First Edition: Tuesday, July 29, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: A Brain-Dead Pregnant Woman Was Kept Alive In Georgia. It's Unclear If State Law Required It 
A Georgia woman declared brain-dead and kept on life support for more than three months because she was pregnant was removed from a ventilator in June and died, days after doctors delivered her 1-pound, 13-ounce baby by emergency cesarean section. The baby is in the neonatal intensive care unit. The case has drawn national attention to Georgia’s six-week abortion ban and its impacts on pregnancy care. (Mador, 7/29)

KFF Health News: Lawfully Present Immigrants Help Stabilize ACA Plans. Why Does The GOP Want Them Out? 
If you want to create a perfect storm at Covered California and other Affordable Care Act marketplaces, all you have to do is make enrollment more time-consuming, ratchet up the toll on consumers’ pocketbooks, and terminate financial aid for some of the youngest and healthiest enrollees. And presto: You’ve got people dropping coverage; rising costs; and a smaller, sicker group of enrollees, which translates to higher premiums. (Wolfson, 7/29)

PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS

The Wall Street Journal: Medicare Part D Drug Plan Premiums Set To Rise
Premiums for Medicare drug plans are set to increase sharply next year, due to rising costs, regulatory changes and cutbacks to a subsidy program. The subsidy program, which sent extra federal funds to the private insurers that offer the drug benefit—known as Part D—had largely shielded seniors from rising monthly bills in 2025. (Mathews and Essley Whyte, 7/28)

AP: Federal Judge Blocks Arkansas Law Barring Pharmacy Benefit Managers From Owning Pharmacies In State
A federal judge temporarily blocked on Monday Arkansas’ first-in-the-nation law that would have prohibited pharmacy benefit managers from owning pharmacies in the state. U.S. District Judge Brian Miller issued a preliminary injunction against the law restricting pharmacy benefit managers, who run prescription drug coverage for big clients that include health insurers and employers that provide coverage. Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed the restriction into law earlier this year, and it was set to take effect Aug. 5. CVS and Express Scripts had sued the state over the law. (DeMillo, 7/29)

PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Roll Call: Judge Shields All Planned Parenthood Clinics From Defunding 
A federal judge on Monday issued a preliminary injunction blocking language in the GOP budget reconciliation law that made Planned Parenthood ineligible for Medicaid reimbursements for one year. (Raman, 7/28)

FUNDING AND RESEARCH CUTS AT NIH

Stat: NIH Is Shrinking The Number Of Research Grants It Funds 
The National Institutes of Health plans to shrink the share of grant applications it will award for the remaining two months of the fiscal year due to a new Trump administration policy — in some cases, by more than half compared to the previous year. (Chen, Molteni and Oza, 7/29)

Roll Call: Republicans Brush Aside Trump Plan To Slash NIH Funding 
House Republican appropriators plan to disregard the White House’s proposed 40 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health budget for fiscal 2026, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation. Instead, the funding levels being discussed are similar to what’s currently appropriated, they said. (Cohen, 7/28)

Politico: NIH Spending Battle’s Ripple Effect
Cuts to the National Institutes of Health’s budget would have sweeping implications for the broader economic and biomedical ecosystems, MIT and Harvard researchers argue. To reach that conclusion, published Friday in JAMA Health Forum, the researchers analyzed potential NIH budget cuts and 37 studies and reports on NIH funding, biomedical innovation and economic impacts, as well as news coverage from January to April 16, 2025, to show the cuts’ effects. They used that data to develop a causal loop diagram, which illustrates how variables in a system are interconnected, to show the effects. (Schumaker, 7/28)

VACCINES

The Hill: RFK Jr. Lashes Out At Vaccine Injury Program, Pledges Changes
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday he is working to overhaul the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which is aimed at compensating people who have been injured by vaccines. “The VICP is broken, and I intend to fix it. I will not allow the VICP to continue to ignore its mandate and fail its mission of quickly and fairly compensating vaccine-injured individuals,” Kennedy wrote in a lengthy post on social platform X. Kennedy has long targeted the VICP, and his X post echoed many of his previous arguments. (Weixel, 7/28)

MORE FROM HHS AND RFK JR.

Fierce Healthcare: Feds Release Hepatitis C Care Model, $100M In Funding Available
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is launching an integrated care model to tackle hepatitis C, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a news release Monday. Through the Hepatitis C Elimination Initiative Pilot, the model will address “critical risk factors like substance use, mental health challenges and homelessness head-on,” said RFK Jr. in a statement. (Tong, 7/28)

Stat: Kennedy, Disability Advocates Paint Different Realities As ADA Turns 35
Stirring speeches filled the tall, fluorescent room on Monday morning as members of the disability community and federal officials celebrated the 35th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. They spoke at length about how the landmark law birthed critical protections and technologies that have helped disabled people flourish, but many communities still face significant hardships. (Broderick, 7/28)

SUBSTANCE ABUSE

The Washington Post: FDA To Announce Crackdown On Synthetic Substance Derived From Kratom 
Health officials plan to announce measures Tuesday to crack down on an opioid-like substance found in tablets, gummies and drinkable shots commonly sold in convenience stores. The Department of Health and Human Services said in an advisory that it is targeting potentially dangerous products made of 7-OH, a potent substance synthesized from a compound in the kratom leaf, which grows on trees native to Southeast Asia. The Food and Drug Administration, researchers and kratom companies have grown increasingly alarmed by the rise of 7-OH products they say are distinct from all-natural plant teas and powders. (Ovalle, 7/29)

Stat: Trump Order Threatens Supervised Consumption, Harm Reduction
President Trump is threatening to withhold funds from supervised drug consumption sites and potentially pursue criminal penalties against them, offering his clearest stance yet against the philosophy of harm reduction and marking a significant escalation of his rhetoric on substance use and addiction. (Facher, 7/25)

The Washington Post: Overdose Deaths Declined For 15 Consecutive Months Starting In 2023
Beginning in August 2023, drug overdose deaths declined for 15 consecutive months, according to research published in JAMA. Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the Census Bureau, the analysis of drug overdose death rates was conducted from January 2015 to October 2024. Over 800,000 United States residents — 68 percent of them male with a median age of 42 — died of a drug overdose during the study period. (McMahan, 7/28)

MedPage Today: Vaping Up Slightly While Heavy Alcohol Use Down A Little, SAMHSA Report Finds
Nicotine vaping has increased slightly over the past few years in the U.S., while binge drinking and heavy alcohol use were both slightly down, according to a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The percentage of people ages 12 years and older who said they had vaped nicotine in the past month increased from 8.3% in 2022 to 9.6% in 2024, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). (Frieden, 7/28)

MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

Military.com: VA Health Nominee Pledges To Find 'Balance' Between Treatment At VA Centers And Private Facilities
The nominee to lead the Veterans Health Administration hopes to streamline Veterans Affairs medical care so patients face fewer obstacles when they seek treatment, whether at a VA facility or with a community provider. During his confirmation hearing for VA under secretary for health, Air Force Reserve Maj. Gen. John Bartrum addressed the ongoing debate over the future of VA health care -- the role the federal government has in managing and providing care for veterans, either within VA facilities or by paying private doctors. (Kime, 7/28)

Bloomberg: EPA To Abolish US Government Authority To Regulate Greenhouse Gases
The Trump administration is set to announce its plans to abolish the US government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, threatening to strike a deep blow at Washington’s ability to fight climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency will unveil a proposal as early as Tuesday to scrap a landmark determination that planet-warming gases endanger public health and welfare, according to people familiar with the matter. If finalized, the move would lay the foundation to unwind a host of regulations limiting emissions from power plants, oil wells and automobiles. (Natter and Dlouhy, 7/28)

PHARMA AND TECH

Stat: FDA Clears Way For Sarepta Therapeutics To Use Duchenne Drug In Some Patients
In a sharp reversal, the Food and Drug Administration on Monday said it was clearing the way for Sarepta Therapeutics to resume shipments of its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy to some patients. The therapy, called Elevidys, will once again be available for younger Duchenne patients who can walk. (Feuerstein, 7/28)

Modern Healthcare: Cook Medical Launches Interventional MRI Division
Device company Cook Medical announced the launch of an interventional MRI division. Interventional MRI involves using MRI technology to guide minimally invasive procedures such as laser ablation for brain tumors or balloon angioplasty to open blocked arteries. Cook Medical is developing minimally invasive devices specifically for interventional MRI and working closely with physicians, hospitals and other partners, according to the company. (Dubinsky, 7/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Bristol Myers Squibb And Bain Capital Form New Immunology Company
Bristol Myers Squibb and Bain Capital are forming a new biopharmaceutical company focused on therapies for autoimmune diseases. The new company will be created with $300 million in financing led by Bain Capital, including funds from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. (Miller, 7/28)

CIDRAP: Analysis Finds DoxyPEP Reduces Antibiotic Use For STIs
Among a cohort of men who have sex with men (MSM) at an Italian hospital, a significant reduction in all antibiotics used to treat bacterial sexually transmitted infections (bSTIs) was observed after the introduction of doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis (doxyPEP), researchers reported late last week in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. (Dall, 7/28)

Newsweek: Wearable Sensor Will Improve Bipolar Disorder Treatment
A wearable sensor could make tracking medication levels much easier for people living with bipolar disorder, eliminating the need for blood draws and lab analyses. The first-of-its-kind device could vastly improve treatment, convenience and drug safety for millions of patients who take lithium—a type of mood stabilizer—for bipolar disorder. (Millington, 7/28)

Stat: 'Trash' In Your Blood Might Help Spot Cancer Early, Scientists Say 
Catching cancer in its earliest stages is one of the most important factors in surviving it. Nipping a tumor in stage 1, before it’s had time to claw its way through the body, is often the best way to give patients a chance at a cure. That’s why dozens of companies have dived into blood-based screening technologies, with the hope of detecting multiple cancers by analyzing free-floating bits of tumor DNA. (Chen and Russo, 7/29)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Becker's Hospital Review: HCA Vs. AdventHealth: North Carolina Supreme Court Halts Ruling In Turf War
The North Carolina Supreme Court has temporarily halted a state appellate court ruling in an escalating certificate-of-need dispute between Asheville, N.C.-based Mission Health and Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based AdventHealth, underscoring a fierce competition to expand in Western North Carolina, according to The Carolina Journal. The July 26 court order granted Mission’s motion for a stay, pausing a decision that affirmed the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ approval of AdventHealth’s proposal to build a new 67-bed hospital in Weaverville, N.C. The planned facility would serve Buncombe, Graham, Madison and Yancey counties. (Condon, 7/28)

Modern Healthcare: UC San Diego Health, Palomar Health To Explore Partnership
The University of California San Diego Health and Palomar Health are in discussions to form a jointly governed entity that would oversee Palomar’s operations. The two health systems said Monday they signed a letter of intent to negotiate a joint powers authority. It could be formalized by late 2025, a spokesperson for UC San Diego Health said. (DeSilva, 7/28)

The New York Times: UnitedHealth Grew To Be A Leviathan. Then Came The Backlash
UnitedHealth Group emerged as a health care colossus over the past decade and a half, earning one of the highest stock market values in the nation. But in the last two years, it has been hit with just about every misfortune that can befall a company: A gargantuan cyberattack. Federal investigations, including a criminal inquiry into one of its most important businesses. The killing of a top executive. A public relations crisis. Disappointing profits. A plummeting stock price. (Abelson, 7/28)

Modern Healthcare: CMS' National Provider Directory Could Eliminate 'Ghost Networks' 
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wants to take another crack at creating a national provider directory in an effort to replace insurance company lists that are often riddled with errors. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz touted the idea at a meeting with health information technology executives in June. In a later post on the social media platform X, CMS described its goal as a “dynamic, interoperable directory that connects the data CMS has with what the industry knows, so we all work from the same map.” (Tepper, 7/28)

MedPage Today: Here's Who Made This Year's List Of Top Hospitals
The latest "Best Hospitals" rankings from U.S. News & World Report have been released, with familiar facilities largely comprising the top-performing Honor Roll. However, compared with last year, there are a trio of newcomers to this year's 20-hospital list: AdventHealth in Orlando, Florida; Hackensack University Medical Center at Hackensack Meridian Health in New Jersey; and the University of Michigan Health-Ann Arbor, which was also included on the Honor Roll in 2023. (Henderson, 7/29)

MedPage Today: UV Lights Might Modestly Reduce Nursing Home Respiratory Infections
Shining germicidal UV lights toward the ceiling in common areas of long-term elder care facilities didn't reduce acute respiratory infections for residents, a randomized clinical trial showed. ... However, pooling acute respiratory infections (ARIs) across all cycles of the study in a posteriori secondary analysis, UV appliance use had 0.32 fewer infections per week over the extended assessment period from 28 to 110 weeks. The causal effect was estimated at approximately 9% reduction in infections, they stated in JAMA Internal Medicine. (Phend, 7/28)

STATE WATCH

Chicago Tribune: Weiss Hospital To Be Terminated From Medicare Program
Weiss Memorial Hospital may no longer participate in Medicare starting next month — one of the most serious sanctions a hospital can face, according to the federal government. The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a public notice late last week that Weiss Memorial Hospital in Uptown would be terminated from the Medicare program Aug. 9. (Schencker, 7/28)

Chicago Tribune: Rush Medical Center Temporarily Loses Air Conditioning
Rush University Medical Center experienced a temporary loss of air conditioning Monday morning, spokesperson Tobin Klinger said. As a result, the hospital’s emergency room was put on bypass, meaning that ambulances in the area were instructed to take patients to other hospitals, and many operating room procedures were canceled. (Weaver, 7/28)

New Hampshire Public Radio: As Ambulance Services Close, What’s The State Of EMS Coverage In NH? 
Two ambulance services have closed in New Hampshire this year. Berlin EMS closed this April, taken over by their fire department, and most recently, the Warren-Wentworth Ambulance Service shut down earlier this month. (Liu and Furukawa, 7/28)

Iowa Public Radio: A Year After Iowa's 'Heartbeat' Law Went Into Effect, Abortions In Iowa Have Sharply Declined 
This week marks one year since a state law went into effect banning abortion when cardiac activity is detected. This can be as early as six weeks of pregnancy. The law includes exceptions for rape, incest, life of the pregnant person and fetal abnormalities, but it has still had drastic effects on abortion care in the state. (Krebs, 7/28)

The Hill: Texas AG Paxton Sues New York County Clerk Over Abortion Ruling
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking legal action against a New York county clerk for refusing to file a judgment and court summons against a doctor who allegedly prescribed and mailed abortion medication to a woman in Texas. Paxton’s office has submitted a petition seeking a writ of mandamus to force Ulster County Clerk Taylor Bruck to enforce the judgment against the doctor and ensure she pays the Texas penalty, according to a statement. (O’Connell-Domenech, 7/28)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Express Scripts To Stop Covering Weight Loss Drugs For A-B Employees
Express Scripts will stop covering weight-loss drugs for workers at Anheuser-Busch, one of the region’s biggest employers, next month. In a letter to an Anheuser-Busch employee dated July 2025 and obtained by the Post-Dispatch, Express Scripts and its parent company, Evernorth Health Services, suggested its existing coverage of the popular drugs had been a mistake. (Barker, 7/28)

St. Louis Public Radio: Morning After Pill Now Available In Convenience Stores In St. Louis 
St. Louis residents can now find a morning-after pill on convenience store shelves next to the condoms. California-based Cadence OTC began selling its over-the-counter emergency contraceptives, The Morning After Pill, in convenience stores and gas stations in Missouri this year. Its products are available in 24 locations statewide and 30 in the St. Louis area including Illinois. (Mizelle, 7/28)

GUN VIOLENCE EPIDEMIC

Politico: Gunman With History Of Mental Illness Kills 4 In Attack At Manhattan Office Building 
A gunman who had traveled across the country strode into a Manhattan office tower Monday and opened fire, killing four people – including a police officer. The motive for the shooting at a building that houses the headquarters of the NFL, financial firm Blackstone and other businesses, was undetermined, officials said. The 27-year-old gunman died from a self-inflicted wound, according to police and Mayor Eric Adams. New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch identified the gunman as Shane Tamura and said he had a history of mental illness but said his motives had not yet been determined by authorities. (Pellish, McKee and Coltin, 7/28)

LIFESTYLE AND HEALTH

AARP: Common Medications May Help Slow Cognitive Decline
Older adults who took medications for high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes had slower rates of cognitive decline over a nine-year period than others, according to an observational study of 4,651 older adults. The median age of participants was 77. “Persons who were on two or three medication classes performed as if they were cognitively three years younger,” says Roshni Biswas, a research scientist at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, who presented the study July 27 at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Toronto. “The cognitive change in someone who was 80 and on three medication classes was similar to the cognitive change in someone who was 77 and on none of the studied medication classes.” (Szabo, 7/28)

MedPage Today: At Least 60% Of Liver Cancers Tied To Preventable Risk Factors
At least 60% of liver cancers globally could be prevented with control of certain risk factors, including viral hepatitis, alcohol use, and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), according to an analysis from the Lancet Commission. In order to reverse the trend of a rising liver cancer burden, an annual reduction of at least 2% in the age-standardized incidence rate is required, while a 5% reduction could prevent up to 17.3 million new cases and save up to 15.1 million lives over the next 25 years, the commission reported. (Bassett, 7/28)

The New York Times: Study May Undercut Idea That Cash Payments To Poor Families Help Child Development 
If the government wants poor children to thrive, it should give their parents money. That simple idea has propelled an avid movement to send low-income families regular payments with no strings attached. Significant but indirect evidence has suggested that unconditional cash aid would help children flourish. But now a rigorous experiment, in a more direct test, found that years of monthly payments did nothing to boost children’s well-being, a result that defied researchers’ predictions and could weaken the case for income guarantees. (DeParle, 7/28)

CNN: You Can Actually Die Of A Broken Heart After Bereavement, Study Shows 
You can actually die of a broken heart after the death of a loved one, especially if the grief is overwhelming, new research shows. Bereaved relatives who experienced “high levels” of grief symptoms were more likely to die in the 10 years following their bereavement than those who experienced “low levels” of grief, a study published Friday in the journal Frontiers in Public Health found. (Ronald, 7/28)

GLOBAL WATCH

NPR: How Mass Starvation In Gaza May Impact The Next Generation
The people of Gaza are experiencing a dire hunger crisis — and the consequences could reverberate across generations. Roughly a third of the 2.1 million people in Gaza have gone multiple days in a row without food, and a quarter of the population is experiencing "famine-like conditions," Ross Smith, the director of emergency preparedness and response at the U.N. World Food Programme, told reporters last week. (Kim, 7/29)