Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: Friday, Aug. 14, 2026
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: Trump Team’s Use Of Arcane Budget Rule Threatens Medicaid Coverage
About 200,000 low-income Arkansans could see major changes to their health coverage next year after the Trump administration recently informed state officials it will not renew a key Medicaid agreement with the federal government. The decision by federal officials, citing authority granted under President Donald Trump’s signature tax-and-spending law, suggests the GOP-led state’s predicament could foretell other repercussions in how states are allowed to run the program under federal waivers. (Galewitz, 8/14)
KFF Health News: My Husband Was Kicked Out Of Hospice For Dying Too Slowly
“No more operations,” he said.It was mid-January 2026, and my then-73-year-old husband, Mike Salmon, had just started bouncing back from a three-month ordeal of three operations related to aortic aneurysms, sepsis, and a terrifying descent into delirium tied to a stay in the intensive care unit. Now, after another potentially fatal aortic aneurysm and ambulance ride, the doctors clustered around his hospital bed said the fix involved two more major, risky operations. If Mike did nothing, the aneurysm or sepsis would likely kill him, they predicted. (Clark, 8/14)
‘What The Health?’ From KFF Health News: Trump’s Vaccine Agenda
President Donald Trump, apparently unhappy with the slow pace of efforts to change the federal government’s childhood vaccine schedule, issued a new executive order this week that would, if implemented, upend how children are protected from communicable diseases. But there are many obstacles to carrying out the president’s initiative, both legal and political. Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unveiled proposed new rules for food additives this week, but the rules don’t go as far as many health advocates had hoped. (Rovner, 8/13)
OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS
NBC News: Ticks That Cause Lyme And Other Diseases Have Migrated South. Are Doctors Ready?
Angela Newman of Biltmore Forest, North Carolina, remembers the “bizarre” symptoms she began experiencing almost a decade ago. Blurry vision, a stiff neck, hypersensitive skin, numbness and weakness that would come and go. She saw a variety of medical specialists, undergoing an MRI, CT scan and psychiatric assessments. The doctors often dismissed her symptoms as anxiety or depression, Newman, 57, said. (Edwards, 8/13)
CIDRAP: More Recalls As US Faces Several Foodborne Illness Outbreaks
The summer of 2026 continues to bring toilet trouble for thousands of Americans, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today confirming 13,895 Cyclospora cases and an additional 10,455 infections under investigation. Of the total, 3,427 Cyclospora cases are new this week. And among the cases are two fatalities and at least 740 hospitalizations. (Soucheray, 8/13)
The Hill: Additional Salsas, Dips Recalled Amid Salmonella Outbreak
Additional salsas, guacamole, and more have been recalled in connection to a salmonella outbreak traced back to jalapeño peppers. Taylor Fresh Farms recently recalled multiple salsas, dips, guacamole, and more sold at various retailers across 26 states over the same peppers, supplied by Coast Citrus Distributors. The Mexico-based supplier may be responsible for more than 300 cases of salmonella reported across 27 states, federal investigators said.Several items sold at Whole Foods stores in Illinois and Texas were on that initial list of recalled dips. On Wednesday, the retailer announced a new recall for products containing jalapeños sourced from Coast Citrus Distributors over potential salmonella contamination. (Bink, 8/13)
Bloomberg: Ebola Outbreak Spreads To Sixth Congo Province, Africa CDC Says
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spread to a sixth province and is on track to be the worst in history if it’s not slowed soon, Africa’s top public health agency said. One person died from the disease in Congo’s Bas-Uélé province after they traveled from Isiro in neighboring Haut-Uélé province, Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Thursday. (Kavanagh, 8/13)
VACCINES
The Hill: Bill Cassidy Says He Trusts New CDC Director To Prioritize Science
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said he has confidence that new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Erica Schwartz will stand up for science and won’t enforce President Trump’s executive order calling for major changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. “I anticipate Erica Schwartz will do the right thing,” Cassidy, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. “She made a point that her integrity was not in question, and she’s got the spine of somebody who’s been a senior officer in the Coast Guard.” (Weixel, 8/13)
AP: Vaccine-Makers Unlikely To Split MMR Shots Despite Trump's Push
Public health experts have been quick to condemn an executive order from President Donald Trump aimed at upending childhood vaccinations in the U.S., but the biggest obstacles may be the unprecedented financial and logistical challenges it would impose on parents, health providers and drugmakers. Monday’s announcement by the Republican president calls for separating combination shots — including the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine — into separate injections. Appointments for that and other vaccinations should be spaced out whenever possible, the order states. (Perrone, 8/13)
San Francisco Chronicle: California Keeps Childhood Vaccine Rules Despite Trump Order
California is not changing its childhood vaccination recommendations, or its requirement to have health insurers cover the inoculations, after President Donald Trump’s executive order that calls for reducing the number of vaccines U.S. children receive, state health officials say. The executive order, signed this week, calls for scaling back the number of routine childhood vaccinations, splitting the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine into three shots given at separate visits — a vaccine formulation that does not exist — and threatens legal action against states like California that do not allow religious or personal belief exemptions. (Ho, 8/13)
San Francisco Chronicle: California Anti-Vaxxer’s Religious Defense Falls Flat At Appeals Court
A Marin County woman who worked as a pharmacist rejected her employer’s mandate to be vaccinated against COVID-19 because, she said, her body was “a temple of the Holy Spirit” that must be kept free of harmful substances. A federal appeals court was not convinced. Maria Ledezma had objected to vaccinations for many years, and her employer, Optum Health Services, was entitled to conclude that her objections were based on “personal health preferences and a self-directed judgment about what substances are harmful,” the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday in a 2-1 decision dismissing her suit against the company. (Egelko, 8/13)
The New York Times: Covid Vaccines Are Not Linked To Miscarriage. Here’s How We Know
Trump administration officials and other prominent Republicans falsely suggested this week that Covid-19 vaccines were linked to miscarriage, seizing misleadingly on old text messages of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s that were recently released by Republican senators. In January 2021, when Covid vaccines had just been released, Dr. Fauci and other Biden administration officials discussed the limitations of the data then available about vaccination during pregnancy, as well as the theoretical risks for pregnant women based on information available at the time. Since then, studies of hundreds of thousands of women have shown that Covid vaccination is not linked to an increased risk of miscarriage, stillbirth or preterm birth. (Astor and Rabin, 8/13)
CIDRAP: Global Rubella Cases Have Dropped Dramatically Despite 2024 Uptick, According To CDC Analysis
Global cases of congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) have dropped 70% since 2012 as vaccine uptake soared, but they rebounded slightly in 2024, scientists from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and their UK partners said in a recent report. Worldwide elimination is possible if enough people receive a rubella-containing vaccine (RCV) that is 97% effective at protecting against the virus, the CDC said. (Boden, 8/13)
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
The Washington Post: Group Sues AMA Seeking Transparency Over Medicare Billing Codes
A health care advocacy group on Thursday sued the American Medical Association in an effort to get more transparency over the association’s billing codes, which guide billions of dollars in health care payments. PatientRightsAdvocate.org hopes to republish the codes online and allow the public to search them free. The group, which has pushed for health care transparency, is challenging the AMA’s copyright over its billing-code system, known as the Current Procedural Terminology or CPT. (Diamond, 8/13)
CIDRAP: HHS Announces Expansion Of Prenatal Syphilis Testing
Yesterday the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a $4 million initiative to expand access to rapid, point-of-care syphilis testing. The goal is to reach women in emergency departments and other nontraditional healthcare settings. (Soucheray, 8/13)
CIDRAP: Prescriptions For Leucovorin Soar After White House Announcement On Autism
Following a White House press conference suggesting leucovorin as a treatment for autism in September 2025, and despite a lack of supporting data, US prescriptions of the drug soared, according to a paper published yesterday in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). (Holohan, 8/13)
PUBLIC HEALTH
AP: Kids Keep Getting Hurt On E-Bikes. Who’s Responsible?
As traumatic injuries and deaths surge among children involved in crashes on e-bikes and other electrified vehicles, one California prosecutor is cracking down by pursuing criminal charges against some of the young riders’ parents. It is just one way officials across the country are trying to tackle the growing issue, while families navigate a patchwork of local laws and guidance on what kind of souped-up cycles and scooters are safe or even legal for their kids to ride. (Marcelo, 8/14)
SCIENCE AND INNOVATIONS
MedPage Today: Researchers Try To Tie Cannabis To Irregular Heartbeats, Opposite Turns Out True
Defying expectations, regular cannabis users had fewer ectopic heartbeats on the days they reached for the joint or vape, a randomized crossover trial showed. (Lou, 8/13)
MedPage Today: Preoperative GLP-1s Don't Diminish Bariatric Surgery Results, Study Suggests
Bariatric surgery patients who took GLP-1 medications prior to surgery lost the same amount of weight after 1 year as individuals unexposed to the blockbuster class of drugs, a retrospective review indicated. (Monaco, 8/13)
MedPage Today: FDA Approves First CELMoD Drug For Multiple Myeloma
The FDA granted accelerated approval to the first cereblon E3 ligase modulation (CELMoD) therapy for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, the agency announced on Thursday. (Bassett, 8/13)
MedPage Today: Study Questions How Prostate Cancer Focal Therapy Is Being Used
While the use of focal therapy for nonmetastatic prostate cancer is limited, half of procedures occurred in settings that are not supported by current guidelines, according to a retrospective study. (Bassett, 8/13)
CIDRAP: AI-Created Bacteriophage Overcame Resistant Bacterial Strains, But Experts Emphasize Need For Safeguards
In Science, researchers from Stanford University and the Broad Institute report that the functional bacteriophages they created using artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly destroyed strains of Escherichia coli that had evolved resistance to naturally occurring phages, but experts call for safeguards to prevent the technology from being used for harm. (Van Beusekom, 8/13)
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
AP: Luigi Mangione Expected To Plead Guilty At Friday Court Hearing, AP Source Says
Luigi Mangione is scheduled to be in federal court Friday for a hearing at which he’s expected to plead guilty in connection with the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mangione could still change his mind about the plea, said the person, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the case and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Previous plea talks in June broke down. (Sisak, Neumeister and Durkin Richer, 8/14)
Bloomberg: Selena Gomez Accused Of Fraud By Investors In Mental-Health Startup Lawsuit
Pop star Selena Gomez is being accused of fraud by investors who claim she failed to deliver on promises to leverage her global celebrity and social-media following to promote her mental-health startup, which collapsed last year. The startup, Wondermind Global Inc., claimed a valuation of $95 million when it sought money from investors in 2022 to develop products, including a mobile app, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Delaware federal court. Gomez, one of the founders, served as “chief impact officer” and head of marketing, the suit said. (Willmer and Voreacos, 8/13)
Bloomberg: UnitedHealth Investor Suit Alleges Security, Governance Lapses
UnitedHealth Group Inc. board members ignored a raft of governance and oversight risks for years before catastrophic failures triggered billions in losses for investors, a shareholder lawsuit alleges. An amended complaint filed Aug. 7 in a Minnesota federal court reveals new information from former insiders about how UnitedHealth handled cybersecurity after an acquisition of a company that would later suffer the largest US healthcare data breach on record. (Tozzi and Voreacos, 8/13)
Becker's Hospital Review: Judge Tosses Pharmacy Residents’ Suit Over Residency Matching System
A federal judge has dismissed a proposed antitrust class action accusing a group of hospitals and health systems, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and a residency matching organization of conspiring to suppress pharmacy residents’ pay, according to an Aug. 12 ruling. Judge Deborah Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland dismissed the case without prejudice; the former residents who brought it have until Sept. 11 to file an amended complaint. If they do not, the case will be closed. (Twenter, 8/13)
STATE WATCH
Modern Healthcare: PACE Expansion Faces Medicaid Funding Risks In New States
Uncertainty over Medicaid funding has providers weighing the risks of launching Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly in new states. Georgia, Nevada and Connecticut are launching PACE and West Virginia is considering a program. However, operators are concerned about investing millions of dollars in new states that might set payment rates too low or not prioritize PACE. (Eastabrook, 8/13)
Modern Healthcare: Rural Health Transformation Program May Fall Short, Senators Fear
One of the keys to passing President Donald Trump’s tax law last summer was the creation of the Rural Health Transformation Program. The program’s $50 billion fund played an instrumental role in getting a handful of wavering lawmakers on board, after they flagged the impact the law’s $1 trillion Medicaid cuts could have on rural hospitals. (McAuliff, 8/13)
AP: California Prisons Fail To Protect Women From Sexual Abuse, DOJ Says
California ‘s prison system has systematically failed to protect incarcerated women from sexual abuse and harassment by guards, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday. The federal investigation also found that California’s corrections department failed to provide victims with a way to report sexual abuse and harassment without retaliation. On top of that, staff who were tasked with investigating the misconduct were often themselves accused of sexual abuse or harassment. (Riddle, 8/14)
Newsweek: Family Pushes For Permanent Ban After Son’s Death From Retail Opioid
A Texas family is speaking publicly after their son, Sam, died following exposure to a concentrated 7‑Hydroxymitragynine (7‑OH) product he believed was ordinary kratom. Their story comes as federal regulators move to classify 7‑OH and related compounds as Schedule I opioids, citing rising overdoses and the drug’s spread through gas stations and vape shops. (Castro, 8/13)
CIDRAP: COVID Vaccination May Have Prevented More Than 4,000 Deaths In One Washington County
COVID-19 vaccination may have prevented more than 16,000 hospitalizations and 4,000 deaths in one Washington county during the first eight months of the vaccine rollout, according to a new modeling study published last week in BMC Public Health. (Bergeson, 8/13)
The New Bedford Light: Judge Orders Plymouth Co. Sheriff To Hand ICE Detainee Records To ACLU
The Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office must hand over hundreds of anonymized health records of immigrant detainees following a Massachusetts court ruling. Judge James Budreau issued the order, released Wednesday, a month after attorneys for the sheriff and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts sparred in Suffolk County Superior Court. “I think this is a decision that is important for government transparency and the rights of immigrant detainees,” said Dan McFadden, managing attorney at the state ACLU. “(The Sheriff’s Office) cannot exempt itself from public records law simply by contract with ICE.” (Andrade, 8/13)
The Nevada Independent: How Nevada Made Big Strides To Keep Kids With Behavioral Health Issues Out Of Institutions
State officials announced a “dramatic drop” in the number of children with behavioral health disabilities who have been placed in institutional settings and other changes, including the launch of new services as well as service rate increases, marking progress on Nevada’s efforts to comply with federal disabilities law since the Department of Justice called out the deficiencies four years ago. Ann Jensen, administrator of Nevada Medicaid, described the decrease and new community-based mental healthcare model as a “big win” that needs to be celebrated. Still, she said it’s just the first of many improvements that must happen. (Mueller, 8/13)
The New York Times: A City Mobilizes Against A Stubborn Health Threat: Mosquitoes
It’s been 10 years, but Paulo Gomes still vividly remembers the terror he felt that his wife, Lucirene, would never return from the hospital, that she would die instead of the dengue she contracted from a mosquito bite, her body racked with fever and excruciating pain. She did come home, after 15 days, and recovered fully after several more months. But the experience forever changed how Mr. Gomes thought about mosquitoes. (Mandavilli, 8/13)
