First Edition: Monday, April 6, 2026

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: These Women Had Their Breasts Removed To Thwart Cancer. Then Came The Pain
Three weeks after Sophia Bassan’s mastectomy, she felt a stabbing pain beneath her right armpit. In the following months, painful shocks radiated through her chest and back. Her body became so sensitive that at times she couldn’t wear a shirt or lift a fork to her mouth. Bassan slept sitting up because it hurt to lie down, and she would flinch at the slightest touch. (Kelman and Maxmen, 4/6)

KFF Health News: Immigrant Seniors Lose Medicare Coverage Despite Paying For It
Rosa María Carranza leaned forward to hold a 3-year-old’s back as the girl climbed a rock in the forested hills of northeast Oakland. Dressed in hiking gear and beaded necklaces, Carranza, 67, maneuvered between trees and children on a sunny morning in December. “Hold on to that branch,” she said in Spanish. “You can do it, my love!” (Sánchez, 4/6)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘On Air’: Journalists Capsulize Weight Loss News And ACA Premium Pressures
Céline Gounder, KFF Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed a new weight loss pill approved by the FDA on CBS News’ CBS Mornings on April 2. (4/4)

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

Modern Healthcare: Trump Budget Request Seeks HHS Cuts, Moves 340B Program Under CMS
The White House is redoubling its efforts to overhaul the Health and Human Services Department and cut its funding by 12.5%, according to an outline for its fiscal 2027 budget proposal issued Friday. President Donald Trump is seeking to reduce HHS funding and revive last year’s efforts to reorganize the department, chiefly by moving the 340B Drug Pricing Program under the purview of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The administration also wants to establish a new agency that would oversee health priorities currently managed by multiple agencies. (Early, 4/3)

Stat: NIH Would Get $5 Billion Cut Under Trump’s 2027 Budget, But Congress Unlikely To Go Along
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine who chairs the appropriations committee, called the funding cuts to biomedical research “unwarranted” in a statement responding to the president’s proposed budget. ... In January, Congress offered a near total refutation of the administration’s plan, slightly increasing the NIH’s budget for the current federal fiscal year. In that funding package, legislators included language intended to prevent the NIH from implementing a 15% indirect-cost reimbursement cap. (Molteni and Oza, 4/3)

CIDRAP: CDC, Health Groups Spent Millions To Buy Ads On Websites Flagged For Misinformation
Government agencies, health advocacy groups, and health-related businesses spent nearly $37 million over four years to advertise on news websites accused of promoting misinformation, a new study shows. Although authors of the report question the wisdom of financially supporting websites whose content undermines public health, marketing experts say it’s important to reach vaccine-hesitant consumers, wherever they’re found. (Szabo, 4/3)

Montana Free Press: Tribes In Montana Lose Millions After USDA Kills Farm Grants
Kim Paul, executive director of the Piikani Lodge Health Institute, a nonprofit on the Blackfeet Reservation that promotes health and well-being, saw the email notification flash across her computer screen as she was working late last week. It was the U.S. Department of Agriculture saying a nearly $9 million grant contract with Piikani Lodge had been terminated. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture has determined that awards under this program involved discriminatory preferences based on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and wasteful spending that did little to further lawful agricultural land purchases,” the USDA wrote. (Mabie, 4/3)

AP: Toddler Suffered Alleged Abuse While In Federal Immigration Custody
For five months, the young father waited for his 3-year-old daughter’s release from federal custody after she crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her mother, hoping through delays for their safe reunion. Only when he turned to the courts as a last resort did he learn that the girl had suffered alleged sexual abuse at the foster home where she’d been placed after immigration officials separated her from her mother. (Gonzalez, 4/5)

Stat: What The Peptide Craze Reveals About Americans’ Relationship With Risk
RFK Jr.'s apparent contradiction on vaccines and peptides reflects a deeper belief: Americans have a right to try and can choose their own risks. (Todd, 4/6)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

Politico: Trump Admin Moves Title X Family Planning Program Away From Contraception, Toward Conception
The Trump administration on Friday took the first step toward reviving and expanding the conservative overhaul of the Title X family planning program that happened the first time Trump was president — changes that previously led to an exodus of reproductive health providers and a steep drop in the number of patients served. (Ollstein, 4/3)

NBC News: IVF Clinic Accused Of Embryo Mix-Up Closes Amid Legal And Financial Problems
A Florida fertility center is closing several months after a patient alleged the clinic implanted another couple’s embryo in her — a discovery she made after giving birth. The Fertility Center of Orlando announced its closure on its website, saying the decision was made “after thoughtful consideration.” It was not immediately clear when operations would cease. (Chuck, 4/3)

AP: Doctors Urge Women To Be Wary Of The Marketing Surge In Menopause Products
Women suffering through the hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes and sleep problems that can come with menopause — all while looking in the mirror and noticing signs of aging — are being bombarded with products. More open conversations about menopause and the period leading up to it — called perimenopause — are happening at the same time that marketing has been supercharged by social media. Women are being confronted by lotions and serums and light masks that promise to rejuvenate their faces and necks, dietary supplements claiming to do everything from boost moods to ease hot flashes and gadgets promising to help with symptoms. (Stengle, 4/6)

VACCINES AND OUTBREAKS

The New York Times: H.H.S. Takes A First Step Toward Restoring Vaccine Advisory Committee
The Health Department is quietly laying the groundwork to revive a vaccine advisory committee whose membership and decisions were frozen last month by a federal judge. A document renewing the committee’s charter for the next two years, and scheduled to be published on Monday in the Federal Register, enshrines changes that would allow Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to nominate members of his choice. (Mandavilli, 4/3)

CIDRAP: US Health Worker Flu Vaccine Coverage Holds Steady, But COVID Vaccine Uptake Lags
Influenza vaccination coverage among US health care personnel (HCP) during the 2024–25 respiratory virus season remained similar to coverage during the 2023–24 season, while uptake of the COVID vaccine, though significantly improved from the prior year, remained markedly lower, according to a report published yesterday in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. (Bergeson, 4/3)

CIDRAP: CDC Data Suggest Flu Is On The Way Out
US flu activity keeps trending downward, according to the latest FluView report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Flu cases are declining across most of the country, the CDC said, with influenza A viruses waning and influenza B viruses showing varying levels of activity. That trend follows the typical seasonal flu virus patterns. The proportion of tests that were positive for flu fell to 9.8%, down from 11.5% the previous week, and the proportion of outpatient visits for flu remained below the national baseline for the second straight week, falling from 2.8% to 2.6%. (Dall, 4/3)

CIDRAP: US Nears 1,700 Measles Cases, With 73 New Infections In Utah
US measles cases climbed by almost 100 in the past week, reaching 1,671 infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly update. The vast majority of the 96 new cases are in Utah. The CDC said all but 10 of the 2026 cases are from 32 states and New York City, with the rest travel-related. The number of affected states grew this week by one. Of all confirmed cases, 94% are associated with one of 17 outbreaks, with one of those outbreaks (three or more related cases) being new. (Wappes, 4/3)

AGING

The Washington Post: The Links Between Autism And Alzheimer’s Could Change How We Treat Both
Joseph Buxbaum was initially unconvinced. When early hints of a connection between autism and Alzheimer’s began to appear in the medical literature a few years ago, they struck him as implausible — one a condition of early brain development, the other driving decline in old age. But the signals kept accumulating, and over time, his skepticism gave way to a new line of inquiry that could transform scientists’ understanding of the two diseases. (Eunjung Cha, 4/5)

The Washington Post: We May Have Less Control Over How Long We Live Than Previously Thought
Uri Alon was long puzzled by a textbook statistic: Longevity, the thinking went, was about 20 percent in our genes. “That makes you think what’s the rest of the 80 percent: Is it the lifestyle? Why should we study genes for lifespan if it’s not that important? It kind of bothered me,” said Alon, a physicist turned systems biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Alon uses mathematical models to understand complicated biological problems, and he and his colleagues built one to reexamine the factors that define the contours of human lifespan in a Science study published earlier this year. (Johnson, 4/5)

The Washington Post: The Complexity Of Your Job May Affect Dementia Risk 
Working in complicated jobs is linked to a lower likelihood of dementia later on. (Kim, 4/6)

NBC News: What Is A Biological Age Test? Experts Talk Benefits, Risks Of At-Home Testing
Scientists have developed a number of ways to estimate biological age, including so-called epigenetic clocks that measure changes to DNA at the molecular level. These clocks, often created for clinical research purposes, are becoming mainstream in the form of direct-to-consumer test kits. ... Biological age test kits are widely available online, ranging from $299 saliva-based tests to $499 blood tests. But all tests aren’t created equally, and there are limitations to the health insights they provide. (Leake, 4/5)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Modern Healthcare: Elevance Health’s Out-Of-Network Penalty Expands To New York
Elevance Health will apply its policy deducting pay from hospitals that refer some members to out-of-network providers to facilities in New York. Starting July 1, Elevance Health’s Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield subsidiary may reduce New York hospitals’ pay by 7.5% or terminate facilities from its network if hospitals refer commercial members to inpatient or outpatient providers without a contract. (DeSilva, 4/3)

Stat: What Does UnitedHealth Group's Massive AI Push Mean For Patients?
UHG is spending billions to embed AI to manage claims and care decisions. As 22,000 software engineers go to work, what are the benefits — and risks? (Ross, 4/6)

Modern Healthcare: Employer Health Plan Fraud: How Insurers Use AI To Fight Back
The federal government is not the only target for health insurance shenanigans. Fraud in employer-based insurance may not reach the heights or capture the headlines that Medicaid, Medicare and exchange incidents do, but schemes are on the rise. driving up costs for companies and their workers. Health insurers are investing in new technologies to tamp down on fraud before it comes out of their employer customers’ pocketbooks. At the same time, more third-party payment integrity firms are emerging to dispute bills employers already have paid. (Tepper, 4/3)

The New York Times: For Many Patients Leaving The I.C.U., The Struggle Has Only Just Begun
The accident happened in Pittsburgh on Nov. 16. Joseph Masterson, a lawyer who was just days from retiring at age 63, suffered cardiac arrest while driving, plowed into a guardrail and lost consciousness. Other drivers stopped, broke the car window and pulled him to safety. A passing volunteer fireman performed CPR until an ambulance arrived to take Mr. Masterson to U.P.M.C. Mercy Hospital. (Span, 4/4)

AP: Single-Session Therapy Can Help Address Gaps In Mental Health Care
Just before the holidays in 2025, Julie Hart felt stuck. A nagging problem she had struggled with for years left her ruminating all day and questioning nearly everything she had ever said, done or could do. She was considering traditional therapy but decided instead to try single-session counseling. Rather than committing to weekly therapy sessions, she would get only 60 minutes to tackle the problem. It worked. “It helped me get unstuck, is how I would describe it, in a very positive, meaningful and effective way,” said Hart, of Springfield, Virginia. (Stumm, 4/5)

PHARMA AND TECH

NBC News: Eye Drops Sold At Walgreens, CVS Recalled Over Safety Concerns, FDA Says
A pharmaceutical company has issued a voluntary recall of over 3 million of its over-the-counter eye-drop products after the Food and Drug Administration cited a “lack of assurance of sterility.” According to the FDA notice, K.C. Pharmaceuticals, of Pomona, California, manufactures the products for a number of brands sold under names such as “Dry Eye Relief Eye Drops,” “Sterile Eye Drops” and “Artificial Tears Sterile Lubricant Eye Drops.” The recall of 3,111,072 bottles began in early March. (Ozcan, 4/3)

Stat: How A Four-Month FDA Delay Forced A Small Biotech Company To Close Its Doors
By the time FDA agreed to meet with Kezar Life Sciences it was in the process of closing. The chain of events fits a pattern of FDA volatility recently. (Chen, 4/6)

CBS News: Scientist Whose Mother And Sisters Died Of ALS Complications Hopes Experimental Treatment Will Save His Life
Jeff Vierstra's mother and two sisters all died following complications from ALS, or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, but the scientist and skier is hoping an experimental treatment and the first known attempt to prevent the neurodegenerative disease can help save his life. Vierstra was only two years old when his mother died. All her siblings also died of ALS in their late thirties and early forties. (LaPook, 4/4)

Los Angeles Times: Microplastics Have Been Found Everywhere. That's A Problem For Research
As the science of detecting microplastics matures, so too does consensus about their ubiquity. Everywhere researchers have looked to find them, there they’ve been: In human brains and lungs; in breast milk and semen; in alpine snow and deep-sea sediment; in corn plants and beer. And that, say researchers, is the rub: Scientists are not just finding them in our livers, arteries and ovaries. They are also everywhere else: in research laboratories, pipettes, refrigerators, solvents, bottles, goggles and the very lab coats investigators are wearing to find them. (Rust, 4/5)

STATE WATCH

CNN: Colorado Passes First Law In The US To Ban Arrests Based Solely On These Drug Tests 
A great-grandmother’s medicine tested positive for cocaine – spawning a 15-month legal nightmare, forcing her to refinance her home, and spurring a new state law that could set a precedent across the country. (Yan, 4/5)

CBS News: RAM Pop-Up Clinics Provide Free Medical, Dental, And Vision Care To Uninsured Or Underinsured Americans
About one third of Americans say they have skipped meals, borrowed money, or cut back on utilities to pay for health care. That's in a Gallup poll released in March. The Trump administration has lowered prices on more than 50 drugs. But it also let premiums rise — even double — in the Affordable Care marketplace and made the biggest cuts ever to Medicaid. Already, 3 million have lost insurance and it's estimated it'll be 10 million in three years. All of this reminded us of our story in 2008, about a charity called Remote Area Medical. (Pelley, Schuster and Turcotte, 4/5)

CBS News: RAM's Free Clinics Full Of Needy Patients, But Slowed By Red Tape
Each weekend across the United States, thousands line up before dawn for free medical care at pop-up clinics, but a patchwork of state laws is preventing volunteer doctors from helping as many people as they could. Despite those constraints, Remote Area Medical (RAM) makes life-changing differences each week. (McCandless Farmer, 4/5)

The New York Times: A Food Pantry Network Suddenly Shuttered, Leaving Thousands Scrambling
A Minnesota-based food pantry network that served thousands across the Midwest for more than two decades has suddenly shut down, affecting many families already struggling with rising grocery and fuel costs. Ruby’s Pantry stocked 85 food locations at churches and community centers across Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Iowa, and provided recipients with grocery bundles typically worth $125 in exchange for a $25 donation. Volunteers said the assistance was vital for the small, rural areas served by the nonprofit. (Rao and Mokam, 4/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: How To Vet A California Nursing Home — And Spot Red Flags
In Daly City, a woman broke a tooth after she was dropped while being moved to her nursing home bed. In Fairfield, a woman with dementia escaped from her nursing home and wandered across a busy street to a parking lot, where she was found wandering and asking for help. A man in Hayward died after staff missed his respiratory medication two days in a row. In Santa Rosa, a resident was found with maggots in his infected toe, which had to be amputated. (Allday, 4/5)

The New York Times: ‘Under Protest,’ Raw Dairy Farm Recalls Cheddar Linked To 9 E. Coli Cases
For weeks, the Food and Drug Administration has been asking a raw-dairy farm in California to recall its Cheddar cheese, which the agency has linked to nine E. coli illnesses in California, Texas and Florida. On Thursday, the dairy farm, Raw Farm LLC, finally complied, though it said it was doing so “under protest” as it continued to deny that its cheese was the cause of the outbreak. (Callahan, 4/3)

GLOBAL WATCH

NPR: The US Saved Millions Of Lives With Its HIV/AIDS Work, Now That Aid Is In Peril
Studying labor law is not why Dr. Caspian Chouraya went to medical school. For more than two decades, he's worked in HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. Now, he oversees HIV/AIDS programs in 12 African countries for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. But in recent months, Chouraya finds himself talking to legal advisors and burying himself in the law surrounding layoffs in various African countries. This is because for months, U.S. funding has been arriving in fits and starts. Not knowing when funds will arrive is undermining one of the U.S.'s most successful global health initiatives — the worldwide fight to combat HIV/AIDS. (Emanuel, Lambert and Tanis, 4/4)

Undark: As Rocket Launches Increase, They May Be Polluting The Skies
Rocket Launches used to be a rare occurrence. But with access to space proliferating, partly thanks to an abundance of commercial space companies, global launches have risen exponentially: In the last five years, they’ve nearly tripled. According to an analysis by SpaceNews, in 2025 alone, humans shot about 320 rockets into space. All those rockets produce a fair amount pollution, from the sooty plumes that catapult them into orbit and beyond to derelict satellites that burn up upon reentry. Regulators have been monitoring and restricting other air pollutants especially since the 1970s, including the exhaust from cars and jet engines. (Skibba, 4/6)