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The head of the Food and Drug Administration plans to start offering bonus payments to agency drug reviewers who complete their work ahead of schedule, the latest in a flurry of changes to longstanding norms and procedures. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary described the effort as a pilot program during a staff presentation Thursday, saying the first quarterly bonus payments would start going out to employees around August. The Associated Press obtained slides and a recording of the presentation. (Perrone, 2/26)

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary defended the agency’s recent rejections of rare disease drugs in an interview with CNBC on Thursday. He also defended top FDA official Vinay Prasad, who oversees the center that rejected many of those drugs. (Lawrence and Wilkerson, 2/26)

In related news —

Senate leaders are urging the Department of Defense to prioritize the purchase of generic drugs manufactured in the United States, warning that the country’s overreliance on foreign factories poses an “existential risk” to the military. In a letter last week, Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., asked Defense Department Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide information about drugs or key ingredients purchased from foreign sources and how long the department’s inventory would last if China restricted exports. (Norman and Roy, 2/26)

More updates on the Trump administration —

The Trump administration announced Wednesday a nationwide moratorium on new suppliers for certain medical equipment, citing a need to get a handle on the “fraud, waste, and abuse” in the industry that provides wheelchairs, artificial limbs and other equipment. (Broderick, 2/26)

In his first week leading two of the nation’s health agencies, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has been met with praise and gratitude from federal employees — an unexpected reception for a scientist who spent much of the last few years facing scorn from most other public health experts. Dr. Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, was last week named the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A medical economist and former Stanford University professor, he replaced Jim O’Neill, a Silicon Valley executive with no medical training. (Mandavilli, 2/26)

Gov. Tim Walz denounced the Trump administration’s latest threat to withhold federal funds from Minnesota as another step in a “retribution” campaign as he unveiled a package of legislation Thursday intended to fight fraud in public programs, a persistent problem that provided an impetus for the federal government’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. (Karnowski, 2/26)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: 'What The Health? From �鶹Ů�� Health News': What About The State Of Health?
After urging Republicans earlier this year to make health care a central issue in their midterm campaigns, President Donald Trump gave the issue only passing mention in his record-long State of the Union address this week. Meanwhile, Trump’s nominee to become U.S. surgeon general, Casey Means, a favorite of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, got her long-delayed hearing before a Senate committee this week. Means’ nomination has been controversial not only because of her outside-the-mainstream medical views but also because she would be the first surgeon general without an active medical license. (Rovner, 2/26)

Updates on NASA's recent medical emergency —

Astronaut Mike Fincke revealed that he had a medical event that caused the early return of the International Space Station’s (ISS) Crew-11. The mission included fellow NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, along with Fincke. Fincke said that he experienced a medical event while on board the ISS and was stabilized by his crewmates, working with guidance from NASA flight surgeons. (Whiteside, 2/26)

Casey Means, President Donald Trump’s pick for surgeon general, does not yet have the votes for confirmation following a testy Senate health committee hearing on her nomination Wednesday. Senators of both parties pressed Means on her views about vaccines at the hearing. Means did not commit to promoting them and now has to convince at least two skeptical Republicans to back her nomination: Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who told POLITICO they haven’t decided how they’ll vote. (Levien, Friedman and Paun, 2/26)

Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams is again raising doubts about President Trump’s surgeon general nominee Casey Means, arguing she lacks the qualifications needed for the role. “As a former U.S. Surgeon General who held an active medical license and practiced medicine while in the role (at Walter Reed and aboard the USS Comfort) it is incomprehensible that the Senate is even considering a nominee for this role who lacks any active license and has never practiced unsupervised,” Adams, who served in Trump’s first administration, wrote Wednesday on the social platform X. (Brams, 2/26)

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said Wednesday that the focus in Washington on surgeon general nominee Casey Means’s past recommendation for using psilocybin, commonly known as magic mushrooms, is a “red herring.” “Look, no way would I support people taking these psychedelics. I think it’s — it’s not part of my practice, it’s nothing that I could recommend. But I think that that’s a red herring, again,” Marshall, who is a physician, told NewsNation’s Blake Burman on “The Hill.” (Suter, 2/26)

More MAHA developments —

America’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., became an action figure fighting artificial red dye in school lunches on Thursday. Before that, he was transported to a rave by a sip of whole milk. He got a face tattoo to match that of boxer Mike Tyson. He put Santa on a diet and exercise regimen and strolled with a penguin to a soaring organ soundtrack. (Cirruzzo and Payne, 2/27)

Target will require every cereal it sells — including national brands — to be made without certified synthetic colors by the end of May, the company exclusively told Axios. (Tyko, 2/27)

Other news about flu vaccines, mpox, meningitis B, and measles —

For the past week, about 50 flu scientists from around the world have been cramming into a conference room at a Hilton hotel in Istanbul, Turkey. Their goal is to design a flu shot that will confer the best protection for the next flu season — starting in the fall of 2026. Each day, they pore over reams of data — about how the virus is evolving worldwide, how well last year's shot performed, and which strains might be easiest to mass produce for a vaccine. (Lambert, 2/26)

The antiviral drug tecovirimat (Tpoxx) is no better than placebo in achieving a shorter time to clinical resolution, reduced pain, or increased viral DNA clearance in adults infected with clade 2 mpox virus, per a phase 3 randomized controlled trial published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. An international roster of investigators in the Advancing Clinical Therapeutics Globally Study of Tecovirimat for Human Mpox Virus (STOMP/A5418) group randomly assigned 412 participants in a 2:1 ratio to receive either tecovirimat (275 patients) or a placebo (137) for 14 days from September 2022 to October 2024. (Van Beusekom, 2/26)

The four-component meningococcal serogroup B vaccine (4CMenB; Bexsero) did not reduce gonorrhea incidence in high-risk men who have sex with men, according to a randomized trial. (Haelle, 2/26)

A new non–peer-reviewed study estimates that measles outbreaks in the United States cost more than $244 million in 2025 alone and warns that even modest declines in childhood measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination could trigger billions of dollars in additional losses over the next five years. MMR vaccine coverage among US kindergarteners has fallen steadily since the 2019–20 school year, alongside a national resurgence of measles. In 2025, the United States recorded its highest annual measles count since 1992, at 2,280 cases. (Bergeson, 2/26)

The Trump administration’s proposed new rules for Obamacare plans next year would shift more health care costs to Americans, with much higher deductibles that could lead to larger medical bills. Under the proposal, people who rely on the Affordable Care Act for their health insurance coverage could choose plans with much lower monthly premiums. But that could leave them exposed to medical expenses totaling thousands of dollars more than A.C.A. plans do now before their insurance would kick in. (Abelson, 2/26)

More on the high costs of health care and prescription drugs —

As rural health care across the state faces challenges to funding and services, the Public Health Accreditation Board has awarded White Earth Nation's health care system national accreditation. (Eagle III, 2/27)

Legislators on Connecticut’s General Law Committee are considering a bill aimed at ensuring consumers understand the potential pitfalls of medical credit cards before signing up. Hundreds of thousands of dentists, doctors and veterinarians across the country offer patients the option to apply for medical credit cards to help pay for out-of-pocket costs. (Golvala, 2/25)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: He Needs An Expensive Drug. A Copay Card Helped — Until It Didn’t
Over the course of 2025, Jayant Mishra of Mission Viejo, California, progressively developed scaly, itchy red patches on his skin. Then came the pain and swelling in the joints of his hands, making it difficult to do his work at a bank. His primary care doctor referred him to a rheumatologist, who diagnosed psoriatic arthritis. She advised Mishra that while there’s no cure, there were many new medicines that could keep the autoimmune disease in check, and she recommended one, Otezla. (Rosenthal, 2/27)

A top health official at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hedged on payment reform, but committed to helping physicians address prior authorization challenges, during the American Medical Association's (AMA) National Advocacy Conference. Seven in 10 physicians in private practice cited their inability to negotiate higher payment rates as the number one reason they either left or sold their practice, according to Bruce Scott, MD, the immediate past president of the AMA, who moderated the discussion. (Firth, 2/26)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: To Avoid Care Disruptions, Know When The Clock Runs Out On Your Prior Authorization
A woman with multiple sclerosis wanted to be able to walk up the stairs at home without losing her balance. Her doctor prescribed medicine that helped, but then approval from her insurance plan for the drug expired. (Boden, 2/27)

On Medicaid —

State Medicaid budgets will shrink by $664 billion through 2034 as key provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1) take effect, with impacts varying by state depending on expansion status, reliance on provider taxes and the use of state-directed payments, according to a RAND study published Feb. 26. Meanwhile, Medicaid managed care insurers have been flagging a mismatch between state capitation rates and enrollee acuity over the last couple of years following the pandemic-era continuous enrollment unwinding. (Emerson, 2/26)

CalOptima, Orange County’s health insurance program for the poor, has seen a plunge in membership since summer, which advocates attribute to the effects of the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies and sweeping changes to Medi-Cal. More than 26,500 CalOptima members have left since the start of the year, dropping the total enrollment to roughly 822,000 in mid-February, according to data shared by the agency. Some 15,000 people dropped from the health plan just in February. (Wang, 2/26)

After three years at the helm, Jay Ludlam is stepping down as director of North Carolina’s Medicaid program. Ludlam’s tenure included North Carolina’s expansion of Medicaid, a decade-in-the-making endeavor that has given more than 710,000 low-income residents access to coverage since December 2023. (Baxley, 2/27)

Instagram said Thursday it will start alerting parents if their kids repeatedly search for terms clearly associated with suicide or self-harm. The alerts will only go to parents who are enrolled in Instagram’s parental supervision program. Instagram says it already blocks such content from showing up in teen accounts’ search results and directs people to helplines instead. (Ortutay, 2/26)

Brent Brewer has a passion for helping his fellow farmers and ranchers handle the stress that comes with agricultural work. He’s known around Oklahoma as someone you can call if you’re struggling with your mental health. “This is a hobby of mine,” said Brewer, who farms and raises cattle in Grant County, Oklahoma. “To help people navigate through tough times and to try to get their legs back underneath them.” (Marks, 2/26)

There’s a wide gap between parents’ estimates of their teenagers’ AI chatbot activities and actual usage, according to new polling data. A majority of teens in the U.S. — 64 percent — indicated they use AI chatbots in a Pew Research Center survey. About 3 in 10 said they use these services daily. Parents of these polled teenagers underestimated such usage in the survey, with only 51 percent of parents saying that their child uses AI chatbots. Over a quarter said they were “unsure,” 18 percent said their teen did not use these chatbots and 4 percent said they had not heard about AI chatbots. (Davis, 2/24)

If you need help —

In other health and wellness news —

A rare outbreak of infant botulism that sickened dozens of babies who drank recalled ByHeart formula is over, with no new cases reported since mid-December, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. In all, 48 babies were sickened since 2023. That’s actually down from the previous case count, because three infants were ultimately diagnosed with other illnesses not tied to botulism, health officials said. All of the children who got sick were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported. (2/26)

The last thing someone in their 30s or 40s should worry about is dying of a heart attack. But new research shows more are. The proportion of adults ages 18 to 54 who died in a hospital of a severe first heart attack rose 57% between 2011 and 2022, according to a new study published Thursday in the Journal of the American Heart Association. (McKay, 2/26)

Cottage cheese sold at Walmart stores in 24 states is being recalled over concerns that liquid dairy ingredients used in the items may not be fully pasteurized, the company announced this week. A recall alert published by the Food and Drug Administration said no illnesses had been reported in connection to the recalled cottage cheese as of Feb. 24, but consuming products that are not fully pasteurized can cause “significant health risk, especially to the young and elderly or immunocompromised individuals.” (Langenfeld, 2/26)

Also —

Cindy McCain announced Thursday she will step down as executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), citing health issues. McCain, who had a mild stroke in October and returned to her role last month, said in a news release that while she hoped to serve through the rest of her term, her “health has not recovered to a level that allows me to fully serve the enormous demands of this job.” (Rego, 2/26)

The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged it has deported dozens of undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children and have removal protections, prompting outrage from Democrats like California Sen. Alex Padilla. In a letter earlier this month, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had deported 86 recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals from Jan. 1 to Nov. 19, 2025. The program, better known as DACA, began under President Barack Obama’s administration and has shielded some people from deportation if they arrived in the country before the age of 16. (Miranda, 2/26)

The death of a nearly blind refugee in Buffalo, New York, days after Border Patrol agents dropped him off at a coffee shop alone, has prompted an investigation into the circumstances of his final days and drawn sharp criticism from state and local officials. Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, who spoke little English, had been missing since February 19, when the agents left him at the shop shortly after he was released from the Erie County jail, officials said. His body was found five days later, around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, about four miles from the coffee shop, the Buffalo Police Department said. (Park, Ebrahimji and Hammond, 2/26)

When guards appeared earlier this month outside the room Christian Hinojosa shared with her son and other women and children at the immigrant detention center in Dilley, Texas, she guessed what they might be after. She quickly donned her puffy winter jacket, then slipped a manila envelope inside it. “Thank God the weather was cool,” she said — the jacket didn’t raise suspicions. Then, she said, she was instructed to leave the room while eight to 10 guards lifted up mattresses, opened drawers and rifled through papers. In the envelope were kids’ writings and artwork about life in America’s only detention facility for immigrant families, a collection of trailers and dormitories in the brush country south of San Antonio. She planned to share their letters with the outside world. (Funk and Rosenberg, 2/26)

As the U.S. embarks on a massive expansion of the country’s immigrant detention capacity, a coalition of organizations opposing abortion are calling on President Donald Trump to stop detaining pregnant, postpartum, and nursing immigrant women. (Einselen, 2/25)

Seventeen measles cases have been reported in El Paso, including 13 at the Camp East Montana Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center, health officials said Thursday. (2/26)

In other health news from across the U.S. —

The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday against recommending a bill that would limit abortions in New Hampshire to 20 weeks except in the case of medical emergencies. New Hampshire law currently restricts most abortions at 24 weeks. (Richardson, 2/26)

A planned drug sobering center is set to serve as a testing ground for a new way of funding the fight against San Francisco’s drug crisis. The Board of Supervisors this month approved a 26-month contract for the Arizona-based Connections Health Solutions to operate the RESET Center, a 25-bed site where police can drop off intoxicated people they’ve arrested as an alternative to county jail. (Hodgman, 2/26)

A Fullerton police officer fired a beanbag round that fatally pierced a man's chest in 2024, raising questions about the use of so-called less-lethal weapons. (Harter, 2/26)

Regina is haunted by the specter of mold. She found the insidious spores in the closet, behind the refrigerator, and around the bathtub for two years after the dishwasher flooded her apartment in Asheville, North Carolina. The infestation only got worse after Hurricane Helene. (Myers and Hackett, 2/25)

A prescription fruit-and-vegetable program seeks to stave off illnesses caused by poor nutrition and diet in Maryland’s food-insecure communities. Backed by a $480,000 grant from the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, the program will be developed and tested by researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park. (Hille, 2/24)

Cigna has acquired CarepathRx, a large pharmacy backed by private equity that dispenses prescription drugs to nearly 10% of U.S. hospitals. (Herman, 2/26)

In other pharma and tech news —

Novartis has settled a lawsuit by the estate of Henrietta Lacks that alleged the pharmaceutical giant unjustly profited off her cells, which were taken from her tumor without her knowledge in 1951 and reproduced in labs to enable major medical advancements, including the polio vaccine. Details of the agreement, which was finalized in federal court in Maryland this month, aren’t public. The Lacks family and Swiss-based Novartis said in a joint statement that they are “pleased they were able to find a way to resolve this matter filed by Henrietta Lacks’ Estate outside of court” but aren’t commenting further. (Witte, 2/27)

The Department of Justice is backing AbbVie in its battle to overturn a Colorado law that prohibits pharmaceutical companies from placing restrictions on a controversial federal drug discount program. (Silverman, 2/26)

An investigational GLP-1 receptor agonist pill edged out oral semaglutide (Rybelsus) for improving blood glucose in adults with type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled on metformin, the phase III ACHIEVE-3 trial showed. (Monaco, 2/26)

Jens Ellegaard’s pig farm is not like others nestled among the rapeseed and wheat fields of eastern Denmark. There’s no livestock smell, muddy yards or clattering machinery. Breeding units are divided into tightly managed zones where staff follow strict hygiene protocols, water is treated with ultraviolet light, and temperature is regulated by a geothermal system that circulates air through 30 kilometers (19 miles) of underground piping. The site, Ellegaard Gottingen Minipigs A/S, is more of a biosecurity facility. Its pigs are smaller than standard farm pigs, with some varieties genetically modified to mimic human immune responses and organ function. (Sjolin, 2/27)

More health care industry updates —

Dolly Parton’s name might inspire full-throated sing-a-longs to her working woman’s anthem “9 to 5,” or evoke memories of thrilling days spent at her Dollywood theme park. Now, the Grammy-winning country music superstar is lending her name to a new cause: advancing pediatric health care in her home state. The East Tennessee Children’s Hospital announced Thursday that it will now be known as Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital. (Pollard, 2/26)

A controversial measure included in one of the “emergency-certified” bills before the House Thursday would give the University of Connecticut Health Center a one-time pass to sidestep the approval process for major hospital transactions, like unit closures and acquisitions. (Golvala, 2/26)

Florida Blue customers could lose in-network status with Cleveland Clinic Florida if the two sides fail to reach a new contract by Sunday. Florida Blue has assured patients coverage is guaranteed through May as talks continue, although Cleveland Clinic Florida warns they “could” be out of network if the deadline passes without a deal. (Mayer, 2/26)

Lynda and Stewart Resnick, the billionaire co-owners of agricultural giant the Wonderful Company, are giving $100 million to UCLA Health to fund the expansion of a neuropsychiatric hospital and mental health campus. The gift from their foundation is the largest in the health system’s history and will anchor construction of a new specialized complex aimed at addressing the growing mental health crisis, UCLA Health said Thursday. (Carson, 2/26)

Employers tired of dealing with health insurers now have another option at their disposal: Go through a different intermediary instead. Third-party vendors such as Lantern, Nomi Health and Transcarent are making a play for the employer market as businesses wage a perpetual struggle to manage rising health benefit costs. These platforms tout savings, flexibility and a seamless experience to enable direct contracting with providers at scale. (Tong, 2/25)

Joelle Haley went into labor on Christmas Day, giving birth to a son two days later — premature at 24 weeks. In the soothing darkness of a Detroit hospital room a little something was missing for the newborn Kieran and his mom. Turns out that something was a colorful batch of soft yarn Haley would crochet into a small, tentacled octopus. For preemies in the Children’s Hospital of Michigan Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at DMC Hutzel Women’s Hospital, dozens of the cuddly, donated octopi get their attention and help keep small hands from grabbing and tugging on tubes and wires that help keep them alive. (Williams, 2/26)

Many people’s brains deteriorate as they age, becoming riddled with malfunctioning proteins that result in cell death and the loss of memory and cognition. But other people’s brains remain almost perfectly intact, their thinking as sharp at 80 as it was in their 50s. A paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature provides a new potential explanation for this discrepancy, and it taps into one of the hottest debates in neuroscience: whether human brains can grow new neurons in adulthood, a phenomenon called neurogenesis. (Smith, 2/25)

Being an expert birdwatcher is more than a hobby. It’s a pastime that may alter the structure and function of your brain. And these changes may enhance cognition even as you age, new research suggests. In a Canadian study of 58 adults, the brains of expert birders, compared with those of novices, were more dense in areas related to attention and perception. Such tissue density may indicate increased communication between neurons, and these structural differences were associated with more accurate bird identification. (Leake, 2/23)

Aging safely and comfortably at home looks different for everyone. This room-by-room view of a modified home can help you transition for the future. (Mahoney, 2/20)

Delivering a healthy baby usually involves a supportive community encouraging the mother-to-be and her family as they bring a new life into the world. Sophia Murphy’s birth in 2022 felt a little different, her mom said. Early in her pregnancy, a sonogram revealed a significant heart defect, Kim Murphy told The Baltimore Sun. Then a blood test suggested the possibility of a rare genetic anomaly, trisomy 18, giving Sophia a 5% chance of surviving birth. (Hille, 2/24)

On the desk of Jesse Keller’s office sits a big red bag about the size of a full sack of groceries, marked “biohazard.” It’s packed with prescription pill bottles filled with fibers, and his desk drawer holds even more of them — along with boxes of specimens in glass slides and a jar filled with a murky unknown liquid. Around the room are other stashes of samples and photographs of skin lesions. Keller, a dermatologist at Oregon Health and Science University, explains that the items came from patients who have a rare skin condition known as Morgellons disease, marked by experiences of intense, incessant sensations of itch, crawling and burning across the skin, and painful open sores. (Madhusoodanan, 2/24)

On the war in Ukraine —

For four years, the people of Ukraine have been celebrated abroad for their perseverance in the face of hardship — the smaller country that bravely stood up to Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky himself has called Ukrainians “unbreakable.” Ms. Shetelia and many others, however, say they are fed up both with hardship and with being called resilient in the face of it. “I see myself as a weak little girl who just wants to cry but can’t,” said Ms. Shetelia, a cook in a fast-food restaurant. (Varenikova, 2/25)

More than 385,000 Ukrainian teenagers are enrolled in a defense course, expecting war, or threats, to go on for years. In Russia, children are learning the same skills. (O'Grady, Galouchka and Morgunov, 2/24)

Four years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, experts at the Kharkiv Oblast forensic medical bureau — the oldest in Ukraine and founded in 1797 — continue to work tirelessly in what they see as their battle to bring justice to Ukrainians killed by Russia's war. (Terajima, 2/24)

Casey Means, a wellness influencer, entrepreneur, and physician, this week tried to convince the Senate Health Committee that she is up to the task of serving as the US surgeon general. (Lisa Jarvis, 2/26)

Theresa Cheng is not only a UCSF professor and emergency department doctor, but she’s also a civil rights attorney. Her expertise in the medical and legal fields offers a unique perspective on the fallout from the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. As Cheng wrote in an Open Forum on Thursday, hospitals have become a battleground in the immigration fight now that federal agents are allowed to operate in medical facilities. (Harry Mok, 2/26)

Every parent dreams of a healthy future for their child. For me, that dream vanished when, at 4 weeks old, my son Wheeler was diagnosed with CLN3 juvenile batten disease, a rare genetic disease that will steal his vision, memory, mobility, and ultimately, his life. (Judy Stecker, 2/27)

Every day, there are 1 million new cases of potentially curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In the past year, half of the 250 million pregnancies across the world were unplanned. At the clinic where I work in Boston, we see increasing numbers of infections every day. (Kenneth H. Mayer, 2/27)

Growing up with a mentally ill sibling, as Nick Reiner’s brother and sister did, means shouldering fear, shame, and vigilance. (Debra Manetta, 2/26)