First Edition: Thursday, June 26, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Dual Threats From Trump And GOP Imperil Nursing Homes And Their Foreign-Born Workers
In a top-rated nursing home in Alexandria, Virginia, the Rev. Donald Goodness is cared for by nurses and aides from various parts of Africa. One of them, Jackline Conteh, a naturalized citizen and nurse assistant from Sierra Leone, bathes and helps dress him most days and vigilantly intercepts any meal headed his way that contains gluten, as Goodness has celiac disease. “We are full of people who come from other countries,” Goodness, 92, said about Goodwin House Alexandria’s staff. Without them, the retired Episcopal priest said, “I would be, and my building would be, desolate.” (Rau, 6/26)

KFF Health News: At Some Federal Beaches, Surf’s Up But The Lifeguard Chair’s Empty 
When Azania Lane-Majestic arrived at the beach with her family, her initial excitement gave way to concern. No lifeguards could be seen despite heavy, pounding surf. So she held the hand of her 8-year-old daughter whenever they went in the water. And, just in case, she went online and looked up how to spot and escape a riptide. “The presence of lifeguards provides an extra level of security,” said Lane-Majestic, of Pittsburgh. “Lifeguards are an important extra set of eyes.” (Armour, 6/26)

VACCINES

CNN: RFK Jr.’s New CDC Advisers To Study Childhood Vaccination Schedule, Guidelines For Hepatitis B, Measles Shots
At the first meeting of a controversial new group of vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the committee announced new plans to study established vaccine guidelines. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will create new work groups to study the cumulative effects of the childhood and adolescent vaccine schedules, the hepatitis B vaccine dose given at birth and the combination measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox vaccine, new chair Dr. Martin Kulldorff announced at Wednesday’s meeting in Atlanta. (Tirrell, Goodman and Christensen, 6/25)

The New York Times: C.D.C. Vaccine Panel Loses A Member Ahead Of First Meeting 
Dr. Michael Ross, a physician licensed in Virginia who is a former professor of obstetrics and gynecology, withdrew from the committee. He was not included in the list of voting members posted on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday. (Mandavilli, 6/24)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Protesters Rally As New CDC Vaccine Panel Meets In Atlanta
The meeting of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee in Atlanta on Wednesday was unlike anything Dr. Deblina Datta had ever seen during her 10 years of working, on and off, with the world-renowned committee. The carefully chosen group of 17 scientists and doctors from the committee’s last meeting was gone, ousted two weeks ago by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Hart, 6/26)

CIDRAP: 4 In 5 Americans Support Childhood Vaccine Requirements, Poll Finds
A poll released today shows that 79% of US adults support requiring children to be vaccinated against preventable infectious diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella to attend school, with even two thirds of Republicans and those who support the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement agreeing with such measures. The poll of 2,509 adults, conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the de Beaumont Foundation, also found that, among the 21% who don't support school vaccine mandates, their reasoning focused more on parental choice than on safety concerns. (Wappes, 6/25)

CNN: What To Know About Thimerosal, A Target Of RFK Jr.’s New CDC Vaccine Advisers 
A century ago, one of the biggest safety concerns about vaccines involved bacterial contamination. In 1916, four young children died in South Carolina after receiving typhoid vaccine that had been contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Twelve years later, 12 children in Queensland, Australia, died from tainted immunizations against diphtheria. (Tirrell, 6/25)

Politico: RFK Jr. Says US Won’t Donate To Global Vaccine Effort
The United States won’t contribute anymore to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, until the global health organization has “re-earned the public trust,” U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday. In an inflammatory video speech delivered to the Gavi pledging summit, seen by POLITICO, Kennedy accused Gavi of neglecting vaccine safety, making questionable recommendations around Covid-19 vaccines and silencing dissenting views. (Chiappa, 6/25)

AP: FDA Requires Update Warning About Rare Myocarditis Risk With COVID Shots
The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it has expanded existing warnings on the two leading COVID-19 vaccines about a rare heart side effect mainly seen in young men. Myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation that is usually mild, emerged as a complication after the first shots became widely available in 2021. Prescribing information from both Pfizer and Moderna already advises doctors about the issue. (Perrone, 6/25)

CBS News: CDC To Hire Former Head Of Anti-Vaccine Group Founded By RFK Jr.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is hiring Lyn Redwood, a nurse and the former head of a group critics have denounced as anti-vaccine, to work in its vaccine safety office, multiple CDC officials tell CBS News. Redwood was the president of the group now called Children's Health Defense, which lists as its founder Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now oversees the CDC as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Children's Health Defense has sued to curb vaccine requirements, petitioned federal agencies to revoke vaccine authorizations and spread misinformation about vaccines. (Tin, 6/25)

CDC CONFIRMATION HEARING

AP: CDC Nominee Monarez Affirms Vaccines But Sidesteps Questions About RFK Decisions
Susan Monarez, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told senators Wednesday that she values vaccines, public health interventions and rigorous scientific evidence, but largely sidestepped questions about widespread cuts to the agency, elimination of programs and whether she disagreed with any of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s actions to date. “The secretary is doing the important work of leading a complex agency,” Monarez told members of a Senate health committee that will decide whether to advance her nomination. (Aleccia, 6/25)

FEDERAL BUDGET CUTS AND FUNDING FREEZE

Stat: To Tackle Race In Clinical Guidelines, Researchers Seek Private Funding
Over the last five years, health systems, medical societies, and their clinicians have been working to unravel the role of race in clinical practice. After clinical algorithms that use race as a variable came under scrutiny in 2020, several commonly used tools have been revised to align with medicine’s understanding that race is not a biological construct, but a social one. (Palmer, 6/26)

Stat: Eric Green's Forced Exit From NIH Remains Unexplained 
Three months later, it’s still unclear why Eric Green became the first institute director at the National Institutes of Health ousted by the Trump administration, and who ordered it — even to him. (Oza, 6/26)

MEDICAID AND THE GOP MEGABILL

The Hill: Senate Republicans Battle Over Rural Hospital Relief Fund To Offset Medicaid Cuts
Senate Republicans including Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) say a new proposal to create a $15 billion relief fund for rural hospitals is not adequate to make up for tens of billions of dollars in federal Medicaid funding cuts included in the Senate megabill to enact President Trump’s agenda. Collins told reporters Wednesday that the $15 billion relief fund floated by the Senate Finance Committee is likely not the final offer from Senate Republican leaders to address the concerns of several senators who worry the bill’s cap on health care provider taxes could put scores of rural hospitals out of business around the country. (Bolton, 6/25)

The Washington Post: Gym Memberships May Become HSA-Eligible Under GOP Tax Bill 
A provision of Republicans’ massive tax and spending bill could help Americans meet their workout goals, by treating gym memberships as a medical expense. Fitness companies are lobbying lawmakers for a larger piece of the nearly $150 billion that Americans have stashed in their Health Savings Accounts. HSAs — which allow people with high-deductible health plans to set aside pretax money to cover certain medical, dental and vision expenses — have skyrocketed in popularity since they came into being in 2004 as the definition of “qualified medical expense” has expanded well beyond co-pays and prescription refills to include meal delivery services, sunblock, lip balm, electrolyte drinks, baby monitors and wearable health trackers. (Weil, 6/25)

Fierce Healthcare: Congress' Digital Health Hearing Obscured By Reconciliation
Digital health companies testified to the House Ways and Means health subcommittee Wednesday morning about the benefits of using wearables and remote monitoring devices to track personal health data. The discussion about healthcare technology was dwarfed by conversation about healthcare cuts in the reconciliation bill, which is moving through the Senate this week. (Beavins, 6/25)

Politico: ‘Uniquely Vulnerable’: Louisiana Girds For Megabill Fallout 
MAGA support runs deep here in House Speaker Mike Johnson‘s home turf. But Louisiana officials from both parties are increasingly worried about the consequences for their constituents of the Johnson-led megabill that’s being fiercely debated on Capitol Hill. That still-evolving proposal would overhaul health care and food assistance programs to pay for tax cuts and other aspects of President Donald Trump’s agenda. Louisiana is poorer, sicker and hungrier than most states, and the deep cuts to Medicaid have a growing number of Republicans in Louisiana worried that Congress and the White House are going too far. (Crampton, 6/25)

GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE

AP: A Judge Resisted Trump’s Order On Gender Identity. The EEOC Just Fired Her
The federal agency charged with protecting workers’ civil rights has terminated a New York administrative judge who opposed White House directives, including President Donald Trump’s executive order decreeing male and female as two “immutable” sexes. In February, Administrative Judge Karen Ortiz, who worked in the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s New York office, called Trump’s order “unethical” and criticized Acting Chair Andrea Lucas — Trump’s pick to lead the agency — for complying with it by pausing work on legal cases involving discrimination claims from transgender workers. (Savage, 6/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Stanford Medicine Halts Gender-Affirming Surgeries For Youths
Stanford Medicine has stopped providing gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19 years old — becoming the second major health care provider in California to scale back transgender care for youths amid efforts by the Trump administration to restrict access to the specialized care.  (Ho, 6/24)

The 19th: Supreme Court's Gender-Affirming Care Ruling Opens Door For New Legal Strategy
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision to uphold a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth dealt a painful blow to families of trans kids — but the fight is not over. LGBTQ+ rights attorneys say that even as the Trump administration makes it harder for trans Americans to live without fear of discrimination, there are still openings — some left by the court ruling itself — to fight gender-affirming care bans and other anti-trans laws. (Rummler, 6/25)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Modern Healthcare: US Health Spending Projected To Hit $8.6T By 2033
U.S. households, businesses and governments will spend $8.6 trillion on healthcare in 2033, when the sector will comprise just over one-fifth of gross domestic product, according to a federal report issued Wednesday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of the Actuary attributes its forecast to factors such as a rapidly aging population and high demand for healthcare. The independent CMS division published its analysis in the journal Health Affairs. (Early, 6/25)

Bloomberg: Envision Healthcare Inks Debt Deal With Lenders Amid Turnaround
Envision Healthcare Corp. agreed to a deal with its lenders that will cut the company’s borrowing costs in the midst of a turnaround for the business. The physician staffing firm will refinance its roughly $400 million term loan into a $295 million term loan, according to people familiar who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. The new loan will be priced at 6.5 percentage points over SOFR at a discount of 99 cents on the dollar, which is cheaper than the original loan, the people added. (Shah and Basu, 6/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Health To Lay Off 200 Workers, Citing ‘Financial Challenges’
UCSF Health will eliminate approximately 200 positions across its network, officials said Wednesday, citing “serious financial challenges” and the need to safeguard long-term patient care. The layoffs, which represent about 1% of the organization’s workforce, span part-time and full-time roles, with roughly half of the affected full-time employees holding management positions, UCSF Health said in a statement to the Chronicle. (Vaziri, 6/25)

Modern Healthcare: Prospect Medical Systems Layoffs To Hit 125 Employees
Prospect Medical Systems, a management services organization and subsidiary of Prospect Medical Holdings, plans to lay off 125 workers in California. Prospect Medical Systems will lay off the Orange, California-based employees by July 1, according to a June 20 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act filing. Prospect Medical Systems’ parent company, the four-state hospital chain headquartered in Los Angeles, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January. (Kacik, 6/25)

PHARMA AND TECH

Modern Healthcare: CVS Caremark Must Pay $95M In Overbilling Case, Court Rules
CVS Health must reimburse the federal government at least $95 million after a court ruled the company’s pharmacy benefit manager subsidiary overcharged Medicare for generic drugs. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania decided a whistleblower lawsuit that originated in 2014, when an executive at the health insurer Aetna — now a CVS Health subsidiary — alleged CVS Caremark inflated Medicare Part D drug prices to offset higher costs in other lines of business. (Tepper, 6/25)

TBIJ: Generic Cancer Drugs Fail Quality Tests At Alarming Rate, Investigation Shows 
Vital chemotherapy drugs used around the world have failed quality tests, putting cancer patients in more than 100 countries at risk of ineffective treatments and potentially fatal side effects, an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) reveals. (Eccles, Milivojevic and Sapkota, 6/25)

The Guardian: Hundreds Of Weight Loss And Diabetes Jab Users Report Pancreas Problems
Hundreds of people have reported problems with their pancreas linked to taking weight loss and diabetes injections, prompting health officials to launch a study into side-effects. Some cases of pancreatitis reported to be linked to GLP-1 medicines (glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists) have been fatal. (Bawden, 6/25)

STATE WATCH

Bloomberg: California Reaches Budget Deal Boosting Hollywood, Cutting Free Health Care
California Governor Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers struck a budget agreement that provides $750 million in tax credits for Hollywood while scaling back free health care for undocumented immigrants. The $321 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1, marks Newsom’s third consecutive year facing a deficit, forcing trade-offs between the progressive policies he has championed and pro-business priorities. The agreement avoids higher levies on corporations and includes tax incentives for the film industry as well as cuts to some social programs. (Kamisher and Oxford, 6/25)

Bloomberg: Drug-Overdose Deaths Fall By Record 22% In Los Angeles County
Drug-related overdose deaths and poisonings dropped by a record 22% in Los Angeles County last year, driven by a decline in fatalities tied to fentanyl — the synthetic opioid that has fueled a national crisis. Deaths specifically tied to fentanyl tumbled 37%, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said Wednesday. Fentanyl deaths totaled 1,263 last year in the nation’s most populous county, the lowest since 2020 but still almost three times the 2019 tally. (Fleischmann, 6/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: This 117-Year-Old San Francisco Neighborhood Pharmacy Is Closing
It seemed like a belated reunion was unfolding Wednesday at 4494 Mission St. Outside, the old men and women visiting were greeted by the familiar red neon words in cursive as they entered the dimly-lit drug store many of them had frequented for decades. It wasn’t long before laughter rang through the building while the sounds of clinking bottles and package rustling aired in the backdrop. In less than a month, against many of the community’s wishes, the Central Drug Store will permanently shutter. (Wu, 6/25)

The Colorado Sun: Colorado Spending On Health Care For Immigrants Under Review
The Trump administration is launching an investigation into Colorado Medicaid spending on undocumented immigrants, an extensive data request from federal officials reveals. (Brown, 6/25)

CIDRAP: North Carolina, Oregon Confirm First Measles Cases
North Carolina has reported its first measles case of the year. The child was visiting Forsyth and Guilford counties from a country where measles outbreaks have recently been reported, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Oregon has also confirmed its first measles case of the year, in an unvaccinated adult from Multnomah County who recently returned from international travel. (Soucheray, 6/25)

St. Louis Public Radio: St. Ann Woman Died In The Heat After Ameren Shut Off Her Power 
Police and family found a woman dead in a hot apartment Monday evening in St. Ann. St. Ann Police Maj. Blake Carrigan said Shauna Thomas’ apartment did not have air conditioning running when officers arrived. “We found that it was very hot in the apartment,” Carrigan said. Ameren Missouri had shut off the 55-year-old’s electricity for nonpayment on June 11, Carrigan said the utility told police. (Grumke, 6/25)

PUBLIC HEALTH

The Hill: Nitrate In Water Tied To Low Birth Weight, Preterm Birth
Exposure to a common agricultural contaminant in drinking water, even in small doses, may be linked to increased risks of preterm birth, a new study has found. The pollutant, called nitrate, is also associated with low birth weight in infants whose mothers consumed affected water during pregnancy, according to the study, published on Wednesday in PLOS Water. (Udasin, 6/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: UC Davis Study: Disposable Vapes May Be More Toxic Than Cigarettes
Some popular disposable e-cigarettes emit toxic metals at levels that surpass those found in traditional cigarettes and earlier generations of vapes, according to a new study by researchers at UC Davis. The study, published Wednesday in ACS Central Science, found that a single day’s use of one disposable device released more lead than nearly 20 packs of conventional cigarettes. (Vaziri, 6/25)