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A closely watched advisory panel to the CDC voted Thursday to tweak recommendations for a measles vaccine that includes protection against the varicella, or chickenpox, virus. The new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) suggests the vaccine, called MMRV, shouldn’t be recommended for children under age 4 because of a small risk for febrile seizures in that age group. The seizures can be prompted by fevers associated with viruses or, sometimes, vaccines. They usually last for a few minutes and, while they are scary for parents to witness, are generally harmless, doctors say. (Bendix, Edwards, Lovelace Jr. and Szabo, 9/18)

The confusion-riddled voting process marked the end of a frequently heated meeting, in which a theme of distrust seemed to pervade the proceedings. (Kansteiner, 9/18)

A key government advisory committee discussed on Thursday whether to recommend delaying the first hepatitis B vaccine shot, currently given at birth, by at least one month for babies who are born to mothers that test negative for the virus. Experts fear such a change could set back decades of public health work that has almost eliminated infant hepatitis B cases in the U.S. The members of the Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices pushed a vote on the issue to Friday. Experts fear that if ACIP does shift the initial shot, more children will develop chronic liver infections and complications. (Oza, Chen and Cirruzzo, 9/18)

A panel of federal vaccine advisers appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will launch a new review on the use of vaccines during pregnancy, the panel’s chair said. Martin Kulldorff, a statistician and former Harvard professor who chairs the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), made the announcement at the start of Thursday’s meeting, where panelists will consider recommendations related to the pediatric vaccine schedule, including hepatitis B. (Weixel, 9/18)

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�鶹Ů�� Health News: Kennedy’s Take On Vaccine Science Fractures Cohesive National Public Health Strategies
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has had a busy few months. He fired the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, purged the agency’s vaccine advisory committee, and included among the group’s new members appointees who espouse anti-vaccine views. The leadership upheavals, which he says will restore trust in federal health agencies, have shaken the confidence many states have in the CDC and led to the fracturing of a national, cohesive immunization policy that’s endured for three decades. (Armour, Mai-Duc, Maxmen and Allen, 9/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: �鶹Ů�� Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: Ousted CDC Officials Clap Back At RFK Jr.
The recently fired head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told senators that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered her to fire top officials and agree to approve changes to national vaccine recommendations — before the recommendations were made and regardless of what the science says. Meanwhile, Congress heads toward a government shutdown, with expanded subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans in the balance. (Rovner, 9/18)

The MAHA movement is rallying behind its leader, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after senators berated the health secretary in back-to-back hearings this month for firing the CDC’s director and moving to revise vaccine guidance. Now those in Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again Movement plan events in nearly a dozen cities, from Florida to California, on Sept. 27 to thank him for sticking up for kids’ health, they said during a call with supporters. (Paun, 9/18)

Discredited autism researcher David Geier has full access to personally identifiable data from the original Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) and may be angling to conduct more studies with newer VSD data, according to a former CDC official. In a letter sent to co-chairs ahead of the Senate's health committee hearing on Wednesday, Daniel Jernigan, MD, MPH, former director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, provided insights into what Geier is doing inside the agency. (Fiore, 9/18)

A modeling study today in JAMA Network Open estimates that COVID-19 vaccination of all people in the United States in 2024-25 would have prevented 10% to 20% of hospitalizations and deaths compared with no vaccination, with additional indirect benefits to older adults compared with vaccinating only high-risk groups. The findings come at a crucial time, after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May recommended COVID vaccines only for adults 65 and older and for people at risk for severe illness. (Van Beusekom, 9/18)

The State Department outlined a new plan Thursday to move from global health aid to fostering the self-reliance of countries the U.S. has supported in prior years. The U.S. will focus on working directly with nations, requiring them to co-invest in global health initiatives in order to tackle diseases such as tuberculosis, polio and HIV/AIDS as part of a new strategy from President Trump’s administration. (Timotija, 9/18)

An appeals court Wednesday refused the Trump administration’s request to resume mass layoffs at federal health agencies as part of a restructuring effort. The unanimous three-judge panel on the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift a lower order blocking the restructuring as Democratic-led states press ahead with their lawsuit.  (Schonfeld, 9/18)

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Federal officials will for the first time fire one of the organizations responsible for coordinating organ donations in the United States, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Thursday. It is an escalation in the government’s efforts to fix the national transplant system after reports of unsafe and unfair practices. The organization, Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency in South Florida, is one of 55 nonprofits across the country that have federal contracts to arrange transplants. The decision to cut ties with the organization, effectively shutting it down, is meant to warn the other groups to improve or face a similar fate, Mr. Kennedy said. (Rosenthal, 9/18)

It was a striking line in an extraordinary address, delivered two days after her husband was assassinated. “If he ever ran for office,” Erika Kirk said of her husband, Charlie, he always said “his top priority would be to revive the American family.” President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have echoed Mrs. Kirk’s characterization of her husband’s values — highlighting how their close ally encouraged young people, above all else, to “go get married” and have children. (Kitchener, 9/19)

House Republicans are working to avert a government shutdown with a Friday vote on legislation that funds federal agencies through November 21 and boosts money for security for government officials. But few, if any, Democrats are expected to go along. Their fight to inject health care into the funding debate could mean Congress could fail to approve spending legislation before the September 30 deadline. House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Thursday he expected the bill to pass. (Grisales, Walsh and Sprunt, 9/19)

Congressional Democrats’ push to make subsidies for Obamacare health plans permanent would cost about $350 billion over a decade, budget analysts said Thursday, raising the stakes in a standoff that threatens to shut down the government in less than two weeks. (Cohrs Zhang and Tozzi, 9/18)

Related news on Medicaid, hospital costs, and insurance denials —

A federal watchdog reported Thursday that Georgia’s program requiring able-bodied adults to document low-paying work to get Medicaid has spent much more on administrative costs than on providing health care. The U.S. Government Accountability Office report on Georgia Pathways comes after Republicans mandated similar work requirements throughout the U.S. as part of the “big, beautiful bill” signed into law by President Donald Trump. (Kramon, 9/18)

Hospitals are posting fewer prices for services than in previous years despite a push for greater transparency that would benefit patients, new research has found. An interim semiannual report from Patient Rights Advocate, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, reviewed pricing files of the top 2,000 largest hospitals from March 1 to April 19. It found 43% of hospitals posted fewer prices for services than they did when the group researched the issue in November. (DeSilva, 9/18)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Listen: The Surprising Power Of Pushback When Health Insurance Won’t Pay
Being denied insurance coverage can be both confusing and, at times, enraging. But mounting a skillful challenge can turn a “no” into “yes.” From confusing policy language to coding errors to shifting insurer rules, a new episode of NPR’s “Life Kit” podcast explores why denials happen and how to avoid common pitfalls. (Fortiér, 9/19)

In other updates from Capitol Hill —

A group of congressional Democrats have submitted a bill to prevent large payers from buying up clinics. The Patients Over Profits Act would bar large insurers and their subsidiaries from owning certain clinics participating in Medicare, in what a press release described as a move to “pad their own pockets and leave patients out in the cold.” The announcement specifically called out UnitedHealth’s Optum, which has bought up a string of clinics across the members' home states of Oregon, New York and Washington. (Gliadkovskaya, 9/18)

House members seemed generally supportive Thursday of bills that would expand access to "breakthrough" medical devices, although Democrats complained that the focus on the topic was misguided at a time when the Trump administration and Congress are cutting funding for research on cancer and other diseases. "We continue to fiddle in this subcommittee while Rome burns," said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee, during a hearing on "Examining Policies to Enhance Seniors' Access to Breakthrough Medical Technologies." (Frieden, 9/18)

Draft legislation is circulating at the White House and on Capitol Hill that would hand President Trump sweeping power to wage war against drug cartels he deems to be “terrorists,” as well as against any nation he says has harbored or aided them, according to people familiar with the matter. A wide range of legal specialists have said that U.S. military attacks this month on two boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea were illegal. But Mr. Trump has claimed that the Constitution gave him the power he needed to authorize it. (Savage and Jimison, 9/19)

A new sustainable method to produce pharmaceuticals could help to lower prescription drug costs in the U.S. This chemical discovery by the University of Maine, the USDA Forest Products Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin could help to address one of the main factors driving high prices for medications like cholesterol-lowering drugs and antibiotics—the cost of production. (Millington, 9/18)

More on drug costs and tariffs —

Cigna aims to strengthen its grip on the specialty pharmacy market through a recent deal with Shields Health Solutions. The company’s Evernorth Health Services subsidiary, which includes the pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts and the specialty pharmacy Accredo, announced a $3.5 billion investment into Shields Health Solutions on Sept. 2. (Tong, 9/18)

In addition to manufacturing drug substance for argenx’s autoimmune blockbuster Vyvgart at its facility in Hillerød, Denmark, Fujifilm will also make the product at its large-scale complex in Holly Springs, N.C. The CDMO will initiate production of Vyvgart at the plant in 2028. ... Deals are coming quickly for Fujifilm as the industry reacts to the threat of sector-specific tariffs on pharmaceutical imports under the second Trump administration. (Dunleavy, 9/18)

In other pharma and tech developments —

Hundreds of telehealth companies, concierge medical practices, and medical spas have over the last few years built huge businesses offering compounded versions of popular GLP-1 obesity drugs while branded versions were in shortage. In more than 50 warning letters sent last week and published on Tuesday, the FDA took these health providers and companies to task for false and misleading claims about the compounded products they market. The FDA has framed the letters as part of a broader crackdown on direct-to-consumer drug advertising from the Department of Health and Human Services, which also included dozens of letters to drugmakers about promotional activities. (Palmer, 9/19)

A daily pill previously shown to slow the progression of type 1 diabetes has now shown a loss of therapeutic benefit when stopped—affirming the promise of the treatment. In 2023, an Australian trial reported that a daily pill of baricitinib—commonly prescribed for rheumatoid arthritis and alopecia—could safely preserve the body's own insulin production and slow the development of type 1 diabetes in those recently diagnosed. (Millington, 9/18)

America’s leadership in the cutting-edge field of brain technology is being challenged as Chinese startups rise with the support of a full-throttle policy drive. For years, US companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp. have led the industry with state-of-the-art procedures implanting chips into patients’ brains. A wave of clinical trials by Chinese startups this year is shifting that narrative. (Tong and Rai, 9/18)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Exactech Will Pay $8M To Settle Lawsuits Over Defective Knee Implant Parts
Medical device manufacturer Exactech has agreed to pay $8 million to settle allegations that it concealed defects in a popular line of artificial knee implants, which have been blamed for thousands of patient injuries in lawsuits. The settlement resolves two whistleblower lawsuits alleging the Florida company violated the federal False Claims Act by billing government health care programs such as Medicare for knee replacement parts it knew were defective. (Schulte, 9/19)

It pays quite well to be a doctor in Minnesota. Physicians in Rochester are paid more than doctors in any other metropolitan area in the U.S., according to a new report. And doctors in Minneapolis earn the eighth highest salaries. (Castle Work, 9/18)

Though North Carolina still has far fewer nurses than it needs, incremental gains have been made in addressing the shortage. That was the key takeaway from an analysis released Sept. 15 by the NC Health Talent Alliance, a public-private partnership of the NC Center on the Workforce for Health, the NC Chamber Foundation and the state’s network of Area Health Education Centers. (Baxley, 9/19)

More health industry news —

Medicare Advantage insurers will be required to submit provider directories to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services next year under a final rule issued Thursday. CMS intends to incorporate provider network information into the Medicare Plan Finder portal. This policy builds on a plan the agency announced last month to assemble provider lists it will add to the plan finder for the upcoming annual enrollment period. Insurer participation in that initiative is voluntary. CMS eventually aims to create a national provider directory. (Early, 9/18)

Ten Wisconsin rural hospitals formed a clinically integrated network, following dozens of rural providers that have joined similar initiatives over the past two years. The Wisconsin High Value Network looks to pool the expertise and scale of the independent rural hospitals, which have combined $880 million in net revenue, to improve care and lower costs. (Kacik, 9/18)

VillageMD is selling 32 Texas clinics to Harbor Health, an Austin-based primary and specialty clinic group that also offers health plans. The deal includes 10 clinics in Austin, 10 in San Antonio, six in El Paso and six in Dallas. More than 80 clinicians will join Harbor as part of the transaction, according to a Thursday news release. (Hudson, 9/18)

Medical transport company owner Todd Strine said Crozer Health’s Taylor Hospital closed because its private equity-backed owner drained resources. Now, he’s taking a hands-on approach to bringing it back. The community hospital on the outskirts of Philadelphia was forced to close its doors five months ago after extensive efforts to secure a buyer failed. But a group of investors sponsored by Keystone Quality Transport, of which Strine is majority owner, acquired the former Crozer Health Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, for $1 million on Sept. 10. (Hudson, 9/18)

Blue Shield of California’s tech-focused sister company has added two regional Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurers as customers and co-founders. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas and Hawaii Medical Service Association announced Thursday they had signed on as co-founders of Stellarus. (Tong, 9/18)

Johns Hopkins Medicine and UnitedHealthcare (UHC) officially ended contract talks after failing to reach common ground on a new contract agreement. More than eight months of negotiations came to a head at the end of August when the prior agreement between the academic health system and the nation’s largest private health insurer came to an end. The organizations continued their negotiations past the deadline, but were unable to strike a new deal and the academic medical center will not return to the insurer's network. (Muoio and Landi, 9/17)

Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, on Wednesday signed into law a bill that lets people sue anyone suspected of manufacturing, distributing or mailing abortion pills to or from Texas. The first-of-its-kind law is almost certain to dramatically escalate the state-by-state showdown over abortion laws in the post Roe v Wade United States – especially as some out-of-state abortion providers have already vowed that they will continue shipping pills to Texans. “Our mantra as a practice is: ‘No anticipatory obedience’,” said Dr Angel Foster, co-founder of the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project (Map), a Boston-area based group that uses telemedicine to ship abortion pills to patients across the United States. (Sherman, 9/18)

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier cites health risks and potential conflicts with state abortion laws as the states ask to intervene in the high-profile FDA challenge. Florida and Texas have filed a petition to join a federal lawsuit challenging federal approval and expanded access to the abortion pill mifepristone. (Mayer, 9/18)

In other reproductive health news —

The largest study ever conducted on pregnancy-related nausea and vomiting has revealed links between severe morning sickness and long-term mental health risks, raising what researchers call "very serious" concerns. The study—led by King's College London and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust—examined the records of 476,857 pregnant women diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), a condition marked by extreme and persistent nausea and vomiting. (Gray, 9/18)

More health news from across the U.S. —

Seven Northeastern states and New York City have announced a regional coalition aimed at strengthening public health capabilities and reinforcing evidence-based health guidance. Called the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, it follows an informal meeting in August and other talks between the members’ public health authorities that began earlier this year. (Muoio, 9/18)

Just 15 months after receiving an award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for excellence in community water fluoridation, the city of Grayling, Michigan, changed course. With little notice or fanfare, council members voted unanimously in May to end Grayling’s decadeslong treatment program. The city shut down the equipment used to deliver the drinking water additive less than two weeks later. (Clark, 9/18)

A Lexington, Kentucky, restaurant has been fined $25,000 by the Lexington Human Rights Commission for discriminating against a patron over her service dog. The woman, a disabled Navy veteran, was denied service and told to leave the Oasis Mediterranean Restaurant in Chevy Chase in March 2023 because of her service dog. According to the hearing officer’s report, the restaurant "refused to accommodate her request to use the restaurant’s restroom and presumably the use of its buffet table.” (Patton, 9/18)

Minnesota has reported its first H5N1 detection in poultry since April, which involves a commercial turkey farm in Redwood County. The detection comes on the heels of similar outbreaks in South Dakota and North Dakota earlier this month. (Soucheray, 9/18)

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Dr. Mohamed Kuziez, 35, is bragging about one of his favorite patients. “She is fierce,” the Denver pediatrician says, fishing out his phone like a proud dad. He volunteered in Gaza for three weeks earlier this year, which is why his phone also contains images of decaying corpses in the wreckage of a building, a lineup of torched Palestinian ambulances, and human organs, red and incongruous on surgical sheeting, outside of the bodies they once served. (Moore, 9/18)

Men seek weight loss treatment far less often than women. Doctors are concerned. (Bajaj, 9/18)

Even with their limitations, the market for GLP-1 weight-loss pills could be big. They could eventually make up about 25% of the total market, estimates David Risinger, an analyst at Leerink Partners, which focuses on healthcare investment banking. “They still have the potential to generate mega-blockbuster sales because consumer demand for oral obesity pills will be tremendous,” Risinger said. (Loftus, 9/18)

In 2019, nutrition scientist Kevin Hall and his colleagues published eye-popping results from a unique experiment. For four weeks, study participants stayed in a hospital ward at the National Institutes of Health, splitting their time on two different diets: one high in minimally processed foods, the other high in ultra-processed foods, products that contain factory-made ingredients and additives not found in a typical home kitchen. On the ultra-processed diet, individuals ate a whopping 500 calories more per day. Although small and time-limited, this was the first experimental study to link UPFs to human obesity. (Talpos, 9/19)

Elissa Kalver was 34 when she found a lump in her breast. She had no family history of cancer and had just welcomed her first child. She assumed the lump was a cyst. But when she went to get it checked out, doctors found another lump in her armpit. Biopsies found that both lumps were malignant. More tests found the situation was worse than she could have imagined: a PET scan found cancer in her lower spine and liver. (Breen, 9/13)

The first thing Debra McVean did when she woke up at the hospital in March 2024 was try to get to the bathroom. But her left arm wouldn’t move; neither would her left leg. She was paralyzed all along her left side. She had suffered a stroke, her doctor soon explained. A few nights before, a blood clot had lodged in an artery in her neck, choking off oxygen to her brain cells. Now an M.R.I. showed a dark spot in her brain, an eerie absence directly behind her right eye. (Gross, 9/4)

Michel Odent, a French obstetrician whose natural childbirth innovations, including homelike delivery rooms and birthing pools, aimed to make new mothers feel calm and secure, died on Aug. 19 in London. He was 95. His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his companion and medical partner, Liliana Lammers, a doula. (Nossiter, 9/12)

For millions of people, a rural ZIP code is more than just an address — it’s a powerful predictor of health outcomes. It can mean a shorter life expectancy. It can mean longer travel times to see a doctor — if one is available at all. And, critically, it can determine whether the nearest hospital is among the more than 400 currently at risk of closure, according to a study by The Chartis Center for Rural Health. (Gene Woods, 9/18)

America’s vaccine policies are facing their most serious crisis in decades. Florida plans to eliminate school vaccine mandates, making it the first state to abandon policies that have anchored America’s immunization governance since the 1960s. Meanwhile, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has purged the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee and thrown national health institutions into disarray. (Mark C. Navin and Katie Attwell, 9/18)

On Thursday, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel voted to recommend limiting the combination measles, mumps, rubella, varicella vaccine, and on Friday the panel will vote on Covid vaccine recommendations, as well as whether or not to continue recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for infants within 24 hours of birth. (Paul A. Offit and David Wallace-Wells, 9/19)

I was the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director who approved the ACIP recommendations for children to receive Covid-19 vaccines in 2021 (ages 5-17) and 2022 (6 months and older). These recommendations were made after public review of surveillance data, the trial data, and the burden of Covid-19 in U.S. children. (Rochelle Walensky, 9/19)

For decades the U.K. has punched above its weight in life sciences. I would wager that as many as a quarter of medicines approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the past decade can trace their origins back to the U.K., thanks to some of the best basic science in the world (more than 30 Nobel laureates and over 10% of life science publications worldwide, ranking third globally), a vibrant investment ecosystem, and close ties to international pharmaceutical companies with significant R&D bases in the U.K. (David Grainger, 9/19)