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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday that the hantavirus remains a low public health risk and while the agency is “encouraging” American passengers of the infected cruise ship to isolate at home, the absence of a formal quarantine order means these individuals can go out in public if they choose. “At this moment, I want to emphasize that the risk to the general public is low. Our top priority is both the passengers who are on the ship and American communities,” David Fitter, incident manager for the CDC’s hantavirus response said in a press briefing. (Choi, 5/13)

Today, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said 100 personnel from the agency are actively working on monitoring passengers from the MV Hondius for hantavirus and are confident in the United States’ ability to control any further spread of the deadly rodent virus. David Fitter, MD, incident manager for CDC’s hantavirus response, and Brendan Jackson, MD, MPH, CDC team lead in Nebraska, where most of the Americans who were aboard the ship are being monitored, emphasized in a press conference that, unlike COVID-19, hantavirus is a virus that has been studied for decades. (Soucheray, 5/13)

The respiratory virus behind a deadly outbreak on a cruise ship is showing no sign of mutating to become more contagious, European health officials said, as a US patient initially treated as a potential hantavirus case has been cleared of infection. One passenger who had been taken to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit was medically cleared and moved to a quarantine facility, the University of Nebraska Medical Center said in an email Wednesday. (Fourcade and Gale, 5/13)

Among those within the federal quarantine locations are two residents from California, one each from North Carolina and Oregon, and three each from New York and Utah. While officials did not identify the Oregon resident, Dr. Stephen Kornfield previously said he was aboard the cruise ship and has since identified himself as the passenger who tested positive. Health officials earlier this week called his results inconclusive – one PCR test produced a negative result, while another was positive. All of the passengers, who are now in quarantine, can remain there for 42 days, the incubation period for the Andes strain. They can also choose to quarantine elsewhere, according to health officials. (Bink, 5/13)

State health officials identified a fifth California resident exposed to the Andes hantavirus aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship last month. The California resident was a passenger on the cruise ship, the California Department of Public Health said Wednesday. They got off the ship before the outbreak was discovered, returned briefly to California, then left the state. (Hodgman, 5/13)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Hantavirus News Roundup: From Céline Gounder Of �������ýҕ�l Health News

Following a recent outbreak of the deadly hantavirus on the cruise ship MV Hondius, �������ýҕ�l Health News editor-at-large and infectious disease doctor Céline Gounder spoke to numerous media outlets about the risks from the disease. Here are some highlights from Gounder on the evolving story. (Gounder, 5/14)

As concerns around hantavirus continue to make headlines, many parents may be wondering how to answer questions from worried kids without causing panic. Hantavirus, a family of viruses that can cause serious illness and death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has recently been in the news following an outbreak aboard the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius, which departed from Argentina in early April. (Braun-Silva, 5/13)

As global health officials continue to monitor the hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship, French authorities have ordered 1,700 passengers on the British cruise ship Ambition to quarantine due to norovirus. Last week, yet another cruise ship, a Caribbean Princess with 3,100 passengers on board, reported a norovirus outbreak. The apparent recent surge in sicknesses aboard cruise liners prompts the question: Are cruises breeding grounds for disease? (Martichoux, 5/13)

Over 1,700 passengers and crew on a British cruise ship were ordered to remain on board after an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness, French authorities said Wednesday. They dismissed any link to a deadly hantavirus outbreak on another vessel that has put European health authorities on alert. The Ambition was midway through a 14-night cruise from Belfast and Liverpool that was due to take in ports in northern Spain and along France’s Atlantic coast.It reached Bordeaux on Tuesday evening, according to the operator, Ambassador Cruise Line. (Adamson, 5/13)

Nancy J. Cox, who as the longtime leader of the influenza program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention oversaw the development of a global network of forecasting and prevention, in the process earning a reputation as one of the world’s foremost experts on the flu and the constantly mutating viruses that cause it, died on April 24 at her home in Atlanta. She was 77. Her husband, Evan Lindsay, said the cause was glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. (Risen, 5/13)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Wednesday temporarily paused new home health and hospice enrollment into Medicare. The agency issued a six-month freeze on new provider enrollments as part of its latest effort to crack down on fraud in the healthcare system. CMS will increase investigations and accelerate the removal of hospice and home health providers suspected of fraudulent activity while the moratoria are ongoing, along with employing new data analytics to scrutinize the sector, CMS said in a news release. (Early, 5/13)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced a new effort to improve electronic prior authorization uptake. The initiative announced Wednesday is meant to help work through challenges impeding the healthcare industry from broadly implementing electronic prior authorization. The government also intends the initiative to improve readiness for January 2027 data exchange deadlines included in a 2024 prior authorization and interoperability rule. (Early, 5/13)

The Trump administration is withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements to California for failing to combat fraud, escalating a feud with the state over its management of hospice care. “The state of California has not taken fraud very seriously,” said Vice President JD Vance during a press conference Wednesday at the White House. Though the administration has repeatedly criticized California’s fraud oversight, this is the first time the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has targeted payments to the state. In recent months it has withheld more than $300 million in Medicaid reimbursements to Minnesota for suspect claims. (King, 5/13)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Trump Demands Medicaid Data For Deportation. Some States Go A Step Further

Several states have joined President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts and are taking federal reporting requirements to immigration authorities a step further — by using their public health agencies as arms of enforcement. North Carolina, in late April, became the latest member of a growing group of Republican-led states to require their public health agencies to flag recipients of Medicaid to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security if their legal status is in question. (Jones, 5/14)

When the week began, several senior positions at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were already sitting empty. There was no Senate-confirmed U.S. surgeon general. The head of the National Institutes of Health was doubling as the acting head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Food and Drug Administration lacked a permanent vaccine chief after that official was ousted for a second time in a year.Then on Tuesday Dr. Marty Makary resigned as head of the FDA, leaving another major health agency with only an acting commissioner. Makary’s departure widens a leadership gap that has plagued HHS throughout Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tenure. (Swenson, Perrone and Stobbe, 5/13)

The Trump administration is moving quickly to identify the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration after the resignation of Marty Makary on Tuesday, with an eye for someone who can rebuild trust with agency staff, focus on the agency’s food policy, and continue to drive drug-approval reforms. (Payne and Lawrence, 5/13)

The chief spokesman for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. resigned on Wednesday in protest over the administration’s push to allow major tobacco companies to begin selling flavored vapes that appeal to children. His departure came one day after the head of the Food and Drug Administration quit for the same reason. In a letter to Mr. Trump, obtained by The New York Times, the spokesman, Rich Danker, did not blame the president, whom he said had “twice restored our prosperity and national security against all odds.” But he warned that authorizing flavored e-cigarettes would draw more children into vaping and increase their risk for a number of health issues, from addiction to cancer. (Gay Stolberg, 5/13)

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has announced what it’s calling an “historic” investment in healthcare infrastructure, approving $596 million in upgrades during the second quarter of fiscal year 2026. The funding is part of a much larger $4.8 billion modernization plan—the biggest annual facilities investment in the department’s history. (Greenwood, 5/13)

The White House has commanded Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to put aside his vaccine-skeptical views and prioritize food policy wins as he tours the country ahead of the midterms. But deadlines for high-stakes decisions between now and November will reveal more about whether the Trump administration’s rhetorical shift is real or just an election-year expedient. Over the next few months, Kennedy will have to decide whether to recommend new vaccines for flu and Covid-19, sign off on a new Moderna shot that uses mRNA technology — which Kennedy believes is dangerous — and release funding to developing countries for vaccines that he has deemed unsafe. (Gardner and Haslett, 5/13)

Over lunch at his golf club in Jupiter, Fla., on the first Saturday of May, President Trump got an earful from a group of tobacco executives and lobbyists unhappy with the way the Food and Drug Administration was regulating their industry. Eventually Mr. Trump had heard enough. He interrupted the conversation to call Dr. Marty Makary, the F.D.A. commissioner. No answer. Furious, the president then dialed Dr. Makary’s boss, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and another top health official, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Jewett and Vogel, 5/13)

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has, historically, been very public about his concerns about what is plaguing the nation’s well-being. His long, complicated history with vaccines is well-documented. So is his long-standing spat with fluoride. Unlike President Donald Trump, he is not a fan of fast food, but he is a big believer in animal protein and raw milk. And this week, he spoke about another issue vexing him: men’s sperm count. (Padilla and Gerson, 5/13)

President Trump on Monday shared a quote falsely attributed to Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), in which he accused former President Obama of earning $120 million from a healthcare scheme. ... When asked about the post, Kennedy told NOTUS, “Somebody told me there was something floating around on the internet about me accusing President Obama of stealing $120 million or something.” He added, “I didn’t say that. I don’t know the basis of it.” (Fields, 5/13)

The number of people who died from drug overdoses dropped again in 2025, a promising trend as the U.S. emerges from a national fentanyl crisis that accelerated these fatalities. There were an estimated 69,973 drug-overdose deaths in 2025, a nearly 14% drop from a year earlier, according to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday. (Calfas, 5/13)

Alcohol can feel deeply entwined in our lives. A beer or glass of wine while catching up with friends. A cocktail at the end of a hard day. A round of toasts at a party. It’s hard to believe that such seemingly innocent behavior reduces our immunity to infectious disease and raises the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases — but according to science, it does. (LaMotte, 5/14)

Three adults were hospitalized over the weekend after eating wild mushrooms in Napa County, public health officials said Wednesday, marking the latest cases in a growing and unprecedented outbreak of mushroom poisonings this year across California. The victims foraged the mushrooms in the Deer Park area near Silverado Trail, according to the Napa County Health and Human Services Agency. None of them are Napa County residents. (Bauman, 5/13)

India got it earlier this year, and Canada approved it last month. But when is the United States going to get a generic version of Ozempic? Not this decade, experts say. Thanks largely to loopholes in the U.S. patent system, Americans aren’t expected to get generic forms of semaglutide, the drug in Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy, until at least the end of 2031.Even that timing is uncertain, said Arti K. Rai, a professor at the Duke University School of Law and former senior official in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. “It could take much, much longer than that.” (Lovelace Jr., 5/13)

In a social media era rife with mouthwatering food content, kids will no longer settle for a drab school meal. "I don't have a TikTok account, but they're telling me, 'Hey, I saw this on TikTok. Can you make this? Can we do this?'" said Nichole Taylor, supervisor of food and nutrition services at the Great Valley School District in Malvern, Pennsylvania. (Hernandez, 5/14)

Wisconsin has the U.S.'s highest reported death rate from older adults' falls. But falls can be prevented through balance drills and classes like parkour. (Costello and Carloni, 5/7)

Nurses feel they have more time with patients than doctors do, and are much more optimistic about their organizations' use of AI, a new report finds. Elsevier's Clinician of the Future report is based on a survey fielded between the end of 2025 and early 2026. The survey reached over 2,700 clinicians globally, including physicians and nurses. It found 71% of nurses globally feel they have enough time with patients, compared to 60% of doctors. (Gliadkovskaya, 5/13)

Nurses engagement is on the rise, but younger age groups are still leaving their jobs at high rates. For its 2026 State of Nursing report, the data analytics company Press Ganey surveyed more than 422,000 registered nurses and 41,000 advanced practice providers last year. The report found turnover is highest among early-career registered nurses, signaling the need for more investment in onboarding and development. (DeSilva and Broderick, 5/13)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: License To Deliver: Some Midwives Break The Law To Assist With Home Births

In a midwife’s suburban Atlanta home with a playground and chicken coop outside, Madie Collins lay on an examination table while the midwife measured her pregnant belly. Unlike at many a doctor’s office, no crinkly paper sheet covered the table and no antiseptic chill lingered in the air. The room next door, where Collins’ appointment began, was filled with children’s toys and scented candles and warmed by a wood-burning stove. The certified professional midwife pressed the button on a handheld Doppler ultrasound machine she placed on Collins’ belly. (Rab, 5/14)

The health insurance industry is showing signs of life after several tough years. Major insurers that reported first-quarter earnings in recent weeks outperformed Wall Street expectations and demonstrated improvements in medical spending, suggesting longstanding cost pressures may be receding. UnitedHealthcare parent company UnitedHealth Group, Aetna parent company CVS Health, Cigna, Elevance Health, Centene and Alignment Healthcare saw medical expenses decline during the period and upgraded their annual earnings guidances. Humana, Molina Healthcare and Clover Health bested earnings projections for the quarter. (Tepper, 5/13)

Artificial intelligence has entered the world of sales calls, and it is changing the conversations between providers and medtech companies seeking to close a deal. Large companies like GE HealthCare and Olympus Corp., as well as startups, are hiring companies such as AcuityMD and MedScout to help them sell smarter by using AI and data analytics. It’s a change from the days of sales representatives spending hours preparing for meetings and making cold calls. It also can benefit providers, as sales representatives can share information about patient referral sources and where patients continue their care after a visit. (Dubinsky, 5/13)

Whether Optum Rx’s new direction marks a major shift in the pharmacy benefit manager sector remains to be seen. But when the market-leading PBM announced significant changes to its business model while promising minimal disruptions to earnings, it prompted a mix of optimism and skepticism. On Monday, Optum Rx — housed within UnitedHealth Group’s Optum subsidiary — joined CVS Health subsidiary CVS Caremark and Cigna unit Express Scripts in promising greater transparency in its operations and a shift away from compensation linked to pharmaceutical prices. (Tong, 5/13)

The Massachusetts Public Health Council voted Wednesday to approve the construction of a proton therapy center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Longwood, bringing the state’s existing and future proton beams to four. Last month, the council delayed its vote on the project, citing concerns that the proposal didn’t do enough to address equitable access for patients on MassHealth and those who live outside the Boston area. (Wolf, 5/13)

Andrew Bursky and his wife pledged $200 million through their family foundation to name a newly created school of public health at Washington University in St. Louis. The gift from the co-founder of Atlas Holdings, a private equity firm, is the largest in the university’s history, WashU said in a statement on Wednesday. (Lorin and Singh, 5/13)

A new study shows wide state-level variation in the uptake of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. The study, which analyzed data from the 2023 National Immunization Survey-Teen (NIS-Teen), found that states in the Northeast census region had significantly higher odds of HPV vaccine uptake, while states in the South had significantly lower odds. But even within regions, there was wide variability. (Dall, 5/13)

An adjuvant personalized DNA vaccine was safe and demonstrated promising efficacy among patients with MGMT-unmethylated glioblastoma in a phase I trial. The vaccine caused no serious adverse events and extended overall survival in the nine patients included in the study compared with historical outcomes, reported Tanner M. Johanns, MD, PhD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and colleagues in Nature Cancer. (Bassett, 5/13)

Infants born to mothers who received the tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine during pregnancy are less likely to contract pertussis (whooping cough), develop complications, and die of the disease than those without such protection, a report today from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) suggests. (Van Beusekom, 5/13)

Virologist María Inés Barría remembers the Eureka moment from a decade ago. Barría and her team in Chile had been working for months on antibodies to treat hantavirus that kills about one-in-three people who contract it. The breakthrough came around 2016, when a telltale fluorescent green glow indicating the presence of the virus disappeared under a microscope. ... After later success in animal trials, the lab was ready to work with international partners to start testing on humans. Then they ran out of money. (Mufarech and Smith, 5/13)

The FDA granted accelerated approval to sonrotoclax (Beqalzi) as the first BCL2 inhibitor for relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), a rare and often aggressive subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A next-generation product in the drug class, sonrotoclax is indicated for adults previously treated with two or more lines of therapy that includes a Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor. (Bassett, 5/13)

Gov. Abigail Spanberger was flanked by legislators and advocates Wednesday inside Inova Fairfax to sign several bills to lower healthcare and prescription drug costs. ... Right now, a 30-day supply of insulin is capped at $50. The reduced price of $35 takes effect on July 1. Also taking effect on July 1, a new bill that expands what Virginia insurance plans must cover. (Wilder, 5/13)

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law May 13 that enacts prior authorization reforms and prohibits insurers from penalizing providers for out-of-network referrals, according to the Iowa Hospital Association. Under the law, while initial prior authorization reviews can be done by AI, these algorithms and systems cannot be the sole basis for determining denials, downgrades or delays. Health insurance carriers cannot impose fines or other financial penalties due to a provider’s referral to an out-of-network provider, either. (Casolo, 5/13)

Dana Gibbon was 18 weeks pregnant with her first baby when her OB-GYN told her at an appointment that she wouldn’t be her doctor anymore. OB-GYN services were ending at the clinic in Corvallis, a college town of 60,000 in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The doctor said all of the Corvallis Clinic’s OB-GYNs were resigning. “We have appreciated the opportunity to participate in your care and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause,” the clinic said in a subsequent letter to patients. (Davis, 5/14)

Washington University is getting the largest gift in school history, the university announced Wednesday. The Bursky Family Foundation — formed by WashU alums Andrew and Jane Bursky — has committed $200 million to boost the new School of Public Health, the university said. Andrew Bursky is also chair of Washington University's Board of Trustees. (Suntrup, 5/13)

Minnesota’s local school boards have long held the power to decide how kids are taught about a variety of health education topics, including human development, nutrition, sex, child abuse prevention and other issues. That power, though, is about to shift. New statewide standards set to phase in over the next three years will put health education benchmarks in place across all public K-12 schools. Beyond the basics, the new standards will take on topics including sexual abuse prevention. (Shockman, 5/14)

The relationship between depression and age-related brain decline might depend on a person’s history with the mood disorder, a new study says. Researchers had thought that people experiencing “brain fog” from aging might be more apt to relapse into depression. But they found the opposite was true – people with sharper brains were more likely to fall back into depression, according to findings published May 6 in the journal BMJ Mental Health. (Thompson, 5/11)

A parental support package targeting perinatal stressors significantly mitigated burnout among pregnant and postpartum physician trainees, a randomized controlled trial showed. (Firth, 5/13)

Risk of getting sick from a household contact with COVID-19 dropped by more than half among those who took the antiviral ensitrelvir compared with placebo, a randomized trial showed. (Rudd, 5/13)

Delayed diagnosis of travel-acquired malaria was common among children treated at US hospitals and was linked to a higher risk of severe disease, according to a new study published late last week in Pediatrics. A team led by researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) reviewed 171 pediatric malaria cases across nine US hospitals from 2016 through 2023. Approximately one-third of children developed severe malaria, though no deaths occurred. (Bergeson, 5/13)

A Public Health Alerts report today details successful administration of intramuscular immunoglobulin (IMIG) as post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP, for prevention) to 11 babies exposed to measles in Utah last year. IMIG is an option for preventing measles in infants after exposure to a person with the disease, wrote the authors, from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and elsewhere in Utah. Typical dose is 0.5 milliliters (mL) per kilogram (kg), but no clear PEP guidelines exist. (Wappes, 5/13)

What Marty Makary’s successor can learn from his mistakes. (5/13)

Deadly viruses will slip through, but there are ways to boost prevention. (Abraar Karan, 5/13)

Arriving in the isolation ward of a biocontainment hospital is an unsettling, scary experience. In 2014, I spent 19 days in one while being treated for Ebola, watching the news cycle churn around me as my world receded to a small window, a phone, and the handful of providers in protective suits who came into my room every day. (Craig Spencer, 5/13)

I started creating health content online in medical school. I realized I could reach thousands of people in seconds and share medically accurate information with students around the world. For example, I made a video showing how deep an injection goes for vaccination. The public is both fascinated and afraid of injections, but dispelling the rumors that a massive needle could go as deep as your bone goes a long way in vaccine adoption. (Adam Goodcoff, 5/13)

Recently, I saw one version of the AI-enabled future of medicine. It was compelling in its simplicity, thrilling in its potential as a force multiplier, and all wrong. The product misunderstood the needs of the patient, the role of the doctor, and the nuanced dance between them. The AI was technically adept, perhaps even marvelous. But it failed at an essential element of a physician’s job: the art of medicine. (Steve D. Klein, 5/14)