Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Europe Is Warning Travelers To Be Careful In America If They Are LGBTQ+
Finland, Denmark and Germany urged cautionary planning for trans and nonbinary travelers seeking to enter the U.S. following an executive order requiring the federal government to recognize only two sexes: male and female. The advisory changes come as citizens from several European countries and beyond have been detained by U.S. immigration authorities over issues with travel visas. (Lotz, 3/23)
Two California researchers said Friday that a U.S. government health publication instructed them to remove data on sexual orientation from a scientific manuscript that had been accepted for publication. The researchers also said they were told to remove the words 鈥済ender,鈥 鈥渃isgender鈥 and 鈥渆quitable鈥 from their paper, which looked at smoking among rural young adults. (Johnson, 3/21)
President Donald Trump is demanding a 鈥渇ull throated apology鈥 from Maine Gov. Janet Mills in his spat with the state over transgender athletes, implying his administration will continue to target the state unless he gets one. The Democratic governor got into an argument with the president during a governors鈥 meeting at the White House in February, telling the president 鈥渨e鈥檒l see you in court鈥 when he threatened to pull federal funding from the state if it failed to comply with his order to ban trans athletes from playing in women鈥檚 and girls sports. (Ruhiyyih Ewing, 3/22)
More health news from the Trump administration 鈥
The Trump administration is seeking to bring back juvenile detention centers for unaccompanied immigrant children, just as a critical contract providing legal services to these minors who enter the US without their parents is in jeopardy. A request for information published this week said that the federal government is looking to solicit bids for beds in so-called 鈥渟ecure鈥 facilities to detain teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17. (Akinnibi and Adams-Heard, 3/21)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation鈥檚 health secretary, on Saturday instructed leaders of the nonprofit he founded to take down a web page that mimicked the design of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention鈥檚 site but laid out a case that vaccines cause autism. The page had been published on a site apparently registered to the nonprofit, the anti-vaccine group Children鈥檚 Health Defense. Mr. Kennedy鈥檚 action came after The New York Times inquired about the page and after news of it ricocheted across social media. (Gay Stolberg, Rosenbluth and Mandavilli, 3/22)
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took aim at a new target this week as part of his 鈥淢ake America Healthy Again鈥 agenda: cellphones in schools. In an interview with 鈥淔ox & Friends鈥 on Thursday, Kennedy praised cellphone restrictions in schools and listed health hazards that he said were linked to phone use among children and teens聽鈥 some backed by scientific research, others less so. (Bendix, 3/22)
The America First Policy Institute 鈥 the think tank founded and staffed by Trump officials to advance his vision for the country 鈥 has written a new paper making the case against what it calls pharmaceutical "global freeloading" and outlining various policy measures to address it. (Owens, 3/21)