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The U.S. government will provide wildfire fighters with masks to protect against smoke — reversing a decades-long ban that exposed workers to toxins known to cause cancer and other serious diseases. The Forest Service posted new guidance on Monday acknowledging for the first time that masks can protect firefighters against harmful particles in wildfire smoke. The move is part of a flurry of safety improvements in recent weeks as the government faces increasing pressure to aid firefighters. For years, the Forest Service had barred workers from wearing masks, arguing that they were too cumbersome for the job. (Dreier, 9/9)

Cal Fire will spend $9.7 million on research into how worsening wildfires and other exposures may be increasing the risk for cancer among California firefighters, the governor’s office announced Tuesday. Researchers from UCLA and UC Davis will evaluate the health of 3,500 firefighters over two years and look for signs that they have been exposed to cancer-causing substances or have experienced biological changes that increase their odds of getting the disease. (Johnson, 9/9)

Mayor Justin Bibb predicted in a recent Politico interview that MetroHealth System could “go out of business” if the federal government cuts Medicaid funding to hospitals.“ Cleveland is home to our only safety net hospital, Metro Hospital (sic), and they could go out of business if these cuts go through,” Bibb said in the interview. (Washington, 9/9)

New York plans to phase out a program that offers zero-premium health coverage for working-class residents due to funding cuts in the GOP's tax and spending package, Gov. Kathy Hochul's office tells Axios first. (Goldman, 9/10)

Two major health insurers in Colorado — Anthem and Rocky Mountain Health Plans — have reversed their plans to withdraw from several counties next year. (Ingold, 9/9)

The Mountain West is home to states with some of the worst nursing shortages in the country. Utah is at the top of the shortage list, with about 1.4 nurses per 100 people, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona and Colorado trail close behind, with at least 25% fewer nurses than the national average (2.2 nurses per 100 people). (Merzbach, 9/9)

Former CVS Health executive Helena Foulkes announced her second campaign for Rhode Island governor on Tuesday, challenging incumbent Gov. Dan McKee in the Democratic primary. Foulkes finished a close second to McKee in the 2022 primary after a late surge in the polls and a last-minute endorsement from The Boston Globe’s editorial board. McKee is seeking his second full term after stepping up from the lieutenant governorship when Gov. Gina Raimondo was tapped as U.S. commerce secretary in the Biden administration in 2021. (9/9)

Health officials in Maine on Tuesday said the Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus has been detected in a resident from Penobscot County, the first human case of the virus in the state this year. The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced the case on social media and said the risk level for EEE is currently “severe” in Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset, and Waldo counties, areas that have had a history of EEE activity in recent years. (Stoico, 9/9)

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–led study links spillover from small mammals such as voles and squirrels to cases of borealpox in five adults and one child in Alaska from 2020 to 2023. (Van Beusekom, 9/9)

Wildlife veterinarians have begun testing bird flu vaccines in marine mammals, which have suffered enormous losses in the ongoing global outbreak. The first trial, which began in July, is tiny, enrolling just six northern elephant seals that were already being rehabilitated at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, Calif. But if the results are promising, the researchers hope to quickly begin vaccinating wild Hawaiian monk seals, an endangered species that they fear could be wiped out by the virus. (Anthes, 9/9)

Given ongoing detections of H5N1 avian flu in poultry, dairy cows, and wildlife, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday addressed the potential for the threat of contracting the virus by eating or drinking potentially contaminated food or beverages, such as raw milk, saying the risk is low but possible. (Schnirring, 9/9)