First Edition: Friday, July 11, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Who’s Policing Opioid Settlement Spending? A Crowdsourced Database Might Help
After years of legal battles, state attorneys general won billions of dollars in opioid settlements from drug companies accused of fueling the addiction crisis. They declared victory at press conferences, and some touted the deals during their gubernatorial campaigns. But now that the windfall is being spent, are attorneys general doing enough to ensure it’s used for the intended purposes? (Pattani, 7/11)

KFF Health News: The Foster Care System Has A Suicide Problem. Federal Cuts Threaten To Slow Fixes
Elliott Hinkle experienced depression and suicidal thoughts even before entering the foster care system in Casper, Wyoming, at age 15. At the time, Hinkle, who is transgender, struggled with their sexual identity and gender issues, and their difficulties continued in foster care. They felt like they had no one to confide in — not their foster parents, not church leaders, not their caseworker. (Platzman Weinstock, 7/11)

KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’ Podcast: Digesting Trump’s Big Budget Law
As he had wanted, President Donald Trump signed his big budget bill into a big budget law in a White House ceremony on July 4, cementing, among other things, billions of dollars in cuts to health programs such as Medicaid. The new law will also reshape rules for the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and other health programs. Meanwhile, the threat of layoffs continues to hang over the heads of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, and funding for health-related contracts and grants remains stalled. (Rovner, 7/10)

FEDERAL REORGANIZATION AND FUNDING CUTS

Modern Healthcare: How The $1T Medicaid Cuts Law Is Also A $500B Medicare Cuts Law
President Donald Trump and Republicans pledged not to touch Medicare, but the massive tax law enacted over Democratic objections set up more than $500 billion in Medicare cuts — unless Democrats bail the GOP out. Because Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is projected to balloon the federal budget deficit by $3.4 trillion over 10 years, it triggered automatic spending cuts under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, known as the PAYGO Act. The White House Office of Management and Budget must find $340 billion a year in spending reductions. (McAuliff, 7/10)

Stat: There’s Now A Chance For Bipartisan Health Care Policies, But Partisan Tensions Are Running High
Republicans’ first major policy bill this year was a partisan affair: They cut Medicaid funding by some $1 trillion to help fund tax cuts prized by President Trump. (Wilkerson, 7/11)

North Carolina Health News: SNAP-Ed Nutrition Program Falls Victim To Federal Budget Axe
As Congressional Republicans wrangled final votes for the federal budget that became law last week, a harsh reality was setting in for Molly De Marco, a research scientist at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education, or SNAP-Ed, was one of the federally funded initiatives on the chopping block. (Blythe, 7/11)

AP: Millions Will Die From AIDS By 2029 If US Funding Isn't Replaced, UN Warns
Years of American-led investment into AIDS programs has reduced the number of people killed by the disease to the lowest levels seen in more than three decades and provided life-saving medicines for some of the world’s most vulnerable. But in the last six months, the sudden withdrawal of U.S. money has caused a “systemic shock,” U.N. officials warned, adding that if the funding isn’t replaced, it could lead to more than 4 million AIDS-related deaths and 6 million more HIV infections by 2029. (Cheng, 7/11)

MedPage Today: NIH To Cap How Much Journals Can Charge Authors For Open Access
The NIH plans to cap how much researchers can pay to have NIH-funded work published in major journals, the agency announced this week. The exact amount of that cap, however, has yet to be determined. In an email to MedPage Today, the agency said the "specific reasonable cost allowance is still under consideration," but it's expected to be set by October at the start of the 2026 fiscal year. (Fiore, 7/10)

The Washington Post: Budget Limits And Bureaucracy At DHS Delayed FEMA’s Texas Deployment
Two days before torrential rains turned the Guadalupe River into a raging flood, a veteran official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency told The Washington Post that one of the main concerns for this disaster season was the agency’s ability to quickly deploy specialized search and rescue teams. The Trump administration’s new rules mean disaster specialists can no longer “make decisions” on their own. (Sacks and Natanson, 7/10)

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

CIDRAP: FDA Approves Moderna COVID Vaccine For Kids Under 12 At Higher Risk
Vaccine maker Moderna announced today that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted full approval of its Spikevax (mRNA-1273) COVID vaccine for children 6 months to 11 years old. But, because federal officials in May restricted its recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines to adults 65 and older and to people of all ages who are at increased risk for severe disease, Spikevax will be available only to kids in that age range who are at higher risk. (Wappes, 7/10)

ABC News: House Democrats Demand Answers From CDC Over Recent Changes To Vaccine Advisory Panel
House Democrats on the Oversight Committee are calling for an urgent briefing with staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), demanding answers over recent moves that have taken place among the agency's vaccine advisory panel, ABC News can exclusively report. (Kekatos, 7/10)

MedPage Today: Here's What To Know About The MMR Vaccine, Fetal Debris, And DNA
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has claimed that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine contains "fetal debris" and "DNA particles" -- but experts say this is just not true. Kennedy's claim refers to the rubella component of the MMR vaccine, developed in the 1960s using a human cell line derived from fetal tissue obtained through elective abortion. However, experts say there is no fetal "debris" in the final vaccine product. (Salem, 7/10)

Politico: Dentists Are Struggling To Counter RFK Jr. On Fluoride
Dentists are proving no match for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the battle over fluoride. Utah and Florida have this year banned the cavity-fighting mineral from drinking water and several other Republican-led states are considering it. Oklahoma has dropped its recommendation that localities fluoridate. Net effect: The nearly three-quarters of Americans who drank fluoridated water before Kennedy became secretary of Health and Human Services is set to plummet. (Nguyen, 7/10)

PUBLIC HEALTH

AP: Prediabetes In Teens: CDC Finds Nearly 1 In 3 US Youth Have It
A new federal estimate shows a rise in prediabetes among American adolescents, a finding that is spurring concerns about the health of U.S. children — and the way Trump administration health officials are conducting research and communicating information, experts said. In 2023, nearly 1 in 3 U.S. youngsters ages 12 to 17 had prediabetes, according to recently released data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is far higher than a previous estimate that the condition affects about 1 in 5 kids. (Aleccia, 7/10)

CNN: Lower Your Risk Of Early Death By Some 40% With This Lifestyle Change 
Doing exercises that increase your heart and breathing rate on a regular basis may reduce your risk of an early death across all causes by up to 40%, according to a new meta-analysis of 85 studies that looked at 7 million people worldwide. (LaMotte, 7/10)

NPR: Why A New Opioid Alternative Is Out Of Reach For Some Pain Patients
Jerry Abrams, a 64-year-old marketing strategist in Minneapolis, used to run marathons. But two decades of degenerative spine disease have left him unable to run — and he's grieving. For Abrams, losing running felt like "the loss of a loved one – that friend who's been with you every day you needed him. "You know, having that taken away from you because of pain is the hardest thing of all," he says. (Lupkin, 7/10)

Fierce Healthcare: Major Health Systems Commit $100M In Loan Repayment To New Recruits
Clasp, a recruitment tool for health systems, announced $100 million in no-cosigner education loan repayment from major health systems. The commitments were made by Boston Children’s Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Northwestern Medicine, Novant Health, Ohio Health and additional national organizations in the eye care and veterinary space. (Gliadkovskaya, 7/10)

SCIENCE AND INNOVATIONS

Newsweek: Dementia Diagnoses Rise In Adults Prescribed With Common Pain Drug
A commonly prescribed pain medication — gabapentin — often considered a safer alternative to opioids for those who suffer from low back pain is now under scrutiny after being linked to increased risks of dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). According to a large-scale observational study published in the journal Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine, patients who received frequent gabapentin prescriptions were significantly more likely to develop dementia and/or MCI. (Azzurra Volpe, 7/10)

CIDRAP: Screening All Patients For Hepatitis C Testing In ED May Find More Cases Than Targeted Approach
A new randomized clinical trial conducted at three US emergency departments (EDs) concludes that screening all adults for hepatitis C virus (HCV) testing identifies significantly more cases than screening based on individual patient risk, although low proportions sought treatment. (Van Beusekom, 7/10)

CIDRAP: In 2 Trials, Less Toxic TB Antibiotics Show Promise
The newly published results of two small clinical trials suggest that two novel antibiotics could provide safer alternatives to a highly toxic antibiotic currently used in drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) treatment regimens. (Dall, 7/10)

MedPage Today: Combo Therapy Boosts Survival In Resectable Biliary Tract Cancer
Camrelizumab, an investigational immunotherapy, on top of adjuvant capecitabine (Xeloda) and radiotherapy, improved survival outcomes in patients with resectable biliary tract cancers (extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma [EHC] and gallbladder cancer [GBC]) in a randomized phase II Chinese study. (Bassett, 7/10)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Stat: An Academic Coalition Finalizes An Alternative To Billions Of Dollars Of Cuts To Indirect Payments
A coalition of academic organizations has finalized a proposed alternative to the Trump administration’s plan to cut billions of dollars in research overhead payments. The 10 groups that represent universities, medical centers, and other organizations that are part of this effort, known as the Joint Associations Group, or JAG, haven’t yet presented their finalized model to the academic community. (Wosen, 7/10)

Stat: Stem Cell Research Biobank Is Holding A Going-Out-Of-Business Sale 
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has for a decade owned a human stem cell biobank that was once the largest of its kind in the world. But the agency and its partners are now racing to sell off thousands of precious samples in a massive fire sale before many of them are discarded. (Wosen, 7/11)

Modern Healthcare: Genesis HealthCare Files For Bankruptcy
Nursing home operator Genesis HealthCare filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday as part of a financial restructuring. Genesis plans to use $30 million of debtor-in-possession financing, cash on hand and cash flow from operations to satisfy ongoing obligations, according to the filing made in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Northern District of Texas Dallas Division. (Hudson, 7/10)

Modern Healthcare: Best Buy Health Layoffs To Hit 161 Employees
Best Buy Co. plans to lay off 161 employees from its healthcare division, according to a worker adjustment and retraining notification in California. The layoff notification was filed on Tuesday, only two weeks after Best Buy announced it was selling Current Health, the at-home care company it acquired nearly four years ago, back to founder Christopher McGhee. The cuts will be effective in September. (Turner, 7/10)

Modern Healthcare: Rush University System For Health Launches DTC Telehealth
Direct-to-consumer telehealth companies will soon face competition from a legacy health system. Chicago-based Rush University System for Health is launching a nationwide telehealth service for primary, urgent and specialty care. The service, dubbed Rush Connect+, will begin as a direct-to-consumer offering that accepts insurance. (Turner, 7/10)

STATE WATCH

San Francisco Chronicle: California Health Insurance Settlement: How To File A Claim
A proposed $228.5 million class action settlement could mean cash payments for thousands of Northern California residents and employers who paid for health insurance premiums between 2011 and 2021. The case stems from claims that Sutter Health used unfair contract terms that forced insurance companies to overpay for hospital services. Plaintiffs argue that this resulted in inflated premiums for individuals and businesses. (Vaziri, 7/10)

The Hill: YWCA Kalamazoo's Medicaid Challenge Rejected
A Michigan judge rejected a challenge to the state’s longtime ban on taxpayer-funded abortions for low-income residents. The lawsuit argued that the ban had no standing after Michiganders voted in 2022 to pass a constitutional amendment ensuring the right to an abortion. Judge Brock A. Swartzle ruled the group that filed the lawsuit had no standing to file the challenge. The Michigan American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with the law firm Goodwin Procter, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the YWCA Kalamazoo, which provides financial help to people seeking abortion care. (O’Connell-Domenech, 7/10)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Missouri’s Paid Sick Leave Law To End In August After Repeal
Seven months after voters endorsed a plan requiring Missouri employers to provide paid sick leave benefits to workers, Gov. Mike Kehoe signed legislation overturning the initiative. The measure, which will go into effect in August, was among a handful of bills acted upon by the Republican chief executive Thursday, including a plan to cut the state’s capital gains tax that will reduce state revenues by an estimated $400 million annually. (Erickson, 7/10)

Axios: Trinity Test-Area Residents To Finally Get Reparations 80 Years Later
New Mexicans impacted by the Trinity Test are getting closer to receiving compensation after eight decades of health problems and rare cancers stemming from the world's first atomic explosion. (Contreras, 7/10)