First Edition: Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: An Insurer Agreed To Cover Her Surgery. A Politician’s Nudge Got The Bills Paid
For the most part, Keyanna Jones and her husband thought they knew what to expect when their daughter Chloë had eye surgery last fall. Even Chloë, who was in kindergarten, had a good understanding of how things would go that day. Before the procedure, a hospital worker gave her a coloring book that explained the steps of the surgery — a procedure to correct a condition that could have eventually interfered with her vision. (Anthony, 8/26)

KFF Health News: Blue States That Sued Kept Most CDC Grants, While Red States Feel Brunt Of Trump Clawbacks
The Trump administration’s cuts to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for state and local health departments had vastly uneven effects depending on the political leanings of a state, according to a KFF Health News analysis. Democratic-led states and select blue-leaning cities fought back in court and saw money for public health efforts restored — while GOP-led states sustained big losses. The Department of Health and Human Services in late March canceled nearly 700 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants nationwide — together worth about $11 billion. (Larweh and Pradhan and Bichell, 8/26)

FUNDING AND RESEARCH CUTS

Stat: HHS Terminates NIH Program Aimed At Diversifying Biomedical Workforce 
The Department of Health and Human Services is terminating a National Institutes of Health grant program that supports students from marginalized backgrounds in the biomedical sciences. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the elimination of the program — the Minority Biomedical Research Support Program — in a document posted to the Federal Register Monday. Kennedy cited the program’s failure to comply with the Trump administration’s executive orders that prevent federal agencies from supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion-related activities. (Paulus, 8/25)

Los Angeles Times: GOP Widens UC Antisemitism Investigations, Hitting UCLA, UC San Francisco Medical Schools
The UCLA and UC San Francisco medical schools have been given two weeks to submit years of internal documents to a Republican-led congressional committee about alleged antisemitism and how the schools responded, widening the federal government’s far-reaching investigations into the University of California. The demands from House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) cited reports of Jewish people “experiencing hostility and fear” at each campus and that universities had not proved that they “meaningfully responded.” (Kaleem, 8/25)

AP: FEMA Staff Calls Out Trump Cuts In Public Letter Of Dissent 
More than 180 current and former employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency published a letter Monday warning that debilitating cuts to the agency charged with handling federal disaster response risks a catastrophe like the one seen after Hurricane Katrina. “Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, and our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters compel us to warn Congress and the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration,” the letter states. (Aoun Angueira, 8/25)

The New York Times: Public Broadcast Cuts Hit Rural Areas, Revealing A Political Shift
Unalaska, Alaska, is home to about 4,200 year-round residents, but the town also boasts the largest fishing port in the United States by volume, and its population swells with seasonal workers in the high season. Even in the age of cellphones and Wi-Fi, residents said radios here were constantly tuned to KUCB, which brings them local news and emergency alerts as well as City Council meetings, high school basketball games and public health programs on topics ranging from the seasonal flu to suicide prevention. “None of that is political or trying to hurt Republicans,” said Greg Walter, a nurse practitioner at the only medical facility on the island. “It’s a necessary resource for a small, isolated community.” Mr. Walter said he relied on KUCB having him on the air to share medical advice to prevent conditions that are hard to treat on the island. (Mineiro, 8/26)

'MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN'

The Wall Street Journal: The Costly Ingredient That Big Food Companies Are Processing: MAHA 
Executives at big processed-food makers are trying to determine how much of what Kennedy and MAHA want will actually happen, and how it could affect their bottom lines. Their challenge is to balance his push for what he sees as healthier food with their need to make products that consumers will buy. Some companies have assembled special teams to navigate MAHA, drawing up lists and “heat maps” to track ingredients coming under scrutiny, and assessing which ones they might have to remove or label. Executives have compared dealing with MAHA to battling the mythical Hydra—cut off one head and two more spring up. (Newman and Tucker-Smith, 8/25)

ON CAPITOL HILL

Roll Call: Congress Sees Bipartisan Bright Spot In Sunscreen Legislation 
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are collaborating on legislation to lower market barriers for new sunscreens, in an effort to bring the United States in line with other countries that have seen advancements in sun protection. (DeGroot, 8/25)

HEALTH INDUSTRY AND PHARMACEUTICALS

Becker's Hospital Review: California Hospital To Close After CMS Revokes Critical Access Status
Willows, Calif.-based Glenn Medical Center plans to close its emergency department, with the hospital closing shortly after, following CMS’ plan to revoke its critical access hospital designation, effective Oct. 21. ... “Our emergency department has been a lifeline for Willows and surrounding communities, and we did everything in our power to appeal CMS’s decision. While we cannot change this outcome, our priority now is to support our community and staff through this transition. We are actively working to connect affected hospital staff with other good employment opportunities and are committed to keeping our patients informed of next steps.” (Ashley, 8/25)

Modern Healthcare: Summa Health To Stop Accepting Some Out-Of-Network Patients
Summa Health will no longer schedule appointments for patients with out-of-network or non-contracted health plans, effective Sept. 1. The new policy applies to walk-in urgent care, laboratory and radiology services, and appointments with Summa Health Medical Group, a physician network for more than 30 specialties. It does not apply to emergency services. Akron, Ohio-based Summa contracts with more than 40 health plans, including Aetna, Cigna, Humana and United Healthcare. (Hudson, 8/25)

Becker's Hospital Review: Trump's Rollback Of Biden Competition Order Stirs CEO Debate
The healthcare industry is once again recalibrating after President Donald Trump revoked a Biden-era executive order aimed at limiting hospital consolidation. While some health system leaders see the move as a green light for growth and regional alignment, others remain skeptical, warning that systemic challenges — from payer leverage to uneven regulation — still pose roadblocks to meaningful change. (Condon and Gooch, 8/25)

Newsweek: Bankruptcies Are Hitting America's Health Care Giants
According to a recent report from Gibbins Advisors, the 79 health care bankruptcy filings in 2023 and 57 in 2024 surpassed the annual average of 42 for the previous four years. While senior care and hospital bankruptcies surged past typical levels in the first quarter, overall health care bankruptcies dropped markedly in the three months through July. While the tally of filings in 2025 has remained on the worrying trend of the last few years, this year has stood out because of the scale of the companies failing to meet their financial obligations. (Cameron, 8/26)

Axios: Fewer Qualified Doctors For Hire: Survey
Almost 2 in 3 physicians say there aren't enough qualified doctors to fill openings in their area, in another sign of how the health care workforce is straining to meet patient demand. (Bettelheim, 8/26)

CIDRAP: Despite Decolonization Efforts, Nursing Home Rooms Remain Contaminated With Resistant Organisms
A study conducted in three US nursing homes highlights the challenge of reducing environmental contamination with multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs). The study by researchers with the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center and the University of California Irvine School of Medicine, published last week in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, involved implementation of routine bathing/showering with chlorhexidine and nasal iodophor to reduce MDRO colonization in residents. (Dall, 8/25)

Bloomberg: AbbVie To Buy Gilgamesh Depression Drug For Up To $1.2 Billion
AbbVie Inc. agreed to buy an experimental depression treatment from Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals Inc. for up to $1.2 billion in a deal that highlights the drug industry’s growing interest in next-generation psychedelic compounds. Under the terms of the agreement, AbbVie will acquire Gilgamesh’s lead drug bretisilocin, which is in development for major depressive disorder, according to a statement. Gilgamesh will spin its other programs off into a new entity called Gilgamesh Pharma Inc. (Muller, 8/25)

Modern Healthcare: Terumo Corp. To Buy OrganOx For $1.5 Billion
Medtech company Terumo Corp. announced plans Monday to acquire OrganOx, which sells a device that preserves donor livers, for about $1.5 billion. The deal marks Terumo’s debut into the organ transplantation field. The companies have not disclosed when the transaction is expected to close. OrganOx’s metra device pumps donor livers with oxygenated blood, medications and nutrients at body temperature to simulate natural conditions. (Dubinsky, 8/25)

STATE WATCH

Roll Call: Judge Denies Maine Clinics' Request On Blocked Medicaid Funds
A federal judge on Monday denied a request by a Maine family planning provider to block the law that prevents such providers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for a year if they also offer abortions. (Hellmann, 8/26)

The Hechinger Report: New Illinois Law Ensures Premature Babies Get Connected To Vital Therapies
Illinois hospital staff will soon be required by law to refer parents of severely premature infants to services that can help prevent years of intensive and expensive therapy later, when the children are older. The new law follows reporting from The Hechinger Report that exposed how hospitals often fail to connect many eligible parents to these opportunities for their children after they leave neonatal intensive care units. (8/25)

WUSF: Ladapo Warns Against Amalgam Dental Fillings 
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo is recommending against the use of dental amalgam for routine fillings, citing potential risks from mercury exposure. Dental amalgam is a mixture of metals, roughly 50% elemental (liquid) mercury by weight, combined with a powdered alloy of silver, tin and copper. Mercury binds the alloy particles into a strong, durable, and solid filling, according to the FDA. (Mayer, 8/25)

The Colorado Sun: Concerns Grow In Colorado Over The VA’s Push To Send Veterans To Private Care 
Bernie Rogoff is a Korean War-era Army veteran who’s spent his life advocating for fellow service members. This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. The 95-year-old led the push for Denver’s modern Veterans Affairs medical center, which opened in 2018 to serve Colorado’s nearly 400,000 veterans. Rogoff still calls it one of his proudest achievements. He remembers it finally felt like “someone is listening.” (McKinnon, 8/26)

ProPublica: Idaho’s Coroner System Is “Broken and a Joke.” Here Are 5 Ideas From Coroners on How to Fix It.
Since last year, ProPublica has been reporting on the troubled system for death investigations in Idaho, where a person’s cause of death is determined by elected coroners with no oversight or state support and, often, little training or education. The Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations in January sent the state’s coroners a formal survey about their work, drawing responses from just over half. The office told coroners that it wouldn’t attach names to their responses when it made the survey results public, and some gave unvarnished critiques. “The coroner system in Idaho is broken and a joke,” one wrote. They also took the opportunity to plead for help, for changes they believe could transform Idaho into a place where death investigations consistently meet national standards. (Dutton, 8/26)

The New York Times: Cities Move Away From Strategies That Make Drug Use Safer
As fentanyl propelled overdose deaths to ever more alarming numbers several years ago, public health officials throughout the United States stepped up a blunt, pragmatic response. Desperate to save lives, they tried making drug use safer. ... Now, across the country, states and communities are turning away from harm reduction strategies. (Hoffman, 8/25)

MENTAL HEALTH

AP: AI Inconsistent In Handling Suicide-Related Queries, Study Says
A study of how three popular artificial intelligence chatbots respond to queries about suicide found that they generally avoid answering questions that pose the highest risk to the user, such as for specific how-to guidance. But they are inconsistent in their replies to less extreme prompts that could still harm people. The study in the medical journal Psychiatric Services, published Tuesday by the American Psychiatric Association, found a need for “further refinement” in OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude. (Ortutay and O’Brien, 8/26)

MedPage Today: Potent Cannabis Products Linked To Psychosis, Mental Health Risks
Cannabis products containing high concentrations of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) -- the main psychoactive compound in marijuana -- were linked to psychosis, schizophrenia, and addiction, a systematic review found. Across 99 studies examining the effects of high-concentration THC products on mental health outcomes, 70% of the nontherapeutic studies (i.e., those not attempting to treat a medical condition or symptom) showed an unfavorable association with psychosis or schizophrenia and 75% found a relationship to cannabis use disorder (CUD). (Firth, 8/25)

PUBLIC HEALTH

The New York Times: Scientists Perform First Pig-To-Human Lung Transplant
Scientists have dreamed for centuries about using animal organs to treat ailing humans. In recent years, those efforts have begun to bear fruit: Researchers have begun transplanting the hearts and kidneys of genetically modified pigs into patients, with varying degrees of success. But lungs are notoriously difficult to transplant, even from human to human, and mortality rates are high. Now, in the first procedure of its kind, Chinese scientists on Monday reported transplanting a lung from a pig into a brain-dead man. (Caryn Rabin, 8/25)

NBC News: Most Women Under 50 Have Risk Factors For Birth Defects That Can Be Lowered, CDC Finds
One in 33 babies in the United States are born with birth defects. But a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is raising awareness of ways to lower that risk. The study points to five risk factors that public health officials — and, in some cases, women themselves — can do something about: obesity, diabetes, smoking exposure, food insecurity and low levels of folate (an essential vitamin that helps the body produce cells). (Bendix, 8/26)

ABC News: Mediterranean Diet And Exercise Cut Diabetes Risk By Nearly One-Third, Even Without Much Weight Loss, Study Finds
A large six-year trial found that older adults who combined a Mediterranean diet with regular exercise were far less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who only changed their diet. Researchers from Harvard and 23 Spanish hospitals studied more than 4,700 adults aged 55 to 75 with metabolic syndrome and excess weight over six years. (El-Naas, 8/25)

CNN: Mediterranean Diet Lowers Risk Of Dementia By 35% In People At Most Risk, Study Finds 
Closely following the Mediterranean diet lowered the risk of dementia by at least 35% in people with two copies of the APOE4 gene, a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s, according to a new study. (LaMotte, 8/25)

MedPage Today: Risk Of Malignant Tumor Rises After Traumatic Brain Injury
Moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) was tied to an increased risk of subsequent brain cancer, a retrospective study of more than 150,000 adults showed. Malignant brain tumor incidence was 0.6% among civilians who had experienced moderate-to-severe TBI and 0.4% in those with mild TBI or healthy controls, reported Saef Izzy, MD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and co-authors. (George, 8/25)

CIDRAP: CDC: Rare Salmonella Strain From Bearded Dragons Caused 2024 US Outbreak, Still Circulates
People who live with or handle pet bearded dragons are at continued risk for Salmonella infection, conclude the authors of a study on a 2024 outbreak published last week in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and federal and local health authorities investigated a 27-case, 14-state outbreak in 2024 caused by reptile-transmitted Salmonella Cotham. They also referenced a 2012-14 outbreak of 160 cases in 35 states caused by a genetically related strain. (Van Beusekom, 8/25)