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Advisers to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appear poised to make consequential changes to the childhood vaccination schedule, delaying a shot that is routinely administered to newborns and discussing big changes to when or how other childhood immunizations are given. Decisions by the group are not legally binding, but they have profound implications for whether private insurance and government assistance programs are required to cover the vaccines. (Mandavilli, 12/2)

Delaying the timing of vaccinating infants against hepatitis B — an idea a federal vaccine advisory group will likely vote on later this week — would neither improve the effectiveness of the vaccine nor make it safer to give to babies. But it would increase in the number of young children who become chronically infected with hepatitis B, an infection that carries a high risk a child will develop liver disease early in life, a report released Tuesday suggests. (Branswell, 12/2)

The federal government’s vaccine advisory panel is scheduled to review the hepatitis B vaccine this week. But experts on the shot — both in and outside of the government — told STAT they’ve been shut out of the process. (Payne and Cirruzzo, 12/2)

Also —

The West Virginia Board of Education on Tuesday reinstated a school vaccination mandate after the state Supreme Court paused a lower court’s ruling that allowed parents to cite religious beliefs to opt out of shots required for their children to attend classes. The Supreme Court earlier Tuesday issued a stay in last week’s ruling by Raleigh County Circuit Judge Michael Froble in a class-action lawsuit. In issuing an injunction, Froble said children of families who objected to the state’s compulsory vaccination law on religious grounds would be allowed to attend school and participate in extracurricular sports. (Raby, 12/3)

Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday signed legislation that formally establishes a process for state-level vaccine guidelines and expands pharmacy access to COVID-19 and other shots for young children across Illinois. (Olander, 12/2)

Top drug regulator Richard Pazdur has filed papers to retire from the Food and Drug Administration at the end of this month, adding to the turmoil atop the agency. Pazdur informed leaders at the FDA’s drug center of his intention to leave the agency at a meeting on Tuesday, according to two agency sources familiar with the matter. The move comes less than a month after he took the role of top drug regulator at the urging of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary. (Lawrence, 12/2)

On SNAP benefits —

The Trump administration indicated Tuesday that it will begin withholding SNAP benefits from recipients in most Democratic-led states starting next week after those states refused to provide the Agriculture Department with data including recipients’ names and immigration statuses. (Coronell Uribe, 12/2)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Even As SNAP Resumes, New Work Rules Threaten Access For Years To Come
Alejandro Santillan-Garcia is worried he’s going to lose the aid that helps him buy food. The 20-year-old Austin resident qualified for federal food benefits last year because he aged out of the Texas foster care system, which he entered as an infant. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — commonly referred to as food stamps, or SNAP — helps feed 42 million low-income people in the United States. Now, because of changes included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to keep his food benefits Santillan-Garcia might soon have to prove to officials that he’s working. (Rayasam, Houghton and Liss, 12/3)

More Trump administration news —

On the eve of a major expansion, a multibillion-dollar project to upgrade the computer systems of all Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals is beset with problems, according to some medical staff who already use it. Critical patient notes disappear. Prescriptions log the wrong dosages. One nurse said the system incorrectly listed one of her patients as dead. Mike Faught, a case manager at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington, said he lost access to his patients’ records for two days after a software update in August. “It’s amazing to me that there are still so many problems,” Faught said. “Every time there’s an update, there are unintended consequences.” (Butler and Smith, 12/3)

The Trump administration is backing Monsanto in its effort to get the Supreme Court to shield it from liability over cancer claims related to its Roundup weedkiller, a move that could anger the Trump administration’s allies in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. The Trump administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that lawsuits alleging that Monsanto failed to warn consumers of the health impacts of its Roundup weedkiller are preempted by federal law. (Frazin, 12/2)

Lobbyists for some of the world’s largest drug companies are parading a new pricing deal in the U.K. as a model the rest of Europe should emulate if it wants to keep drugmakers from bailing for America. ... The move comes as major drugmakers like AstraZeneca and Merck scrap projects in the U.K., and the Trump administration uses tariff threats to get pharma to raise prices on Europeans in order to cut them for Americans. (Chu, 12/2)

Nayra Guzmán knew there was something wrong with her daughter within hours of her birth — a long and complicated delivery that included a diagnosis of preeclampsia and ended in a Cesarean section. In the haze of recovery, the first-time mom noticed her daughter was struggling to breathe. When the baby started turning blue, Guzmán watched as doctors whisked her away to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). (Barclay and Luthra, 12/2)

Also —

Singer-songwriter Madonna issued a Monday rebuke to the Trump administration for refusing to recognize Dec. 1 as World AIDS Day in recognition of the virus’s impact. (Fields, 12/2)

In Geneva, WHO officials are engaged in an urgent struggle to save what they can, a process involving unquantifiable—and perhaps unimaginable—tradeoffs. Should the agency gut its budget for responding to emergencies like Ebola, or pull back on its work setting technical standards for drugs? Should it lay off scientists, or scale back the help it gives countries to manage the effects of climate change, such as worsening heat waves? It’s likely the answer will be to slash all of the above, with potentially disastrous consequences for public health around the world. There’s almost certainly no substitute for the WHO, or an organization like it. (Furlong and Gale, 12/1)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Listen To The Latest '�������ýҕ�l Health News Minute'
Nov. 27: Katheryn Houghton reads the week’s news: The Trump administration is making it easier for health care companies to merge, which can push patients’ bills up, and air pollution from fuel exhaust and wildfire smoke can contribute to cognitive decline. (12/2)

The Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded a Biden-era rule that required a minimum number of healthcare staff in nursing homes. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Tuesday in a press release it is taking the action "after determining the final rule imposed by the Biden administration disproportionately burdened facilities, especially those serving rural and tribal communities, and jeopardized [patients'] access to care." (Frieden, 12/2)

A new health care advocacy group, which will represent the shrinking number of independent doctors in America, is launching Wednesday with an ambitious policy agenda. (Payne, 12/3)

Dr. Amir Barzin, a family medicine physician and the chief operating officer at UNC Health, starts each morning with a solitary run to clear his mind before the day begins. The routine, he said, helps him manage the daily pressures of working in health care — pressures that many physicians across the country face. (Kollme, 12/3)

With a promise to reduce burden on overworked doctors, ambient scribes that automate the process of writing clinical notes have become the vanguard use case for generative artificial intelligence in health care. The technology has garnered more than $1 billion in investment this year alone, and hundreds of health systems have already adopted these tools. (Aguilar and Trang, 12/3)

On CMS payments for telehealth and wearables —

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation on Monday introduced a payment model that reimburses providers for using telehealth, wearables and other digital health technologies. The ACCESS (Advancing Chronic Care with Effective, Scalable Solutions) Model, which begins next year, will reward providers for improving outcomes for traditional Medicare beneficiaries with chronic conditions. (Perna, 12/2)

More tech and pharma news —

Certain glucose monitors from Abbott Diabetes Care are providing users with incorrect glucose readings, an error that has been linked with the deaths of at least seven people and more than 700 serious injuries worldwide, according to an alert from the US Food and Drug Administration. (McPhillips, 12/2)

Small and mid-sized pharmacy benefit managers sense an opportunity to grow market share headed into the new year. CVS Health subsidiary CVS Caremark, UnitedHealth Group unit OptumRx and Cigna division Express Scripts have an iron grip on the pharmacy benefits landscape, but have been embattled by government agencies, lawmakers and customers. Amid this, new PBMs and other companies have emerged promising alternatives to the standard pharmacy benefits model that’s been criticized as opaque and ineffective. (Tong, 12/2)

The team behind Retro Bio, a longevity startup backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is close to raising what could be one of the drug industry’s largest investment rounds. And although the company doesn’t have any clinical data in hand yet, it is chasing a $5 billion valuation. (DeAngelis, 12/3)

The House of Representatives took the first step toward extending Medicare’s authority to fund acute hospital-at-home services, passing a bill late Monday that would allow such services for five more years. The Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act of 2025 passed overwhelmingly on what’s known as the suspension calendar, which the House uses to handle popular, non-controversial measures. (McAuliff, 12/2)

The latest on ACA subsidies —

Chances are increasing that Obamacare subsidies will expire at the end of the month and trigger a spike in health insurance premiums as a deadlock in Congress deepens on the issue. More than 20 million Americans insured through Obamacare face a premium spike that on average will more than double their costs beginning Jan. 1. Leading insurance companies are at risk of hits to their bottom lines as customers opt to go without coverage rather than cover the additional cost. (Wasson, Reilly and Dennis, 12/2)

Republican lawmakers are looking to craft their own health care policy overhauls by the end of next week, when Senate Democrats get a vote on expiring Obamacare subsidies. So far they don’t agree on what their competing plan should look like. In separate closed-door meetings Tuesday, House and Senate Republicans debated what they could put forth as they face the reality that health insurance premiums will skyrocket if enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits lapse after Dec. 31. (Carney and Lee Hill, 12/2)

President Trump on Tuesday downplayed the cost-of-living pains being felt by Americans, declaring that affordability “doesn’t mean anything to anybody” as his political edge on the economy continues to dissipate. (Green, 12/2)

Also —

More than 200 rowers, swimmers and other water athletes – including members of Team USA and Olympic competitors – are calling on Congress to increase funding for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund to $10 billion annually. (Rumpler, 12/2)

Ninety former House members signed a letter calling on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to pass legislation prohibiting members of Congress and their families from owning or trading individual stocks. In a letter, published Tuesday, the former elected officials urged the top Republican and Democrat in the House to hold a floor vote on the Restore Trust in Congress Act, saying they “strongly recommend attaching this legislation to a ‘must pass’ package before the conclusion of the year.” The former lawmakers also cited a recent Wall Street Journal analysis showing a surge in stock trading by federal lawmakers and their families in early April, right before the market tanked alongside President Trump’s sweeping tariff rollout. (Fortinsky, 12/2)

Members of the House of Representatives are quitting Congress at a record rate, with Republican retirements and resignations outpacing Democrats by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio in the first 11 months of the year. The record number of exits also guarantees that the next Congress will look considerably different than the current one, forcing leaders of both parties to contend with fresh faces and new challenges. (Santaliz and Nichols, 12/1)

A federal judge has again blocked a provision Congress passed in July that stripped federal Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood affiliates, ruling that the language likely places an unconstitutional burden on states to apply vague criteria about the scope of the ban. (Gerstein and Ollstein, 12/2)

A majority of the Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared to believe an anti-abortion pregnancy center should be able to challenge a subpoena demanding its donor information in federal court. The dispute focused on a subpoena issued by the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General in November 2023, seeking information, including donor names and contact information, from First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a group of five centers that seek to dissuade women from having abortions. (VanSickle, 12/2)

More reproductive health news —

The US stillbirth rate dropped 2% last year, according to data published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a hopeful improvement after a turbulent few years. (McPhillips, 12/3)

For decades, U.S. marriage rates have been on the decline while the average age at which Americans have children has risen. Alongside this, birth rates have dropped — a phenomenon the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has called a “national security threat.” Within Donald Trump’s administration’s Make America Great Again movement, pro-natalists opine that society’s existence could be at stake. (Cohen, 12/3)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Trump Wants Americans To Make More Babies. Critics Say His Policies Won’t Help Raise Them
Maddy Olcott plans to start a career once she graduates from college. But the junior at the State University of New York-Purchase College is so far not planning to start a family — even with the Trump administration dangling inducements like thousand-dollar “baby bonuses” or cheaper infertility drugs. "Our country wants us to be birthing machines, but they’re cutting what resources there already are,” said Olcott, 20. “And a $1,000 baby bonus? It’s low-key like, what, bro? That wouldn’t even cover my month’s rent.” (Armour and Seitz, 12/3)

Michigan is rapidly expanding doula access after beginning to cover the service through its federally funded Medicaid program, a shift that health officials say will improve birth outcomes and strengthen maternal care. There are over 1,000 registered doulas in Michigan, which surpassed the state’s goal of having 500 registered doulas by 2028, as part of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ Advancing Healthy Births Plan. (James, 12/2)

The city of San Francisco on Tuesday sued 10 major food companies, alleging that they marketed and sold ultraprocessed foods that they knew were harmful to human health and had been designed to be addictive. The lawsuit argues that the foods have contributed to a public health crisis in San Francisco and across the nation, saddling cities and other governments with medical costs associated with the consequences of diets high in processed food. It’s a first-of-its-kind attempt to hold food conglomerates accountable for the proliferation of these foods and their established health risks. (Bush, 12/2)

In related news —

These chemicals continue to contaminate Americans’ food, decades after scientists recognized their dangers. (Spring, 12/2)

On dementia —

A study published in the European Heart Journal could help predict the likelihood of dementia up to 25 years in advance. The research found a link between increased levels of cardiac troponin, a protein found in the heart that is released into the bloodstream when the organ is damaged, and more rapid cognitive decline in later years. (Djordjevic, 12/2)

The shingles vaccine not only offers protection against the painful viral infection, a new study suggests that the two-dose shot also may slow the progression of dementia. (Howard, 12/2)

On cancer —

Women younger than 50 accounted for about a quarter of all breast cancers diagnosed at a large community imaging practice in New York, with a substantial number in women under age 40, a retrospective review found. Of the nearly 1,800 breast cancers diagnosed from 2014 to 2024 among women ages 18 to 49 years, 23% occurred in women under 40 years of age, a group currently not recommended for routine screening, reported Stamatia Destounis, MD, of Elizabeth Wende Breast Care in Rochester, New York. (Henderson, 12/2)

Two new Cochrane reviews by UK researchers provide strong, consistent evidence that human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination helps prevent cervical cancer, sharply reduces high-grade precancerous lesions, and is not linked to serious adverse events, especially when administered to young people who haven’t been exposed to the virus. The findings underscore the importance of early adolescent vaccination. (Bergeson, 12/2)

An experimental vaccine saved lives in an early clinical trial for a rare form of liver cancer that primarily affects healthy, younger patients, researchers with Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center report. (Hille, 12/2)

Cancer risk and severity increase as people age. Still, the search for new potential therapies often overlooks considerations of age, says the CEO of the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research. (Hille, 12/2)

The tests have not been approved by federal regulators, but that hasn’t stopped patients from wanting them — and doctors from worrying. (Agrawal, 12/2)

More health and wellness news —

It was a pain worse than childbirth, said a TikTok mom as she described bouts of uncontrollable vomiting after marijuana use. “I was crying and screaming and I was like ‘I can’t take this anymore!’ I hate my life,” she said. “I’m just begging God, like please make it stop!” (LaMotte, 12/2)

A norovirus that causes extreme vomiting is on the rise again. Nicknamed the "winter vomiting disease," the highly contagious norovirus has arrived weeks ahead of expectations, per the CDC. (Scribner, 12/2)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Listen: Nation’s Capital Cuts Traffic Deaths As Rates Rise Across US
Traffic deaths have climbed nationwide over the past decade. In some major cities, traffic deaths have surpassed homicides. But this year, Washington, D.C., has recorded a significant drop in these kinds of deaths. (Giles, 12/3)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meets again this Thursday and Friday. These meetings are normally technical, evidence-based, and grounded in predictable procedures. But in recent months, in a shift fueled by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s growing influence over the committee and the CDC’s public-facing materials, ACIP has drifted toward something more concerning: inflating speculative risks while downplaying well-established vaccine benefits. (Demetre Daskalakis, Daniel Jernigan and Debra Houry, 12/3)

An internal memo written by the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine regulator offers a concerning glimpse into the future of vaccine regulation in the US — and could have profound implications for both access to and the development of vaccines. (Lisa Jarvis, 12/3)

In Chicago, as overall violent crimes are decreasing, in domestic cases, the number of killings of women and their children has continued to rise, year after year. (Silvana Tabares, 12/2)

In an era of government shutdown threats, political brinkmanship and chaos in Washington, veterans are forced to wonder whether the benefits they earned — through sacrifice, service and, too often, injury — will be there when they need them. (Nick Stewart and Michael P. Eagle, 12/1)

Thousands of firefighters across the country, including many in Missouri, may never get justice for being exposed to toxic chemicals found in firefighting foam, simply because they didn’t know they could file a claim. For decades, these men and women relied on aqueous film-forming foam or AFFF designed to save lives, not realizing they were laced with PFAS, the so-called “forever chemicals” now linked to cancers, thyroid disease, and immune disorders. The chemicals don’t break down in the body or the environment, meaning that exposure years ago can still cause devastating illness today. (Jordan Cade, 12/1)