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The Department of Veterans Affairs has halted plans to enforce a controversial rule that would have cut disability compensation for veterans making claims. The decision follows a backlash from veterans groups, which had criticized the rule’s impact on benefits. VA Secretary Douglas A. Collins posted on X on Thursday that the agency will not enforce the rule but will continue to collect public comments. The department had initially issued the rule Monday, saying it would take immediate effect. The new policy was set to require that examiners take into consideration the effects of medication, essentially making it easier for the agency to consider veterans less disabled if their medicine effectively treats their disability. (Kornfield, 2/19)

More health news from the Trump administration —

After pulling out of the World Health Organization, the Trump administration is proposing spending $2 billion a year to replicate the global disease surveillance and outbreak functions the United States once helped build and accessed at a fraction of the cost, according to three administration officials briefed on the proposal. The effort to build a U.S.-run alternative would re-create systems such as laboratories, data-sharing networks and rapid-response systems the U.S. abandoned when it announced its withdrawal from the WHO last year and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. (Sun and Bogage, 2/19)

The Food and Drug Administration has tapped a former executive from a health artificial intelligence company to lead its digital health center. (Aguilar and Lawrence, 2/19)

During President Donald Trump's first term, former National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Director Jeremy Berg, PhD, said he and other former NIH officials worried about what he called a "nightmare scenario" -- that all institute and center directors could be dismissed at once. That didn't happen. But a more gradual version of it may now be unfolding. A MedPage Today review found that 16 of the NIH's 27 institutes and centers are currently either led by acting directors or have no permanent director in place. (McCreary, 2/19)

On the immigration crisis —

The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it was reviving a proposal to prevent undocumented immigrants from receiving federal housing assistance, a policy that could displace tens of thousands of legal residents and citizens, many of them children, who live with unauthorized relatives in public housing. (Cameron, 2/19)

The police in St. Paul, Minn., say they are investigating an immigration arrest last month that left a man with a fractured skull and bleeding in his brain. Immigration agents have claimed the injuries were a result of the man running into a wall, but he has said that the agents beat him. (Bogel-Burroughs, 2/19)

From the roof of the ​​Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Portland, Oregon, federal agents late last month watched as thousands of people marched past the processing center in protest. Families and children were among the daytime crowd, which had gathered for an event advertised as family friendly. (Rodriguez, 2/19)

The 911 call reported an apparent suicide. A 55-year-old Cuban “tried to hang himself,” a federal contractor alerted emergency responders last month from a sprawling El Paso immigrant detention center. By the next day, records show that Geraldo Lunas Campos had died at the facility, marking the second fatality in weeks at the hastily constructed Fort Bliss Army tent structure known as Camp East Montana. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials attributed his death to “medical distress.” (Kriel and Deguzman, 2/19)

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended President Donald Trump’s executive order spurring the domestic production of the weed killer glyphosate, as his Make America Healthy Again movement reels from the president’s embrace of the chemical they despise. (Downs, 2/19)

President Trump’s executive order aimed at spurring production of a pesticide has infuriated leaders of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement. (Stolberg and Tabuchi, 2/19)

On climate change and public health —

When President Donald Trump on Feb. 12 announced the “single largest deregulation in American history” — the repeal of climate emissions standards for all vehicles and the key scientific determination underpinning them, in one swoop — he said it would save Americans $1.3 trillion. But the administration’s own analyses, found in the official rulemaking published Wednesday in the Federal Register, show a more nuanced picture. The climate rollbacks also come with costs, ranging from hundreds of billions of dollars on the low end to more than $1.4 trillion on the high end — an amount that exceeds the projected savings. (Hirji, 2/19)

In a stretch of Louisiana with about 170 fossil fuel and petrochemical plants, premature death is a fact of life for people living nearby. The air is so polluted and the cancer rates so high it is known as Cancer Alley. “Most adults in the area are attending two to three funerals per month,” said Gary C. Watson Jr., who was born and raised in St. John the Baptist Parish, a majority Black community in Cancer Alley about 30 miles outside of New Orleans. His father survived cancer, but in recent years, at least five relatives have died from it. (Pineda and Borenstein, 2/20)

Environmental news from Louisiana, New Hampshire, and California —

Each morning, Katherine Prevost fills her coffee maker with water from her kitchen faucet and presses the button. Until recently, she didn’t know the water may have contained a potent neurotoxin — lead. She was shocked when a water test provided by Verite News found lead detected in the water coming from the tap. “Now that means that I can’t do that anymore,” Prevost said. She already drank bottled water, but she relied on tap water for cooking everything from her gumbos and crawfish boils and other daily activities like brushing her teeth. (Parker, 2/19)

A resourceful solution to repurpose waste and nourish farmland, or a poisonous and permanent mistake? Depending on whom you ask, the practice of spreading treated sewage, or sludge, on New Hampshire farmland might be either. For decades, this fertilizer has been a point of contention both locally and nationwide. Now, with renewed attention on sludge’s PFAS, or “forever chemical” content, a new bill from Merrimack Democratic Rep. Wendy Thomas brings the practice back into the spotlight. (Rains, 2/19)

A Bay Area refinery will pay a multi-million-dollar penalty for a series of major violations, including fires, toxic emissions and leaking tanks that went on for years, prosecutors and air regulators announced on Wednesday. A civil action against Martinez Refining Company resulted in a $10 million judgment against the company, along with $600,000 in mitigation payments for environmental projects in Contra Costa County, the district attorney and the Bay Area Air District said in a joint announcement. A judge signed the final judgment on the enforcement action on Wednesday. (Castañeda, 2/19)

Tracy Beth Høeg, the top drug regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, indicated in her first address to staff that she’ll scrutinize antidepressants and the shots used to protect babies from RSV. (Lawrence, 2/19)

A meeting of the US vaccine advisory panel that had been planned for later this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reportedly been postponed amid legal challenges the panel is facing over its validity. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which provides guidance on who should receive specific vaccines, had originally been set to convene from 25 to 27 February, according to the CDC’s website. (Dunbar, 2/19)

In related news about vaccines —

The New Hampshire House of Representatives rejected a proposal Thursday to end all vaccine mandates in the state. “New Hampshire has the lowest vaccination rate for measles in New England,” Rep. Jessica LaMontagne, a Dover Democrat, said in a floor speech before the vote. “Do you want to be the legislature that ushers in the next outbreak of measles?” (Skipworth, 2/19)

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The midterm elections are months away, yet changes at the Department of Health and Human Services suggest the Trump administration is focusing on how to win on health care, which remains a top concern for voters. Facing growing concern about the administration’s actions on vaccines in particular, the Food and Drug Administration this week reversed course and said it would review a new mRNA-based flu vaccine after all. (Carey, 2/19)

On the spread of measles, mumps, and bird flu —

Utah has confirmed 300 measles cases in an ongoing outbreak, with the virus now spreading in Salt Lake County and new exposures at high schools in that county, according to an update yesterday from the Salt Lake County Health Department (SLCoHD). “The first measles symptoms are often cold- or flu-like, with cough, runny nose, red/watery eyes, and fever, so you may think you have a common respiratory illness and can continue engaging in normal activities,” said Dorothy Adams, executive director of SLCoHD. “But please stay home if you have any signs of illness, especially now that we know measles is actively circulating in our community.” (Soucheray, 2/19)

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has confirmed the fourth case of measles this year in an international traveler who recently visited LAX Airport. The department made the announcement on Thursday, saying the person had recently visited LAX and several other LA County locations while infectious. So far, all of the LA County cases have been tied to international travel, according to public health officials. (Hylton, 2/19)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the presence of measles was recently detected in wastewater samples in Fairfield County. (Polansky, 2/19)

New outbreaks of measles, which had been considered eradicated in the U.S., may force colleges to rethink their vaccine strategies. There is no standard way universities approach vaccine reporting, requirements or exemptions, with some given a far freer hand by their home states than others. But in the face of rising vaccine skepticism, the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced last week it is shifting to require students to disclose their vaccination status, and it is possible that other schools may follow suit. (Lonas Cochran, 2/19)

Maryland has reported six times as many mumps cases in early 2026 as it did all of last year, with most infections concentrated in the Baltimore metropolitan area, state health officials said Thursday. (Bazos, 2/19)

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed more H5N1 avian flu outbreaks in Pennsylvania poultry facilities this week, including six detections in Lancaster County, which has seen a dramatic uptick in H5N1 activity in the past several weeks. (Soucheray, 2/19)

Also —

The saliva circulating in your mouth contains troves of microbial information about the rest of your body and is easier to collect than blood samples. Today, a few drops of spit can help detect viruses like HIV and the one that causes COVID-19, or assess genetic risks for breast cancer. Within a few years, experts say, similar tests might be available to diagnose other diseases, such as diabetes or prostate cancer. (Noguchi, 2/20)

After a strike that lasted nearly six weeks, nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital said early Friday that they had reached a tentative agreement with one of New York City’s largest medical centers. If the deal holds, it would end one of the largest — and longest — strikes by nurses in recent decades. On Jan. 12, nearly 15,000 nurses at three major New York health systems walked out, citing a range of grievances, from nurse staffing levels to episodes of workplace violence. (Goldstein, 2/20)

On the accuracy of provider directories —

After years of grand ambitions, the federal government disclosed that it is months away from rolling out a centralized list of doctors and hospitals filled with up-to-date contact and insurance information. (Herman, 2/19)

One of New York’s largest health insurers is set to pay a multimillion-dollar fine for failing to fix a series of errors that made it harder for its customers to get mental health care. EmblemHealth this week agreed to a $2.5 million settlement with the New York attorney general’s office because of the large number of inaccuracies in its listings of in-network mental health providers, a problem that has persisted for years. (Blau, 2/19)

More health industry developments —

Dr. James Downing will step down this year as president and CEO of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the nonprofit hospital announced Thursday. Downing, who has led the hospital for more than 12 years, will move into a faculty role in its global pediatric medicine department. The St. Jude board plans to announce his successor this summer and complete the leadership transition by the end of the year. (Kacik, 2/19)

A new microhospital is now open in north St. Louis at the site of another that shut down abruptly in 2024. Archview ER and Hospital began taking patients in December at the former Homer G. Phillips Memorial Hospital location on North Jefferson Avenue. Officials there say they’re in the process of getting approval to accept Medicaid and Medicare insurance. (Fentem, 2/19)

Community Health Systems isn’t quite finished with its recent selling push. The Franklin, Tennessee-based health system reported a positive swing in its financial results in 2025, largely due to divestitures and other efficiency initiatives. The company is in early discussions regarding a couple of other sales transactions, CEO Kevin Hammons said on a Thursday fourth-quarter earnings call. (Hudson, 2/19)

A bizarre case of mistaken identity that landed a then-homeless man in jail and later caused him to be confined in Hawaiʻi State Hospital for more than two years will cost the state $200,000 under a proposed legal settlement. The lawsuit filed on behalf of Joshua Spriestersbach, 54, alleges he told his lawyers with the state Office of the Public Defender time and again he was not the man named in the warrant that prompted his arrest on May 11, 2017 — to no avail. (Dayton, 2/19)

Starting May 1, enrollees in UnitedHealthcare health maintenance organization (HMO) or HMO-point of service Medicare Advantage plans nationwide must get a primary care provider's referral before seeing a wide array of specialists, which several health advocates say will lead to confusion and care delays for millions of seniors. UnitedHealthcare, the nation's largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans, warned that specialty care without a referral wouldn't be reimbursed and that physicians would be on the hook for absorbing the enrollees' cost of specialty care. (Clark, 2/19)

It’s been two years since a cyberattack against Change Healthcare roiled healthcare, exposing data on 190 million consumers and demonstrating the vulnerabilities of an industry so reliant on one vendor. The Feb. 21, 2024, attack by ransomware group BlackCat forced UnitedHealth Group, Change Healthcare’s parent company, to disable functions including claims processing, prescription management, payment, prior authorization and insurance verification. Chaos ensued as critical functions ground to a halt. (DeSilva, 2/19)

Banner Health upgraded its entire fleet of Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci Xi surgical robots to the company’s new da Vinci 5 model. Leaders said the organization is seeking to advance and standardize its robotic capabilities, thereby reducing variation and supporting best practices. The Phoenix-headquartered health system did not disclose how many robots were part of the upgrade or the cost of the investment. It has a total of 49 da Vinci 5 robots, including newly upgraded units and existing ones. (Dubinsky, 2/19)

Also —

�������ýҕ�l Health News: When It Comes To Health Insurance, Federal Dollars Support More Than ACA Plans
Subsidies. Love ’em or hate them, they dominated the news during the Affordable Care Act’s sign-up season, and their reduction is now hitting many enrollees in the pocketbook. While lawmakers continue to disagree on a way forward, and the politics of affordability keeps the issue front and center, it would be understandable to think these are the only taxpayer-funded health insurance subsidies in the U.S. system. But that would be wrong. (Appleby, 2/20)

Women in Wisconsin will soon be eligible to receive expanded Medicaid coverage for up to a year after giving birth following near-unanimous passage of a measure Thursday by the Wisconsin Assembly that would leave Arkansas as the only state yet to expand such benefits. Wisconsin Democrats, and even most Republicans, have pushed for years to expand Medicaid coverage for new mothers, only to be blocked by powerful Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Vos had argued that he opposed expanding welfare programs, but he relented late Wednesday. (Bauer, 2/19)

More health news from Arizona and California —

A federal judge has ordered a takeover of health care operations in Arizona’s prisons and will appoint an official to run the system after years of complaints about poor medical and mental health care. The decision on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver came after her 2022 verdict that concluded Arizona had violated prisoners’ rights by providing inadequate care that led to suffering and preventable deaths. (Billeaud, 2/20)

California’s parole board is using unreliable drug test results in decisions about releasing incarcerated people despite flaws that were exposed in a rash of false positives two years ago, more than a dozen state prison doctors and state-appointed attorneys say. As a result of the practice, which conflicts with policies governing prison health care, more and more incarcerated people are walking away from life-saving addiction treatment over fears that a false positive could cost them their freedom. (Mihalovich, 2/19)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped into the fight over age limits on social media Thursday, saying he wants state legislation that would restrict access to the powerful online platforms for teens under 16. (Katzenberger and Mui, 2/19)

On transgender and reproductive care in Michigan, Texas, and Nevada —

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a new investigation into three Michigan school districts to determine if they have added "sexual orientation and gender ideology" content in any of their classes without giving parents the option to opt their kids out. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillion sent letters to superintendents at the Detroit Public Schools Community District, Godfrey-Lee Public Schools and Lansing School District, saying the DOJ will determine if the districts violated Title IX. (Rojas-Castillo, 2/19)

A Texas appeals court will hear arguments on Thursday in a civil lawsuit brought against a woman accused by the state of illegally providing abortions in the Houston area. Maria Margarita Rojas allegedly provided abortions in violation of the state's abortion ban and was practicing medicine without a license at a network of clinics in northwestern Houston, according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. (Kekatos, 2/19)

Nevada’s ban on taking drugs to end a pregnancy after the 24th week makes it the only state left in the nation that explicitly criminalizes abortions, advocates say, and legislative efforts last year to change that fell flat. Patience Rousseau was the only person ever charged and convicted under the law, according to Laura FitzSimmons, a Carson City-based lawyer who has represented her since 2020. FitzSimmons helped get Rousseau’s conviction vacated in 2021 for ineffective assistance of counsel. (Reynolds, 2/19)

From Iowa, Idaho, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania —

As Iowa officials drill down on their fight to understand and address high cancer rates in the state, a mapping tool developed by University of Iowa researchers is informing their and other states’ work — and the network is set to keep growing. (Draisey, 2/19)

Authorities in Idaho were searching Thursday for a suspect who they said stole an ambulance outside a hospital, poured an accelerant over it and drove it into a nearby building that houses U.S. Department of Homeland Security offices. Meridian Police Chief Tracy Basterrechea didn’t identify the substance poured on the inside and outside of the ambulance. “It appears the suspect was unable to ignite the accelerant before being scared off by responding agencies,” he said in a statement. The incident occurred at about 11:10 p.m. Wednesday in the Boise suburb of Meridian, police said. (McAvoy and Boone, 2/20)

On evenings and weekends when pediatric clinics in Salem are typically closed, Melissa Carter found it difficult to find health care for her sick children. It’s why Carter, who’s a nurse practitioner with over a decade of experience, started a mobile pediatric unit in December. (Liu and Furukawa, 2/19)

Two Black women in Philadelphia are becoming changemakers in their communities and revolutionizing the way Black men access therapy. To understand their mission, look no further than their powerful and to-the-point moniker, Black Men Heal. The nonprofit was created by a pair of visionary and dedicated women, both of whom are driven to spark change: Tasnim Sulaiman and Zakia Williams. (Washington, 2/19)

Biohackers like it. Athletes and Joe Rogan do, too. Stanford neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman says it “sharpens the mind.” On social media, health and wellness influencers explain how they use it for a pre-workout boost or as part of their “stacks.” (Todd, 2/20)

Overdose deaths are falling, but America's illicit drug supply is re-engineering itself into lethal cocktails: fentanyl plus stimulants, sedatives, and novel synthetics that hide in party powders and pressed pills. (Contreras, 2/20)

More health and wellness news —

A woman hands her 9-month-old baby girl a pepper-dusted stick of golden grass-fed butter on a silver platter in one TikTok post. Another gives her toddler pats of butter out of “pure desperation” to keep her “always-hungry” toddler fuller longer after meals. (Rogers, 2/19)

Pfizer Inc. is drawing on lessons learned years ago from rolling out Viagra as it maps out the launch of its first obesity medicine. The parallels between weight loss and erectile dysfunction — two sensitive health topics influenced by social perceptions — are among the factors helping to inform the US drugmaker as it considers how best to introduce the monthly injection just gained from its acquisition of Metsera Inc., according to Alexandre de Germay, Pfizer’s chief international commercial officer. (Furlong, 2/19)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Should Drug Companies Be Advertising To Consumers?
Tamar Abrams had a lousy couple of years in 2022 and ’23. Both her parents died; a relationship ended; she retired from communications consulting. She moved from Arlington, Virginia, to Warren, Rhode Island, where she knew all of two people. “I was kind of a mess,” recalled Abrams, 69. Trying to cope, “I was eating myself into oblivion.” As her weight hit 270 pounds and her blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose levels climbed, “I knew I was in trouble health-wise.” (Span, 2/20)

In obituaries —

Byron Caughey, PhD, hailed as a “titan” in the field of prion diseases, has died. He was 68 years old. Caughey, who died February 15, was chief of the Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy/Prion Biochemistry Section of the Laboratory of Persistent Viral Diseases at the National Institute of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. His major research areas included Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and prion structural biology, biochemistry, cell biology, diagnostic tests, and therapeutics. (Van Beusekom, 2/19)

Eric Dane, the actor best known as the charming plastic surgeon nicknamed McSteamy on the wildly successful ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” has died. He was 53. His death was confirmed by his publicist Melissa Bank. He had been treated for A.L.S., a neurological disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which breaks down a patient’s ability to control muscles, speak and eventually breathe without assistance. (Diaz, 2/19)

Freedom House Ambulance Service in Pittsburgh, a pioneer in emergency care, was largely forgotten. Now, members of Congress want to honor it. (Robertson, 2/20)

Limb-lengthening can add inches to a person’s stature. But its risks have made it controversial. (Kwai, 2/17)

Kimberly Sanders thought she was doing the right thing when she stepped into a mobile mammogram van parked outside her Charlotte workplace, a primary care clinic, last October. It seemed like a simple, convenient way to get her annual breast cancer screening. But when the scan came back abnormal, Sanders, 60, hit an unexpected barrier that threatened to delay the time-sensitive follow-up care she needed. (Crouch, 2/18)

Scientists are testing an entirely new way to fight heart disease: whether gene editing might offer a one-time fix for high cholesterol. (Neergaard, 2/11)

A flurry of new studies is shedding light on one of the biggest steps in the history of life: the evolution two billion years ago of complex cells from simpler ones. In the oceans and on land, scientists are discovering rare, transitional microbes that bridge the gap. The differences between complex cells, including those in the human body, and simple microbes such as E. coli are stark. Complex cells are packed with compartments; one, known as the nucleus, stores DNA; others, called mitochondria, contain enzymes that generate the cell’s fuel supply. (Zimmer, 2/18)

Boston Community Pediatrics proves that accessible, humane primary care is possible — but only because donors are subsidizing an insurance system that won’t. (Shira Schoenberg, 2/20)

On Thursday on “The Pitt,” a patient divulged his most closely guarded secret. Five hours earlier, construction worker Orlando Diaz arrived at the emergency department after fainting on the job due to the life-threatening condition of diabetic ketoacidosis. Making too much money to qualify for Medicaid, yet not enough to afford private health insurance, he’s been rationing his insulin to make ends meet. (Allison Sesso and Joe Sachs, 2/20)

Why cancer screening should become more like heart disease prevention. (Leana S. Wen, 2/19)

Cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer, is one of the most challenging and underrecognized cancers, with limited treatment options and a grim prognosis for many patients. There are approximately 400 new liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer cases in Missouri annually. Those that are specifically cholangiocarcinoma are around 125, as it is the second most common type of liver cancer. (Kim Kempf, 2/19)

Shutting down the conversation around incidents like the recent Rhode Island shooting does no one any good — especially not the transgender community. (Joan Vennochi, 2/18)