Medicaid in President Donald Trump’s megabill will affect Americans’ access to health care on NPR’s “Up First,” CNN’s “CNN This Morning” and WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” on July 2. Rovner also discussed U.S. domestic and global vaccine policy on WAMU’s “1A” on July 1. (7/5)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: States Brace For Reversal Of Obamacare Coverage Gains Under Trump’s Budget Bill

Shorter enrollment periods. More paperwork. Higher premiums. The sweeping tax and spending bill pushed by President Donald Trump includes provisions that would not only reshape people’s experience with the Affordable Care Act but, according to some policy analysts, also sharply undermine the gains in health insurance coverage associated with it. The moves affect consumers and have particular resonance for the 19 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that run their own ACA exchanges. (Appleby, 7/3)

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ended its emergency response for bird flu as the outbreak that sickened dozens of people, spread to cattle and drove up egg prices has abated. The emergency designation ended in the last week, according to a person familiar with the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about it. (Nix, 7/7)

The United States has reached its highest annual measles case tally in 33 years, hitting at least 1,277 confirmed cases across 38 states and the District of Columbia. The milestone marks a public health reversal in defeating a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease as the anti-vaccine movement gains strength. (Sun, 7/7)

Emergency rooms across the country are seeing a spike in tick bite cases, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. July has already seen the highest number of tick-related ER visits since 2017, with the Northeast region reporting the most cases, the CDC said. Young children and elderly adults appear particularly vulnerable, with those under 10 and over 70 years old having the highest rates of emergency room visits, according to the CDC. (Benadjaoud, 7/7)

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday vetoed a bill that would have increased state requirements for nursing-education programs. The House on May 2 unanimously passed the bill (HB 1427), while the Senate approved it in a 26-5 vote. (7/7)

If they want to work in North Carolina, advanced practice registered nurses — in particular, nurse practitioners — are required to work with a supervising physician. Certified registered nurse anesthetists require an arrangement with an organization that employs an anesthesiologist. Nurses say these regulations create unnecessary red tape and costs to the APRNs and to patients. (Vitaglione, 7/7)

Ebony Payne knows a thing or two about nursing homes. Paralyzed from the neck down after a violent crime, Payne has lived in at least eight nursing homes over the past 20 years. She knows that when residents ring the call button for help, they’re sometimes left waiting for hours, even if they’re waiting for assistance getting to the bathroom. Payne, 42, said she once waited 45 minutes for a nursing home worker to come and clean her tracheotomy tube so she could breathe freely. (McCoppin, 7/7)

States in the Mountain West are stepping up to provide a safe place for LGBTQ+ youth to call when they are in crises. That’s because they’ll no longer have specific services through the national 988 Suicide and Crisis hotline. (Merzbach, 7/7)

Despite increased concerns about rising gun deaths among children, new research found that the number of teenagers who have handguns has gone up. The study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, found that Florida adolescent general handgun carrying increased by 65%, from 3.7% to 6.0%, from 2002 to 2022. Females, middle school-aged teens and white students were among the groups that most substantially contributed to the increase. (Moniuszko, 7/7)

When Missouri voters head to the ballot box next year, they will decide whether to reimpose an abortion ban and strike down last year’s historic vote that enshrined a right to the procedure in the state constitution. But the question that voters will see, called Amendment 3, makes no mention of banning abortion or the fact that it would strike down last November’s vote. (Bayless, 7/7)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: In A Nation Growing Hostile Toward Drugs And Homelessness, Los Angeles Tries Leniency

Inside a bright new building in the heart of Skid Row, homeless people hung out in a canopy-covered courtyard — some waiting to take a shower, do laundry, or get medication for addiction treatment. Others relaxed on shaded grass and charged their phones as an intake line for housing grew more crowded. The Skid Row Care Campus officially opened this spring with ample offerings for people living on the streets of this historically downtrodden neighborhood. Pop-up fruit stands and tent encampments lined the sidewalks, as well as dealers peddling meth and fentanyl in open-air drug markets. Some people, sick or strung out, were passed out on sidewalks as pedestrians strolled by on a recent afternoon. (Hart, 7/8)

The health of U.S. children has deteriorated over the past 17 years, with kids today more likely to have obesity, chronic diseases and mental health problems like depression, a new study says. Much of what researchers found was already known, but the study paints a comprehensive picture by examining various aspects of children’s physical and mental health at the same time. (Ungar and Aleccia, 7/7)

Stores of glucose in the brain could play a much more significant role in the pathological degeneration of neurons than scientists realized, opening the way to new treatments for conditions like Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's is a tauopathy; a condition characterized by harmful build-ups of tau proteins inside neurons. It's not clear, however, if these build-ups are a cause or a consequence of the disease. A new study now adds important detail by revealing significant interactions between tau and glucose in its stored form of glycogen. ... When fruit flies affected by tauopathy were put on a low-protein diet, they lived longer and showed reduced brain damage, suggesting that the metabolic shift prompted by dieting can help boost GlyP. (Nield, 7/6)

A new clinical trial suggests there are still ongoing questions about the safety of even low doses of cannabidiol, even as CBD capsules, gummies, edibles, oils and lotions have become increasingly omnipresent in the United States in recent years. Scientists from the Food and Drug Administration’s Division of Applied Regulatory Science carried out a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial last year to assess how low-dose CBD affects liver function in a group of healthy middle-aged men and women. (Cox, 7/7)

Measures linked to falling tobacco use worldwide now reach 6.1 billion people — or 75 percent of the global population, according to a report from the World Health Organization. The report, issued at the recent World Conference on Tobacco Control in Dublin, found that 2.6 billion people in 79 countries are covered by smoke-free policies in indoor public places. (Blakemore, 7/5)

Starbucks Corp. is exploring how to remove canola oil from its food lineup in the US. In one example, the company is considering making its egg white and roasted red pepper bites without canola oil, a spokesperson said in response to an inquiry from Bloomberg News. The company will also add a new egg bite to its menu that is made with avocado oil. (Sirtori and Cohrs Zhang, 7/7)

When female athletes collapse on the playing field, they are less likely to be resuscitated than men: A look at gender differences in sudden cardiac arrest. (Cooney, 7/8)

S&P Global Ratings said it’s considering cutting Centene Corp.’s credit ratings to junk, citing the health insurer’s suspending its 2025 profit outlook. Centene said last week that it was withdrawing its previous forecast for its earnings for the year, because insurance market trends were veering from its assumptions, particularly in the plans it offers under the Affordable Care Act. Without that information, S&P has less confidence that the insurer will build the capital it needs quickly enough, the bond grader said in a statement on Monday. (Hall, 7/7)

Molina Healthcare became the latest health insurer to warn that higher medical costs will hit earnings this year, adding to Wall Street’s worries about an industry already facing the loss of millions of customers because of the newly passed Republican megabill. Last week, shares plunged across the industry after Molina’s larger competitor Centene withdrew its financial guidance for 2025, saying its profits would fall well short of what the company previously expected. In the wake of that, Molina’s announcement wasn’t a complete surprise, limiting the immediate downside to the shares of the California-based managed care company and its competitors. (Wilde Mathews, 7/7)

Health insurance companies will trade $10.4 billion in exchange risk-adjustment payments this year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced. Centene, CVS Health subsidiary Aetna and UnitedHealth Group subsidiary UnitedHealthcare are set to receive more than expected, while Cigna, Elevance Health, Molina Healthcare and Oscar Health will owe greater sums than projected, according to an analysis of CMS data and corporate financial disclosures by the investment bank Barclays Capital. (Tepper, 7/7)

A health-care system serving the largest retirement community in the US has filed for bankruptcy after disclosing it potentially overbilled Medicare by at least $350 million, according to court filings. The Villages Health System LLC, which operates clinics for retirees living in the Villages in Central Florida, said in a July 3 court filing that it logged patient diagnoses that “were not clinically supported or otherwise did not meet Medicare coding and payment guidance.” (Randles, 7/7)

Some hospitals in the U.S. are without essential staff because international doctors who were set to start their medical training this week were delayed by the Trump administration’s travel and visa restrictions. It’s unclear exactly how many foreign medical residents were unable to start their assignments, but six medical residents interviewed by The Associated Press say they’ve undergone years of training and work only to be stopped at the finish line by what is usually a procedural step. (Ramakrishnan and Shastri, 7/4)

Northwestern Medicine has launched a program to help patients who have concerns related to obesity and are planning a pregnancy. Women with higher levels of body fat sometimes struggle to conceive and can face greater health risks during pregnancy. The PEARL program, which stands for Preconception and Early Assessment Care Rooted in Lifestyle Management, aims to help these patients have safe and healthy pregnancies. (Weaver, 7/5)

Novartis AG won regulatory approval for the first medicine designed for babies with malaria, the latest development in the global fight against the mosquito-borne disease. The Swiss drugmaker said Tuesday the country’s agency Swissmedic approved a new formulation of its drug Coartem to treat infants weighing from 2 kilograms to under 5 kilograms (11 pounds). The company expects approval from eight countries in Africa to follow, and plans to roll out the treatment on a “largely not-for-profit basis,” it said. (Petroff, 7/8)

KalVista Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares jumped after the company said it received US Food and Drug Administration approval for its pill for hereditary angioedema, a rare and potentially deadly condition that causes severe swelling throughout the body. KalVista said last month that regulators had delayed making a decision on its drug due to the agency’s “heavy workload and limited resources” after the FDA told the company it would miss a June deadline for approval. (Koons, 7/7)

The No Surprises Act, which took effect in 2022, was rightly heralded as a landmark piece of legislation, which “protects people covered under group and individual health plans from receiving surprise medical bills,” according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. And yet bills that take patients like Chen by surprise just keep coming. (Elisabeth Rosenthal, 7/8)

Right now, it feels like America is being held together with duct tape. We’re living through a steady drumbeat of instability. And in all that chaos, one quiet crisis continues to unfold, largely ignored but deeply damaging. America has a diaper problem. (Amy Kadens, 7/7)

The United States government, and perhaps many Americans, no longer view global health in the same way. This is despite the fact that American involvement has helped eradicate smallpox, halved malaria deaths in many countries and prevented an estimated 26 million deaths through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. All told, U.S. global health support saves 3.3 million lives a year — or at least did, before its recent and rapid dismantling. (Craig Spencer, 7/7)

This round of budget cuts in Medicaid far exceeds any other cut the United States has made in its social safety net. The approximately $1 trillion reduction, over 10 years, represents about 0.3 percent of gross domestic product. Previously, the most draconian cuts came with President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax law. But they were far smaller — $12 billion over 10 years and 0.03 percent of G.D.P. (Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, 7/8)

Human health is complex and diagnostic tools and their limitations, so missing a diagnosis is sometimes unavoidable. But every missed diagnosis has the potential to cause harm to a patient, as is demonstrated by a dangerous trend I’ve noticed within emergency departments: a tendency to attribute symptoms too readily to cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) without adequate diagnostic work-up. (Jordan Tishler, 7/8)

Like many adolescents, I struggled mightily with oily skin, large pores, and severe acne. I tried all of the over-the-counter soaps, gels, and treatments to no avail. It wasn’t until my dermatologist finally prescribed me a drug known as Accutane, a then-new and still-powerful acne-killing pill, that my skin (mostly) cleared — along with some seriously chapped lips and sore joints (IYKYN). (Jim Crotty, 7/8)