First Edition: Tuesday, April 1, 2025

KFF Health News: Trump Says He’ll Stop Health Care Fraudsters. Last Time, He Let Them Walk. 
Five years ago, the CEO of one of the largest pain clinic companies in the Southeast was sentenced to more than three years in prison after being convicted in a $4 million illegal kickback scheme. But after just four months behind bars, John Estin Davis walked free. President Donald Trump commuted Davis’ sentence in the last days of his first term. In a statement explaining the decision, the White House said that “no one suffered financially” from Davis’ crime. (Kelman, 4/1)

KFF Health News: Montana May Start Collecting Immunization Data Again Amid US Measles Outbreak 
When epidemiologist Sophia Newcomer tries to evaluate how well Montana might be able to ward off the measles outbreak spreading across the U.S., she doesn’t have much data to work with. A federal state-by-state survey last year showed that just over 86% of Montana’s 2-year-olds had recently received the measles, mumps, and rubella immunization. That figure has decreased in recent years, according to earlier surveys, and Newcomer, an associate professor at the University of Montana, said the latest rate is “well below” the ideal 95% threshold for community protection against highly contagious diseases. (Silvers, 4/1)

Politico: Internal Fallout At HHS Delays 10,000 Firings
A sweeping layoff plan affecting more than 10,000 employees at the Department of Health and Human Services was abruptly delayed Friday over growing backlash with how the process was being orchestrated by Brad Smith, the DOGE lead at HHS, two officials tell POLITICO. At the center of the controversy is Smith’s secretive approach and his attempts to shield one HHS agency he has ties to from the reduction in force process, according to the two officials as well as two others, all granted anonymity to describe the sensitive conversations. The fallout has laid bare internal tensions within DOGE and raised questions about transparency in one of the most consequential restructuring efforts of the federal workforce. (Cai, Cancryn and Gardner, 3/31)

Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Sector Shaken As Trump Stirs Havoc In D.C.
Health systems have paused construction projects. Medical facilities are scrambling to acquire critical supplies as costs balloon under steep new tariffs. Hospitals are preparing to pare back services that don’t generate profits, such as and labor and delivery units. “It's been a little over 60 days. It's felt like a year,” said Jacquelyn Bombard, assistant vice president and chief federal government affairs officer at Renton, Washington-based Providence Health and Services. (Early, 3/31)

Politico: New FDA Commissioner Agreed To Oust Top Vaccine Regulator After Private Swearing-In 
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary signed off on the ouster of top vaccine official Peter Marks shortly after being quietly sworn in as the agency’s new leader late last week, four people familiar with the matter told POLITICO. The forced removal was Makary’s first major act as commissioner and sent a powerful signal to a stunned Washington that was already anxious about the role vaccine skepticism would play under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Health and Human Services Department. Makary and Kennedy had previously agreed to push out Marks, who led the FDA’s vaccine division for more than eight years, as part of a broader overhaul of HHS leadership. (Cancryn and Lim, 3/31)

Stat: Vence Bonham, Acting Director Of National Genome Institute, Put On Leave
Vence Bonham, acting deputy director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, has been “unexpectedly” placed on administrative leave, he announced in an email to staff Monday evening. (Mast, 3/31)

The Washington Post: Some 1,900 Scientists Accuse Trump Of ‘Wholesale Assault’ On Science 
More than 1,900 scientists have signed a letter warning that the Trump administration is threatening scientific independence and urging it to “cease its wholesale assault on U.S. science.” Since taking office, President Donald Trump and his team have upended the country’s scientific research apparatus — slashing funding, terminating grants and attempting to weed out ideas deemed unacceptable, according to the letter, which was shared on Monday. (Ables, 4/1)

The Washington Post: Trump Administration Targets Billions In Funding To Harvard 
The Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, recently formed by the administration to address complaints of discrimination on college campuses, will review the more than $255 million in contracts between the federal government, Harvard and its affiliates. And it will look at more than $8.7 billion in multiyear grant commitments to Harvard and its affiliates to ensure the school is in compliance with federal regulations, the announcement from the departments of Health and Human Services, Education, and the U.S. General Services Administration said. Harvard affiliates include local hospitals whose physicians teach at Harvard Medical School. (Svrluga and Douglas-Gabriel, 3/31)

Stat: NIH BRAIN Initiative Sees Big Funding Cuts, Faces Uncertain Future 
In 2021, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, decoded brain signals from a man who hadn’t spoken in more than 15 years to generate words that flashed on a screen. This March, Medtronic, a medical device company, won regulatory approval for a first-of-its-kind therapy that delivers precise, adjustable pulses of electricity to the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease. (Wosen and Broderick, 4/1)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco Scientists ‘Devastated’ By Cuts For Vaccine Research
The National Institutes of Health immediately terminated projects investigating vaccine safety during pregnancy and the effectiveness of the shingles vaccine. (Lee, 3/29)

Stat: Trump Cuts To PEPFAR Rocks Rollout Of Gilead HIV Prevention Drug
The Trump administration’s enormous cuts to a global AIDS relief program threaten to upend the planned rollout of a groundbreaking HIV prevention drug that was expected to save countless lives. (Silverman and Mast, 4/1)

Stat: Judge Strikes Down FDA Lab-Developed Test Rule 
A federal judge in Texas squashed the Food and Drug Administration’s plan to regulate lab-developed tests on Monday, ruling in favor of lab trade groups that said the agency was overstepping its bounds. (Lawrence, 3/31)

Stat: HHS Will Not Enforce Gender And Sexual Orientation Requirements For Medical Records
The changes to medical records hit federal systems first. In February, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services removed sexual orientation and gender identity questions from enrollment forms for Medicare beneficiaries, and the U.S. DOGE Service said it had removed gender identity from the personal information pages of Veterans Health Administration patients. Now, the Trump administration’s efforts to strip these demographics from patient forms have reached the private sector. (Palmer, 4/1)

The New York Times: Pentagon Eliminates Lower Fitness Standards for Women in Combat Roles
The Pentagon this week ordered the elimination of lower physical fitness standards for women in combat units, a move that is likely to hinder the recruitment and retention of women in particularly dangerous military jobs. An order by Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, dated Sunday and announced on Monday, mandated that all physical fitness requirements for combat arms positions — units likely to see significant fighting in wartime — be “sex-neutral,” which is likely to significantly reduce the number of women who meet the requirements. The order directs military leadership to implement the new fitness standards by the end of October. (Cameron, 3/31)

The Washington Post: Trump Administration Moves To Withhold Title X Funding From Planned Parenthood 
The Trump administration will begin to withhold some federal funding from Planned Parenthood starting Tuesday, a move that will curtail access to services including cancer screenings and affordable birth control, the organization said. Planned Parenthood said Monday that nine of its affiliates had received notice from the administration that it would withhold funding from Title X, the nationwide family-planning program. Since 1970, Title X has provided federal funding to health centers for family planning aid and reproductive health care, including birth control and other nonabortion services — including about $286 million in the 2024 fiscal year. (Somasundaram, 3/31)

Roll Call: Oz Opposes Abortion, Trans Care In Letter To GOP Senator 
Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, affirmed his opposition to abortion and gender-affirming care for trans people, including for minors, in a letter to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., that Hawley posted online Monday. The letter, which Hawley posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, came after Hawley pressed Oz on past comments Oz made on his television show “The Dr. Oz Show” supporting gender-affirming care for trans people and children. (Hellmann, 3/31)

The New York Times: Alabama Can’t Prosecute Those Who Help With Out-Of-State Abortions, Judge Rules 
Alabama cannot prosecute doctors and reproductive health organizations for helping patients travel out of the state to obtain abortions, a federal judge ruled on Monday. Alabama has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, and in 2022 its attorney general, Steve Marshall, a Republican, raised the possibility of charging doctors with criminal conspiracy for recommending abortion care out of state. On Monday, the judge, Myron H. Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama, in Montgomery, ruled that Mr. Marshall would be violating both the First Amendment and the right to travel if he sought prosecution. (Cochrane, 3/31)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Mo. Republicans Advance Ballot Question To Restrict Abortion
Republicans moved forward Monday with a plan to restrict abortions and do away with the right Missourians voted to enshrine in the state constitution in November. The GOP-led House Children and Families Committee advanced the proposed constitutional amendment Monday by an 11-5 vote along party lines. The measure would ban abortions with exceptions for medical emergencies and cases of rape, incest and fetal anomalies. (Suntrup, 3/31)

The Washington Post: What To Know About The Wisconsin Supreme Court Race — And Musk’s Involvement
The most expensive judicial battle in U.S. history is unfolding in Wisconsin, as Tuesday’s election for a seat on the swing state’s Supreme Court will determine whether the court retains its liberal majority. The Wisconsin Supreme Court will determine the future of abortion rights in the state and is considering a case on an 1849 law that has been broadly viewed as banning nearly all abortions, along with one that asks whether the state’s constitution guarantees a right to abortion. (Masih, 3/31)

Denver 7: Colorado Sees First Confirmed Case Of Measles Since 2023 Amid Recent Outbreaks
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) on Monday announced the state's first confirmed case of measles since 2023 amid recent outbreaks in surrounding states and across the country. The case involves an unvaccinated Pueblo adult who recently traveled to an area of Mexico "experiencing an ongoing measles outbreak," according to CDPHE. (Isenberg, 3/31)

Al Jazeera: Faced With Measles, Texas Healthcare Workers Confront ‘Information Warfare’
“Public health officials aren't skilled in information warfare,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center. “They have to get people to understand the importance and value of getting vaccinated, but battling information warfare is not what we're taught in public health school.” (Hicks, 3/31)

Fierce Healthcare: Hospitals Extorted After Oracle Health Server Breach
Oracle Health reportedly suffered a data breach earlier this year in which hospitals’ patient data were stolen from the company’s legacy servers. The incident has not yet been reported by Oracle but was shared Friday by information security and technology news publication Bleeping Computer, which cited notices Oracle has sent to its hospital customers. That reporting has since been verified by Bloomberg News, whose source also said that the incident is being looked at by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (Muoio, 3/31)

San Francisco Chronicle: Health Worker Strike At UCSF This Week Will Affect Some Appointments
As many as thousands of unionized University of California health care and technical workers are poised to join in a one-day strike Tuesday across all UC campuses and medical centers, including UCSF Parnassus. The UC-wide strike, led by the University Professional Technical Employees union, UPTE-CWA Local 9119, is slated to last from midnight Monday to 11:59 p.m. Tuesday. It is planned at UCSF Parnassus for 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., according to UPTE, which represents about 20,000 employees, including physician assistants, optometrists, pharmacists, nurse case managers and mental health workers. (Ho, 3/31)

The CT Mirror: Nursing Home Workers To Remind CT Officials A Strike Is Possible
Connecticut’s nursing home and other health care workers will remind state officials Tuesday that federal aid cuts ordered by President Donald J. Trump aren’t the only things they need to address. More than 6,000 nursing home staff spread among more than 60 facilities are working with expired contracts after watching four years of inflation consume their last round of raises — and more. And another 3,500 health care workers, most assisting clients with disabilities in group homes, are similarly due for wage hikes. (Phaneuf, 3/31)

The Baltimore Sun: Hopkins-Owned Broadway Services LLC To Cut Over 1,000 Jobs By June
A company jointly owned by the Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health Systems will close this summer, eliminating over 1,000 jobs, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retaining Notification. Broadway Services LLC, a Baltimore-based contract services company, serves the Maryland and Washington areas, including Hopkins’ Baltimore campuses. The firm provides security, parking services, janitorial, transportation and facility management. (Foster, 3/31)

The New York Times: Johnson & Johnson Loses In Court Again In Bid To Settle Talc Cases 
A federal bankruptcy judge in Houston on Monday rejected Johnson & Johnson’s request to approve a $9 billion settlement with tens of thousands of people who are suing the company over claims that its talcum powder products caused cancer. The proposal would have resolved nearly all current and future claims that the company’s talc products contained asbestos and caused cancer. Like the previous two efforts — in 2021 and 2023 — the deal tried to use an element of the bankruptcy system to settle the claims. (Segal, 3/31)

FiercePharma: Judge Levies $1.64B Penalty On J&J In HIV Drug Marketing Case
Nearly a year after a jury decided that Johnson & Johnson should be fined just over $150 million in a lawsuit alleging that the company engaged in misleading marketing tactics for two of its HIV meds, a judge has upped the penalty more than tenfold. (Park, 3/31)

FiercePharma: Sanofi's Versatile Qfitlia Scores FDA Nod To Enter Crowded Hemophilia Market
Over the last three years, the FDA has approved six new hemophilia drugs, including three gene therapies. Into this crowded treatment landscape comes another new medicine as the FDA has signed off on Sanofi’s Qfitlia (fitusiran), which sets itself apart as the only treatment for all types of hemophilia. Not only is Qfitlia for those with hemophilia A and B, but unlike most treatments for the disorder, it also can be used by patients regardless of their inhibitor status. (Dunleavy, 3/28)

The Washington Post: Sandy Hook Promise ‘Say Something’ Tip Line Has Stopped 18 School Shootings 
The push to stop murders in classrooms by families who’ve experienced them continues to yield success stories even as the federal government is dismantling some tools aimed at preventing school shootings. The anonymous reporting system “Say Something” has stopped 18 people who planned to attack schools. (Jackman, 3/31)

Politico: New York Moves Toward Statewide Cellphone Ban In Schools
New York is on the verge of becoming the next state to ban cellphone use during school hours — a victory for its Democratic governor who has been pushing to drastically limit the “endless disruptions from social media” on students. Gov. Kathy Hochul and lawmakers are hashing out the parameters of a full-day “bell-to-bell” restriction — one of the most sweeping issues the governor has championed during her tenure. Legislative leaders signed onto the thorny proposal this year, and are awaiting policy language as they work past Monday’s deadline to pass the state’s $252 billion budget. (Toure, 4/1)

CBS8.com: Controversial Health Care Ballot Initiative Named After Luigi Mangione
A newly proposed California ballot initiative, controversially named after an alleged murderer, aims to prevent health insurance companies from denying medical care to patients. Retired litigator Paul Eisner has submitted the "Luigi Mangione Access to Health Care Act" to the state Attorney General's office, sparking both attention and criticism for its provocative title. The proposed measure would make it illegal in California for anyone other than a licensed physician to deny, delay, or modify medical procedures or medications. Eisner, who still holds an active law license, says the initiative was inspired by his personal battle with cancer and subsequent disputes with his insurance company. (Allyn, 3/28)

The Hill: 'Forever Chemicals’ From Nearby Factory Found In Dust Of NC Homes: Study
Researchers have identified “forever chemicals” in household dust nearby a North Carolina factory — indicating that dust may be an additional source of exposure to these compounds. The homes, located in southern North Carolina’s Cumberland and Bladen counties, are in the vicinity of the Fayetteville Works fluorochemical manufacturing facility, which has been a known source of contamination in the area’s Cape Fear River Basin. (Udasin, 3/31)

The Washington Post: Why The Health Risks From Air Pollution Are Worse Than We Thought 
Many people who live near heavy industry are routinely exposed to dozens of different pollutants, which can result in a multitude of health problems. Traditionally, environmental regulators have assessed the risks of chemical exposure on an individual basis. But that approach has led to underestimates of the total health risks faced by vulnerable populations, according to a new study. Now researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a new method for measuring the cumulative effects on human health of multiple toxic air pollutants. Their findings were published last week in Environmental Health Perspectives. (Ajasa, 3/31)