First Edition: Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025

KFF Health News: Pain Clinics Made Millions From ‘Unnecessary’ Injections Into ‘Human Pin Cushions’
Each month, Michelle Shaw went to a pain clinic to get the shots that made her back feel worse — so she could get the pills that made her back feel better. Shaw, 56, who has been dependent on opioid painkillers since she injured her back in a fall a decade ago, said in both an interview with KFF Health News and in sworn courtroom testimony that the Tennessee clinic would write the prescriptions only if she first agreed to receive three or four “very painful” injections of another medicine along her spine. (Kelman, 2/18)

KFF Health News: Iowa Medicaid Sends $4M Bills To Two Families Grieving Deaths Of Loved Ones With Disabilities
Collection agents for the state of Iowa have sent letters seeking millions of dollars from the estates of at least two people with disabilities who died after spending most of their lives in a state institution. The amounts represent what Medicaid spent covering the residents’ care when they lived at the Glenwood Resource Center, a state-run facility that closed last summer. (Leys, 2/18)

KFF Health News: Urgent CDC Data And Analyses On Influenza And Bird Flu Go Missing As Outbreaks Escalate
Sonya Stokes, an emergency room physician in the San Francisco Bay Area, braces herself for a daily deluge of patients sick with coughs, soreness, fevers, vomiting, and other flu-like symptoms. She’s desperate for information, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a critical source of urgent analyses of the flu and other public health threats, has gone quiet in the weeks since President Donald Trump took office. (Maxmen, 2/14)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘On Air’: Journalists Talk Southern Health Care: HIV Drug Access, Medicaid Expansion, Vaccination Rates
KFF Health News contributor Sarah Boden discussed cats and bird flu on KVPR’s “Central Valley Daily” on Feb. 12. KFF Health News South Carolina correspondent Lauren Sausser juxtaposed the increasing trendiness of rural health care and the lack of Medicaid expansion in the South on America’s Heroes Group on Feb. 12. (2/15)

Fierce Healthcare: Mass Firings At HHS: Thousands Impacted Across CMS, CDC, FDA
The nation's most distinguished health agencies fired thousands of probationary workers, starting Feb. 13 and extending into the holiday weekend, in what is becoming informally known among federal workers as the Valentine’s Day Massacre. The firings began at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, before extending throughout virtually all of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) divisions by the end of the weekend, reported numerous media outlets. Impacted workers took to social media to confirm the news. (Tong, 2/17)

Stat: Drug Inspectors, AI Experts, Maternal Health Workers: Trump’s Health Agency Cuts Are Far-Reaching
“Read this email immediately.” That was the subject line of emails that landed in the inboxes of thousands of workers at federal health agencies across the government beginning Friday and continuing throughout the weekend. The news was not good: Recipients, workers who were still on probation at the Department of Health and Human Services and the agencies it oversees, were informed that they were being terminated for poor performance, even though many said they had previously received only strong performance evaluations. Though their employment was effectively terminated immediately, they were told they would receive 30 days of administrative leave. (Branswell, 2/17)

The New York Times: Trump Cuts Target Next Generation Of Scientists And Public Health Leaders
The firings have excised the next generation of leaders at the C.D.C., the N.I.H., the Food and Drug Administration, and other agencies that the department oversees. “It seems like a very destructive strategy to fire the new talent at an agency, and the talent that’s being promoted,” said Dr. David Fleming, the chairman of an advisory committee to the C.D.C. director. He added, “A lot of energy and time has been spent in recruiting those folks, and that’s now tossed out the window.” (Gay Stolberg, 2/18)

AP: Judge To Rule Swiftly On Effort To Block DOGE From Assessing Data And Firing Federal Employees
A federal judge on Monday questioned the authority of billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency but was skeptical of a request to block DOGE from accessing sensitive data and firing employees at half a dozen federal agencies. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a hearing on a request from 14 states for a temporary restraining order seeking to curtail Musk’s power in President Donald Trump’s quest to downsize the federal government. Chutkan said she would rule within 24 hours. (2/17)

The Hill: Trump Administration Targets ACA Navigators
The Trump administration slashed funding for Affordable Care Act navigators, which help people sign up for ObamaCare coverage on the law’s exchanges, by 90 percent. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Friday announced health insurance navigators will receive just $10 million per year over the next four years. Navigators received $98 million in 2024. (Weixel, 2/14)

The New York Times: NIH Research Grants Lag Behind Last Year’s By $1 Billion
Federal research funding to tackle areas like cancer, diabetes and heart disease is lagging by about $1 billion behind the levels of recent years, reflecting the chaotic start of the Trump administration and the dictates that froze an array of grants, meetings and communications. The slowdown in awards from the National Institutes of Health has been occurring while a legal challenge plays out over the administration’s sudden policy change last week to slash payments for administrative and facilities costs related to medical research. (Jewett and Rosenbluth, 2/14)

Modern Healthcare: Trump's Deregulation Executive Order Likely To Miss CMS
President Donald Trump’s government-wide directive to slash regulations doesn't appear likely to hamstring day-to-day operations for companies that do business with programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Trump’s executive order requires federal agencies to cut 10 regulations for each new one proposed. But its impact seems poised to be minimal at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, largely because most of the rules it issues are mandatory under statute. (Early, 2/14)

The Washington Post: Gender Ideology Warnings Added To Restored U.S. Health Webpages
The Trump administration has directed the nation’s premier health agencies to place a notice harshly condemning “gender ideology” on agency webpages that a federal judge ordered be restored online this week. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration were asked to place a notice on “any restored pages that were taken down due to their content promoting gender ideology,” according to an email sent from an official at the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday evening. (Sun, Roubein and Rizzo, 2/14)

The Washington Post: Trump Casts Psychiatric And Weight Loss Drugs As Threats To Children
President Donald Trump has instructed his administration to scrutinize the “threat” to children posed by antidepressants, stimulants and other common psychiatric drugs, targeting medication taken by millions in his latest challenge to long-standing medical practices. The directive came in an executive order Thursday that established a “Make America Healthy Again” commission led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has criticized the use of those drugs and issued false claims about them. (Nirappil, Eunjung Cha and Gilbert, 2/16)

AP: As Trump Administration Reforms The EPA, Cleanups Of America's Most Toxic Sites Are Uncertain
Just over a mile from where Patricia Flores has lived for almost 20 years, a battery smelter plant spewed toxic elements into the environment for nearly a century. Exide Technologies in southeast Los Angeles polluted thousands of properties with lead and contributed to groundwater contamination with trichloroethylene, or TCE, a cancer-causing chemical. Since Exide declared bankruptcy in 2020, California has invested more than $770 million to clean the various properties. But much more cleanup is needed, and with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, those efforts are uncertain. (Pineda, 2/15)

The New York Times: Trump Will Withhold Money From Schools That Require Covid Vaccines
President Trump ordered on Friday that federal funding be withheld from schools and universities that require students to be vaccinated against Covid, White House officials said, another step in the administration’s campaign against coronavirus vaccine requirements. It was not clear how widely impactful the order would be. No states require K-12 students to be vaccinated against Covid. Only 15 colleges still required Covid vaccines for students as of late last year, according to No College Mandates, an advocacy group. (Mueller, 2/14)

CIDRAP: Wyoming Reports Its First Human H5N1 Avian Flu Infection 
A woman living in Platte County has contracted Wyoming's first case of H5N1 avian flu and is the fourth American to be hospitalized for the virus, the Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) confirmed late last week. The infected woman is hospitalized in another state, is older, has underlying medical conditions, and was likely exposed to H5N1 through contact with her infected backyard poultry flock. (Van Beusekom, 2/17)

CBS News: U.S. Bird Flu Hospitalizations Rise To 4 After Ohio Discloses Case
Ohio's health department confirmed Saturday that a farmer in the state was discharged from the hospital after being sickened by bird flu, marking the fourth American to have been hospitalized with the H5N1 virus. "The individual had respiratory symptoms. He was previously hospitalized and has since been released," a spokesperson for Ohio's health department told CBS News in an email Saturday. (Tin, 2/15)

Axios: U.S. Facing Worst Flu Season Since 2009, Experts Say
The worst flu season in 15 years has left hundreds of thousands of Americans hospitalized while straining physicians' offices and emergency departments. This flu season is classified as a "high-severity" season, with estimates of at least 29 million cases, the most since the 2009-2010 flu season, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. (Reed, 2/18)

Modern Healthcare: Private Equity Delays Home Care Company Acquisitions
Uncertainty over interest rates, as well as Medicaid reimbursement and immigration policy, are prompting some private equity investors to delay investments in companies that provide skilled and nonmedical care in the home. Still, attorneys and advisors who help broker home care deals said the highly fragmented sector could remain a long-term sweet spot for investment as an aging population pushes more care to where patients live. (Eastabrook, 2/14)

The New York Times: An Invisible Medical Shortage: Oxygen
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, millions of people in poor nations died literally gasping for breath, even in hospitals. What they lacked was medical oxygen, which is in short supply in much of the world. On Monday, a panel of experts published a comprehensive report on the shortage. Each year, the report noted, more than 370 million people worldwide need oxygen as part of their medical care, but fewer than 1 in 3 receive it, jeopardizing the health and lives of those who do not. Access to safe and affordable medical oxygen is especially limited in low- and middle-income nations. (Mandavilli, 2/17)

CIDRAP: Study Evaluates Use Of New Antibiotics In US Hospitals
An analysis of data from US hospitals found that ceftolozane-tazobactam and ceftazidime-avibactam are the most frequently used new antibiotics, researchers reported this week in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. (Dall, 2/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Doctors And Hospitals Look To Drones To Deliver Drugs, Supplies—And Even Organs
If you need a prescription filled in the coming years, don’t be surprised if it flies in and lands in your backyard. Hospitals and doctors are increasingly experimenting with the use of drones to deliver medications, lab tests and supplies to patients being treated at home. Some are testing whether drones can be used to deliver organs for transplant more quickly and cheaply. And in some cities, a 911 call today could set off a drone carrying a defibrillator, Narcan spray or tourniquet to the scene of an emergency ahead of the arrival of paramedics. (Boston, 2/17)

AP: Abortions To Resume In Missouri After A Judge Blocks Restrictions
Abortions are set to resume in Missouri after a judge blocked regulations that had restricted providers even after voters approved enshrining abortion rights into the state’s constitution. Friday’s ruling came after a Kansas City judge ruled last year that abortions were now legal in the state but kept certain regulations on the books while a lawsuit by abortion-rights advocates played out. That meant abortion facilities still had to be licensed by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. (Ballentine and Golden, 2/15)

AP: Texas Measles Outbreak Rises To 48 Cases. It's The State's Worst In Nearly 30 Years
The ongoing measles outbreak in West Texas has doubled in size to 48 cases, mostly in children and teens, making it the state’s worst in nearly 30 years. State health officials said Friday in a news release that those who are infected are either unvaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown. Thirteen people have been hospitalized. (Murphy and Shastri, 2/14)

AP: Kindergarteners Could Learn Gun Safety In School Under A Bill Gaining Momentum In Utah
Utah students in as early as kindergarten would be required to learn about firearm safety in the classroom under a bill that passed the state House with overwhelming support Friday. The Republican-controlled chamber approved the measure in a 59-10 vote and sent it to the Senate, despite concerns from some gun violence prevention advocates that it places an undue burden on children. (Schoenbaum, 2/15)

Modern Healthcare: PACE Expanded To Every New Jersey County
New Jersey plans to go statewide with a program aimed at caring for older adults outside of nursing homes. The New Jersey Human Services Department announced Friday it is expanding the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly to four counties in the state that don’t offer the program. PACE provides in-home and center-based services to mostly Medicare and Medicaid dual-eligible older adults. (Eastabrook, 2/14)

The Washington Post: Some Open Their Homes To People Seeking Physician-Assisted Death
In a pastoral Vermont valley, a former hospice chaplain named Suzanne runs a retreat center for artists, health-care workers and educators — and, since mid-2023, terminally ill people seeking a safe, peaceful place to die. Suzanne, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons, is one of a small but growing number of property owners who have been providing space to people coming to Vermont for physician-assisted dying since the state lifted the residency requirement for a 2013 law allowing terminally ill patients to end their lives on their schedule. (Waldman, 2/16)

NBC News: Online Searches For Gambling Addiction Surge As Legalized Sports Betting Expands, Study Finds
Internet searches seeking help for gambling addiction have "increased substantially" as the number of states with legalized sports betting has expanded in recent years, prompting a need for more public health awareness, according to a study released Monday. The findings "suggest that sportsbooks pose a substantial health concern," researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and Bryn Mawr College wrote in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. (Ortiz, 2/17)

The New York Times: Heart Failure Deaths Are Rising. New Treatments Could Help
Heart failure is a condition that occurs when the heart can’t pump out enough blood and oxygen to meet the body’s needs. Deaths from it have been climbing steadily nationwide since 2012, wiping out earlier declines. Rising rates of metabolic disorders like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure are likely contributing. There are medications to treat one of the two main types of heart failure, but they aren’t used as much as they should be, doctors said. “The treatments that have been proven in trials to work are not getting prescribed to people in a timely way,” said Dr. Janet Wright, the director of the division for heart disease and stroke prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Agrawal, 2/18)

MedPage Today: Are Diet And Exercise The Keys To Longevity? Think Again, Expert Tells Senators
Much of what people have been taught about making America healthier is wrong, Dan Buettner, the originator of the term "Blue Zones," told members of the Senate Aging Committee Wednesday. Why are the people in Blue Zones living 10 years longer than Americans? "Because they're avoiding the diseases that shorten Americans' lives and are bankrupting us in many ways," Buettner, of Miami, Florida, said at a hearing on "Optimizing Longevity: From Research to Action." (Frieden, 2/17)

The Washington Post: Plain Water And Pasteurized Milk Are Best Drinks For Kids, Panel Says
Children and teens should drink water, plain pasteurized cow’s milk and limited amounts of 100 percent fruit and vegetable juices, according to healthy beverage guidelines recently released by an expert panel. In a consensus statement, the panel recommended limiting plant-based milk alternatives, flavored milk, caffeine and beverages sweetened with both sugar and nonsugar sweeteners. (Blakemore, 2/15)

The Guardian: Woman Who Had Pioneering Cancer Treatment 18 Years Ago Still In Remission
A woman treated with a pioneering type of immunotherapy for a solid tumour has been in remission for more than 18 years with no further treatments, experts have revealed. The therapy involves taking T-cells, a type of white blood cell, from a patient and genetically engineering them to target and kill cancer cells. These modified T-cells are grown in a laboratory and then infused back into the patient. (Davis, 2/17)