First Edition: Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Panel Expected To Recommend Delaying Hepatitis B Shot For Children
A key federal vaccine advisory panel whose members were recently replaced by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to vote to recommend delaying until age 4 the hepatitis B vaccine that’s currently given to newborns, according to two former senior Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials. “There is going to likely be a discussion about hepatitis B vaccine, very specifically trying to dislodge the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine and to push it later in life,” said Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. (Fortiér, 9/16)

KFF Health News: An HIV Outbreak In Maine Shows The Risk Of Trump’s Crackdown On Homelessness And Drug Use
Penobscot County, Maine, is grappling with the largest HIV outbreak in the state’s history. Home to Bangor, a city of roughly 32,000, the county has identified 28 new cases over nearly two years. That’s seven times the typical number for that length of time. Nearly all cases are among people who use drugs and are homeless. (Pattani, 9/16)

VACCINES

CNN: Five New Members Named To Influential CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee Days Ahead Of Key Meeting
Five new members have been named to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee, the US Department of Health and Human Services said Monday, just days ahead of a key meeting about vaccines for Covid-19 and other diseases. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been preparing to appoint as many as seven new members for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is tasked with reviewing the latest science on vaccines and then making recommendations to the CDC on how they should be used. (Dillinger and Goodman, 9/15)

AP: Kennedy's Vaccine Committee To Vote Chickenpox, COVID-19, Hepatitis B Shots
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s new vaccine advisory committee meets this week, with votes expected on whether to change recommendations on shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox. The exact questions to be voted on Thursday and Friday in Atlanta are unclear. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to questions seeking details to a newly posted agenda, although the department announced five additional appointments to the committee Monday. (Stobbe, 9/16)

NBC News: RFK Jr. Vows To 'Fix' The 'Broken' Federal Vaccine Court
Although members of Congress have tried to pass legislation several times to give the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, or VICP, more resources — including the ability to hire more special masters, who act as judges — the efforts have never succeeded. Because Congress created the VICP, only Congress has the authority to update or eliminate it, Reiss said. Yet the health secretary wields significant power over the program. And he has big plans. (Szabo, 9/15)

Tampa Bay Times: Banning MRNA COVID Vaccine Is ‘The Goal,’ Florida Surgeon General Says
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo says he does not want mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to be available in Florida. In a podcast interview published Sunday, Ladapo was asked about the state’s announcement this month that officials intended to end all vaccine mandates. He said the controversy over the announcement was overblown because vaccines would continue to be available to those who want them — with one potential exception. (Wilson, 9/15)

NBC News: Data Investigation: Childhood Vaccination Rates Are Backsliding Across The U.S.
For more than a half-century, vaccines have had remarkable success eradicating the most lethal and devastating childhood infectious diseases, saving millions of lives and ushering in a relative golden era of global public health. But now, America is dangerously backsliding. The vast majority of counties across the United States are experiencing declining rates of childhood vaccination and have been for years, according to an NBC News data investigation, the most comprehensive analysis of vaccinations and school exemptions to date. (Edwards, Kane, Gosk, Fattah and Murphy, 9/15)

MedPage Today: Have Measles Vaccination Questions? CDC Has Answers
Falling vaccination rates among U.S. children may make local outbreaks of highly contagious measles cases increasingly common -- and that's bringing parents into clinicians' offices with plenty of questions about vaccines. In an online seminar for clinicians Thursday, CDC officials delivered evidence-based answers to many of those questions. (Rudd, 9/15)

CDC LEADERSHIP

Bloomberg: Fired CDC Head Will Say RFK Jr. Put Politics Over Policy
Susan Monarez will offer new details on her ouster as head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a congressional hearing, including that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directed that all policy and personnel decisions would have to be cleared by the agency’s political staff. Monarez — who was fired just weeks into the job as CDC director — is set to testify in front of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee on Wednesday. (Muller and Cohrs Zhang, 9/15)

RURAL HEALTH

Fierce Healthcare: CMS Opens State Applications For $50B Rural Health Fund
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has opened up state applications for the five-year, $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program intended to blunt, in part, upcoming cuts to hospitals’ Medicaid funding. The hotly anticipated fund was authorized by the summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, allocating $10 billion each fiscal year between fiscal year 2026 and 2030. (Muoio, 9/15)

Axios: New Clinic Closings Reignite Fears About Rural Care
A string of recent rural health clinic closures is threatening to further reduce access to care in outlying areas as health systems brace for cuts in the in the Republican budget law and grapple with inflation and workforce issues. The big picture: Rural health cutbacks already are a fact of life. But some of the latest closures are in anticipation of the nearly $1 trillion reduction in federal Medicaid spending that will in large part hit starting in 2027. (Goldman, 9/15)

AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

Politico: Senate Republicans Ready Obamacare Rescue 
A group of GOP senators are working on legislation to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies with policy changes designed to win over conservatives, according to four people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions. This group has gotten “technical assistance” from the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the subsidies, according to two of the sources. The Obamacare subsidies are set to expire at the end of this year. (Guggenheim and Carney, 9/15)

'MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN'

Bloomberg: Tyson Foods To Eliminate Corn Syrup From Products By Year-End
Tyson Foods Inc. said it plans to eliminate corn syrup and other ingredients from its products by the end of the year, echoing calls by the Trump administration for changes in the US food supply. The meat producer’s goal is to stop using high fructose corn syrup, sucralose, BHA/BHT and titanium dioxide in the production of products sold under brands including Tyson, Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farm, the Springdale-Arkansas company said in Monday a statement. (Freitas Jr, 9/15)

Iowa Public Radio: After Terminating Several Farm-To-School Programs, The USDA Resurrects One
The USDA will award up to $18 million through a program that connects schools with local farmers. Projects approved under the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grant Program could include purchases of local food, school gardens, agricultural education and food safety training for producers. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins made the announcement alongside the release of the Make America Healthy Again report. (Cramer, 9/15)

The New York Times: G.O.P. Plan On Pesticides Faces Revolt From MAHA Moms 
For years, the pesticide manufacturer Bayer has battled thousands of lawsuits claiming that its weed killer Roundup causes cancer in people who use it frequently. Now, the Republican-controlled Congress could deliver the company a crucial victory. A provision tucked into a government spending bill could shield Bayer and other pesticides makers from billions of dollars in payouts to plaintiffs. (Joselow and Tabuchi, 9/15)

MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

Los Angeles Times: It's Not Just UCLA. UC President Warns Of Trump Push Into All Campuses And Hospitals
The University of California’s top leader warned Monday that the federal government’s $1.2-billion fine and sweeping proposals to remake UCLA are “minor in comparison” to what could hit the entirety of the nation’s premier university system of campuses, hospitals and clinics. “As we consider the unprecedented action against UCLA, it is important to keep in mind that the federal government is also pursuing investigations and actions in various stages against all 10 UC campuses,” UC President James B. Milliken said in a Monday letter. (Kaleem, 9/15)

AP: Young Climate Activists Who Won Landmark Trial Are Challenging Trump's Energy Orders
Young climate activists and their attorneys who won a landmark global warming trial against the state of Montana are trying to convince a federal judge to block President Donald Trump’s executive orders promoting fossil fuels. During a two-day hearing starting Tuesday in Missoula, Montana, the activists and their experts plan to describe Trump’s actions to boost drilling and mining and discourage renewable energy as a growing danger to children and the planet. They say the Republican’s stoking of global warming violates their constitutional rights. (Brown, 9/15)

Politico: ‘The Whole Thing Is Screwed Up’: Farmers In Deep-Red Pennsylvania Struggle To Find Workers
The U.S. agricultural workforce fell by 155,000 — about 7 percent — between March and July, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That tracks with Pew Research Center data that shows total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July. The labor shortage piles onto an ongoing economic crisis for farmers exacerbated by dwindling export markets that could leave them with crop surpluses. “People don’t understand that if we don’t get more labor, our cows don’t get milked and our crops don’t get picked,” said Tim Wood, a dairy farmer and a member of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau board of directors. ... “The whole thing is screwed up,” said John Painter, a three-time Trump voter who runs an organic dairy farm in Westfield. “We need people to do the jobs Americans are too spoiled to do.” (Benson, 9/15)

Bloomberg: Trump’s Surgeon General Nominee To Divest Family Tobacco, Tech Holdings
President Donald Trump nominated Casey Means four months ago for US surgeon general, a post that still remains open. Now Means, a Stanford University-trained physician and wellness influencer who focuses on functional medicine, is disclosing “steps that I will take to avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest.” (Cohrs Zhang, 9/16)

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

AP: Abortion Advocates Raise Alarm About Social Platforms Removing Posts In Apparent Overreach
Clinics, advocacy groups and individuals who share abortion-related content online say they are seeing informational posts being taken down even if the posts don’t clearly violate the platforms’ policies. The groups, in Latin America and the United States, are denouncing what they see as censorship even in places where abortion is legal. Companies like Meta claim their policies have not changed, and experts attribute the takedowns to over-enforcement at a time when social media platforms are reducing spending on content moderation in favor of artificial intelligence systems that struggle with context, nuance and gray areas. (Ortutay, 9/15)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Becker's Hospital Review: 55% Of Healthcare Workers Plan To Change Roles Within 1 Year: Survey
More than half of U.S. healthcare workers plan to change roles in the next year, according to a recent survey from Strategic Education. Fifty-five percent of respondents said they plan to search for job openings, interview for new positions or switch roles within a year — either within their current organization (38%) or externally (40%). (Kuchno, 9/15)

Bloomberg: Memorial Sloan Kettering To Cut Hundreds Of Jobs As Costs Surge
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is planning to cut less than 2% of its workforce as it faces a budget deficit of more than $200 million for the upcoming year. The New York City-based hospital group will eliminate positions over the next two months and has already closed some open job postings in a bid to lower expenses, according to an email sent to MSK employees Monday that was viewed by Bloomberg News. The message didn’t specify which departments would be subject to cuts. MSK employed 21,175 people as of last year. (Brown, 9/15)

San Francisco Chronicle: Why UCSF Doctor Says Easing New CT Radiation Rule Would Be A ‘Setback’
Federal regulators may soon roll back a rule that requires hospitals to track and report the amount of radiation they use in CT scans — but not if the UCSF radiologist who created a key measure in the rule, which is meant to incentivize lower radiation doses, has anything to say about it. Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, who for years has studied the link between CT scans and cancer risk, is leading a campaign urging the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that regulates hospitals, to keep the requirement in place. (Ho, 9/15)

Modern Healthcare: Revenue Cycle Services Take On Insurer AI, Administrative Costs
Hospitals and health systems are looking to revenue cycle management companies to help them level the playing field with insurers. Payers have been increasingly using artificial intelligence to speed up their processes, particularly with prior authorization and denials. Meanwhile, most providers handle revenue management functions internally and are behind on adopting AI and other technologies, leaving them outmatched and scrambling to keep up. (DeSilva, 9/15)

PHARMA AND TECH

Modern Healthcare: Labcorp Acquires BioReference Health Assets For Up To $225M
Labcorp has completed its acquisition of BioReference Health’s oncology diagnostic testing assets for up to $225 million. The independent laboratory company paid $192.5 million at closing and and could pay up to $32.5 million more in an earn-out tied to the assets’ performance, according to a Monday news release. (DeSilva, 9/15)

Stat: Sarepta's Elevidys Faces Accuracy Questions On Its Measurements
The summer has been filled with debates about the safety of Elevidys, Sarepta’s gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Four prominent researchers are now raising a fundamental question about its efficacy: How much gene does the gene therapy actually deliver? In principle, the question should be settled. Since its first trial in 2017, Sarepta has taken muscle biopsies from participants and measured how much microdystrophin— a mini version of the gene broken in Duchenne — is present. (The gene has to be miniaturized to fit inside the virus that delivers it to cells.) (Mast, 9/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy Helps Suppress Thoughts About Food, Study Suggests
Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy weight-loss drug helps patients stop thinking about food, according to a new study. According to results of the study, which were presented at a medical conference in Austria, patients taking Wegovy for weight-loss experienced a substantial drop in so-called “food noise”—unwanted and intrusive thoughts about food—alongside improvements in their mental well-being and lifestyle. (Chopping, 9/16)

Modern Healthcare: Boston Scientific’s Endotak Reliance Recall Prompts FDA Alert
The Food and Drug Administration issued an alert regarding Boston Scientific’s updated recall correction for its Endotak Reliance defibrillation leads. The leads with expanded polytetrafluoroethylene-coated coils can develop calcium buildup around the coils, which may stop the device from delivering enough shock during cardiac arrest. The issue is associated with 386 serious injuries and 16 deaths as of July 24, according to the company. (Dubinsky, 9/15)

STATE WATCH

The New York Times: Florida Says Ban On Openly Carrying Guns Is Invalid After Court Ruling 
Members of law enforcement in Florida should no longer arrest or prosecute people for openly carrying firearms in public places, the state attorney general, James Uthmeier, said on Monday, citing a state appeals court ruling last week that found a decades-old ban to be unconstitutional. Mr. Uthmeier’s legal interpretation effectively allows open carry in Florida, which had been the last remaining Republican-led state to ban the practice. “Open carry is the law of the state,” Mr. Uthmeier, a Republican, wrote on X on Monday. (Mazzei, 9/15)

WUSF: Federal Authorities Charge 12 More In Florida Nursing Diploma Fraud
The arrests were part of a second phase of an investigation. In 2023, 25 people were charged in connection with a similar scheme involving three other Florida schools. Federal prosecutors in South Florida have charged 12 additional people in a scheme to sell fake nursing diplomas and transcripts to individuals seeking RN and LPN/VN licensure. (Mayer, 9/15)

North Carolina Health News: NC Turns To Mobile Clinics To Expand Substance Use Treatment
In 2024, more than 3,000 North Carolinians are estimated to have died from opioid overdose. Since 2000, more than 41,500 people have died from overdoses. Even as the overdose death rate slowed slightly in the past year, state health officials are still looking for ways to expand access to medications for opioid use disorder. (Crumpler, 9/16)

AP: New York's Ban On Addictive Social Media Feeds For Kids Takes Shape
New York’s attorney general on Monday proposed regulations for its crackdown on addictive social media feeds for children, including rules for verifying a user’s age. The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act, passed last year, prohibits social media companies from showing feeds personalized by algorithms to users under 18 unless they have a parent’s consent. Instead, feeds on apps like TikTok and Instagram would be limited to posts from accounts young users follow. (Thompson, 9/16)

OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS

Undark: In Tracking Avian Flu, Data Privacy Stymies Researchers
For years, veterinary researcher Maurice Pitesky has run up against a roadblock while tracking the rapid spread of avian flu: a lack of public data. He has attempted to obtain — but has repeatedly been denied — state and federal data revealing the location of avian flu outbreaks on U.S. farms. It’s data he says could help inform predictive modeling to warn farmers about a higher risk of avian flu transmission near their property, giving them enough time to tighten biosecurity measures and potentially ward off an outbreak. (Moran, 9/16)

CIDRAP: USDA Confirms First H5N1 Avian Flu Detection In Nebraska Dairy Cows
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today announced the first detection H5N1 avian flu in Nebraska dairy cattle, following an initial detection from pre-movement milk sampling. Genetic analysis reveals that the virus belongs to the 2.3.4.4b clade and the B3.13 genotype seen in other dairy herds. APHIS said it is working with the Nebraska Department of Agriculture to conduct an additional on-farm investigation and gather more samples and data to more fully understand the detection and limit the spread of the virus. (Schnirring, 9/15)

AP: Congress Asks Whether Boar's Head Deli Meat Plant Tied To Deadly Outbreak Will Be Fit To Reopen
Democratic lawmakers are questioning whether a Boar’s Head deli meat plant at the center of last year’s deadly listeria outbreak will be fit to reopen. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, of Connecticut, sent a letter Monday asking company officials to appear before the Congressional Food Safety Caucus to discuss “a repeated pattern of food safety negligence that jeopardized Americans’ public health.” (Aleccia, 9/15)

CIDRAP: School Report: Pre-K Students, Staff Most Likely To Have Acute Respiratory Infections
A study in the North Kansas City, Missouri, pre-K–12 public school system finds that pre-K (pre-kindergarten) and elementary students had the highest rates of respiratory virus detections and that pre-K and staff were most likely to have acute respiratory infections (ARIs). (Van Beusekom, 9/15)

PUBLIC HEALTH

The Washington Post: Switching The Clocks Results In Higher Stroke And Obesity Rates For U.S. 
Twice a year, Americans grumble about the inconvenience and sleep disruption of seasonal time changes, but there’s more to our grudge against springing forward and falling back. New evidence shows we’d all be a little less prone to obesity and strokes if we ditched the switch, according to a study Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Johnson, 9/15)

The Hill: FAA Received Thousands Of Reports On Toxic Jet Fumes
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has received thousands of reports since 2010 about toxic fumes from jet engines leaking into the cockpit and cabin of airplanes, according to an investigation done by The Wall Street Journal. The leaks are due to a commonly used airplane design known as “bleed air” that pulls air from the engine into airplanes so those onboard can breathe. (Anderson, 9/15)

MedPage Today: Eye Drops Can Help People Ditch Their Reading Glasses
Patients with presbyopia had consistent and durable vision improvement across multiple doses of a combination eye drop solution, a large retrospective review showed. From 69% to 99% of patients had two to three lines of vision improvement (by Jaeger criteria) when they used eye drops containing three different concentrations of pilocarpine plus the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) diclofenac. The improvement persisted for a median duration of 434 days and for up to 2 years in many cases. (Bankhead, 9/15)

CNN: Rare ‘Tooth-In-Eye’ Surgery Restores Man’s Vision After Two Decades
When Brent Chapman was 13, he took ibuprofen during a Christmas basketball game. It was a drug he had taken before, but what happened next was anything but routine: He had a severe reaction that caused burns all over his body, including on the surface of his eyes. Chapman was in a coma for 27 days. He lost his left eye to an infection and lost most of his vision in the other. His body recovered, but his vision fully never returned. (Koda, 9/15)

Yahoo: Costco's Latest Recall Is So Dangerous, They Advise Not To Return The Item To The Store
No one likes to hear about a product recall, especially if there's any risk of injury involved. Unfortunately, Costco has issued a notice like this for one of its sparkling wines, and anyone who has bought the item is being advised to dispose of it immediately, rather than returning it to a store. The item in question is the Kirkland Signature Prosecco Valdobbiadene, an in-house private label product popular for its low price point. The company warned that there was a risk of certain bottles shattering, even before they're opened. (Brennan, 9/15)