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The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a report linking “gender ideology” to leftwing authoritarianism and political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted and “nakedly political”, likely leading to greater politicization of science and health. It follows attempts by the administration to limit access to gender-affirming care – including, on Friday, an agreement reached between the Department of Justice and a New York hospital to no longer offer pediatric gender-affirming care. Dozens of hospitals stopped offering gender-affirming care after the Trump administration began investigating them for offering the standard of care. (Schreiber, 9/7)

Researchers who study authoritarianism and political violence have major concerns about the study and how the administration plans to use it. (Rummler and Mithani, 9/4)

The Health Department’s office to improve the health of minorities has abruptly terminated more than half its existing grants, saying they didn’t focus on the Trump administration’s new priorities of addressing infertility and encouraging exercise. Some grantees provided cancer screenings or postpartum home visits. Others worked to reduce first-responder suicide or decrease obesity among Native American youth. All of the funds came from the Office of Minority Health, which the administration tried to shutter last year. (Winfield Cunningham and Katz, 9/4)

The United States will start phasing out its financial support for Namibia’s HIV response programs, the latest among southern African countries to feel the effects of the withdrawal of foreign aid by the U.S. administration. The U.S. will provide Namibia with $45 million for its HIV response in the 2027 fiscal year but the country will then start funding its own HIV programs, with the U.S. only providing “technical cooperation,” both countries said in statement. (Smith, 9/5)

New Pentagon guidelines for mandatory testosterone deficiency screening of male service members aged 30 and above were "temporarily rescinded" from a Defense Department website shortly after they were posted earlier this week, according to a U.S. official. The guidelines emerged from an announcement in mid-July from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that testosterone screenings were to become a part of the military’s annual health check-ups for male service members aged 30 years and older serving on active-duty and the reserves. (Martinez, 9/4)

The week-long national convention of veterans and active-duty military support organization, The American Legion, came to an end on Sept. 4, with a major development. The organization adopted a resolution that backs the use of psychedelic therapies to treat veterans and other members of the military who may be suffering from mental health conditions such as PTSD, depression or a traumatic brain injury. (Dennis, 9/8)

Patients sued by Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas were routinely charged 18 percent interest, The Times found. Some had bank accounts garnished. (Kliff, 9/8)

UnitedHealth Group’s top executives, including CEO Stephen Hemsley, and company board members recently flooded the campaign coffers of Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 2 Democrat in the House who just beat two opponents in a closely watched primary race. More than 40 officials and board members across UnitedHealth cumulatively donated more than $100,000 to Clark’s campaign during the 2025-2026 election cycle, a STAT analysis of federal records shows. Leading the way was Hemsley and his wife, Barbara, who donated $7,000 each to Clark’s political fund. Hemsley is worth almost $1 billion between his previously exercised stock and remaining stock ownership in UnitedHealth. (Herman, 9/8)

The House Veterans Affairs Committee voted unanimously this week to subpoena two leaders at Oracle as costs mount for the multiyear electronic health record modernization at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Lawmakers on Wednesday said they will subpoena Executive Chairman Larry Ellison and CEO Mike Sicilia. The cost ceiling for the EHR modernization project, which Oracle leads, nearly tripled to $27 billion despite just 17 medical centers out of 170 deploying the new medical record system since 2020. (Hughes, 9/4)

Food and Drug Administration inspections of foreign food sites — including the Mexican farm linked to the ongoing outbreak — are down nearly 35% since 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to agency records. The pandemic kicked off a wave of retirements and departures among FDA inspectors that continues to this day. (Perrone, 9/8)

The Department of Health and Human Services has hired an Army doctor with a history of questioning the safety of Covid vaccines to investigate unsubstantiated claims that more than 2,500 U.S. service members died after receiving the shots. The hiring of Lt. Col. Theresa Long, who has no specialized training in vaccines or viruses, is part of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s intense campaign to explore long-held and baseless theories about the hazards of vaccines. (Mandavilli and Hoffman, 9/4)

With the respiratory virus season approaching, pharmacies and doctors’ offices are starting to offer annual vaccines to protect against Covid, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus. On Wednesday, major medical organizations issued recommendations for all three vaccines, based on reviews of the latest evidence published in the medical journal JAMA. They said they were filling a gap left by the Trump administration in “evidence-based vaccine guidance.” (Astor and Blum, 9/2)

As Dr. Anthony Fauci has faced public scrutiny from congressional Republicans, the D.O.J. has pursued a quieter and more expansive effort against a wider circle of researchers. (Mueller and Thrush, 9/5)

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is funding a new clinical trials program for Long COVID with an initial grant of $8 million. Called PROBE-PASC, the program will focus on mechanistic trials that will study the disease’s underlying biology in tandem with testing promising treatments. (Ladyzhets, 9/1)

The immune system is the body’s most important defense against disease. It does its essential work by producing proteins called antibodies, which scour the body for disease-causing bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens. But sometimes the immune system malfunctions and produces autoantibodies (Abs), proteins that mistakenly target the body’s own tissues instead of finding and destroying illness-causing invaders. This is the case in some COVID-infected people, in whom autoantibodies are linked to severe illness, persistent symptoms, and an increased risk of new-onset autoimmune disease. (Bergeson, 9/3)

Taking the antiviral drug Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir–ritonavir) for up to 25 days did not improve cognitive issues, autonomic symptoms like dizziness and shortness of breath, or exercise intolerance in adults with long COVID, according to a US randomized controlled trial published yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. (Bergeson, 9/1)

The Lancaster County coroner has determined that a six-week-old child in Pennsylvania died from measles. The child, who died last month, had a rare genetic disorder called Amish microcephaly, which can make a child vulnerable to respiratory infections, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, the county coroner, said on Friday. Last week, state officials announced two measles deaths in Lancaster County, amid an expanding outbreak that has sickened 540 people and hospitalized more than 90. Controversy broke out almost immediately after state officials made that announcement. (Rosenbluth, 9/4)

Florida mosquito-control agencies are stepping up surveillance, inspections and spraying, as officials expect the number of locally acquired dengue fever cases in Tampa Bay and across the state to rise in the coming weeks. As of Sept. 1, the number of dengue fever cases originating in Florida this year had climbed to 33 in Tampa Bay and 41 statewide. Cases are predicted to increase, Fox 13 Tampa Bay reported. (Mull, 9/7)

America’s fight against the New World screwworm was expected to be a multiyear effort, yet the number of new cases has dropped to a surprisingly low level. Only four cases of screwworm were detected in the U.S. in August and none of them in cattle, according to a dashboard maintained by the Agriculture Department. In June, there had been 30 cases detected, and an expectation that the fight against the screwworm had a long way to go. (Spence, 9/8)

A lot is riding on the shiny green backs of large red-eyed sterile flies that scientists from the United States, Mexico and Panama have been raising. The US government just released its billionth fly into Texas from a facility that opened in June in Chiapas, Mexico, near the Guatemalan border, and its sister operation in Panama in order to fight a pest that could cause $2.5 billion in damage in the Southwest US alone. (Christensen, 9/7)

Scientists in China have identified a novel tick-borne virus that causes an influenza-like illness characterized by fever, fatigue, gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, and abnormal lab findings. The team, led by researchers from the State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity in Beijing, has designated the new orthonairovirus as the Asian longhorned tick nairovirus (ALTNV). (Van Beusekom, 9/3)

Yuma Adolphe and his team are responsible for the safe and dignified burial of some of the people who die from Ebola in Congo’s Ituri province, the epicenter of history’s deadliest Ebola outbreak. Nearly every day, they dig the graves, prepare the bodies and handle the coffins. But as the authorities grapple with the outbreak, which has killed nearly 3,200 people among more than 6,600 confirmed cases, the burial team says they are at their limits, struggling with an increasing workload and hostile communities. (Bagalwa and Adetayo, 9/7)

A group of chimpanzees once used in laboratory hepatitis B vaccine experiments has received health checks at their new home in Liberia, in hopes of giving them a second chance at a normal life. The West African chimpanzees received checks ranging from teeth cleaning to X-rays and pedicures at the Humane World for Animals’ Second Chance Chimpanzee Refuge in central Liberia, Liliana Pacheco Ricote, director of the sanctuary, told The Associated Press. More than 400 of the chimpanzees had been used by American researchers in Liberia in the hepatitis B vaccine experiments from the 1970s until the early 2000s, Ricote said, many of them captured in the wild as infants. (Asadu, 9/5)

More than two-thirds of new drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2024 were sanctioned based on findings from a single study, according to a new analysis that found that the number of studies used to grant approval has steadily declined since 2016. The findings, published this week in PLOS One, also show a sharp rise in industry-sponsored studies, a decrease in studies sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and delays in reporting study results to the public. (Bergeson, 8/28)

Some states sell vaping products by Reynolds American even though they aren’t authorized by the Food and Drug Administration. (Todd, 9/8)

A pharmaceutical company is voluntarily recalling three lots of epinephrine injections, USP 30 mg/30 mL, over sterility concerns and the potential presence of particulate matter. American Regent initiated the nationwide recall after customers complained about “leaking and cracked vials,” according to a company notice posted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “The firm’s investigation also revealed the presence of particulate matter identified as Nylon, Cellulosic, Acrylic, Polyethylene and Glass,” the company said. (Kaplan, 9/4)

The drug blocks a protein called lipoprotein (a) that is a powerful risk factor for heart disease. Every study short of a randomized clinical trial indicated that lowering Lp(a) would protect people from developing the disease. (Kolata, 9/7)

The vast majority of people who think they’re allergic to penicillin could take it safely, after an appropriate evaluation, said Nonie Arora, MD, MBA, an allergist and immunologist at the Michigan Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Center. Although 10% of Americans believe they’re allergic to penicillin, research shows the actual rate is less than 1%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Szabo, 9/4)

Michael Walters, 25, had just begun his first full-time job out of university when he was diagnosed last year with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer. Walters, who hails from New Zealand, underwent several unsuccessful rounds of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy in Auckland. Then doctors told him about CAR-T treatment, in which a patient’s immune cells are extracted, re-engineered in a laboratory and reintroduced into the body to fight cancer cells. (Cheng, 9/6)

A new documentary is offering unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, beginning in her final weeks before going to prison. The film, titled “You Can See Everything,” was unveiled Sunday during a screening at the Telluride Film Festival. ... Holmes, 42, rose to prominence as a health care innovator and self-made business executive, only to fall from grace when reports revealed in 2015 that her blood-testing technology did not work as had been claimed. In 2022, she was convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges and sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. She reported to a prison camp in Texas in 2023. (Walsh, 9/7)

Employers are slashing coverage of weight-loss drugs as a primary method to trim bloated health benefit budgets. As businesses face rising costs, employers including Cigna Group and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers eliminated coverage this year for glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists, or GLP-1s, for weight loss. PepsiCo and Starbucks will follow suit in October. (Tong, 9/2)

Medicare Advantage customers are losing confidence in their health plans. Members’ satisfaction with their private Medicare policies declined for the second year in a row, according to an August report from consumer insight company JD Power. (Tepper, 9/4)

Elevance Health will exit another Medicaid managed care program. The health insurance company’s Healthy Blue program, which it operates as a joint venture with Louisiana Blue, will sunset at the end of the year. The state will launch a special enrollment period from Oct. 15 to Nov. 16 for the more than 290,000 Healthy Blue enrollees to sign up for a new Medicaid managed care plan, the Louisiana Department of Health said in a Tuesday news release. (Tepper, 9/2)

Centene will exit the California and Oregon commercial group markets next year. The company sells commercial insurance under the Health Net brand in both states. The change will not affect Centene’s Affordable Care Act health insurance exchanges, Medicaid or Medicare lines of business, a company spokesperson said. (Tepper, 9/3)

Have a costly medical procedure coming up? Odds are, you’re going to be asked to pay ahead of time. This year, about 92% of U.S. health providers either encourage prepayment, require it or collect a payment method on file during the estimate process, according to a survey conducted by PayZen, a patient payment service provider, and the Healthcare Financial Management Association. Last year, it was 81%. (Loftus, 9/6)

�Թϲ�����: The Market Forces Quietly Adding Thousands To Patient Bills 

After a failed round of in vitro fertilization this year, Anne Hug’s fertility doctor said she had a single polyp in her uterus that should be removed to improve the chance of pregnancy. Hug, a professor of radiology, learned that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says the procedure can be done in a doctor’s office with local numbing. Her doctor referred her to a physician at the same hospital, which is part of a large Ohio health system. That doctor’s plan was to do the procedure in a hospital operating room, with anesthesia administered by an anesthesiologist. Hug balked at the $18,000 estimate. (Rosenthal, 9/8)

After Rasonque, a pancreatic cancer drug from Revolution Medicines, won FDA approval, patients learned it can take insurance coverage weeks to catch up. (Chen, 9/8)

Adena Health has acquired Fairfield Medical Center, months after federal regulators scrutinized its previous planned merger with OhioHealth, the state’s largest health system. The Federal Trade Commission said Fairfield and OhioHealth scrapped their merger plans after an investigation concluded that a merger between the two systems would violate antitrust guidelines and negatively affect the quality and cost of care. (Wicklund, 9/4)

Lured by promises of time savings and more face-to-face interactions with patients, a growing number of doctors are using artificial intelligence-backed scribes for clinical documentation. But experts say there’s a hidden cost: the risk of medical malpractice. (Brady, 9/3)

After Nebraska adopted interRAI’s assessment tool, nearly 900 people with developmental disabilities saw Medicaid funding for their daily care slashed. (Hixenbaugh, 9/8)

Jerry Delgado was drinking himself to death. He discovered this in spring 2024, when he was told that alcohol had damaged his gallbladder; he later found out that his liver was badly injured too. Delgado, who is 41 and lives in Ukiah (Mendocino County), had known he was drinking too much, but he thought it wasn’t so bad. His drinking hadn’t affected his job or his relationships. He’d never driven drunk or had a drinking-related accident of any kind. (Allday, 9/6)

California is set to end child marriage – years after more than a third of the nation had done so, and long after most other states had established a minimum age to wed. If signed by the governor, the law would make it illegal for anyone younger than 18 to get married as of January 1, 2027. (Padilla, 9/2)

�Թϲ�����: ‘It’s Triage’: California’s Next Governor Will Face Destabilizing Surge In Uninsured 

By the time Democrat Xavier Becerra left Washington, D.C., more Americans than ever had health insurance, owing partly to his work over the years to pass, defend, and expand the Affordable Care Act. It’s an achievement the former congressman and former U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services often touts as he campaigns for California governor against Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator. (Mai-Duc, 9/8)

An alleged assailant forced his way Sunday toward Democratic candidate Amy Acton at a county fair, officials and witnesses said. Authorities said he was carrying two pistols and a Taser. ... Acton, known statewide for directing the state’s early response to the covid-19 pandemic alongside Ohio’s Republican governor Mike DeWine, is locked in a high-profile race with [Vivek] Ramaswamy, the billionaire entrepreneur. (Tumulty, Westfall, Schaffer and Cadell, 9/7)

Before police say Carlton Neal Johnson II opened fire in Minneapolis Wednesday, killing two people and wounding five others, his history with law enforcement included domestic-related cases, allegations that he threatened to kill a woman and her child, and a years-old court order temporarily barring him from possessing firearms. Yet Johnson, 35, was legally permitted to carry the handgun he had purchased, authorities said. (Jacobs and Grinberg, 9/7)

In March 2022, Colorado public health officials started getting startling reports of liver damage tied to a new marijuana-based sleep aid that had quickly become a top seller in the state. But it wasn’t until June 2023, nearly 15 months later, that the state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division would warn consumers that the danger had become so serious that the manufacturer had halted production of the sleep pills, called 1906 Midnight Drops, after more reports of “acute liver injury.” (Osher and Wyloge, 9/4)

As Georgia plans for its first execution in two years, a trove of records provides us with new information — and raises new questions — about the state’s lethal injection process. (Blau, 9/8)

When a powerful storm tore through Gary, Indiana, knocking out the power for two weeks, Tiffany Harrison, a mother of three, had to throw out all of the food that had spoiled in her fridge and deep freezer. It was a big hit to her family in this majority-Black city where roughly 2 in 5 people rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, to feed themselves, according to an analysis by the nonprofit news organization Capital B. At the time the power went out, Harrison’s deep freezer had been stocked with discount meat, like family packs of chicken, which she buys in bulk and breaks down into smaller packages so they can last throughout the month, she said. (Kutz, 9/4)

For six weeks Lindsay Clancy’s trial gripped the nation, taking over newscasts, podcasts and social media chatter. On Friday, it culminated in a mistrial. But what exactly happens after a mistrial? In the case of Clancy, who pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her three young children, there are several options. Prosecutors could seek a retrial with a fresh jury on the same counts or lesser charges. If prosecutors do settle on lesser charges, the case could turn to a bench trial, at which a judge determines the verdict rather than a jury, or it could result in a plea deal. (Lenthang, 9/7)

Nearly one-third of US women in their 20s have never been screened for cervical cancer—a startling decrease, per a paper published last week in JAMA Network Open. “A lot of times national surveys look at the up-to-date rate, meaning how many women are up to date on their screening,” said lead author Kalyani Sonawane, PhD, of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), in a university press release. “But this paper is slightly different because it measures the proportion of women who reported that in their lifetime, they've never received screening.” (Holohan, 8/31)

For the fourth year in a row, the number of US teenagers being vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV) has not increased, according to survey results published yesterday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. A smaller percentage of adolescents received the HPV series compared with recipients of the tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine (Tdap) and the conjugate meningococcal vaccine against the A, C, W, and Y strains (Men ACWY). But uptake of these immunizations declined slightly from last year. (Holohan, 9/4)

Alcohol may play a greater role in death from numerous types of cancers in the United States than previously known, according to a new study. The increased risk of death applies to breast, prostate, colon, rectum, stomach, pancreatic and liver cancers, as well as cancers of the head and neck, the research found. (LaMotte, 9/4)

A sweetener widely used in processed foods and soft drinks may contribute to weight gain in an unexpected way, according to new research. Scientists at the University of California, Irvine found evidence that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) can alter the gut in ways that increase the body's ability to absorb dietary fat, potentially promoting obesity and insulin resistance. (Gray, 9/7)

Extreme heat may make older adults less likely to leave the home, potentially limiting the exercise, socializing and other daily activities that are key to healthy aging, according to a recent Stanford study. The research found that once daily average temperatures hit 84 degrees Fahrenheit, older adults started moving outside the home less. For every degree above 84, the distance that participants traveled went down by nearly two-thirds of a square mile, according to the study, published recently in the journal Innovation in Aging. (9/7)

�Թϲ�����: With Midterms Looming, Journalists Consider Measles, Food Recalls, And Obamacare 

Céline Gounder, �Թϲ�����’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed fatal measles cases on CBS News 24/7’s Mornings on Aug. 26. Gounder fact-checked Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz’s comments about vaccines and drug prices on CBS News 24/7’s The Daily Report on Aug. 24. She also discussed food recalls this summer on CBS News 24/7’s The Takeout With Major Garrett on Aug. 24. �Թϲ����� chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed kindergarten vaccination rates on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show on Aug. 25. �Թϲ����� contributor Mark Kreidler discussed the use of artificial intelligence for Medicaid reenrollment on KVPR’s Central Valley Daily on Aug. 24. �Թϲ����� senior correspondent Julie Appleby discussed the state of the Affordable Care Act on Vox’s Today, Explained podcast on Aug. 24. �Թϲ����� Georgia correspondent Briah Lumpkins discussed the importance of healthcare policy in upcoming elections on WUGA’s The Georgia Health Report on Aug. 21. (8/29)

"Bobby Unleashed” is the West Wing’s midterms motto, according to reporting by Politico. But what exactly is Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. being unleashed to do? Because the biggest MAHA policy reforms have run into that familiar Washington foe: old-fashioned bureaucracy. And while many Americans still do want to “Make America Healthy Again,” there are now plenty of other concerns competing for voters’ attention. (Abby McCloskey, 9/8)

As experts in infection prevention and clinical sustainability, we think there are several changes that can be made to reduce waste while keeping patients safe. Chief among them: In most cases, it is unnecessary to use gloves to administer a flu shot. (Cassandra Thiel and Preeti Jaggi, 9/8)

Much of the confusion turns on the structure of a death certificate, which most people have never had reason to learn. Part 1 lists the chain of events that led to death, with the immediate cause on the top line and beneath it the conditions that produced it, ending in the underlying cause that started the sequence. (Jake Scott, MD, 9/3)

Overcrowding has for too long been accepted by hospital administrators as the “new normal.” (Jonathan Olshaker and Scott Weiner, 9/8)

Youth sports need to do a lot more to prevent repetitive head trauma. (Leana S. Wen, 9/8)