Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Emergency Officials Unclear How — Or Even If — They Can Help In Disasters
The Washington Post: As Disasters Loom, Emergency Managers Say They Aren’t Counting On FEMA
Preparation for the unknown was always in Alan Harris’s job description as emergency manager for Seminole County, Florida, where thousands of homes suffered flood damage during Hurricane Ian in 2022. But as hurricane season begins this year, there is a fresh layer of uncertainty to contend with. The Trump administration has declared a desire to reshape a federal disaster response system widely considered to be too complicated and winding, and has already taken steps to upend it. Hundreds of Federal Emergency Management Agency veterans have left the agency, and those who remain will no longer go door to door in search of disaster victims who need financial aid, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. (Dance and Dennis, 6/8)
CBS News: FDA Food Inspector Vacancies Near 20% After Trump Hiring Freeze
Nearly 1 in 5 positions across the Food and Drug Administration's human food inspection divisions are now vacant, multiple agency officials tell CBS News, in the wake of departures encouraged by the Trump administration's cost-cutting efforts and a government-wide hiring freeze that had stalled efforts to replenish their ranks. While the FDA has long struggled with hiring and retaining qualified investigators to inspect food producers and distributors, multiple federal health officials... say that the staffing gap has worsened due to early retirements and resignations. (Tin, 6/6)
On immigration and veterans' health care —
NBC News: Trump's Ban Stalls Lifesaving Treatment For Haitian Children Who Need To Travel For Surgery
Leaders of an aid organization that has sent more than 100 Haitian children with serious cardiac conditions to the U.S. for heart surgery said President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from 19 countries will stall or cancel lifesaving procedures for at least a dozen children or young adults. The ban, which goes into effect Monday, has led to widespread uncertainty for many and drawn condemnation from international leaders. (Bellamy, 6/7)
Bloomberg: Senator Heinrich Calls For Closure Of New Mexico ICE Detention Center
New Mexico’s senior US senator is once again calling for the closure of one of his state’s most notorious immigration detention facilities, citing a recent tour he said confirmed that conditions there had deteriorated. Democrat Martin Heinrich said his staff visited the Torrance County Detention Facility in late May, two weeks after Bloomberg published a story that detailed a series of problems at the facility, which primarily detains people on behalf of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Adams-Heard and Mejía, 6/6)
ProPublica: DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI To Help Kill Veterans Affairs Contracts
As the Trump administration prepared to cancel contracts at the Department of Veteran Affairs this year, officials turned to a software engineer with no health care or government experience to guide them. The engineer, working for the Department of Government Efficiency, quickly built an artificial intelligence tool to identify which services from private companies were not essential. He labeled those contracts “MUNCHABLE.” (Roberts, Coleman and Umansky, 6/6)
CBS News: Nine Veterans With PTSD Went To Mexico For A Psychedelic Retreat. This Is How They Felt Nearly A Year Later
Last year, for the first time, the Veterans Administration announced it would begin funding its own clinical trials to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and addiction, using two psychedelic drugs psilocybin and MDMA. Even if these trials are successful, it would be years before the VA could prescribe either drug for its patients. Thousands of veterans who are suffering aren't waiting, desperate for help, they're attending psychedelic retreats in countries where the drugs are legal to use, mostly in indigenous ceremonies. (Cooper, 7/8)
On reproductive health care —
The Hill: Trump Abortion Move Stirs Fear Among Emergency Room Doctors
The Trump administration sowed confusion and fear among physicians with its move this past week to rescind Biden-era guidelines to hospitals that provide life-saving abortions. While the move doesn’t change the law, doctors and reproductive-rights advocates fear it will have a chilling effect on health care workers in states with abortion bans, ultimately harming pregnant women. (O’Connell-Domenech, 6/7)
MedPage Today: AMA Urged To Speak Out Against EMTALA Guidelines Withdrawal
The American Medical Association (AMA) should speak out more forcefully on the Trump administration's rescission of guidance on provision of abortions during a medical emergency, AMA delegates said Saturday. "I'm terrified for my patients," Allie Conry, MD, of Memphis, Tennessee, a delegate for the Resident and Fellows Section who spoke for herself during a reference committee hearing. "I work in a county hospital that is publicly funded and will likely get wrapped up in this in some way or shape or form." (Frieden, 6/8)
The Hill: House Democrats Press RFK Jr. On Family Planning Grants
Nearly 100 House Democrats are calling on Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore tens of millions of dollars in federal family planning grants to more than a dozen organizations that have been frozen for more than two months. In a letter to Kennedy sent Friday and seen first by The Hill, 95 lawmakers said the organizations that had their Title X funding frozen on March 31 — including nine Planned Parenthood clinics — are still in the dark about the status of their grants. (Weixel, 6/6)
KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘On Air’: Journalists Recap State Of NIH Cancer Research And Abortion Law's Effect On Clinical Decisions
KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed Trump administration cuts to the National Institutes of Health on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” on June 3. KFF Health News Southern correspondent Sam Whitehead discussed Georgia’s abortion laws on WUGA’s “The Georgia Health Report” on May 30. (6/7)
