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Hundreds of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees have received permanent termination notices, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter, marking the latest blow in the Trump administration’s sweeping purge of the agencies that oversee government health programs. Between 500 and 600 employees at the agency were terminated as of Monday, said one CDC employee, who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation. A federal health official confirmed that these notices were sent, but declined to provide a number. (Sun and Moon, 8/21)

More than 750 employees across the Department of Health and Human Services sent a signed letter to members of Congress and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday morning, calling on the secretary to stop spreading misinformation. The letter states the deadly shooting that occurred at the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Aug. 8 was "not random" and was driven by "politicized rhetoric." (Kekatos, 8/20)

The Trump administration has delayed or blocked millions of dollars in federal grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), leaving state and local health departments in the dark, uncertain when or even if they will get money that’s already been appropriated by Congress for key public health initiatives. With little communication from the White House, CDC staff are trying to expedite getting grants out the door, and public health officials are scrambling to spend the money they have before it expires Sept. 30. (Weixel, 8/20)

One of the big items on Congress's plate when it comes back in September will be passing appropriations bills to keep federal funds flowing, including money for health agencies and healthcare. And while the Senate has made a start on appropriating health funds, the House has yet to act. (Frieden, 8/20)

When the Trump administration announced massive cuts to federal health agencies earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he was getting rid of excess administrators who were larding the government with bureaucratic bloat. But a groundbreaking data analysis by ProPublica shows the administration has cut deeper than it has acknowledged. Though Kennedy said he would add scientists to the workforce, agencies have lost thousands of them, along with colleagues who those scientists depended on to dispatch checks, fix computers and order lab supplies, enabling them to do their jobs. (Roberts, Waldman and Rebala, 8/21)

Erin McCanlies was listening to the radio one morning in April when she heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promising to find the cause of autism by September. The secretary of Health and Human Services said he believed an environmental toxin was responsible for the dramatic increase in the condition and vowed to gather “the most credible scientists from all over the world” to solve the mystery. Nothing like that has ever been done before, he told an interviewer. (Lerner, 8/20)

Dr. Jake Scott is on the front line of his second pandemic in five years and he is not getting much sleep. Scott works full-time as an infectious disease physician at Stanford Health Care’s Tri-Valley hospital in Pleasanton, California. When he is done taking care of his patients and his two grade-school aged kids, he often stays up past midnight writing — furiously penning op-eds, collecting studies, leading evidence reviews and posting meaty threads on social media, most of them correcting the record on vaccines. (Goodman, 8/20)

The Justice Department is demanding that hospitals turn over a wide range of sensitive information related to medical care for young transgender patients, including billing documents, communication with drug manufacturers and data such as patient dates of birth, Social Security numbers and addresses, according to a copy of a subpoena made public in a court filing this week. The June subpoena to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia requests emails, Zoom recordings, “every writing or record of whatever type” doctors have made, voicemails and text messages on encrypted platforms dating to January 2020 — before hormone therapy, puberty blockers and gender transition surgery had been banned anywhere in the United States. (Parks and Ovalle, 8/20)

Gender-affirming care will no longer be covered for federal workers in 2026, according to a letter the Trump administration sent to insurance carriers. The notice from the Office of Personnel Management informs insurers participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefits or Postal Service Health Benefits programs that “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits” will no longer be covered. The announcement, dated Aug. 15, cements the administration’s expected move to halt gender-affirming care following President Donald Trump’s January executive order to enforce laws based on a person’s biological sex. (Clason, 8/19)

The Trump administration appears to be following through on its threat to withhold federal funds from public schools in Northern Virginia after they refused to roll back policies that support transgender and gender non-conforming students. The U.S. Education Department announced Tuesday that it has placed Fairfax County Public Schools and the school systems in Arlington, Alexandria, Prince William and Loudoun on “high-risk status,” a move that it claims lets it attach specific conditions for releasing funding. (Woolsey, 8/20)

Long confined to the medical fringe, “restorative reproductive medicine” has unified Christian conservatives and proponents of the Make America Healthy Again movement on the political right. (Kitchener, 8/21)

UnitedHealth Group Inc. formed a new “public responsibility committee” within its board to enhance governance and oversight as the embattled health-care conglomerate tries to repair its standing with shareholders, regulators and the public. The committee “will monitor and oversee financial, regulatory, and reputational risks,” the company said in a filing Wednesday. UnitedHealth also named a new lead independent director, the former Vanguard Group chief F. William McNabb, who has served on the board since 2018. (Tozzi, 8/20)

UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Elevance Health Inc. told Colorado regulators they will exit some individual health plans in the state, the latest sign of instability in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. The plan exits would mean 96,000 Coloradans would have to find new coverage next year, according to a news release from the state’s Division of Insurance. (Tozzi, 8/20)

Health insurance companies are looking to cut costs by ranking providers like they tier pharmaceuticals. Last week, HealthPartners announced plans to offer large employers its Simplica NextGen Copay, a plan that sets fixed copays by provider and eliminates coinsurance and deductibles. CVS Health subsidiary Aetna is rolling out Aetna Informed Choice, a new plan for employers based on its variable copay plan, a spokesperson said in an email. (Tepper, 8/20)

Hospital costs are growing as an increasing number of sicker patients visit the emergency department, according to a new report. The average cost of an inpatient stay rose 4.8% from mid-2023 to early 2025, according to the latest national data from Sg2, a data analytics company owned by group purchasing organization Vizient. At academic medical centers, per-case cost growth nearly doubled the rate of expense inflation at community hospitals between the first quarters of 2022 and 2025. (Kacik and Broderick, 8/20)

Health systems are teaming up with skilled nursing facilities on bed space and staffing to quickly move patients to post-acute care and avoid readmissions. Stanford Health Care, Scripps Health, Cone Health and others say leasing beds within nursing homes and embedding hospital staff at those facilities frees up hospital capacity. These strategies can also help the systems avoid millions of dollars in penalties and tee up partnerships ahead of the Transforming Episode Accountability Model or TEAM. But providers warn the collaborations must be carefully choreographed to work effectively. (Eastabrook, 8/20)

Epic CEO Judy Faulkner took to the stage at the company’s sci-fi-themed annual customer meeting Tuesday in a lavender wig, bright green glasses, and silver pants. In the spirit of “making science fiction science fact,” she announced several new artificial intelligence features the electronic health records system giant will be integrating into its software. (Trang, 8/20)

By the time she graduated high school, the back pain that Nala White first noticed at age 13 had radiated to her left leg, creating an unbearable sensation of pins and needles. The mere act of standing at her graduation ceremony was excruciating. “I had to sit there and dig my nails into my palms and just bear through it,” White said. At home, a simple walk from her bedroom to the kitchen brought her to tears. And a trip to the mailbox down the street would cause her leg to burn, forcing White to crouch or sit for relief. (Bendix and Barber, 8/20)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Try This When Your Doctor Says ‘Yes’ To A Preventive Test But Insurance Says ‘No’

Trying to figure out why her claim was denied took Anna Deutscher a lot of time and work. Baby Beckham’s hearing screenings were preventive care, which is supposed to be covered by law. Every hearing test cost them about $350 out-of-pocket. Between those bills and Beckham’s other health costs, the family maxed out two credit cards. “Everything just immediately goes right to trying to pay that debt off,” Deutscher said. (Fortiér, 8/21)

Being overweight or obese has long been linked to a greater risk of developing or dying from breast cancer. New research suggests a reason: Certain breast cancer tumors may feed on neighboring fat cells. The findings may help scientists find ways to treat triple-negative breast cancer, which is notoriously aggressive and has lower survival rates. Moreover, the results may apply to any cancer that uses fat as an energy source, according to the report, published Wednesday in Nature Communications. (Carroll, 8/20)

A small, preliminary study found that marathoners were much more likely to have precancerous growths. Experts aren’t sure why. (Rabin, 8/19)

A nanobody-based technology can precisely identify and attack lung cancer cells—sparing surrounding healthy tissue. This is the promise of researchers at the Bio-Nano Research Center at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), who say that the approach could improve cancer therapy by reducing harmful side effects and maximizing efficiency. (Millington, 8/19)

An experimental cancer vaccine has shown promising results in keeping pancreatic and colorectal cancers from coming back. In a clinical trial led by the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, researchers tested the vaccine on 25 patients who had previously been treated for pancreatic and colorectal cancers. (Perkins, 8/19)

Cancer survivors had disproportionately higher rates of drug prescriptions for antidepressants and anxiolytics in a survey of more than 50,000 people. Individuals who reported a personal history of cancer had a 32% higher rate of prescriptions for medications used to treat depression, increasing to almost 40% higher for anti-anxiety medications, compared with the general population. (Bankhead, 8/20)

UChicago Medicine hopes to expand its cancer care across the country — becoming the latest hospital system to try to grow by working with health systems outside its home turf. UChicago Medicine announced its first affiliation Tuesday with AdventHealth Cancer Institute Shawnee Mission in the Kansas City area. As part of the affiliation, patients at the Kansas cancer institute will have access to UChicago Medicine treatments, clinical trials and second opinions from UChicago Medicine doctors. (Schencker, 8/20)

Parents of newborns are being urged to take extra care when preparing powdered infant formula after new research revealed that the ambiguity of many current instructions may leave babies vulnerable to a deadly foodborne bacteria. The study, published in the Journal of Food Protection by Cornell University researchers, highlights dangerous gaps in the guidelines printed on formula packaging. (Gray, 8/20)

Omega-3 fatty acids could help to protect women against Alzheimer's—with women "disproportionately impacted" by the disease compared to men. It seems there is a noticeable loss of unsaturated fats, like those that contain omega fatty acids, in the blood of women with Alzheimer's disease compared to healthy women. Scientists from King's College London came to this discovery through analysis of lipids—fat molecules that perform many essential functions in the body. (Millington, 8/20)

Higher dietary intake of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids was associated with a reduced risk of myopia in children, according to findings from a population-based study in Hong Kong. Among over 1,000 children, axial length was longest -- indicating myopia -- in the lowest quartile group of dietary omega-3 fatty acid intake compared with the highest quartile group, reported Jason C. Yam, MBBS, MPH, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and colleagues in the British Journal of Ophthalmology. (Dotinga, 8/19)

Emergency room visits have spiked across the Midwest this summer as millions of Americans grapple with tick bites, but a lesser-known tick-borne illness is causing particular alarm in some communities. Alpha-gal syndrome, transmitted by the lone star tick, creates severe allergies to meat and dairy products that can last for years. The condition essentially forces people to adopt vegan diets, with some patients experiencing life-threatening reactions even to the smell of cooking meat. (Menezes and Vargas, 8/20)

Covid cases are climbing again this summer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s forecasting model estimates that infections are growing, or likely growing, in most states. While the agency is reporting low levels of the virus in wastewater nationally, some states, including Texas, Utah and Nevada, are showing very high concentrations of Covid in their wastewater. Emergency department visits linked to Covid are rising, too. (Blum, 8/20)

Neuroscientists have long held that the brain reorganizes itself when a body part is amputated. A new study says that’s not the case. (Paulus, 8/21)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: How Older People Are Reaping Brain Benefits From New Tech

It started with a high school typing course. Wanda Woods enrolled because her father advised that typing proficiency would lead to jobs. Sure enough, the federal Environmental Protection Agency hired her as an after-school worker while she was still a junior. Her supervisor “sat me down and put me on a machine called a word processor,” Woods, now 67, recalled. “It was big and bulky and used magnetic cards to store information. I thought, ‘I kinda like this.’” (Span, 8/21)

A pair of construction companies overlooked safety concerns, causing a “completely preventable” outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City that's killed at least five people and sickened dozens more, according to lawsuits filed Wednesday. ... "This medical tragedy that led to the deaths of five citizens from Harlem, that we know about, was a completely preventable outbreak," the plaintiffs' attorney, Ben Crump, told reporters. (Li, 8/20)

A man battling a rare brain infection from an amoeba in Lake of the Ozarks has died, state health officials confirmed Wednesday. The man died Tuesday at a St. Louis area hospital. No other information was provided. (Munz, 8/20)

States are warning beachgoers about a summertime surge in infections from a frightening, flesh-eating bacteria found in coastal waters. Vibrio vulnificus are becoming an annual threat along the Gulf Coast and — increasingly — up the Eastern Seaboard. People should listen to the warnings, said Bernie Stewart, a 65-year-old retired bounty hunter in Florida who counts himself lucky to have survived an infection. In August 2019, Stewart’s right leg was infected while he was kayak fishing in Pensacola Bay. (Stobbe, 8/20)

A locally acquired case of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness, has been confirmed in Hillsborough County, state health officials said Tuesday. In response to the report, Hillsborough’s mosquito control division is conducting aerial spraying and other preventive measures to limit mosquito activity. (Mayer, 8/20)

A for-profit psychiatric hospital in Raleigh — regularly sanctioned by regulators and visited by police due to fights, patient escapes and reports of alleged sexual assault — is expanding to serve more people. Last year, Holly Hill Hospital announced a partnership with the Raleigh Police Department in which officers would take people in mental distress directly to the hospital’s campus in downtown Raleigh instead of first going to a hospital emergency department or other facility for evaluation. (Knopf, 8/21)

Texas officials are warning health care providers to stop sending abortion pills into the state or risk fines and prosecution, as Attorney General Ken Paxton seeks to halt the flow of medicine that’s circumventing local restrictions. Prosecutors wrote to three providers last week, including a California doctor and a Delaware women’s health clinic, citing evidence that they had sent the drugs that can end a pregnancy to women in Texas. (Flitter, 8/20)

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) on Monday set an October date for the state’s next execution by nitrogen gas despite pending lawsuits in her state and Arkansas from prisoners alleging the death penalty method violates inmates’ rights. Anthony Boyd, 53, is scheduled to be put to death on Oct. 23 or 24 despite his lawsuit challenging Alabama’s use of nitrogen for executions as unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual” under the Eighth Amendment. A federal judge has scheduled a Sept. 4 hearing in the case. (Sheinerman and Bellware, 8/20)

Jamel Bishop is seeing a big change in his classrooms as he begins his senior year at Doss High School in Louisville, Kentucky, where cellphones are now banned during instructional time. ... Kentucky is one of 17 states and the District of Columbia starting this school year with new restrictions, bringing the total to 35 states with laws or rules limiting phones and other electronic devices in school. (Amy, 8/21)

The Federal Trade Commission sued LA Fitness and other gym franchises on Wednesday over memberships that it said are “exceedingly difficult” to cancel — the agency’s latest effort to force companies to make cancellations more straightforward. The lawsuit filed in a California district court accuses Fitness International and subsidiary Fitness & Sports Clubs — which operate gym franchises including LA Fitness, Esporta Fitness, City Sports Club and Club Studio — of unfair practices. Their gyms have more than 600 locations and over 3.7 million members nationwide, according to the FTC. (Vinall, 8/21)

Most of the nation's drug manufacturing plants reside in the path of hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural disasters, posing risks to the supply chain, a national assessment indicated. Among nearly 11,000 active U.S. facilities from 2019 to 2024, 62.8% were located in counties where at least one climate-related disaster was declared, reported researchers led by Mahnum Shahzad, PhD, of Harvard Medical School in Boston. (Henderson, 8/20)

CVS Caremark, the pharmacy benefit management arm of CVS Health, has been ordered to pay more than $289 million in damages stemming from a 2014 false claims lawsuit. Judge Mitchell Goldberg issued the final judgment Tuesday in the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania, according to a court filing. He initially set damages at $95 million in June when the court ruled in favor of whistleblower Sarah Behnke in her suit accusing CVS Caremark of overbilling the Medicare Part D program. (DeSilva, 8/20)

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn is taking the top spot at a  radiopharmaceuticals startup, bringing him back into the field where he started his career. (DeAngelis, 8/20)

Varro Life Sciences, a biotech company developing sensors that can detect airborne germs that cause the flu and COVID-19, is opening its headquarters and research labs in the Cortex Innovation District with plans to hire 30 scientists and lab workers over the coming months. (Barker, 8/21)

Drugmaker Iterum Therapeutics today announced the US commercial launch of its new oral antibiotic for uncomplicated urinary tract infections (uUTIs). The antibiotic, Orlynvah (sulopenem etzadroxil and probenecid), is a broad-spectrum oral penem antibiotic that's indicated for treating uUTIs caused by certain bacteria (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, or Proteus mirabilis) in adult women who have limited or no alternative treatment options. Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in October 2024, it's the first oral penem antibiotic commercially available in the United States. (Dall, 8/20)

The first known global systematic review and meta-analysis of antibiotic prescribing in primary care estimates 42 of every 100 primary care prescriptions contain antibiotics, and more than half are inappropriate, Chinese researchers reported late last week in the American Journal of Infection Control. (Dall, 8/20)

The parents leaped into action as soon as health officials asked Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. to stop selling an expensive gene therapy used to treat a rare muscle disease that affects boys and young men. Some traveled to Washington to meet with members of Congress. Others reached out to White House contacts. Still others wrote letters to the Food and Drug Administration directly. They demanded the FDA restore access to the drug Elevidys for Duchenne muscular dystrophy — even though a big trial failed to prove it slowed the disease’s progression. In fact, for some, the treatment appeared to be deadly. (Smith and Langreth, 8/18)

Researchers discovered that early puberty or childbirth doubles women’s risk for major diseases and accelerates aging, while later timing offers protective benefits. Genetic analysis reveals evolutionary tradeoffs, where reproductive advantages early in life create health burdens later. (Buck Institute for Research on Aging, 8/20)

US adults reinfected with SARS-CoV-2 may be at a 35% greater risk for long COVID than those with one-time infections, a team led by the independent research institute RTI International posted last week on the preprint server medRxiv. (Van Beusekom, 8/18)

COVID-19 infection was associated with accelerated aging of blood vessels, especially in women, the CARTESIAN study showed. In an international cohort of patients recruited from 2020 to 2022, COVID-negative controls showed an adjusted mean carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) of 7.53 m/s, while COVID-positive patients had significantly higher PWV ... -- higher measurements of PWV translate to stiffer blood vessels and greater vascular age. (Lou, 8/17)

Any leakage around a percutaneous left atrial appendage (LAA) implant, no matter how small, predicted strokes and other thrombotic events after the procedure, according to a retrospective study. In the Japanese multicenter registry, detectable leaks at Watchman device implantation were linked with a significant increase in risk of transient ischemic attack, ischemic stroke, or systemic embolism within 2 years of LAA closure (adjusted subdistribution HR [sHR] 4.25, 95% CI 1.91-9.44). (Lou, 8/18)

Results of a phase 1 randomized controlled trial show that the novel live attenuated type 1 and 3 oral polio vaccines (nOPV1 and nOPV3) have a favorable safety profile and produce a comparable immune response and viral-shedding profile as the homotypic monovalent (single-strain) Sabin-strain oral vaccines (mOPVs). (Van Beusekom, 8/14)

The Trump administration, seemingly determined to dismantle the National Institutes of Health, continues to devise new and insidious ways to politicize what has long been considered the crown jewel of US research. (Lisa Jarvis, 8/20)

After decades of underinvestment in new approaches to treating post-traumatic stress disorder and related conditions, the Department of Veterans Affairs is finally turning a corner. In late 2023, the VA announced its first investment in psychedelic research in more than 50 years, launching clinical trials of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. Now, we must keep the momentum going. (Lou Correa, Jack Bergman and Juliana Mercer, 8/21)

Looking back, 2025 may be characterized as “the year of measles in North America.” The U.S. has recorded its highest number of measles cases in more than 30 years, although cases have tailed off significantly in the last eight weeks and are only slightly higher than they were in 2019. The current per capita incidence of measles in the U.S. is roughly 4 per 1 million people. (Cory Franklin and Robert Weinstein, 8/21)

Slashing SNAP-Ed, WIC, and SNAP isn’t just shortsighted — it’s scientifically indefensible. If “Make America Healthy Again” were anything more than a political catchphrase, we’d be talking about how to expand — not gut — programs like SNAP-Ed, WIC, and SNAP. Instead, they’re on the chopping block. (Jaime S. Foster, 8/20)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services ... innately understands that Americans place a kind of halo on mothers when it comes to the nation’s health, and he uses that to bolster his message. And mothers who care about children need to wrest this moral authority from him. (Jessica Grose, 8/20)

Even through Zoom, I could tell she was unraveling. Her face was drawn, her shoulders hunched, her eyes darting just off-camera like she was bracing for bad news. She told me the incisions from her colon resection were healing well. Her vitals were stable. She said all the right things — “I’m lucky, it could’ve been worse, I just want to move on.” But her body told another story. (Alexandra Kutnick, 8/21)