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States can’t ban so-called conversion therapy, aimed at changing a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity, the Supreme Court has ruled. The justices ruled, 8-1, Tuesday that the First Amendment prohibits states from using their licensing power to limit the topics therapists and other professionals can discuss with their clients. “The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court’s majority. (Gerstein, 3/31)

A New Hampshire law that bans the practice of so-called “conversion therapy” for minors could be in doubt, following a decision by the Supreme Court Tuesday that found a similar law in Colorado is a violation of free speech. (Richardson, 3/31)

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ youth makes an already uphill battle to outlaw the practice in Ohio even steeper, Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio said. (McGowan, 3/31)

More news about LGBTQ+ health —

Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed an extensive bathroom ban into law on Tuesday afternoon, one that will create the strictest guidelines for bathroom use in the nation. House Bill 752 criminalizes any person who "knowingly and willfully" enters a bathroom, locker room or changing room that does not align with their sex assigned at birth. A misdemeanor first offense means up to a year in jail. Upon second offense, that person could spend five years behind bars. Three other states in the country – Florida, Kansas and Utah – have criminal penalties for transgender people who use bathrooms that align with their gender identity, according to the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Movement Advancement Project's map tracking these bills. But only Idaho's legislation covers any "place of public accommodation,” including private businesses. (Johnston, 3/31)

The Idaho Senate widely passed a bill Monday that would require teachers and doctors to out transgender minors to their parents, or face lawsuits, advancing the bill to the governor. House Bill 822 would require schools, health care providers and child care providers to notify parents within three days after the entities receive “any request by the minor student to participate in or facilitate the social transition of the minor student.”(Pfannenstiel, 3/30)

Gov. Tony Evers vetoed Republican bills Tuesday that would have placed new prohibitions in state statute related to transgender children, including banning them from sports teams that align with their gender identity, barring them from choosing the name and pronouns used for them in school and from accessing gender affirming medical care. (Spears, 3/31)

A national transgender activist has defied the state's new transgender bathroom ban by using a female restroom at the Kansas Statehouse. Samantha Boucher, who lives in Colorado and is the executive director of Trans Liberty, used a second-floor bathroom at the Capitol in Topeka in protest of Senate Bill 244. Boucher described it as an act of civil disobedience. (Alatidd and Saldanha-Olson, 3/31)

The Globe followed three service members with a combined 54 years of military service, as their identities were upended by the ban. (Yarvis, 3/31)

For health clinics that rely on federal funding through Title X, April 1 is one of the most important days of the year: It’s when the grant program’s annual funds are typically renewed. Clinics rely on the money to provide reproductive health services — such as birth control, cancer screenings, wellness exams and HIV testing — to more than 2.8 million people, many of whom are low-income, uninsured or underinsured. (Bendix, 3/31)

In news about MAHA —

The White House is calling on the Senate to confirm Dr. Casey Means as U.S. surgeon general "without further delay," even as President Donald Trump signaled uncertainty about her path forward. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that he didn't know how Means was faring in the nomination process more than a month after her Senate confirmation hearing. "We have a lot of great candidates," he added. (Lovelace Jr., Kapur and Bendix, 3/31)

The Food and Drug Administration is moving toward allowing compounding pharmacies to produce more than a dozen injectable peptides that were banned because of potentially significant safety risks, according to a senior administration official. In 2023, 14 peptides were removed from a list of products that the F.D.A. allows compounding pharmacies to produce. The pharmacies tailor products for individual patients’ needs. The peptides had not been approved by the F.D.A. as safe or effective and, in recent years, the agency had noted that they were increasingly being marketed with unproved claims that they had cosmetic, anti-aging and disease-fighting benefits. (Jewett and Blum, 3/31)

A growing number of patients who need transfusions are asking for blood from unvaccinated donors, a difficult request to honor, given that blood centers don’t ask donors if they’ve been vaccinated and don’t label blood according to vaccinated status. These requests often delay care and, in some cases, harm patients’ health, according to a report published late last week in Transfusion. Health systems need to develop standardized policies, include counseling, to handle these requests, the report’s authors wrote. (Szabo, 3/31)

More updates from the Trump administration —

The Trump administration is changing the name of the federal health IT office back to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). The Tuesday announcement also reverts the organization of the office to focus on external IT coordination, instead of also overseeing Health and Human Services’ internal use of technology. (Trang, 3/31)

It is perhaps not surprising that the director of the National Institutes of Health would invoke the name of a man revered by scientists as the architect of a policy widely credited with driving the United States’ global supremacy in biomedical research. But Jay Bhattacharya’s claim over the weekend that the Trump administration is pursuing a vision articulated eight decades ago by that scientific leader, Vannevar Bush, has provoked pushback — even outrage — in scientific circles. (Oza, 4/1)

On Medicaid, Medicare, ACA, and the high cost of health care —

More than 400 hospitals across the United States are at high risk of closing or cutting services because of the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” according to an analysis from the progressive watchdog group Public Citizen. The fallout could make it harder for millions of people to get care and put thousands of health care workers’ jobs at risk as hospitals lose a key source of federal funding. Medicaid covers about a fifth of all hospital spending. (Lovelace Jr., 3/31)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act Darkens Outlook For Government-Backed Clinics
Bluestem Health, a clinic that serves low-income and uninsured patients in Lincoln, Nebraska, has lost money for the last two years. And CEO Brad Meyer fears times will soon get worse for the clinic and its 21,000 patients. That’s because Nebraska is set to become the first state to require certain Medicaid enrollees to work or lose their coverage under new rules in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. (Galewitz, 4/1)

More than 130 hospitals sued the Health and Human Services Department seeking to overturn a regulation that allegedly underpays them for treating Medicare patients. Hospitals in 16 states filed a complaint alleging HHS exceeded its legal authority when it finalized a 2023 rule that retroactively changed how the agency counts inpatient stays for Medicare Advantage patients in disproportionate share hospital payments. (Kacik, 3/31)

The federal government spends significantly more on retirees than any other age group in the United States, a sign of the breadth of Social Security and Medicare — and Americans’ determination to keep those programs going. Americans age 65 and older — generally part of the baby-boom generation or Silent Generation — received an estimated $2.7 trillion in federal outlays last year, six times more than the $449 billion for Americans under 26 years old. That ratio is only expected to grow as the population ages. (Lerman, 4/1)

Americans are more concerned about the availability and cost of health care than any other domestic issue, with it reclaiming the top spot for the first time since 2020, according to a new Gallup poll. The poll, released Tuesday, found that 61 percent of the 1,000 adults surveyed said they worry a “great deal” about accessing and affording health care, while 23 percent expressed a “fair amount” of concern. (Brams, 3/31)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: �������ýҕ�l Health News’ ‘Letters To The Editor’: Readers Sound Off On NIH Staff Cuts, Work Requirements, And More
‘The Federal Government’s Loss Is the County’s Gain’I wanted to thank Rachana Pradhan and Katheryn Houghton for their coverage of the loss of staff at the National Institutes of Health (“Six Federal Scientists Run Out by Trump Talk About the Work Left Undone,” March 6). In December 2024, I had accepted a tentative job offer for a dream job at NIH after eight years of being a federal contractor supporting data science work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Global Health Center and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases during the covid response, and later with the U.S. Agency for International Development, where I supported HIV program monitoring and response data visualization. (4/1)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Listen To The Latest '�������ýҕ�l Health News Minute'
Jackie Fortiér reads the week’s news: Consumers know which party they blame after Congress failed to extend enhanced Obamacare subsidies. Plus, updated standards say seniors should aim for even lower blood pressure readings. (3/31)

A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s effort to dramatically change the criteria to get tens of millions of dollars in funding to aid homeless people was unlawful. Several nonprofits filed a lawsuit last year accusing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of changing the rules for receiving $75 million to build housing for homeless families and individuals. The plaintiffs accused the Trump administration of issuing a new Notice of Funding Opportunity, or NOFO, for the Continuum of Care Builds program to better align with its social policies. (Casey, 4/1)

In May 2025, pressure at Pete’s Place hit a boiling point. For more than 15 years, the homeless shelter in Santa Fe, New Mexico, had been operated by a nonprofit group called Interfaith Community Services. But calls for police and medical service to the area around the 75-bed shelter had skyrocketed. “We saw pretty astounding levels of overdoses and drug arrests, the kind of indicators that really compelled us as a city to take action,” said Henri Hammond-Paul, then Santa Fe’s director of community health and safety. (Sisson, 3/31)

Four people connected to a company hired by New York City to operate homeless shelters for migrants were arrested Tuesday as part of a federal public corruption investigation that is also examining a City Council member and a top aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. The charges Tuesday focused on two leaders of the nonprofit, BHRAGS Home Care Corp., who are accused of stealing more than $1.3 million from the taxpayer-backed organization, and two subcontractors who the indictment says paid bribes and kickbacks to the men in exchange for contracts worth millions. (Offenhartz and Sisak, 3/31)

In other health news from across the U.S. —

On the days she didn’t need to be hospitalized while being treated for leukemia, 8-year-old Harper Harrell was able to go home and sleep in her own bed. Duke Children’s Hospital is just 1.9 miles from her family’s home in Durham. (Fernandez, 4/1)

Virtual reality headsets like the Meta Quest 3, PlayStation VR 2 and HTC Vive have long been tied to gaming, covering users’ eyes with high-resolution screens and delivering immersive, interactive worlds to explore and problem-solve. Now, a pioneering study by the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Silver Spring uses that same technology to help young people with Down syndrome and autism practice life skills and learn through experience. (Hille, 3/30)

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey was hospitalized Tuesday after undergoing what her office described as a minor procedure to remove fluid that was pressing on her lung. The 81-year-old Republican governor will be monitored at Baptist Medical Center South in Montgomery “in the coming days” out of an abundance of caution, Ivey spokeswoman Gina Maiola said in a statement. (3/31)

A national recall on grill brushes —

More than 10 million grill brushes have been recalled after it was determined that their wire bristles can detach and inadvertently be ingested, a federal regulatory agency said on Thursday. The grill brushes, made by Nexgrill, were sold at Home Depot and online between 2015 and 2026, the company said on its website. Nexgrill said it was voluntarily recalling 10.2 million brushes in total. Customers should immediately stop using the brushes, Nexgrill said, as the potential ingestion of bristles could lead to “serious internal injuries that could require surgery.” (Fahy, 3/28)

Burnout among US family physicians is around 44% and is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of switching jobs or leaving practice altogether. That trend could lead to lower care satisfaction and increased spending for patients, as well as have substantial financial consequences for health care organizations, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine. (Bergeson, 3/31)

Think of it as preventive medicine for doctor pay. A bipartisan House bill that lawmakers plan to introduce this week would cap annual Medicare physician reimbursement cuts at 2.5% while giving regulators more leeway to set annual payment updates. The Provider Reimbursement Stability Act of 2025 is far from the Medicare payment system overhaul doctors have failed to win for years and it does not include a raise for 2027. (McAuliff, 3/31)

The Trump administration is slow-walking visa renewals for foreign doctors in the United States from the 39 countries from which the president has banned visitors. President Donald Trump says people from the countries are national security threats, but the visa pause is forcing physicians who’ve lived in the U.S. for years to stop working and exacerbating staffing shortages that are a longstanding headache for hospital administrators, more than a dozen foreign doctors told POLITICO. (Levien, 4/1)

The report, based on research from the Yale Tobin Center for Economic Policy, found that graduate degrees in medicine, law and pharmacy generally have the highest return on investment. By contrast, degrees in popular fields such as social work, psychology, and curriculum and instruction may actually have a zero to negative return after factoring in the full cost. (Wallack, 3/31)

More news about health care personnel —

Eric Haeger, MD, of Washington state, was sentenced to a year in prison for his role in a scheme involving recalled Philips breathing devices, federal prosecutors announced. Haeger will also have to pay a $60,000 fine and nearly $350,000 in restitution, and he'll have a year of supervised release once he's released from prison, according to the press release. (Fiore, 3/31)

The former chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board was indicted on charges that he drugged and abducted patients at a psychiatric facility in order to get more money from health care reimbursements, according to an indictment released on Monday. An Arkansas grand jury indicted Dr. Brian Hyatt in early March on charges that he gave numerous patients strong, mind-altering sedatives in order to keep them at the facility without a medical justification. He is charged with two federal counts of kidnapping and distribution of the controlled substances that he allegedly used to subdue patients. (3/31)

Kurt Small has been named as president and CEO of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, effective May 4. Small is the president of Medicaid for Elevance Health. He will succeed Ja’Ron Bridges, who has been serving as interim president and CEO since Brian Pieninck left the company in September to become president and CEO of GuideWell and its insurer subsidiary Florida Blue, a CareFirst spokesperson said Tuesday. (DeSilva, 3/31)

Elevance Health announced a leadership shake-up across its health insurance and healthcare services divisions on Tuesday. In a news release, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensee said the changes are “designed to better align capabilities, accelerate decision-making and improve enterprise efficiency.” The company also said it supports the expansion of Carelon, the healthcare services arm. (Tepper, 3/31)

In other health care industry news —

The new hospital at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri’s Ozarks will begin hosting patients next week. The facility includes more than 225,000 square feet of hospital and clinic space, including three operating rooms, one dedicated C-section room and Level III trauma emergency facilities that can handle events including mass casualty response and decontamination. (Ahl, 3/31)

A mobile healthcare pilot could act as a roadmap for states looking to improve medical access in rural communities and for providers looking to increase revenues. Twenty-two states included mobile medical units in their plans for how to spend part of $50 billion in Rural Healthcare Transformation Program funds. To qualify for the money, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services required states to find ways to expand access to care in underserved areas through innovation. (Eastabrook, 3/31)

UnitedHealthcare announced Thursday it has launched a generative artificial intelligence companion to improve care coordination for its members. The AI-companion, dubbed Avery, allows users to seek information regarding coverage, personal benefits, appointment scheduling, claim approval status, benefits explanations and more. (Gleeson, 3/31)

Fewer American service members died by suicide in 2024, with the number of deaths falling by 11% to 471 from a year earlier, according to a Pentagon report released Tuesday. The rate of suicides per 100,000 service members also dropped that year compared to 2023, the report said. The decrease emerged under Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the Biden administration and followed a rise in the number of military suicides in 2023. (Finley, 4/1)

If you need help —

On the use of psychedelics and kratom —

Texas is launching its own research program into a psychedelic called ibogaine after state officials couldn’t find a company to help develop it into a drug for FDA approval. (Simpson, 3/31)

Since Colorado decriminalized psilocybin, use of the drug appears to have increased in the state, though that’s uncertain because the jump — 1.8 percentage points to 4.3% of the adult population — is not statistically significant. (Ingold, 3/31)

Ketamine treatment clinics have proliferated following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug as a remedy for acute depression in 2019, leading to a Wild West of infusion clinics that have expanded treatment access for many Americans without much regulation. (Broaderick, 4/1)

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway is suing a Kansas City company over its manufacture and sale of a kratom product that she said is similar to opioids. The suit against CBD American Shaman, the leading supplier of a product called 7-OH in Missouri, and several related companies was jointly filed with the state Department of Health and Senior Services. It alleges the company failed to properly disclose the effects of the drug. (Halloran, 4/1)

A human trial has begun on an anti-fentanyl vaccine —

Biotech startup ARMR Sciences Inc. said it has begun a human trial of its anti-fentanyl vaccine in an early study that could one day lead to a inoculation offering months-long protection from the deadly respiratory effects of the powerful synthetic opioid. The trial is the culmination of years of research. It aims to show that a vaccine, unlike existing emergency remedies, could prevent a fentanyl overdose from ever happening. (Langreth, 3/31)

Novo Nordisk A/S is launching a subscription program with lower monthly prices on its Wegovy pill and shot, the latest in a series of moves the Danish drugmaker has taken to win back share from rival Eli Lilly & Co. Starting on Tuesday, patients who pay in cash can sign up for a three-, six- or 12-month subscription through select telehealth partners, including Ro, Weight Watchers and LifeMD Inc. Patients who sign up for a 12-month subscription will pay just $249 a month for the Wegovy pen, undercutting Lilly’s lowest monthly price by about $50. (Muller, 3/31)

Amid a major corporate overhaul, Novo Nordisk is pruning the ranks at its production facility in Bloomington, Indiana, which chips in on the blockbuster GLP-1 medications Ozempic and Wegovy. All told, Novo plans to eliminate some 400 positions at the Bloomington site "at the beginning of May," a company spokesperson told Fierce Tuesday. Once the downsizing is complete, roughly 1,400 workers will remain at the site, according to the spokesperson. (Kansteiner, 3/31)

More pharma and tech news —

An antidepressant called fluvoxamine reduces fatigue in people with long COVID, at least in the short term, according to a new study that tested the drug against a placebo. In a randomized clinical trial of 399 people, all participants had significant fatigue, measured by a score of at least four points on a  seven-point scale called the Fatigue Severity Scale, a validated measure in which people rate their level of tiredness or exhaustion. Seven points on the scale indicates the worst fatigue. (Szabo, 3/31)

A new test developed by scientists in the United Kingdom could provide urinary tract infection (UTI) patients with quicker antibiotic treatment, according to a study today in JAC-Antimicrobial Resistance. (Dall, 3/31)

Eli Lilly reached a deal on Tuesday to buy Centessa Pharmaceuticals, a company developing treatments for the sleep disorder narcolepsy and other neurological conditions. Lilly, which is flush with cash from sales of its weight-loss drug and has been on a deal-making spree, agreed to initially pay $6.3 billion in cash for the company. Lilly could end up paying an additional $1.5 billion if U.S. regulators were to eventually approve a pair of drugs that Centessa is developing. (Robbins, 3/31)

The scientists behind treating Baby KJ say they’ve hit a stumbling block in their efforts to create more custom gene editing treatments for children with rare diseases. Food and Drug Administration reviewers, they say, are imposing high manufacturing and quality control standards that could make it too expensive and complicated for them — or any academics — to bring such bespoke therapies to approval. (Mast, 3/31)

"Families and institutions are in competition for caregivers—that competition will increase along with the 85-plus population." (Tom Wolzien, 3/29)

Unregulated copycat versions of GLP-1s are a dangerous blind spot. (Jimmie Wilson, 3/31)

Louis Theroux’s documentary doesn’t grasp why millions of young men find meaning in online masculinity. (Luc Olinga, 4/1)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has decided to include ostomy supplies in its competitive bidding program (CBP), limiting supplier choice in the name of cost savings. Finalized last November, the policy is already moving toward implementation with key decisions on pricing and the number of contracts to award for each product category expected as soon as this spring. The goal is understandable. The reasoning is not. (Diego Schaps, 4/1)

Thirty-eight states plus the District of Columbia allow practitioners to recommend medical marijuana for post-traumatic stress disorder. But what if they’re all wrong? A new systematic review of results from randomized controlled trials involving marijuana suggests they are. (Kevin A. Sabet, 4/1)