First Edition: Monday, July 21, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Georgia Shows Rough Road Ahead For States As Medicaid Work Requirements Loom
Every time Ashton Alexander sees an ad for Georgia Pathways to Coverage, it feels like a “kick in the face.” Alexander tried signing up for Pathways, the state’s limited Medicaid expansion, multiple times and got denied each time, he said, even though he met the qualifying terms because he’s a full-time student. Georgia is one of 10 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid health coverage to a broader pool of low-income adults. (Rayasam and Whitehead, 7/21)

KFF Health News: Louisiana Upholds Its HIV Exposure Law As Other States Change Or Repeal Theirs
When Robert Smith met his future girlfriend in 2010, he wanted to take things slowly. For Smith, no relationship had been easy in the years since he was diagnosed with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. People often became afraid when they learned his status, even running away when he coughed. The couple waited months to have sex until Smith felt he could share his medical status. To prepare her, Smith said, he took his girlfriend to his job in HIV prevention at the Philadelphia Center, a northwestern Louisiana nonprofit that offers resources to people with HIV, which also provided him housing at the time. (Parker, 7/21)

KFF Health News: $50B Rural Health ‘Slush Fund’ Faces Questions, Skepticism
A last-minute scramble to add a $50 billion rural health program to President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending law has left hospital and clinic leaders nationwide hopeful but perplexed. The Rural Health Transformation Program calls for federal regulators to hand states $10 billion a year for five years starting in fiscal year 2026. (Tribble, 7/21)

KFF Health News: Journalists Dig Into Megabill's Slashing Of Medicaid. Plus, How To Avoid Tick Bites
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national and local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances. ... KFF Health News Nevada correspondent Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez discussed the potential impact of Medicaid cuts on rural hospitals on KNPR’s “State of Nevada” on July 17. ... KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s megabill on WAMU’s “1A” on July 16. Rovner also discussed immigrant health coverage on MSNBC’s “Velshi” on July 13. (7/19)

PHARMACEUTICALS

Roll Call: CBO Finds Health Agency Cuts Would Result In Fewer New Drugs 
The Trump administration’s proposed cuts at the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration could lower the number of new drugs that come to market in the next three decades, according to an analysis released Friday by the Congressional Budget Office. (Cohen, 7/18)

AP: Sarepta Tells FDA It Won't Halt Shipments Of Muscular Dystrophy Therapy Despite Patient Deaths
Drugmaker Sarepta Therapeutics said late Friday it won’t comply with a request from the Food and Drug Administration to halt all shipments of its gene therapy following the death of a third patient receiving one of its treatments for muscular dystrophy. The highly unusual move is a latest in a string of events that have hammered the company’s stock for weeks and recently forced it to lay off 500 employees. The company’s decision not to comply with the FDA also places future availability of its leading therapy, called Elevidys, in doubt. (Perrone, 7/19)

The New York Times: Heath Insurers Are Denying More Drug Claims, Data Shows
Prescription drug denials by private insurers in the United States jumped 25 percent from 2016 to 2023, according to a new analysis of more than four billion claims, a practice that has contributed to rising public outrage about the nation’s private health insurance system. The report, compiled for The New York Times by the health analytics company Komodo Health, shows that denial rates rose from 18.3 percent to 22.9 percent. The rejections went up across many major health plans, including the country’s largest private insurer, UnitedHealthcare. (Kliff, 7/18)

CAPITOL WATCH

MedPage Today: What Are The Health Impacts Of The $9 Billion Rescissions Package?
The House passed legislation on Thursday clawing back $9 billion in federal funding for global aid projects, which would significantly impact public health domestically and abroad, physicians and policy experts told MedPage Today. The Rescissions Act of 2025 homed in on programs related to the U.S.'s response to conflict, hunger, disease, and democratic decline, noted a Center for American Progress fact sheet. (Firth, 7/18)

The New York Times: Truemed, A Start-Up Run By An RFK. Jr. Aide, Gives Tax Breaks For Meat And Mattresses
An insomnia diagnosis yielded a recommendation for a five-pack of beef hot dogs. An acne diagnosis brought a medical note proposing that the condition be treated with classes at a mixed-martial-arts gym. Decades-old arm fractures earned a nurse practitioner’s order to buy a kettlebell from Nike. And because a medical provider had blessed the purchases, they came with the promise of a major perk: People could buy them using money not subject to federal income taxes. (Lieber and Mueller, 7/18)

The Hill: HHS, State Department Reject Amendments To WHO Health Regulations
Trump administration officials rejected a series of rules Friday to help the international community prevent and respond to public health risks. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a joint statement formally rejecting the 2024 International Health Regulations (IHR) Amendments by the World Health Organization (WHO). (O’Connell-Domenech, 7/18)

Politico: ICE Raids And Medicaid Cuts Are Bad News For California's Immigrants. State Cuts Could Be ‘Much Worse’
One recent morning, not long after the Trump administration launched its extraordinary immigration crackdown in Los Angeles, Alfredo Contreras pulled a large RV into the parking lot of a rehab center south of the city’s skyline. The RV is part of a small fleet of rolling exam rooms run by St. John’s Community Health that have taken on heightened importance in the city’s health care — and, increasingly, political — landscape since the start of the raids. (Bluth and Schultheis, 7/20)

AP: EPA Eliminates Research And Development Office, Begins Layoffs
The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it is eliminating its research and development arm and reducing agency staff by thousands of employees. The agency’s Office of Research and Development has long provided the scientific underpinnings for EPA’s mission to protect the environment and human health. The EPA said in May it would shift its scientific expertise and research efforts to program offices that focus on major issues like air and water. (Daly, 7/19)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Planned Parenthood Cuts St. Louis Workforce Amid 'Defunding'
Planned Parenthood Great Rivers is laying off 10 St. Louis-area employees. The organization said Friday the move prioritizes the needs of patients and the sustainability of its six health centers, years after Missouri politicians and regulators removed Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program, and as the Trump administration works to keep federal funding from abortion providers. (Suntrup, 7/18)

North Carolina Health News: Abortion Restrictions Can Affect How Families Grow — Or Don’t
Jaycee Foran from Holly Springs has a 3-year-old son. She had planned to start trying for her second child around this time, always envisioning multiple kids running around the house. But not anymore. At least not for the foreseeable future. (Crumpler, 7/21)

The New York Times: Under Trump, A New Focus For A Birth Control Program: Helping Women Get Pregnant
The Trump administration intends to use funds from a decades-old federal program that provides birth control to low-income women to ramp up efforts to help aspiring mothers get pregnant, signaling a shift in policy that will appease both religious conservatives and adherents of its Make America Healthy Again agenda. The first sign of the change appeared on a little-noticed government website last week, in a post offering a $1.5 million grant to start an “infertility training center.” (Kitchener and Gay Stolberg, 7/18)

The Washington Post: What Are The Odds Of Having A Boy Or Girl? It's Not Random, A Study Shows
A study published Friday in the journal Science Advances describes the odds of having a boy or girl as akin to flipping a weighted coin, unique to each family. It found evidence that an infant’s birth sex is associated with maternal age and specific genes. The findings challenge assumptions that birth sex is random. They mirror the results of similar studies in Europe that have also found that birth sex does not follow a simple 50-50 distribution. (Malhi, 7/18)

The Washington Post: Women Feel More Anger As They Age, But Show It Less, Study Suggests
Women feel more anger but express less of it as they age, according to a recent analysis in the journal Menopause. Researchers looked at health reports and menstrual data from 501 participants in the Seattle Midlife Women’s Health Study, analyzing a subset of data from 271 women to look for possible connections between age, reproductive stage and anger in women. The women who were studied were between 35 and 55 and still menstruating. (Blakemore, 7/19)

CNBC: Weight Loss Drugs Could Help Treat PCOS
For well over a decade, Grace Hamilton, 27, experienced hair loss, heavy periods, infrequent menstrual cycles, mental health issues and difficulty losing weight without knowing why. It wasn’t until 2023 when she was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, a hormonal disorder common among women of reproductive age. (Constantino, 7/20)

PUBLIC HEALTH

CIDRAP: US COVID Levels Rise A Bit In West, South
Though COVID-19 activity in the United States is still low, infections are on the rise in some parts of the country, including states in the Southeast, South, and West, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its latest respiratory virus updates. The upward trend is reflected mainly in early indicators, including emergency department visits for COVID, which are still very low nationally, at 0.5%. Visits were up 10.9% from the week before, with greater increases in children ages 4 years old and younger. (Schnirring, 7/18)

CIDRAP: Flies, ‘Milk Snatching’ Among H5N1 Transmission Contributors In Dairy Cattle
Though H5N1 avian flu outbreaks in dairy cattle and commercial poultry are at low levels in the United States, scientists continue to sort out how the virus spreads on farms, and two new pieces of information this week shed more light on potential spread in dairy cattle: contamination from house flies and “milk snatching”. Over the last 30 days, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported only one detection in poultry, a game bird farm in Pennsylvania, and two detections in dairy cattle, which involved herds from California and Arizona. (Schnirring, 7/18)

The Hill: Raw Vs. Pasteurized Milk: What To Know For Your Health
A long-practiced food processing method has been up for debate in recent years, with some opting to drink and eat without sterilizing it first. The polarizing process is pasteurization — a heating process that kills the microbes behind common foodborne illnesses. ... By getting rid of harmful microbes, pasteurization can prevent foodborne illnesses like listeriosis, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, Q fever, and brucellosis, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Pasteurization can also change the nutritional value, flavor and appearance of food, though only minimally, per the National Library of Medicine. (Kutz, 7/19)

CIDRAP: Report Describes Offseason Plague Case Transmitted Via Cat
An Oregon man contracted plague from his pet cat in January last year—by far the earliest case ever recorded in a calendar year in the state—possibly indicating a seasonal shift of the disease in people. The man's case was detailed yesterday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is most commonly confirmed in people in late spring or summer. It typically spreads through fleas from rodents. Oregon had not confirmed a human plague case since 2015, when it recorded two. (Wappes, 7/18)

The New York Times: A Push For More Organ Transplants Is Putting Donors At Risk
Last spring at a small Alabama hospital, a team of transplant surgeons prepared to cut into Misty Hawkins. The clock was ticking. Her organs wouldn’t be usable for much longer. Days earlier, she had been a vibrant 42-year-old with a playful sense of humor and a love for the Thunder Beach Motorcycle Rally. But after Ms. Hawkins choked while eating and fell into a coma, her mother decided to take her off life support and donate her organs. She was removed from a ventilator and, after 103 minutes, declared dead. (Rosenthal and Tate, 7/20)

NPR: ‘Safer Beauty Bill Package’ Aims To Rid Cosmetics Of Toxins
Personal care, salon and beauty products sold across the U.S. are subject to little federal oversight — and many have been found to contain toxic ingredients. The average American adult uses about 12 personal care products a day, Consumer Reports says, resulting in exposure to an average of 168 chemicals. Those can include formaldehyde, mercury, asbestos, lead and parabens, which have been linked to cancer, brain damage and reproductive harm. Women of color are thought to use twice as many products, according to Consumer Reports. (Treisman, 7/21)

NBC News: Caffeine Pouches: The Controversial New Energy Alternative Teens Are Using Like Zyn
David Gomez, a school resource officer for the Boise County Sheriff’s Office in Idaho, started noticing caffeine pouches last spring. Students were using the pillow-shaped pouches, which can contain more than 200 milligrams of caffeine, alongside nicotine pouches like Zyn. They’ll use them either as a disguise for nicotine pouch usage — caffeine and nicotine pouches often look virtually identical — or a complement to it, Gomez said. (Ducharme, 7/20)

Bloomberg: Froot Loops, Apple Jacks To Cut Synthetic Dyes By 2027
WK Kellogg Co. will remove synthetic dyes from its cereals, including Froot Loops and Apple Jacks, by the end of 2027, joining a growing cohort of other US companies that have committed to eliminate colorants such as Red 40 and Yellow 5 from their foods. The Battle Creek, Michigan-based company said it would remove the additives on its website on Friday. It had previously announced that it wouldn’t introduce new products with the dyes beginning in 2026 while also committing to eliminate the ingredients from its cereals served in schools by the 2026-2027 school year. (Kubzansky and Peterson, 7/18)

Modern Healthcare: Dexcom Recalls 19 Models Of Glucose Monitoring Receivers
Dexcom has recalled 19 models of its Dexcom G6, G7, One and One+ glucose monitoring receivers. The speakers may fail to sound an alert when a patient’s blood sugar reaches dangerously low or high levels, which could lead to seizures, vomiting, loss of consciousness or death. The Food and Drug Administration has reported 56 injuries and no deaths linked to this recall, according to a notice issued Thursday. The agency classified the recall as Class I, its most serious category. (Dubinsky, 7/18)

SCIENCE AND INNOVATIONS

CIDRAP: Benefits From Computerized Antibiotic Stewardship Prompt Continue Through Hospital Stay, Study Finds
A new analysis of four randomized clinical trials provides evidence that a stewardship prompt embedded in a hospital's electronic health record to improve empiric antibiotic prescribing in the early days of hospitalization can help reduce unnecessary use of extended-spectrum antibiotics in patients throughout their hospital stay. The findings are from a research letter published yesterday in JAMA by the team of researchers who conducted the INSPIRE (Intelligent Stewardship Prompts to Improve Real-Time Antibiotic Selection) trials. (Dall, 7/18)

MedPage Today: Intermittent ART Dosing Shows Similar Efficacy To Continuous ART
Intermittent dosing of daily antiretroviral therapy (ART) showed no difference in efficacy as continuous regular daily dosing in maintaining viral suppression when ART supplies are limited, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis. (Haelle, 7/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Chronic Lyme Disease Acceptance Grows Among Doctors After Years Of Debate
When Gretchen Dunoyer heard that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was recruiting people with lingering Lyme disease symptoms for a study, she burst into tears. Dunoyer, 63, had near-constant fatigue and vertigo for years, after an odd, flulike illness in the summer of 2002. She bounced around from doctor to doctor looking for answers. Many of them told her that she was depressed, but she had a gut feeling that something else was wrong. Around 2015, she was told the root of her distress was likely Lyme disease, courtesy of a tick bite that she didn’t remember. (Abbott, 7/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: This Common Health Condition Has A Surprising Link With Dementia
For years, doctors have known that high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking and excessive alcohol increase your risk of dementia. More recently, a growing body of evidence also suggests a link to vision problems, leading to the influential Lancet Commission in 2024 to add untreated vision loss to the list of 14 modifiable risk factors for dementia. The commission, which issues periodic recommendations on public health matters, found that about 45% of dementia cases in the world are potentially preventable by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors — which also include high cholesterol, social isolation and hearing loss — and that 2% of cases can be prevented or delayed by addressing treatable vision loss. (Ho, 7/20)

The Washington Post: Why The Amish Have Almost No Allergies
Whether triggered by pollen, pet dander or peanuts, allergies in this day and age seem nearly impossible to avoid. But one group appears virtually immune, a mystery to experts who study allergies. Despite the increasing rate of allergic diseases, both in industrialized and in developing countries, the Amish remain exceptionally — and bafflingly — resistant. Only 7 percent of Amish children had a positive response to one or more common allergens in a skin prick test, compared with more than half of the general U.S. population. (Kim, 7/20)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Modern Healthcare: Joint Commission Cuts Requirements From Accreditation Standards
The Joint Commission has eliminated 714 requirements from its accreditation standards in an effort to streamline expectations and improve hospital compliance. The changes will be reflected in the nonprofit accrediting agency’s Accreditation 360 program and are set to go into effect Jan. 1. (DeSilva, 7/18)

Modern Healthcare: Humana’s Medicare Advantage Ratings Lawsuit Dismissed 
Humana’s bid to get its Medicare Advantage quality scores boosted failed in federal court Thursday, at least for now. The insurer, second in Medicare Advantage market share to UnitedHealth Group subsidiary UnitedHealthcare, sued the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in October, alleging the agency’s metrics are arbitrary and that the lower star rating it received will have a significant impact on its 2026 earnings. (DeSilva, 7/18)

Axios: Hospitals Scoop Up Physician Practices, Driving Prices Up
Hospitals are steadily buying small physician practices and, in the process, driving up the price of care, a new National Bureau of Economic Research study shows. It's the latest evidence of consolidation in health care that's left more than three-quarters of U.S. doctors employed by health systems or corporations. (Reed, 7/21)

Modern Healthcare: Why Providence, UnityPoint Dropped Their Venture Capital Arms 
Health systems are learning that investing in digital health companies isn’t for everyone. The way health systems invest in startup companies has transformed as their operating budgets strain from persistent labor costs and a challenging reimbursement climate. These venture arms are giving way to spinoffs, strategic partnerships, incubator models and passive investing strategies, and that could change how the next wave of digital health companies are funded. (Perna, 7/18)

NBC News: Musk Brain Implant Company Neuralink Filed As Small Business
Elon Musk’s health tech company Neuralink labeled itself a “small disadvantaged business” in a federal filing with the U.S. Small Business Administration, shortly before a financing round valued the company at $9 billion. Neuralink is developing a brain-computer interface (BCI) system, with an initial aim to help people with severe paralysis regain some independence. BCI technology broadly can translate a person’s brain signals into commands that allow them to manipulate external technologies just by thinking. (Kolodny, 7/18)

Modern Healthcare: UVA Health's Wendy Horton, Dr. Melina Kibbe To Leave
Wendy Horton, CEO of UVA Health’s University Medical Center, and Dr. Melina Kibbe, dean of the University of Virginia School of Medicine and chief health affairs officer for UVA Health, plan to step down from their positions. Horton will depart the Charlottesville, Virginia-based organization for a role as senior vice president and president of adult care services at UCSF Health in San Francisco, Dr. Mitchell Rosner, interim executive vice president for health affairs, said Friday. She is expected to leave in September. (DeSilva, 7/18)

STATE WATCH

Los Angeles Times: Federal Cuts Leave Los Angeles County Health System In Crisis
Los Angeles County’s health system, which is responsible for the care of the region’s poorest, is careening toward a financial crisis because of cuts from a presidential administration and Republican-led Congress looking to drastically slash the size of government. President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which passed earlier this month, is expected to soon claw $750 million per year from the county Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and roughly two dozen clinics. In an all-staff email Friday, the agency called the bill a “big, devastating blow to our health system” and said a hiring freeze had gone into effect, immediately. (Ellis and Ordner, 7/20)

The Baltimore Sun: Expanding Maryland Drug Addiction Programs Face Roadblocks
The recent mass overdose in West Baltimore underscored the need to expand drug treatment and harm reduction services, addiction specialists say. But efforts to build out services addressing the opioid crisis often face resistance that some say is rooted in prejudice. (Belson and Nordstrom, 7/20)

BorderBelt Independent: Behavioral Health Urgent Care Hopes To Fill Critical Need In Robeson County
James Granger says primary care doctors shouldn’t just focus on patients’ physical health. Their mental well-being is just as important. (Perez-Moreno, 7/20)