First Edition: Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: As US Is Poised To Lose Measles-Free Status, RFK Jr.’s New CDC Deputy Downplays Its Significance
After a year of ongoing measles outbreaks that have sickened more than 2,400 people, the United States is poised to lose its status as a measles-free country. However, the newly appointed principal deputy director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ralph Abraham, said he was unbothered by the prospect at a briefing for journalists this week. (Maxmen, 1/21)

KFF Health News and Gulf States Newsroom: Farmers Now Owe A Lot More For Health Insurance
Last year was a tough one for farmers. Amid falling prices for commodity crops such as corn and soybeans, rising input costs for supplies like fertilizer and seeds, as well as the Trump tariffs and the dismantling of USAID, many farms weren’t profitable last year. And now, the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that many Americans, including farmers, relied on to purchase health insurance are gone, having expired at the end of December. (Boden and Hawkins, 1/22)

KFF Health News: Make Us Swoon: Send In Your Health Policy Valentines
Affordable health care is our love language. Stoke the fire by submitting your sweetest “Health Policy Valentines.” We want to see your clever, heartfelt, or hilarious tributes to the policies that shape health care. An esteemed panel of editors will review entries. We’ll share favorites on our social media channels, and our staff will pick the winners, announced on Friday, Feb. 13, just in time for Valentine’s Day. (1/22)

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

Stat: U.S. Makes Exit From The WHO Complete
The United States’ withdrawal from the World Health Organization became official Thursday, formalizing a fissure between the Trump administration and the Geneva-based global health agency that dates back to the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. (Branswell, 1/22)

Politico: A U.S. Return To The World Health Organization Could Hinge On Whether Trump Approves Of Its Next Leader
After 77 years, the U.S. is no longer a member of the World Health Organization. Now, the race is on to convince President Donald Trump he should rejoin. The key to a potential return is who becomes the leader of the WHO next year and whether Trump likes them. Trump has accused the WHO of covering up for China during the pandemic and gouging the U.S. on dues. (Paun, 1/22)

HEALTH CARE COSTS AND COVERAGE

Modern Healthcare: Health Insurance CEOs To Face Daylong Grilling On Capitol Hill
Congress has agreed on little after a year of sparring over escalating healthcare costs and shrinking subsidies, with a notable exception: Big health insurance companies are not helping. On Thursday, the CEOs of five of major insurers will face a daylong grilling on Capitol Hill, where they will get to make their case before two separate House committees, and likely be targets for pent up anger from both sides of the aisle. (McAuliff and Tepper, 1/21)

MedPage Today: Health Groups Pleased With Proposed NIH Budget In Bipartisan Funding Bill 
Health groups praised many of the provisions in the joint House-Senate bill that would fund the NIH and several other agencies under HHS for fiscal year 2026. "Even in these challenging times, the bill increases the overall NIH budget and includes new protections to help the agency fulfill its lifesaving mission," Mary Woolley, president and CEO of Research!America, a nonprofit science advocacy group, said in a statement. (Frieden, 1/21)

Politico: Congress’ Health Deal Still Has Hurdles 
After months of fruitless negotiations to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that have since expired, congressional leaders announced Tuesday they’d notched a rare bipartisan win to overhaul other parts of the health care system. Now they just have to hold onto it. The agreement, attached to a government spending bill, would implement long-sought changes to the way pharmacy benefit managers operate, as well as extensions of public health programs and increased funding for community health centers. But even with strong support in both chambers, the bill faces significant hurdles. (King, Chu and Guggenheim, 1/22)

The Hill: UHG Plans To Return ObamaCare Profits To ACA Members
UnitedHealth Group (UHG), the largest national health care provider in the U.S., is planning to return profits it makes in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace to consumers in 2026. CEO and Chair Stephen Hemsley is expected to announce the idea when he appears before a House Committee on Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Thursday, according to a copy of his prepared testimony. (Brams, 1/21)

Modern Healthcare: Blue Cross Campaign Targets University Of Vermont Medical Center
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont’s provocative new marketing campaign points a finger at the state’s largest academic medical center for sending exchange premiums to the highest level in the nation. The nonprofit health insurance company partnered with Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans and three other independent providers. The “VT Affordable Care” blitz features newspaper advertisements, social media and a website that spells out the price differences for specific services at local providers compared to the University of Vermont Medical Center. (Tepper, 1/21)

PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS

Bloomberg: CVS Health May Have Violated Antitrust Laws, Republicans Say
CVS Health Corp. was accused by Republican lawmakers of possibly violating antitrust laws by discouraging independent pharmacies from working with third-party competitors. Republican and Democratic lawmakers, along with President Donald Trump, have been increasingly critical of health conglomerates, like CVS, which operate insurance companies, retail pharmacies, and drug benefit managers. Chief executive officers of CVS and other insurers will testify at a congressional hearing on Thursday. (Swetlitz, 1/21)

Modern Healthcare: FTC, Cigna Weigh Insulin Settlement 
Cigna may be on the verge of striking a deal with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations it artificially raised insulin prices. The FTC has suspended its administrative case against the Evernorth Health Services, Express Scripts and Ascent Health Services parent company while it considers a settlement, the FTC disclosed in a legal filing Tuesday. (Tong, 1/21)

Fortune: Trump Says Europe Does One Thing Right: Drug Prices
President Donald Trump told an audience of thousands of executives and global leaders at the World Economic Forum that European countries have taken a turn for the worse. Trump said his friends who visit the continent tell him they don’t recognize the region—and “not in a positive way." (Rogelberg, 1/21)

PUBLIC HEALTH

ABC News: Heart Disease Fatalities Drop But Are Still Leading Cause Of Death In The US: Report
Fewer people are dying from heart disease, but the condition is still the leading cause of death in the U.S., a new report from the American Heart Association (AHA) finds. Although death rates from heart disease have dropped for the first time in the past five years, it still kills more Americans than any other condition, according to the report, published early Wednesday in the journal Circulation. (Zhang, 1/21)

The New York Times: Dozens Are Sickened By A Rare Fungal Infection In Tennessee
One death is being investigated and at least 35 other people have been sickened in the Nashville area after breathing in the spores of a fungus commonly found in the soil, health officials said. The illness, histoplasmosis, is a rare respiratory infection that can cause symptoms similar to those of the flu: fever, chills, cough, chest pain, fatigue and night sweats. (Hassan, 1/21)

Lehi Free Press: Measles Surge Highlights Utah’s Lack Of Herd Immunity 
Vaccination rates across Utah, including in Utah County, have fallen below levels needed to maintain herd immunity as the state continues to track a measles outbreak during the 2025–2026 school year. According to the Utah Measles Dashboard on utah.gov, there have been a recorded 210 measles cases statewide since last June. Of those cases, 187 were in unvaccinated individuals, and the majority involved children under the age of 18. ... As of Jan. 19, Utah County has reported 26 measles cases, the highest number among counties along the Wasatch Front. (Wallgren, 1/20)

Bloomberg: Flu Vaccinations For Older Americans Drop As Cases Rise
Influenza vaccinations among a high-risk group — adults age 65 and older — has declined, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, amid two consecutive severe flu seasons that have seen thousands die from the disease. New research shows that flu vaccinations for older adults dropped to 67.1% in 2024, down from 70.5% in 2019. According to William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases and health policy at Vanderbilt University, this decrease is largely because of vaccine hesitancy. (Thornton, 1/21)

MedPage Today: RFK Jr. Links His Vocal Issues To Flu Shots
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes his spasmodic dysphonia could be due to taking flu shots, he told USA Today. In an interview with the outlet, Kennedy said he took annual flu shots until the mid-1990s, then stopped in 2005 "when I began looking at the side effects." "I was preparing litigation against some of the flu shots several years ago and one of the entries that was listed on a lot of them was spasmodic dysphonia, which is an injury I have to my voice. That's why my voice is so screwed up," Kennedy said. (Fiore, 1/21)

IMMIGRATION CRISIS

The New York Times: Court Removes Restrictions On ICE’s Use Of Pepper Spray, For Now 
A federal appeals court blocked an injunction on Wednesday that had imposed restrictions on how immigration agents interact with protesters in Minnesota. The order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was one sentence long and included no explanation. It granted the Trump administration’s request for an administrative stay of the district court’s preliminary injunction, which was issued on Friday. (Smith, 1/21)

AP: Autopsy Finds Cuban Immigrant In ICE Custody Died Of Homicide
A Cuban migrant held in solitary confinement at an immigration detention facility in Texas died after guards held him down and he stopped breathing, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday that ruled the death a homicide. Geraldo Lunas Campos died Jan. 3 following an altercation with guards. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the 55-year-old father of four was attempting suicide and the staff tried to save him. But a witness told The Associated Press last week that Lunas Campos was handcuffed as at least five guards held him down and one put an arm around his neck and squeezed until he was unconscious. (Biesecker and Foley, 1/22)

The Washington Post: ICE Detains Four Children From Minnesota School District, Including 5-Year-Old
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota have detained at least four children from the same school district this month, including a 5-year-old boy, school officials in a Minneapolis suburb said Wednesday. (Jeong, 1/22)

Minnesota Public Radio: Native Physician Highlights Negative Impact Of ICE Presence
During the surge of federal agents in Minneapolis this month, MPR News has received several reports of Native Americans that were approached — and in a few cases, detained — by immigration agents. Tribal leaders from Oglala Sioux have not been able to verify those claims. But the situation has created fear in the community. (Moini, Olson and Finn, 1/21)

MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

The Guardian: Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Asks Trump To Commute Prison Sentence
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has asked Donald Trump to commute her sentence after she was convicted of defrauding investors in her now-defunct blood-testing startup that was once valued at $9bn, a notice on the US Department of Justice website showed. The justice department’s office of the pardon attorney lists the status of her commutation request, which was made last year, as pending. (Dunbar and agencies, 1/21)

AP: NASA Astronauts Emphasize Importance Of Ultrasound Machine
The astronauts evacuated last week from the International Space Station say a portable ultrasound machine came in “super handy” during the medical crisis. During their first public appearance since returning to Earth, the four astronauts refused Wednesday to say which one of them needed medical attention and for what reason. It was NASA’s first medical evacuation in 65 years of human spaceflight. NASA’s Mike Fincke said the crew used the onboard ultrasound machine once the medical problem arose Jan. 7, the day before a planned spacewalk that was abruptly canceled. (Dunn, 1/22)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

The Washington Post: HHS Targets Illinois Over Abortion Referral Law
The Trump administration is threatening to strip Illinois of federal health dollars over a state law requiring medical providers to refer patients for abortion services, even if the providers oppose abortion. The 2017 measure violates federal conscience protections, according to a notice to state officials sent Wednesday by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (OCR). The action is the Trump administration’s latest signal it’s willing to use federal funding as a cudgel to advance its priorities. (Winfield Cunningham, 1/21)

Bridge Michigan: Planned Parenthood Offers Vasectomies In Michigan As Abortion Access Drops
Citing an increased demand for “permanent birth control” since the US Supreme Court overturned abortion access across the country, Planned Parenthood of Michigan will now offer vasectomy services to its patients. The minor surgery is being offered at Planned Parenthood of Michigan’s Irwin/Martin health center in Grand Rapids, with more locations expected to come online throughout the year. Planned Parenthood maintains 10 brick-and-mortar clinics in Michigan and a statewide telehealth program. The Michigan chapter ceased its vasectomy operations about a decade ago, officials said, but a newfound need has pushed the organization to resume its efforts. (Newman, 1/21)

The 19th: Health Sharing Plans Can Leave Pregnant Patients With Huge Bills
Alycin Berry’s husband had just started a new job in early 2018 when the couple started to dig into his benefits. The amount they’d have to pay for health insurance, they realized, was “ridiculously expensive” — more than they could reasonably afford. (Luthra, 1/21)

MedPage Today: Can This Cesarean Closure Technique Reduce Complications?
When Clarel Antoine, MD, of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City, reflected on his decades-long career performing hundreds of cesarean sections, he realized his patients didn't seem to have the types of complications common after cesarean delivery. Women often experience long-term obstetrical complications, like having trouble getting pregnant again, pain during sex or menstruation, or placenta accreta spectrum, a serious complication where the placenta attaches at the site of a prior cesarean section because of scar defects. (Robertson, 1/21)

INFANT HEALTH

Newsweek: Scientists Discover Pesticide Traces In Breast Milk
Researchers at McGill University have identified several unexpected chemical contaminants in human milk, finding traces of pesticides, antimicrobials and additives used in plastics and personal‑care products. The team said the data, drawn from Canadian and South African samples, could help strengthen chemical safety regulations and improve protections for infants and parents. (Fleur Afshar, 1/21)

Bloomberg: Baby Formula Recall: What Parents Need To Know About Dangerous Cereulide Toxin
A little-known food toxin called cereulide is at the center of a global safety scare and has led to a wave of infant formula recalls worldwide from Nestlé SA, Danone SA and Groupe Lactalis. Though manufacturers said there are no confirmed illnesses linked to the toxin, which can cause food poisoning, authorities in multiple countries are investigating possible cases. (Deutsch and Kinzelmann, 1/22)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

San Francisco Chronicle: Kaiser Nurses Plan Open-Ended Strike In CA And Hawaii
The union representing 31,000 nurses and other health care workers at Kaiser Permanente plan to start an open-ended strike Monday at dozens of Kaiser locations in California and Hawaii, including in the Bay Area. The union, UNAC/UHCP (United Nurses Association of California/Union of Health Care Professionals), issued a notice to strike last week over what workers say are unsafe staffing levels, access to care and fair wages. The union’s contract with Oakland-based Kaiser expired Sept. 30, and the two sides have been in contract negotiations since then. (Ho, 1/21)

MedPage Today: ABIM Adds Path To Certification After Residency Abroad
The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) recently launched a pilot pathway to certification for international medical graduates (IMGs) who completed residency abroad. Eligible participants must have completed at least 3 years of internal medicine training abroad, according to ABIM, as well as an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited fellowship in an ABIM subspecialty. (Henderson, 1/21)

Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Data Breaches Down More Than 11% In 2025: HHS
After the largest-ever number of Americans had their health data compromised in 2024, the last year saw significant improvement. Roughly 46 million medical records were breached in 2025, an 84% decrease from the year before, according to the Health and Human Services Department’s Office for Civil Rights. Security experts attribute the reduction to an increased provider focus on third-party business partners. (Broderick, 1/21)

The Washington Post: Can Your Health Records Be Sold For Profit? A Lawsuit Says It’s Happening.
On the digital superhighway that allows sensitive patient health records to be shared by hospitals and doctors, something seemed off to engineers at Epic Systems: Among the providers with access to the network were names that sounded like law firms. That observation in 2022 led to an investigation into what Epic — the nation’s largest vendor of electronic health record software — alleges are “organized syndicates” that fraudulently obtained access to nearly 300,000 patient records without their consent, in many cases marketing them to lawyers to allegedly mine for prospective clients. (Gilbert, 1/22)

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Stat: FDA Clears Aidoc Tool That Detects Multiple Conditions On A CT Scan
On Wednesday, radiology AI company Aidoc announced the FDA has cleared a tool that can triage 14 critical findings in a single abdominal CT scan: liver injury, spleen injury, bowel obstruction, appendicitis, and more. (Palmer, 1/21)

The Hill: Bill Gates Unveils OpenAI Partnership Targeting Health Systems
The Gates Foundation on Wednesday announced Horizon1000, a $50 million health project created in partnership with OpenAI to increase the utilization of artificial intelligence inside health care centers across Africa. “Over the next few years, we will collaborate with leaders in African countries as they pioneer the deployment of AI in health,” Gates wrote in a Wednesday blog post outlining the venture. (Fields, 1/21)

NBC News: Using AI For Advice Or Other Personal Reasons Is Linked To Depression And Anxiety
People who interact with chatbots for emotional support or other personal reasons are likelier to report symptoms of depression or anxiety, a new study finds. The researchers from Mass General Brigham surveyed 20,847 mostly white men and women in the United States about their AI usage and mental health symptoms. (Ozcan, 1/22)

STATE WATCH

The New York Times: Ex-Uvalde Officer Found Not Guilty of Endangering Children in Mass Shooting
More than three years after a gunman massacred 21 people at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary in one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history, a former school police officer was found not guilty of abandoning or endangering children. Adrian Gonzales, the first officer to arrive at the school, was facing 29 counts of abandoning or endangering children, 19 for the dead and 10 more for survivors, after seven hours of deliberations Wednesday. (Sandoval, 1/21)

WFSU: New Florida Bill Targets 'Aiding And Abetting' Gender-Affirming Care For Minors 
Providing gender-affirming care, such as hormone treatment, to people under 18 is illegal in Florida. But a new bill could change who can be charged for it and who can investigate it. (Wood, 1/21)

NPR: How North Carolina Erased Medical Debt For 2.5 Million People
After a routine trip to her mailbox, Dawn Daly-Mack almost threw away an important letter that she thought was junk mail. "I opened it up and it said, 'Your medical bill has been paid,'" says Daly-Mack, 60, who lives in Gaston, in northeastern North Carolina. "I didn't believe it." The letter turned out to be legitimate. Daly-Mack is one of about 2.5 million North Carolinians whose medical debt was erased under a new statewide agreement with hospitals. The hospital wiped away her $459 debt, dating back to a 2014 emergency room visit for a sinus infection. (Olgin, 1/21)

The New York Times: Parents Sue Residential Home Over Abuse Of Their Autistic Son 
Shalini Babbar received an unexpected phone call on a Sunday morning in August 2024 from an employee at a residential home in upstate New York, where her 19-year-old autistic son was living. The employee at the home, the Anderson Center for Autism, told Ms. Babbar that her son was being abused. The abuse had been going on for some time, she said she was told, and the employee had a video. Ms. Babbar panicked and begged the man for the footage. (Meko, 1/21)

NBC News: Arctic Blast To Bring Subzero Weather To Eastern States As Winter Storm Brews
A massive winter storm set to wallop a 2,000-mile stretch from the southern Plains to the Northeast beginning Friday could cause power outages for millions of Americans and make roads impassable, meteorologists say. First it will get frigid. An Arctic front is expected to send temperatures plunging below zero in the northern Plains on Thursday and into the mid-Mississippi Valley, the Ohio Valley and the Northeast by Sunday, the National Weather Service said. The frigid air mass will then interact with a frontal zone to the south to generate a major storm through the weekend. (Smith, Prociv and Cohen, 1/21)

Newsweek: Thousands Advised To Stay Inside In Georgia, Tennessee
Thousands of people in communities across parts of Georgia (including Dalton, Adrian, and Louisville) and Tennessee (including Chattanooga, Dunlap, and Tracy City) have been advised to stay indoors, after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recorded that fine particle pollution (PM2.5) had reached "unhealthy" levels, as of January 22, 2026, at 2.45 a.m., according to the AirNow Map. When local air quality readings are classified as "unhealthy," the EPA warns that everyone in the affected area might begin to experience certain health effects, ranging from coughing and eye, throat, and nose irritation to chest tightness and shortness of breath. (Greenwood, 1/22)

InvestigateWest: Oregon Town To Test River Where Wood Treater Sent Polluted Stormwater
A northwest Oregon town is stepping up testing of the river that supplies some of its drinking water, prompted by InvestigateWest’s reporting that a local wood treater released stormwater tainted with toxic preservatives into the waterway while regulators kept it quiet. The Sheridan City Council has instructed staff to consult with environmental researchers and state regulators on a new plan to test water samples from the South Yamhill River for chemicals used in recent years by Canadian company Stella-Jones. The proposed tests are separate from standard monitoring for contaminants in city drinking water that Sheridan is required by state law to regularly conduct. (Tornay, 1/21)

SUBSTANCE ABUSE

AP: Chess Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky Died Of Heart Problems From Accidental Overdose
Daniel Naroditsky, an influential American chess grandmaster who was found dead at his North Carolina home in October at age 29, had multiple drugs in his system at the time and was killed by an abnormal heartbeat caused by an accidental overdose, according to a toxicology report. Released Tuesday by the North Carolina Medical Examiner’s Office, the report said Naroditsky tested positive for methamphetamine and kratom, an opioid-related ingredient that is increasingly added to energy drinks, gummies and supplements. (1/21)