Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
FDA Nominee Makary Signals Abortion Pills And Policy Will Get Another Look
The New York Times: Senators Press Marty Makary On Abortion Pills And Vaccines
At a confirmation hearing for Dr. Marty Makary on Thursday, senators focused heavily on the safety of the abortion pill, with Republican lawmakers urging him to restrict access and Democratic lawmakers demanding that he maintain its current availability. Dr. Makary, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, signaled that he shared Republicans’ concerns about the current policy, issued during the Biden administration, which expanded access by allowing people to obtain the pills without an in-person medical appointment. (Jewett, 3/6)
KFF Health News: Marty Makary, Often Wrong As Pandemic Critic, Is Poised To Lead The FDA He Railed Against
Panelists at a covid conference last fall were asked to voice their regrets — policies they had supported during the pandemic but had come to see as misguided. Covid contact tracing, one said. Closing schools, another said. Vaccine mandates, a third said. When Marty Makary’s turn came, the Johns Hopkins University surgeon said, “I can’t think of anything,” adding, “The entire covid policy of three to four years felt like a horror movie I was forced to watch.” (Allen, 3/7)
Updates on the federal budget cuts —
The Washington Post: Read The Resignation Letter By FDA Food Director Jim Jones
Jim Jones, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s food division, slammed the “indiscriminate firing” of dozens of his employees and recent rhetoric from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his resignation letter to acting FDA commissioner Sara Brenner, which The Washington Post has reproduced below. (3/6)
AP: Jobs Lost In Every State And Lifesaving Cures Not Discovered: Possible Impacts Of Research Cuts
Rural cancer patients may miss out on cutting-edge treatments in Utah. Therapies for intellectual disorders could stall in Maryland. Red states and blue states alike are poised to lose jobs in research labs and the local businesses serving them. Ripple effects of the Trump administration’s crackdown on U.S. biomedical research promise to reach every corner of America. It’s not just about scientists losing their jobs or damaging the local economy their work indirectly supports — scientists around the country say it’s about patient health. (Neergaard and Pananjady, 3/6)
Stat: NIH Has Paused Patenting Of Discoveries, Slowing Their Use In Developing Treatments
Clampdowns on external communications and new contracts at the National Institutes of Health by President Donald Trump’s administration — which have effectively slowed the flow of grant funding to a trickle — are also blocking the agency from sharing research materials with collaborators and taking crucial steps to ensure the discoveries its own scientists are making can later be used in the development of drugs and vaccines. (Molteni, 3/7)
AP: Judge Orders Trump Administration To Speed Payment Of USAID And State Dept. Debts
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to speed up its payment on some of nearly $2 billion in debts to partners of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department, giving it a Monday deadline to repay the nonprofit groups and businesses in a lawsuit over the administration’s abrupt shutdown of foreign assistance funding. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali described the partial payment as a “concrete” first step he wanted to see from the administration. (Knickmeyer and Kunzelman, 3/7)
The New York Times: Defunded Aid Programs Are Asked By Trump Administration To Prove Their Value, On A Scale Of 1 To 5
Last week, the Trump administration terminated nearly all of the United States’ foreign aid contracts after telling a federal court that its review of aid programs had concluded, and it had shut down those found not to be in the national interest. But over the last few days, many of those same programs have received a questionnaire asking them for the first time to detail what their projects do (or did) and how that work aligns with national interests. (Nolen, 3/6)
KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: The State Of Federal Health Agencies Is Uncertain
The Supreme Court opined for the first time that Trump administration officials may be exceeding their authority to reshape the federal government by refusing to honor completed contracts, even as lower-court judges started blocking efforts to fire workers, freeze funding, and cancel ongoing contracts. Meanwhile, public health officials are alarmed at the Department of Health and Human Services’ public handling of Texas’ widening measles outbreak, particularly the secretary’s less-than-full endorsement of vaccines. (Rovner, 3/6)
