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PEPFAR, the popular global HIV/AIDS program credited with saving millions of lives, has been spared from a package of billions of dollars in spending cuts that Congress sent to President Donald Trump early Friday morning to sign into law. The original rescissions package Trump requested called for $400 million in cuts to PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which George W. Bush started in 2003. But in the Senate, Democrats and a handful of Republicans objected to the PEPFAR cuts. (Wong and Kapur, 7/18)

�鶹Ů�� Health News’ ‘What The Health?’ Podcast: The Senate Saves PEPFAR Funding — For Now

The Senate has passed — and sent back to the House — a bill that would allow the Trump administration to claw back some $9 billion in previously approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting. But first, senators removed from the bill a request to cut funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, President George W. Bush’s international AIDS/HIV program. The House has until Friday to approve the bill, or else the funding remains in place. (Rovner, 7/17)

Nearly 800,000 mpox vaccine doses the U.S. government had promised to donate to African countries experiencing an outbreak of the rash-causing disease cannot be shipped because they’re expiring in less than six months, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “For a vaccine to be shipped to a country, we need a minimum of six months before expiration to ensure that the vaccine can arrive in good condition and also allow the country to implement the vaccination,” said Yap Boum, an Africa CDC deputy incident manager. (Paun, 7/17)

A new bipartisan Senate bill would require companies that run health plans to hand over data to employers who insure their workers more quickly, or face thousands of dollars in penalties. The bill, which is expected to be filed Thursday, would prohibit so-called “third-party administrators” from delaying disclosures of information to employers’ health plans. Health insurance is generally the most expensive benefit an employer offers. (Cohrs Zhang, 7/17)

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced legislation to help veterans access alternatives to opioids, part of a broader push to promote safer painkillers and reduce overdose deaths. The Nopain for Veterans Act would require the US Department of Veterans Affairs to include non-opioid pain drugs on its formulary, making it easier for patients to access them. The bill has several sponsors, including Reps. Greg Landsman, a Democrat from Ohio, and Derrick Van Orden, a Republican from Wisconsin and former Navy Seal. (Smith, 7/17)

Partnerships between telehealth companies and pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Eli Lilly raise concerns about conflicts of interest and inappropriate prescribing, according to a Senate investigation released Thursday. The report by offices of several Democratic senators said the arrangements appear intended to steer patients to medications manufactured by those companies, which maintain websites touting drugs and providing links directing them to doctors who can prescribe them. (Ovalle, 7/17)