First Edition: Friday, June 6, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: In A Dusty Corner Of California, Trump’s Threatened Cuts To Asthma Care Raise Fears
Pesticides are a known contributor to asthma and are commonly used where Bejarano lives in California’s Imperial Valley, a landlocked region that straddles two counties on the U.S.-Mexico border and is one of the main producers of the nation’s winter crops. It also has some of the worst air pollution in the nation and one of the highest rates of childhood asthma emergency room visits in the state, according to data collected by the California Department of Public Health. (Green, 6/6)

KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’ Podcast: Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Lands In Senate. Our 400th Episode!
The House’s gigantic tax-and-spending budget reconciliation bill has landed with a thud in the Senate, where lawmakers are divided in their criticism over whether it increases the deficit too much or cuts Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act too deeply. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the bill, if enacted, could increase the ranks of the uninsured by nearly 11 million people over a decade won’t make it an easy sell. (Rovner, 6/5)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

ABC News: What To Know About UK Warning On Weight Loss Drugs' Effect On Birth Control
Regulators in the United Kingdom issued guidance on Thursday, warning that weight loss and diabetes medications may weaken the effectiveness of birth control and may be harmful for pregnant women. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said women taking tirzepatide, sold under the brand name Mounjaro, may need to use another form of contraception. This is because Mounjaro ... may reduce the effectiveness of oral contraceptives in those who are overweight. (Kekatos, 6/5)

The Hill: Blue States Call On FDA To Expand Abortion Pill Access
Attorneys general of New York, California, New Jersey and Massachusetts are asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand access to the abortion pill and remove some “unnecessary” drug restrictions that have been in place for more than two decades. The joint petition, filed Thursday, comes days after FDA Commissioner Marty Makary committed to reviewing the abortion drug amid pressure from Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and some Republican lawmakers. (O’Connell-Domenech, 6/5)

The Guardian: IVF Is Life-Changing For Infertile Families. But The Christian Right Says It’s Not In ‘God’s Plan’
As soon as they arrived home, Tyler, seven, and Jayden, three, rushed to a small green tent perched on the living room table and pressed their faces against its mesh windows. Inside, several gray cocoons hung immobile as the boys’ eyes eagerly scanned them for the slightest sign of movement. “We’re waiting for butterflies to emerge,” explained their mother, Alana Lisano. “It’s our little biology experiment.” Within seconds, the boys were off to play with their cars, having no patience for such waiting. But Tyler and Jayden, Alana told me, were like those butterflies not so long ago, suspended in a different kind of stasis for two decades. Technically, they existed long before Alana met her husband, Steven Lisano, in veterinary school. Before they got married, tried to get pregnant and learned that Alana’s eggs were of such poor quality that even in vitro fertilization probably wouldn’t help. (Oosterhoff, 6/5)

Newsweek: Parents Can Choose Genetic Makeup Of Their Children With New IVF Option
U.S.-based biotech company has unveiled a new in vitro fertilization (IVF) option that allows parents to select embryos based on genetic markers tied to health and longevity. DNA testing and analysis company Nucleus Genomics has announced the world's first genetic optimization software that "helps parents pursuing IVF see and understand the complete genetic profile of each of their embryos." (van Brugen, 6/5)

CIDRAP: Antibiotic Taken During Pregnancy Doesn't Increase Infant Birth Weight, Trial Finds
A randomized controlled trial involving nearly 1,000 women in Zimbabwe found that a daily dose of a broad-spectrum antibiotic during pregnancy did not significantly increase infant birth weight, an international group of researchers reported yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. But women who received prophylactic (preventive) trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole had fewer preterm births than those who received a placebo, a finding the study authors say needs to be further explored. (Dall, 6/5)

CIDRAP: Right Blend Of Gut Microbiota Could Avert Hospitalization For Viral Respiratory Infection In Babies
An optimal mix of gut bacteria (microbiome) found in infants born vaginally could help children fight off severe viral lower respiratory-tract infections (vLRTIs) for the first 2 years of life, UK researchers wrote yesterday in The Lancet Microbe. (Van Beusekom, 6/5)

The New York Times: The Ethical Minefield Of Testing Infants For Incurable Diseases 
In every postpartum hospital unit across the country, 1-day-old babies undergo the same ritual: A nurse pricks the newborn’s heel and stamps tiny drops of blood onto a paper filter, which is then sent off for a standard screening panel. Today, that panel checks for unusual bio-markers that may indicate a rare but treatable disease like sickle cell anemia or cystic fibrosis. But what if that same dried blood spot could tell you about the baby’s risk of developing certain conditions later in life — some with no method of prevention or cure? (Baumgaertner Nunn, 6/5)

CapRadio: California Lawmakers Want Doctors To Know More About Menopause
Former middle school teacher Lorraine Carter Salazar isn’t easily embarrassed. But when she began having hot flashes at school, she worried about how she came off to coworkers, students and parents. “It doesn't convey competence,” said Carter Salazar, 62. She recounted how parents could tell she was uncomfortable in meetings. One time, a student even fanned her and remarked that she was used to seeing her grandma feeling the same way. (Myscofski, 6/4)

COVERAGE AND ACCESS

The Wall Street Journal: Humana To Back Curbs To Medicare Advantage Billing Practices
Humana, the second-biggest Medicare insurer, has told congressional staffers that it will support moves that would curtail billing practices worth billions in extra payments to the industry, according to staffers and a document viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The stance by a leader in the Medicare Advantage business—in which insurers offer privately run Medicare plans—represents an important development in a growing debate over how the companies are paid in the $460 billion program. (Mathews and Weaver, 6/5)

Fierce Healthcare: GOP Senators Mull Medicare Cuts In Megabill
As senators seek a path forward for President Trump's "big beautiful bill," Medicare cuts are reportedly on the table. Politico reported that Republicans in the Senate are looking at provisions around Medicare as they look to make the bill's math work, and seek to appease the more hawkish wing of the party. The outlet reported that some GOP legislators believe that President Donald Trump would be on board with cuts to Medicare as long as they are within the confines of "fraud, waste and abuse." (Tong and Minemyer, 6/5)

The Hill: Dr. Oz On Medicaid Cuts: People Should ‘Prove That You Matter’
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz defended President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” over criticism that millions of people could lose health coverage, saying those who would face new work requirements should “prove that you matter.” Oz made the comments during an interview Wednesday on Fox Business, arguing that when Medicaid was created in the 1960s lawmakers did not include work requirements because it “never dawned on anybody that able-bodied people who work would be on Medicaid.” (O’Connell-Domenech, 6/5)

Fierce Healthcare: Low-Income Patients See Fewer Claim Denials Reversed: Study
Low-income patients are less likely to see their insurance claim denials reversed, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Toronto found. The new report in Health Affairs analyzed Affordable Care Act marketplace and employer-sponsored insurance claims to find disparities between income, race, education and other demographical features. Researchers concluded low-income patients bear a larger burden for claims denials than higher-income enrollees. (Tong, 6/5)

CAPITOL WATCH

CBS News: Key House Republican Subpoenas Biden's White House Doctor
The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee is demanding that former President Joe Biden's White House physician testify before the panel — ramping up a congressional investigation into Biden's age and health. Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, sent a letter to Dr. Kevin O'Connor on Thursday subpoenaing him to testify at a June 27 deposition. He said the committee wants details about "your assessment of and relationship with former President Biden." (Walsh and Kaplan, 6/5)

AP: Casey Means, Trump's Surgeon General Pick, Profits From Wellness Sales
President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next U.S. surgeon general has repeatedly said the nation’s medical, health and food systems are corrupted by special interests and people out to make a profit at the expense of Americans’ health. Yet as Dr. Casey Means has criticized scientists, medical schools and regulators for taking money from the food and pharmaceutical industries, she has promoted dozens of health and wellness products — including specialty basil seed supplements, a blood testing service and a prepared meal delivery service — in ways that put money in her own pocket. (Smith and Swenson, 6/5)

AP: CDC Leadership 'Crisis' Apparent Amid New COVID-19 Vaccine Guidance
There was a notable absence last week when U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a 58-second video that the government would no longer endorse the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children or pregnant women. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the person who typically signs off on federal vaccine recommendations — was nowhere to be seen. The CDC, a $9.2 billion-a-year agency tasked with reviewing life-saving vaccines, monitoring diseases and watching for budding threats to Americans’ health, is without a clear leader. (Seitz and Stobbe, 6/5)

MedPage Today: Calls For RFK Jr. To Resign Grow Louder
More physicians and researchers are calling for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign. In April, Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, called on Kennedy to "resign or be fired." Since early May, vaccine expert Paul Offit, MD, of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has called for Kennedy to step down at the end of nearly each of his weekly Substack posts. And now, after news broke last week that Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) report cited studies that don't appear to exist, more experts are calling for Kennedy's ouster. (Fiore, 6/5)

The New York Times: Kennedy Says ‘Charlatans’ Are No Reason To Block Unproven Stem Cell Treatments
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently declared that he wanted to expand access to experimental therapies but conceded that they could be risky or fraudulent. In a podcast with Gary Brecka, who describes himself as a longevity expert, Mr. Kennedy vowed to end what he called the Food and Drug Administration’s war with alternative medicine. He said that would include stem cells, vitamins, peptides and chelation therapy, which involves removing heavy metals from the blood. (Jewett, 6/5)

CIDRAP: GAO To HHS: Fix 'Persistent Deficiencies' In Infectious-Disease Testing Before Next Pandemic
The latest report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) makes four recommendations and details nearly 100 ways the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could improve federal diagnostic testing during a public health crisis such as a pandemic. It follows a May 2023 report that noted a lack of progress toward HHS emergency-preparedness goals. (Van Beusekom, 6/5)

The Wall Street Journal: RFK Jr. Hire And Vaccine Opponent David Geier Scours Official Records For Autism Link
An antivaccine activist recently hired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has started hunting for proof that federal officials hid evidence that inoculations cause autism, according to people familiar with the matter. David Geier, a longtime vaccine opponent hired this spring as a contractor in the health department’s financial office, is seeking Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that antivaccine activists, including Kennedy, have alleged was buried because it showed a link between vaccines and autism, the people said. (Essley Whyte and Mosbergen, 6/5)

AP: Pollution Rules Targeted By EPA Are Projected To Save Billions Of Dollars And Thousands Of Lives
When the head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced a wide-ranging rollback of environmental regulations, he said it would put a “dagger through the heart of climate-change religion” and introduce a “Golden Age” for the American economy. What Lee Zeldin didn’t mention: how ending the rules could have devastating consequences to human health. The EPA-targeted rules could prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths and save $275 billion each year they are in effect, according to an Associated Press examination that included the agency’s own prior assessments as well as a wide range of other research. (Borenstein, Wildeman, Walling, Bickel and Daly, 6/6)

Politico: The FTC Takes On Kids Online Safety
The FTC’s three commissioners, all conservatives, want to use the agency’s enforcement authority to hold social media companies accountable for how their platforms affect kids’ mental and physical health. ... said Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson at an agency-led policy workshop Wednesday in Washington, devoted to companies that monetize attention. “But when there are tradeoffs to be made, the Trump administration has made it clear that the health and flourishing of our children is not a bargaining chip,” he said. (Reader, 6/5)

PUBLIC HEALTH

NPR: 'Neglected Tropical Diseases' Could Lose The Drugs That Fight Them
For close to two decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development has partnered with countries around the world to combat neglected tropical diseases, or NTDs. The term refers to a group of diseases that affect more than a billion people, causing severe pain, disfigurement, disability and in some cases death. They're referred to as "neglected" because they disproportionately affect populations living in extreme poverty and thus don't attract investment from the pharmaceutical industry. (Adams, 6/5)

CBS News: Mosquitoes In 2 Illinois Counties Test Positive For West Nile Virus
The DuPage County and McHenry County health departments confirmed that mosquitoes tested positive for West Nile virus for the first time this year. The mosquitoes tested in McHenry County for the virus were found in Lake in the Hills. DuPage County health officials tested mosquitoes from Roselle, Medinah, Clarendon Hills, and Burr Ridge in May. While the mosquitoes tested positive in both counties, no human cases of West Nile virus have been reported in either county. (Kaufman, 6/5)

CBS News: Mosquito Population Surges In North Texas After Wet Spring, Experts Warn
Mosquito season is North Texas is officially here, and experts predict it will only get worse thanks to the unusually wet spring. All the rain has created the perfect conditions for mosquitoes to breed and multiply. "They're horrible this year, in my opinion," said a woman out enjoying Trinity Park in Fort Worth. "So yeah, we get bit." Raye Chisholm, the general manager of Mosquito Squad of Fort Worth, said this season's weather is fueling a boom in mosquito activity. (Vandergriff, 6/5)

Military.Com: Cancer Risk At Air Force Missiles Sites Low 'But Not Zero,' Latest Service Data Shows
Airmen who watched over America's nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles in Cold War-era facilities faced marginally higher risk of cancer due to contaminants found there and more workplace oversight is needed, according to the latest findings of an Air Force health study. Air Force Global Strike Command, during a town hall event Wednesday, released the latest data showing the slightly elevated cancer risk as part of its ongoing probe into health concerns for America's missileers, maintainers and other support roles at several bases in the Midwest and Western U.S. (Novelly, 6/5)

SCIENCE AND INNOVATIONS

The Guardian: Millions In West Do Not Know They Have Aggressive Fatty Liver Disease, Study Says
More than 15 million people in the US, UK, Germany and France do not know they have the most aggressive form of fatty liver disease, according to research. Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) – the formal name for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease – occurs in people who drink no or minimal amounts of alcohol whose liver contains more than 5% fat. (Bawden, 6/5)

The Hill: Drinking Coffee Daily Tied To Healthy Aging Among Women, Study Finds
A study presented at the American Society for Nutrition Monday suggests that an eye-opening cup of java may also have long-term health benefits for women. “Our study has several key strengths,” said Sara Mahdavi, lead researcher and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, in a press release. “In addition to the large sample size and 30 years of follow-up, we assessed several different aspects of longevity and healthy aging as well as very comprehensive information on nutritional and lifestyle habits that were collected every four years after the initiation of the study.” (Tanner, 6/5)

MedPage Today: Semaglutide Linked To Age-Related Macular Degeneration Risk
Older adults taking GLP-1 receptor agonists, primarily semaglutide (Rybelsus, Ozempic, Wegovy), had a small uptick in their risk of developing neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD), according to a retrospective, population-based cohort study from Canada. Patients taking GLP-1 agonists for type 2 diabetes for at least 6 months had an excess risk of nAMD compared with matched non-users over 3 years of follow-up (adjusted HR 2.21, 95% CI 1.65-2.96), reported Reut Shor, MD, of the University of Toronto, and colleagues in JAMA Ophthalmology. (Dotinga, 6/5)

Fox News: Ozempic Users Report Strange Attraction To Sweet Perfumes As Side Effect
While Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs have been shown to have myriad benefits, they can also present some unwelcome effects, primarily nausea, vomiting and other gastrointestinal symptoms. Some are also reporting changes in their sense of smell — sometimes referred to as "Ozempic smell" — as one of the lesser-known side effects of GLP-1 medications. (Quill, 6/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: How Stanford Mini-Heart Breakthrough Could Change Medical Research
Stanford scientists have solved a key conundrum in keeping organoids — lab-grown clusters of cells that resemble human organs — alive. These mini-brains and mini-hearts mimic human organs and enable scientists to investigate developmental processes, human diseases and drug therapies. But the assemblages have typically lacked blood vessels, which limits their growth. But no longer: In a study published on Thursday in Science, Stanford researchers were able to create heart organoids with branching blood vessels. The breakthrough opens up possibilities for future medical developments. (Lee, 6/5)

Becker's Hospital Review: Coronary Artery Build-Up Linked To High-Volume Exercise: What Cardiologists Need To Know
Male athletes who exercised more than 3,000 metabolic equivalents of task-minutes per week had a higher likelihood of experiencing subclinical coronary atherosclerosis, according to a study published June 4 in JACC: Advances. One of the study’s authors, Leandro Slipczuk, MD, PhD, section head of clinical cardiology, director of advanced cardiac imaging and director of the Cardiovascular Atherosclerosis and Lipid Disorder Center at New York City-based Montefiore Einstein Health System, shared with Becker’s what cardiologists need to know about the study’s findings. (Gregerson, 6/5)

The Wall Street Journal: A New Shot Prevents HIV—And Breathes New Life Into A Stagnant Biotech
Later this month, the Food and Drug Administration is widely expected to approve a groundbreaking twice-yearly injection to prevent HIV—a milestone in the decadeslong fight against a once-devastating disease. For Gilead Sciences, the dominant player in HIV treatment, the breakthrough is doing what years of splashy but underwhelming acquisitions failed to achieve: It has Wall Street paying attention again. Since reporting last June that just two annual shots of lenacapavir prevented all HIV infections in a study of women and girls, shares have surged 73%. (Wainer, 6/5)

The Washington Post: Robert Holton, Who Helped Develop A Potent Cancer Drug, Dies At 81
Robert Holton, a chemist who helped develop an easier, cost-efficient way to produce the blockbuster cancer drug Taxol, paving the way for large-scale production of a medication that has been used to treat hundreds of thousands of patients, died May 21 at his home in Tallahassee. He was 81. The cause was emphysema, said his son Robert L. Holton. (Smith, 6/5)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Modern Healthcare: JAMA Publications Sign Content Deal With OpenEvidence
The American Medical Association signed a multi-year agreement with an artificial intelligence clinical decision support company, allowing the startup to use content from AMA’s publications. The Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Network Open and 11 JAMA specialty journals, will inform answers delivered on AI startup OpenEvidence's platform, the companies said on Tuesday. OpenEvidence has developed an AI search tool that allows clinicians to input details about a patient’s clinical presentation into its search bar. (Turner, 6/5)

NBC News: ‘Ghost Networks' Are Harming Patients, But Attempts To Eliminate Them Have Fallen Short
By prolonging the search for a provider, ghost networks can delay patients’ ability to get diagnosed and treated, or cause them to forgo care altogether. But regulatory efforts to force insurance companies to update their directories or penalize them for inaccurate provider information have fallen short, prompting some patients to turn to the courts. (Bendix, Herzberg and Nguyen, 6/5)

Modern Healthcare: Hospital Specialty Pharmacies Work To Address Drug Shortages
High manufacturing costs could limit the federal government's efforts to increase pharmaceutical production across the U.S. An aging population with increasingly complex medical conditions is driving pharmaceutical growth. Health systems aim to capitalize on that expanding sector through in-house pharmacies, which executives say will help increase medication adherence, reduce hospital admissions, improve access to care and diversify revenue — if they can overcome cost barriers. (Kacik, 6/5)

CBS News: Former Crozer Health System Employees Struggle To Access Unemployment Benefits
More than a month after the Crozer Health system collapsed, some laid-off employees are struggling to get the unemployment benefits they're entitled to. ... A total of 2,651 employees were laid off when Taylor Hospital shut down on April 26 and Crozer Chester Medical Center permanently closed on May 2. Julia Simon-Mishel, supervising attorney at Philadelphia Legal Assistance, said many people face challenges when trying to access unemployment benefits. (Wright, 6/5)

North Carolina Health News: State Health Plan Considers Legal Action Against CVS Caremark
The health plan that covers some 750,000 current and former state employees and their families has hit a stone wall in negotiations with its pharmacy benefit manager, CVS Caremark, and is pondering legal action against the company, the Office of the State Treasurer announced on June 5. The company owes the state tens of millions of dollars and is trying to rewrite their contract to get out of having to pay it back, State Treasurer Brad Briner claimed in an exclusive interview with NC Health News. (Vitaglione, 6/6)

STATE WATCH

Bloomberg: Celebrity Deepfakes Supercharged Florida Health-Care Hustle
The ads were deceptive, but they weren’t trying to con people out of their money—at least not directly. The goal was to sign them up for actual government-subsidized health-insurance plans, whether they wanted them or not. People responding to the ads were routed through a network of middlemen to call centers, many of them in South Florida. Telemarketers there would wave off questions about cash giveaways and sign up customers for health insurance instead, sometimes without their knowledge. (Faux and Mider, 6/5)

CBS News: Chicago Air Quality Alert Extended Through Friday As Canada Wildfire Smoke Pushes AQI To Unhealthy Levels 
An Air Quality Alert for Chicago and the suburbs has been extended through Friday as smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to blanket the area and push the AQI into red levels. The National Weather Service has extended its alert for McHenry, Lake, Kane, DuPage, Kendall, Grundy, Cook and Will counties through Friday, June 6. At times on Thursday morning, Chicago ranked second-worst in air quality around the world, right behind Dakar, Senegal, according to IQ Air. (Rezaei and Molina, 6/5)

CBS News: Emergency Room Visits For Nitrous Oxide Misuse Surge 757% Over 4 Years In Michigan
Michigan health officials are reporting a dramatic increase in emergency medical incidents relating to the recreational use of nitrous oxide, also known as "laughing gas." The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services related the circumstances in a press release issued Wednesday. Specifically, calls to the Michigan Poison and Drug Information Center involving recreational nitrous oxide use and its adverse health effects increased by 533% from 2019 to 2024. (Wethington, 6/5)

CBS News: Denver Mental Health Program Contributes To Significant Decrease In Overdoses, Jail Bookings
A Denver mental health program for the community's most vulnerable members is sharing its success. That program is called Transforming Health by Reducing Inequities for the Vulnerable (THRIVE). The program helped nearly twice as many people in the first year as it had anticipated. In year two, the program has expanded to have an even greater impact on communities that battle with addiction, homelessness or dealing with the justice system. (Susel, 6/5)

CBS News: Maryland Could See A Spike In Health Insurance Costs In 2026
Thousands of Maryland residents who buy health insurance from the state could see an 18% spike in their premiums in 2026. The Maryland Insurance Administration announced the proposed increases from healthcare providers on Tuesday, June 4. (Eber, 6/5)

Modern Healthcare: Nebraska Rural Hospitals Form Clinically Integrated Network
Nineteen critical access hospitals in Nebraska have formed a clinically integrated network, the third coalition of its kind created over the past three months. The Nebraska High Value Network aims to give rural hospitals the scale to lower costs, invest in new technology, improve treatment and expand value-based contracts while remaining independent. The network, announced Thursday, follows similar alliances in Montana, Ohio, Minnesota and North Dakota. (Kacik, 6/5)