�������ýҕ�l

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is preparing to make it easier for people to claim that they were injured by a Covid-19 vaccine and receive compensation. (Cirruzzo, 7/8)

A pair of 340B Drug Pricing Program proposals is reviving a complicated, years-long battle between safety-net hospitals and the federal government. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services aims to slash Medicare reimbursements for 340B drugs and hasten a convoluted multibillion dollar clawback and redistribution process dating to 2017, when CMS first tried cutting payments. The agency laid out its plan last week in the hospital outpatient reimbursement proposed rule for 2027. (Early, 7/8)

CMS has rescinded a decade-old “fast-track” review process for certain Medicaid Section 1115 demonstration waiver extensions as the agency prepares to implement new federal budget neutrality requirements that take effect in 2027. The July 7 informational bulletin formally withdraws 2015 guidance that allowed eligible states to use an expedited review process when renewing some Section 1115 demonstrations. CMS said the change is necessary because new statutory requirements will require the agency’s chief actuary to certify that Medicaid demonstrations will not increase federal spending before they can be approved, renewed or amended beginning Jan. 1, 2027. (Condon, 7/8)

Academic scientists, biotech executives and investors, and patient advocacy groups are sounding alarms over the Trump administration's plans to add political reviews to the process for making research grants. (Owens, 7/9)

A Republican senator criticized a proposed rule from the White House's budget office that would substantially change how federal grants are managed, arguing that it has the potential to harm patients and set back biomedical research. In a July 6 letter, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, wrote that "the rule would impose new, burdensome requirements on award recipients that would harm small and rural communities, undermine scientific and biomedical research, and conflict with Congress' control over the federal funding process." (Firth, 7/8)

Last July, the Trump administration issued a notice to the dozens of organizations receiving Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants. "Program materials are expected [to] reflect the immutable biological reality of sex, not radical gender ideology, and may not promote anti-American ideologies such as discriminatory equity ideology," the document reads, listing five executive orders organizations needed to comply with to keep their grants. "Programs with such unauthorized content are not eligible for federal funding." (Simmons-Duffin, 7/8)

The top contenders to lead the Food and Drug Administration have been sent to the White House for a final review and decision, according to a person familiar with the process. The finalists include Heidi Overton, a White House adviser; Jeffrey Vacirca, an oncologist and health system executive; and Stephen Ferrara, a health affairs official at the Defense Department. (Payne, 7/8)

A new treatment for children aged 2 or older with sickle cell disease has been approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). In a Wednesday news release, the FDA announced it had approved Casgevy, the first gene therapy for children with the disease. “Casgevy is a gene therapy consisting of the patient’s own (autologous) hematopoietic (blood) stem cells, administered as a one-time single dose for intravenous infusion,” the release noted. (Djordjevic, 7/8)

The FDA has determined that various metals found in tampons don’t pose health risks to women. (Alvino, 7/8)

Last week, pharmaceutical leaders filed into a meeting room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, for a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and HHS Chief Counsel Chris Klomp. The administration officials had a message for the industry: It’s time to bring production of essential medications back to the U.S. — or at least closer to home. (Payne, 7/8)

Thousands of federal civil servants who academic researchers see as partners in conducting their work were fired. An unprecedented number of scientific projects funded by previous administrations were terminated. Universities were pressured to abandon diversity programs and work to curb health disparities. On a Friday evening, the government tried to push through a dramatic change to how it reimburses universities for research overhead. (Oza, 7/8)

After years of rampant expansion into nearly every corner of the health care system, the biggest insurance conglomerates are confronting new efforts to break up their businesses. Arguing that the companies have become too dominant, Arkansas and Tennessee passed laws that aim to prevent the companies from managing prescription benefits and running retail and mail-order pharmacies. Lawmakers in other states and in Washington have proposed similar restrictions. (Abelson and Robbins, 7/8)

Last month, Sarina Eckman got a letter from the state of Montana that made clear she could lose her Medicaid coverage — but left her confused and with questions about what she needed to do to keep it. (Lovelace Jr., 7/8)

Advanced medical therapies are set to inflate already soaring health benefit costs, leaving employers and insurers to determine how to best pay for them. Cell and gene therapies treat complex conditions such as blood cancers, retinal diseases and neurodegenerative diseases. Employers face individual claims that are infrequent but can cost millions of dollars each. Healthcare conglomerates Cigna and UnitedHealth Group, third-party vendors, and standalone stop-loss and reinsurance companies all pitch products to shield employers buffeted by rising health spending. (Tong, 7/8)

Kendall McGill needed to take time off work for her mental health. The 32-year-old project manager in Baltimore didn’t get along with her direct manager and says she’d recently been assigned the workload of two people. Before every one-on-one meeting with her manager, McGill sat in front of a window and took deep breaths to calm her anxiety. “I just started to feel dreadful,” she says. “I was in therapy already and talking about the issue on and off with my therapist. And I was like, ‘I’m not going back to work.’” (Rogers, 7/8)

A new analysis of more than 930,000 Medicare beneficiaries suggests that COVID infection is associated with a sharp spike in healthcare use and costs during the acute illness phase, but those differences diminish substantially over time, with only modest increases in healthcare use and spending in the first three months after infection. (Bergeson, 7/8)

One of the most-watched House races in the country is setting the stage for how Democrats and Republicans will battle over federal health care cuts on the campaign trail. Swing seat GOP Rep. Mike Lawler, facing a tough reelection campaign against a moderate Democratic opponent, is being bombarded by attacks over his vote for President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy package, which cut Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over a decade.The pressure is only expected to intensify. (Cordero and Reisman, 7/8)

Five faith-based organizations are calling on the White House to release funding for HIV/AIDS prevention abroad that Congress already appropriated. In a letter sent to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, the groups urged full funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and Gavi. “These funds are urgently needed now. Without them, children will die of preventable diseases, HIV+ mothers will infect their babies during childbirth, tuberculosis will spread: these are the ‘least of these’ to whom our Lord calls us to respond,” the groups wrote. (Weixel, 7/8)

About 100,000 Virginians lost their Marketplace health insurance late last year after federal subsidies expired and premiums surged. Now, a new state program could help many of them afford coverage again. (Schabacker, 7/9)

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is directly asking Sen. Mitch McConnell, the state’s most powerful figure in Congress, to disclose more about his condition after three weeks of silence from the 84-year-old since he was hospitalized in Washington. The letter released Wednesday from Beshear, a Democrat who is considered a potential presidential candidate in 2028, to the former Senate Republican leader says, “Kentuckians have grown increasingly concerned about the current state of your health and well-being, and ability to hold office.” (Barrow, 7/9)

About 4,000 nurses and another 450 home care clinicians launched a strike Wednesday morning after months of bargaining with employer Mass General Brigham failed to yield a contract deal. The nurses’ demonstration, quarterbacked by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, was scheduled for a single day, but due to the minimum duration of temporary worker contracts signed by the health system will be followed by a four-day lockout. (Muoio, 7/8)

Governor Maura Healey has summoned the state’s largest health system and its striking nurses to the State House on Wednesday in an attempt to broker a new contract, according to the Massachusetts Nurses Association. (Wolf and Saltzman, 7/8)

Prime Healthcare plans to permanently close the inpatient pediatrics unit at St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet – adding the hospital to a growing list of Chicago area facilities eliminating such care. (Schencker, 7/8)

A Springfield, Missouri-based health center is traveling to St. Louis this week to address what it calls a recent loss of access to care in the city. Workers at Jordan Valley Health, which operates 10 mobile units throughout the region, will bring one to the Bayer YMCA near the intersection of Page and Union boulevards. (Fentem, 7/8)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) directed state officials on Tuesday to “immediately” launch an investigation into a state hospital for allegedly seeking to profit from “birth tourism” practices. Abbott said in a letter to Stephanie Muth, the executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, that Mission Regional Medical Center has advertised “BIRTH PACKAGES IN SOUTH TEXAS” in foreign countries “in an apparent effort to profit from securing United States citizenship for their children.”“Birth tourism is an illegal practice that exploits the extraordinary hospitality that the United States and Texas offer to millions of foreign travelers each year,” Abbott said in a statement. (Davis, 7/8)

Proposals in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma to tighten state oversight of fertility services could make in vitro fertilization a political target and encroach on personal medical decisions, a group of physicians wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine. (Reed, 7/9)

The word abortion will not appear on the Aug. 4 ballots in Kansas and Missouri. But high-profile votes in both states are widely viewed as proxy fights over access to the procedure. (Bayless, 7/9)

Two decades ago, lobbyist Julia Adams started out at the North Carolina General Assembly as an advocate for people with disabilities. Adams, herself, alternates between using a wheelchair and crutches to get to lawmakers’ offices and committee meetings. In those days, it was a real challenge in the legislative building, which was completed in 1963. (Hoban, 7/9)

For many public colleges and universities in California, keeping their campuses safe includes owning military-grade weaponry — AR-15s, stun grenades designed to cause temporary blindness and sonic weapons that resonate so loudly they are known in the armed forces as the voice of God. According to state law, campus police can only own military equipment if the college believes there is no other way to uphold civilian safety. (Huss, 7/8)

An audit of a Honolulu homeless assistance initiative that came under fire for being ineffective has been halted because the program keeps changing direction and can’t produce reliable data about its efforts. That development leaves the future direction of the Crisis, Outreach, Response and Engagement program in flux. Known as CORE, the program launched in 2021 to pair social workers with EMTs on 911 calls for help with homeless people in mental health crises. The City Council last September voted to audit the $2.7 million program, citing concerns it had drifted from its original purpose to steer people off the streets and into shelters and services. (Hay, 7/8)

When Dr. David Beuther began working as a pulmonologist — that’s a lung doctor — in Colorado two decades ago, summer used to be the easy time. In winter, his patients, holed up indoors and crowded together with others, caught viruses and developed coughs and struggled to breathe. Summer brought the relief of fresh air. (Ingold, 7/9)

Hospitals and health systems are adding tens of thousands of roles, but the positions are often clinical — and hiring is showing signs of slowing down. Halfway through the year, healthcare leaders are preparing for hurdles ahead by right-sizing their teams. As they focus on patient-facing employees, they’re shaving their back-office headcount: Thousands of roles have been cut and positions eliminated so far in 2026, often affecting administrative or support workers. (DeSilva, 7/8)

The pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has been hit with the first lawsuit challenging its decision to cut off drug discounts for some safety-net providers. Tampa General Hospital in Florida filed suit against the drugmaker in U.S. District Court for the U.S. District of Florida last Thursday, alleging that Eli Lilly is violating Florida and federal law by conditioning discounts from the 340B Drug Pricing Program on providers sharing claims data with the company. (Early, 7/8)

A former executive at Alignment Healthcare alleges the insurance company manipulated its finances to boost its stock price and executive compensation, according to a whistleblower lawsuit filed Tuesday. Hakan Kardes, former chief data and transformation officer, alleges the Medicare Advantage insurer forced him to resign after he reported alleged accounting fraud to other Alignment executives. The company allegedly misclassified operating expenses as capital costs, inflating its 2024 and 2025 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, according to the lawsuit. (Kacik, 7/8)

Epic Systems has identified the executives who will absorb Sumit Rana’s duties when he steps away from his position as president. In a Tuesday email to Epic employees, CEO Judy Faulkner said a group including four research and development leaders — Garrett Adams, Seth Howard, Mark Lipsky and Erv Walter — will add responsibilities following Rana’s departure in August. “We also have an outstanding group of seasoned people throughout Epic whose leadership is critical to the company’s success,” Faulkner said. (Famakinwa, 7/8)

Regulatory hurdles and the lack of insurer reimbursements are preventing doctors from harnessing data from consumer wearables to use in their practices, a new American Medical Association survey finds. (Reed, 7/8)

Matt Wilsey adjusted the plastic tube coming out of his 15-year-old daughter’s stomach and tried, again, not to think beyond the next 15 minutes. His job was to be there with Grace and let his wife, Kristen, rest. He could not think about the future. He could not wonder, again, if he had made the right choice or if his daughter would survive. (Mast and Herper, 7/9)

Pearl Health, a Medicare-focused technology company, has raised $110 million in a Series C funding round.The money comprises a $50 million equity round and a $60 million credit facility. Pearl Health’s artificial intelligence platform is designed to help providers manage their Medicare population and improve value-based care performance by analyzing claims data and identifying high-priority patients. The company says it works with more than 10,000 providers. (Famakinwa, 7/8)

A new study finds that the antiviral drug Paxlovid can safely be used by children aged 6 and older. The study, published recently in Pediatrics, found Paxlovid, which combines the drugs nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, is safe for children who weigh at least 44 pounds who have mild to moderate COVID-19 but are at risk of developing severe disease. Paxlovid is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in children at least 12 years old who weigh at least 88 pounds. (Szabo, 7/8)

In a blow to its cardiovascular aspirations, AstraZeneca said Thursday that its drug for a heart disease — one that has become an increasingly competitive target for biopharma companies — failed in a pivotal trial. (Joseph, 7/9)

An Escherichia coli–produced human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine protects women from cancer-causing strains of HPV, according to a recent study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. E coli–produced HPV vaccines cost less than commonly used HPV vaccines and could help boost immunization rates in low- to middle-income countries. “Given its low production cost, this vaccine has the potential to improve global access to high valency HPV vaccination,” wrote the authors, led by researchers at Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Preventative Medicine in China. (Holohan, 7/8)

Nearly 1,000 people in Michigan have been diagnosed with a parasitic infection that can cause weeks of watery diarrhea, making it the largest such outbreak in state history and one of the nation’s largest in years. No deaths have been reported and the source of the cyclospora infections hasn’t been identified. Meanwhile, investigations into similar illnesses have been going on in 28 other states, including in Ohio, where people just across the Michigan border are also becoming sick. (Stobbe, 7/8)

Got a nasty stomach bug that won’t go away? It could be cyclosporiasis, a parasitic infection that causes weeks of debilitating diarrhea, cramps and bloating. This infection tends to occur during the warm summer months, but several states are reporting increases in cases beyond what they would normally expect at this point in the year. (Goodman, 7/8)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a food safety alert for an ongoing outbreak of E. coli infections linked to frozen organic blueberries. At least 12 people in two states have been sickened during the outbreak. Four people have been hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported. Eleven of the case-patients are from Florida, with a single case reported in Georgia. Illnesses started on dates ranging from May 11, 2026, to June 5, 2026, the CDC said. Case-patients range in age from 2 to 88 years old. (Soucheray, 7/8)

Two New World screwworm cases in dogs are among more than 30 confirmed instances in Texas and New Mexico, prompting warnings Wednesday from veterinarians and humane societies that pet owners need to remain vigilant to protect their animals. The parasite reappeared in cattle in the U.S. in June, more than 50 years after it had been largely eradicated from the country. The pest is actually the larvae of the New World screwworm fly. It eats live flesh and fluids rather than dead material, as the larvae of most fly species do. (Hanna, 7/8)

Multiple people who paddled the Colorado River have described symptoms including fever, chills, fatigue and fluid in their lungs. (Bush, 7/9)

Ebola responders in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s hardest-hit areas have been striking this week over unpaid benefits and deteriorating working conditions, complicating efforts to contain a virus that’s infected more than 1,700 people and killed at least 600. The industrial action in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, and the neighboring town of Rwampara, that began early in the week was still continuing, the National Institute of Public Health said in a report Wednesday. The health zones have recorded a combined 847 confirmed Ebola infections — almost half the country’s total. (Gale, 7/8)

Annual cancer cases are projected to rise considerably worldwide by 2050, according to a World Health Organization report on cancer published Wednesday. With its assessment, the United Nations body tempered optimism about improvements in cancer surveillance and treatment and warned that global health care inequities are driving further cases and deaths.A round 20.6 million people were diagnosed with cancer in 2024, according to the findings. That number could reach 35 million a year by 2050. (Wu, 7/8)

Should surgeons be allowed to perform euthanasia by removing patients' hearts and other organs while they're still alive? The idea, dubbed "Death by Organ Donation," would enable euthanasia patients to donate organs for transplantation in a way that would make their organs more likely to be usable. It would also kill them. (Stein, 7/8)

Laura Rotunno didn’t think she had much longer to live. “My body has had enough,” Rotunno, of Deerfield, remembered thinking last year, under the weight of Stage 4 lung cancer. The color had drained from her face, she was on oxygen and it was difficult to leave her home. (Schencker, 7/8)

The prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in the U.S. was generally stable over the past decade, but the underlying diagnoses driving the condition changed over time, according to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data. (Monaco, 7/8)

If therapies were to expand to people with mild hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), the first in line should be specific groups more prone to disease worsening, suggested one registry study. (Lou, 7/8)

Scientists have identified a group of immune molecules that could help doctors catch Lyme disease earlier and identify patients whose symptoms linger long after treatment ends. The findings, led by Tufts University School of Medicine, could pave the way for better tests that catch Lyme disease in its earliest stages, when antibiotics work best, and help doctors identify patients still struggling with symptoms after treatment. (Fleur Afshar, 7/9)

Many women are open to using a human papillomavirus (HPV) self-collection test if offered the chance, says a paper published yesterday in BMC Public Health. Providing self-testing kits could increase the number of women undergoing cervical cancer screening. (Holohan, 7/8)

Taylor Townsell remembers her OBGYN reassuring her that her IUD insertion would feel like “just a pinch.” The pain came a split second later. The 32-year-old described it to Truthdig in still-vivid detail: “Bright, electric, as if my body had become nothing but nerve endings.” She passed out. (de Vignemont, 7/8)

For more than two decades, Paige Gordon chased a feeling of fullness. One night in college, she remembers eating an entire pizza, a bag of cookies, and a gallon of mint-chip ice cream while standing in her kitchen, before even removing her coat. She got so good at making herself throw up, she could do it almost silently. (Janin, 7/8)

The commercialization of anti-inflammation has taken on a life of its own. Private members’ clubs are now hosting $4,000 anti-inflammatory retreats. Hotels have redesigned menus around anti-inflammatory eating. Vibration plates, fitness devices promoted for lymphatic drainage that cause involuntary muscle contractions, are popping up across social media. If you see the phrase “lymphatic drainage” in a spa treatment, the I-word will almost certainly appear soon after.Anti-inflammatory treatments claim to provide immediate rewards such as less puffiness or a more chiseled jawline. (Rappaport, 7/8)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Listen To The Latest ‘�������ýҕ�l Health News Minute’

Rachel Spears reads the week’s news: When babies receiving infant formula allegedly get sick or die, what happens next is largely up to the companies that make it. Plus, abortions continue to rise four years after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. (7/9)

People who undergo gastric bypass or gastric sleeve tend to absorb alcohol more rapidly afterward, researchers reported recently in the International Journal of Obesity. As a result, they might be more prone to alcoholism, researchers said. (Thompson, 7/7)

Exposure to proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) was associated with worse progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were treated with durvalumab (Imfinzi) after chemoradiotherapy, according to a post-hoc analysis of the PACIFIC trial. (Bassett, 7/6)

Lung transplant for selected metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients was associated with better early survival outcomes in a prospective, single-center study. Among 98 patients with lung-only involvement despite having medically refractory stage IV NSCLC, the estimated 1-year overall survival rates were 100% for the transplant recipients and 40.8% for the remaining patients treated with medical management alone. (Bassett, 7/8)

After analyzing data from 3 million women in Danish nationwide health registries over a 25-year period, researchers found that several common types of hormonal birth control were linked to a slightly higher risk of developing meningiomas. (Mondal, 7/7)

Most patients were able to successfully perform their own transvaginal pelvic ultrasound at home and many preferred it over in-clinic ultrasonography, a nonrandomized clinical trial found. The majority of at-home ultrasound scans taken by patients with verbal assistance from a trained remote sonographer met diagnostic quality (96.2%), reported Alessandra Ainsworth, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and colleagues. (Robertson, 7/6)

Patients care less about whether a message came from a human or artificial intelligence (AI) than the tone, length, and details, investigators in a small study concluded. Patients expressed "high comfort" with AI-drafted portal messages, which did not influence preferences about message tone or expressions of empathy. Whether the messages seemed appropriate for the purpose and stakes held more sway. (Bankhead, 7/7)

In 2016, about six weeks after cannabis was legalized for adults in Massachusetts, I was at a bustling New Year’s Eve party. It was a fun crowd, and I was having a good time. Suddenly, a friend shouted, “Peter, come quickly, you’re the only doctor here who isn’t high. We have an emergency.” (Peter Grinspoon, 7/9)

For women, they’re a depressingly rational choice. (Jessica Grose, 7/8)

As global approvals of new anti-obesity medicines accelerate, drugmakers have a public service announcement for the world: “Obesity is a disease.” Eli Lilly launched a website asserting that obesity is not merely a risk factor for medical complications but a chronic and complex medical entity in its own right. Novo Nordisk, more circumspectly, appeals to institutional authority on its website: “Recognised as a disease by the World Health Organization, obesity is serious, progressive and chronic.” (Max Moser, 7/9)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: My Search For A Psychiatric Bed In An Overburdened Health System

Eight days before my 33rd birthday in April, a social worker at a crisis clinic near Denver determined I was an imminent danger to myself. She placed me on an involuntary 72-hour mental health hold. What came next wasn’t treatment, but a search for a bed. Clinic staffers called area hospitals with inpatient psychiatric units, asking if they had available beds. They didn’t. So, I was told I had to spend the night at the clinic, which is open 24/7. I settled into a recliner, trying to make myself comfortable as my mind drifted in a blank, disassociated haze. Sleep came in brief bursts. (Helen Santoro, 7/9)

Behind closed doors, millions of Americans are stepping into one of the hardest roles they’ll ever take on: caring for their aging parents. (Amanda Su, Emily Holzknecht and Jan Kobal, 7/8)

When a family waits for an emergency to dictate a move to senior living, they unknowingly surrender their power of choice. (Lindsey Lavery, 7/7)