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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday announced a quicker way for certain medical devices to gain Medicare coverage. The devices must be FDA-designated Class II and Class III breakthrough devices, and Class II devices must participate in the FDA’s Total Product Life Cycle Advisory Program — a voluntary program that offers early agency support to help bring innovative devices to market faster. CMS would work early with medical device companies during pivotal trial design to ensure trials generate the evidence needed for Medicare coverage decisions. (Dubinsky, 4/23)

The Federal Trade Commission has reached an agreement in principle with U.S. Anesthesia Partners to settle the government’s 2023 lawsuit. The terms of the preliminary settlement are confidential so USAP can carry out the negotiations necessary to fulfill them, the FTC said in a Thursday news release. The agency in its original complaint claimed the anesthesiology group allegedly violated antitrust laws and reduced competition for anesthesia services in Texas. The preliminary settlement resolves the charges, the FTC said Thursday. (Dubinsky, 4/23)

Highly lethal cancers received disproportionately less federal funding compared with other cancers that have better survival odds, according to a study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute. (Bankhead, 4/23)

President Trump unveiled a deal with drugmaker Regeneron on Thursday for the company to voluntarily cut prices, the final manufacturer to commit to the White House’s “most favored nation” plan to lower U.S. costs in line with other developed nations. Under the agreement, Regeneron said it will reduce prices for its current and future medications sold to Medicaid. It will also offer its cholesterol drug Praluent for a discounted price of $225 through the TrumpRx.gov website in exchange for tariff relief and other incentives. (Weixel, 4/23)

President Donald Trump, who helped push the term “ fake news ” into the mainstream, now seems to have a new favorite subject: fake math. During a Thursday event announcing a deal with drugmaker Regeneron to lower the cost of its pharmaceutical products, Trump defended his past claims that prices on prescription medications had been cut by well over 100% — something that is mathematically impossible without manufacturers dropping prices to zero and then presumably paying consumers to use their product. (Weissert, 4/24)

Legislators in two states have resisted efforts to restrict prescription drug affordability boards, the controversial panels that are designed to function as rate-setting authorities and place limits on the cost of prescription medicines. (Silverman, 4/23)

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Thursday criticized the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision to downgrade state-approved medical marijuana to a less dangerous drug. “Marijuana today is much more potent than just ten or twenty years ago, leading to increased psychosis, anti-social behavior, and fatal car crashes,” Cotton wrote on the social platform X. “Arkansans don’t want more dangerous drugs obtained more easily,” he continued. “A change to marijuana’s drug classification is a step in the wrong direction.” (Davis, 4/23)

In many states, it is already easy to get marijuana. With the Trump administration’s move to reclassify the drug as less dangerous, it is about to get even easier. But doctors and researchers say marijuana can pose real risks to people’s health. The major concerns for adults are addiction and mental-health problems, particularly anxiety. These risks have become more of an issue in recent years as products with high levels of THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, have become widely available and popular. (Petersen, 4/23)

Republicans’ push for a narrow party-line bill focused solely on immigration enforcement funding is running into opposition from anti-abortion activists and lawmakers who fear it will trigger the return of hundreds of millions in Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. That, conservatives argue, would demoralize the GOP base ahead of the midterms and widen the existing rift between their movement and the Trump administration. (Ollstein and King, 4/23)

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators wants government food assistance programs to foot the bill for rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. The senators this week introduced what they’re calling the Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act, which would make the supermarket staple an eligible purchase under the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. (4/23)

The AMA is calling on lawmakers to take action to address AI, in letters to the co-chairs of the Congressional Artificial Intelligence Caucus, the Congressional Digital Health Caucus and the Senate Artificial Intelligence Caucus. Congress should plug regulatory gaps that prevent AI oversight, given current frameworks weren’t designed for generative AI tools that can shift from casual conversation to therapeutic guidance within a single interaction, the AMA said. (Olsen, 4/23)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: 'What The Health? From �������ýҕ�l Health News': RFK Jr. Vs. Congress

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. completed his marathon tour of House and Senate committees this week to defend President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for his department, but he got grilled on lots of non-budget matters as well, most notably his proposed changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. Meanwhile, Trump made some of his own health policy, signing an executive order to facilitate the use of hallucinogens to treat mental health conditions. That action came just days after it was suggested to him in a text message from podcaster/influencer Joe Rogan, who was present in the Oval Office for the signing. (Rovner, 4/23)

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sparked outrage among disability rights advocates with recent comments alleging widespread fraud in Medicaid programs that pay people to care for elderly or disabled family members — a system millions of Americans rely on to survive. During testimony before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee last week, Kennedy criticized Medicaid-funded programs that pay relatives to serve as caregivers, alleging they compensate people for tasks they “used to do as family members for free.” (Hixenbaugh, 4/23)

On a sweltering night in August 2024, moments before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed then-candidate Donald J. Trump at a packed rally in Arizona, a conservative young wellness podcaster named Alex Clark had a fleeting backstage conversation with the once-and-future president. “I said, ‘Mr. President, please keep talking about food and pharma; this has a massive impact with undecided female voters,’ ” recalled Ms. Clark, now a leading conservative voice in Mr. Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement. Witnessing the two men join forces, she said, “was the greatest political moment of my life.” (Stolberg, 4/23)

Moderna has secured the European Commission’s go-ahead for its combination flu and COVID-19 vaccine, handing the mRNA specialist a much-needed regulatory win after a rough few months of dealing with the U.S. FDA. The shot, which will carry the brand name mCOMBRIAX, combines the next-generation COVID-19 vaccine mNEXSPIKE and the investigational flu vaccine mRNA-1010. The European approval covers its use across all 27 European Union member states—plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway—for the active immunization of people 50 years and up, according to a Tuesday company release. (Manalac, 4/22)

Four years ago, Dr. Brandon Williams, an internal-medicine doctor at a hospital in La Jolla, Calif., reached a breaking point. An increase in patients, not enough medical staff, the threat of malpractice lawsuits, and distress about patients’ inability to pay for healthcare got so bad that he developed post-traumatic stress disorder. One of his colleagues died by suicide. He didn’t want to stop practicing medicine—but he wanted to stop practicing medicine in the United States. He and his wife, Ellen Williams, 38, started looking in Europe for a better option. Then he got a letter from a medical recruiter in New Zealand. (Keates, 4/23)

Federal health officials reported on Monday that cases of a flesh-eating parasitic infection continue to be detected near the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said a New World screwworm case was confirmed in the Mexican state of Nuevo León, approximately 62 miles from the Texas border. This marks the northernmost active case in Mexico. USDA said the current risk to livestock, other animals and people in the U.S. remains very low and there is currently no evidence of NWS among animals in the U.S. (Kekatos and Joseph, 4/22)

DNA and other confidential health data from 500,000 people who volunteered for a massive U.K. health study were offered for sale online in China following a data breach this week, the British government said Thursday. The information from the U.K. Biobank database was found listed for sale on the website Alibaba, but names, addresses, contact details or telephone numbers were not included, the technology minister, Ian Murray, told lawmakers. Murray said he could not give a complete guarantee that nobody could be identified as the data could include gender, age, month and year of birth, socioeconomic status, lifestyle habits, and measures from biological samples. (Pylas, 4/23)

Norway plans to restrict access to social media for children under 16, joining a growing number of countries responding to concerns about the potential harm kids face online. The bill comes after “overwhelming” demand from the public, the government said Friday. It plans to bring the legislation to parliament before the end of the year. The limit will apply up until January 1 the year a child turns 16 with technology companies responsible for age verification, the government said. (Lundgren and Taksdal Skjeseth, 4/24)

A Brazilian gang founded in the country’s violent prisons is fast becoming one of the world’s biggest criminal organizations, reshaping global cocaine flows from South America to Europe’s busiest ports and edging into the U.S. Long under Washington’s radar, the First Capital Command, known by its Portuguese initials PCC, started out as a disgruntled band of inmates fighting for soap and toilet paper in the 1990s. (Pearson, 4/20)

The House of Mercy hospice looks after the abandoned and the ill, along with people driven from their homes by the fighting. In the chaos of war, it is a center of care, and of prayer. (Didur and Vinograd, 4/23)

Service members, veterans, and their families say they are exasperated by military's insurance program's hard to navigate bureaucracy. (Sciacca, 4/23)

Nurses at Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital are raising concerns about proposed changes to pediatric care, warning the move could limit access for some of the city's most vulnerable families. Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals organized a rally on Thursday afternoon in which nurses and elected officials called on Jefferson Health to reconsider its plan. According to the union, the health system intends to close four pediatric practices by June 30 and transfer three others to a for-profit provider, True North Pediatrics. (Wright, 4/23)

Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers took another step toward preparing future health care workers this week when it broke ground on a $117 million health sciences building. The building will be known as Marieb Hall South and will house simulated intensive care units, labor and delivery suites, and operating rooms. (Barbor, 4/24)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: A ‘Barbaric’ Problem In American Hospitals Is Only Getting Bigger

In the last months, weeks, and days of his life, “I will not go to the emergency room” became my husband’s mantra. Andrej had esophageal cancer that had spread throughout his body (but not to his ever-willful brain), and, having trained as a doctor, I had jury-rigged a hospital at home, aided by specialists who got me pills to boost blood pressure; to dampen the effects of liver failure; to stem his cough; to help him swallow, wake up, fall asleep. (Rosenthal, 4/24)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Watch: Acknowledging Health Care’s Great Divide

In this “How Would You Fix It?” interview, Julie Rovner, �������ýҕ�l Health News’ chief Washington correspondent and host of the What the Health? podcast, sat down with David Blumenthal — a physician, health policy expert, former Obama administration official, and author — to explore the dynamics that make fixing the nation’s health care system so difficult. They discussed the pivotal role the president of the United States plays in health policy — whether it is building support for or opposition to new plans and proposals. “Presidents have a level of authority which is often underappreciated, especially in health care,” Blumenthal said. (Rovner, 4/23)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: �������ýҕ�l Health News’ ‘Letters To The Editor’: Readers Chime In On Reproductive Rights, Therapy Chatbots, Medical Debt, And More

Kate Wells’ report on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula reveals an important gap between constitutional protections and real-world access to care (“Urgent Care Clinics Move To Fill Abortion Care Gaps in Rural Areas,” April 8). But the story leaves a critical question unanswered: Can urgent care centers bear this weight? (4/24)

The epidemiology of sudden cardiac deaths (SCDs) was turned on its head Thursday, with research showing that in reality, ischemic cardiac disease is not the leading driver of SCDs, as previously thought. (Lou, 4/23)

After months of dizziness and arms aching so badly she could barely walk her dog, Susan Glannan lay stunned in a sunny hospital room as a doctor told her she should have open heart surgery. The idea of a surgeon cracking her chest open and stopping her heart terrified her. Glannan, who was 64, lived alone. She didn’t have her affairs in order. And just four years earlier, she had had a procedure that she thought would take care of her heart problem—a diseased aortic valve. “I was disappointed and scared,” she said, “and I started worrying, ‘Do I have a will?’” (McKay, 4/23)

Heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death in the United States, but it is rare that cancer makes its way to the heart. It’s an observation that clinicians have been grateful for, though largely unable to explain. But in a paper published Thursday in Science, researchers propose one potential explanation: The constant pressure that the organ is under from beating thousands of times a day and pushing gallons of blood creates an environment that is hostile to cancers. (Oza, 4/23)

More than two in five U.S. adults have prediabetes, a condition marked by higher-than-normal blood sugar levels that often leads to type 2 diabetes. A new study finds that vitamin D may help delay or prevent that progression, but only in people with certain genetic variations. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, found prediabetic adults with certain variations in the vitamin D receptor gene had a 19% lower risk of developing diabetes when taking a high daily dose of vitamin D. (4/23)

A single-engine turboprop from the Royal Flying Doctor Service landed in Port Augusta, its white fuselage standing out against the red desert at the edge of Australia’s vast interior. Among the cargo unloaded onto the tarmac was a brain scanner barely the size of a carry-on bag. The device, resembling a compact astronaut’s helmet, is designed to diagnose stroke in the field — telling clinicians whether it’s a clot or a bleed so the right treatment can begin before brain cells start to die. That distinction typically requires a CT scan in a hospital, meaning patients in remote areas can wait hours for a diagnosis. (Gale, 4/24)

Researchers at City of Hope, a cancer research and treatment organization, and the University of California, Berkeley, have created a novel microfluidic platform that can assess women's breast cancer risk at the cellular level. The first-of-its-kind platform squeezes individual breast epithelial cells, creating a taxing environment to measure how they deform, recover, and behave under stress, according to a new study published in eBioMedicine. (4/23)

Why do memories fade in Alzheimer's disease—and can they be restored? University of California, Irvine researchers have uncovered a key mechanism underlying memory loss, showing for the first time that dopamine dysfunction in the entorhinal cortex, a critical memory-related brain region, contributes directly to impaired memory formation. The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, identifies a previously unrecognized role for dopamine in Alzheimer's-related cognitive decline and points to potential therapeutic strategies using existing drugs such as Levodopa. (4/23)

A novel strategy that combines computational and experimental approaches has allowed researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children's Hospital to distinguish alterations in gene function that contribute to Parkinson's disease from those that protect from the condition. The study, published in Neurobiology of Disease, revealed novel risk factors and previously unrecognized therapeutic targets, offering hope for a future in which effective therapies will be available to prevent, slow down or stop this devastating disease. (4/23)

A combination blood stem cell and pancreatic islet cell transplant from an immunologically mismatched donor completely prevented or cured type 1 diabetes in mice in a study by Stanford Medicine researchers. Type 1 diabetes arises when the immune system mistakenly destroys insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas. None of the animals developed graft-versus-host disease—in which the immune system arising from the donated blood stem cells attacks healthy tissue in the recipient—and the destruction of islet cells by the native host immune system was halted. After the transplants, the animals did not require the use of the immune-suppressive drugs or insulin for the duration of the six-month experiment. (4/23)

A composite measure of healthy sleep—which captured not just how long people sleep but how well and how consistently—is associated with a substantially lower risk of pneumonia, according to a long-term cohort study published this week in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. For the prospective analysis, Chinese researchers examined health data from 361,589 adults in the United Kingdom. Those with the healthiest overall sleep patterns had a 26% lower risk of developing pneumonia over roughly 13 years of follow-up than those with the poorest sleep profiles. (Bergeson, 4/23)

A freeze-dried blood product that could be stored for years on ambulances or in remote emergency departments is showing promise at treating traumatic brain injuries. The news comes from a mouse study done by researchers at UC San Francisco. If it pans out in people, it could answer a huge unmet need for therapies that treat these injuries, which are the leading cause of death in people under 44 years old. A research paper on this topic is published in the Blood Journal. (4/23)

Should academic journals begin to second guess guest editors? That question gained new urgency last week when the British Medical Journal’s publishing group retracted nearly its entire guest-edited special edition of the Journal of Medical Genetics, dedicated to cancer immunotherapies. (Oza, 4/24)

Connecticut Democrats flexed their majority muscles on Thursday evening, giving final passage to a fiercely debated vaccine bill with over a week still left to go in the legislative session. (Golvala, 4/23)

To watch Zach Wegner work is like taking a trip back in time. When he powers up his laptop and opens software used to enroll thousands of Dakota County, Minnesota, residents for food assistance, there is a reminder on screen of how long it's been since there was an upgrade: "Copyright 1994." But the program MAXIS is even older than that, first launching in 1989, only a few years after the "Oregon Trail" game was widely available. (Cummings, 4/23)

Morgan Styke, 24, and a senior at Minnesota State University, Mankato is looking through boxes of apples, cantaloupes, carrots and potatoes and loading up her shopping cart with the fresh produce at the free farmers market held on campus. As a full-time student with a seven year old son at home, and with grocery prices continuing to rise, Styke said she must increasingly rely on the university-run campus food pantry and this free farmers market to help stock up her fridge and put food on her table. (Yang, 4/24)

A former funeral home owner who helped her ex-husband hide nearly 200 decomposing bodies faces sentencing Friday for corpse abuse in a case that forced Colorado officials to clamp down on an industry plagued by repeated scandal and notoriously lax oversight. A plea agreement calls for Carie Hallford to receive from 25 to 35 years in prison during her appearance before District Judge Eric Bentley in Colorado Springs. Her ex-husband, Jon Hallford, received a 40-year sentence on corpse abuse charges at a February hearing in which he was called a “monster” by family members of those whose bodies were left to rot. (Brown and Slevin, 4/24)

A Baltimore County dental assistant and her family members were convicted and sentenced for illegally distributing oxycodone prescription drugs to a licensed dentist, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown announced on Wednesday. Samantha Cook, a part-time dental assistant for Dr. Andrew Fried at Perry Hall Family Dental, was given three years of supervised probation, 100 hours of community service, and is prohibited from serving as a provider in any state or federal health care programs. (Thompson, 4/23)

A Hanover man filed a lawsuit against his ex-girlfriend, claiming she tricked him into providing a sperm sample by falsely claiming she had miscarried his quadruplets — then used that sample later to have children without his consent. (Trovato, 4/24)

Smoke from wildfires burning along the Florida-Georgia line is now impacting air quality in metro Atlanta, raising health concerns as people report seeing haze and smelling smoke across the city. The Georgia Forestry Commission reports that the continuing drought and high winds have kept the fires spitting out smoke as crews attempt to get them under control. (Wilkerson, 4/23)

Daylight hadn’t yet slipped from the sky above Port Arthur when the residents felt the ground shake. They quickly moved inside, shut windows and closed doors, sheltering in place until they got word that the explosion at the Valero Port Arthur Refinery was under control. The ensuing fire, which polluted the community in a black chemical plume in late March, burned for nearly 10 hours and released chemicals into the air for over 10 days. (Bruess, 4/23)

Though river monitoring shows bacteria levels have declined, scientists and environmentalists said a full recovery isn’t yet assured. (Dance, 4/23)

Eleven more marine mammals have been tested and confirmed to have H5N1 avian flu in an outbreak that spans four counties in California. The outbreak total now stands at 58 mammals, including 57sea lions and one otter. All but seven are from San Mateo County. The outbreak started in February and marked the first H5N1 detection in marine mammals in California. Seals at the state park were observed with abnormal respirations, tremors, and neurologic symptoms. (Soucheray, 4/23)

Skincare videos are featuring children as young as two, Guardian analysis finds, prompting fears about the industry’s reach and lack of safeguards. (Marsh, García, Goodier, Richards, Hunter-Green, Gutiérrez and Shah, 4/22)

Across the U.S., critics are pressuring public officials to stop or stall new solar projects, often citing unfounded health concerns. (Clark, 4/24)

Since the 1950s, plastic has seemingly become the Swiss Army knife of daily living. It’s in everything from medical devices and car parts to electronics, clothing and more. Plastic’s multifunctionality has helped drive down product costs across many industries, including plumbing, where PVC is a durable, less costly alternative to galvanized pipe. Yet the same qualities that make plastic so useful — durability, light weight and low cost — also make it hard to avoid. Plastics and microplastics are now showing up in air, drinking water, food, household dust and beyond. (Atwater, 4/24)

If you walk down any given aisle at Sephora, you see the word. If you listen to any podcast having to do with wellness or longevity, you’ve heard about them, too. And you may have caught wind that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is moving to lift restrictions on certain injectable forms of them. But still — still! — you may be wondering what the hell *are* peptides? (Gerson, 4/21)

After losing her legs, a New York Times food writer began to feel like a tourist in her home city. So, facing her fears, she met it like one. (Komolafe, 4/22)

On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the men and women who defend our nation will be able to choose whether to be protected from the flu. In his video statement, he said that service members will no longer be required to get the annual influenza vaccine because flu causes “no threat to our military readiness.” Unfortunately, this is untrue. (Paul Friedrichs, 4/23)

Across marathon hearings before lawmakers over the past week, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was repeatedly challenged over his response to the ongoing measles outbreak — and he repeatedly refused to take responsibility for the rising number of infections. (Lisa Jarvis, 4/24)

Reporting on health for a local paper does not end when the story is published. I’ve often answered phone calls and emails from readers trying to understand what new findings meant for their own lives. Even after the rescue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the future of its health and science reporting tradition is uncertain — and it’s not alone. Too often, specialized beats such as health and science coverage are among the first to go in local journalism, and that is a threat to public health. (Ava Dzurenda, 4/24)

Each day in the U.S., an average of 57 nurses are assaulted, which is about two per hour. While this may be surprising to you, to me, sadly, it is not. While working as a nurse in the emergency room, I have been slapped, kicked, punched, and pushed. I have been yelled at and threatened by patients and their family members. (Kimberly Kearns, 4/23)

A Malden program is testing whether better access to outdoor recreation can improve public health. (Miles Howard, 4/24)