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An effort by the Trump administration to pull down Food and Drug Administration website pages focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion has ensnared many pages focused on ensuring that clinical trials used to test drugs and medical devices include people of different ethnic and economic backgrounds. ... The scrubbing of clinical trial-related pages is notable because of how it could affect the ways researchers both inside and outside government, as well as companies, test drugs and medical devices. (Herper and Lawrence, 1/23)

The controversial nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of Health and Human Services is set to move forward next week when he will face questioning from a pair of Senate committees. Kennedy is among the least-certain of President Donald Trump's nominees to be confirmed. Democrats, who cannot block Kennedy on their own, are expected to largely but not unanimously oppose him, and some Republicans have expressed concerns about Kennedy's views on vaccines and his past support for abortion rights. (McAuliff, 1/23)

The Trump administration is expected to tap Susan Coller Monarez, the deputy director of a federal health research agency, to serve as the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, multiple health officials tell CBS News. Picking Monarez would close an unprecedented leadership gap atop the CDC, which is tasked with tracking and responding to a myriad of emerging diseases and health emergencies. Other health agencies have also been operating without acting heads. (Tin, 1/23)

For the first time in its more than 60-year history, the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) did not go out as scheduled because of a communications pause at federal health agencies issued by the Trump administration. Past editors of MMWR and prior leaders of CDC lamented the lack of publication, and its potential impact on the distribution of vital public health information. (Robertson, 1/23)

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President Donald Trump was sworn in Monday and by Wednesday had virtually stopped scientific policymaking at the Department of Health and Human Services. While incoming administrations often pause public communications, the acting HHS head ordered an unprecedented shutdown of all outside meetings, travel, and publications. Meanwhile, Trump issued a broad array of mostly nonbinding executive orders, but notably none directly concerning abortion. (Rovner, 1/23)

More than 300,000 Department of Veterans Affairs health care jobs are exempt from a federal hiring freeze instituted Jan. 20 by President Donald Trump. Acting Veterans Affairs Secretary Todd Hunter issued a memo Jan. 21 containing instructions for the department to comply with Trump's executive order, issued shortly after he was sworn into office. (Kime, 1/23)

A federal judge temporarily blocked President Trump’s executive order declaring that children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants would no longer be treated as citizens. The judge, John Coughenour, sided with states that had sued Trump arguing that the president’s order violated the 14th Amendment. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” he said today. “Frankly,” Judge Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, added, “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.” (Cullen, 1/23)

The New Hampshire Medical Society is speaking out against the Trump administration’s decision to allow immigration arrests at hospitals, saying it could deter patients from seeking care. “We saw this in previous years, where there was increased and heightened threat of deportation, that resulted in delay of seeking treatment by patients with immigrant status within the state,” said Dr. Marie-Elizabeth Ramas, a board member and the medical society’s president-elect. (Cuno-Booth, 1/23)

Violent crime in 40 U.S. cities dropped in 2024 to at or near pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report out Thursday that shows the COVID-era crime wave evaporating. President Trump has falsely asserted that immigration caused rising crime nationwide, but the new report suggests crime fell dramatically in President Biden's last two years — even below levels of Trump's last year in office. (Contreras, 1/23)