�鶹Ů��

Senators failed this week to resolve a standoff over funding food aid during the government shutdown and plan to head home Thursday for a long weekend, leaving millions of low-income Americans struggling to purchase groceries starting Saturday. Nov. 1 will mark the first-ever lapse in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and make as many as 42 million food stamp recipients a casualty in the month-long clash over funding the government. (Wasson and Dennis, 10/30)

Demand has doubled at a Washington, DC, food bank over the past few weeks, while another in Texas has been forced to dip into emergency hurricane reserve funds to meet demand. Meanwhile, a Florida charity is giving out 300,000 meals per day but, an official there says, “still it’s not enough.” (Williams, Blackburn, Culpepper, Schiciano, Condon and Kirsch, 10/30)

Ohio is stepping in to help families who could soon lose access to federal food benefits as the government shutdown enters its second month with no deal in sight. Gov. Mike DeWine, Senate President Rob McColley, and House Speaker Matt Huffman on Thursday announced a $25 million plan to blunt the impact if the federal shutdown continues into November. (Staver, 10/30)

As nearly 2 million Illinois residents prepare to lose federal food assistance Saturday amid the government shutdown, Gov. JB Pritzker signed an executive order Thursday directing $20 million toward food banks across the state. (Lourgos and Gorner, 10/30)

The Colorado legislature’s Joint Budget Committee on Thursday unanimously approved spending $10 million from the state’s reserves to shore up food banks and food assistance programs while SNAP benefits are suspended due to the government shutdown. But nonpartisan staff emphasized to lawmakers that Colorado does not have the financial resources to cover people’s lost benefits. (Birkeland, 10/30)

The state will match cash donations to Iowa's six regional food banks starting Nov. 3 to help make up for the absence of funding for people who receive federal food assistance. (Gerlock, Sostaric and Brummer, 10/30)

An unexpected bipartisan consensus that Gov. Ned Lamont’s initial response to the suspension of the SNAP federal food program is inadequate is nudging the governor toward tapping Connecticut’s massive rainy day fund for greater relief. (Phaneuf, 10/31)

As of Thursday, several states have not taken action to protect SNAP benefits, including Alabama, Texas, Kansas and Florida. In Nebraska, the state Department of Health and Human Services announced it would pause SNAP benefits starting Friday. It said it is "actively coordinating with food banks, nonprofit partners, and community organizations," and listed area food banks for those seeking help. (Miller, 10/30)

With the federal government at a standstill and some red states offering up money for food assistance, Gov. Greg Abbott faces pressure to authorize the release of emergency state funding — a move he has done before — to offset the looming federal suspension of SNAP benefits this weekend for 3.5 million low-income Texans. (Langford, Simpson and Byman, 10/30)

Also —

A federal judge in Boston signaled Thursday that she may order the Trump administration to pay food assistance benefits to tens of millions of Americans who are at risk of not getting their November payments because of the government shutdown. (Higham, 10/31)

More on the ACA and open enrollment —

President Trump late Thursday once again slammed ObamaCare, demanding that Democrats “do something” ahead of an imminent spike in Affordable Care Act (ACA) premiums amid the federal funding impasse. “As I have said for years, OBAMACARE IS A DISASTER! Rates are going through the roof for really bad healthcare!!! Do something Democrats!!!” the president wrote in a Truth Social post. His comment comes as the government shutdown nears the one-month mark. Senate Democrats have refused to pass a stopgap bill unless their Republican counterparts agree to extend ACA subsidies that will expire at the end of the year. (Fields, 10/30) 

In Wisconsin, Democrats are launching nearly 400 canvassing events this weekend focused on health care. A major liberal advocacy group, Protect Our Care, will push a six-figure digital campaign. Top Democratic governors, including Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and Laura Kelly of Kansas, are holding press calls to “to slam D.C. Republicans for causing Americans’ health care premiums to skyrocket.” (Crampton, 10/31)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: �鶹Ů�� Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: Happy Open Enrollment Eve! 
Open enrollment for 2026 Affordable Care Act insurance plans starts in most states Nov. 1, with no resolution in Congress about whether to continue more generous premium tax credits expanded under President Joe Biden or let them expire at the end of this year. It is unclear whether the backlash from millions of enrollees seeing skyrocketing premiums will move Democrats or Republicans to back away from entrenched positions that are keeping most of the federal government shut down. (Rovner, 10/30)

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said there is not “sufficient” evidence that Tylenol causes autism, softening warnings he and President Trump have repeatedly made to discourage the medicine’s use by pregnant women and young children. During a press conference Wednesday, Kennedy reiterated that pregnant women should use Tylenol only when “absolutely necessary.” “We’ve all said from the beginning that the causative association between Tylenol given in pregnancy … is not sufficient to say it definitely caused autism, but it is very suggestive,” Kennedy said. (Weixel, 10/30)

Children born to mothers infected with covid-19 during pregnancy faced a higher risk of autism, along with other neurological differences such as delays in speech and motor development, according to a study published Thursday. The analysis of more than 18,100 births in Massachusetts, published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, is among the largest studies to date examining children born to women who contracted the virus starting in the early months of the pandemic through some of 2021, before vaccines were widely available. (Ovalle and Cha, 10/30)

The latest on the surgeon general nominee —

The Senate hearing for President Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Casey Means, is postponed as the nominee goes into labor with her first child, according to a Senate Health, Education Labor and Pension Committee spokesperson and a person familiar with Means. (Owermohle, 10/30)

Calley Means, an influential adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the brother of President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, quietly departed the White House at the end of his term as a special government employee about a month ago, he said in an interview on Wednesday night. For much of the last six months, Mr. Means has acted as the health secretary’s right hand, coordinating a major presidential commission report on what it described as the dire state of children’s health and sparring on television and online with vaccine scientists and doctors who objected to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign to remake American medicine. (Mueller, 10/30)

On vaccine skepticism —

�鶹Ů�� Health News: At The Hollow In Florida, The ‘Medical Freedom’ Movement Finds Its Base Camp
MAGA and MAHA are happily married in Florida, and nowhere more at home than in Sarasota County, where on a humid October night a crowd of several hundred gathered to honor state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, his wife, and an unlicensed Canadian radiologist who treats cancer with horse paste. (Allen, 10/31)

Maybe a client hears about them in the comment section of the Facebook group “Medical Exemption Accepted,” or on the r/unvaccinated forum on Reddit. Maybe it’s through an interview posted on the video-sharing platform Rumble. Or maybe it’s the targeted advertisements on Google: “We do medical exemptions.” Cassandra Clerkin, a mother in upstate New York, first got in touch with Frontline Health Advocates near the start of the 2024-2025 school year, after hearing they had doctors who would write exemptions from school immunization requirements. (Schulson, 10/31)

Access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth will be dramatically restricted by the Trump administration under new proposals by the Department of Health and Human Services. NPR has obtained the draft text of a proposed rule that would prohibit federal Medicaid reimbursement for medical care provided to transgender patients younger than age 18. It also prohibits reimbursement through the Children's Health Insurance Program or CHIP for patients under age 19. (Simmons-Duffin, 10/30)

More health news from across the U.S. —

One of Maine's largest abortion care providers is ending primary care services on Friday after a court ruled that the Trump administration is not required to restore Medicaid funding. Maine Family Planning -- the largest network of sexual and reproductive health care clinics in the state -- is ending primary care services at three clinics in Ellsworth, Houlton and Presque Isle, affecting about 800 patients. (Kekatos, 10/30)

It’s never been easy to qualify for Social Security disability benefits. Christopher Tincher knows this firsthand. Tincher began his working life in a coal mine in Aflex, Kentucky, as a teenager in the 1980s. As mines across the region shuttered, he turned to scraping grills at a Hardee’s, then cleaning office buildings at night, then stocking shelves and changing tires at a Walmart in Arkansas. Later, he was hired by a nearby town’s wastewater department. Often, he had to wade into sewage to fix equipment and clean out feces, needles and tampons entering the treatment facility. (Hager, 10/31)

State officials promise large-scale involuntary addiction and mental health treatment at Salt Lake City’s edge. Critics see “a prison, or a warehouse.” (Barry and DeParle, 10/29)

Health care has become a central issue in the much-watched governors’ races that will be decided next week — and the results could redirect the parties’ midterm strategies or sway their approaches to federal health policy. (Payne, 10/31)

Did White House properly contain asbestos during East Wing demolition? —

Democratic senators and public health advocates are demanding that the White House and its contractors prove their rapid demolition of the East Wing last week did not expose workers and passersby to asbestos, a construction material that has been linked to cancer and lung disease. White House officials have said work to abate hazardous materials at the site was performed last month but have so far not provided documentation of what contractors did to mitigate risks associated with the material, which was widely used in building projects at the time of the East Wing’s 1902 construction and 1942 renovation. (Diamond and George, 10/30)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration violated the law by imposing restrictions on accessing mifepristone, a medication for abortions and miscarriage management, a federal judge in Hawaii ruled Thursday. A lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union argues the FDA continues to overly restrict access to a safe medication without scientific justification. ACLU lawyers asked the judge to find that the FDA violated the law but didn’t seek an immediate elimination of the restrictions, which currently include special certification for prescribers and pharmacies and requiring patients to review a counseling form. (Sinco Kelleher, 10/30)

Updates on the 340B program and drug tariffs —

The Trump administration Thursday released a slate of pharmaceuticals to be included in its 340B Drug Pricing Program rebate pilot. Under 340B, safety-net providers pay 25%-50% less for prescription medications. The program will test allowing drugmakers to pay rebates after purchase to qualifying providers, rather than discounting prices upfront. It will begin Jan. 1 and run for at least a year. (Early, 10/30)

Cigna Group’s pledge to upend the way medicine is priced spooked Wall Street after the company warned the move would hurt profits in the next two years. The company’s shares closed down 17% Thursday, their worst one-day drop since 2008, after Cigna executives warned of the margin pressure during an otherwise routine earnings call. It’s evidence that the company’s plan to eliminate many drug rebates — opaque payments that fueled years of attacks on Cigna and its peers — will hit its bottom line. (Tozzi, 10/30)

Lawmakers impatient with the lack of progress on a key health care issue — the long-debated need for changes to what’s known as the 340B drug pricing program — say they are closing in on legislation aimed at what they say are abuses in the program. (Hellmann, 10/30)

Drugmaker Sandoz Group AG called on European governments to protect local antibiotics manufacturing from a flood of cheaper Chinese products resulting from US tariffs. The Swiss company said the price of the key ingredient in penicillin — a lifesaving product for bacterial infections like pneumonia — has roughly halved lately as Chinese suppliers turn from the US to Europe, putting pressure on its business. (Doenecke, 10/30)

In other pharma and biotech news —

Merck, which has claimed bragging rights as the maker of the world’s best-selling drug, Keytruda, since 2023, has officially been surpassed by Eli Lilly. Lilly’s tirzepatide, marketed as Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes and Zepbound for obesity, saw $10.1 billion in sales in the third quarter, the pharma giant said Thursday, bringing year-to-date sales of the product to $24.8 billion. (Chen, 10/30)

Weight-loss drugs are propelling a new gold rush for the pharmaceutical industry. On Thursday, Eli Lilly delivered a surge in quarterly revenue thanks to its medicines, while Novo Nordisk, the other big player in the market, took the unusual step of lobbing an unsolicited multibillion-dollar bid for a weight-loss-drug startup that had agreed to sell to Pfizer. (Loftus, 10/30)

Gutting funding for key health agencies and terminating thousands of workers does nothing to ensure the future of the biotech industry, experts and Democratic lawmakers argued during a Senate health committee hearing on Wednesday. Sen. Bill Cassidy, MD (R-La.), chair of the committee, applauded medical innovations of the last few decades including vaccines against measles; treatments for obesity, Alzheimer's, melanoma, and other conditions; cures for hepatitis C; tests to detect diseases faster; and other interventions to improve patient outcomes. (Firth, 10/30)

A slow-boiling feud between Vinay Prasad and his staff at the Food and Drug Administration is threatening the future of the center that regulates the nation’s vaccines, biological products, and blood supply. (Lawrence, 10/31)

Also —

At a time when the nation’s drug supply has become increasingly unpredictable, Nabarun Dasgupta uses what he calls “science in service” to bring some clarity to the chaos. Dasgupta has spent two decades using data to tell the story behind street drugs and their hidden dangers. He documents how people use those substances as a way of reducing the harm done by them. (Knopf, 10/31)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says drug makers have recalled more than a half-million bottles of the blood pressure medication prazosin hydrochloride over concerns it may include a cancer-causing chemical. New Jersey-based Teva Pharmaceuticals USA and drugs distributor Amerisource Health Services issued voluntary nationwide recalls earlier this month of more than 580,000 bottles of various strengths of prazosine capsules, according to the FDA. (10/31)

Health insurance companies are fighting fire with fire as they combat rising medical costs they say are being driven up, in part, by artificial intelligence. Large private insurers have continued to call out purportedly overzealous coding and billing as a source of ballooning health care costs. In particular, some have blamed the use of AI tools for some of the surge in claims from health care providers that have cut into their profits. (Palmer, 10/31)

More health industry news —

A group of Montana doctors and nurses is suing the national company that runs a rigorous, often mandatory monitoring program for health care providers grappling with addiction. The case is the latest instance of public criticism about how the state-mandated program for more than 60,000 medical licensees operates. (Silvers, 10/30)

Nurses at University Medical Center New Orleans (UMCNO) announced Thursday that they will hold a three-day strike in November over staff retention concerns amid ongoing contract negotiations. This is the fifth time nurses at this hospital have gone on strike since contract negotiations began. Rose Cutropia, a nurse in the post-anesthesia care unit, told Newsweek that recruitment and retention are critical because UMCNO is the only Level 1 trauma center in the region. (Giella, 10/30)

Mississippi’s first skilled pediatric medical center celebrated its opening Tuesday with a ribbon cutting in Jackson. The Alyce G. Clarke Center for Medically Fragile Children will provide long-term care for patients younger than 19 years old with complex medical conditions and training for others’ families to care for them at home. It is a part of Children’s of Mississippi, the pediatric arm of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. (Dilworth, 10/30)

Dr. Marthe Gautier, a physician and researcher who had a major role in identifying the cause of Down syndrome but whose achievement was undermined when a male colleague took credit for her work, died on April 30, 2022. She was 96. (Grady, 10/30)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: A Bite, A Bill, And A Bureaucratic Chill In Winning Halloween Haikus
Nearly 100 health care-themed haikus crept into our inbox this Halloween. See the winning poems and top runners-up from �鶹Ů�� Health News’ seventh annual Halloween haiku contest, illustrated by Oona Zenda. The judges’ favorites were inspired by tick migration, Medicaid work requirements, and rising copays. (10/31)

On race and health care —

Organs aren’t “harvested” or “kept on ice.” But countering mistrust and misinformation in the Black community isn’t easy. (Durham, 10/29)

Dr. Clive O. Callender fought racism in medicine and built a movement that saved thousands of Black lives. (Durham, 10/22)

Monique Rainford has built a decades-long career as an obstetrician. But, for the last ten years, she’s been grappling with how the traditional health system she’s been a part of has failed to adequately serve Black mothers and babies. (Golvala, 10/30)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Better Treatments Buoy Multiple-Myeloma Patients, Bound By Research Cuts And Racial Disparities
For more than a year, Diane Hunter, now 72, had been experiencing vague symptoms — pain in her spine and hips, nausea, exhaustion, thirst, and frequent urination. Her primary care physician had ruled out diabetes before finally chalking up her ailments to getting older. But months of intense back pain eventually landed her in the emergency room, where a doctor suggested that Hunter might have multiple myeloma. Hunter’s first question was, “What is that?” (Newsome, 10/31)

Asymptomatic human avian influenza A(H5N1) infections occur, and person-to-person transmission is likely in some settings, reveals a scoping review by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers. The study, published yesterday in JAMA Network Open, involved a search for studies on confirmed highly pathogenic H5N1 infection published through August 25, 2025. (Van Beusekom, 10/30)

Six house mice in Grant County, Washington, have been identified as having avian influenza, a mammal detection that is likely linked to increased avian influenza among wild birds in the same county. According to an update from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the mice were collected on October 15. (Soucheray, 10/30)

More people have died from a suspected listeria outbreak —

Two additional deaths have been reported in a listeria outbreak that’s been linked with recalled ready-to-eat pasta salads and prepared meals sold at major grocery chains including Trader Joe’s, Sprouts Farmers Market, Kroger and Walmart, health officials said Thursday. (Koda, 10/31)

On the spread of measles and covid —

Southern Utah has become the epicenter of measles activity in the United States in the past 2 months, but so far, Salt Lake County has not reported any infections. But a new probable case reported by the Salt Lake County Health Department changes that. Officials said a Salt Lake County resident is likely the area’s first case of measles but is refusing to submit to confirmatory testing. (Soucheray, 10/30)

Today the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP, which publishes CIDRAP News), in partnership with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), launched a new digital home for the Coronavirus Vaccines R&D Roadmap (CVR) Initiative with expanded features for researchers, investors, policymakers, and the public. (Wappes, 10/30)

Adults with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or recurrent major depressive disorder—especially those who are older, Black or Hispanic, have chronic conditions, have public health insurance, or were hospitalized during infection—are at elevated risk for long COVID, according to an analysis published yesterday in JAMA Network Open. (Van Beusekom, 10/30)

Also —

Six people who died at a Colorado dairy farm this summer were exposed to hydrogen sulfide gas, authorities said Thursday. The Weld County coroner’s office drew its conclusions from autopsies and toxicology tests. The deaths of five men and a teenager on Aug. 20 sent shockwaves through the rural communities in and around Keenesburg, 35 miles (55 kilometers) northeast of Denver, where emergency responders entered a confined space to recover the bodies. Authorities had immediately expressed concern that the deaths were linked to harmful gases. (Lee and Govindarao, 10/31)

Genetic material pulled from 13 teeth found in a grave in Lithuania revealed infectious diseases that felled the French emperor’s troops as they withdrew from Russia. (Kolata, 10/24)

Miriam Merad’s fascination with macrophages began when she looked into the lungs of a cancer patient she’d just lost during her residency. He developed a rare allergy to the chemotherapy, and died rapidly. The case still haunts her. “When you have a patient dying of a treatment that you gave, you never forget that,” she said. “It’s very present.” (Chen, 10/28)

As a new Ph.D. student in 2011, Steve Ramirez and his mentor performed a groundbreaking experiment in the field of memory manipulation. They placed a mouse in a small distinctive box and administered a mild electrical shock to its feet. When the rodent was placed in the box a second time, it froze up — anticipating another shock. From there, the young neuroscientists placed the mouse in a different box, one where nothing bad had happened. (Talpos, 10/29)

Across the country, wildfire fighters work for weeks at a time in poisonous smoke. The government says they are protected. We tested the air at one fire to find out why they are still dying. (Dreier and Murray, 10/28)

A Somali hospital ward packed with gasping children shows how war, climate and mistrust of vaccines is fueling the disease’s return. (Nolen, 10/27)

This month, I received a distressing call from a nurse at my neurologist’s office informing me that, thanks to inaction by Congress and President Donald Trump, I could no longer meet with my doctors using telehealth. This came as a shock. Though I regularly keep up with the news, I saw no mention that so many patients had suddenly been denied the coverage that allows them to see a doctor virtually. (Susan Graham, 10/29)

The 1 in 5 Americans suffering from chronic pain may soon lose access to evidence-based interventions that have existed for decades. (Tricia Pendergrast, 10/31)

President Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress have a decision to make: They can step up to protect millions of people, providing the security and dignity that comes from being cared for when sick or injured, or they can keep holding our health care hostage and leave a body count. (Thomas Fisher, 10/30)

A month’s supply of Miebo, Bausch & Lomb’s prescription dry eye drug, costs $800 or more in the U.S. before insurance. But the same drug — sold as EvoTears — has been available over-the-counter (OTC) in Europe since 2015 for about $20. I ordered it online from an overseas pharmacy for $32 including shipping, and it was delivered in a week. (David Maris, 10/31)

Moving to a nursing home or assisted-living facility doesn’t have to feel like a loss. (Leana S. Wen, 10/30)