Kennedy Shores Up Leadership Ranks With Installation Of Senior Counselors

Politico: RFK Jr. Shakes Up Leadership Team
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is remaking his leadership team, putting Director of Medicare Chris Klomp in charge of overseeing all HHS operations, he announced in an email to staff Thursday that POLITICO has obtained. Klomp has also been serving as deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under Mehmet Oz. He will retain his roles at CMS and now also serve as chief counselor for the department. (Zeller and Röhn, 2/12)

More on MAHA and vaccines —

KFF Health News: RFK Jr. Made Promises In Order To Become Health Secretary. He’s Broken Many Of Them
One year after taking charge of the nation’s health department, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hasn’t held true to many of the promises he made while appealing to U.S. senators concerned about the longtime anti-vaccine activist’s plans for the nation’s care. Kennedy squeaked through a narrow Senate vote to be confirmed as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, only after making a number of public and private guarantees about how he would handle vaccine funding and recommendations as secretary. (Seitz, 2/13)

The Hill: Dozens Of Democrats Call For Removal Of Newly Appointed OB-GYNs From Vaccine Advisory Panel
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers are calling for the removal of two OB-GYNs who were recently appointed to the nation’s top vaccine advisory committee, citing the doctors’ “well-documented history” of anti-vaccine ideology. The lawmakers said in a Thursday letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that they were concerned about the Jan. 13 appointments of Dr. Adam Urato and Dr. Kimberly Biss to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Brams, 2/12)

Stat: What The FDA's Moderna Rejection Means For Every Vaccine Maker 
The Food and Drug Administration’s refusal to review Moderna’s flu vaccine this month has renewed fears that Trump administration policies could paralyze the vaccine industry, dissuading companies from developing new shots in the U.S. and leaving the country flat-footed in the event of future pandemics. (Mast, 2/12)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: New Flu Vax? FDA Says No Thanks
The Food and Drug Administration is back in the headlines, with a political appointee overruling agency scientists to reject an application from the drugmaker Moderna for a new flu vaccine, and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary continuing to take criticism from anti-abortion Republicans in the Senate for alleged delays reviewing the safety of the abortion pill mifepristone. (Rovner, 2/12)

Stat: How The American Academy Of Pediatrics Became A MAHA Foil 
As health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. upends so much of the nation’s health care system, the once-unthinkable has often come to be accepted as the new normal. Perhaps one of the most startling realities is this: The American Academy of Pediatrics, the nation’s leading professional organization for doctors who care for kids, and the nation’s federal health agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, are at war. (Payne, 2/13)

More news on the Trump administration —

The New York Times: Federal Judge Blocks Trump Plan To Cut $600 Million In Health Funds
A federal judge in Illinois on Thursday blocked the Trump administration’s plan to claw back $600 million in public health funds from four states led by Democrats, amid a wider effort by the federal government to pull funding from blue states. Judge Manish S. Shah of the Federal District Court in Northern Illinois wrote in a two-page order that the plaintiff states — California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota — had provided enough evidence that the cuts were “based on arbitrary, capricious or unconstitutional rationales” to halt what would have been deep cuts in federal public health funding that had already been allocated while legal arguments continue in the case. (Cameron, 2/12)

Stat: NIH Redefines 'Clinical Trials,' As Shift Divides Researchers 
In a long-debated move, the National Institutes of Health will no longer characterize basic experimental studies involving humans as clinical trials, a step that was cheered by many researchers, but is also raising transparency concerns because the work will no longer have to be registered with — or reported to — a government database. (Silverman, 2/12)

The Hill: Conservative Leaders Sour On Codifying Donald Trump's Drug Pricing Policy
A coalition of more than 50 leaders of conservative and free-market organizations signed a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, opposing codifying President Trump’s “most favored nation” (MFN) drug pricing policy model into law. The letter, which argues an MFN pricing law would “import socialist price controls and values into our country,” highlights the growing tension between Trump and a portion of the conservative movement. (Brooks, 2/12)

KFF Health News: Trump Team’s Planned ACA Rule Offers Its Answer To Rising Premium Costs: Catastrophic Coverage
The Trump administration has unveiled a sweeping set of regulatory proposals that would substantially change health plan offerings on the Affordable Care Act marketplace next year, aiming, it says, to provide more choice and lower premiums. But it also proposes sharply raising some annual out-of-pocket costs — to more than $27,600 for one type of coverage — and could cause up to 2 million people to drop insurance. (Appleby, 2/13)

The Guardian: ‘Deeply Illogical’: This Man’s Life Work Could End Homelessness – And Trump Is Doing All He Can To Stop It
Now in his fourth decade of spreading the word across most of the world’s continents about “Housing First”, an approach to helping homeless people that has convinced governments and non-profits alike to see housing as a human right, Sam Tsemberis experienced a first. He was censored by the US government. (Pratt, 2/12)