First Edition: Friday, May 9, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Trump Team Faces Key Legal Decision That Could Put Mental Health Parity In Peril
The Trump administration must soon make a decision that will affect millions of Americans’ ability to access and afford mental health and addiction care. The administration is facing a May 12 deadline to declare if it will defend Biden-era regulations that aim to enforce mental health parity — the idea that insurers must cover mental illness and addiction treatment comparably to physical treatments for ailments such as cancer or high blood pressure. (Pattani, 5/9)

KFF Health News: Honey, Sweetie, Dearie: The Perils Of Elderspeak
A prime example of elderspeak: Cindy Smith was visiting her father in his assisted living apartment in Roseville, California. An aide who was trying to induce him to do something —  Smith no longer remembers exactly what — said, “Let me help you, sweetheart.” “He just gave her The Look — under his bushy eyebrows — and said, ‘What, are we getting married?’” recalled Smith, who had a good laugh, she said. Her father was then 92, a retired county planner and a World War II veteran; macular degeneration had reduced the quality of his vision, and he used a walker to get around, but he remained cognitively sharp. (Span, 5/9)

KFF Health News: A California Lawmaker Leans Into Her Medical Training In Fight For Health Safety Net
State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson anticipates that California’s sprawling Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, may need to be dialed back after Gov. Gavin Newsom releases his latest budget, which could reflect a multibillion-dollar deficit. Even so, the physician-turned-lawmaker, who was elected to the state Senate in November, says her priorities as chair of a budget health subcommittee include preserving coverage for the state’s most vulnerable, particularly children and people with chronic health conditions. (Mai-Duc, 5/9)

KFF Health News: Sen. Ron Wyden Seeks Answers On RFK Jr.’s Purge Of FOIA Staff
The Department of Health and Human Services’ mass dismissals of workers who release government records “raise grave transparency, accountability, and privacy concerns,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said Thursday. In a May 8 letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. provided exclusively to KFF Health News, Wyden, the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, wrote that “it is hard to square your commitment to radical transparency” with HHS’ firing of workers who handled Freedom of Information Act requests. (Pradhan, 5/8)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: Cutting Medicaid Is Hard — Even For The GOP
After narrowly passing a budget resolution this spring foreshadowing major Medicaid cuts, Republicans in Congress are having trouble agreeing on specific ways to save billions of dollars from a pool of funding that pays for the program without cutting benefits on which millions of Americans rely. Moderates resist changes they say would harm their constituents, while fiscal conservatives say they won’t vote for smaller cuts than those called for in the budget resolution. (Rovner, 5/8)

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

MedPage Today: Trump's HHS Deputy Secretary Pick Breezes Through Senate Hearing
James O'Neill -- President Donald Trump's pick for the No. 2 spot at HHS under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. -- faced questions on vaccine mandates, HHS cuts, and even the hiring of David Geier to lead a new agency study on vaccines and autism, but emerged from a Senate committee hearing on his nomination relatively unscathed. O'Neill was supposed to field questions from the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on Thursday morning alongside Janette Nesheiwat, MD, Trump's previous pick for Surgeon General. However, O'Neill faced the committee alone after Nesheiwat's nomination was pulled hours before the hearing. (Henderson, 5/8)

Politico: RFK Jr. Set To Name New Top HHS Spokesman
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to tap Rich Danker as the department’s new top spokesman, three people familiar with the decision told POLITICO. The selection comes two months after Kennedy’s first assistant secretary for public affairs, Tom Corry, abruptly quit just days into his tenure over disagreements with Kennedy’s senior team and Kennedy’s handling of the measles outbreak. (Cancryn, 5/8)

Politico: The MAGA Backlash To Trump’s MAHA Surgeon General Pick
President Donald Trump’s new pick for surgeon general — wellness influencer Casey Means — is already the target of MAGA vitriol, underscoring a split inside the president’s base over the future of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement. Trump’s decision to select Means came just hours after news broke about his decision to withdraw Janette Nesheiwat, a former Fox News contributor, for the post. (Gardner, 5/8)

The Hill: Kennedy Blasts Critics Of Trump’s Surgeon General Nominee: ‘Terrified Of Change’
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday issued an unrelenting defense of President Trump’s surgeon general nominee, Casey Means, who has faced an onslaught of criticism since the president tapped her for the influential government post late Wednesday. In a post on the social platform X on Thursday, Kennedy chastised her critics — which have included some high-profile conservative influencers including Laura Loomer, who called the pick “honestly insane” and suggested Trump did not make the decision himself. (Fortinsky, 5/8)

CBS News: HHS To Withhold Some Bonus Pay Earned By Laid-Off Employees
The Department of Health and Human Services has decided to effectively block the payout of overdue bonuses to many of its laid-off employees, multiple health officials say. The bonuses were tied to high performance by the workers last year, before they were cut from the department. "If the savings from the layoffs were pennies from the HHS budget, this is hundredths of a penny," one current federal health agency employee said of the move. (Tin, 5/8)

Stat: Trump-Ordered NIH Contract Terminations Cut Deep 
Jay Tischfield prides himself on his long track record of cellular custodianship. As the founding director of the Human Genetics Institute of New Jersey at Rutgers University, he maintains one of the largest university-based DNA banks in the world — much of it, on behalf of the U.S. government. Starting about three decades ago, the National Institutes of Health began outsourcing the storage and distribution of samples from several nationwide studies to Tischfield and his network of finely tuned freezers. (Molteni and Mast, 5/9) 

CBS News: Trump Administration Cuts To AmeriCorps Causing "Damage And Chaos," Groups Say
Approximately half of the AmeriCorps programs terminated in a controversial decision by the Trump Administration are projects that serve states and communities President Trump won in the 2024 election, according to a review of the list of terminated AmeriCorps grant programs. CBS News has obtained the list of more than 1,000 Americorps grant programs terminated in recent weeks by the Administration. (MacFarlane, 5/8)

The New York Times: Migrants Are Skipping Medical Care, Fearing ICE, Doctors Say
A man lay on a New York City sidewalk with a gun shot wound, clutching his side. Emily Borghard, a social worker who hands out supplies to the homeless through her nonprofit, found him and pulled out her phone, preparing to dial 911. But the man begged her not to make the call, she said. “No, no, no,” he said, telling her in Spanish that he would be deported. Ms. Borghard tried to explain that federal law required hospitals to treat him, regardless of his immigration status, but he was terrified. (Baumgaertner Nunn, Agrawal and Silver-Greenberg, 5/8)

AP: Suit Challenges New Rules On Children In Federal Custody Who Crossed Into US
Two advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit Thursday asking the courts to halt new Trump Administration vetting procedures for reuniting children who crossed into the U.S. without their parents, saying the changes are keeping families separated longer and are inhumane. The lawsuit was filed by the National Center for Youth Law and Democracy Forward in federal court in the District of Columbia. It names the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its Office of Refugee Resettlement and seeks a return to prior reunification procedures. (Gonzalez, 5/8)

AP: Reports Of Trump Deportation Plans Highlight Abuse Of Migrants In Libya
Reports of plans to deport migrants from the U.S. to Libya, a country with a documented history of serious human rights violations and abuse of migrants, have spotlighted the difficulties they face in the lawless North African nation. Migrants in Libya are routinely arbitrarily detained and placed in squalid detention centers where they are subjected to extortion, abuse, rape and killings. (Brito and Khaled, 5/8)

AP: US Says It Will Reduce Health Aid To Zambia Because Medicines Were Stolen And Sold
The United States will cut $50 million worth of medical aid a year to Zambia because of “systematic” theft of the aid in past years and the government’s failure to crack down on that, the U.S. ambassador said Thursday. The U.S. had discovered in 2021 that medicines and medical supplies that were meant to be provided free to Zambians had been taken and were being sold by pharmacies across the southern African country, U.S. Ambassador to Zambia Michael Gonzales said at a press briefing. (Sichalwe, 5/8)

Bloomberg: South Africa Says AIDS Drugs Available Despite US Funding Cut
South Africa’s government said its HIV-AIDS treatment program is fully funded for the current financial year despite the withdrawal of support from the US, and all patients should continue to receive their medication. About 7.8 million South Africans, or almost 13% of the population, live with the virus that causes AIDS — the world’s biggest HIV epidemic. About 17% of the funding for the country’s HIV-AIDS program has come from America’s Presidential Emergency Funding for Aids Relief, or Pepfar, but President Donald Trump suspended that program in January, meaning 7.5 billion rand ($414 million) needs to be found to plug the gap. (Vecchiatto, 5/8)

Los Angeles Times: Aid Group Closes Soup Kitchens Across Gaza Due To Dwindling Supplies
Israel’s ongoing blockade of humanitarian assistance for Gaza forced a leading aid group to shut its community soup kitchens Thursday as it faced empty warehouses and no replenishment of supplies in the war-battered enclave. U.S.-based World Central Kitchen, which was serving 133,000 meals per day, said there is almost no food left in Gaza with which to cook. (Shurafa and Chehayeb, 5/8)

The New York Times: Bill Gates Accuses Elon Musk Of ‘Killing Children’ By Cutting Foreign Aid 
In his sharpest rebuke of the world’s richest man, a distinction he once held, Bill Gates accused Elon Musk at least twice in the past week of “killing” children in the world’s poorest countries by cutting foreign aid under the Trump administration. He said that Mr. Musk bore responsibility for gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development, a decision that Mr. Gates argued had undermined decades of progress fighting diseases such as measles, H.I.V. and polio. (Vigdor, 5/8)

Bloomberg: Bill Gates’ Charity Vows To Give Away 99% Of His Fortune By 2045
The Gates Foundation plans to give away $200 billion over the next 20 years before shutting down entirely in 2045, marking a new deadline for one of history’s largest and most influential charities. That target would represent a doubling in spending for the nonprofit, which has disbursed more than $100 billion since it was co-founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates in 2000. Originally, the foundation was set to close 20 years after the Microsoft Corp. co-founder’s death. (Nix, Furlong and Alexander, 5/8)

MEDICAID AND MEDICARE

The Washington Post: Trump Tells Congress To Raise Taxes On The Rich In Budget Bill
President Donald Trump instructed congressional Republicans this week to raise taxes on the wealthiest earners as part of his “big, beautiful bill,” rattling his party’s brittle consensus on economic issues and muddling the GOP’s path toward enacting his campaign promises. ... House GOP leaders in recent days have ruled out certain cuts to social safety net programs that the GOP had earlier targeted to meet budget goals. Speaker Mike Johnson said the House would not cut the amount states receive to fund Medicaid, and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) told The Washington Post that his committee would not rescind federal anti-poverty food assistance money. Hard-liners had been eyeing both of those areas as potential sources of savings. (Bogage and Stein, 5/8)

Bloomberg: GOP Eyes Pharma Tax Hike, Nixing Drug Price Deal For Trump Bill
House Republicans are considering nixing a Medicaid drug pricing plan floated by President Donald Trump and fiercely opposed by the pharmaceutical industry as the party pushes to strike a massive tax and spending deal in the coming days. But drugmakers may not be totally off the hook. (Cohrs Zhang, 5/8)

LGBTQ+ HEALTH

AP: Transgender Troops Being Moved Out Of The Military Under New Pentagon Order
The Pentagon will immediately begin moving as many as 1,000 openly identifying transgender service members out of the military and give others 30 days to self-identify under a new directive issued Thursday. Buoyed by Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to enforce a ban on transgender individuals in the military, the Defense Department will begin going through medical records to identify others who haven’t come forward. (Baldor, 5/8)

PUBLIC HEALTH

AP: US Infant Mortality Dropped In 2024. Experts Partly Credit RSV Shots
The nation’s infant mortality rate dropped last year after two years of hovering at a late-pandemic plateau. Some experts think one reason for the drop could be a vaccination campaign against RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which is a common cause of cold-like symptoms that can be dangerous for infants. The infant mortality national rate dropped to about 5.5 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2024, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted Thursday. That’s down from about 5.6 per 1,000 live births, where it had been the previous two years. (Stobbe, 5/8)

AP: Cancer Before Age 50 Is Increasing. A New Study Looks At Which Types
Cancer before age 50 is rare, but increasing, in the United States and researchers want to know why. A new government study provides the most complete picture yet of early-onset cancers, finding that the largest increases are in breast, colorectal, kidney and uterine cancers. Scientists from the National Cancer Institute looked at data that included more than 2 million cancers diagnosed in people 15 to 49 years old between 2010 and 2019. Of 33 cancer types, 14 cancers had increasing rates in at least one younger age group. About 63% of the early-onset cancers were among women. (Johnson, 5/8)

OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS

CIDRAP: Kansas, New Mexico, New York Report More Measles Cases
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) in its weekly update reported 2 more measles cases today, lifting the state's total to 48, with the number of affected counties remaining at eight, all in the southwestern corner of the state. Kansas is among a handful of states that have reported cases linked to a large outbreak centered in West Texas. Of the 48 cases, 43 were unvaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status. The number of hospitalizations remains at one, and no deaths have been reported in the state. (Schnirring, 5/8)

Health News Florida: Florida Seeing More Tuberculosis Cases. Here's What To Know 
The confirmation of two recent tuberculosis cases in South Florida is prompting health officials to keep an eye out for a developing trend. The first case of active TB was reported in a high school student in Fort Lauderdale on April 29. Health officials immediately began reaching out to those who were directly impacted. A few days later, tuberculosis was found in an inmate at a federal detention center in Miami. Officials confirmed that further exposure is being limited. (Petracek, 5/9)

CIDRAP: Spike In Avian Flu Cases In Cats Triggers Worry About Human Spillover
University of Maryland scientists are calling for increased surveillance of avian flu in domestic cats after a global review of 20 years of published data reveals a dramatic uptick in feline infections—and the number of ways cats are being infected—after the emergence of H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b in other mammals. "Infections among mammalian species in frequent contact with humans should be closely monitored," the researchers wrote yesterday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. "Domestic cats are susceptible to AIV [avian influenza virus] infection and provide a potential pathway for zoonotic spillover to humans." (Van Beusekom, 5/8)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Modern Healthcare: New York-Presbyterian Layoffs Affect 2% Of Employees
New York-Presbyterian Health System said it has laid off an estimated 2% of its staff in order to stay afloat in a difficult financial environment. A spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that the system anticipates more challenges ahead. The cuts affect both administrative and clinical employees across all levels, a person familiar with the plans said Thursday. (DeSilva, 5/8)

Modern Healthcare: NeueHealth CEO G. Mike Mikan Says Company Going Private Mid-2025
Value-based care provider NeueHealth will convert to a privately held company within months, CEO Mike Mikan said Thursday. The company formerly known as Bright Health Group and its majority owner, venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, announced the plan in December. Shareholders approved the $1.3 billion transaction Wednesday, Mikan said during a call with investor analysts. (Tepper, 5/8)

Bloomberg: Abu Dhabi Looks To Draw Healthcare Startups With California Push
State-run Abu Dhabi Investment Office is expanding its presence in San Francisco, part of a push to build a healthcare cluster in the emirate. The expanded office will tout “fast-track” clinical validations and regulatory approvals as Abu Dhabi looks to attract startups to underpin the Health, Endurance, Longevity and Medicine initiative launched last month, according to a statement Thursday. (Short, 5/8)

Modern Healthcare: Mass General Brigham Develops AI To Predict Cancer Outcomes
Researchers at Mass General Brigham have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm that uses a photo of a person’s face to predict their biological age and cancer outcomes. The tool, called FaceAge, could be effective in helping inform clinical treatment decisions in cancer care, according to a study published Thursday in medical journal The Lancet Digital Health. Researchers trained FaceAge on nearly 59,000 photos of presumed health individuals from public data sets. (Turner, 5/8)

STATE WATCH

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Free Health Clinic In Downtown St. Louis Draws Thousands
People began getting in line at 5 a.m. for a free mega health clinic held at St. Louis’ downtown convention center this week. Lines stretched for blocks by the time it opened at 7 a.m., and hundreds were turned away. (Munz, 5/8)

Bloomberg: San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie Taps Billionaires For Homeless Shelter Beds
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has turned to some of the country’s wealthiest philanthropists to advance his agenda on homelessness while the city faces a daunting budget deficit. The $37.5 million fundraising haul includes $10 million from Charles and Helen Schwab’s foundation and another $10 million from Crankstart, the personal foundation of billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz. (Kamisher, 5/8)

CBS News: Colorado Startup Hopes To Be At Forefront Of Psilocybin Cultivation And Treatment 
The State of Colorado is continuing to license businesses that will provide psilocybin therapy, but so far, only a handful of licenses have been given out. The state has approved one standard healing center, one manufacturer and one testing facility. Two cultivation licenses have been handed out, with nine more pending. One of those pending applications belongs to startup Entheogyn. (Young, 5/8)

ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH

AP: Asbestos Clinic Forced To Close In Montana Town Where Thousands Have Been Sickened By Dust
An asbestos screening clinic in a small Montana town where thousands have been sickened by toxic dust from a nearby mine has been abruptly shuttered by authorities following a court order to seize the clinic’s assets to pay off a judgment to the railroad BNSF. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office closed on Wednesday the Center for Asbestos Related Disease in Libby, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the U.S.-Canada border. The town of about 3,000 people is near a mine that produced asbestos dust for decades, and the clinic has been at the forefront of efforts to help victims. (Brown, 5/9)

AP: Judge Awards $680K To 17 Families Exposed To Jet Fuel-Tainted Water At Hawaii Naval Base
A federal judge has awarded a total of more than $680,000 to 17 families who say they were sickened by a 2021 jet fuel leak into a Navy drinking water system in Hawaii. The bellwether cases set the legal tone for another 7,500 military family members, civilians and service members whose lawsuits are still awaiting resolution. ... In her order, Kobayashi wrote that it was clear that even though the contaminated water could have caused many of the kinds of medical problems the military families experienced, there wasn’t enough evidence to prove a direct link. (Boone, 5/8)

MedPage Today: Risk Of Neurologic Disorder Rises For People Who Live Near Golf Courses
Living in a water service area with a golf course showed higher odds of Parkinson's compared with other water service areas or having a private well, researchers reported in JAMA Network Open. (George, 5/8)

GLOBAL WATCH

The 19th: Pope Leo XIV: Robert Prevost's Political Views On LGBTQ+, Abortion, Immigration
While Pope Francis made substantial strides in pushing the church toward including LGBTQ+ people, Pope Leo XIV is seen as less progressive on queer issues. The New York Times noted in a recent story that as a bishop in Peru, he opposed a plan to include gender teaching in school, noting that, “The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist.” ... The new pope has not made clear his views on reproductive health concerns such as access to abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization (IVF) or surrogacy. (Padilla, 5/8)