Â鶹ŮÓÅ

Last week was brutal for anyone who cares about the future of health insurance for low- and middle-income Americans. On Tuesday, the federal government’s Medicaid funding portals temporarily shut down, sending doctors, patients and hospitals into a panic. (Aaron E. Carroll, 2/2)

Two days of contentious Senate confirmation hearings did nothing to assuage doubts about the suitability of prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. If anything, his responses were even worse than expected and illustrate that he is a uniquely dangerous choice for the position. (Leana S. Wen, 1/31)

To many, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears to advocate positions that are contrary to scientific orthodoxy, but there’s one area where he and his critics largely agree: Healthier eating leads to a healthier population. (Robert P. Charrow, 2/3)

Women’s health champions like us cheered in January when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued a draft recommendation for cervical cancer screening for high-risk genotypes of human papillomavirus (HPV), including the use of self-collection tests. The move follows the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of self-collection tests last summer. (Emma McKim Mitchell and Christine Phelan Kueter, 2/3)

The notorious Sackler family, opioid pushers responsible for countless cases of addiction and death, can’t seem to settle their legal problems without turning to some kind of unprincipled maneuver. (2/2)

A recent study explodes the myth that the risk of addiction to prescription opioids exists only among patients abusing their opioids. Until recently, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) didn’t even ask non-abusing patients on chronic opioids about symptoms of opioid use disorder. Asking made a difference. It turns out most cases of prescription opioid use disorder — 62% — are actually among people who use their opioids as prescribed. That’s an estimated 3 million adults experiencing symptoms of opioid use disorder even though they have never misused opioids. And about 1 in 7 have moderate or severe opioid use disorder severe enough to merit methadone, buprenorphine or other medication-assisted treatment. (Judy Butler and Adriane Fugh-Berman, 2/2)