Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: Wednesday, May 6, 2026
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: Trump’s Drug Strategy Aims To Bolster Addiction Services — Despite Gutting Of Government Support
The White House’s newly released strategy for tackling the nation’s drug and addiction crisis calls for a number of ambitious public health approaches that some experts say are laudable but will be hampered by the administration’s own actions. The sweeping 195-page National Drug Control Strategy, published May 4, advocates for making access to treatment easier than getting drugs, preventing young people from developing addictions in the first place, increasing support for people in recovery, and reducing overdose deaths. (Pattani, 5/6)
KFF Health News: A New Medicare Option For Weight Loss Drugs: What Older Americans Should Know
Starting in July, Medicare beneficiaries may be able to get a GLP-1 prescription for weight loss for $50 a month. It’s a notable shift for Medicare, which has long been barred from covering weight loss treatments. The drugs, such as Wegovy and Zepbound, are effective but can be expensive without insurance coverage. They’re available in injection or pill form. Even with discounts, current cash prices typically range from $149 to $699 per month. About half of GLP-1 users say these drugs were difficult for them to afford, according to KFF polling. A quarter said they were “very difficult” to afford. (Fortiér, 5/6)
KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest 'KFF Health News Minute'
This week, Jackie Fortiér shares tips to make the most out of a high-deductible health plan. Plus, some Make America Healthy Again supporters feel betrayed after the Trump administration gave several large companies an exemption from clean air rules. (5/5)
FDA
The New York Times: F.D.A. Blocked Publication Of Research Finding Covid And Shingles Vaccines Were Safe
Officials at the Food and Drug Administration have blocked publication of several studies supporting the safety of widely used vaccines against Covid-19 and shingles in recent months, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed. The studies, which cost millions of dollars in public funds, were conducted by scientists at the agency, who worked with data firms to analyze millions of patient records. They found serious side effects to be very rare. (Jewett, 5/5)
The Washington Post: In A First, FDA Authorizes Fruit-Flavored Vapes For Adults
The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday authorized the first fruit-flavored vapes for adults 21 and over amid President Donald Trump’s previous vows to “save” vaping. The agency green-lit electronic cigarettes from Los Angeles-based Glas in mango, blueberry and two varieties of menthol. The news came hours after the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump pressed FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to approve flavored vapes. (Roubein, 5/5)
Stat: FDA Turmoil Casts Shadow Over Gene Therapy Conference In Europe
When Tim Hunt, who leads an organization for cell and gene therapy makers, reached for some reasons for optimism for the jittery field at a conference here last week, he highlighted the recent approvals of rare disease treatments from the likes of Rocket Pharmaceuticals and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. (Joseph, 5/6)
OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS
The Boston Globe: Boston Passenger On Cruise Ship Amid Outbreak
Jake Rosmarin, who posts videos of his travels to tens of thousands of followers on social media, said in an emotional video posted Monday that he was aboard the MV Hondius, where nearly 150 passengers and crew are isolated due to the outbreak of hantavirus. “I normally wouldn’t make a video like this, but I feel like I need to say something,” he said, adding that “what’s happening right now is very real for all of us here.” (Fonseca, 5/5)
CNN: Masks, Movies And Solo Deck Walks: Life Aboard A Hantavirus-Hit Cruise Ship
Barely a month ago, they were embarking on a voyage of adventure to some of the world’s most remote islands. Encounters with whales, dolphins and penguins awaited; landscapes of icy expanses, towering cliffs and rolling green hills beckoned. Now they are isolating in their cabins, trapped aboard a ship anchored in the Atlantic, taking what measures they can to shield themselves from an outbreak of a deadly virus. (Humayun, 5/6)
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PERSONNEL
CNN: Exclusive: Deleted Tweets Reveal New Surgeon General Pick Criticized Trump And RFK Jr. Health Policies
Just two months before she was selected as President Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Nicole Saphier suggested the administration was hiding that measles was spreading widely enough in the United States for the country to lose its “elimination” status until after the midterm elections. (Kaczynski and Tirrell, 5/6)
Healthcare Brew: With A New CDC Director Potentially Chosen, How Can The Role Influence Healthcare?
After a long hunt for the next CDC director, former Deputy Surgeon General Erica Schwartz officially got the nomination on April 16. But in the $5.3 trillion healthcare industry that makes up 18% of the country’s GDP, what sort of impact can just one job really have? Especially considering how the Trump administration has made major shifts that have impacted how federal agencies are used and viewed over the last year and a half. (McGrath, 5/5)
MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
AP: Trump Revives The Presidential Physical Fitness Award In US Schools
President Donald Trump on Tuesday revived the Presidential Physical Fitness Award as part of his push to return an annual physical fitness test to America’s schools. The award is tied to the Presidential Fitness Test, which was a public-school fixture for decades but was phased out under President Barack Obama in favor of a program that minimized competition and focused on long-term health. Trump signed an order last summer to reestablish the fitness test, which was created in the 1950s. (Binkley and Superville, 5/5)
The Washington Post: Health Care Costs Outrank Food, Vaccine Concerns For MAHA Voters, Poll Shows
While the Make America Healthy Again movement has largely forged its identity around food, vaccines and pesticides, it turns out that the cost of health care is by far the top issue for voters who say they support the movement. The poll findings released Wednesday by health policy research and news organization KFF highlight how affordability is a chief concern this year for Americans across the political spectrum. (Roubein and Clement, 5/6)
AP: Trump Administration Sues Denver Over Assault Weapons Ban
The Trump administration sued Denver and its police department on Tuesday seeking to strike down an assault weapons ban that’s been in place for Colorado’s largest city since 1989. The lawsuit came a day after city officials publicly rejected calls by the Department of Justice to repeal the longstanding local ordinance that makes it a crime to possess assault weapons. (Brown, 5/5)
The New York Times: Illinois State Police To Investigate Fatal ICE Shooting
Officials said they were examining the shooting of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez last summer during a Chicago-area crackdown on illegal immigration. (Smith, 5/6)
ON CAPITOL HILL
The Hill: Rand Paul Pushes For Anthony Fauci Indictment
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday called for Anthony Fauci, former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), to be indicted for what the senator claimed was his lying under oath about gain-of-function research. “6 days from now, on May 11th, the statute of limitations expires on the possibility of indicting Anthony Fauci for denying under oath that he funded gain-of-function research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, the origin city of the pandemic,” Paul wrote on social media. (Choi, 5/5)
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
Roll Call: Cassidy Calls For Expedited Abortion Pill Review As Primary Nears
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, at risk of further distancing himself from President Donald Trump as his primary election draws closer, says the administration isn’t doing enough to restrict access to abortion pills. Cassidy, one of the few remaining Republicans in Congress who voted to convict Trump at his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, on Tuesday accused the administration of moving too slowly in reviewing the safety of the abortion medication mifepristone. (Cohen, 5/5)
The CT Mirror: CT Looks To 'Shield' Reproductive Care Amid Mifepristone Uncertainty
A legal battle over medication abortion cast uncertainty in recent days over patients’ ability to access it. Connecticut elected officials and advocates gathered Tuesday morning to decry the “chaos” and encourage — with less than 48 hours to go in the legislative session — the strengthening of state laws that protect reproductive care providers. (Golvala, 5/5)
STLPR: One In Four Missourians Report Barriers To Preferred Birth Control, Survey Finds
One in four Missourians say they’ve run into obstacles obtaining birth control, according to a new survey of about 1,000 people from the Missouri Foundation for Health. (Fentem, 5/6)
The Guardian: Florida Baby ‘Born Twice’ After Elaborate Surgery Involving Partial Delivery
A Florida infant is said to have been born twice after undergoing what was an innovative, likely life-saving surgery that involved a partial delivery weeks before his mother then gave birth to him. Cassian Joubert’s remarkable story was recently first told publicly by his mother and father – Keishera and Greg Joubert – in a 1 May video published on social media by the Orlando Health Women’s Institute, which employs the surgeon that led the baby boy’s prenatal operation. (Vargas, 5/6)
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
The Colorado Sun: Aurora Mental Health Cuts 111 Jobs, Blames State Funding Model
Aurora Mental Health & Recovery is the latest community mental health center to drastically cut its workforce, eliminating 111 positions and reviving a conversation about the state’s funding model shake-up that centers warned would cause them problems. (Brown, 5/5)
Modern Healthcare: California Hospitals Sue To Block Elevance Out-Of-Network Penalty
A California hospital trade group sued to stop Elevance Health from implementing a policy that would cut payments to hospitals that refer some members to out-of-network providers. In a complaint filed Monday in the state Superior Court of Los Angeles County, the California Hospital Association contended the policy allegedly violates state consumer protection and healthcare laws. The 400-member hospital lobbying group seeks an injunction to block the penalty in California, along with declaratory relief. (Tepper, 5/5)
MedPage Today: Hospital Shootings Became More Common Over 25 Years
The number of hospital-based shootings rose steadily over the past quarter-century, a systematic review showed. From 2000 to 2024, shootings increased from 6 to 34 events per year, representing a 6.4% increase each year, Sarayna McGuire, MD, MS, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and colleagues reported in JAMA Network Open. "We recognize that although hospital-related shootings constitute a small fraction of national firearm violence, their impact could be profound," McGuire and colleagues wrote, noting there were more than 48,000 firearm-related deaths in 2022, per CDC data. (Henderson, 5/5)
PHARMACEUTICALS
Stat: Pharma's Reputation Among Patient Groups Inched Up Last Year
The pharmaceutical industry saw its reputation among patient groups inch up last year, but the rise masks fresh concerns about the extent to which some companies are sufficiently focusing on patient needs, according to a new survey. (Silverman, 5/5)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Axios: Doctors' Growing AI Deepfakes Problem
AI is helping make doctors the unwitting stars of deepfake videos that hawk questionable products or spread misinformation, prompting calls from clinicians for more privacy and transparency laws. (Reed, 5/6)
AP: Lawsuit Accuses Chatbot Company Of Impersonating Doctors
Pennsylvania has sued an artificial intelligence chatbot maker, saying its chatbots illegally hold themselves out as doctors and are deceiving the system’s users into thinking they are getting medical advice from a licensed professional. The lawsuit, filed Friday, asks the statewide Commonwealth Court to order Character Technologies Inc., the company behind Character. AI, to stop its chatbots “from engaging in the unlawful practice of medicine and surgery.” The lawsuit could raise the question as to whether artificial intelligence can be accused of practicing medicine, as opposed to regurgitating material on the internet. (Levy, 5/5)
The Baltimore Sun: Medical AI Finds Deadly Pancreatic Cancers 3 Years Earlier
A new artificial intelligence model developed by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, can help specialists detect pancreatic cancer up to three years before most clinical diagnoses, allowing curative treatment. (Hille, 5/5)
Modern Healthcare: How Hippocratic AI Collaborated With Hospitals On Nurse Co-Pilot
When Hippocratic AI wanted input on the design of a new tool to streamline nurses’ work, it called in the experts — health systems and their nursing leaders. Nurse executives from Cleveland Clinic, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and OhioHealth played a key role in the generative artificial intelligence company’s Nurse Co-Pilot tool released last month, helping determine the use cases, the app’s design, the work flow and agent conversations. The company said the result is a tool that allows nurses to deploy AI voice agents to help with admissions, patient and family education and discharge preparation. (Famakinwa, 5/5)
Stat: OpenAI's Policy Blueprint For Unleashing AI's Full Potential In Health Care
So far, artificial intelligence company OpenAI’s work in health care has been largely limited to nonregulated areas. In January, the company released ChatGPT Health for consumers. Then, it launched ChatGPT for Healthcare for hospitals, followed by ChatGPT for Clinicians. (Trang, 5/6)
STATE WATCH
The Baltimore Sun: Maryland Reaches $4.5 Million Settlement With EpiPen Makers
Maryland reached a $4.5 million settlement with the makers of the potentially life-saving EpiPen over what the Office of the Attorney General’s Antitrust Division called “anticompetitive conduct” regarding the cost, marketing, and availability of the product. (Byrne, 5/5)
San Francisco Chronicle: SF Wants More Drug-Free Housing, But Doctors Are Pushing Back
A group representing thousands of Bay Area physicians is urging San Francisco officials to revise a proposal to expand drug-free supportive housing. The San Francisco Marin Medical Society has asked Supervisor Matt Dorsey to make changes to his legislation that it says are necessary to protect patients. Dorsey has criticized the requested changes, saying they mischaracterize the intent of the proposal. (Waxmann and Angst, 5/5)
Yale Environment 360: In Coal Country, Black Lung Surges As Federal Protections Stall
Justin Smarsh and his family used to kayak a few times a year on the rivers and creeks near their home in Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania. High on the Appalachian Plateau, northeast of Pittsburgh, he spent hours in the woods and taught his two sons to hunt. Today, Smarsh said, he gets “suffocated just walking.” He has a constant dry cough, and he loses his breath if he bends down to tie his shoes. A few years after he graduated from high school and got married, Smarsh went to work in a coal mine in his home county, just as his father and grandfather had. “It was the best-paying job around,” he said. “It still is.” Now Smarsh, 42, has progressive massive fibrosis — the most severe form of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, or black lung. (Kate Morgan, 5/6)
Bloomberg: What Is The Texas Two-Step? Bankruptcy Tactic Used To Avoid Asbestos Lawsuits
As far back as the Stone Age, humans started digging asbestos from cliffs or riverbeds. They mixed the fibrous silicate mineral into clay for pottery that could better withstand heat, and northerners stuffed it between rocks to insulate their shelters against the winter cold. The ancient Greeks and Romans wove asbestos fibers into cloth for garments, tablecloths and wicks that took advantage of the mineral’s ability to handle heat. By the peak of the industrial revolution, thanks to its extraordinary physical properties, asbestos was mined at sites across the US and used widely in daily life—from kitchen tiles to toothpaste, surgical thread to cement pipes. It could resist fire, stretch without breaking and tolerate abrasive or caustic cleaning chemicals. (Marx, 5/5)
CBS News: Minn. Employee Strike Continues, With Health Insurance A Major Sticking Point
After a long negotiation period, nearly 170 employees in Chisago County, Minnesota, went on strike Friday. This comes after Teamsters Local 320 — the union that represents workers from the county government center and health and human services sector — filed an unfair labor practice against the county. Those on the picket line Tuesday told WCCO at this rate, it's over their health insurance premium. Strikers aren't only outside the county government center building in Center City, but they're also picketing across town. (McLister, 5/5)
CBS News: Confirmed Case Of Measles In Manhattan, NYC DOH Says
There's been a confirmed measles case in Manhattan, health officials said Tuesday. "The NYC Health Department is responding to a measles case in Manhattan through its robust disease surveillance and reporting system, working to identify and notify people who may have been exposed," a New York City Department of Health spokesperson said. "The risk to the general public is low due to high vaccination coverage among New Yorkers and there have been no reports of secondary cases. This is a reminder of the importance of vaccination, which is the best protection against measles." (Zanger and Rozner, 5/5)
CIDRAP: Sampling Reveals Possible Novel Sources Of H5N1 Avian Flu Transmission On Dairy Farms
Sampling on 14 California dairy farms positive for H5N1 avian influenza uncovers infectious virus in the air of milking parlors and wastewater, viral RNA in cows’ exhaled breath and milk, and antibodies in the milk of seemingly healthy cows, per a study published today in PLOS Biology. A team led by Emory University researchers performed air, wastewater, and milk sampling on H5N1-positive dairy farms in two regions of California in 2024 and 2025. The findings, they said, highlight potential alternative sources and viral transmission modes on farms, as well as the presence of viral strains in air and wastewater that may be able to infect people. (Van Beusekom, 5/5)
CIDRAP: Vermont Documents Rise In Eastern Equine Encephalitis Cases In People, Horses In 2023-24
In 2023 and 2024, Vermont reported an increase in humans, horses, and mosquito pools that were positive for Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), a mosquito-borne disease with a 33% case-fatality rate, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Vermont health departments report. For the study, published last week in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC researchers reviewed an investigation conducted by the Vermont Department of Health (VDH) and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets (VAAFM). (Van Beusekom, 5/5)
PUBLIC HEALTH
Chicago Tribune: Court Upholds $495 Million Verdict Against Abbott Laboratories
A Missouri appellate court has upheld a $495 million verdict against north suburban-based Abbott Laboratories in a case over whether its formula for premature infants caused a girl to become seriously ill. (Schencker, 5/5)
