First Edition: Friday, May 23, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Trump’s Team Cited Safety In Limiting Covid Shots. Patients, Health Advocates See More Risk
Larry Saltzman has blood cancer. He’s also a retired doctor, so he knows getting covid-19 could be dangerous for him — his underlying illness puts him at high risk of serious complications and death. To avoid getting sick, he stays away from large gatherings, and he’s comforted knowing healthy people who get boosters protect him by reducing his exposure to the virus. (Armour, 5/23)

KFF Health News: Republicans Aim To Punish States That Insure Unauthorized Immigrants
President Donald Trump’s signature budget legislation would punish 14 states that offer health coverage to people in the U.S. without authorization. The states, most of them Democratic-led, provide insurance to some low-income immigrants — often children — regardless of their legal status. Advocates argue the policy is both humane and ultimately cost-saving. (Galewitz and Mai-Duc, 5/23)

KFF Health News: Volunteers Help Tornado-Hit St. Louis Amid Wait For Federal Aid
Kevin Hines has been living in a house without a roof in the days since a tornado devastated his community. He has seen some of his neighbors sleeping in their cars. A different man has spent untold hours on a bench. In the aftermath of the May 16 tornado, Hines, 60, has a blue tarp covering his home. Still, rain came in three days later — an expected problem in a house without a roof. But he didn’t think wildlife would be an issue. Then a bird landed on his television. He spotted a squirrel on the sofa. (Anthony and Sable-Smith, 5/22)

COVID-19

MedPage Today: FDA Panel Recommends Monovalent COVID Vaccine For Next Season
An FDA advisory committee unanimously recommended Thursday that the next COVID vaccine should be a monovalent one in the JN.1 lineage, although members disagreed slightly about which specific strain should be included. "I'm probably more aligned with the European recommendations," Hayley Gans, MD, clinical professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Stanford Medicine Children's Health in Palo Alto, California, said after the 9-0 vote in favor of a monovalent vaccine. (Frieden, 5/22)

CIDRAP: Vaccine Integrity Project Says New FDA Rules On COVID-19 Vaccines Show Lack Of Consensus, Clarity
Yesterday the Vaccine Integrity Project (VIP), a panel of leading public health and policy experts, published a viewpoint on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) decision this week to issue new, more restrictive, COVID-19 vaccine recommendations via an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). (Soucheray, 5/22)

CBS News: U.S. Reports Cases Of New COVID Variant NB.1.8.1 Behind Surge In China
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's airport screening program has detected multiple cases of the new COVID-19 variant NB.1.8.1, which has been linked to a large surge of the virus in China. Cases linked to the NB.1.8.1 variant have been reported in arriving international travelers at airports in California, Washington state, Virginia and the New York City area, according to records uploaded by the CDC's airport testing partner Ginkgo Bioworks. (Tin, 5/22)

MedPage Today: FDA Chief Defends Job Cuts, COVID Booster Policy At Senate Hearing
Seven weeks into his job as FDA commissioner, Marty Makary, MD, MPH, held his own answering a barrage of sometimes acrimonious questions from Senators about agency staffing cuts, limits on COVID boosters, and more. He had been asked by a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee to explain -- or defend -- the Trump administration's fiscal 2026 budget request, which some committee members complained they hadn't yet seen. (Clark, 5/22)

'MAHA' AND RFK JR.

The Hill: Donald Trump: Autism ‘Has To Be Artificially Induced’
President Trump said Thursday that autism must not occur naturally, citing figures inflating the spike in autism and suggesting the administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission could provide answers. “When you hear 10,000, it was 1 in 10,000, and now it’s 1 in 31 for autism, I think that’s just a terrible thing. It has to be something on the outside, has to be artificially induced, has to be,” Trump said at a MAHA Commission event. (Gangitano, 5/22)

MEDICAID AND THE GOP 'MEGABILL'

Modern Healthcare: What The 'One Big Beautiful Bill' Cuts From Healthcare
The House passed a sweeping tax-and-spending cuts bill Thursday that would dramatically reshape the healthcare system by slashing more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and other programs. The majority Republican lower chamber voted 215-214 to approve the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 just before 7 a.m. EDT after an all-night floor debate. Attention now shifts the GOP-led Senate, which has not commenced public debate on its tax measure. Congress is scheduled to begin a recess Friday and will return to Washington on June 2. (McAuliff, 5/22)

Chicago Tribune: House Bill Aims To End Medicaid Coverage Of Gender-Affirming Care
In addition to cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, a massive bill passed by the House on Thursday would also prohibit the health insurance program from covering gender-affirming care — a provision that’s at odds with Illinois’ current practice. The provision is a result of a last-minute change to the bill before its passage out of the Republican-controlled House early Thursday morning. (Schencker, 5/22)

The Hill: Trump Predicts Drug Prices Will ‘Drop Like A Rock’ After New Executive Order
President Trump on Thursday claimed his recent “most favored nation” executive order could cause U.S. drug prices to “drop like a rock” in just a matter of weeks, saying the savings will be “incalculable.” In a briefing to discuss the newly released Make America Healthy Again Commission’s report on children’s health, Trump ended the event by talking about the executive order he signed last week aimed at slashing prescription drug prices. (Choi, 5/22)

Modern Healthcare: GOP Senators Promise Changes To Medicaid Cuts In Tax Bill
Deep cuts to Medicaid and other healthcare programs the House passed Thursday are unlikely to survive Senate debate intact, key Republicans said. The House approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 by a single vote, and the internal GOP fight in the Senate is likely to be just as hard to resolve as it was in the lower chamber. Hard-line conservatives and swing-state senators are already facing off in a battle to change the House measure. (McAuliff, 5/22)

CAPITOL WATCH

Politico: The Mystery Of Trump's Science Cuts
What’s really behind the Trump administration’s massive cutbacks in research funding? Since January, agency after agency has seen massive spending cuts — adding up to a historic slashing of the globally dominant American research apparatus. The White House’s proposed budget would cut National Science Foundation funding by more than half. A Senate minority staff report cited a $2.7 billion drop in funding commitments to the National Institutes of Health through March compared to last year. (Robertson, 5/22)

Bloomberg: MIT Cuts Graduate Student Slots By 8% As Trump Funding Cuts Weigh On Budget
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is enrolling fewer graduate students in its vaunted research programs and laying off employees as the Trump administration’s squeeze on universities muddles its financial outlook. President Donald Trump has slashed funding and reimbursements made through the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies, key sources of support for research-oriented universities like MIT. The school also faces significantly steeper taxes on its endowment under legislation that passed the US House of Representatives. (Ryan, 5/22)

Bloomberg: Harvard’s Foreign Students Are Stunned And Devastated By Trump’s Ban
Marie Chantel Montas, a third-year Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University from the Dominican Republic, was on a road trip with her husband when she got the news: The Trump administration had blocked her school from enrolling international students, while current ones would have to transfer. With two more years before she gets her degree in population health sciences, Montas has no idea what her future holds. (Maglione and Ballentine, 5/23)

Stat: How Trump’s 'Schedule F' Plan Risks Politicizing NIH Research 
Since taking office, President Trump has vowed to dismantle what he calls the “deep state” and “fire rogue bureaucrats.” His latest attempt to do so has garnered widespread pushback from scientists over concerns that the move will politicize decisions about federal funding for research on a scale never before seen in the U.S. (Oza and Molteni, 5/23)

MedPage Today: Reinstated NIOSH Workers Still Don't Feel Secure
In the wake of sweeping workforce cuts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), leaders from unions representing many of the affected employees descended upon Washington, D.C. on Thursday. American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) locals rallied outside HHS headquarters to "protest the Trump administration's attempts to gut the federal agency that helps prevent employee injuries, illnesses, and deaths at workplaces nationwide," AFGE said in an announcement. (Henderson, 5/22)

Modern Healthcare: ACO REACH Gets Risk Adjustment, Benchmark Updates From CMS
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will revise a popular Medicare accountable care organization as new evidence indicates the program is saving more money. CMS is updating financial benchmarks and risk-adjustment formulas for ACO Realizing Equity, Access and Community Health, or ACO REACH, the agency revealed in an update to its website Wednesday. These changes are prompted by a preliminary report showing gross savings are rising even though the alternative payment model remains costlier than the standard Medicare payment system. (Early, 5/22)

Becker's Hospital Review: CMS Updates Hospital Price Transparency Guidance Following Executive Order
CMS updated its hospital price transparency guidance May 22, requiring hospitals to post the actual prices of items and services, not estimates. The update comes after President Donald Trump issued an executive order Feb. 25 aimed at boosting healthcare price transparency. In the updated guidance, CMS said hospitals must display payer-specific standard charges as dollar amounts in their machine-readable files (MRFs) whenever calculable. This includes the amount negotiated for the item or service, the base rate negotiated for a service package and a dollar amount if the standard charge is based on a percentage of a known fee schedule. (Cass, 5/22)

PUBLIC HEALTH

Politico: Trump Undermined Biden’s FEMA In North Carolina. Now The Cleanup Is Lagging On His Watch
Brandon Rogers fielded calls from as far away as Australia as his community strained to recover from the worst natural disaster ever to hit his slice of western North Carolina. Texts poured in by the hundreds. The influx kept the Haywood County commissioner and his staff busy as they coordinated an unimaginable humanitarian recovery. (Colman, 5/22)

CBS News: Deaths From Alcohol-Related Cancers Doubled From 1990 To 2021, Study Finds
New research is showing just how much alcohol has impacted cancer mortality rates in the past three decades. In the analysis, released Thursday ahead of being presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2025 conference in Chicago, researchers found alcohol-associated cancer deaths in the United States doubled from 1990 to 2021, rising from 11,896 to 23,207. The authors also found mortality rates were significantly higher in males and those above age 55. On a state level, the analysis found Washington, D.C., had the highest alcohol-related mortality rate across both sexes, while Utah had the lowest. (Moniuszko, 5/22)

The Colorado Sun: Measles Cases Went Through DIA, Hotel And Pueblo, State Says
Coloradans’ potential exposure to measles grew rapidly in recent days with a confirmed traveler’s case coming through Denver International Airport and a nearby hotel, as well as a different case with an out-of-state driver staying at a hotel in Pueblo hotel, state officials said. (5/22) 

SCIENCE AND INNOVATIONS

Fortune Well: Beer Is The Latest Source Of Hazardous PFAS, Or 'Forever Chemicals'
“Forever chemicals,” or PFAS—the group of more than 9,000 potentially hazardous synthetic compounds linked to cancer and other health problems—have been found lurking in everything from non-stick pans and candy to butter and processed meats. Oh—and in about half of tap water systems nationwide. So why should your favorite brewski be immune? After testing beers brewed in different areas of the country, researchers with the American Chemical Society have discovered the highest levels of polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in those from regions with known PFAS-contaminated water sources. (Greenfield, 5/22)

Stat: Early Merus Drug Data Show Survival Boost In Head And Neck Cancer 
Merus said Thursday that a combination of its experimental drug petosemtamab with the checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda has kept 79% of patients with newly diagnosed metastatic head and cancer alive for at least one year, according to a new analysis of a mid-stage clinical trial. (Feuerstein, 5/22)

MedPage Today: Study Links GLP-1 Drugs To Lower Cancer Risk
In patients with type 2 diabetes and obesity, use of GLP-1 receptor agonists was associated with a lower risk of obesity-related cancers and death from any cause, a target trial emulation study found. (Ingram, 5/22)

The Hill: Taurine, Common Ingredient In Food, Linked To Leukemia Growth
A recent study links taurine, an amino acid made by the body and an ingredient found in several types of food, to the growth of blood and bone marrow cancers like leukemia. The research team, headed by Jeevisha Bajaj at the University of Rochester’s Wilmot Cancer Institute, discovered that taurine is made by certain normal cells in the bone marrow, which is where myeloid cancers start and grow. Because leukemia cells cannot produce taurine on their own, they depend on other genes to obtain it and transport it to the cancer cells. (Battaglia, 5/22)

CIDRAP: Tool Predicts Progression To Severe Pneumonia In Kids
A new model developed through the international Pediatric Emergency Research Network (PERN) creates a predictive tool that will help clinicians decide if a child's pneumonia warrants hospitalization or intensive care, according to new findings in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health. (Soucheray, 5/22)

Politico: Organ-Chips Not Ready To Replace Animal Studies
One of the cutting-edge technologies the Food and Drug Administration wants to use to replace animal studies might not be ready for a solo performance. Organ-on-a-chip technology, which uses human cells on microfluidic chips to mimic the structure and function of organs in a laboratory setting, can’t yet replace animal tests, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. Standing in the way: Challenges include cost, availability of materials, a time-intensive process and the need for highly trained staff to operate the technology. (Reader, 5/22)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Stat: Ro, LifeMD Promote Novo Nordisk GLP-1 Drug Wegovy At Discount
Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have waged war on telehealth companies marketing compounded versions of their blockbuster diabetes and obesity medications. With shortages of the branded drugs declared over, and the window for compounding copies closed, though, some virtual care companies are emerging as unlikely allies. (Palmer, 5/23)

The New York Times: Ex-McKinsey Partner Sentenced In Obstruction Case
A former senior partner at McKinsey & Company was sentenced on Thursday to six months in prison for destroying records that shed light on the firm’s role in the national opioid crisis. The partner, Martin Elling, 60, had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice as part of a federal case against the firm and its efforts to “turbocharge” sales of OxyContin during an overdose epidemic that had already killed hundreds of thousands of people. McKinsey agreed to pay $650 million to end that investigation last December. (Forsythe, 5/22)

Becker's Hospital Review: 5-Day Strike Set At UnityPoint Hospital
UnityPoint Health–Meriter in Madison, Wis., is preparing for a five-day strike beginning May 27 by union nurses. Service Employees International Union Wisconsin represents nearly 935 registered nurses at the hospital, which is part of a joint operating agreement between UnityPoint Health and Madison-based UW Health. West Des Moines, Iowa-based UnityPoint Health employs more than 29,000 workers total across three states. Union members issued a 10-day strike notice May 9, according to the Wisconsin Examiner. (Gooch, 5/21)

Modern Healthcare: Fractional CFOs Gain Popularity With The Healthcare Sector
Healthcare companies are seeking a more adaptable option for financial expertise without the burden of funding a full-time executive. These executives, called fractional chief financial officers, can provide certain companies with top-tier financial leadership on a part-time basis to help navigate a swath of operational challenges including rising prices, staff burnout and federal policy shifts. (Hudson, 5/22)

STATE WATCH

San Francisco Chronicle: Language Service Cutbacks Raise Fear Of Medical Errors, Deaths
Health nonprofits and medical interpreters warn that federal cuts have eliminated dozens of positions in California for community workers who help non-English speakers sign up for insurance coverage and navigate the health care system. At the same time, people with limited English proficiency have scaled back their requests for language services, which health care advocates attribute in part to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and his executive order declaring English as the national language. (Sanchez and Orozco Rodriguez, 5/22)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Bill Requires Health Records List Sex Assigned At Birth 
The Texas House on Thursday approved a bill requiring health agencies to create a new field in medical records for the sex assigned at birth of patients and strict oversight and punishment of health care providers who change records. (Runnels, 5/22)

AP: Reproductive Rights Advocates Sue Arizona Over Laws Regulating Abortion
Reproductive rights advocates sued Arizona on Thursday to unravel several laws regulating abortion in the state. The lawsuit was filed by two providers in the state and the Arizona Medical Association. It comes more than six months after voters enshrined in the state constitution access to abortions up to fetal viability, which is the point at which a fetus can survive outside of the uterus. The advocates are seeking to undo laws including those that bar abortions sought based on genetic abnormalities, require informed consent in-person at least 24 hours before the procedure and offer an opportunity to view the ultrasound, and prohibit abortion medication delivered by mail and the use of tele-health for abortion care. (Govindarao, 5/23)