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The American Hospital Association and Health-ISAC are alerting hospitals to a social media post alleging plans for a coordinated, multi-city terrorist attack on hospitals in the coming weeks. In their joint bulletin, the organizations cited an X post made by user @AXctual that claimed the terrorist group ISIS-K (Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham–Khorasan Province) is actively planning simultaneous car bomb attacks on hospitals in the coming weeks. (Diaz, 3/20)

A hospital employee shot a coworker in a parking garage Thursday in suburban Detroit, setting off a morning scramble at a major health care campus before the suspect was arrested miles away a few hours later. The gunman never entered Corewell Health Beaumont Troy Hospital. But it was treated as an active shooter situation, which led to a lockdown and other security steps at the hospital as well as at schools in Troy. (3/20)

A man who had voluntarily agreed to be taken to a psychiatric hospital by Philadelphia police grabbed an officer’s gun outside the facility and wounded him before being fatally shot by another officer, the city police commissioner said, noting the wounded officer’s bulletproof vest spared him from serious injury. The shooting occurred shortly before 1 p.m. at Friends Hospital, Commissioner Kevin Bethel said. (Shipkowski, 3/20)

President Trump on Thursday instructed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin shutting down her agency, a task that cannot be completed without congressional approval and sets the stage for a seismic political and legal battle over the federal government’s role in the nation’s schools. Mr. Trump said Thursday that the department would continue to provide critical functions that are required by law, such as the administration of federal student aid, including loans and grants, as well as funding for special education and districts with high levels of student poverty. The department would also continue civil rights enforcement, White House officials said. Mr. Trump called those programs “useful functions,” and said they’re going to be “preserved in full.” Higher education leaders and advocacy groups immediately condemned the executive order. “See you in court,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the trade union for educators. (Bender, Green and Blinder, 3/20)

The administration has promised that "formula funding" for schools, which is protected by law, would be preserved. That includes flagship programs like Title I for high-poverty schools, and the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP), which sends money to rural and low-income schools. But nearly all the statisticians and data experts who work in the office responsible for determining whether schools qualify for that money will soon be out of jobs, making it unclear how such grants would remain intact. (Mehta, 3/21)

The plan to dismantle the Department of Education is in Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump term drafted by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. While campaigning, Trump denied any connection to Project 2025, which faced heavy criticism, including for its goal to eliminate the sole federal education agency. Critics of closing the department say that it will hurt economically disadvantaged youth, children with disabilities and students who need financial aid for college since the agency administers funding to serve these groups. (Nittle, 3/20)

Equity in education was not the norm before the Department of Education. Jim Crow laws enforced segregation in public schooling, so white children and children of color couldn’t go to school together. Native American students were often sent to federally run boarding schools to assimilate the students into white culture. Girls were often taught different curriculums with fewer opportunities for higher education. Another key group was left out of education: students with disabilities. “Students with disabilities weren't educated in most cases,” explains Jack Schneider, professor on education policy and director of the Center for Education Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “They were turned away, and their families were told that the school didn't have the facilities, didn't have the resources to serve their kids.” (Walker, 3/19)

In the run-up to President Trump’s reelection last November, Texas and 16 other states filed a lawsuit that disability advocates now say could upend one of the legal cornerstones of disability rights in the United States. (Broderick, 3/21)

The Department of Justice this week announced the removal of 11 guidelines for businesses seeking to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Justice Department said removing the "unnecessary and outdated guidance" will help businesses comply with the federal disability law and eliminate unnecessary review. The agency cited a Jan. 20 executive order signed by President Donald Trump that called on federal agencies to take action to lower the cost of living. The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act extends civil rights protections to the estimated 1 in 4 U.S. adults with disabilities. (Alltucker, 3/20)

Florida's controversial surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, and a former Texas Republican congressman, Dr. Michael Burgess, are each being backed by some of President Trump's allies to be the next head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The White House is searching for a replacement after the nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Florida congressman, was abruptly pulled last week. (Tin, 3/20)

On Wednesday, as S. was heading to the library to apply for yet more jobs, an email pinged onto her phone. The subject line said, “Read this immediately” — the same as in February, when she was notified she would be fired from her job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Boodman, 3/20)

Do scientists put themselves at risk by speaking out against the Trump administration? “Hell yes,” said Jonathan Jackson, a national expert on increasing diversity in clinical trials who was answering the question of an audience member at the STAT Breakthrough Summit East Thursday. “I might lose the grants I have by the middle of next week” just by being on this stage, he added, an answer that silenced the crowd. (McFarling, 3/21)

The Endocrine Society and American Diabetes Association criticized the cancellation of funding for the ongoing, landmark Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), which has been tracking people with diabetes and prediabetes for 30 years. Researchers working on the study, which kicked off in 1996, found out last week that the study's NIH funding was yanked by the Trump administration. DPP investigators were told to immediately stop study activities. (Monaco, 3/20)

Dr. Fola May studies diseases of the digestive tract, and runs a lab at the University of California Los Angeles looking for ways to detect disease earlier in various groups. For that work, she says her lab is "very dependent" on federal funds from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs. So as those agencies began canceling grants and programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, or "DEI," May worried: Would work like hers, looking at health disparities also get swept in? (Noguchi, 3/21)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: �鶹Ů�� Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: Federal Health Work In Flux

It’s the Trump administration vs. the federal courts, as the Department of Government Efficiency continues to try to cancel federal contracts and programs and fire workers. But in the haste to cut things, jobs and programs are being eliminated even if they align with the new administration’s goal to “Make America Healthy Again.” (Rovner, 3/20)

The Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday that it would delay by 30 months a requirement that food companies and grocers rapidly trace contaminated food through the supply chain and pull it off the shelves. Intended to “limit food-borne illness and death,” the rule required companies and individuals to maintain better records to identify where foods are grown, packed, processed or manufactured. It was set to go into effect in January 2026 as part of a landmark food safety law passed in 2011, and was advanced during President Trump’s first term. (Jewett, 3/20)

Food banks across the country are scrambling to make up a $500 million budget shortfall after the Trump administration froze funds for hundreds of shipments of produce, poultry and other items that states had planned to distribute to needy residents. The Biden administration had slated the aid for distribution to food banks during the 2025 fiscal year through the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which is run by the Agriculture Department and backed by a federal fund known as the Commodity Credit Corporation. But in recent weeks, many food banks learned that the shipments they had expected to receive this spring had been suspended. (Demirjian and Jimez, 3/20)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Workers Prep To Meet ICE Officials At The Health Clinic Door

A policy change by the Trump administration allows federal immigration officials to make arrests at or near sensitive locations, including health care facilities. To respond, some health providers are scrambling to give their staff legal training. In a memo to health care providers, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown advises health workers that they need not record a patient’s immigration status unless it relates to insurance coverage and that they should ask for credentials if someone claiming to be an ICE official shows up. He also said providers should not interfere with an investigation. (Fortiér, 3/21)

State health officials reported the first measles case in Ohio this year. The Ohio Department of Health said the person infected was an adult in Ashtabula County who was unvaccinated and had contact with someone who had recently traveled outside the country. (3/20)

Two Prince George’s County residents who recently traveled together internationally have been confirmed to have measles, the Maryland Department of Health said Thursday. The positive cases are not related to the confirmed measles infection of a Howard County resident that was announced earlier this month, health officials said. The infections also are not associated with the growing measles outbreak that has struck parts of the southwestern United States, including New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. (Deal-Zimmerman, 3/20)

While Chicago so far has been spared from a surge in measles cases in the U.S. this year, public health officials nonetheless are urging people to make sure they've been vaccinated against the highly contagious disease. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been 301 confirmed cases of measles nationwide as of March 13, with about 90% of those cases from an outbreak in Texas and neighboring New Mexico. (Feurer, 3/20)

With its measles outbreak spreading to two additional states, Texas is on track to becoming the cause of a national epidemic if it doesn’t start vaccinating more people, according to public health experts. (Simpson, 3/21)

In February, a 6-year-old Texan was the first child in the United States to die of measles in two decades. Her death might have been a warning to an increasingly vaccine-hesitant country about the consequences of shunning the only guaranteed way to fight the preventable disease. Instead, the anti-vaccine movement is broadcasting a different lesson, turning the girl and her family into propaganda, an emotional plank in the misguided argument that vaccines are more dangerous than the illnesses they prevent. (Zadrozny, 3/20)

Former U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams warned that vaccine skepticism has eroded the importance of herd immunity in light of the measles outbreak in Texas, and put some of the blame on Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In an op-ed published by CNN on Thursday, Adams wrote that the high rate of vaccine decline in the Texas Mennonite community where the measles outbreak began highlights how quickly measles can spread through an unvaccinated population. (Choi, 3/20)

For decades, Bill Nye the Science Guy has imparted a simple message to generations of kids and adults: “Science rules!” The catchphrase took on a new meaning Thursday, as Nye critiqued Health and Human Services chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his views and decisions on science and vaccines. “We really try in planetary science to stay away from the politics,” he said. “But man, it’s really hard right now — this is so extreme.” (Broderick, 3/21)

Since taking the helm of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has both backed vaccination as a public health tool and made remarks that threaten to undermine it. (Johnson and Smith-Schoenwalder, 3/20)

The Food and Drug Administration has found problems at an Indian factory that makes generic drugs for American patients, including one medication that was manufactured there and has been linked to at least eight deaths, federal records show. The agency inspected the factory after a ProPublica investigation in December found that the plant, operated by Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, was responsible for an outsized share of recalls for pills that didn’t dissolve properly and could harm people. (Callahan, 3/20)

UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s drug-benefits unit is starting to reimburse pharmacies more for dispensing brand-name medicines to address longstanding complaints that expensive prescriptions are losing money for drugstores. Pharmacy benefit managers have traditionally compensated pharmacists more for cheaper generic medicines to encourage their use, said Patrick Conway, chief executive officer of UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx unit. But generic adoption has plateaued, and Conway said the old system discouraged some pharmacies from stocking newer branded drugs like diabetes and weight-loss shots. (Swetlitz and Tozzi, 3/20)

Optum Rx is shifting its payment models to better meet the needs of pharmacies and consumers, the pharmacy benefit manager announced Thursday. The company said it will shift to a cost-based model, which will better align with "the costs pharmacies may face due to manufacturer pricing actions." The PBM expects the change to be a positive one for the more than 24,000 independent and community pharmacies it works with, along with its members. (Minemyer, 3/20)

Negotiations to set prices Medicare will pay for the original branded version of etanercept, Enbrel, should bring the government some genuine savings, and may indirectly make it more affordable for everyone, a new analysis indicated. Talks between CMS and drugmaker Amgen authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), former President Biden's signature legislative success, led to an agreement that Medicare would pay $2,355 for a 30-day supply starting next year, approximately one-third of its 2023 list price of $7,106. (Gever, 3/20)

The Food and Drug Administration cleared Alnylam Pharmaceuticals’ treatment for a progressive heart condition Thursday, setting it up to compete with therapies from BridgeBio and Pfizer. (Chen, 3/20)

CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, yesterday announced a $43.5 million deal with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to advance the development of a novel antibody that could reduce costs and improve access to monoclonal antibody treatments. The antibody is called VHH (Variable Heavy domain of a Heavy chain-only antibody) and will be designed to target four potential pandemic influenza virus strains—H1, H3, H5 and H7. (Soucheray, 3/20)

A common blood test may miss ovarian cancer in some Black and Native American patients, delaying their treatment, a new study finds. It’s the latest example of medical tests that contribute to health care disparities. Researchers have been working to uncover these kinds of biases in medicine. Recently, the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion has jeopardized such research as universities react to political pressure and federal agencies comb through grants looking for projects that violate the president’s orders. (Johnson, 3/20)

Two Emerging Infectious Diseases studies link bites from black-legged (deer) and western black-legged ticks to potentially life-threatening alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), or red meat allergy. In the United States, AGS is usually associated with bites from the lone star tick. (Van Beusekom, 3/20)

Electronic reminders to encourage older adults in Denmark to get vaccinated against flu may have unintentionally lowered uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine slightly, but not enough to hamper clinical outcomes, according to a research letter published in JAMA Network Open. (Van Beusekom, 3/20)

Do you ever wonder what it was like to be a baby? But no matter how hard you try, you can’t remember any of the details? It’s not that you don’t have memories from infancy — it’s that you simply can’t access them later in life, new research shows. (Bragg, 3/20)

Increased daytime sleepiness could raise the risk of dementia among women in their eighties, neurologists have warned. A study found that female octogenarians who experience increased daytime sleepiness over a five-year period may have double the risk of developing dementia. (Patrick, 3/20)

As more people with Down syndrome age into their 40s, 50s and 60s, the vast majority will develop Alzheimer’s disease. Their risk of them getting it increases with each decade after 40 years of age, and their overall lifetime risk is more than 90%, according to the National Down Syndrome Society. (Byrnes, 3/20)

Mayor Eric Adams says that one of the four new community jails that were being built to replace Rikers will now be dedicated to inmates with mental health issues. The new facility will be part of the solution to closing Rikers Island. Adams has tapped his new First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro to build the new jail for those with mental health issues. (Kramer, 3/20)

State regulators have shot down a request by Endeavor Health to eliminate inpatient psychiatric services at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights. The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board voted 4-4 on Tuesday on Endeavor’s application for a certificate of exemption to close the 52-bed unit at Northwest Community Hospital — meaning the motion to grant the request failed, said John Kniery, administrator for the board. (Schencker, 3/20)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: US Judge Names Receiver To Take Over California Prisons’ Mental Health Program

A judge has initiated a federal court takeover of California’s troubled prison mental health system by naming the former head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons to serve as receiver, giving her four months to craft a plan to provide adequate care for tens of thousands of prisoners with serious mental illness. Senior U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller issued her order March 19, identifying Colette Peters as the nominated receiver. (Thompson, 3/20)

Two blocks from the Alabama Statehouse, a black wreath hung on the door of Adams Drugs — a symbol to draw attention to the number of neighborhood pharmacies that have closed, or are in danger of closing, across the state. Dozens of independent pharmacies have shuttered in Alabama over the last two years, according to the Alabama Independent Pharmacy Alliance. Pharmacists said that is because of financial pressures, in part, because it can often cost more to dispense a drug than they are reimbursed by pharmacy benefit managers. (Chandler, 3/21)

Alabama lawmakers on Thursday approved a bipartisan bill that would make teachers and state employees eligible for paid parental leave. The Republican dominated House of Representatives voted 94-2 to pass legislation that would offer up to eight weeks of maternity leave and two weeks of paternity leave after the birth, stillbirth or miscarriage of a child. The legislation now goes to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who endorsed the legislation in her annual state of the state speech in February. (3/20)

A new bill from California would seek to remove ultra-processed foods deemed “particularly harmful” to physical and mental health from school lunches by 2032, creating the first legal definition of ultra-processed foods in the U.S. and tasking state scientists and University of California experts with determining which additives pose the most risk in the process. (Todd, 3/19)

The New Hampshire School Board Association has advised schools to eliminate anti-discrimination policies for transgender students to comply with new federal mandates and safeguard their funding. But those mandates are prompting tense debate in some local districts — and warnings that transgender students’ safety could be at risk. (Timmins, 3/20)

Since at least April 2021, the Montana medical licensing board has had evidence, including thousands of pages of patient files and medical reviews, that Dr. Thomas C. Weiner, a popular Helena oncologist, had hurt and potentially killed patients, ProPublica and Montana Free Press have learned. Yet in that time, the board renewed his medical license — twice. Weiner directed the cancer center at St. Peter’s Health for 24 years before he was fired in 2020 and accused of overprescribing narcotics, treating people who didn’t have cancer with chemotherapy and providing substandard care. (McSwane and Silvers, 3/21)

As the first director of South Carolina’s newly organized health agency, Dr. Edward Simmer has a vision of reducing infant mortality, fighting childhood cancers and reducing drug overdoses. But his confirmation has instead turned into a referendum on how the state responded to COVID five years ago and residual anger over lockdowns and vaccines — even though Simmer didn’t start working in the state until February 2021. (Collins, 3/20)

A little over a year ago, Joseph Coates was told there was only one thing left to decide. Did he want to die at home, or in the hospital? Coates, then 37 and living in Renton, Wash., was barely conscious and battling a rare blood disorder called POEMS syndrome. He was too sick to receive a stem cell transplant — one of the only treatments that could have put him into remission. (Morgan, 3/20)

About 2.3 million American kids are living with a disabled veteran in their home—a number researchers said is likely an undercount. These injured service members and veterans are often called wounded warriors; their caregivers more recently earned the nickname hidden heroes. And their children? They are what the Elizabeth Dole Foundation calls “hidden helpers.” (Brookland, 3/20)

Troy Merritt, a pilot for a major U.S. airline, returned from his 30th birthday trip in Croatia in October 2022 — sailing on a catamaran, eating great food, socializing with friends — and cried. When he wasn’t crying, he slept. “I’ve got to find a therapist,” he told himself. And he did, quickly. If that therapist didn’t write down “depression,” Merritt would be OK. He could still fly planes, keep his job — as long as he wasn’t diagnosed with a mental illness. (Ouyang, 3/18)

Five years after Texas’ first COVID death, the state spends less on public health, vaccination rates have dropped and a distrust of authority has taken hold. (Klibanoff, 3/18)

Each year, the Chicago Police Department seizes about 10,000 illegal guns and arrests thousands of people for illegal gun possession. Yet guns remain plentiful and easy to acquire, and young people who live in dangerous neighborhoods say they feel unsafe without them. Now, one group is trying a different tactic, telling those youths: Keep your guns if you must, but learn how to handle them safely. (Dewan, 3/17)

Left out of FDR’s New Deal, the health insurance program for the poor was finally established in 1965. (Zdencanovic, 3/18)

A neurosurgeon who has acted as a consultant for Severance explains the science behind the show’s brain-altering procedure—and whether it could ever become reality. (Feltman, Mwangi, Amarsy and Sugiura, 3/21)

With vaccination rates declining, cases rising, and health care providers encountering their first cases of a disease once eliminated, we believe it is time to reevaluate national measles immunization guidelines, particularly to safeguard a vulnerable group still not fully accounted for in vaccination recommendations: our youngest infants. (Rochelle Walensky, Benjamin Rader and John S. Brownstein, 3/21)

Mandatory culling, inadequate government reimbursement, and prevention costs have led to $1.4 billion in losses for the poultry industry, hurting both farmers and everyday Americans. But despite these soaring costs, the U.S. is about to sunset a relatively affordable, very effective tool we have for stopping bird flu — and other deadly viruses. (Temitope Ibitoye, Jennifer Nuzzo and Diane Meyer, 3/21)

Last fall, when initial data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a surprising drop in drug overdose deaths, the universal response was relief. We were finally getting something right in addressing the opioid epidemic, which accounted for most of the decrease and has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. (Lisa Jarvis, 3/21)

Wholesale egg prices have dropped by more than 40% since late February, a decline that should soon translate into broader savings for consumers at grocery stores. This welcome respite has largely resulted from the lull in significant bird flu outbreaks in recent weeks, perhaps due to seasonal patterns in the virus’s transmission. North American flyways typically remain quiet in February as migratory birds have yet to start their journeys from their winter habitats. (Scott Gottlieb, 3/20)

More than 25 percent of individuals with autism experience its most severe forms. Their daily realities can include profound communication limitations, self-injurious behaviors, seizures, catatonia, sleep problems, and other ongoing medical and behavioral challenges that usually require around-the-clock assistance. (Mark Kendall, 3/20)

Unless Congress acts soon, health insurance costs will rise sharply next year for millions of Americans, including more than 4 million working Floridians and their families. (Julio Fuentes, 3/20)