The Wall Street Journal: Medicare Agency To End Some Demonstration Projects, Cancel $2 Generic Drug Initiative
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to terminate four demonstration projects at the end of 2025, closing out models affecting primary care, kidney care and healthcare payments in the state of Maryland. The agency will also make changes to other projects, including dropping a planned initiative that would offer certain generic drugs to Medicare enrollees for $2. CMS said its planned terminations would save nearly $750 million, and an agency official said the projects would affect millions of patients. (Mathews, 3/12)

Axios: Hospice Industry Gets Reprieve As Trump Admin Pauses Oversight Program
A federal effort to increase oversight of hospice care has been put on hold by the Trump administration, resetting efforts to root out fraud and abuse in an industry that receives more than $25 billion from Medicare annually. (Goldman, 3/13)

On Medicaid and food insecurity —

Politico: Medicaid Shortfall Forces California To Borrow $3.44B 
California will need to borrow $3.44 billion to close a budget gap in the state’s Medicaid program, Newsom administration officials told lawmakers Wednesday in a letter obtained by POLITICO. That’s the maximum amount California can borrow, and will only be enough to cover bills for Medi-Cal — the state’s Medicaid program — through the end of the month, Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer separately told POLITICO. (Bluth, 3/12)

CalMatters: How Looming Medicaid Cuts Could Hit Californians In GOP Districts
Natalie Padilla signed up for Medicaid 17 years ago. She had just given birth and needed insurance to bring her son to the doctor. The Bakersfield resident was still in school, and her husband’s work didn’t offer insurance. She was on the program for six months. About an hour north of Bakersfield, Rodolfo Morales-Ayon, a 21-year-old community college student, relies on Medicaid today. He’s studying political science and wants to go to law school. Morales-Ayon grew up in Pixley, a small Central Valley town where air quality is poor and asthma and respiratory infections are common. (Hwang, 3/11)

Central Florida Public Media: Florida Healthy Kids Won’t Cover Drug For Chronically Ill Child 
Breana Dion is angry. She was mad when her immunocompromised 6-year-old daughter, Kamila, was kicked off the Medicaid Children’s Medical Services health insurance plan. She was livid when the letter informing her arrived at their home two days after the coverage was canceled. And she was full of rage when her new coverage through the Florida Healthy Kids Corp. denied payment for her daughter’s weekly infusion to boost her immune system. (Pedersen, 3/12)

Stat: Food Insecurity Linked To Heart Disease Years Later: Study 
Start with a snapshot: Adults without reliable access to nutritious food are more  likely to have heart disease than adults who don’t struggle to eat well. But which comes first, the food insecurity or the illness? Heart attacks or heart failure don’t develop overnight, so figuring out the chain of events means panning out for the long view. (Cooney, 3/12) 

On CMS nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz —

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Mehmet Oz, Trump’s Nominee To Run Medicare And Medicaid, Testifies Before A Senate Committee Friday
Mehmet Oz is heading to Washington and straight to the hot seat. The celebrity doctor and former Pennsylvania Senate candidate, nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), will testify before a committee of senators Friday. (Terruso, 3/12)

KFF Health News: In Trump’s Team, Supplement Fans Find Kindred Spirits In Search Of Better Health 
President Donald Trump’s health officials want you to take your vitamins. Mehmet Oz, the nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, has fed calves on camera to tout the health wonders of bovine colostrum on behalf of one purveyor in which he has a financial stake. Janette Nesheiwat, the potential surgeon general, sells her own line of supplements. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, said he takes more vitamins than he can count — and has suggested he’ll ease restrictions on vitamins, muscle-building peptides, and more. (Tahir, 3/13)

CBS News: EPA To Review Landmark 2009 Finding That Greenhouse Gases Are A Danger To Public Health
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said it would "formally reconsider" a landmark 2009 finding by the agency that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health. Specifically, the agency in 2009 found that six greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere — carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride — posed a health risk to current and future generations. The EPA also said that motor vehicle emissions endangered public health. (Gibson, 3/12)

On the federal budget cuts —

The Washington Post: USDA’s $1B In Cuts Leaves Farmers And Schools Bracing For Impact
The Trump administration last week moved to cut more than $1 billion in programs that helped schools and food banks buy fresh food and meat, leaving farmers and educators across the country worried about wide-ranging impacts. Some local and state leaders said the loss of funding will make it more difficult to feed hungry people in their areas. Farmers and those who work in food security said the cuts could shutter farms and ranches that depended on those federal dollars. (Brasch, Somasundaram and Blaskey, 3/13)

NBC News: What The Education Department Layoffs Could Mean For Students With Disabilities
Massive layoffs initiated this week at the Education Department could hamstring the federal government’s efforts to assist students with disabilities, former officials and education experts said, citing blows to the agency’s civil rights and research divisions. The Office for Civil Rights lost at least 243 union-eligible staff members, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, and an unknown number of supervisors. The office historically had around 600 attorneys handling complaints alleging discrimination based on race, gender, disability and sexual orientation, and most already had caseloads of 50 or more. (Kingkade and Edelman, 3/12)

The Washington Post: Social Security Scraps Far-Reaching Cuts To Phone Services After Post Report 
The Social Security Administration late Wednesday abandoned plans it was considering to end phone service for millions of Americans filing retirement and disability claims after The Washington Post reported that Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service team was weighing the change to root out alleged fraud. The shift would have directed elderly and disabled people to rely on the internet and in-person field offices to process their claims, curtailing a service that 73 million Americans have relied on for decades to access earned government benefits. (Natanson, Rein, Dwoskin and Siddiqui, 3/12)

The Washington Post: U.N. Humanitarian Affairs Chief Issues Warning About U.S. Funding Cuts 
Cuts to foreign aid and humanitarian assistance by donors across the board, but especially by the United States, have been “a seismic shock,” the United Nations’ chief humanitarian official said Wednesday. “Many will die because that aid is drying up.” As the United Nations and other aid agencies try to regroup and find new efficiencies, the goal is to help at least 100 million priority cases out of an estimate of about 300 million people in desperate need of humanitarian aid this year, said Tom Fletcher, the U.N. undersecretary of humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. (DeYoung, 3/13)

The Washington Post: What’s Being Lost With The DOGE Cuts? These Fired Feds Can Tell You. 
One was the person behind the welcome desk at a Massachusetts Veterans Affairs outreach center, the first face struggling veterans saw when they came for help. Another was the Energy Department employee responsible for knowing the thousand-page permit required for the disposal of hazardous waste. Another, the U.S. Forest Service employee responsible for hiring local teenagers each summer to keep national park trails clean. Doctors and scientific researchers. Data analysts looking for spending efficiencies at the Education Department. Building managers responsible for finding the best air filters for a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention campus in Georgia. All these people, along with tens of thousands of other federal workers, lost their jobs in recent weeks as the Trump administration has rapidly shrunk the federal workforce in the name of cutting “fraud, waste and abuse.” (Swenson, Roubein and Ajasa, 3/12)

On immigration and health care —

NBC News: U.S. Citizen Child Recovering From Brain Cancer Deported To Mexico With Undocumented Parents
A family that was deported to Mexico hopes they can find a way to return to the U.S. and ensure their 10-year-old daughter, who is a U.S. citizen, can continue her brain cancer treatment. Immigration authorities removed the girl and four of her American siblings from Texas on Feb. 4, when they deported their undocumented parents. (Acevedo, 3/12)

The federal government faces a shutdown —

The New York Times: Government Shutdown Looms With Senate Democrats Opposing 6-Month Funding Bill 
Senate Democrats said on Wednesday that they would refuse to back a Republican-written stopgap bill to fund the government through Sept. 30, significantly raising the chances of a government shutdown at the end of the week. The announcement left congressional leaders without a clear path to avert a shutdown that would begin at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday should Congress fail to act by then to extend federal funding. Senate Republicans would need the support of at least eight Democrats to overcome procedural hurdles and bring a spending measure to a final vote. Just one, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, has so far declared he would vote to break any filibuster. (Hulse, 3/12)

NPR: NIH Cuts Off More Research Funding, Including For Vaccine Hesitancy. MRNA May Be Next
The NIH's acting director Dr. Matthew Memoli requested information last week about the funding that supports mRNA vaccine research, technology that underpins the COVID-19 shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, according to an email reviewed by NPR. (Stein and Stone, 3/12)

Stat: Harvard Medical Physicians Sue Over Removal Of Articles Mentioning ‘LGBTQ’ From Government Website
Two physicians are suing the Trump administration over the removal of two research papers from a government website, because they included the terms “LGBTQ” and “trans(gender).” One of the articles removed was a commentary about endometriosis diagnosis. The other article was about assessing suicide risk in patients. (Oza, 3/12)

The Washington Post: Funding Freeze Leaves Fulbright And Study-Abroad Scholars Stranded
Her Fulbright fellowship stipend from the federal government was already days late when the email arrived. “As with many federal agencies, State Department funding has been temporarily paused,” began the message, landing March 1 in the inbox of Maaya Prasad, who grew up in Virginia but now lives thousands of miles away in Mauritius studying microplastics. She was expecting about $6,000. Instead, she got closer to $500, she said, and no word on when she might see the rest. (George, 3/11)

Stat: Top Addiction Researcher On RFK Jr., Recovery And Overdose Deaths
Nora Volkow, the federal government’s top drug addiction researcher, laughed when asked how a spate of recent policy changes at the National Institutes of Health had affected her day-to-day work. “They have increased my blood pressure and heart rate,” Volkow said before declining to answer specific questions about Trump administration policy changes, instead referring them to the Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH’s parent agency. (Facher, 3/13)

Also —

The Wall Street Journal: Retractions, Walkouts Plague Science Journals Eager To Churn Out Research 
Some scientists say the for-profit industry’s fast growth makes it harder to police fraud and low-quality work. (Subbaraman, 3/13)

AP: North Dakota Legislature Close To Asking US Supreme Court To Undo Landmark Same-Sex Marriage Ruling
North Dakota lawmakers are on the verge of making their state the first to tell the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its decade-old ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Similar efforts — which would not have any direct sway with the nation’s top courts — have been introduced in a handful of states this year. North Dakota’s resolution passed the Republican-led House in February but still requires Senate approval, which is not assured. (Dura, 3/12)

More on LGBTQ+ issues —

ABC News: Pentagon 'Cherry Picked' Studies To Support Transgender Service Member Ban, Judge Says 
A federal judge on Wednesday signaled that she was deeply skeptical that the Pentagon's handling of transgender service members complies with federal law, grilling a government attorney for hours about the scientific basis for the decision, its impact on military readiness, and the alleged harms to unit cohesion. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said she plans to issue a ruling on the policy as early as next week, but appeared to rebuff most of the arguments defending the policy made by a DOJ attorney, who frequently appeared to be at a loss for words regarding how to respond to the judge's questions. (Charalambous, 3/12)

TransVitae: Trump’s Use Of Nazi Symbol Raises LGBTQ Military Policy Questions
In a recent post on his social media platform, Truth Social, President Donald Trump shared an image depicting a crossed-out pink triangle, accompanied by a link to a Washington Times article discussing his new military recruitment advertisements. This symbol, historically associated with the persecution of homosexuals during the Nazi regime, has sparked widespread concern and debate regarding its implications and the message Trump intends to convey. The pink triangle originated as a badge of shame in Nazi concentration camps, where it was used to identify male prisoners incarcerated for homosexuality. (3/11)

The 19th: Trans And Intersex Americans’ Health Could Get Worse Under Trump
Transgender Americans are experiencing poor physical and mental health more than other LGBTQ+ people, in part due to higher rates of discrimination, while intersex Americans are struggling to find or afford health care at all, according to new data from the Center for American Progress (CAP) and NORC at the University of Chicago. (Rummler, 3/12)

Daily Montanan: State Court Strikes Down Two Abortion Laws Passed In '23
A Lewis and Clark County District Court judge has struck down two abortion bills passed into law in 2023 by the Montana Legislature and signed by Gov. Greg Gianforte, saying they violated the constitutional rights of women by subjecting those on Medicaid to onerous, unnecessary and possibly dangerous steps in order to receive an abortion. House Bill 544 and House Bill 862 would have barred abortions by any provider other than a doctor, eliminating advanced care providers. It would would have required a pre-authorization approval, a physical examination, and “extensive supporting documentation,” including a provider having to justify why the procedure is “medically necessary.” Some of that documentation included personal questions including how many pregnancies the woman had previously had — something not required of other patients, including other Medicaid recipients who chose to carry the pregnancy to term. HB 862 would have prohibited abortions for Medicaid patients unless the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, or the mother was “in danger of death.” (Ehrlick, 3/12)

Wyoming Public Radio: Wyoming Supreme Court Schedules Hearing For Abortion Ban Lawsuit 
Wyoming’s legal battle over abortion access is officially headed to the state’s Supreme Court. The high court scheduled oral arguments for April 16 at 1:30 p.m. in Cheyenne. Justices will consider whether Wyoming’s two near-total abortion bans enacted in 2023 are constitutional. (Merzbach, 3/12)

Lexington Herald Leader: KY Lawmakers Move Bill To Add Medical Exceptions For Abortion 
Republican lawmakers advanced a bill Wednesday adding limited medical exceptions to Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban after three years of refusing calls from doctors to do just that. A House committee approved House Bill 414 on a 12-4 vote — the first time the GOP supermajority has allowed such a bill to be heard since the legislature made abortion illegal in 2022. Democrats voted against the bill, saying it didn’t go far enough. (Acquisto, 3/13)

Missouri Independent: Missouri AG Renews Demand Planned Parenthood Stop Abortion Procedure It Isn’t Offering 
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is doubling down on his demand that Planned Parenthood stop performing a type of abortion that its clinics aren’t actually offering patients. Bailey is demanding the clinics not perform medication abortions without an approved complication plan from state health officials. (Spoerre, 3/12)

CBS News: Columbine Shooting Survivor's 2025 Death Classified As Homicide, Partly Attributed To Wounds From Massacre, Coroner Says 
The mass shooting at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, has now claimed another life, according to a report Wednesday from the Jefferson County Coroner's Office. The autopsy released Wednesday in the Colorado county stated that "the manner of death" for Anne Marie Hochhalter — who was found dead  in her apartment in Westminster on Feb. 16 — "is best classified as homicide." The report states Hochhalter died due to the medical condition sepsis, with complications from her paralysis due to the two gunshots she sustained in the Columbine shooting all those years ago being deemed a "significant contributing factor." Until now, the number of people killed by two teenage gunmen in the shooting in the southern part of the Denver metro area was 12 students and one teacher. The shooters took their own lives. (Gionet, 3/12)

The Colorado Sun: Colorado Limit On Sale Of Semiautomatic Guns Clears First House Hurdle After Tweaks
A bill that would ban the manufacture and restrict the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms  in Colorado cleared its first committee Tuesday in the state House after being tweaked. Senate Bill 3 was amended to ease the vetting process for buyers seeking to purchase semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and pistols that can accept detachable ammunition magazines that would otherwise be outlawed by the measure. (Paul, 3/12)

KFF Health News: Hospital Gun-Violence Prevention Programs May Be Caught In US Funding Crossfire
Seven years ago, Erica Green learned through a Facebook post that her brother had been shot. She rushed to check on him at a hospital run by Denver Health, the city’s safety-net system, but she was unable to get information from emergency room workers, who complained that she was creating a disturbance. “I was distraught and outside, crying, and Jerry came out of the front doors,” she said. Jerry Morgan is a familiar face from Green’s Denver neighborhood. He had rushed to the hospital after his pager alerted him to the shooting. As a violence prevention professional with the At-Risk Intervention and Mentoring program, or AIM, Morgan supports gun-violence patients and their families at the hospital — as he did the day Green’s brother was shot. (Wolf, 3/13)

Stat: Measles Outbreak Likely Larger Than Reported, Experts Say 
The growing measles outbreak centered in West Texas, with cases reaching into New Mexico and now Oklahoma, is the country’s largest in six years. But experts say that even with more than 250 cases reported across the three states, the outbreak is likely much larger. (Joseph, 3/12)

Wyoming Public Radio: Mountain West Communities May Be At Risk Of Measles Outbreaks
The measles outbreak has only struck a remote corner of our region, in New Mexico. But federal data shows many states in the Mountain West may be more at risk. Public health officials say 95% of a community needs to be vaccinated in order to be protected from measles. Nationwide, the average rate among kindergartners was an estimated 92.7% in the last school year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the Mountain West, the average rate was just under 90%. (Merzbach, 3/12)

The Current: Georgia DFCS Relied On Controversial Laboratory For Drug Tests Crucial To Custody Decisions 
Kristen Clark-Hassell had already endured plenty of loss before she appeared in Camden County Juvenile Court in early 2021. Her first husband, a diver for the Navy, was killed in a motorcycle accident; her second died in a standoff with police. But nothing prepared the 44-year-old St. Marys mother for the moment when the Camden judge, acting on the recommendation of Georgia’s child welfare agency, removed her newborn daughter from her care to a foster home. (Shore, 3/3)

North Carolina Health News: NC House Bill Would Expand Access To Early Screening For Prostate Cancer
Sherrie Wood and her husband, Kenneth, were newly married when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003. He experienced extreme back pain and problems with urinating for over a year, but his general practitioner only treated the symptoms. After all, he was only in his early 40s. (Vitaglione, 3/13)

AP: Alzheimer's Association Pairs Up With New Mexico In US Pilot Program To Raise Awareness 
New Mexico has paired up with the Alzheimer’s Association in a pilot U.S. initiative aimed at raising awareness about a disease that affects several million people across the nation, including family members and friends who often provide countless hours of unpaid care. The joint campaign — a year in the making — features billboards, digital ads and social media posts. It was unveiled Wednesday, days after authorities confirmed that actor Gene Hackman died at his Santa Fe home of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease. (Bryan, 3/12)

The Colorado Sun: Colorado Mom Seeks Better ER Care For Kids In Mental Health Crisis
Laura Love is both haunted and motivated by the decision to take her 13-year-old son Sam Aden to an emergency room after he shared feelings of despair in early 2022. “We had no idea what to expect once we got there, we just knew that when your kid is experiencing a mental health crisis you take them to the ER,” Love said. “What we found was an environment that wasn’t hope-based, it was based in fear.” (Cada, 3/12)

ABC News: Death Of Kentucky Teen Sparks Investigation Into Possible Sextortion Scheme 
The Kentucky teen's father said the offender made AI-generated images of Eli Heacock, sent them to the teenager and demanded $3,000 or else the pictures would be released or his family would be harmed. (Forrester, 3/12)

FiercePharma: AstraZeneca Says Imfinzi Keeps Stomach Cancer From Coming Back
AstraZeneca is preparing to talk to the FDA about a potential new use of its immunotherapy Imfinzi after a pivotal study in early-stage stomach cancer met its main goal. When added to a chemotherapy combination called FLOT, Imfinzi significantly reduced the risk of disease recurrence, worsening or death in patients with resectable, early-stage gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancers who got the regimen before and after surgery, the company said Friday. (Liu, 3/7)

ScienceDaily: Targeted Alpha Therapy: Breakthrough In Treating Refractory Skin Cancer 
Metastatic melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer. In an effort to achieve targeted therapy for metastatic melanoma, researchers recently developed a new radioactive drug that emits alpha particles. (Chiba University, 3/12)

MedPage Today: Rapid, Substantial Psoriasis Improvement With Oral IL-23 Inhibitor 
Two-thirds of patients with moderate or severe plaque psoriasis had complete or nearly complete clearance at 4 months with an oral peptide targeting interleukin (IL)-23, a randomized study showed. The primary analysis showed that 65% of patients treated with icotrokinra had an investigator global assessment (IGA) score of 0/1 as compared with 8% of patients assigned to placebo. Half of the patients had 90% skin clearance by the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI 90) versus 4% of the placebo group. (Bankhead, 3/9)

CIDRAP: 5-Strain Meningitis Vaccine Shows Promise In Very Young Kids
The results of a phase 3 randomized clinical trial support the use of a vaccine that protects against five strains of meningitis in routine childhood immunization programs in countries with a high burden of meningococcal disease, an international team of researchers reported yesterday in The Lancet. (Dall, 3/12)

CIDRAP: Animal, Environmental Sources Cause Most US Foodborne Illness Outbreaks, CDC Reports 
Many US foodborne illness outbreaks are caused by contamination of food from an animal or environmental source before final preparation, with most viral outbreaks triggered by infected food workers, and foods left out for a prolonged period plus inadequate time and temperature control during cooking contribute to bacterial outbreaks, according to new data from Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (FDOSS). The report was published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. (Van Beusekom, 3/12)

CIDRAP: Cow-Derived Avian Flu Can Infect Pigs But Doesn't Spread Among Them, Preprint Suggests 
Pigs are moderately susceptible to infection with a bovine-derived H5N1 avian influenza virus but don't spread it to other pigs, a non–peer-reviewed study published on the preprint server bioRxiv suggests. (Van Beusekom, 3/6)

Bloomberg: NIH Cuts Set US Scientists And Research Back A Generation
To recap: In his first days in office, President Donald Trump targeted the NIH, which spends more than 80% of its $48 billion budget on grants and other funding to universities and hospitals around the country. That funding ground to a halt, and damage was amplified two weeks later when the administration excised $4 billion in overhead costs from NIH grants — money that institutions rely on to run their facilities and pay support staff. That was followed by job cuts at the agency — reportedly nearly 1,200 of them, in areas spanning Alzheimer’s research to cancer. (Some of these moves have been halted, at least temporarily, by the courts.) (Lisa Jarvis, 3/12)

NPR: The HPV Vaccine Prevents Cancer. It Continues To Be Underutilized
Chris Riley's symptoms started in the summer of 2021. At first, he didn't think much about them. His throat felt a little sore, and he noticed hardening of his lymph nodes. At 57 years old, Riley was active and healthy. He biked everywhere and didn't even own a car. Riley, it turned out, had oropharyngeal cancer, which develops in the tonsils or throat. In Riley's case, it had originated in his left tonsil, but by the time it was discovered — after visits to a dentist, a general practitioner, and an ear, nose and throat specialist — it had spread to his lymph nodes. (Lisa Doggett, 3/12)

Chicago Tribune: Teens Need More Rest. High School Start Times Should Account For That.
Most public high schools begin the school day between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. That doesn’t just make them grumps in the morning; inadequate sleep can have negative cognitive and physical effects on teens, impairing their ability to focus and learn and, in the worst cases, potentially triggering chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity and poor mental health. (3/13)

Houston Chronicle: Harris County Commissioner: Houston Measles Risk Is 'Growing By The Day'
The outbreak is spreading now, as spring break travel is ramping up and the Houston Rodeo is drawing millions of visitors. That means the risk of transmission in our community is growing by the day. Experts are now warning unvaccinated people in our community — including babies who aren’t eligible for the measles vaccine until they reach 12 to 15 months — to avoid large crowds. (Lesley Briones, 3/11)

Stat: HIV Self-Testing Must Be Promoted More Heavily 
In May 2024, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released a troubling report on a cluster of HIV infections, with more than 200 new cases since 2018 attributable to injection drug use in the Boston region. These findings have national implications: Similar HIV outbreaks have been described nationwide during the overdose crisis, including in West Virginia, Indiana, and Ohio. The increase in HIV cases amid the U.S. drug overdose crisis underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive response tailored to the unique challenges faced by people who use drugs. (Sabrina Assoumou, Sarah Miller and Meg von Lossnitzer, 3/13)