Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trump To Roll Back Rules On Methane Emissions, A Blow For Public Health
AP: Trump Says He's Ending Restrictions On Methane Emissions From Oil Drilling
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration is “terminating” a Biden-era rule that aimed to cut planet-warming emissions of methane from oil and gas drilling. Trump said during a campaign rally in Texas that the change would save companies and consumers billions of dollars and unlock 210 million barrels of oil. That’s equivalent to about 10 days of U.S. petroleum consumption. ... Methane is responsible for about a third of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, scientists estimate. (Brown and Gruver, 10/28)
The Allegheny Front: How A Rollback Of Methane Rules For Oil And Gas Wells Could Impact The Climate And Public Health
While the EPA administrator announced the agency would loosen Biden-era methane rules for oil and gas wells, some states are creating their own regulations. (Holsopple, 10/26)
More news about the environment —
AP: EPA Response To East Palestine, Ohio, Derailment Under Investigation
The Environmental Protection Agency’s response to the disastrous 2023 East Palestine train derailment will be investigated after local residents of the small town on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border and Vice President JD Vance pressed for the review. The Inspector General of the EPA announced the investigation Tuesday to assess the agency’s response to the worst rail disaster in more than a decade and the subsequent health and environmental concerns that have developed despite the EPA’s assurances to the public that no toxic levels of chemicals lingered in the community weeks and months later. (Funk, 10/27)
Bloomberg: Health Damages From Climate Change Are Increasing Faster
The negative health impacts of climate change are not only increasing but doing so at a faster pace than a decade ago, according to a major global assessment released Wednesday. The 10th annual Lancet Countdown report — by an international collaboration of scientists that tracks the relationship between global warming and human health — compares the decade since the signing of the Paris climate agreement with the decade before. It finds that several major health threats, including deadly heat and drought, increased more rapidly after the accord, even as countries ramped up investments in clean energy and protecting people from climate hazards. (Kaufman, 10/28)
Other Trump administration developments —
The Washington Post: RFK Jr. Falsely Says Arab Muslims Don’t Produce Prizeworthy Science, Literature
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. falsely claimed that modern Arab Muslims don’t produce science and literature as they have in the past or win prestigious prizes — remarks that have stirred a political backlash. At a Monday event campaigning for former congressman Mike Rogers in Michigan, Kennedy spent a portion of his remarks lambasting the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement founded in Egypt in 1928 that has various offshoots. He asserted that it launched a new ideology that destroyed Islam’s contributions to art and literature and science and engineering. (Roubein and Wu, 10/27)
The New York Times: Alex Pretti’s Parents Say Federal Government Is Silent On Investigation
The family of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis nurse fatally shot by immigration agents in January, accused the federal government on Tuesday of keeping them in the dark about the investigation into their son’s killing. “At every turn, they have ignored us, misled us and shielded Alex’s killers,” Mr. Pretti’s father, Michael, said at a news conference in Minneapolis, alongside his wife, Susan. It was the first time Mr. Pretti’s parents have spoken in such a public forum. (Londoño and Healy, 10/27)
The 19th: How Will Trump Improve Women's Health If 'Gender' Is A Banned Word In Federal Research Grants?
When Suzanne Bell saw President Donald Trump’s announcement this month about improving the future of women’s health research, she felt deep skepticism. Bell, a demographer at Johns Hopkins University, is part of a class-action lawsuit filed in September by a group of researchers accusing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal government entities of unconstitutionally censoring their research. (Rodriguez, 10/26)
The Hill: Experts Urge Caution On Testosterone Levels As RFK Jr., Pete Hegseth Speak Of Crisis
American men are facing a crisis in plummeting testosterone levels — at least according to several top Trump administration officials. But experts say there is key context that is being left out of the conversation, and the push towards hormone replacement therapy probably isn’t the panacea that officials believe it to be. Members of President Trump’s cabinet, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have raised the issue of low testosterone among men repeatedly since they’ve assumed office. (Choi, 10/27)
