FDA Expands Heart Risk Warning Labels On Covid Shots

CNN: FDA Requires Covid Vaccine Makers To Expand Warning About Risk Of Rare Heart Inflammation 
The US Food and Drug Administration will now require Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna to use expanded warning labels with more information about the risk of a rare heart condition after vaccination. (Christensen, 5/21)

CNN: FDA Crackdown On Off-Brand Ozempic Products Set To Take Effect, Threatening Supply And Access For Many 
The supply of GLP-1 drugs for weight loss and diabetes treatment is expected to tighten this week with a federal deadline to halt the sale and production of off-brand products that many patients in the United States have come to rely on. (McPhillips, 5/21)

CBS News: FEMA Rescinds Strategic Plan Less Than 2 Weeks Before Hurricane Season
Less than two weeks until the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, Federal Emergency Management Agency acting Administrator David Richardson has rescinded the agency's strategic plan, a comprehensive policy document that outlines the disaster relief agency's priorities. In a short memo sent to FEMA employees on Wednesday and obtained by CBS News, Richardson wrote, "The 2022-2026 FEMA Strategic Plan is hereby rescinded. The Strategic Plan contains goals and objectives that bear no connection to FEMA accomplishing its mission." (Sganga, 5/21)

Health secretary updates —

NPR: RFK Jr. Says That A Lead Poisoning Prevention Team Is Working. Senators Say It's Not
"We have a team in Milwaukee," Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified to senators in a hearing on Tuesday. He was speaking about a lead exposure crisis in the public schools there. The city health department had requested support from experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to address it. "We're giving laboratory support to the analytics in Milwaukee and we're working with the health department in Milwaukee," Kennedy added. (Simmons-Duffin, 5/21)

Politico: GOP Allies In Farm And Food Are Sweating RFK Jr.’s Big Report
An expected report Thursday from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. assessing the causes of chronic disease in children could test whether Republicans in Congress can get along with a health secretary keen on regulating farm and food companies. Republican lawmakers representing agriculture and food manufacturing districts have warned Kennedy to lay off, but they and the industries they represent are still fretting the report. They worry it will point to pesticides and food dyes as potential causes for kids’ diseases and propose regulation that could cut profits and cost jobs. (Paun, Nguyen, Brown and Oprysko, 5/21)

Bloomberg: Sugar Added To RFK Jr.'s Targets In Make America Healthy Agenda
Sugar producers thought they had escaped Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again agenda. After all, the health secretary had spent much of his time fighting things like pesticides, seed oils and colorings. If anything, his criticism of high-fructose corn syrup could have benefited sugar consumption. (Peng and Kubzansky, 5/21)

Stat: Three Big Ideas To Actually ‘Make America Healthy Again’
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cites a lofty goal as health secretary: “to reverse the chronic disease epidemic in America.” It’s a goal he shares with Americans of all stripes, who have watched the burden of death and disability rise from obesity, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses. To better understand the dauntingly complex crisis and how Kennedy could meet the moment, STAT interviewed a broad range of health experts about chronic disease and examined reams of publicly available data, dozens of research papers, and federal health guidance. Our reporting — including extensive novel data analysis — points to several approaches that could reduce illness and death across the population in a relatively short timespan. (Cueto, 5/21)

On funding cuts —

AP: Budget Cuts At Trump EPA Become Flashpoint At A Heated Congressional Hearing
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency clashed with Democratic senators Wednesday, accusing one of being an “aspiring fiction writer” and saying another does not “care about wasting money.’' Democrats countered that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s tenure will likely mean more Americans contracting lung cancer and other illnesses. (Daly, 5/21)

Bloomberg: Trump’s Research Funding Cuts Create Job Drought For Scientists
US job openings in research and development are plunging as the Trump administration ramps up funding cuts to government agencies, private contractors and universities, leaving some of the nation’s brightest minds scrambling to find work. Scientific research and development job postings are down 18% since President Donald Trump took office in January, compared to a 4% drop in overall vacancies in both the public and private sector, according to a report Thursday from the Indeed Hiring Lab. The decline was broad-based across the science sector, which also impacted data collection jobs and life sciences consulting. (Saraiva and Sasso, 5/22)

The Hill: Universities Struggle To Keep Cancer Research Afloat Amid Trump Funding Cuts
The pause of billions of dollars in research funding to universities has had devastating effects on cancer research as lab work is put on hold and schools are halting the acceptance of new Ph.D. students. The Trump administration’s war with higher education, combined with efforts to reduce government spending by the Department of Government Efficiency, has left significant casualties in cancer research, which in the U.S. is largely done at colleges and universities. (Cochran, 5/21)

The New York Times: Federal Cuts Become ‘All Consuming’ At Harvard’s Public Health School
In a windowless conference room at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health last Thursday, Amanda Spickard, an associate dean, sat with half a dozen colleagues, improvising a plan for the havoc about to unfold. Within a few hours, more than 130 researchers at the graduate school would receive emails canceling the federal funding for their work. No other division of the university relies as heavily on government support, and Ms. Spickard’s team was all too aware that the loss of tens of millions of dollars would end careers, halt progress toward medical breakthroughs and reshape the institution. (Russell, 5/21)

Stat: LGBTQ+ Physicians Sue HHS, NIH Over Grant Cuts 
A group of physicians and researchers working on LGBTQ+ health sued the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services Tuesday over the sweeping grant terminations that have impacted medical research on queer people as part of the implementation of President Trump’s executive orders targeting transgender people and diversity initiatives. (Gaffney, 5/21)

CBS News: AmeriCorps Funding Cuts Threaten Mental Health Program That Serves Colorado Students
Each year since the Spark Health Corps program started in 2022, roughly 10 to 13 associates fill the gap in mental health services that may be absent in underserved schools across the state. As a Title I school, Bryant Webster's principal Brian Clark says they wouldn't otherwise have the budget for a social worker. ... This is a concern that now appears to be settling in for those involved in the program, after Spark Health Corps lost critical funding from AmeriCorps last month amid ongoing federal budget cuts. (Vidal, 5/21)

Stat: At WHO Conference, Global Health Leaders Wrestle With U.S. Cuts
The U.S. has been accused of acting as an 800-pound gorilla on the global stage. Its absence this week from the World Health Organization’s annual meeting of its members cast it as an equally sized specter. (Joseph, 5/21)