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As the safety net has expanded over the past generation, the food stamp rolls have doubled, Medicaid enrollment has tripled and payments from the earned-income tax credit have nearly quadrupled. But one major form of aid has grown more scarce. After decades of rising rents, housing assistance for the poorest tenants has fallen to the lowest level in nearly a quarter-century. The three main federal programs for the neediest renters — public housing, Section 8, and Housing Choice Vouchers — serve 287,000 fewer households than they did at their peak in 2004, a new analysis shows. That is a 6 percent drop, while the number of eligible households without aid grew by about a quarter, to 15 million. (DeParle, 12/19)

Health authorities are now investigating at least 205 cases of lead poisonings across 33 different states linked to contaminated applesauce, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday. That's up from 125 cases in the agency's last weekly tally. The growing case count comes as the Food and Drug Administration continues its probe into the source of the tainted cinnamon blamed for the contamination. The FDA has faced "limited jurisdiction" in Ecuador, where the FDA says it cannot take "direct action" to investigate some of those suspected to be behind the poisonings. (Tin, 12/19)

Jessica Harris’s 15-year-old daughter was walking to her school bus in London, Ky., last month when a classmate offered her a piece of red candy. The square-shaped sweet seemed harmless at the time to Harris’s daughter. But it turned out it contained a form of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the intoxicating ingredient in cannabis plants, and it sent her to the hospital. An explosion of products containing THC and similar chemicals—some of them in kid-enticing forms such as candy or gummy bears—is sending children to emergency rooms across the country and has federal and state regulators grappling with how to contain it. (Whyte, 12/19)

Scientists at St. Louis University say they’ve found a better way to test vaccines developed to fight tuberculosis, a bacterial infection that sickens millions of people each year. In a study recently published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, SLU researchers and scientists from New York University and Emory University said they can use the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine against tuberculosis administered to babies and small children to mimic the disease to see how well other immunizations in development will work in adults. (Fentem, 12/19)

Tony McKoy, Jr. was ready to eat. Black chef’s hat on his head, apron tied on, the five-year-old contemplated his favorite foods, prompted by his mother, Shaquana Peebles. “Pineapple!” he said, savoring its sweetness with his eyes closed while he imagined biting into one. Also, brownies made with black beans. PB&J. Spaghetti. Tony’s enthusiasm for food is a remarkable turnaround for a child who wasn’t growing as well as he should just a couple of years ago. (Nayak and Cooney, 12/20)