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A French woman infected in the deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship is critically ill and being treated with an artificial lung, a doctor at the Paris hospital caring for the sickened passenger said Tuesday. The outbreak has now reached 11 total reported cases, 9 of which have been confirmed. Three people on the cruise died, including a Dutch couple that health officials believe were the first exposed to the virus while visiting South America. (Adamson and Bynum, 5/13)

The head of the World Health Organization has told countries to prepare for more hantavirus cases as authorities in Paris said a French woman who contracted the virus onboard the MV Hondius had the most severe form of the disease and had been put on a ventilator. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus thanked Spain for the “compassion and solidarity” it had shown by taking in the stricken cruise ship and urged authorities to follow the WHO’s advice and recommendations, which include a 42-day quarantine and constant monitoring of high-risk contacts. (Jones, 5/12)

The hantavirus outbreak on an expedition ship in the Atlantic Ocean that has killed three passengers is emerging as another test for an administration now led in part by officials who spent years criticizing pandemic-era public health messaging. Some top administration health figures, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and interim leader of the CDC Jay Bhattacharya, have argued that federal agencies overstated risks during covid and imposed overly broad preventive measures. (Sun, 5/12)

The Minnesota Department of Health is currently monitoring a resident who may have been exposed to hantavirus. The individual journeyed overseas and might have come into contact with someone who was on board the MV Hondius cruise ship, which traveled from Argentina to Europe. This cruise is linked to an outbreak of the rodent-borne Andes virus, a type of hantavirus that has infected passengers and resulted in three fatalities. (Zurek, 5/12)

Health officials are investigating a potential hantavirus case in Illinois, though the case is not linked to a recent outbreak of the illness on a cruise ship, the Illinois Department of Public Health announced Tuesday. (Schencker, 5/12)

Passengers from the Hondius cruise ship are being repatriated under a patchwork of measures that reflect uncertainty over how this strain of hantavirus spreads, complicating efforts to contain the deadly outbreak. Some passengers are being placed in biocontainment units, notably in France, for at least two weeks. Australia plans to quarantine passengers in a purpose-built facility outside Perth. But in the Netherlands, most are being asked to self-isolate for six weeks, with short outdoor walks permitted under masking and distancing rules. (Gale, 5/12)

As epidemiologists race to find more answers to the origin of the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise, they have ruled out some theories circulating online. Dr. Boris Pavlin, the team lead for field and humanitarian epidemiology at the World Health Organization, discussed the organization's current investigation into the outbreak with ABC News Sunday and stressed that while there are still unanswered questions, there are many clues that help to narrow down the origin. (Pereira, Rulli, Jovanovic and Castano, 5/12)

Scientists think the hantavirus, the deadly pathogen that has infected 11 passengers on a Dutch cruise ship, could be as old as humans. But much of their understanding of human cases comes from a handful of outbreaks within the past century. The first known outbreak came during the Korean War in the 1950s, when around 3,000 United Nations troops developed a mysterious illness that scientists would later recognize as hantavirus. (Bendix, 5/12)

Most hospitals are built with the expectation they will one day be full of people. This one was built with the expectation it would mostly be empty. This is the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, a high-tech facility designed to treat patients infected with highly lethal viruses or bacteria without transmitting them to hospital staff or the public. It got its first patient in six years on Monday, when a cruise passenger who tested positive for hantavirus arrived back in the U.S. (McKay, 5/12)

Eighteen Americans are now in quarantine in two federal centers after having returned home from the MV Hondius cruise ship. How long they’ll stay in quarantine or where isn’t clear yet. Now that the passengers have had time to rest up, U.S. health officials are interviewing them to get a better sense of how close the American passengers may have been to infected people — and whether they have the resources, such as separate rooms, to quarantine safely at home. (Edwards and Syal, 5/12)

Dr. Stephen Kornfeld was taking the trip of a lifetime aboard a cruise sailing across the Atlantic Ocean when he was called on to care for other passengers who fell ill. Now, he’s the only MV Hondius passenger in a biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center after initially testing positive for Andes hantavirus. (Harvey, McPhillips and Tucker, 5/12)

In early 2020, Dr. Jerome Adams was about to face one of the toughest challenges in his career, as COVID-19 began spreading across the world during his tenure as surgeon general of the US. Six years later, as a different virus dominates the headlines, Adams and fellow medical experts are still determined to make an impact—but this time in a different way. (O'Connor, 5/12)

Marty Makary’s nine lives atop his agency are over. The embattled Food and Drug Administration commissioner is resigning from his role Tuesday after 13 months leading the federal agency, according to an administration official granted anonymity to discuss the development. Kyle Diamantas, who previously worked as the top food official at the agency, will lead the FDA in an acting capacity, the administration official said. (Lim and Gardner, 5/12)

The head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Marty Makary, is resigning after a rocky tenure that drew months of complaints from health industry executives, anti-abortion activists, vaping lobbyists and other allies of President Donald Trump. News of Makary’s departure Tuesday came just 13 months after he was confirmed to lead the powerful regulatory agency. (Perrone and Min Kim, 5/13)

Food and Drug Commissioner Marty Makary’s planned resignation creates a new opening for anti-abortion activists to push for national restrictions on the procedure — and in particular, limit the availability of a key abortion drug. The move comes as anti-abortion groups became angry over what they viewed as his agency’s failure to curb access to the drug. (Luthra and Rodriguez, 5/12)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has green-lit the first-ever non-antipsychotic drug treatment for agitation in Alzheimer’s disease patients. The drug, Auvelity, was originally FDA-approved in 2022 for treating adults with major depressive disorder. Most recently, its use has been expanded for agitation associated with dementia. Agitation is a common and "distressing" symptom in adults with Alzheimer’s, according to the agency. The condition is characterized by excessive motor activity, or verbal or physical aggression. (Stabile, 5/12)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared an artificial intelligence (AI)-based sepsis detection system for approval. The Targeted Real-Time Early Warning System, developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and commercialized by Bayesian Health, integrates electronic health records with advanced clinical AI to continuously monitor patients and flag sepsis up to 48 hours before a clinician suspects it. A 2022 study of more than 764,000 patient encounters at five US hospitals found that when clinicians acted on the tool’s alerts, sepsis patients were 18% less likely to die in the hospital. (Dall, 5/12)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Trump And Kennedy Seek To Relax Safeguards For AI Healthcare Tools

Paul Boyer, a psychotherapist for Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, is experiencing the AI revolution firsthand. He’s a little underwhelmed. The health giant has rolled out a new suite of note-taking software, made by healthcare AI pioneer Abridge, intended to summarize a patient’s visit at supersonic speed. For many clinicians, the technology soothes one of the persistent headaches of their lives — administration and paperwork. But the AI scribe caused another headache for Boyer and his colleagues: It is “not super useful.” They end up correcting the computer-written notes. (Tahir, 5/13)

The Labor Department's proposed rule to make it easier for employers to offer a fertility benefit isn't likely to result in many more employers doing so, although it may tip the scales for employers who were already considering it, experts said. "The proposal mostly changes the ease of offering, not the economics of fertility treatment itself," Paul Fronstin, PhD, director of health benefits research for the Employee Benefit Research Institute, said in an email to MedPage Today. (Frieden, 5/12)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: RFK Jr. Swaps Vaccine Talk For Healthy Foods And Reading To Tots In Push To Woo Voters

The little boy, dressed in a Toy Story sweatshirt, wrapped himself around the nation’s health secretary. “What do you guys want to be when you grow up?” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked a carpet full of preschoolers. “A dinosaur!” the boy replied, squeezing tighter. Just weeks ago, Kennedy sat before lawmakers on Capitol Hill and faced intense questions about a dangerous uptick in infectious diseases among American children. Now, with midterm primaries underway, Kennedy was seated in a toddler-sized chair in Ohio, on a mission to change the subject. (Seitz, 5/13)

Ricky Lott received a notice in the mail this year that left him distressed. A cluster of companies he never heard of — with odd names like GuardDog and Mammoth — may have obtained his digital medical records. Treatment details, lab results, notes from his doctor visits — mass amounts of his sensitive information — appeared to have been accessed from the Illinois health system where he receives care. Lott, an employee of a Chicago bike-share company, was stunned. The last thing he expected, he said, was for details of his high blood pressure and back surgery to be circulating in unknown corners of the internet. (Rowland, 5/12)

Physician leaders inside health systems are seeing their roles shift as they take on more duties, leaving them less time for leadership. Their roles increasingly have become more focused on the financial priorities of their organizations, according to a survey of 70 chief medical officers, chief clinical officers and chief physician executives by executive search firm WittKieffer. The research comes as hospitals and health systems looks for ways to cut costs and use artificial intelligence and other technologies to handle some administrative and clinical duties. (DeSilva, 5/12)

Mayo Clinic President and CEO Dr. Gianrico Farrugia will exit his role this year. Mayo’s board has started the leadership transition process and plans to announce a successor in November, according to a Tuesday news release. Farrugia, who became president and CEO of the 16-hospital nonprofit health system in January 2019, will step down at the end of 2026. (Kacik, 5/12)

Hospitals and health systems are getting access to a healthcare accelerator program, typically considered the domain of startups and tech companies. The American Hospital Association and West Health Institute have undertaken a three-year initiative to help health systems and hospitals implement technologies, with a focus on virtual care, electronic health record optimization and artificial intelligence. West Health, a nonprofit focused on lowering healthcare costs, has contributed $12 million to the program. (Famakinwa, 5/12)

Olympus Corp. has widened its focus from selling devices and like other medtech companies, seeks to be a partner with its provider customers. The maker of gastroenterology devices also is pushing deeper into robotics. Last week, it announced an exclusive global distribution agreement with EndoRobotics, a manufacturer of robot-assisted technologies. In July, Olympus unveiled a partnership with investment firm Revival Healthcare Capital, co-founding Swan EndoSurgical to develop a gastrointestinal robotic system. The company is scheduled to report earnings Tuesday. (Dubinsky, 5/12)

When OpenEvidence launched in 2021, its goal was to help doctors have easier access to medical information. The artificial intelligence clinical decision support platform has since broadened its ambitions and added products. In March, OpenEvidence introduced Coding Intelligence, a feature to automate the medical billing process. Last year, the company released OpenEvidence Visits, a clinical notes assistant tool. (Famakinwa, 5/12)

Immunization with the long-acting monoclonal antibody nirsevimab may provide stronger protection against hospitalizations for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants than maternal RSV vaccination during pregnancy, though the difference appears to disappear when maternal vaccination occurs at least eight weeks before delivery. (Bergeson, 5/12)

An international group of researchers estimates that, despite only moderate uptake of three doses and low uptake of the fourth, the RTS,S/AS01E malaria vaccine saved the lives of one in eight eligible children in the first three African nations to offer the vaccine from 2019 to 2023. For the observational study, published late last week in The Lancet, the research team randomly assigned 158 administrative-unit clusters, each with a birth cohort of roughly 4,000 children, in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi to either roll out the RTS,S malaria vaccine in 2019 (79 implementation areas) or to implement it later (79 comparison [control] areas). (Van Beusekom, 5/12)

Two anticoagulants showed similar safety and efficacy in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients with newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (Afib), according to a retrospective study of real-world data. Among 660 patients, the risks of five efficacy outcomes -- ischemic stroke, myocardial infarction, systemic thromboembolism, cardiovascular death, and a cardiovascular composite -- were comparable between those treated with apixaban (Eliquis) and warfarin (Coumadin) in an intention-to-treat analysis. (Monaco, 5/12)

Poul Thorsen, MD, PhD, a Danish researcher who co-authored key papers demonstrating no links between childhood vaccines and autism, was arraigned on federal wire fraud and money laundering charges after his extradition from Germany, the Department of Justice said. Thorsen was a co-author of a 2002 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that offered strong evidence based on a cohort of 500,000 Danish children that refuted the hypothesis that measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination caused autism. (George, 5/12)

An estimated 32 million children in the United States live in homes with firearms, nearly 7 million of whom have at least one firearm in the household that's unlocked and loaded. That's according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open. "This study sheds further light on the fact that there are millions of kids living in this country, in households where weapons are readily available and often not locked up," says Dr. Chethan Sathya, a pediatric surgeon and director of the Center for Gun Violence Prevention at Northwell Health, a health system in New York. "Many of these families don't know the risk of having that gun not being locked up." (Chatterjee, 5/12)

Death by suicide is a male emergency. Although three times as many women as men report suicidal ideation and attempts, the vast majority of deaths by suicide in the U.S. — up to 80% — are among men. The reasons: higher impulsivity, lower reported fear of death, and, crucially, easy access to guns. (Merelli, 5/12)

Candidemia incidence and associated 30-day mortality have risen in the United States since 2015, according to a study published yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases. For the study, a team led by researchers with Houston Methodist Hospital examined data from a nationwide database of electronic health records to analyze trends in candidemia incidence from 2015 through 2014. Candidemia is a severe and life-threatening bloodstream infection caused by species of Candida yeast. Most often found in medically vulnerable and chronically ill patients, Candida species cause an estimated 23,000 bloodstream infections every year in the United States, with mortality rates ranging from 25% to 40%. (Dall, 5/12)

The United States is hardly the only country where heavy and binge drinking is a problem. But Americans face a unique crisis: This country’s obesity and diabetes epidemics, combined with heavy alcohol use, are causing more people to get sick from a liver disease that, until recently, didn’t even have a name. (Cueto, 5/13)

As millions of people lose weight on powerful new obesity drugs, most are asking: what comes next? New findings show they have options to combat the dreaded yo-yo effect, including a surprising potential benefit from a humble gut bacteria supplement. A pair of Eli Lilly & Co. studies released Wednesday showed that while medicine is the best way to keep weight steady, some patients might be able to reduce their dose or switch to a pill. And a small, provocative trial found that a bacteria called Akkermansia muciniphila helped people who’d slimmed down just by dieting keep some weight off. (Kresge, 5/12)

In January, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, on her podcast. He was there to celebrate his MAHA victories, but he soon veered into the singular, seemingly indestructible biology of President Donald J. Trump. “He has the constitution of a deity,” Kennedy marveled. And the key to the president’s inexplicable vigor, Kennedy suggested, could be found in his hormones. (Ghorayshi, 5/12)

The federal government is escalating efforts to seek private medical data for children undergoing gender-affirming care, as at least one hospital faces the first known criminal probe of its kind. Last week, NYU Langone Hospitals in New York City received a grand jury subpoena for information about young patients who received gender-affirming care at their facilities anytime in the past six years. (Rummler, 5/12)

Charlotte Cravins’ son Landry turned 2 in January. He’s a smiley little boy who loves singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and recently got his first pair of glasses. Landry was born with Down syndrome and has impaired vision. He receives publicly funded therapies that have helped him learn to crawl, to pull himself up to stand, and to use American Sign Language. (Vollers, 5/12)

Less than two days away from deadline, tens of thousands of University of California workers show little interest in calling off their system-wide strike. About 42,000 university workers represented by AFSCME Local 3299, including 25,000 who are employed at a UC Health care facility or other healthcare role, are set to walk off the job at midnight, May 14. (Muoio, 5/12)

A nursing shortage and the difficulties of the job, along with low pay compared to nurses in other states, are adding to the feelings of burnout. (Pedersen, 5/12)

When Christina Schnabel’s son began having gastrointestinal problems a few years ago, his doctor didn’t prescribe medication. Instead, he prescribed a food box. Schnabel, a single mother living in public housing in Henderson County, enrolled in North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunities Pilot after that visit. Through local food bank Caja Solidaria, she received boxes of healthy food — and her son’s symptoms cleared up. (Baxley, 5/13)

Throughout last year, Mayor Brandon Johnson vowed to protect Chicago’s public health dollars from President Donald Trump. But behind the scenes, his health commissioner voluntarily returned tens of millions of dollars in COVID-19 grants to the federal government months before expiration — funds that could have gone to disease surveillance to help prepare for an outbreak or racial equity programming to improve health outcomes across the city. (Yin, 5/10)

When it comes to Bill Cassidy, most everyone in Louisiana politics — supporters and detractors alike — feels bad for the senator. For his 20 years in politics, he’s mostly been a doctor in lawmaker’s clothing: evidence-obsessed, carefully calculating the right policy prescriptions for the issues before him, according to more than a dozen people who’ve worked with or for him. Those traits, along with his firsthand knowledge of America’s health care system, made him a respected leader on the subject in the Capitol. (Cirruzzo and Payne, 5/13)

Alaskans have been hit hard by the healthcare cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and lapsed ObamaCare subsidies, presenting a prime target for Democrats seeking to oust Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan from office. A Democratic ad campaign released late last month accused Sullivan of voting to raise health insurance premiums in Alaska by more than $1,800 on average, referring to his votes against Democratic bills that would have ended the government shutdown in exchange for extending Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax subsidies. (Choi, 5/11)

A licensed drug addiction counselor who delivered “Friends” star Matthew Perry the doses of ketamine that killed him is set to be sentenced on Wednesday. Prosecutors are asking for 2 1/2 years in prison for 56-year-old Erik Fleming, one of five people who pleaded guilty in connection with the actor’s 2023 death in the Jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home. Fleming connected Perry to Jasveen Sangha, the convicted drug dealer who prosecutors called “The Ketamine Queen.” She was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison. (Dalton, 5/13)

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most dire diagnoses in medicine. There are few available treatments, and they do little to help. For decades, experimental drugs flopped in trials. Many researchers believed the biological obstacles could not be surmounted. In what seems the blink of an eye, all that has changed. A drug nearing regulatory approval, daraxonrasib, is the first to substantially extend the lives of patients with pancreatic cancer. It works by targeting a cellular protein that fuels not just nearly all pancreatic tumors, but also many lung and colon cancers. Those three are the leading causes of cancer deaths. (Kolata and Robbins, 5/12)

Despite improvements in survival, the incidence of stage IV breast cancer increased significantly from 2010 through 2021, according to a U.S. population-based cohort study. (Bassett, 5/12)

Use of GLP-1 receptor agonists in breast cancer patients was linked to lower mortality and recurrence risk in a retrospective study, but experts are questioning the quality of the underlying data. (Bassett, 5/12)

Prescriptions for ivermectin and another antiparasitic drug among cancer patients shot up after actor Mel Gibson discussed an unproven treatment on Joe Rogan's popular podcast, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open. Researchers say these findings raise concerns about the potency of celebrity endorsement, which can encourage people with life-threatening illnesses to delay or forgo conventional care that's been confirmed to work in favor of unproven and arguably risky treatments. (Boden, 5/12)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Listen To The Latest '�������ýҕ�l Health News Minute'

Zach Dyer reads the week’s news: Millions of cancer survivors battle mounting medical bills, and Nebraska becomes the first state to enforce a Medicaid work requirement under the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. (Cook, 5/12)

I recently helped a woman in her early 60s taper off fluoxetine (often known by the brand name Prozac), which she had taken for over 35 years, followed by bupropion (aka Wellbutrin), which she had taken for over a decade. But Kennedy’s initiative conflates that genuine clinical need with claims unsupported by evidence — and some that are actively dangerous. (Jonathan Slater, 5/13)

Knowing how a virus spreads is essential to public health, but people keep getting it wrong. (Joseph Allen, 5/12)

Clinicians, community leaders, and public health workers often advise people with chronic diseases such as diabetes to use air conditioning or go to an air-conditioned building. But that advice presumes that cooling is actually affordable and available. (Charles E. Leonard and Anthony Nicome, 5/13)

I have covered the FDA for the past 25 years, and so I don’t say this lightly: Marty Makary was the worst commissioner in that time. (Matthew Herper, 5/12)

The Purdue Pharma case is closed, but the opioid problem remains. (Benjamin Siegel, 5/13)