Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Feds Are Denied Access To California Hospital Records For Transgender Minors
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from obtaining the California hospital records of transgender minors who have undergone treatment. U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of San Jose did not state his reasoning or the scope of his decision in the brief order he issued Monday night. But attorney Shannon Minter of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights said Tuesday the order applies to all hospitals in the state that have provided transgender care. (Egelko, 6/9)
On the immigration crisis 鈥
The largest ICE detention center in the country lost track of a loaded firearm, did not provide treatment to detainees with chronic health conditions and failed to test immigrants for tuberculosis, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office published Tuesday. (Silva, 6/9)
On Trump administration personnel 鈥
The National Institutes of Health has appointed researcher John Powers III to lead its infectious disease institute on an acting basis, after weeks of being in leadership limbo following reports that the previous director, Jeffery Taubenberger, had stepped down. (Oza and Branswell, 6/9)
There鈥檚 a glaring lack of permanent leadership at the country鈥檚 major health agencies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has gone from one acting director to another. The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration was ousted last month. The FDA鈥檚 second-in-command seat remains empty. And there has been no surgeon general for President Donald Trump鈥檚 entire second term. (Bendix, 6/10)
Last June, hundreds of staffers at the National Institutes of Health broke rank in an unprecedented move and published an open letter of dissent to agency Director Jay Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya eventually met with many of the signers of the so-called Bethesda Declaration, who hoped it would spur a course correction at an agency they saw as going down a problematic path. But in a report published Tuesday, on the one-year anniversary of the letter, 71 staffers write that they feel NIH leadership 鈥渓argely ignored the concerns raised in our declaration.鈥澛(Oza, 6/9)
