Possible CDC Chief Contenders Include Florida’s Ladapo And Texas’ Burgess
As the White House searches for its next nominee, the president's allies have put forward two office holders, both of whom criticized covid protocols. Other possible contenders have turned down the job. Meanwhile, the feds have put off a requirement that companies track tainted food.
CBS News:
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo And Former Texas Congressman Michael Burgess Floated For CDC Director
Florida's controversial surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, and a former Texas Republican congressman, Dr. Michael Burgess, are each being backed by some of President Trump's allies to be the next head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The White House is searching for a replacement after the nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Florida congressman, was abruptly pulled last week. (Tin, 3/20)
On the federal budget cuts and funding freeze —
Stat:
Fired CDC Employees Baffled By Their Status
On Wednesday, as S. was heading to the library to apply for yet more jobs, an email pinged onto her phone. The subject line said, “Read this immediately” — the same as in February, when she was notified she would be fired from her job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Boodman, 3/20)
Stat:
‘We’re Living In The Twilight Zone’: Researchers Decry Trump Administration Assault On Science
Do scientists put themselves at risk by speaking out against the Trump administration? “Hell yes,” said Jonathan Jackson, a national expert on increasing diversity in clinical trials who was answering the question of an audience member at the STAT Breakthrough Summit East Thursday. “I might lose the grants I have by the middle of next week” just by being on this stage, he added, an answer that silenced the crowd. (McFarling, 3/21)
MedPage Today:
Top Societies Decry Trump's Funding Cuts To Landmark Diabetes Study
The Endocrine Society and American Diabetes Association criticized the cancellation of funding for the ongoing, landmark Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), which has been tracking people with diabetes and prediabetes for 30 years. Researchers working on the study, which kicked off in 1996, found out last week that the study's NIH funding was yanked by the Trump administration. DPP investigators were told to immediately stop study activities. (Monaco, 3/20)
NPR:
Trump Wants To Erase DEI. Researchers Worry It Will Upend Work On Health Disparity
Dr. Fola May studies diseases of the digestive tract, and runs a lab at the University of California Los Angeles looking for ways to detect disease earlier in various groups. For that work, she says her lab is "very dependent" on federal funds from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs. So as those agencies began canceling grants and programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, or "DEI," May worried: Would work like hers, looking at health disparities also get swept in? (Noguchi, 3/21)
KFF Health News:
KFF Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: Federal Health Work In Flux
It’s the Trump administration vs. the federal courts, as the Department of Government Efficiency continues to try to cancel federal contracts and programs and fire workers. But in the haste to cut things, jobs and programs are being eliminated even if they align with the new administration’s goal to “Make America Healthy Again.” (Rovner, 3/20)
More Trump administration news —
The New York Times:
Trump Administration Delays Requirement For Companies To Track Tainted Food
The Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday that it would delay by 30 months a requirement that food companies and grocers rapidly trace contaminated food through the supply chain and pull it off the shelves. Intended to “limit food-borne illness and death,” the rule required companies and individuals to maintain better records to identify where foods are grown, packed, processed or manufactured. It was set to go into effect in January 2026 as part of a landmark food safety law passed in 2011, and was advanced during President Trump’s first term. (Jewett, 3/20)
The New York Times:
Food Banks Left In The Lurch As U.S.D.A. Shipments Are Suspended
Food banks across the country are scrambling to make up a $500 million budget shortfall after the Trump administration froze funds for hundreds of shipments of produce, poultry and other items that states had planned to distribute to needy residents. The Biden administration had slated the aid for distribution to food banks during the 2025 fiscal year through the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which is run by the Agriculture Department and backed by a federal fund known as the Commodity Credit Corporation. But in recent weeks, many food banks learned that the shipments they had expected to receive this spring had been suspended. (Demirjian and Jimez, 3/20)
KFF Health News:
Workers Prep To Meet ICE Officials At The Health Clinic Door
A policy change by the Trump administration allows federal immigration officials to make arrests at or near sensitive locations, including health care facilities. To respond, some health providers are scrambling to give their staff legal training. In a memo to health care providers, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown advises health workers that they need not record a patient’s immigration status unless it relates to insurance coverage and that they should ask for credentials if someone claiming to be an ICE official shows up. He also said providers should not interfere with an investigation. (Fortiér, 3/21)
