First Edition: Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: As Insurers Struggle With GLP-1 Drug Costs, Some Seek To Wean Patients Off
After losing 50 pounds on the injectable weight loss medication Zepbound, Kyra Wensley received a surprising letter from her pharmacy benefit manager in April. Her request for coverage had been denied, the letter said, because she’d had a body mass index of less than 35 when she started Zepbound. The 25-year-old who lives in New York had been taking Zepbound without incident for months, so she was confused: Why was her BMI, which had been around 32 when she started, becoming an issue only now? (Ducharme, 9/4)

KFF Health News: Fighting A Health Insurance Denial? Here Are 7 Tips To Help
When Sally Nix found out that her health insurance company wouldn’t pay for an expensive, doctor-recommended treatment to ease her neurological pain, she prepared for battle. It took years, a chain of conflicting decisions, and a health insurer switch before she finally won approval. She started treatment in January and now channels time and energy into helping other patients fight denials. (Sausser, 9/4)

KFF Health News: Listen: Limiting Benefits And Adding Restrictions, ‘MAHA’ Reshapes Food Aid
The Trump administration is making historic changes to federal food aid as part of its plan to “Make America Healthy Again.” But some nutrition experts warn recent cuts to funding and more stringent rules to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could do the opposite: Worsen food insecurity and push families toward cheaper, less nutritious options. (Rayasam, 9/4)

VACCINES

Politico: Kennedy Prepares To Name New Vaccine Panel Members
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is considering appointing seven members to the new CDC independent vaccine advisory panel — many of whom share his skepticism of Covid-19 vaccines or the pharmaceutical industry — according to an internal list seen by POLITICO and confirmed by two people with knowledge of the list. The list of names — which was first made public by Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston — includes at least three people who have questioned the safety of messenger RNA vaccines against Covid. (Gardner and Gardner, 9/3)

The Washington Post: FDA Questions Safety Of Receiving Covid, Flu Vaccines Together 
The Food and Drug Administration is scrutinizing the common practice of giving coronavirus and flu shots together, signaling a reversal of years of federal guidance and a broader crackdown on administering multiple vaccines at the same time. Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, recently announced that his team will require new clinical trials before allowing pharmaceutical companies to claim that coadministering multiple respiratory virus vaccines is safe and effective — a plan that was dismissed by outside experts as unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. (Diamond, Roubein and Sun, 9/3)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Official Overruled Scientists On Wide Access To Covid Shots
Memos released in recent days by the Food and Drug Administration show that the agency’s vaccine chief overruled staff scientists who favored widespread access to Covid shots, setting off a firestorm of criticism from lawmakers, state officials and doctors. Agency staff members had concluded that the F.D.A. should allow a wide range of age groups to receive the vaccines, citing high hospitalization rates among young children with Covid and saying that the virus’s evolution is “complex and remains unpredictable.” (Jewett, 9/3)

NBC News: Senators Prepare To Grill RFK Jr. Amid Turmoil At The CDC And Vaccine Changes
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. heads to Capitol Hill for testimony Thursday, a week after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez was fired and a series of vaccine-related decisions drew criticism from lawmakers, including Senate health committee chair, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. Monarez’s firing led several senior CDC officials to resign and fueled a staff protest outside the agency’s Atlanta headquarters last week. In a scathing editorial in The New York Times on Monday, nine former CDC directors called Kennedy “dangerous” and said his actions are “unlike anything our country has ever experienced.” (Lovelace Jr., Kamisar, Kapur and Thorp V, 9/3)

NBC News: West Coast States Band Together To Provide Vaccine Recommendation After RFK Jr. Replaces CDC Panel
Three West Coast states are forming a public health alliance to provide "credible information" about vaccine safety in response to the turmoil within the Trump administration. The announcement heralds a shift from the federal vaccine recommendation system that has been in place for decades to a patchwork structure that varies from state to state. (Madani, 9/3)

The Guardian: Florida To End Vaccine Mandates For Children As State’s Surgeon General Likens Them To ‘Slavery’
Children in Florida will no longer be required to receive vaccines against preventable diseases including measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio and hepatitis, said Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general, on Wednesday in a speech during which he likened vaccine mandates to “slavery”. Ladapo, hand-picked for the role by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, is a longtime skeptic of the benefit of vaccines, and has previously been accused of peddling “scientific nonsense” by public health advocates. (Luscombe, 9/3)

The Hill: Dr. Oz Backs Florida's Move To End School Vax Mandates
Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who oversees Medicaid and Medicare for the Trump administration, on Wednesday threw his support behind Florida’s effort to end mandatory vaccinations in schools. In an interview on “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” the Fox News host asked Oz whether he agrees with officials who want to make Florida the first state in the nation to end childhood vaccine requirements and whether Oz would “recommend the same thing to your patients.” “I would definitely not have mandates for vaccinations,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator told MacCallum. (Fortinsky, 9/3)

The Colorado Sun: Colorado Issues Order Allowing COVID Vaccination Without Prescription
Colorado officials on Wednesday issued public health orders aimed at making it easier for Coloradans to receive a COVID vaccine booster this fall. The orders essentially create a standing prescription allowing for any Coloradan ages 6 months or older to receive a COVID shot if they or their parents choose. (Ingold, 9/3)

Bloomberg: Trump Pollster Briefed Republicans On Support For Vaccines
A Trump pollster briefed Republican congressional staff on Wednesday about polling that showed broad support for childhood vaccines even among voters who supported the president, according to people familiar with the discussions. Voters’ opinions were divided, however, on Covid-19 shots. The presentation comes ahead of a hearing with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday where lawmakers may question him about vaccine policy. (Cohrs Zhang, 9/4)

The Hill: Poll: Kennedy's Health Advice Distrusted By Many
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the face of the federal government’s health care policies, but a new poll suggests few Americans trust his advice when it comes to their own medical decisions. An Economist/YouGov poll released Wednesday found that 26 percent of respondents said that they at least “somewhat” trust Kennedy’s medical advice, compared to 48 percent who said that they distrust him. (Crisp, 9/3)

NBC News: The U.S. Is Headed Toward Two Very Different Vaccination Realities
Turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and states’ beginning to take more control of their own vaccine decisions threaten to fracture the once-national consensus around immunization, setting the stage for a reorganization of the way vaccination recommendations work across the United States. The moves together point toward an increasingly stark divide emerging in the United States around vaccinations, with some Republican-led states starting to roll back or eliminate mandates while Democrat-led states split from the CDC to come up with their own vaccination guidance. (Hernandez and Madani, 9/4)

AUTISM

The Hill: Public Health Coalition: Don’t Trust RFK Jr On Autism
A national coalition of health professionals and scientists is warning Americans not to believe any new alleged causes for autism spectrum disorder announced by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as the agency prepares to reveal “interventions” contributing to the rising rates of the condition. The group, called Defend Public Health, urges the public to confirm whatever new information is released from HHS with other sources before accepting it as fact, especially if it related to a possible link between vaccines and autism. (O’Connell-Domenech, 9/3)

Undark: How RFK Jr. Shut Down Research On Environmental Causes Of Autism
Erin McCanlies was listening to the radio one morning in April when she heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promising to find the cause of autism by September. The secretary of Health and Human Services said he believed an environmental toxin was responsible for the dramatic increase in the condition and vowed to gather “the most credible scientists from all over the world” to solve the mystery. Nothing like that has ever been done before, he told an interviewer. McCanlies was stunned. The work had been done. “That’s exactly what I’ve been doing!” she said to her husband, Fred. (Lerner, 9/2)

FUNDING AND RESEARCH CUTS

Bloomberg: Harvard $2 Billion Funding Freeze Found Illegal By Judge
Harvard University scored a major legal victory in its battle with the Trump administration after a court ruled that the US illegally froze more than $2 billion in research funding. The US government violated Harvard’s free speech rights and didn’t follow proper procedures when it suspended a wide range of research grants in April, according to a federal judge. The ruling on Wednesday paves the way for the funding to be released to the school, but the judge didn’t order it. (Voreacos, 9/3)

Bloomberg: Trump Foreign Aid Block Stopped Again As Billions Set To Expire
A Washington federal judge has barred the Trump administration from unilaterally cutting roughly $12 billion in US foreign assistance funding that Congress approved and is poised to expire at the end of this month. US District Judge Amir Ali ruled Wednesday that the administration’s refusal to spend the aid likely violated a US law that governs how federal agencies make decisions. (Tillman and Burnson, 9/4)

ON CAPITOL HILL

Roll Call: Key House Committee Lays Groundwork For Health Extenders 
The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee is planning to mark up legislation that would extend a slate of expiring health care provisions, subcommittee Chairman Morgan Griffith said Wednesday. Griffith, R-Va., noted the bipartisan support for legislation as members look to prevent provisions from expiring as the end of the fiscal year approaches on Sept. 30. An aide said the panel is still finalizing the exact lineup. (DeGroot, Raman and Hellmann, 9/3)

Fierce Healthcare: Republicans Tout CBO Study On ACA Subsidies, Immigrant Sign-Ups
As the Trump administration takes aim at fraud, waste and abuse in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) market, Republicans in Congress are touting new data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as evidence backing the effort. Legislators asked the CBO to dig further into the potential coverage impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a massive and far-reaching reconciliation package that includes significant overhauls in healthcare. The analysis (PDF) found that 2.3 million individuals received premium tax credits improperly by misstating their income. (Minemyer, 9/3)

Stat: 5 Concerns Raised During House Hearing On Health AI 
The growing influence of artificial intelligence in health care was on display Wednesday as House lawmakers peppered invited witnesses with pointed questions about how technology might influence seemingly disparate topics like drug development, experimental Medicare models, and teen mental health. (Trang, 9/3)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Fierce Healthcare: HHS Looks To Crack Down On Healthcare Information Blocking
The Department of Health and Human Services’ investigation unit and health IT offices are stepping up enforcement of information blocking committed by providers, health IT developers and health information exchanges, the department announced Wednesday. The news comes as Trump’s HHS is trying to improve the flow of patient health information by securing voluntary commitments by 60 major healthcare and tech companies to advance interoperability. (Beavins, 9/3)

MedPage Today: Hospital Launches Misinformation Tracker
Physicians at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have developed a project to track pediatric health misinformation. Joanna Parga-Belinkie, MD, an attending neonatologist at CHOP, said she developed the project along with Katie Lockwood, MD, MEd, a pediatrician at CHOP, because they wanted to find a way to get "good pediatric health content out there." (Henderson, 9/3)

Modern Healthcare: WellSpan, Family First Health Race To Offset Medicaid Cuts
John Keating doesn’t think he’d be alive today if he’d gotten sick under President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” His reasons are the same ones keeping healthcare leaders in rural Adams County, Pennsylvania, up at night as they scramble to confront potentially catastrophic consequences from the tax law just over a year from now, when more than $1 trillion will begin disappearing from the healthcare system. (McAuliff, 9/3)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

The 19th: Texas Passes Bill Banning Abortion Pills From Being Mailed To The State 
Texas lawmakers voted to enact sweeping new restrictions on abortion pills mailed to the state, offering a possible blueprint for other states that have banned abortion. (Luthra, 9/3)

Newsweek: Extreme Morning Sickness Leading Women To Consider Abortion, Study Finds
The staggering toll of hyperemesis gravidarum—an extreme form of morning sickness—on pregnant women has been revealed by a new study, with more than half of subjects saying they had considered ending their pregnancy because of the condition. The research, published in the journal PLOS ONE, surveyed 289 Australian women and found that 54 percent had contemplated termination due to unrelenting nausea and vomiting, while 90 percent reported they had thought about avoiding future pregnancies altogether. (Gray, 9/3)

Bloomberg: The Implants Were Supposed to Dissolve. They Didn’t
In the two years following her breast cancer surgery, not a day went by when Mary Munney Griffiths wasn’t in pain. It was different from the burning she felt in her chest during eight weeks of radiation. This was a new sharp, shooting sensation that woke her up at night and stopped her cold in the grocery store. She worried her cancer had returned, but tests said otherwise. When she finally got a surgeon to operate two years later, the doctor removed 24 plastic shards from her breast. (Edney and Meghjani, 9/3)

PHARMACEUTICALS

Modern Healthcare: PhRMA Launches 340B Program Ad Campaign
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a drugmaker lobbying group, has launched an advertisement campaign that takes aim at the 340B Drug Pricing Program. The campaign’s message is that nonprofit hospitals’ expanded use and abuse of the program lead to significant markups on drug costs for patients, employers and taxpayers, according to a Wednesday news release. The video ad also closes with a call to action for viewers to “tell Congress to fix 340B.” (DeSilva, 9/3)

Stat: FDA Finds Amneal Pharma Used Contaminated IV Bags For Sterile Drug
In a startling failure of quality control, Amneal Pharmaceuticals relied on contaminated bags for a sterile injectable drug even after identifying the risk and then lowered its standards so that the bags could continue to be used, according to an Aug. 27 warning letter issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (Silverman, 9/3)

MedPage Today: Ozempic May Blunt Metabolic Effects Of Antipsychotics
A GLP-1 receptor agonist may help improve metabolic profiles for certain schizophrenia patients on antipsychotics, the randomized HISTORI trial indicated. (Monaco, 9/3)

Bloomberg: Novo Tests Ozempic Pill As Possible Alzheimer’s, Dementia Drug
A team of scientists was crunching Danish health registry data several years ago when it noticed something surprising: Diabetes patients who’d used Novo Nordisk A/S’s last-generation diabetes medicine Victoza or similar GLP-1 drugs appeared to be getting dementia at noticeably lower rates than those treating their diabetes another way. Specifically, adults who’d been taking the injectable for two years had about a 20% lower risk of a dementia diagnosis. “That is in and of itself not proof,” says Martin Holst Lange, the drugmaker’s chief scientific officer. But “it did catch our attention.” (Kresge, 9/4)

CIDRAP: Trial Data Support 1-Dose Antibiotic Treatment For Early Syphilis
The results of randomized clinical trial show that a single shot of the antibiotic benzathine penicillin G (BPG) is as effective in treating early syphilis as the three-injection regimen used in many patients, researchers reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The findings come at a time when the United States and other countries around the world have been experiencing shortages of BPG, which has been the standard treatment for early syphilis since the early 1950s. (Dall, 9/3)

CIDRAP: CARB-X Funds Development Of Novel Diagnostic For Lower Respiratory Tract Infections
CARB-X (Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator) announced today that it is awarding $1 million to biotechnology company Zeteo Tech to advance work on a noninvasive diagnostic test that can diagnose lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) from exhaled breath. (Dall, 9/3)

SUBSTANCE ABUSE

MedPage Today: Private Equity Acquisition Of Opioid Programs No Help For Methadone Supply
Private equity acquisition of opioid treatment programs did not appear to increase the methadone supply, according to a difference-in-differences study. While opioid treatment programs acquired by private equity firms had a "consistent differential increase" in methadone shipments (159.9 g per program, or 13.3%) during the 2 years post-acquisition relative to matched controls (P=0.007), the pooled increase was not significantly different from the pre-acquisition trend (P=0.214), reported Yashaswini Singh, PhD, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and co-authors. (Firth, 9/3)

Axios: Seniors Get Poor Treatment For Opioid Use Disorder: Study
More than 60% of Medicare enrollees with opioid use disorder are getting substandard care, according to a new study in Health Affairs. Opioid use is a growing health problem for older adults in the U.S. Drug overdose deaths for people age 65 and older increased 11.4% between 2022 and 2023, per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data — the largest increase of any age group that year. (Goldman, 9/4)

WBUR: Desperate For Solutions To Addiction Crisis, Some In Boston Call For More Involuntary Commitments 
The debate over how to deal with homelessness, drug addiction and mental health issues has intensified in recent months — with a renewed focus on a controversial strategy of forcing people into treatment. The practice, known as civil commitment, has gained national prominence after President Trump issued an executive order in July embracing the approach. Massachusetts has used involuntary commitment for decades. While some people say it helped them, state data calls into question its effectiveness more broadly. (Becker, 9/3)

Los Angeles Times: 'Ketamine Queen' Pleads Guilty In Federal Court Over Drugs That Killed Matthew Perry
A drug dealer dubbed the “Ketamine queen” who provided the drugs that ultimately killed actor Matthew Perry pleaded guilty on Wednesday to several criminal charges in federal court. Jasveen Sangha, 42, was charged with conspiracy to distribute ketamine to Perry, whose struggles with drug addiction and numerous rehab visits were well documented and who died from acute effects of the drug in October 2023. (Winton, 9/3)

STATE WATCH

The 19th: Texas Bans Transgender People From Public Bathrooms 
Texas is poised to become the latest state to bar transgender people from using public bathrooms after the Senate passed a bill late Wednesday night that also bans transgender people from using locker rooms or from being incarcerated in facilities that align with their genders. (Sosin, 9/3)

North Carolina Health News: Cone Health Adds Remote Therapy To School Telehealth Program 
Greensboro-based Cone Health is expanding its school-based telehealth program to offer remote mental health services for the first time. Students struggling with anxiety, depression or other mental or behavioral health issues can be connected to a therapist during the school day, said John Jenkins, medical director of Cone Health School-Based Care. (Fernandez, 9/4)

CIDRAP: US Measles Total Climbs To 1,431 Cases
In a weekly update, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today reported 23 more measles cases, lifting the country’s total to 1,431, the most since the country reached elimination status in 2000. For the first time, health officials divided out the cases confirmed in international visitors, which account for 18 of the national cases. The number of outbreaks remained the same, at 35, double the number for 2024. So far, 86% of cases are linked to outbreaks, compared to 69% last year. (Schnirring, 9/3)

PUBLIC HEALTH

Newsweek: Scientists Uncover 'Hidden' Subtype Of Multiple Sclerosis
A previously "hidden" subtype of Multiple Sclerosis (MS)—a condition that affects the brain and spinal cord—has been uncovered. The distinct subtype exhibits "significant cognitive deficits with minimal motor impairment," as established in new research led by King's College London. This MS subtype may often go undetected and untreated due to the lack of visible impairment it causes. However, the researchers present a new online assessment tool that's accessible and effective at scale. (Millington, 9/3)

CNN: Artificial Sweeteners Aged The Brain By Over 1.5 Years, Study Says 
People who consumed the highest levels of certain artificial sweeteners — equivalent to just one diet soda a day — saw a significant decline in their ability to remember and recall words when compared to people who consumed the lowest levels, a new study found. (LaMotte, 9/3)

The Washington Post: Prolonged Toilet Sitting Could Increase Hemorrhoid Risk, Study Says
Prolonged smartphone use on the toilet could be linked to a higher risk of hemorrhoids, not because of increased straining, but because of how much longer people sit, according to research published Wednesday. A cross-sectional analysis of 125 patients undergoing screening colonoscopies found that smartphone users in the group spent significantly more time on the toilet, according to the study published in PLOS One from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. (Malhi, 9/3)

AP: Federal Health Officials Warn Of H5N1 Bird Flu In Certain Raw Cat Food
Federal health officials are warning that certain lots of raw cat food may be contaminated with H5N1 bird flu after a pet cat in San Francisco that ate the food became infected with the virus and had to be euthanized. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that two lots of RAWR Raw Cat Food Chicken Eats tested positive for the virus. Analysis by San Francisco health department officials showed that the same strain of the H5N1 virus was present in the pet food and in the cat that died. (Aleccia, 9/4)