First Edition: Wednesday, June 4, 2025

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Two Patients Faced Chemo. The One Who Survived Demanded A Test To See If It Was Safe
JoEllen Zembruski-Ruple, while in the care of New York City’s renowned Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, swallowed the first three chemotherapy pills to treat her squamous cell carcinoma on Jan. 29, her family members said. They didn’t realize the drug could kill her. Six days later, Zembruski-Ruple went to Sloan Kettering’s urgent care department to treat sores in her mouth and swelling around her eyes. (Allen, 6/4)

KFF Health News: Newsom’s Push To Block Law Could Save California Nursing Homes Over $1 Billion
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to block a California law from taking effect next year that will require nursing homes to have a 96-hour backup power supply, potentially giving the industry a reprieve from having to spend over $1 billion in capital investments. The Democratic governor tucked the suspension into his budget update to address a projected $12 billion state deficit. If lawmakers go along, it will be the second time nursing homes have forestalled spending on generators or other power supplies required to keep ventilators, feeding and IV pumps, and medication dispensing machines running during emergencies, such as wildfires. (Sciacca, 6/4)

KFF Health News: ‘An Arm and a Leg’ Podcast: A Mathematical Solution For US Hospitals?
What do the KGB and the former CEO of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital have in common? Eugene Litvak. The Soviet intelligence agency and the children’s hospital have each separately looked to the Ukrainian émigré with a PhD in mathematics for help. He turned down the KGB, but Litvak saved Cincinnati Children’s Hospital more than $100 million a year. For decades, Litvak has been on a mission to save U.S. hospitals money and improve the lives of doctors, nurses, and patients. He says he has just the formula to do it. (Galewitz and Appleby, 6/4)

KFF Health News: Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Continues Assault On Obamacare
Millions would lose Medicaid coverage. Millions would be left without health insurance. Signing up for health plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces would be harder and more expensive. President Donald Trump’s domestic policy legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that cleared the House in May and now moves to the Senate, could also be called Obamacare Repeal Lite, its critics say. (Galewitz and Appleby, 6/3)

KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest 'KFF Health News Minute'
Jackie Fortier reads the week’s news: New programs teach Black kids to swim competitively and help their parents learn too, and people in prison are often denied basic health care at the end of their lives. Zach Dyer reads this week’s news: Federal funding cuts are gutting HIV prevention programs, and financial pressures are leading to the closure of clinics that provide abortion care even in states where it’s legal. (6/3)

CANCER RESEARCH

MedPage Today: Study Supports Lowering Colon Cancer Screening Age
A single-center study supported recent U.S. recommendations that lowered the colorectal cancer screening age to 45. Screening colonoscopy outcomes were slightly less common in people ages 45-49 compared with those 50-54 years old, but only the risk for any adenoma was significantly lower in the younger group, ... reported Jeffrey Lee, MD, MPH, of Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Pleasanton, and colleagues in JAMA. (6/3)

The Wall Street Journal: How ‘Inflammaging’ Drives Cancer—And Points To New Treatments
People are more likely to get cancer as they age. Dr. Miriam Merad has an unconventional idea of how that might be reversed: using allergy drugs and other seemingly unlikely medications to damp a condition known as “inflammaging.” The immunologist and oncologist has spent years examining malignant tumors to learn why people over age 50 account for nine in 10 cancer diagnoses in the U.S. She and her research team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City have homed in on an answer: the aging immune system. (McKay, 6/3)

The New York Times: From No Hope To A Potential Cure For A Deadly Blood Cancer
A group of 97 patients had longstanding multiple myeloma, a common blood cancer that doctors consider incurable, and faced a certain, and extremely painful, death within about a year. They had gone through a series of treatments, each of which controlled their disease for a while. But then it came back, as it always does. They reached the stage where they had no more options and were facing hospice. They all got immunotherapy, in a study that was a last-ditch effort. (Kolata, 6/3)

Newsweek: How Dinosaurs Could Help Us Fight Cancer
Dinosaurs might be more than just fascinating relics of the past—they could help pave the way towards new and better treatments for cancer. This is the conclusion of a new study by researchers from the Anglia Ruskin University and Imperial College London, both in England, that reveals that dinosaur fossils still carry biological clues—specifically, preserved proteins—that can teach us how ancient species dealt with diseases like cancer. (Patrick, 6/2)

CAPITOL WATCH

AP: Trump Pushes A July 4th Deadline For Tax Bill As Republican Senators Dig In
President Donald Trump wants his “big, beautiful” bill of tax breaks and spending cuts on his desk to be signed into law by the Fourth of July, and he’s pushing the slow-rolling Senate to make it happen sooner rather than later. Trump met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House earlier this week and has been dialing senators for one-on-one chats, using both the carrot and stick to nudge, badger and encourage them to act. But it’s still a long road ahead for the 1,000-page-plus package. (Mascaro and Jalonick, 6/4)

MedPage Today: Former HHS Chief Blasts Trump's Enablers, Says Policies Will Cost Lives
For Xavier Becerra, who was the HHS secretary during the Biden administration and now a candidate for California governor, the time for keeping quiet has passed. At first, "I stayed pretty quiet, neutral, because I feel you've got to give the new person a chance to settle in," Becerra said during the Association of Health Care Journalists annual conference here Friday. But now that 4 months have passed, he said, "they got their chance." (Clark, 6/3)

MedPage Today: RFK Jr. May Despise Top Medical Journals, But MAHA Report Still Cites Them
Although HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has threatened to prevent federal researchers from publishing studies in premier medical journals, his "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) report did not hold back on citing studies from these publications. The MAHA report cited 26 studies published by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), JAMA, The Lancet, and their affiliates -- journals Kennedy has previously called "corrupt." These studies, which include exposés of conflicts of interest in medicine, account for 5% of the 522 citations in the 73-page report. (Dotinga, 6/3)

Politico: Congress Finally Gets Trump's Request To Codify DOGE Cuts To NPR, PBS, Foreign Aid
President Donald Trump has sent Congress a request to nix $9.4 billion in current funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid — the first test of Republicans’ willingness to back the administration’s gutting of federal agencies. The “rescissions” memo was officially transmitted Tuesday to Capitol Hill and seeks to eliminate $8.3 billion in foreign aid, along with $1.1 billion from public broadcasting, including for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. (Scholtes, Tully-McManus and Kashinsky, 6/3)

Fierce Healthcare: CMS Commits To Tech Initiatives To Give Patients Access To Data
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to undertake several new health tech initiatives, senior leaders announced today at a closed meeting with stakeholders. The Department of Health and Human Services held a meeting today to discuss health tech policy and its recent request for information on health tech initiatives. CMS seems to be moving ahead with some of the initiatives it asked stakeholders to provide feedback on in its RFI — among them a national provider directory and modern identity verification for Medicare beneficiaries. (Beavins, 6/3)

NBC News: FDA’s AI Tool For Medical Devices Struggles With Simple Tasks
A new Food and Drug Administration AI tool that could speed up reviews and approvals of medical devices such as pacemakers and insulin pumps is struggling with simple tasks, according to two people familiar with it. The tool — which is still in beta testing — is buggy, doesn’t yet connect to the FDA’s internal systems and has issues when it comes to uploading documents or allowing users to submit questions, the people say. It’s also not currently connected to the internet and can’t access new content, such as recently published studies or anything behind a paywall. (Lovelace Jr., 6/3)

Politico: Judge Orders Trump Admin To Maintain Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender Inmates
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to continue providing gender-affirming care to hundreds of transgender prison inmates, ruling that an abrupt decision to curtail their medical care was not based on any “reasoned” analysis, as the law requires. U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth previously ordered the Bureau of Prisons to continue to provide medical care to several individual prisoners who are transgender, but his ruling Tuesday is the first that broadly blocks federal prison officials from carrying out an executive order from President Donald Trump targeting “gender ideology.” (Gerstein and Cheney, 6/3)

The Hill: FDA Chief Pledges Review Of Abortion Pill Mifepristone
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary committed to reviewing the abortion drug mifepristone in a letter sent to Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). “As with all drugs, FDA continues to closely monitor the postmarketing safety data on mifepristone for the medical termination of early pregnancy,” Makary wrote to Hawley. “As the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, I am committed to conducting a review of mifepristone and working with the professional career scientists at the Agency who review this data,” he added in the letter. (O’Connell-Domenech, 6/3)

PUBLIC HEALTH

Politico: Trump Fires Heat Experts As Summer Begins
The Trump administration’s purge of federal personnel poses the latest threat to a rule meant to protect workers from extreme heat. As part of an agency reorganization, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired the research team tasked with studying the deadly effects of high temperatures and how to safeguard against them, writes Ariel Wittenberg. The layoffs take effect this week, just before the start of a summer that is forecast to be hotter than normal across the United States. (Skibell, 6/3)

CBS News: Will Norovirus Surge Early Again This Year? CDC Urges Tracking Of New Strain
After years of largely predictable norovirus waves, the emergence of a new strain might have disrupted the seasonal pattern of outbreaks from this notorious stomach bug, suggests a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In previous years, the U.S. usually saw norovirus outbreaks increase around December. That marked the start of the season for the virus. But last year's season started in October, as a new norovirus strain called GII.17 drove a record wave of outbreaks. (Tin, 6/3)

AP: Kennedy Has Ordered A Review Of Baby Formula. Here's What You Should Know
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has directed the Food and Drug Administration to review the nutrients and other ingredients in infant formula, which fills the bottles of millions of American babies. The effort, dubbed “Operation Stork Speed,” is the first deep look at the ingredients since 1998. ... About three-quarters of U.S. infants consume formula during the first six months of life, with about 40% receiving it as their only source of nutrition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Aleccia, 6/3)

The Hill: FDA Upgrades Tomato Recall Over Salmonella Contamination
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) late last month upgraded its recall on tomatoes contaminated with salmonella to a Class I. The agency said produce sold by Williams Farms Repack could pose “serious adverse health consequences or death,” in a May 28 enforcement report. The recall was first announced on May 2 when the FDA said items posed the risk of potential contamination. However, the threat for products sold to distributors in the states of Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina has now increased. (Fields, 6/3)

The Hill: Lead, Mercury Found In Popular Rice Brands: Study
Popular rice brands across the United States might contain highly toxic metals, one study has found. A study conducted by Healthy Babies, Bright Future found that out of 145 rice samples nationwide, 100% of them contained arsenic. According to the organization, more than one in four exceeded the FDA’s action level for infant cereal. (Campbell, 6/3)

CIDRAP: H5N1 Avian Flu Strikes Another Arizona Layer Farm
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed a third H5N1 avian flu outbreak at a large layer farm in Arizona, affecting nearly 1.4 million birds. Since the middle of May, the virus has hit three of the state’s large layer farms, all in Maricopa County, leading to a loss of more than 5 million birds. The outbreak wiped out about 95% of the birds at Hickman Family Farms’ facilities, and has shuttered all of the company’s West Valley farms, according to a local media report. (Schnirring, 6/3)

The New York Times: Anorexia In Middle Age And Beyond
For decades, few people connected eating disorders with older people; they were seen as an affliction of teenage girls and young women. But research suggests that an increasing number of older women have been seeking treatment for eating disorders, including bulimia, binge eating disorder (known as BED) and anorexia, which has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder, and brings with it an elevated risk of suicide. (Ellin, 6/3)

COVID-19

Bloomberg: Moderna Will Test New Covid Shot Against Placebo, RFK Jr. Says
Moderna Inc. has agreed to do a placebo-controlled trial of its new Covid vaccine that was recently approved by US regulators, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday. In a post on X, Kennedy said he wanted to “address those of you who have anxieties” about the Food and Drug Administration’s limited approval of Moderna’s vaccine, which was cleared for a narrower segment of the population than prior shots. (Smith and Cohrs Zhang, 6/3)

CBS News: CDC Official Overseeing COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations Resigns
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said Tuesday she was resigning from her role overseeing updates to the agency's COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, following an order by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to force an update to the agency's guidance. "My career in public health and vaccinology started with a deep-seated desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population, and that is not something I am able to continue doing in this role," Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos wrote in an email to some members of the agency's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). (Tin, 6/3)

CIDRAP: Long-COVID Diagnoses Fairly Common In Medicare Claims
A recent study in The Journal of Gerontology analyses Medicare data from 3,588,671 Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed as having COVID-19 from October 2021 to March 2023 and finds that 3.9% of beneficiaries—or about 140,000 people—were diagnosed with long COVID after experiencing symptoms for at least 1 year. The authors also estimated the risk of developing long COVID based on the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered prior to the index date, using Medicare Part B claims and pharmacy records. (Soucheray, 6/3)

AP: COVID-Related Agreement Continues To Shield Some On Georgia's Death Row From Execution
The fact that the COVID-19 vaccine is not available for newborn babies is shielding a group of prisoners on Georgia’s death row from execution. Executions in Georgia were halted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the state attorney general’s office entered into an agreement with lawyers for people on death row to set the terms under which they could resume for a specific group of prisoners. (Brumback, 6/3)

SCIENCE AND INNOVATIONS

CIDRAP: Report Highlights Evidence, Remaining Data Gaps On Vaccines And Antibiotic Resistance
The Wellcome Trust last week released a new report on the role that vaccines can play in tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The report summarizes the findings from 11 Wellcome-funded research projects that aimed to fill critical evidence gaps on vaccines and AMR, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. A World Health Organization (WHO) modeling study published in 2024 estimated that vaccines could avert more than half a million deaths from drug-resistant infections annually, cut AMR-related healthcare costs and productivity losses by billions of dollars, and reduce the number of antibiotics needed to treat infections by 2.5 billion doses annually. (Dall, 6/3)

CIDRAP: Testing Migrants For Key Infectious Diseases May Speed Diagnosis, Cut Risk Of Spread
Instituting routine testing of migrants for certain infectious diseases leads to earlier diagnoses and treatment, improving health outcomes and lowering the risk of onward community spread, suggests an observational UK study published late last week in eClinicalMedicine. (Van Beusekom, 6/3)

Fortune Well: Cannabis—Whether Smoked Or Eaten—Is Bad For Your Heart, New Study Finds. It's Just One Of Many Risks
Smoking weed, according to a small new study out of University of California San Francisco, is bad for your heart—and so is consuming cannabis as an edible. The report, published May 28 in JAMA Cardiology, found that people who regularly used marijuana in either form had vascular function that was reduced by about half when compared to those who did not use cannabis—a dysfunction comparable to that of tobacco smokers. (Greenfield, 6/3)

CBS News: Pepto Bismol Didn't Prevent Travelers' Diarrhea Compared To Placebo, Small CDC Study Found
The active ingredient in Pepto Bismol, bismuth subsalicylate, is often used to treat and prevent diarrhea while traveling — but a new study found it may not help with prevention. In the study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "no significant difference" was found for symptoms of loose stool or diarrhea between groups who took the medication for prevention and those who took a placebo. (Moniuszko, 6/3)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Modern Healthcare: Clinicians Use Generative AI More Often At Home Than Work: Survey
Healthcare workers use artificial intelligence more in their personal lives than in professional settings, according to a survey published Tuesday. Information services company Wolters Kluwer and marketing research firm Ipsos surveyed 312 U.S. healthcare professionals on AI in healthcare. Despite all the hype, fewer respondents use generative AI at work than at home. (Turner, 6/3)

Modern Healthcare: New Mountain's Robert Musslewhite: Payers Are Winning AI Arms Race
It's been 10 months since Robert Musslewhite joined New Mountain Capital as an executive advisor to help it deploy $15 billion into healthcare. After years of leading The Advisory Board, OptumInsight and Definitive Healthcare, Musslewhite went to the private equity firm in August. He was instrumental in helping New Mountain merge three revenue cycle management companies — Access Healthcare, SmarterDx and Thoughtful.ai — to form Smarter Technologies in a deal announced last month. (Perna, 6/3)

Modern Healthcare: Claritev's Motion To Dismiss Lawsuits Is Denied
A federal district court judge on Tuesday denied motions to dismiss complaints in two lawsuits against data analytics firm MultiPlan — now operating as Claritev — and a number of insurers. Judge Matthew Kennelly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied Claritev's motion to dismiss complaints in two lawsuits involving federal and state antitrust and consumer protection claims. (DeSilva, 6/3)

STATE WATCH

ABC News: Florida City Begins Formal Process To Remove Fluoride From Water Supply After State Ban
A city in Florida began the formal process of removing fluoride from its water supply on Tuesday to be in compliance with a new state law. Ocala -- 75 miles northwest of Orlando -- currently has a city ordinance requiring fluoride to be added to the water supply. Last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning local governments from adding fluoride to public water systems. (Kekatos, 6/3)

Bloomberg: Texas Wants To Kill A Cannabis Boom It Accidentally Helped Stoke
Texas is on the cusp of banning all recreational THC products after lawmakers passed a bill to reverse the unintended effects of hemp laws that led to a boom in shops selling gummies, joints, vapes and drinks that create a similar high to marijuana. The proposal, awaiting Governor Greg Abbott’s signature, would outlaw almost all consumable hemp products except for non-psychoactive CBD and CBG. A separate measure expanding the state’s medical use program for THC — the psychoactive molecule found in marijuana and at weaker concentrations in hemp — is also nearing final approval. (Lovinger, 6/3)

Axios: Colorado Expands Paid Leave For NICU Parents
Colorado became the first state to offer extended paid family leave to parents with infants in the neonatal intensive care units after Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed the policy into law on Friday. Why it matters: Parents will be able to take up to 12 extra weeks while their infants are in the NICU, where parental engagement has been linked to better developmental outcomes. (Goldman, 6/4)

AP: Opioid Settlement Plan Allows Millions To Be Spent On Purposes Other Than The Public Health Crisis
In the fallout of over 9,000 Mississippians dying of overdoses since 2000, lawyers and lawmakers have set up a plan to distribute the hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations that catalyzed the crisis. But public health advocates and Mississippians closest to the public health catastrophe worry the setup could enable these dollars to be spent on purposes other than ending the overdose epidemic. (Siegler, 6/3)

CIDRAP: South Dakota Confirms First Measles Case As Other States Add To Their Totals
The South Dakota Department of Health (SDDH) yesterday reported its first measles case of the year, which involves an adult resident of Meade County who became ill after international travel. In a statement, the SDDH said the patient visited several public locations while infectious, including an urgent care in Rapid City on May 28 and an urgent care in Sturgis on May 29. (Schnirring, 6/3)

Newsweek: People In California Warned Over Parasite-Riddled Fish
Southern Californians have been warned that more than 90 percent of popular game fish have been found to contain invasive, parasitic worms that can infect humans. Two species of the parasitic flatworms known as "trematodes" were found infecting five species of freshwater fish from San Diego County in a study by researchers from University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Infection with the worms typically causes gastrointestinal problems, lethargy and weight loss in humans—but severe cases have even been known to cause heart attack and strokes. (Randall, 6/3)