Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: People With Disabilities Say Medicaid’s Limits On Income Stifle Career Advancement
Erica Carter is passionate about her job, and she has seven acres of flowers and vegetables to show for it. Carter’s specialty is reeling in grants to support students in the Omaha Nation school district, where she is a finance manager. One paid for the garden that sits next to the district’s campus. Another allowed the school system, in one of Nebraska’s lowest-income counties, to pay students to maintain it. “They’re out in the sun. They’re watering plants,” she said. “It’s the first time they get a paycheck in their life.” (Krebs, 8/13)
KFF Health News’ ‘Letters To The Editor’: Readers Speak Out On Work Requirements, Federal Data Grab, Opioid Payback Cash
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. (8/13)
OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS
ABC News: More Than 24,000 Cyclosporiasis Infections Reported As New Cases Appear To Slow: CDC
Cases of cyclosporiasis have topped 24,000, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There are at least 13,895 laboratory-confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis, including 740 hospitalizations, the data shows. The agency is also aware of at least 10,455 additional cases that have not yet been laboratory confirmed. The rate of increase appears to have slowed, with only about 2,000 more cases recorded over the last week. The previous week saw more than 22,000 cases recorded, a jump of over 10,000 from the week prior. (Kekatos, 8/12)
The Hill: FDA Assures Americans Fresh Produce Is Safe After Cyclospora Outbreak
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is assuring Americans that they should feel confident eating fresh produce again, seeking to ease concerns over the nation’s food supply after a cyclospora outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce spread across more than a dozen states. “We have the safest food supply in the world,” acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas said in a Tuesday interview with CNBC. “Americans should feel confident in eating fresh produce including leafy greens at this point.” (Swai, 8/12)
CIDRAP: DR Congo Ebola Outbreak On Track To Be Largest In History
Today during general remarks, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, of the World Health Organization (WHO) said the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is on track to become the world’s largest, outpacing the West African outbreak of 2014 to 2016, which saw more than 11,000 people die. “The outbreak had a big head start, it is still way ahead of us, and we are playing catch-up,” Tedros said. (Soucheray, 8/12)
WOMEN'S HEALTH
MedPage Today: Alzheimer's Risk Lower For Women On Estrogen-Only Menopausal Hormone Therapy
Women who used estrogen-only menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) had a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease, according to a retrospective longitudinal study. (George, 8/12)
MedPage Today: Debate On Use Of SSRIs In Pregnancy Shifting, Experts Say
For pregnant women with major depressive disorder (MDD), serious adverse outcomes are unlikely with the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), researchers said. (Firth, 8/12)
AP: California Surrogate Gives Birth In Texas After Life-Saving Care Ordered
A California couple’s surrogate who went to Texas in an escalating dispute over treating a congenital heart condition gave birth Wednesday, a day after a judge in Dallas ordered life-sustaining care for the newborn. The child was receiving stabilizing care and scheduled to undergo surgery at a Texas hospital, according to an attorney for McKenna West, the surrogate mother whose case has drawn widening national support from right-to-life groups and Republican officials. (Wilder, Vertuno and Stengle, 8/13)
AP: USAID Cuts Increased Pregnancy Complications And Deaths In Nepal
The young mother’s breath had grown ragged. Inside her mud home in rural Nepal, she hunched over in agony, pain pummeling her pregnant belly, her swollen legs scarcely able to support her. Kabita Mukhiya was in the midst of an emergency, but didn’t know it. For weeks, she’d suffered at home, because there was nobody around to tell her to rush to a hospital. The aid workers who once regularly visited her village to help pregnant women had stopped coming, after foreign aid cuts by the United States shuttered a program aimed at saving mothers’ and babies’ lives. (Gelineau, 8/13)
VACCINES
The Hill: Trump's Vaccine Policy Complicates Path For Vulnerable Republicans Ahead Of Midterm Elections
The Trump administration has thrust vaccine policy back into the headlines just three months before the midterm elections, potentially complicating matters for vulnerable Republicans who are hoping to keep control of Congress. President Trump on Monday doubled down on his attempt to overhaul the childhood vaccine schedule with an executive order aimed at reducing the number of recommended vaccines for the youngest children and breaking the measles, mumps and rubella shot into separate vaccines. (Weixel and Choi, 8/12)
CIDRAP: Organizations Hit Back At Trump’s Call To Reduce Childhood Vaccines
The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) released a joint statement yesterday saying President Donald Trump’s executive order “Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans,” is based on anything but gold-standard science. (Soucheray, 8/12)
The New York Times: RFK Jr. Stirred Vaccine Fears In Pennsylvania Years Before Measles Outbreak
Pressed recently on whether he might accept responsibility for the resurgence of measles in the country, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fended off any suggestion that his history of promoting vaccine skepticism might be partly to blame. The groups facing these outbreaks were “almost all religious communities that just don’t vaccinate,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash.“It’s hard to blame that on me,” he added. (Rosenbluth, 8/12)
CIDRAP: Flu Vaccines Helped Prevent US Hospitalizations, Emergency And Urgent-Care Visits In 2024-25
Experts considered the 2024-25 influenza season severe, the most serious since the 2017-18 season. Vaccination against flu protected US adults and children from hospitalization and needing outpatient medical care, according to a paper published last week in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. (Holohan, 8/12)
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
CIDRAP: New CDC Director Faces First Major Test Before She Even Begins Work
All leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) face tough challenges. But the biggest test for the CDC’s new director, Erica Schwartz, MD, MPH, JD, has arrived before her first day on the job. Schwartz, who has been confirmed but not sworn in, will have to decide how to respond to President Donald Trump’s executive order, issued August 10, calling for children to receive fewer life-saving immunizations. (Szabo, 8/12)
Modern Healthcare: No Surprises Act Payment Methodology Struck Down By Appeals Court
A federal appeals court struck down a key methodology related to the implementation of the No Surprises Act. At issue in the case is how to determine the qualified payment amount, or the median rate insurers pay for a service in a specific market. Under the No Surprises Act, the rate is used as a benchmark to calculate cost-sharing and settle disputes for out-of-network claims. On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit affirmed portions of a district court order siding with provider plaintiffs and vacating the government’s process for determining qualified payment amounts. (Hudson, 8/12)
NOTUS: The VA’s Race To Shrink Its Backlog Is Leading To ‘Egregious’ Mistakes
Paul Rushing had a stroke at age 54 and a pulmonary embolism without any of the typical underlying issues. He has a hard time walking 100 yards without having to rest. In Rushing’s estimation, the issues stem back to his time in the Army when he was exposed to toxic chemicals while serving at Fort Polk in Louisiana, later found to have unsafe levels of “forever chemicals” in its groundwater. Earlier this year, the Department of Veterans Affairs denied Rushing’s claim. The department’s justification confounded him; it said a doctor had found that his illness was not connected to his service, something his doctor had never even evaluated. The denial letter mentioned medical issues entirely unrelated to his situation. (Katz, 8/12)
AP: ICE's Plan To Give Shock Gloves To Officers Raises Fears Of Misuse
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to give officers gloves that deliver painful electric shocks faced criticism Wednesday from Democratic elected officials and civil rights advocates, who called it unnecessary and cruel. ICE plans to spend between $10 million and $20 million to outfit officers and agents with “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices,” according to a notice published Monday and revealed first by The Associated Press. (Foley, 8/13)
Fortune: Gates Foundation's $540M Gift To Science Comes As The Federal Government Pulls Back On Funding
As the federal government has continued to slash funding for scientific research, clean energy, social services, public safety, and education, billionaire philanthropists have stepped in to fill the void. Take MacKenzie Scott, for example, who has used her $26 billion philanthropy to rescue organizations like The Trevor Project, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, and HBCUs in danger after the Trump administration’s funding cuts. (Lake, 8/12)
Fierce Healthcare: OpenAI Foundation Commits $100M To Public Health Initiative
The OpenAI Foundation invested $100 million towards a new public health initiative with the Common Health Coalition aimed at helping states and local jurisdictions close discovery-to-delivery gaps, beginning with hepatitis C. The program—dubbed the Breakthroughs to Follow-Through (B2F) Initiative—will initially focus on helping state-based partners to “at least double” hepatitis C cure rates over the next two years across eight initial states and localities, according to a press release. (Gleeson, 8/13)
PUBLIC HEALTH
CIDRAP: Public Health Alerts: Silicosis Among Workers Fabricating Engineered Stone (‘Quartz’) Countertops In California, 2019-2026
A Public Health Alerts report today highlights almost 600 cases of silicosis—an incurable lung disease caused by inhaling silica particles—in workers making stone countertops in California over a span of more than seven years. In the report, researchers from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and their partners note that 65 of the 592 patients needed a lung transplant, and 31 of them died. (Wappes, 8/12)
MedPage Today: Wait Times For Cancer Surgery Are Increasing, Study Finds
Cancer patients are facing longer wait times between diagnosis and the start of first-course therapy, a retrospective cohort study suggested. (Bassett, 8/12)
SCIENCE AND INNOVATIONS
CIDRAP: Invasive Mold Disease Linked To High Rates Of ICU Care, Death
New surveillance data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highlight the severity of invasive mold disease (IMD), finding that, during five years, 45% of patients with IMD at four hospitals died within 90 days, and half required mechanical ventilation. (Bergeson, 8/12)
CIDRAP: Nirsevimab Linked To Reduction In RSV-Related Antibiotic Prescribing
Administering the monoclonal antibody nirsevimab to infants in primary care reduced outpatient antibiotic prescribing for respiratory infections, according to a study by researchers with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most common cause of hospitalization in children younger than 1 year old and is estimated to be responsible for one out of every three hospitalizations for acute respiratory tract infection (ARTI). It's also a common reason for antibiotic use: Roughly half of children hospitalized with RSV, and nearly one-third of those who show up at outpatient clinics with RSV, receive an antibiotic. (Dall, 8/12)
MedPage Today: Experts Flag Potential Safety Concerns In New Prader-Willi Drug
Prader-Willi syndrome experts are warning of potential safety risks associated with extended-release diazoxide choline (Vykat XR), a drug approved last year for treating the extreme bouts of hunger experienced by patients with the rare genetic condition. (Monaco, 8/12)
MedPage Today: Stopping Statins In Trial Didn't Raise Mortality Risk, But ...
Experts were still unsure whether stopping primary prevention statins in the elderly was a good idea following the report of a modestly sized randomized trial. In Statins in the Elderly (SITE, also known as SAGA), statin discontinuation was noninferior to continuation in regard to all-cause mortality over 3 years among people ages 75 and older who were longtime users of the therapy and had no history of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). (Lou, 8/12)
CIDRAP: Study: 10% Of Hospitalized Pneumonia Patients Tested For Coccidioides Were Infected
Of 1,141 adult patients in Arizona hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia, 76% were tested for Coccidioides infection, and 10% had positive results, Mayo Clinic Phoenix researchers report in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. The researchers reviewed the medical records of CAP patients admitted to Mayo Clinic Hospital from November 2024 through October 2025 to determine the rate and patterns of coccidioidomycosis testing and positivity over time. (Van Beusekom, 8/12)
MedPage Today: Arthritis Pain Management Falls Short In U.S., CDC Study Suggests
Federal survey data for 2023 showed an estimated prevalence of moderate to severe joint pain among U.S. adults of 58.5%, suggesting that pain management in arthritis has a long way to go. (Gever, 8/12)
Bloomberg: Google To Track Insulin Trends With New Wearables Feature On Watch 5, Fitbit Air
Alphabet Inc.’s Google is bringing a new set of health features to its wearables, including one that tracks insulin resistance over time, marking a first for consumer tech companies that are working to eventually crack comprehensive blood-sugar monitoring. The new tool, announced Wednesday, does not continuously monitor or show glucose levels, which would mark a major breakthrough. Instead, Google is tracking physiological factors that it considers indicators of how hard the human body is working to produce energy from food. (Kelly, 8/12)
HEALTH INDUSTRY AND PHARMACEUTICALS
Bloomberg: Lilly Escalates Fight Against Black Market For Retatrutide Weight-Loss Shot
Eli Lilly & Co. is stepping up its fight against a booming black market for retatrutide, an experimental drug that the company is counting on to expand its crucial weight-loss franchise. For almost two years, Lilly has been warning consumers not to take knockoff versions of the shot that are being sold online and at wellness clinics and medical spas. It hasn’t been approved by regulators anywhere in the world. (Muller, 8/12)
Becker's Hospital Review: US News Rates GLP-1 Telehealth Platforms For First Time
U.S. News & World Report released its debut ratings Aug. 12 for the best GLP-1 telehealth platforms, its first evaluation of the online companies prescribing brand-name weight loss drugs. The media company rated 20 platforms offering FDA-approved, brand-name GLP-1 medications, including Wegovy, Zepbound, Ozempic and Foundayo, according to an Aug. 12 news release. Companies that offer only compounded GLP-1s were excluded, and for platforms selling both, U.S. News evaluated only the branded portion of the business. (Gooch, 8/12)
MedPage Today: Doctors Born Outside U.S. Play Big Role In Caring For Underserved Patients
Internal medicine physicians who were not born in the U.S. treated 22 million Medicare beneficiaries in 2024, but Trump administration immigration policies may put a dent in that workforce, exacerbating care shortages for the underserved, researchers said. Patients treated by doctors born abroad were more likely to come from underserved populations than those treated by doctors born in the U.S., Giacomo Meille, PhD, of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), and colleagues reported in a research letter in JAMA. (Clark, 8/12)
Bloomberg: US Employers Abandon Group Health Insurance As Price Hikes Bite
As US employers brace for the largest price hikes on employee health plans in 15 years, a growing number are opting out of group insurance altogether. Instead of providing medical benefits directly, more than 20,000 companies entered Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRA) in 2026. That’s an increase of 53% from last year, according to a new report by advocacy group the HRA Council. (Rogers, 8/12)
Modern Healthcare: Intermountain, AdventHealth Sign Denver Joint Venture Agreement
Intermountain Health and AdventHealth have signed a definitive agreement to merge services at multiple hospitals, clinics and medical practices through a joint venture in the Denver area. The deal is slated to close in early 2027, pending regulatory approval, according to a Wednesday notice from AdventHealth. The organizations signed the definitive agreement last week. Financial terms were not disclosed. (DeSilva, 8/12)
Modern Healthcare: UnitedHealth, Humana, CVS Focus On Margins
Health insurers are growing more confident in their long-term earnings potential, so much so they expect to stick with their current strategies into next year. Nearly three-quarters of insurers reported operating losses last year as medical costs outpaced premium revenue, according to a report published this month by HealthScape Advisors, a Chartis company. That dynamic was more pronounced for Blue Cross Blue Shield companies and regional nonprofit insurers than for national carriers, the report said. (Tong, 8/12)
Modern Healthcare: Sharp HealthCare Lays Off 260 Employees
Sharp HealthCare has laid off an estimated 260 staff members as it navigates financial challenges. The cuts affect less than 1% of Sharp HealthCare’s workforce. Employees in behavioral healthcare and some outpatient services were impacted, according to a news release Tuesday. Many affected employees were immediately provided with an offer of alternative employment, the system said. (DeSilva, 8/12)
STATE WATCH
San Francisco Chronicle: California, Meta Face Off In Trial Over Kids’ Social Media Addiction
California and other states seeking more than $1 trillion in penalties and new constraints on the parent company of Facebook and Instagram went to court Wednesday over allegations the social media giant knowingly designed its sites to be addictive to minors. The states seek to prove that Meta lied to the public about the safety of its products for children. (Bollag, 8/12)
ProPublica and WPLN/Nashville Public Radio: Jason Crews’ Wayne Halfway House Failed To Report Abuse, Former Staff Say
The video clip lasted less than two minutes, but Tonya Webb remembers every second as heartbreaking. The grainy surveillance footage, dated June 29, 2024, showed a teenager in an anti-suicide smock being dragged violently by other teens across the floor at Middle Tennessee Juvenile Detention Center. As guards watched, the teens pulled the smock over the boy’s head, exposing his naked body. Then they stuffed him, limbs flailing, into a cell. (Pfleger and Swaby, 8/12)
ProPublica: How AAU Failed To Protect Young Athletes From Sexual Abuse
In the competitive world of youth sports, few organizations have a reach as vast as the Amateur Athletic Union. ... To the hundreds of thousands of parents whose children play under the red, white and blue AAU badge, the organization offers more than a place to compete. The AAU promises their children will be safe — that its coaches are vetted, monitored and trained; that strict rules govern how adults interact with children; and that it responds effectively to allegations of abuse within its ranks. (Hensley-Clancy, 8/13)
