NIH Workers Risk Retaliation by Openly Protesting Trump Policies
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Get our weekly newsletter, The Week in Brief, featuring a roundup of our original coverage, Fridays at 2 p.m. ET.
Researchers laid off in April were putting the finishing touches on in-depth HIV surveys that guide treatment and prevention. Some staff have been reinstated, but data remains in limbo.
A look inside the Department of Health and Human Services document citing vaccine misinformation that could influence congressional perceptions.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week did something he had promised not to do: He fired every member of the scientific advisory committee that recommends which vaccines should be given to whom. And he replaced them, in some cases, with vaccine skeptics. Meanwhile, hundreds of employees of the National Institutes of Health sent an open letter to the agency’s director, accusing the Trump administration of policies that “undermine the NIH mission.” Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
From Florida to California, National Institutes of Health grant cuts have halted research studies on HIV, vaccines, and health equity — affecting red and blue states alike.
The vast majority of improper payments stem from documentation mistakes and do not fit the definition of waste, fraud, or abuse. They also typically stem from health care providers’ actions, not beneficiaries’ abuse.
KFF Health News’ Céline Gounder joined CBS Evening News to discuss the unprecedented move by the Health and Human Services secretary.
A letter signed by more than 300 National Institutes of Health workers — some still working, others who were fired this year — is an extraordinary public rebuke of actions taken under Director Jay Bhattacharya and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Get our weekly newsletter, The Week in Brief, featuring a roundup of our original coverage, Fridays at 2 p.m. ET.
The Trump administration is eroding national pandemic flu defenses as it guts health agencies, cuts research and health budgets, and withdraws funding for bird flu vaccines, health security experts said.
The Trump administration wants to shutter the CDC’s National Asthma Control Program, which provides millions in funding to state-administered initiatives aimed at fighting the disease. The program’s closure, combined with massive cuts to environmental programs, could put the 28 million Americans with asthma at increased risk.
The House’s gigantic tax-and-spending budget reconciliation bill has landed with a thud in the Senate, where lawmakers are divided in their criticism over whether it increases the deficit too much or cuts Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act too deeply. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the bill, if enacted, could increase the ranks of the uninsured by nearly 11 million people over a decade won’t make it an easy sell. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Arielle Zionts, who reported and wrote the latest “Bill of the Month” feature, about a Medicaid patient who had an out-of-state emergency.
The cuts will shutter two major HIV vaccine research efforts, and a National Institutes of Health senior official said the agency has been instructed not to issue any more HIV vaccine research funding in the next fiscal year, with few exceptions.
The Indian Health Service was mostly spared in the federal government’s widespread staffing cuts, but tribal governments and organizations have lost funding elsewhere in the melee of federal health agency cuts.
This episode was taped live on Friday, May 30, at the annual conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists in Los Angeles. Host Julie Rovner moderated a panel featuring Rachel Nuzum, senior vice president for policy at The Commonwealth Fund; Berenice Núñez Constant, senior vice president of government relations and civic engagement at AltaMed Health Services; and Anish Mahajan, chief deputy director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The panelists discussed the national, state, and local implications of funding cuts made over the first 100 days of the second Trump administration and the potential fallout of reductions that have been proposed but not yet implemented. The panelists also took questions from health reporters in the audience.
Despite opposition by the leader of the Department of Health and Human Services, existing evidence on the safety and efficacy of getting a covid vaccine during pregnancy all points the same way: The shots are important for maternal and fetal health.
Federal cuts are hurting community organizations in California that provide language assistance services to people who speak limited English. Despite President Trump’s executive order declaring English the national language, millions in the U.S. need help navigating the health system.
The Trump administration has paused implementation of a rule limiting miners’ exposure to airborne silica dust days after a federal court agreed to put it on hold to hear an industry challenge. The protections are meant to head off a surge in cases of black lung disease. Meanwhile, any enforcement of new standards might be meager due to workforce cuts.
Food safety inspections are being scaled back and the public was not notified after an investigation into E. coli contamination.
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