Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trump Freezes Nearly $2B In Funding For 2 More Research Universities
AP: Trump Administration Halts $1 Billion In Federal Funding For Cornell, $790 Million For Northwestern
More than $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University and around $790 million for Northwestern University have been frozen while the government investigates alleged civil rights violations at both schools, the White House says. ... The moves come as the Trump administration has increasingly begun using governmental grant funding as a spigot to try and influence campus policy — previously cutting off money to schools including Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. That has left universities across the country struggling to navigate cuts to grants for research institutions. (4/9)
Boston Globe: With Trump Review, A Harvard Infectious Disease Researcher Stands To Lose It All
Sarah Fortune is a Harvard scientist leading one of the world’s preeminent tuberculosis research programs. Her lab, along with its collaborators at 11 other sites across the country and in Africa, has solved some of the crucial mysteries of this disease, and continues making discoveries that could prove life-saving for generations to come. That enterprise is now at risk, caught up in the Trump administration’s antisemitism investigation at Harvard. Fortune’s $60 million contract with the National Institutes of Health was the number one project threatened in a memo the Trump administration sent to Harvard last week, apparently because it was the largest. If that contract is cancelled, “it’s over,” Fortune said in an interview Monday at her Boston laboratory.(Damiano, 4/8)
On tribal health care —
The New York Times: Amid Tension Around H.H.S. Cuts, Kennedy Meets With Tribal Leader
At the very moment that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was set to take the stage, the governor of Gila River Indian Community was still standing at the podium, articulating his uneasiness around recent Trump administration moves. “Let me repeat that: We have spent a good part of this year providing education on why tribes have a political status that is not D.E.I.,” Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said to a room of 1,200 people, who clapped and cheered. (Baumgaertner Nunn, 4/8)
CBS News: RFK Jr.'s Cuts To CDC Lead Poisoning Team Bring Efforts To Help Tribes, Health Departments To A Standstill
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's team of lead poisoning experts remained off the job Tuesday, a week after they were first laid off by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s sweeping cuts to the nation's public health agencies. Cuts to the CDC's branch responsible for investigating and preventing lead poisoning has brought multiple efforts to help local health authorities to a virtual standstill, current and laid-off agency officials say, including for lead poisoning responses that could have helped children in Milwaukee and on an American Indian reservation. (Tin, 4/8)
More on the federal budget cuts and DEI —
The New York Times: Supreme Court Pauses Ruling Requiring Rehiring of 16,000 Probationary Workers
The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a ruling from a federal judge in California that had ordered the Trump administration to rehire thousands of fired federal workers who had been on probationary status. The court’s brief order said the nonprofit groups that had sued to challenge the dismissals had not suffered the sort of injury that gave them standing to sue. (Liptak, 4/8)
Stat: HHS Firings Could Face Legal Challenges Over Inaccuracies, Process Used To Make Cuts
A week after widespread cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, many workers are left wondering: Was that legal? Some lawyers and labor experts say errors in termination notices and the swift speed and scale of the firings raise legal questions. (Cueto, 4/8)
MedPage Today: Groups Demand RFK Jr. 'Immediately' Restore CDC's Axed Blood Division
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) and nearly 100 other organizations blasted the dismantling of CDC's Division of Blood Disorders and Public Health Genomics (DBDPHG) and called for its full restoration. Nearly all staffers at DBDPHG -- which works with states, patients, and providers to reduce the impact of serious blood disorders -- were placed on administrative leave amid the mass layoffs and restructuring at HHS last week. (Ingram, 4/8)
Bloomberg: UAW Joins Critics Slamming RFK Jr.’s Cuts To Worker Safety Unit NIOSH
The Trump administration’s move to gut the agency tasked with ensuring workplace safety is facing intensifying pushback, including from the nation’s largest auto union and a conservative lawmaker, in one of the more prominent public fights against some of the widespread cuts last week. On Tuesday, the United Auto Workers union said it “adamantly opposes” the cuts to almost 900 workers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which does research and makes recommendations to prevent work-related injuries and illnesses, including chemical hazards. (Smith, 4/8)
NPR: Coal Miners’ Health Care Hit Hard In Job Cuts To CDC
Sam Petsonk grew up around southern West Virginia's mining communities, visiting patients with his father, one of the country's first doctors to specialize in Black Lung Disease. "When I was a child, I'd look up and I'd see coal miners — seemingly larger than life, doubled over coughing, scarcely able to walk, work or breathe," Petsonk says, "I've seen it my whole life. I remember it as a kid, and still see it today." (Noguchi, 4/9)
The New York Times: All Federal Experts On H.I.V. Prevention In Children Overseas Were Dismissed
The Trump administration has dismissed the few remaining health officials who oversaw care for some of the world’s most vulnerable people: more than 500,000 children and more than 600,000 pregnant women with H.I.V. in low-income countries. Expert teams that managed programs meant to prevent newborns from acquiring H.I.V. from their mothers and to provide treatment for infected children were eliminated last week in the chaotic reorganization of the Health and Human Services Department. (Mandavilli, 4/8)
Stat: Public Health Leaders, Besieged And Regretful, Talk Of Re-Establishing Trust
For public health agencies across the country, the Trump administration has meant taking blow after destabilizing blow. Covid-19 pandemic dollars were pulled. States like Minnesota and cities like Austin cut jobs that had been federally funded. Research grants were canceled in the name of excising diversity programs. (Cooney, 4/9)
The New York Times: Pronouns in Bio? You May Not Get a Response From the White House.
The Trump administration formally barred federal workers from listing their preferred pronouns in email signatures, calling it a symptom of a misguided “gender ideology.” Some White House officials are taking a similar approach with the journalists who cover them. On at least three recent occasions, senior Trump press aides have refused to engage with reporters’ questions because the journalists listed identifying pronouns in their email signatures. (Grynbaum, 4/8)
AP: The Trump Administration Withdrew 11 Pieces Of ADA Guidance. How Will It Affect Compliance?
President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew 11 pieces of guidance last month related to the Americans with Disabilities Act that helped stores, hotels and other businesses understand their obligation to the law. The guidance included tips on how to create accessible parking and fitting rooms, talk to hotel guests about accessible features and decide when a person with a disability could be assisted by a family member during hospitals’ COVID-19 no-visitor bans. Five pieces of guidance were from the pandemic, while the oldest two were issued in 1999. (Hunter, 4/8)
Other news from the Trump administration —
Stat: Debate Over Soda, Candy Bans Shows How MAHA Is Scrambling Old Alliances
The health secretary has been on a tour out West this week in an effort to promote his Make America Healthy Again movement and draw attention to the slew of state bills that address MAHA goals like banning fluoride from drinking water and getting rid of food dyes and additives. Another key item on Kennedy’s agenda: making soda ineligible for food benefits. (Todd, 4/9)
CIDRAP: Analysis: New FDA User Fees May Be Path Forward For Food Safety Funding
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) already collects fees from drug and medical device companies, but it may want to consider collecting fees from food companies as a way to fund the agency's oversight of food safety efforts, according to an analysis yesterday in Health Affairs. (Soucheray, 4/8)
KFF Health News: Federal Judge Blocks Mandate On Nursing Home Staffing
A federal judge in Texas blocked a Biden administration rule to boost staffing at nursing homes, even though many homes lack enough workers to maintain residents’ care. KFF Health News walked through the decision from the judge and what it could mean for nursing home staffing. (Lofton, 4/8)
