Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
MAHA Bellwether Calley Means Resigns From Trump Administration
Bloomberg: Calley Means Resigns As Top RFK Jr. Adviser, Impacting MAHA Food Policy Push
Calley Means, a top adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., resigned Thursday, dealing a setback to the administration’s efforts to overhaul the US food system. Means’ departure is likely to come as a relief to big food companies, who had fought against his efforts to create a federal definition of ultra-processed food. He played a leading role in attempting to hold together Kennedy’s coalition of supporters, known as the Make America Healthy Again movement, ahead of the midterm elections. Means was also a driving force behind a proposal to increase transparency into food ingredients the administration released this summer. (Peterson and Cohrs Zhang, 10/22)
The Washington Sun: HHS Was Caught With Erroneous Legal Citations
A filing from the Department of Health and Human Services had "entirely fictitious" citations, and a federal labor agency suggested AI was used. (Fivas, 10/22)
MedPage Today: National Plan For Alzheimer's And Dementia Gets An Update From HHS
HHS announced an update Thursday to the National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias that includes investment in projects focused on earlier detection and intervention. "Under President Trump, HHS is shifting the national strategy toward prevention, earlier detection, and faster development of better diagnostics and treatments," HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a news release. (George, 10/22)
Bloomberg: RFK Jr. Pushes Peptide Access, Compounding Pharmacies Face New Reporting Rules
The White House is reviewing a proposal to broaden access to peptides that includes more patient protections than initially expected, according to people familiar with the matter. Widening access to peptides has become a contentious issue at the health department. Most of the compounds haven’t undergone the strict testing required of drugs and can’t legally be sold for human use. Still, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has enthusiastically backed the products, while staff scientists at the Food and Drug Administration have been more cautious. (Cohrs Zhang, Griffin, Muller and Phengsitthy, 10/22)
Fierce Healthcare: Few Americans Say CDC, FDA Are Doing A Good Job: Survey
The American public is viewing the performance of federal health agencies as worse than ever before, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in particular taking the sharpest hits in recent years, according to a recent annual poll from Gallup. The survey, which reached 1,000 people during the first half of September, found 26% of respondents rating the CDC as doing either an “excellent” or “good” job (with other options being “only fair,” “poor” or “no opinion”). That’s a five-percentage-point decline from 2025, about 14 percentage points lower than ratings given through the COVID-19 pandemic and well below a high point of 66% back in 2017. (Muoio, 10/22)
Also —
Bloomberg: US Proposes Curbs On Investment In Chinese Biotech Firms
The Trump administration is seeking to restrict American investment in Chinese biotechnology companies, potentially complicating financial ties at a time when US drugmakers are increasingly turning to China for new medicines. The Treasury Department on Thursday proposed adding biotechnology to a list of sensitive technologies subject to investment limits involving foreign adversaries, citing national security concerns. (Muller and Tong, 10/22)
ProPublica: The DOE Keeps Appealing Claims By Sick Hanford Nuclear Site Workers
Lonnie Rouse shuffled into a wood-paneled conference room at the Washington state Capitol in March 2018. It had been nearly a decade since medical experts diagnosed him with a neurological disease they attributed to his exposure to chemicals at work. In the time since, he had acquired a stutter, begun limping and lost several teeth biting into a banana. For nearly 20 years, Rouse had packaged plutonium and monitored radioactive waste at the Hanford Site, a now-decommissioned Department of Energy nuclear weapons production plant in south-central Washington and one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the country. (Giordano and Block, 10/22)
