First Edition: Monday, April 7, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Blockbuster Deal Will Wipe Out $30 Billion In Medical Debt. Even Backers Say It’s Not Enough
Underscoring the massive scale of America’s medical debt problem, a New York-based nonprofit has struck a deal to pay off old medical bills for an estimated 20 million people. Undue Medical Debt, which buys patient debt, is retiring $30 billion worth of unpaid bills in a single transaction with Pendrick Capital Partners, a Virginia-based debt trading company. The average patient debt being retired is $1,100, according to the nonprofit, with some reaching the hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Levey, 4/7)

KFF Health News: The House Speaker’s Eyeing Big Cuts To Medicaid. In His Louisiana District, It’s A Lifeline
When Desoto Regional Health System took out $36 million in loans last year to renovate a rural hospital that opened in 1952, officials were banking on its main funding source remaining stable: Medicaid, the joint federal-state health program for low-income people and the disabled. But those dollars are now in jeopardy, as President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress move to shrink the nearly $900 billion health program that covers more than 1 in 5 Americans. (Galewitz, 4/7)

CBS News: RFK Jr. To Lay Off More NIH Employees Amid HHS Restructuring, Officials Say
More employees at the National Institutes of Health are expected to be laid off in the coming days, multiple federal officials say, less than a week after an initial wave of cuts gutted many offices within the health research agency. The NIH was initially supposed to lose about 1,200 scientists, support staff and other officials as a result of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s restructuring. It is unclear how many additional employees will be targeted for cuts. (Tin and Gounder, 4/4)

ABC News: RFK Jr. Said HHS Layoffs Are Needed As 'Americans Are Getting Sicker.' Here's What The Data Shows
About 10,000 people across the United States Department of Health and Human Services were laid off this week as part of a massive restructuring plan. In a post on X on Tuesday afternoon, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the layoffs represented "a difficult moment for all of us" but that "we must shift course" because Americans are "getting sicker every year." An official at the National Institutes of Health with knowledge on the matter, who asked not to be named, told ABC News that the layoffs were an "HHS-wide bloodbath," with entire offices being fired. (Kekatos and Akambase, 4/4)

Politico: RFK Jr. Said HHS Would Rehire Thousands Of Fired Workers. That Wasn't True
When HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday that he planned to rehire 20 percent of the employees he’d just terminated, he insisted such a move was “always the plan.” Turns out, it wasn’t the plan at all. HHS has no intention of reinstating any significant number of the staffers fired as part of a mass reduction-in-force on Tuesday, despite Kennedy’s assertion that some had been mistakenly cut, a person familiar with the department’s plans told POLITICO. (Cancryn, 4/4)

AP: HHS Layoffs Hit NIOSH Lab, 9/11 Firefighter Program
Government staffing cuts have gutted a small U.S. health agency that aims to protect workers — drawing rebukes from firefighters, coal miners, medical equipment manufacturers and a range of others. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a Cincinnati-based agency that is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is losing about 850 of its approximately 1,000 employees, according to estimates from a union and affected employees. ... The layoffs are stalling — and perhaps ending — many programs, including a firefighter cancer registry and a lab that is key to certifying respirators for many industries.(Stobbe, 4/5)

Axios: Key Safety Hotlines Disrupted By HHS Cuts
Teams manning government hotlines for reporting adverse events from foods, supplements and cosmetics, and call centers that provide other essential safety information were among the thousands of Health and Human Services Department employees laid off last week. The Food and Cosmetic Information Center fields tens of thousands of calls annually from consumers and industry representatives about recalls, nutritional information and food business requirements, along with unintended health consequences from using FDA-approved products. (Goldman and Snyder, 4/6)

The Hill: Ousted FDA Vaccine Director Calls Kennedy's Start 'Very Scary'
Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official pressured to resign over his disagreements with Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., warned in an interview published Friday that Kennedy’s tenure at the HHS has been “very scary” so far. ... In his resignation letter, Marks said he had been “willing” to work to address Kennedy’s “concerns” about vaccine transparency and safety but determined Kennedy only wanted “subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.” (Choi, 4/4)

Politico: RFK Jr.’s Staff Cuts Leave Health Workers Scrambling
The survivors of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s mass firings are taking stock of the damage and trying to figure out what remains of their agencies. Kennedy hasn’t released an accounting of the purge. Amid an information blackout from the administration, workers are tallying the losses in shared Google documents, spreadsheets, and notes. They say middle managers have shared some information in hastily scheduled meetings but are hesitant to put anything in writing. (Reader, Cirruzzo and Ollstein, 4/4)

Stat: Therapists Are Hearing Tales Of Trauma From Federal Health Workers
An underground network of therapists is starting to help federal health workers deal with the "special kind of hell" they're going through. (Cooney, 4/7)

MEDICARE AND MEDICAID

Stat: Medicare Gets A Big (Unofficial) Surprise: A 17-Year Extension On When It’ll Run Dry
Medicare’s financial future unexpectedly got a lot rosier, at least according to some federal budget wonks. The Congressional Budget Office recently published its long-term predictions of the federal budget and buried a big surprise for people who follow the Medicare program. The government’s primary piggy bank that pays for Medicare benefits won’t be depleted until 2052 — 17 years later than what CBO analysts predicted last year. (Herman, 4/5)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Punts On Medicare Advantage AI Prior Authorization Policy
President Donald Trump’s first Medicare Advantage rule tabled decisions on plans' use of artificial intelligence and marketing oversight while dropping a proposal to cover obesity drugs. In the Medicare Advantage and Part D final rule for 2026 issued Friday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services delayed final decisions on expanding what counts as Medicare marketing, setting stricter network adequacy requirements, and determining the role of artificial intelligence in prior authorization. (Early, 4/4)

Modern Healthcare: HHS Layoffs Risk Dual Medicare-Medicaid Pay Model Transitions
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a massive departmental overhaul and layoffs, including staffers in the Medicare-Medicaid Coordination Office who began receiving notices at the beginning of the week. Among other areas, those staffers were responsible for working with states to wind down a complicated demonstration, the Financial Alignment Initiative, that covers certain people dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid in several states. (Early, 4/4)

AP: High Cost Of Weight-Loss Drugs Strains State Medicaid Programs
States increasingly struggling to cover the rising cost of popular GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy, Ozempic and Zepbound are searching for ways to get out from under the budgetary squeeze that took them by surprise. One solution some policymakers may try is restricting the number of people on Medicaid who can use the pricey diabetes drugs for weight-loss purposes. Pennsylvania’s Medicaid coverage of the drugs is expected to cost $1.3 billion in 2025 — up from a fraction of that several years ago — and is contributing to projections of a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. (Haigh and Levy, 4/6)

TARIFFS

The New York Times: Trump’s Next Tariffs Target Could Be Foreign-Made Pharmaceuticals
The drug industry got a temporary reprieve on Wednesday when foreign-made medicines were exempted from President Trump’s far-reaching new tariffs. But Mr. Trump has been saying for weeks that he plans to impose tariffs specifically on pharmaceuticals, with the goal of shifting overseas production of medications back to the United States. He has said those levies could be 25 percent or higher. Drugmakers still expect tariffs targeting them to be announced soon. (Robbins, 4/4)

CBS News: Threat Of Future Tariffs On Pharmaceutical Imports Alarms Health Care Community
Marsha Cook of Las Vegas juggles multiple generic prescriptions on a tight budget. Any hint of a possible price hike hits hard. "I have high blood pressure, and when you even speak of it, I can feel like a stressor coming up in my neck," the 70-year-old Cook told CBS News. "I don't know what will be done. I don't know what I'll do." Cook worries that tariffs on pharmaceuticals would send her costs soaring even higher. (Gutierrez, 4/4)

The Washington Post: Second Unvaccinated Child Dies Of Measles Amid RFK Jr. Criticism
A second child has died of measles amid an outbreak in West Texas, prompting Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to meet with the family of the deceased 8-year-old girl in Gaines County, where most of the cases have clustered. The child, who had been receiving treatment for complications of measles, died at the University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, spokesman Aaron Davis said in a statement to The Washington Post on Sunday. The child had no known underlying health conditions and was not vaccinated against measles, Davis said. (Melnick, Nirappil and Sun, 4/6)

The New York Times: Kennedy Attends Funeral Of Texas Girl Who Died Of Measles
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, attended the funeral on Sunday of an 8-year-old girl who died of measles amid an outbreak that has burned through the region and called into question his ability to handle a public-health crisis. The child’s death, in a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, early Thursday morning, is the second confirmed fatality from measles in a decade in the United States. (Rosenbluth and Holt, 4/6)

Politico: Kennedy Announces Support For Measles Vaccine Amid Outbreak
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who spent years promoting debunked theories and sowing doubts about the safety of vaccines, on Sunday promoted the measles shot. “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” Kennedy wrote on the social media website X. (Nguyen, 4/6)

The New York Times: How Measles Attacks An Unvaccinated Child
For a child who is not vaccinated against measles — one of the world’s most infectious viruses — no classroom, school bus or grocery store is safe. Nine out of 10 unvaccinated people exposed to an infected person will catch it, and once measles takes root, the virus can damage the lungs, kidneys and the brain. With falling U.S. vaccination rates and outbreaks that have caused more than 580 cases and at least two deaths, health experts expect measles to infect hundreds or even thousands more across the nation. (Baumgaertner Nunn and Hernandez, 4/5)

CIDRAP: US Measles Total Tops 600 Cases, With Almost 500 In Texas
Fueled by outbreaks in multiple states, including a large one centered in west Texas, the nation's measles total reached 607 cases today, with 124 new cases reported over the past week, according to an update today from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The nation is battling its worst spike in cases since 2019, fueled by outbreaks in communities where vaccine uptake is lower and by increased global spread of the virus. The CDC said 2 more jurisdictions reported cases this week, raising the total to 22—21 states and New York City. (Schnirring, 4/4)

The New York Times: Why Measles Outbreaks May Be The New Normal
As the Trump administration moves to dismantle international public health safeguards, pull funding from local health departments and legitimize health misinformation, some experts now fear that the country is setting the stage for a long-term measles resurgence. If federal health officials do not change course, large multistate outbreaks like the one that has torn through West Texas, jumping to neighboring states and killing two people, may become the norm. (Rosenbluth, 4/5)

CIDRAP: Flu Levels In US Continue To Decline, But More Kids' Deaths Confirmed
For the seventh week in a row, indicators show that US influenza activity is dropping, but it's still above baseline levels and has been for 18 straight weeks, and flu-related pediatric deaths have reached 168, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly update. "Seasonal influenza (flu) activity continues to decline; however, CDC expects several more weeks of flu activity," the CDC said. (Wappes, 4/4)

PHARMACEUTICALS

Stat: FDA Tells Drugmakers To Redo Studies Over Data Integrity Issue 
In a rare move, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told an unspecified number of drug companies that studies used to support therapeutic equivalence of some of their medicines have been rejected due to false data generated by a contract research organization. The agency identified “significant” problems with data integrity and the way studies were conducted by Raptim Research, which had been hired by the drugmakers to test their medicines. The FDA expressed concern, specifically, about in-vitro studies, which are run to test biological processes. (Silverman, 4/4)

Bloomberg: Bayer Asks High Court To Take $1.25 Million Roundup Appeal
Bayer AG said it’s seeking a US Supreme Court review of litigation over the weedkiller Roundup, its latest effort to get beyond a mountain of legal woes. The German conglomerate asked the high court Friday to take its appeal of a 2023 verdict from a St. Louis trial in which a jury ordered Bayer’s Monsanto unit to pay $1.25 million in compensatory damages to cancer sufferer John Durnell, according to a statement. No punitive damages were awarded in the case. (Loh and Feeley, 4/4)

The Guardian: Benefits Of ADHD Medication Outweigh Health Risks, Study Finds 
The benefits of taking drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder outweigh the impact of increases in blood pressure and heart rate, according to a new study. An international team of researchers led by scientists from the University of Southampton found the majority of children taking ADHD medication experienced small increases in blood pressure and pulse rates, but that the drugs had “overall small effects”. They said the study’s findings highlighted the need for “careful monitoring”. (Topping, 4/6)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Modern Healthcare: Emergency Departments Risk Closing Over Pay, Overcrowding: Rand
Emergency departments are in danger of closing without legislative intervention, according to a new report. Increased violence towards providers, declining reimbursement from payers and higher volumes of complex patients are endangering the future of emergency departments, nonprofit research organization Rand wrote in a report on Sunday. Rand said policymakers must pass legislation to help hospitals navigate the challenges that have surmounted for emergency departments over the years. (DeSilva, 4/6)

Modern Healthcare: Blue Cross Of Idaho Layoffs Affect 135 Employees
Blue Cross of Idaho plans to lay off 135 employees in June after losing a contract to national competitors. The company said the cuts are a response to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare canceling its contract for Medicare and Medicaid enrollees. In December, the state announced it would award the Medicare Medicaid Coordinated Plan and Idaho Medicaid Plus Plan to UnitedHealth Group’s UnitedHealthcare and Molina Healthcare. The contracts span four years and will go into effect in 2026. (Tepper, 4/4)

STATE WATCH

Los Angeles Times: Newsom Appeals USDA Decision To Cut Food Assistance Programs 
Gov. Gavin Newsom sent an urgent appeal to the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Saturday, imploring the department to reverse the abrupt cancellation of a Biden-era program that feeds millions of California families and has served as a lifeline for hundreds of small farmers since its inception in 2021. “The irrational and malicious slashing of funds will not only hurt our farmers, but also the families who need food banks,” Newsom said in a release announcing the appeal. (Sharp, 4/6)

The Washington Post: N.Y. Tells Trump Its Public Schools Won’t Comply With Anti-DEI Order 
The New York State Education Department has notified the federal government that it won’t comply with orders to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs — pushing back against the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure public schools around the country by threatening to withdraw federal funding. (Timsit, 4/6)

Politico: New York’s Push To Restrict Masks Is Dividing Democrats
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push to crack down on face masks is dividing her fellow Democrats as they weigh concerns about pro-Palestinian demonstrators, aggressive policing and basic freedoms. Civil rights advocates say the proposed restriction would interfere with peoples’ right to mask up. Black lawmakers in Albany worry about race-based enforcement, and many Democrats are voicing concerns about creating hostile conditions for protesters, particularly as the Trump administration targets them. (Beeferman, 4/5)

The Washington Post: Texas AG Says He’s Investigating Kellogg’s Over ‘Healthy’ Cereal Claims
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said Saturday that his office is investigating WK Kellogg Co. for potentially violating consumer protection laws, launching a probe over the artificial food dyes in cereals that have rankled the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” faction. In a statement Saturday, Paxton’s office said the company — known for cereals such as Froot Loops and Apple Jacks — advertises its products as healthy despite containing blue, red, yellow, green and orange artificial food colorings. Paxton’s office alleged that those additives have been linked to obesity, autoimmune disease, endocrine-related health problems and cancer. (Raji, 4/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. University Offers First Psychedelic Studies Bachelor's Degree
The 1960s counterculture is synonymous with San Francisco, a city where hippies roamed the Haight, tripped on acid and fled the law. And so it is fitting that San Francisco will again run counter to the mainstream this fall when a local university unveils the nation’s first bachelor’s degree in psychedelic studies. (Asimov, 4/6)

NBC News: Rare Virus That Killed Gene Hackman's Wife Linked To 3 Deaths In California Town
Public health officials in California confirmed that three people in the town of Mammoth Lakes have died from hantavirus, which killed actor Gene Hackman’s wife in February. In a statement Thursday, health officials in Mono County reported a third death from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in the rural town in the Eastern Sierra region, calling the situation “tragic” and “alarming.” Hantavirus is a relatively rare virus that rodents — typically mice — spread to humans from their urine, droppings and saliva. (Chow, 4/5)

The Washington Post: A 10-Year-Old Virginia Girl Died By Suicide. Her Family Is Calling For More Kindness. 
On the morning of March 21, as Summer Bushman, 36, was rousing her children for school, she noticed the light was on in 10-year-old Autumn’s room. When she knocked on the locked door, she said, there was no answer. She knocked again. Then again. Soon, she said, she began to panic. She broke open the door. Inside, she found her daughter unresponsive, dead from an apparent suicide. Autumn’s parents said questions remain, but that she had told them in recent months that she was being bullied. In the wake of her death, they have called for kindness. (Lang and Elwood, 4/6)

CANCER RESEARCH

The Washington Post: NIH Scientists Have A Cancer Breakthrough. Layoffs Are Delaying It.
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health demonstrated a promising step toward using a person’s own immune cells to fight gastrointestinal cancers in a paper in Nature Medicine on Tuesday, the same day the agency was hit with devastating layoffs that left many NIH personnel in tears. The treatment approach is still early in its development; the personalized immunotherapy regimen shrank tumors in only about a quarter of the patients with colon, rectal and other GI cancers enrolled in a clinical trial. But a researcher who was not involved in the study called the results “remarkable” because they highlight a path to a frustratingly elusive goal in medicine — harnessing a person’s own immune defenses to target common solid tumor cancers. (Johnson, 4/6)

NPR: Exercise Helps Colon Cancer Survivors Live As Long As People Who Never Had Cancer
Colon cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide, and it's on the rise among younger adults in the U.S. But research recently published in the journal Cancer, finds regular exercise can help survivors live longer — in some cases, even longer than people who've never had colon cancer. "I think the important message is, some level of activity is better than staying inactive," says Dr. Jeff Meyerhardt, co-director of the Colon and Rectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the study's senior author. (Godoy, 4/7)

The Washington Post: Tech Goal Is For Devices That Help General Practitioners Spot Skin Cancer
In 2017, Ezekiel Emanuel, a well-known oncologist and health policy commentator, said radiologists would soon be out of work thanks to machine learning. That hasn’t happened, but although artificial intelligence isn’t replacing radiologists, it has significantly changed their field. More than three-quarters of the AI software cleared by the Food and Drug Administration for medical use is designed to support radiology practice, says Curtis Langlotz, a radiology professor at Stanford University and president of the Radiological Society of North America’s board of directors. (Friedlander Serrano, 4/5)

PUBLIC HEALTH

The New York Times: Two Liquid Egg Brands Recalled Over Bleach Contamination Risk
Thousands of pounds of liquid egg substitutes sold under two popular brand names have been recalled because of the potential risk of contamination with a cleaning solution, federal safety regulators said. Cargill Kitchen Solutions in Lake Odessa, Mich., recalled about 212,268 pounds of products under its Egg Beaters and Bob Evans labels because they may contain a cleaning solution with sodium hypochlorite, also known as bleach, the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said on March 28. (Diaz, 4/6)

The Hill: Poor Air Quality Can Increase Risk Of Depression, Study Shows
A new study indicates that long-term exposure to air pollutants could directly correlate to an increased risk for depression. The study published in Environmental Science and Ecotechnology and conducted by Harbin Medical University and Cranfield University examined the link to depressive symptoms in a Chinese adult population and six common air pollutants over 7 years. (Falzone, 4/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: Unmarried Older Adults Show Lower Dementia Risk
Unmarried older adults may be at lower risk of dementia than their married counterparts, according to new research published in the Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. Widowed, divorced and never-married people 50 and older are about 50% less likely to develop dementia, including Alzheimer’s and Lewy body dementia, compared to married people, according to a research article published March 20 by scientists at Florida State University College of Medicine. (Ho, 4/6)

GLOBAL WATCH

AP: Mexico Confirms Country's First Human Case Of Bird Flu In A 3-Year-Old Girl
A 3-year-old girl from the western state of Durango is Mexico’s first confirmed human case of bird flu, health officials said Friday. Type A H5N1 influenza has been spreading through animals and some people in the United States. There have been 70 cases in that country since during the past year, according to the World Health Organization, though researchers and studies suggest that’s likely an undercount. In Mexico, the girl was in serious condition in a hospital in Torreon in the neighboring state of Coahuila, the health ministry said in a statement Friday. (4/4)

CIDRAP: WHO Highlights Need For Better Drugs, Diagnostics For Deadly Fungal Infections
The World Health Organization (WHO) this week published two reports spotlighting gaps in adequate medicines and diagnostic tests for treating and detecting invasive fungal diseases, such as Candida auris, including a dearth of new drugs and drug candidates in advanced trials. More than 6.5 million fungal infections occur annually and cause 3.8 million deaths, according to WHO data. (Wappes, 4/4)