�������ýҕ�l

In a win for peptide proponents and for health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration recommended on Thursday that compounding pharmacies be allowed to manufacture the drugs BPC-157, KPV, TB-500, and MOTS-c. The FDA panel will vote on additional compounds on Friday. (Todd and Lawrence, 7/23)

Your favorite local restaurant or hair salon is subject to more inspections and oversight than the medspa down the street selling peptide injections. (Weber, 7/24)

An advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration convened Thursday to evaluate whether compounding pharmacies should be allowed to produce seven peptides that were previously banned over safety concerns. (Smith, 7/23)

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has taken a step beyond most other women’s sports leagues by requiring genetic sex testing for female athletes. (Rummler, 7/22)

People with diabetes who use a popular long-acting insulin pen made by Sanofi have had to become pharmacy scouts in recent weeks as they encounter supply issues. (Cueto, 7/23)

As the fungus that causes valley fever expands across the western United States and cases skyrocket in California, researchers say they may have found a new drug that can help those suffering from the most advanced form of the disease. And they’re hoping that someday the antifungal drug known as olorofim can be given to patients in earlier stages of the illness — before the fungal infection becomes too perilous. (Rust, 7/23)

Ipsen said its Bylvay drug didn’t meet the main objective in a late-stage clinical trial that tested the medicine in biliary atresia, a rare and serious liver disease that affects babies. The French drugmaker said Friday that Bylvay missed the study’s primary objective of showing an improvement in native liver survival rates compared to placebo. The drug’s safety profile was consistent with that shown in other indications for which it is approved, the company said. (Calatayud, 7/24)

In a boost for greater clinical trial transparency, the European Medicines Agency is taking what consumer advocacy groups are calling unexpectedly “rapid action” to ensure that study results are made public as required by law. (Silverman, 7/23)

A Maryland judge's decision to toss several provisions of a 2025 regulation on Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces, several of which overlap with more recent rulemaking, has been appealed by the Department of Health and Human Services. According to court documents, HHS filed its appeal last week and a case was opened in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit on Tuesday. Maryland District Judge Brendon Hurson had ruled in favor of plaintiffs—several cities and patient advocacy groups—last month. (Minemyer, 7/23)

Molina Healthcare plans to further shrink its Affordable Care Act business in 2027 in a bid to eke out profits from the smaller and sicker insurance marketplace, after the expiration of more generous subsidies caused millions of Americans to flee the exchanges. Molina’s ACA membership fell from 655,000 people at the end of 2025 to 283,000 people in the second quarter, after the insurer raised rates 30% on average to contain rising costs and reduce its exposure to the exchanges, according to results posted aftermarket Wednesday. (Parduhn, 7/23)

Connecticut will provide residents with financial assistance again in 2027 to partly offset expired federal aid for Affordable Care Act health plans, Gov. Ned Lamont said after a campaign event in New Haven earlier this month. (Golvala and Phaneuf, 7/23)

All U.S. states except one in the Mountain West are seeing a decline in the number of people paying for Affordable Care Act coverage. Nationwide, five million fewer people are enrolled than last year, federal data shows. (Kinsey and Merzbach, 7/23)

Dozens of Medicare Advantage insurers are due higher quality bonus payments after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revised their 2026 scores. (Tepper and Broderick, 7/23)

Endeavor Health Northwest Community Hospital hopes to move forward with plans to build a new $175 million cancer and neuroscience center after a state board approved the project earlier this week. (Schencker, 7/23)

A 4-month-old boy comes into the clinic with a fever and a stuffy nose. Vyonne Njeri thinks it's just a cold. Then a yellow box pops up on her computer telling her to check his heart — because his heart rate is elevated. Njeri is a registered clinical officer in Nairobi, Kenya; she sees patients on her own like a nurse practitioner. When she listens with a stethoscope she hears a whoosh — a sign that the infant could have a congenital heart defect. "That's something I would have missed on any other day," Njeri says of the visit a few months ago. "That child would have just gone home." (Kim, 7/23)

As Grace Farris shows in her new book, once someone has switched over to becoming a professional healthcare worker, a whole new set of issues presents itself. (Oksman, 7/23)

New research indicates that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) rates have increased significantly in children over the last two decades, rendering many first-line treatment options ineffective and now increasingly threatening second-line and last-resort options. (Dall, 7/23)

Black people with multiple sclerosis (MS) die from the disease at a younger age than white people, a new study reports. The death rate among Black patients with MS peaks between ages 65 and 74, while white patients are most likely to die between 75 and 84, researchers report in the September issue of the journal Neurology Open Access. (Thompson, 7/24)

Patients experiencing severe heart attacks may have significantly higher concentrations of micro- and nanoplastics in their blood compared to individuals with stable heart conditions, according to new research. Italian researchers analyzed blood samples from the coronary arteries of 61 patients undergoing angiograms, a procedure that analyzes blood vessels for irregularities. (Quill, 7/23)

Exceptional memory at age 80 and beyond was not due simply to good genes, an analysis of prospective data suggested. The study assessed outcomes for superagers -- people 80 or older with episodic memory at least as good as adults 20 or 30 years younger -- and cognitively average controls. (George, 7/23)

A US study has found a 70% drop in hospital admissions and days off from work or school when people with poorly controlled asthma had their gas stove and hob replaced with electric. Ohio’s publicly owned MetroHealth began the study in December 2024 but funding was terminated early by the incoming Trump administration. It had been designed to investigate if replacing gas cooking improved asthma for 1,200 people living near Cleveland, Ohio. (Fuller, 7/24)

More than a million cartons of eggs are being recalled from retail outlets after Texas farms reported potential salmonella contamination, according to a Wednesday statement from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. (Jorgensen, 7/23)

The packaging of certain fruit puree pouches sold at Target, Kroger and Meijer stores nationwide could pose a health risk. On Friday, PT Organics Limited voluntarily recalled a portion of its Pumpkin Tree Peter Rabbit Organics Banana & Strawberry four-ounce (113-gram) pouches after being notified by its supplier about a defect in packaging that could result in “a thin, soft strand of the inner pouch material becoming detached, and leaving the pouch when squeezed,” according to a statement published on the company website. The Food and Drug Administration posted the company’s announcement on July 21. (Sloan, 7/23)

President Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention won the support of a crucial Republican on Thursday after a page on the agency’s website about vaccines and autism was modified to address his objections. (Stolberg, 7/23)

The Senate’s health panel delayed until next week a vote on Erica Schwartz to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after postponing a separate vote on Sean Kaufman for a key public health preparedness role. (Cirruzzo, 7/23)

A Trump administration nominee to lead an agency focused on public health disasters had his confirmation vote postponed amid a lack of support just minutes before it was scheduled to take place, after he was lambasted during a confirmation hearing last week for his past anti-vaccine statements. (Cirruzzo, 7/23)

The entire congressional Democratic caucus filed an amicus brief urging a federal appeals court to retain the Food and Drug Administration’s current rules for prescribing abortion pills. (Weixel, 7/23)

Amid debates over whether the political influence of the Make America Healthy Again movement is on the wane, a new bill advanced in the Senate on Wednesday shows that concerns over ultra-processed food continue to upend the usual partisan stances in Washington. (Todd, 7/24)

Rep. Morgan Griffith would love to eat an all-beef hot dog. But the eight-term Virginia Republican from one of the biggest cattle-producing districts in Congress doesn’t eat red meat — against his will. (Cohen, 7/22)

Frustrations are growing as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been absent from the Senate for 40 days, leading to speculation about his health and the truth of his statement from nearly 2 weeks ago. (Henderson, 7/23)

Dr. Anthony Fauci will testify next Wednesday in front of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee after being subpoenaed, panel Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Thursday. (Weixel, 7/23)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Watch: GOP Senator Says Trump’s Tariffs Could Mean Safer Drugs — For A Price 

President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported generic drugs could raise some prices for patients, a key GOP lawmaker on health issues said this week. But he said that’s a potentially worthwhile trade-off to protect the nation’s drug supply. (Rovner and Norman, 7/24)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: 'What The Health? From �������ýҕ�l Health News': A Shrinking Safety Net 

A new report finds that participation in the federal food stamp program is down far more than was predicted when the Republican-led Congress approved cuts in 2025. That portends a similar fate for Medicaid, as states ready comparable changes. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine join �������ýҕ�l Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss the news. Also, as part of the “How Would You Fix It?” series, Rovner interviews GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. (7/23)

HHS has altered the charters of two vaccine-related committees: the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) and the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC). The timing isn't unusual, as both charters are up for renewal, said Richard Hughes IV, JD, MPH, the attorney leading the American Academy of Pediatrics' lawsuit against HHS changes to vaccine policy. (Fiore, 7/23)

The Education Department on Thursday killed decades-old rules that have allowed statistical disparities to be used as proof of racial discrimination, the most recent move by the Trump administration to overhaul the government’s enforcement of civil rights law. The move follows years of conservative complaints about “disparate impact analysis,” which incorporates use of data to show discrimination. (Meckler, 7/23)

For 18 months, the Trump administration has been accused by science advocates of shredding a social contract between academic researchers and the federal government that made the United States the world’s most powerful engine of discovery. Now it’s proposing a way to rebuild American science. (Oza, 7/24)

James Mwazighe watched the flood waters nearly engulf his daughter’s bed as seasonal rains swept across southern Kenya in March. Jane, his usually playful 2-year-old, lay writhing in pain from malaria, her tiny body ravaged by severe diarrhea. His nearby farmland — normally a bounty of bananas, maize and beans — was a swamp. (Sanchez, Marks and Karra, 7/23)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has linked four additional states to a multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak traced to shredded iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico, according to two individuals familiar with the investigation. The newly linked states — Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania — join Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia, and expand the nation’s largest known cyclosporasis outbreak. (Sun and Ye, 7/24)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the helm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last year promising to overhaul the U.S. food system and restore confidence in the agencies that oversee it. “It is difficult to quantify precisely, but it is clear that the cuts to federal funding over the past year or so have reduced our capacity to respond to outbreaks like this,” said Craig Hedberg, co-director of the Minnesota Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence. (Peebles, 7/23)

When the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) last year, it set off a chain of events that is still being felt in the sluggish federal response to a record number of cyclosporiasis infections. (Weixel, 7/23)

A Texas appeals court on Thursday dismissed an injunction that forced a Houston-area midwife to close her clinics, ruling that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office relied solely on an anonymous email as evidence that she violated the state’s 2022 abortion ban. (Langford, 7/23)

It was February 2013 when Jasmine Luter’s world suddenly went dark. Luter had just arrived home from the hospital after giving birth. Exhausted from the labor, the nursing and a lack of sleep, she said she lay down for a nap. When she woke after sunset, she said, she noticed something was “off.” “I can’t really describe it except I just felt off,” Luter said. Luter heard people in the living room of her Metairie home — family members visiting with the new baby boy. To this day she struggles to describe the experience, but she remembers feeling heavy. (Stewart, 7/24)

Homelessness increased in Los Angeles over the past year, according to numbers that will be released by the region’s homelessness authority on Friday, setting up Mayor Karen Bass for a fresh round of criticism amid an already bruising re-election campaign. The city’s homeless population increased by 3.4 percent from last year, based on the most recent point-in-time count, an annual January census of the region’s homeless population, according to two people who were not authorized to release the data before tomorrow’s announcement. (Cowan and Hubler, 7/23)

Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration is significantly reducing staffing at a long-troubled downstate center for people with mental health issues and developmental disabilities, state and union officials said Thursday. (Olander, 7/23)

A long-standing federal funding program that supports HIV prevention efforts nationwide may soon come to an end. Last week, the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget informed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it will not reauthorize $46 million in federal funding for HIV prevention programs. (Zurek, 7/23)

On a hot July day, a group of Cheshire Medical Center patients are sitting in an air-conditioned conference room at the hospital. They’re all mostly over 50 years old, and they’re here for a presentation on advance directives — plus the free pizza that comes with it. (Harris, 7/23)

More frequent and severe wildfires, prolonged drought, deadly storms and other effects of a changing climate are affecting Wyomingites’ mental health. Symptoms can range from anxiety and feelings of helplessness to post-traumatic stress disorder and increases in violence and suicide, according to research from Canada's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. (Galatas, 7/23)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: To Afford Aging In Place, Older Adults Turn To ‘Golden Girls’ Housing 

Shirley Jennett, a retired nurse, loves her spacious ranch-style house in Denver, with its big backyard and gazebo. “I want to stay here,” she vowed. “And die here.” She might pull that off. In relatively good health, Jennett still drives to lunch with friends, does her own housekeeping and grocery shopping, and plows through a book a day, usually a mystery. But her children worry about her living alone at 89, especially after she has had a couple of falls. (Span, 7/24)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: ‘The Child Is Terrified’: Doctors On The Front Lines Of A Measles Comeback Speak Out 

This isn’t just a bad year for measles. It looks to be the start of a bad era. Confirmed measles cases just hit a 35-year high, and it’s only July. Together with last year, the number of cases has exceeded the combined total over the previous 25 years. The vast majority of cases stem from domestic outbreaks fueled by low rates of vaccination—and rates are declining. (Maxmen, 7/24)

Homicide rates are falling precipitously in many cities across the United States, dropping by 18 percent since the same period last year, and by the end of 2026 the murder rate could plummet to its lowest nationwide in more than a century, according to a new midyear crime trends report. (Mettler, 7/24)

Some people have fought Ebola containment measures in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Scholars have seen similar responses across societies and throughout history. (Fink, 7/20)

One instant without supervision was all it took for Casey McGovern’s daughter to die. She still remembers the series of events down to the minute, nearly 17 years later. (Moolten and Goodman, 7/22)

As weight-loss drugs whittle down body diversity and brazen language reappears, fat jokes reminiscent of the early 2000s are once more taking root online — especially on social media algorithms that reward transgressive content — and making the leap to real life. (Battle, 7/22)

People in Sandpoint, Idaho, don’t know how to characterize a woman’s brush with a transgender woman in a Y.M.C.A. locker room, but the emergency call that followed is still reverberating. (Griffin, 7/21)

Daniel Cressy’s illness was a barrier to getting his pilot’s license, until a novel treatment was approved in the United States. (Cummings, 7/18)

Meet Synergy, the five-pound ambassador who works in crisis intervention at Washington’s Union Station. (Solano, 7/23)

When the No Surprises Act took effect in 2022, it was a rare feat of bipartisan problem-solving. The law was meant to prevent a once all-too-common scenario: An insured patient would seek emergency care, only to face financial disaster because one of the providers involved was outside the patient’s insurance network. (Lisa Jarvis, 7/24)

Every so often, I catch myself wondering, what if I had applied to medical school just two years later? As another class of medical students matriculates, that question has become harder to ignore. (Gauri Gurumurthy, 7/24)

The last American who used an iron lung just died. Her story should be a reminder. (Ashley Alker, 7/24)

In 2006, an Australian-led research team studied 14 children who had all been given the same diagnosis years earlier—some of them decades earlier. Each had suffered a catastrophic seizure within 72 hours of a pertussis (whooping cough) vaccination, all of them before their first birthday, and had gone on to develop severe epilepsy that never improved. No other cause had ever been found. By the standards of the time, they were said to have vaccine encephalopathy, meaning brain injury caused by the vaccine. (Jake Scott, MD, 7/23)

In 2025, there were 216 active drug shortages in the U.S., impacting Americans’ access to lifesaving medications. The resilience of our pharmaceuticals supply chains has been increasingly framed as a national security issue, including by the White House — and rightly so, as Covid-19 magnified the massive costs of a health system ill-equipped to care for its population. (Pooja Yerramilli, 7/24)