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The ruling essentially turns FTC commissioners into at-will employees, who serve at the pleasure of the president. It also effectively ends Congress' requirement that the FTC be bipartisan, so that no one party has too much sway. ... The agency's commissioners are antitrust experts, uniquely positioned to keep watch over all kinds of companies — big tech companies, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers and media companies — ensuring their practices aren't harming regular people. (Hsu and Totenberg, 6/29)

The Supreme Court Monday declined to take up an appeal from President Donald Trump over a $5 million verdict and finding that he sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, a decision that means the president will now have to pay the magazine columnist. (Fritze, 6/29)

The Health Resources and Services Administration highlighted on Monday $140 million in newly opened grant funding opportunities focused on rural health priorities such as substance use treatment, workforce development and telehealth. Applications for the slew of grants opened over the last few weeks and are set to close throughout July. (Muoio, 6/29)

The Trump administration unveiled new efforts to strengthen oversight of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), including hiring a federal IT contractor to provide audit, review and compliance support. TEFCA is the government-backed health data-sharing initiative that allows patients, providers and payers to share health records. It was mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act back in 2016 and went live in December 2023. (Landi, 6/29)

Vijay Kumar, acting director of the office that reviews cell and gene therapies at the Food and Drug Administration, is stepping down from his role, according to an email obtained by STAT. (Lawrence, 6/29)

Food and Drug Administration career scientists said there isn’t enough evidence to allow certain peptides to be produced by compounding pharmacies, contradicting Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to expand access to the popular wellness products. The recommendation from FDA regulators was quietly posted online Monday as Kennedy’s health department added several new members, many of whom are physicians, to a panel that will review some peptides next month. At least seven of the members have ties to peptide-related businesses and clinics. Another member is the son of a congresswoman who has urged Kennedy to convene the panel. (Roubein and Weber, 6/30)

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday dismissed criticism from GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.) that he is breaking promises. Speaking to NewsNation’s Anna Kooiman in Atlantic City, N.J., Kennedy said he met with Cassidy roughly a month ago and told the Louisiana Republican his critiques are untrue. “I went through every promise that I made to them and I’ve kept them all,” the HHS secretary added, recalling his conversation with Cassidy. “I won’t speculate as to why Senator Cassidy is saying those things. I think anybody can make that speculation. But what he’s saying is not true.” (Rego, 6/29)

Online safety legislation focused on children and teens that has come under fire from key senators passed the House Monday, setting the stage for continued wrangling as Congress seeks to address concerns raised by parent and free speech groups. (Mollenkamp, 6/29)

Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) in a Sunday post said she had been hospitalized after a blood clot. Hayes said she was discharged on Sunday after two days at the hospital. “A health update from me. Listen to your body, and seek care if you’re not feeling well. Thank you to all the Dr’s, nurses, technicians and the entire team at St. Mary’s Hospital for the excellent care I received,” Hayes said on the social platform X. Hayes’s post also featured a video of her in which she said she was “reaching out with a quick update.” (Suter, 6/29)

Democrats in 25 states and the District of Columbia on Monday sued the Trump administration over its recent guidance on new Medicaid work requirements, arguing the strict rules will prevent eligible Americans from accessing the care they need. The attorneys general and governors who filed the lawsuit allege that an interim final rule released earlier this month by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services oversteps the text of the law last summer that set in motion the changes to Medicaid. (Swenson, 6/29)

Ambetter Health has announced that it will no longer offer healthcare plans on the health insurance marketplace in New Hampshire starting next year. (Richardson, 6/29)

Employers ranging from guitar shops to large chain grocery stores are contracting directly with providers to offer health benefits to employees, altering their longtime relationships with payers. The health systems and employers are negotiating reimbursement rates themselves with bundled pay arrangements. They share in the risks and savings. (Hudson, 6/29)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: These Church Members Disagree On Politics. Together They’re Wiping Out Medical Debt

Some issues, like immigration or student loans, are too divisive to unite Trinity Moravian Church.This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free. “We’ve got quite a spread of political beliefs,” said the Rev. John Jackman, who leads this 114-year-old red-brick church near Winston-Salem’s old textile mills. Conservative Republicans sit with liberal Democrats. Supporters of President Donald Trump mix with his fierce critics. “It’s definitely a purple congregation,” Jackman said. (Levey, 6/30)

Insurers and doctors’ groups, often divided over how to rein in health care costs, are now facing off over the Make America Healthy Again movement. The insurance industry is embracing MAHA, while the doctors’ lobby is pushing against the movement’s leader, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who many physicians see as a danger to public health. The opposing forces could shape Kennedy’s policy decisions on issues ranging from how much doctors earn to treat Medicare patients to how the government regulates medical services. (Hooper, 6/28)

The Trump administration’s grand bargain with drugmakers on GLP-1s was based on a simple premise: lower prices in exchange for higher sales volume. Instead, the companies secured higher volume without the lower prices in some cases. (Wilkerson, 6/30)

AstraZeneca agreed to pay $34 million to settle claims that the company paid kickbacks to improperly influence prescriptions paid for by Texas Medicaid. (Silverman, 6/29)

Loss of copayment assistance for drugs to treat neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) significantly disrupted patient care, including switching to less costly (and perhaps less effective) therapy, reliance on samples, and higher out-of-pocket costs, a small prospective study showed. (Bankhead, 6/29)

The nation’s top pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) lobbying group is going on the offensive, stepping up its advocacy efforts against the pharmaceutical industry after Congress passed a PBM industry overhaul last winter. The pharmaceutical industry spent years pointing fingers at pharmacy benefit managers as the reason for high drug costs, and Congress finally was able to get PBM reforms over the finish line as part of a larger government funding bill. (Weixel, 6/29)

Some families in Venezuela are mourning and others are desperately trying to find loved ones who had been deported from the U.S. and arrived hours before the earthquakes struck last week. The deportees were being processed at the Hotel Santuario La Llanada in the coastal state of La Guaira, one of the hardest-hit areas. Families have confirmed some deportees have died while others are unaccounted for. (Sesin, 6/30)

With the window for finding survivors shrinking fast, Venezuelans combed Monday through more ruins of buildings toppled by last week’s powerful back-to-back earthquakes, and attention turned to the country’s humanitarian crisis that could persist for years. Relief organizations say the first 72 hours after a natural disaster is the most crucial time period for rescues, though survival can be extended if people have access to food and water. Five days after the twin quakes, questions loomed about whether the cash-strapped government will be able to coordinate the effort needed to care for thousands of people who have been left homeless. (Arraez and Debre, 6/30)

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has spread to a fourth province, according to media reports. Sources at DRC’s National Institute of Biomedical Research told Agence France-Press that an Ebola case was detected in Haut-Uele province after a patient traveled there from Ituri province, which is the outbreak’s epicenter. Haut-Uele is north of Ituri and borders South Sudan and the Central African Republic. Like Ituri, the province sees heavy cross-border movement and trade, which health officials fear is helping the virus spread. (Dall, 6/29)

The Democratic Republic of Congo has banned public gatherings in four provinces, ​including the capital, Kinshasa, as the country battles a deadly Ebola ‌outbreak. The ban comes ahead of a planned protest in Kinshasa on July 8 against constitutional reform, with opposition figures calling it "politically motivated." (6/29)

As Europe continues to face a record-breaking heatwave, the World Health Organization warns future summers will only be hotter. Europe is warming at more than twice the global average and heatwaves are no longer one-off freak events. They are recurring crises, and they are becoming more frequent, stronger and longer-lasting, said Dr. Hans Henri Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. (Iraola Iribarren, 6/30)

A 2007 study found that air conditioning can cut heat-related deaths by 75%, but only about 20% of Europeans have air conditioning in their homes. In the U.S., it's about 90%. (Kiniry, 6/30)

A 45-year-old man killed six adults and wounded several others in a shooting attack at a child welfare facility in northern Germany on Monday, in what the local authorities described as a dispute over the custody of the man’s daughter. The daytime assault in the small city of Stade, roughly 30 miles west of Hamburg, killed six employees of the facility and a neighboring youth center, and it shocked a country where strict gun laws have made mass shootings a rarity. (Tankersley and Schuetze, 6/29)

A 2024 listeriosis outbreak in Canada that sickened at least 20 people and killed three has been traced to contaminated plant-based milk products, marking what public health authorities believe is the first listeriosis outbreak tied to alternative dairy beverages. A detailed investigation into the source of the outbreak was published this month in Eurosurveillance. (Bergeson, 6/29)

“Does the price of medicine make you sick?” That’s the tag line of a 1980s advertisement that helped propel a mom-and-pop discount pharmacy into one of South Africa’s biggest listed drugstore chains. Now, Dis-Chem Pharmacies Ltd. faces a new test: founder Ivan Saltzman, 76, who built the business from one Johannesburg store to a $1.7 billion healthcare chain spanning three countries, retires as chairman of the board this month. (Naidoo, Kew and Sazonov, 6/29)

Luigi Mangione’s federal trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson will now begin in January instead of the fall, a judge said Monday at a hearing that started late because Mangione got stuck in a courthouse elevator. U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said she was postponing the federal trial so Mangione’s lawyers can focus on his state murder trial, which is scheduled to begin on Sept. 8. Jury selection in the federal case will begin on Jan. 5, instead of Oct. 13, followed by opening statements and testimony on Jan. 25, instead of Nov. 4, Garnett said at a hearing in Manhattan. (Sisak, Neumeister and Peltz, 6/29)

Carbon Health Technologies is the first company to be penalized under a beefed up California law prohibiting corporate practice of medicine. The San Francisco-based primary care and telehealth provider must reorganize the management structure of 54 clinics in California, which the state asserted are improperly controlled by a management services organization instead of physicians, state Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) announced Friday. (McAuliff, 6/29)

St. Louis jury has awarded a doctor who accused SSM Health system of sex discrimination and retaliation more than $6.8 million in wages and punitive damages. Dr. Deborah La Scola's 2024 complaint accused SSM of better compensating her male colleagues through emergency department on-call earnings and higher pay. (Bauman, 6/29)

Covista and Advocate Health are forming a partnership to funnel nursing graduates directly into Advocate’s hospitals through scholarships, clinical training and loan repayment assistance, with recruiting set to begin next month. The collaboration between the nation’s largest nurse educator and one of the Chicago-area’s largest providers is the latest in a series of moves to address a widening nursing shortage that has strained hospitals across the country. (6/29)

A law meant to end surprise medical billing has led to large paydays for some surgical assistants, who can earn far more than the doctors they help. (Sanger-Katz and Kliff, 6/29)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: He Dreamed Of Becoming A Physician Assistant. New Loan Rules May Thwart Him

Benjamin Pinckney, 46, has dreamed of becoming a physician assistant since just after his 20th birthday. He had been targeted by a drive-by shooter in Jacksonville, Florida, and hospitalized with two gunshot wounds. During his weeklong hospitalization, he said, a physician assistant changed the course of his life by visiting his hospital bed each day and warning him that Black men with gunshot wounds often end up paralyzed — or worse. (Sausser, 6/30)

Christopher O’Connor, CEO of Yale New Haven Health, is stepping down immediately, the system said Monday. Pamela Sutton-Wallace, president of Yale New Haven, will serve as interim CEO while the board conducts a search for O’Connor’s successor, the system said in a news release. O’Connor will serve as a special advisor to the board’s chair until a successor is named. (DeSilva, 6/29)

A clinical trial used to approve Amgen Inc.’s pill Tavneos was retracted Monday from the New England Journal of Medicine, putting the drug’s continued sales at risk. Two of the study’s authors requested the retraction, the journal said Monday. The journal cited a US Food and Drug Administration investigation that found the results of nine patients were changed after the study’s database was finalized and some researchers were unblinded, meaning they were told which patients got the experimental drug and which did not. (Swetlitz and Langreth, 6/29)

An insulin inhaler proved safe for treating children as young as 4 years old, improving satisfaction and reducing weight gain compared with those taking injected insulin, researchers from Johns Hopkins Hospital told The Baltimore Sun. (Hille, 6/29)

The FDA approved veligrotug (Lumvoa) for the treatment of thyroid eye disease (TED), regardless of disease activity or duration, Viridian Therapeutics announced on Friday. Veligrotug is the first treatment with labeling for the active and chronic forms of the disease, with trials showing a statistically significant effect on both diplopia response and complete resolution in both, according to the drugmaker. (Monaco, 6/29)

The FDA expanded the indications for risankizumab (Skyrizi) in plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis to include treatment of children 6 years and older, AbbVie announced. (Ingram, 6/29)

Five years after becoming the first Southern state to legalize possession of marijuana, Virginia has approved a legal way to sell it to recreational users. State budget legislation enacted Monday will allow up to 350 cannabis shops to open across Virginia beginning July 1, 2027. The move marks the latest expansion of access to the drug — which remains illegal at the federal level — through state-level policymaking. (Rankin, 6/30)

Just before going into jail for the last time, Cynthia Haley snapped a picture of herself. At the time, she was living in Danville and struggling with addiction. Her substance use had evolved over the years, starting with marijuana in high school and eventually progressing into heroin, meth and crack cocaine, Haley said. (Schabacker, 6/30)

Arkansas is moving forward with its plan to ban government food aid from being used to buy candy and soda beginning on Wednesday, even though a federal judge ruled last week that similar restrictions in other states violated federal law. Announcing the plan on Monday, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited an urgent need to combat a “chronic disease epidemic” in America, including high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. (Loller, 6/29)

Gov. Gavin Newsom and California lawmakers approved a $351.7 billion state budget Monday — the last one Newsom will sign as governor — that increases some business and health care taxes and bolsters the state’s reserve funds. The budget will also extend caps on corporate tax credits that would otherwise have expired in 2027. It also includes increased spending on housing and homeless aid, as well as money for county election offices to speed up vote counting. (Bollag, 6/29)

When Taylor Kiesel arrived at Change Academy at Lake of the Ozarks, a youth residential treatment center in Missouri, another student cautioned her. "Welcome to hell," the kid said. Kiesel, then 16, soon learned why. She and other former students said staff at the center, known as Calo, neglected and assaulted the children and teenagers whose developmental trauma they were tasked with healing. (6/29)

Sarah Gipson knew something was wrong when the normally chatty sonogram technician fell silent and called for the doctor. Gipson was in the 32nd week of her high-risk pregnancy, and she felt horrible. She was seeing stars, had constant ringing in her ears, and had been on bed rest for several weeks. (West, 6/29)

A bill to expand the use of involuntary psychiatric treatment in North Carolina, and further study the intersection of the state’s mental health and the justice systems, is well on its way to becoming law. While many praised the legislature’s attention to these issues, some lawmakers and experts question whether the bill does enough to address systemic problems that have accumulated and festered for decades. (Knopf, 6/30)

Former Louisiana death row inmate Jimmie “Chris” Duncan is officially a free man following a unanimous ruling Monday by the Louisiana Supreme Court. In the opinion, justices upheld a lower court’s decision to toss out Duncan’s 1998 conviction for killing his former girlfriend’s toddler, Haley Oliveaux, citing flawed forensics practices used to convict him. Justice Cade R. Cole wrote on behalf of the seven-member court that new evidence presented by Duncan’s legal team left no doubt that his conviction should be overturned. (Webster, 6/29)

For Kelly Migler, assistant dean for undergraduate nursing and teaching at Valparaiso University, Friday’s FarmHop tour by the Northwest Indiana Food Council was a way to network. With the tour’s theme “Local Food is Medicine,” Migler saw the value in connecting students with local farmers, including Al and Hakenah Hulitt, who own Hulitt Homestead on five acres in Portage. (Lavalley, 6/29)

Daveigh Chase, an actress known for voicing the character of Lilo in the hit animated film “Lilo & Stitch,” died in Los Angeles this month of AIDS, the county’s Department of Medical Examiner said on Monday. The case information for Ms. Chase, who was 35 and also known as Daveigh Schwallier, said her death at a hospital on June 16 was natural. It listed AIDS, which is caused by H.I.V., as the cause, and said that “chronic polysubstance use” — repeatedly using more than one drug or substance at the same time or within a short period of time — was a “significant condition.” (Stevens, 6/29)

Summer camps and other outdoor activities were canceled Monday as tens of millions of people across the Midwest endured a heat wave that is expected to spread eastward this week. Communities opened cooling centers and urged people to take it easy and stay hydrated. Forty-seven million people across big chunks of the Midwest and parts of the Ohio Valley are under an extreme heat warning through at least Tuesday. Temperatures are forecast to reach the 90s, with heat index values, or “feels-like” temperatures, expected to top 100 degrees (37.8 degrees Celsius) in the region, according to the National Weather Service. (Fingerhut and McCormack, 6/30)

There is no association between using acetaminophen (Tylenol) during pregnancy and the risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children, according to a study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. It adds to the evidence highlighting acetaminophen’s safety during pregnancy. (Holohan, 6/29)

Babies fed with breast milk were less likely to develop ADHD symptoms as preschoolers and elementary students, researchers reported recently in the journal Biological Psychiatry. “We found that the longer a child was exclusively breastfed (up to six months), the lower the level of ADHD symptoms at ages 3, 5 and 8 years,” lead researcher Dr. Berit Skretting Solberg said in a news release. She’s a psychiatrist at the University of Bergen in Norway. (Thompson, 6/30)

The Wyoming Department of Health reported a positive measles case in an unvaccinated adult in Teton County. The person lives and works inside Grand Teton National Park. Following a Thursday hospital discharge, that person is safe and recovering in isolation, said Teton County Public Health Director Dr. Travis Riddell. (Boyd-Fliegel, 6/29)

The Connecticut Department of Public Health has confirmed the state's second case of measles in 2026, this time in a vaccinated Hartford County adult following testing conducted over the weekend. The Department of Public Health said the individual had already received two doses of the MMR vaccine, which combines vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella into a single injection. (Cooney, 6/29)

After confirming 31 new measles cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today added 30 new infections to the US total, which has now climbed to 2,134 confirmed cases. The numbers move the needle closer to the 2025 total of 2,288 cases. (Wappes, 6/26)

Adults with long COVID experience more productivity loss on the job and are more likely to leave the workplace altogether compared with people who recover from COVID or never develop persistent symptoms, according to a study published this week in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. (Bergeson, 6/26)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Would Hunters Take A Lyme Disease Vaccine? We Asked

It’s tick season, possibly the worst in a decade. More and more Americans are being exposed to these parasites as climate change expands the range where they can survive. That means more people are also exposed to the bevy of health conditions they can cause, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, the alpha-gal-triggered red meat allergy, and, most common of all, Lyme disease. For the latter, there may be some additional protection on the horizon. (Sable-Smith, 6/30)

Drug-resistant bacteria are no longer confined to hospital settings but are spreading into communities in every country. (Peter Beyer, 6/30)

An extraordinary cancer statistic recently dropped in a major medical journal: zero. (Lisa Jarvis, 6/30)

As a new 18-year-old during my first week of college orientation, I marched through the doors of the local hospital for an appointment I never expected to need. A few days earlier, I had undergone a mandatory electrocardiogram (EKG) to screen for potential heart problems before joining my varsity crew team. Soon after, I was told my EKG showed a possible abnormality, something that might indicate a condition that could cause a heart attack during exercise. I needed further testing before I could practice with my team. (Katherine Hofmann, 6/30)

Massachusetts lawmakers should pass bipartisan workplace violence reforms before the legislative session ends. (6/30)

In May, the Department of Education finalized its framework under the “Reimagining and Improving Student Education” (RISE) rules and made a technical distinction that carries life-or-death stakes for the American health care system. By capping annual federal borrowing for standard graduate students at $20,500 while preserving a $50,000 threshold for an exclusive list of 11 “professional” degrees, the administration attempted to use a balanced ledger to codify a dangerous misunderstanding of modern medicine. The new caps go into effect Wednesday. (David S. Shapiro, 6/30)