First Edition: Wednesday, March 25, 2026

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Demoralized CDC Workforce Reels From Year Of Firings, Funding Cuts, And A Shooting
On the coffee table at her home in Atlanta, Sarah Boim has a pile of documents from her old job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are printouts of her employment records. Boim lost her job in the first big wave of CDC firings — more than 1,000 people were suddenly let go last February. “This is the termination letter. I also printed off my performance review from 2024,” she said. “I knew I wouldn’t have access to it, and everything was so chaotic that I needed proof of what was happening.” (Mador, 3/25)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘An Arm and a Leg’: Steep Health Care Costs Steer Americans To Tough Decisions
Health insurance is out of reach for millions of Americans this year. Many are making difficult decisions about how to pay for coverage amid the loss of Affordable Care Act subsidies and nosebleed-high premiums. Attorney Nicole Wipp and skate-shop owner Noah Hulsman tell An Arm and a Leg host Dan Weissmann how they tried to balance their financial and physical health when they couldn’t find good options. (Weissmann, 3/25)

KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest 'KFF Health News Minute'
Sam Whitehead reads the week’s news: Amid federal spending cuts and suspicion of fluoride, tooth problems are sending more kids to the ER. Plus, patients look to health savings accounts to deal with rising medical costs. (Cook, 3/24)

ABORTION

The Hill: Fewer People Traveled For Abortions As Telehealth Went Up: Report
A new report from the reproductive health nonprofit The Guttmacher Institute found that fewer people are traveling from states with total abortion bans to access abortion services, while the rate of telehealth use for at-home abortions has gone up. In the years following the 2022 Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court, overturning Roe v. Wade, travel across state lines for abortions has gone down. In 2023, about 170,000 people did so, dropping to 154,000 in 2024. By 2025, this figure had fallen to 142,000, according to the Guttmacher Institute’s findings. (Choi, 3/24)

AP: Conservative States Focus On Banning Abortion Pills
As states that already ban abortion look to further restrict access this year, much of the focus is on pills sent by out-of-state providers. A survey released Tuesday helps explain the emphasis. It suggests that more women in states with bans obtained abortions last year using the pills prescribed via telehealth than by traveling to places where it’s legal. (Mulvihill, 3/24)

AP: Georgia Judge Sets $1 Murder Bond For Woman Accused Of Illegal Abortion
A Georgia judge granted a bond of just $1 for a murder charge faced by a woman accused by police of taking pills to induce an illegal abortion.“I think that charge is extremely problematic,” Superior Court Judge Steven Blackerby said Monday during a bond hearing for Alexia Moore, according to The New York Times. “That is going to be a hard charge to convict upon.” (3/24)

Iowa Public Radio: New Data Shows Abortions Decreased 22% In Iowa Last Year 
Abortions declined significantly during the first year that an Iowa law that severely restricted the procedure was put in place. Iowa had 3,050 clinician-provided abortions in 2025. That's a 22% drop from 2024, which saw 3,880 abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that supports abortion rights. (Krebs, 3/24)

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

Fox News: Higher-Dose Obesity Medication Wins FDA Approval, Promises Greater Weight Loss
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced on Thursday its approval of a new, higher-dose Wegovy (semaglutide) injection. The 7.2 mg dosage, called Wegovy HD, is intended for weight loss and long-term weight loss maintenance for adult patients. It is triple the previous maximum dose of 2.4 mg. (Stabile, 3/24)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Launches ASPIRE Medicaid Pay Model For Children
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will promote wraparound services for high-risk Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Plan enrollees under 21 years old through a payment demonstration, the agency announced Tuesday. The Accelerating State Pediatric Innovation Readiness and Effectiveness Model, or ASPIRE, is a voluntary, 10-year program that will provide a handful of states with funding to improve care for for children and young adults with complex behavioral and physical healthcare needs who are enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP. (Early, 3/24)

Modern Healthcare: Medicaid Work Requirements Spotlight Medical Frailty Definition
Two small words President Donald Trump’s tax law — medical frailty — promise to have an enormous impact. States that expanded Medicaid eligibility to working-age adults without children or disabilities under the Affordable Care Act of 2010 need to have work requirements in place by Jan. 1. Beneficiaries will have to verify that they are working, volunteering or attending school at least 80 hours each month to get and retain coverage. (McAuliff, 3/24)

The New York Times: Key Adviser Quits Federal Vaccine Panel
Dr. Robert Malone, vice chair of the federal committee that recommends vaccines to Americans, angrily resigned his position on Tuesday. The panel, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, is currently in judicial limbo. A federal judge ruled last week that the advisers, appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., did not have the expertise needed to make vaccine recommendations and prevented them from meeting as planned this month. The judge also blocked all of the committee’s actions to date, including decisions to rescind recommendations for some childhood vaccines. (Mandavilli, 3/24)

NBC News: Trump Is Expected To Nominate New CDC Director, As Measles Keeps Spreading
As the Trump administration prepares to nominate a new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, insiders say they worry the nominee will only further undermine trust in the nation’s top health agency, even as outbreaks of measles escalate and the federal government’s vaccine policies face resistance. President Donald Trump is expected to name the candidate on Truth Social by Wednesday. If confirmed by the Senate, the director will inherit an agency marked by the yearlong chaos of mass layoffs, a deadly shooting and hollowed-out leadership. (Edwards, 3/24)

The Washington Post: RFK Jr. And Dr. Oz Have A Plan To Save Rural Health Care. Here’s The Catch
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his team want to Make Rural America Healthy again. He has suggested that AI nurses could save dying rural hospitals. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz said robots could give ultrasounds to women and touted how AI avatars could help. And President Donald Trump’s administration is infusing $50 billion over five years to improve rural health, with some states proposing to use the money for drones to deliver lab samples or prescriptions. (Weber, 3/24)

PUBLIC HEALTH

MedPage Today: Is This Deadly Childhood Illness Making A Comeback?
Some physicians are increasingly worried that Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), a potentially disabling and sometimes lethal bacterial infection in children, is making a comeback as vaccine hesitancy rises. Serious cases are being reported in California, New York, Florida, and many other states, MedPage Today has learned. (Clark, 3/24)

CIDRAP: RSV Symptoms In Older Adults Often Linger, Studies Show
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has not been widely studied in the outpatient, adult setting, as symptoms have been similar to other respiratory infections and the biggest burden of disease were seen in severely ill, hospitalized patients. But the recent introduction of RSV vaccines has begged for a new understanding of RSV’s burden among older, community-dwelling adults. Two studies published earlier this month in Clinical Infectious Diseases assess the prevalence and burden of RSV among older adults (60 years and older) in six European nations (Finland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom) across three consecutive RSV seasons (October 2021 through April 2024). (Soucheray, 3/24)

CIDRAP: South Carolina: No New Measles Cases In Upstate Outbreak
For the first time in months, South Carolina health officials said a week has gone by with no new measles cases in the state, and the state total remains just under 1,000 cases, at 997. Of those cases, 940 were recorded in Spartanburg County, the epicenter of the outbreak. School children ages 5 to 17 represent 456 of the cases in the state, and 931 cases occurred in unvaccinated people. Twenty-five were fully vaccinated, 21 were partially vaccinated, and 20 have unknown status. (Soucheray, 3/24)

CIDRAP: Indiana: More Than 350,000 Birds Killed In Massive Avian Flu Outbreak
Since the beginning of the month, more than 350,000 birds in Indiana have died from avian flu and response measures, and agricultural officials in the state are asking producers to be vigilant to stop the virus from spreading. “We need sound biosecurity practices. It’s not just what’s happening on that one facility, there’s risk of lateral transmissions,” Dudley Hoskins, JD, the state’s under secretary of agriculture for marketing and regulatory programs, said in a press release. (Soucheray, 3/24)

CIDRAP: Drought May Promote Antibiotic Resistance In Soil, Study Suggests
New research suggests drought conditions may promote elevated antibiotic resistance in soil microbes, researchers reported yesterday in Nature Microbiology. To determine how drought might affect soil microbial communities, which have been the source of many antibiotics used in clinical medicine, scientists from the California Institute of Technology began by compiling five metagenomic datasets from four previous studies in which drought was the only variable. The datasets included cropland and grassland in California, a forest in Switzerland, and a wetland in China. (Dall, 3/24)

AP: Heat Dome Is Still Sizzling Southwest. The Midwest Is Next
After smashing March heat records in 14 states and the U.S. as a whole, the gigantic heat dome that’s baked the Southwest is creeping eastward and may end up being one of the most expansive heat waves in American history, meteorologists and weather historians said. And it’s not going away for awhile, maybe not till the middle of the next week as April starts, said meteorologist Gregg Gallina of the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. (Borenstein, 3/24)

Bloomberg: Future Heat Danger Differs Starkly For Rich And Poor Countries
Poor countries may lose 10 times more people to deaths from high temperatures than rich ones, according to an analysis by Climate Impact Lab. The research, published Wednesday, is designed to help cities and communities understand and respond to the dangers they face from rising temperatures. It comes as a record-breaking heat wave grips much of the US and as more evidence emerges that global warming is accelerating. While the rising heat is global, its consequences for health vary dramatically depending on affluence. (Roston, 3/25)

SCIENCE AND INNOVATIONS

CIDRAP: Isolation, Financial Struggles Tied To Lower Uptake Of Preventive Care
Social and physical isolation, along with financial hardship, are linked to lower uptake of recommended preventive health services, investigators at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School report this week in the Annals of Family Medicine. The team mined data from the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System phone survey to assess the association between self-reported social and physical isolation (using transportation barriers as a proxy for the latter), material deprivation (financial strain, inadequate health care access), and uptake of COVID-19, influenza, and pneumococcal vaccinations and cervical, colorectal, and breast cancer screening among US adults. (Van Beusekom, 3/24)

CBS News: University Of Colorado Study Finds Python Blood Could Lead To Weight Loss Drug With Fewer Side Effects
A compound found in python blood could lead to a new kind of weight loss drug, one that suppresses appetite without some of the side effects linked to popular medications like Ozempic. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, working with scientists at Stanford University and Baylor University, are studying how Burmese pythons regulate appetite after eating massive meals. (Leary, 3/24)

Modern Healthcare: How Intuitive Surgical's Da Vinci Robots Are Expanding Into ASCs
Yesterday’s robotic surgery systems are finding new life in today’s ambulatory surgical centers. Some health systems upgrading to the latest Intuitive Surgical da Vinci surgical robot are deploying the earlier generation to their outpatient surgery centers. Others are trading in the older model, allowing the company to recondition and resell them at a lower cost. (Dubinsky, 3/24)

CIDRAP: Small Study Finds Promise In Phage Therapy For Cystic Fibrosis Patients
Bacteriophage therapy for chronic bacterial respiratory infections appears to be safe and well-tolerated in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, according to a study published yesterday in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. Because of the thick, sticky mucus that builds up in their lungs, CF patients are predisposed to chronic respiratory infections and colonization by intrinsically multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens like Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This requires repeated exposure to antibiotics, which accelerates the emergence of MDR strains and further limits treatment options. (Dall, 3/24)

MedPage Today: Deepfake X-Rays Sneak Past Radiologists And AI, Underscoring Abuse Potential
A majority of radiologists could not distinguish artificial x-rays -- deepfakes -- from real ones when they evaluated a mix of real and fake images, according to a study published today. (Bankhead, 3/24)

MedPage Today: Dementia Risk Rises After Severe Infection
Dementia risk rose after older adults had severe infection and the risk was not attributable to other comorbidities, a Finnish registry study suggested. Of all hospital-treated diseases recorded 20 years before a dementia diagnosis, 29 were robustly associated with increased dementia risk, said Pyry Sipilä, MD, PhD, of the University of Helsinki, and colleagues. Two diseases were classified as infections: cystitis (urinary tract infection) and bacterial infection of an unspecified site. (George, 3/24)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

AP: Belgian Drugmaker UCB Plans Major Expansion In The US
Belgian pharmaceutical company UCB announced Tuesday that it would invest $2 billion to build a drug-making plant in suburban Atlanta. The rapidly growing drugmaker said the plant, which would employ about 330 people upon completion, would anchor its effort to sell more drugs in the United States. “This decision reflects our confidence in UCB’s long-term growth and our deep-rooted commitment to the United States,” company CEO Jean-Christophe Tellier said in a statement. (3/24)

Bloomberg: ImmunityBio Plunges After Getting FDA Warning On Cancer Drug Anktiva
ImmunityBio Inc.’s shares plunged after the biotechnology company and its billionaire executive chairman, Patrick Soon-Shiong, were hit with a Food and Drug Administration warning letter for false and misleading promotion of its bladder cancer drug Anktiva. The warning letter takes issue with both a TV ad for the drug, which is currently approved for a specific type of bladder cancer, and a January episode of The Sean Spicer Show where Soon-Shiong said it could treat “all cancers.” (Edney and Langreth, 3/24)

Modern Healthcare: CVS Health, FTC Agree To Proposed Insulin Rebate Settlement
CVS Health and the Federal Trade Commission have come to terms on a proposed deal to resolve charges the pharmacy benefit manager artificially inflated insulin prices. The FTC brought charges against CVS Health subsidiary CVS Caremark, Cigna unit Express Scripts and UnitedHealth Group division Optum Rx in 2024, accusing the companies and their affiliated group purchasing organizations of manipulating insulin rebates to drive up list prices for the diabetes medication. (Tong, 3/24)

Modern Healthcare: Highmark Health's 2025 Earnings Hit By High Utilization
High utilization dragged down Highmark Health’s full-year earnings — but the integrated system’s leaders are looking to boost revenue through dealmaking in 2026. Delayed care from the pandemic, along with an aging population, contributed to pressures on the system’s insurance arm, said President and CEO David Holmberg on a Tuesday earnings call. “The real challenge for all of us is that the cost of healthcare is becoming almost unsustainable,” he said. (Tong, 3/24)

Modern Healthcare: UCI Layoffs To Hit 150 Employees
UCI Health will lay off about 150 workers, or roughly 1% of its workforce. The Irvine, California-based academic health system is adjusting its workforce amid shifts in federal funding, declining reimbursement from insurers and changes to how patients access care, according to a Monday news release. The organization did not respond to requests for comment about when the cuts will happen and what kinds of roles will be affected. (Kacik, 3/24)

STATE WATCH

AP: New Mexico Jury Says Meta Harms Children's Mental Health And Safety
A New Mexico jury determined Tuesday that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its social media platforms, a verdict that signals a changing tide against tech companies and the government’s willingness to crack down. The landmark decision comes after a nearly seven-week trial, and as jurors in a federal court in California have been sequestered in deliberations for more than a week about whether Meta and YouTube should be liable in a similar case. (Lee, 3/25)

CBS News: Unhealthy Menu Items Could Be Flagged In Maryland Under Proposed Bill
A proposed bill in Maryland could make it easier for diners to spot unhealthy menu items before they order. The Informed Dining Act would require restaurant chains in the state to place simple icons on their menus to identify food items that are high in added sugar or sodium. The bill has already passed the Maryland House of Delegates. The Senate's version of the bill would rely on QR codes instead of adding icons directly to menus, a difference that supporters say could make the information harder to access. (Zizaza, 3/24)

Politico: In California, The War On Ultraprocessed Foods Moves To The Supermarket
A California Democrat is pushing a bill to create the nation’s first seal of approval for non-ultraprocessed foods — and require grocery stores to prominently display those products at the ends of aisles and other visible locations. The legislation, shared first with POLITICO, is the latest in a broader war on unhealthy food gaining traction at both the federal and state level, and across parties, with bipartisan support nationally for ridding American diets of ultraprocessed foods. It would create a “California Certified” seal on foods that aren’t ultraprocessed. (Norman and Bluth, 3/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: New COVID Variant Detected In California Wastewater
A newly emerging coronavirus variant with signs of immune escape has been detected in California wastewater, offering an early signal that the virus continues to evolve even as COVID-19 activity remains low across the state. The variant, known as BA.3.2, has also been found in a small number of patients and international travelers in the United States, according to a March 19 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Vaziri, 3/24)

Mississippi Today: Ole Miss Announces College Gambling Center
The University of Mississippi on Monday announced the upcoming launch of its new Center on Collegiate Gambling, which researchers describe as the “first of its kind in the nation” amid rising national concern about betting on collegiate sports. The center was approved by the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees in February and will cost about $700,000 a year. It was conceived to study the “heightened risks” for college students and student athletes caused by the rapid growth of legalized sports betting and online gambling, its founders said. Researchers said the center will now begin hiring staff. (Goldberg, 3/24)