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Under hostile questioning from senators of both parties, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, said on Wednesday that he was “convinced” vaccines did not cause autism even as he urged more research on the question, which scientists say has long been settled. (Mueller and Gay Stolberg, 3/5)

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya promised to cut wasted research dollars and focus on funding studies to find the root causes of chronic diseases during his confirmation hearing to direct the $48 billion National Institutes of Health this morning. Every dollar wasted on a frivolous study, every dollar wasted on administrative costs that are not needed, is a dollar not spent on research,” Bhattacharya told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. (Schumaker and Payne, 3/5)

The most telling signal from Jay Bhattacharya’s confirmation hearing as nominee to direct the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday lay in what he would not say. He would not say he’d restore funding to grants on LGBTQ issues canceled by the Trump administration — even as he said he didn’t think ideology should determine the direction of science. He would not say that there’s been enough research about the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism, even as a Republican senator declared it would be “pissing away money” on a question that has been extensively studied already. He would not say that he would object if President Trump gave him illegal directives, even as he vowed to follow the law. (Boodman, 3/5)

Jay Bhattacharya is about to get his chance to settle old Covid scores. The Stanford health economist became a celebrity among Americans chafing at Covid lockdowns and school closures when he co-authored an October 2020 letter calling out America’s public health leaders. On Wednesday, he’ll explain to senators why he was right and his critics were wrong — and why they should confirm him to lead the government’s preeminent health research agency, the National Institutes of Health. (Schumaker, 3/5)

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration is set to face the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Thursday morning, and he’s likely to receive a flurry of questions ranging from recent firings at the agency to how he will advance Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. (DeGroot, 3/5)

Maine Senator Susan Collins said she has “areas of disagreement” with President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making the moderate Republican’s position key to the vote’s outcome. Collins expressed concern about physician Dave Weldon’s views on childhood vaccines. In his days as a former congressman, Weldon promoted the idea that a mercury-containing vaccine preservative caused children to become autistic. (Cohrs Zhang, 3/6)

The House GOP’s budget, which passed last week in a hairline vote, asks the committee responsible for federal health-care spending to find at least $880 billion in savings over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that reducing costs that much won’t be possible without cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. (3/5)

Democrats and Republicans are accusing one another of “lying” about what a House Republican budget resolution means for Medicaid, and both sides have made misleading or speculative comments. There’s little doubt the health care program would face cuts under the plan — and it would have to if Medicare cuts are off limits. Democrats have seized on the resolution’s call for the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion in spending over 10 years. The committee’s options for those reductions are almost entirely in spending for Medicaid, a federal-state program that provides health care for low-income people, and Medicare, the federal program that covers seniors. (Robertson, 3/5)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: To Patients, Parents, And Caregivers, Proposed Medicaid Cuts Are A Personal Affront

Cynthia Williams is furious with U.S. House Republicans willing to slash Medicaid, the government-run insurance program for people with low incomes or disabilities. The 61-year-old Anaheim resident cares for her adult daughter, who is blind, and for her sister, a military veteran with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions. Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid, pays Williams to care for them, and she relies on that income, just as her sister and daughter depend on her. (Wolfson, 3/6)

New legislation advanced by a voice vote March 4 would codify 14 pre-deductible healthcare services through high-deductible health plans (HDHPs). It codifies guidance from President Donald Trump’s first term increasing flexible coverage options for HDHPs. The bill would allow medical products and services like beta-blockers, blood pressure monitors, glucometers, inhalers and cholesterol drugs to be more easily covered by insurance by letting insurers pay for low-cost services before a deductible is reached. (Tong, 3/5)

Health systems and insurers are bracing for tougher enforcement of price transparency regulations. President Donald Trump last week issued an executive order to bolster oversight of price transparency requirements enacted in 2021. Regulators have given too much leeway to hospitals and insurers, limiting the potential price-easing benefits of the law as healthcare companies have been slow to meet the requirements, Trump said in the order. (Kacik and Early, 3/5)

The Justice Department under President Donald Trump is defending the federal government’s position in several Medicare Advantage lawsuits challenging policies that originated during President Joe Biden's term. Given Trump's overall repudiation of the Biden years and Republicans' generally favorable disposition toward Medicare Advantage and preference for light regulation, Wall Street expected the new administration to take it easier on health insurance companies. So far, in court at least, that's not what's happening. (Early, 3/5)

During his joint address to Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump spoke about childhood cancer rates, saying it was a priority of his administration to tackle this issue. ... Although it's unclear where Trump got the 40% figure, data shows that childhood cancer rates have indeed been increasing over the past several decades. However, a pediatric oncologist told ABC News that there's important context missing in that statement, such as the effect of advances in early detection and possible environmental factors. (Kekatos and Kochat, 3/5)

President Trump's new physician is Sean Barbabella, DO, a Navy emergency physician who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has "extensive combat trauma experience," according to reports. Battlefield emergency response experience is apparently important to Trump, who faced two assassination attempts during his recent presidential election campaign. (Fiore, 3/5)

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced plans Wednesday to cut roughly 80,000 jobs, more than 15 percent of its employees, the latest in President Donald Trump’s effort to slash the federal workforce. According to a memo obtained by The Washington Post, the cuts are meant to reduce the department’s workforce to just under 400,000 employees, its size in 2019. (Gupta, 3/5)

A federal judge blocked the National Institutes of Health’s grant funding cuts that academic health systems warn would stymie research. U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts Judge Angel Kelley on Wednesday granted a motion from attorneys general, medical schools and universities requesting a nationwide preliminary injunction. The injunction replaces a national temporary restraining order Kelley issued Feb. 10, likely setting up a win for the states and hospitals and a possible government appeal. (Kacik, 3/5)

The nation’s top public health agency says about 180 employees who were laid off two weeks ago can come back to work. Emails went out Tuesday to some Centers for Disease Control and Prevention probationary employees who got termination notices last month, according to current and former CDC employees. ... About 180 people received reinstatement emails, according to two federal health officials who were briefed on the tally but were not authorized to discuss it and spoke on condition of anonymity. (Stobbe, 3/5)

A key lab that oversees US pharmaceutical safety is in limbo following moves by the Department of Government Efficiency, raising questions about the fate of the lab and the new administration’s approach to expensive but crucial research that aims to keep America’s product supply safe. The lab’s workers said they were notified Wednesday that the facility wouldn’t be closed, but the lab remains on the government’s target list. Higher-ups with knowledge of the lab’s work have advocated to keep it open, people familiar with the situation said. (Edney, 3/5)

Since Donald Trump took office in January, researchers across the U.S. have been waiting for scientific leaders to forcefully speak out against the administration’s grant freezes, research funding cuts, and targeting of diversity in their field. Frustrated that there seemed to be no large-scale movement coalescing, Colette Delawalla, a graduate student in clinical psychology, took matters into her own hands. (Oza, 3/6)

The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor launched a review of its foreign assistance projects Wednesday to determine if they fund climate, transgender or diversity, equity and inclusion-related initiatives, according to an internal email obtained by POLITICO. The results of that screening via a questionnaire to organizations that receive State funding may determine the fate of the remainder of aid projects that President Donald Trump froze for 90 days with an executive order in January. (Kine, 3/5)

During his confirmation hearings, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called on technology to solve America’s rural health care crisis. “President Trump is determined to end the hemorrhage of rural hospitals, and he’s asked me to do that through use of AI, through telemedicine,” Kennedy told senators, invoking the example of an AI nurse “that has diagnostics as good as any doctor.” (Palmer, 3/6)

A team of volunteer archivists has recreated the Centers for Disease Control website, called RestoredCDC.org, as it appeared the day President Trump was inaugurated. A federal judge last month required the HHS to restore webpages and datasets that had been altered or taken offline to comply with executive orders that Trump issued on DEI and gender identity, but several links are broken and the pages are not easy to locate through web searches. (Singh, 3/5)

A federal court has signed off on a $700 million class action settlement that will see drug manufacturers and distributors pay more than 1,000 acute care hospitals over alleged misconduct regarding prescription opioids. The deal consolidates four class-action settlements involving, among other defendants, Cencora (formerly AmerisourceBergen), Cardinal Health, McKesson, Johnson & Johns, Teva and Allergan. (Muoio, 3/5)

More than 100 providers filed new antitrust lawsuits against the nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and its 33 affiliated insurance companies on Tuesday, alleging the carriers illegally conspired to suppress competition and lower hospital rates. The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Cincinnati-based Bon Secours Mercy Health, Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, Nashville-based physician staffing firm TeamHealth and numerous others filed lawsuits to opt out of a $2.8 billion settlement some providers have reached with the insurance companies. (Tepper, 3/5)

Nataly Paramó was preparing to celebrate her 15th birthday in October when she experienced unexpected and alarming fatigue during basketball tryouts. The teen from East Chicago, Indiana, had always been active and loved basketball. So when she couldn’t run a single lap around the gym, a specialist recommended she go to the emergency room at Advocate Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, said Steve Pophal, the hospital’s medical director of heart transplantation. ... In December, Nataly became the hospital’s first pediatric heart transplant patient, following a three-year effort to establish the new program, Advocate said in a news release. The hospital has performed three heart transplants since December. (Moilanen, 3/5)

Amazon One Medical CEO Trent Green is stepping down after less than two years in the role. Green's last day is April 4, an Amazon One Medical spokesperson said. Beginning June 1, Green will assume his new role as CEO of National Research Corp., a healthcare AI and analytics company doing business as NRC Health, according to a news release. (Hudson, 3/5)

High demand for outpatient care is driving growth in the medical office building sector. Health systems are increasingly looking to buy or rent medical offices to provide more complex procedures outside of the hospital, according to a new report from real estate management firm JLL. The medical office space is poised to continue to grow as providers aim to lower costs, boost patient satisfaction and treat more patients, JLL researchers said. (Kacik, 3/4)

More than 31 million Americans borrowed money last year to pay for health care, a new survey found. Those Americans borrowed about $74 billion, despite most of them have some form of health insurance, the West Health-Gallup survey found. Most of the borrowers were ages 18-29, 30-39 and 40-49. Just two percent of Americans who borrowed were over 65 years old. (Irwin, 3/5)

A growing number of nurses are fielding direct pitches from healthcare technology vendors. Nurses at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s annual conference in Las Vegas are noticing an uptick in companies selling technology aimed at their profession. (Turner, 3/5)

It's well known that a "silver tsunami" is on the horizon with millions of adults turning 65 each year — but the additional compounding impact of nurse retirements on systems is often overlooked. "I don't think we fully realize the tsunami that’s coming in less than five years," Syl Trepanier, DNP, RN, chief nursing officer at Renton, Wash.-based Providence, told Becker's. "It's underestimated how many nurses will be retiring versus those entering the profession. The time to prepare is now, and I’d argue that the biggest risk we face is maintaining the status quo. The biggest risk we face is doing nothing." (Taylor, 3/4)

A recent study has revealed that an aspirin a day may stop cancer from spreading. In 2025, over 2 million new cancer cases are expected in the U.S., with more than 618,000 deaths—about 1,700 per day—according to the American Cancer Society. The research, conducted by scientists at the University of Cambridge in England, discovered the common drug could reduce metastasis—the spread of cancer cells from the original tumor to other parts of the body—by stimulating the immune system. (Notarantonio, 3/6)

A dispute over a microscopic enzyme is threatening Merck & Co. plans to sell a new version of Keytruda, the cancer drug that generates nearly half of the company’s sales. Merck has been tweaking Keytruda to make it easier to use—and to protect billions of dollars in revenue the company could lose after U.S. patent protection runs out in 2028 and rivals can begin selling copycats. (Hopkins, 3/5)

A pioneer in radiopharmaceuticals said Thursday that it will submit its first drug for approval after reporting the therapy halted tumor progression for nearly two years. The drug from ITM Isotope Technologies Munich SE has been developed as a treatment for gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, or GEP-NETs. These rare cancers grow in the pancreas, stomach, small intestine, and other parts of the gastrointestinal system. (DeAngelis, 3/6)

Scientists have developed a rapid DNA sequencing system to stem the rise of superbugs by identifying bacterial infections faster and more accurately. Currently, hospital labs can take as long as seven days to specify bacterial infections, while for some infections a definitive diagnosis may take eight weeks. (Gregory, 3/6)

A common but potentially dangerous vaginal infection that affects nearly 1 in 3 women globally should be considered a sexually transmitted disease, a new study says. Bacterial vaginosis, or BV, is currently viewed as a woman’s issue, thus leaving the sexual partner untreated. (LaMotte, 3/5)

Postpartum depression affects about one in every seven women who give birth, but little is known about what happens in the brains of pregnant women who experience it. A new study begins to shed some light. Researchers scanned the brains of dozens of women in the weeks before and after childbirth and found that two brain areas involved in the processing and control of emotions increased in size in women who developed symptoms of postpartum depression. (Belluck, 3/5)

When Julie Bjorklund was pregnant with twins in 2023, doctors discovered one of her babies had a heart defect and the other was struggling to grow. Bjorklund had a C-section at 27 weeks to deliver the twins after one of them, Elin, died in utero three days prior. The other twin, Hayley, weighed 1.5 pounds. During her month-long stay in October of that year at the Colorado Fetal Care Center at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, Bjorklund saw psychiatrist Dr. Heather Buxton to cope with her difficult pregnancy. (Ruder, 3/6)

Women’s brains are superior to men’s in at least in one respect — they age more slowly. And now, a group of researchers reports that they have found a gene in mice that rejuvenates female brains. Humans have the same gene. The discovery suggests a possible way to help both women and men avoid cognitive declines in advanced age. The study was published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. (Kolata, 3/5)

When Anne Poirier was 45, she went to battle with her body: restricting what she ate, and exercising for up to five hours a day. “You start to disappear as you age,” she tells Fortune. “Your body starts changing. People don’t notice you. Your kids don’t need you as much anymore … My marriage was difficult. And I think I was just searching for something.” (Greenfield, 3/5)

Possible connections between menopause and menopausal hormone therapy and Alzheimer's disease risk were probed in two studies that aimed to elucidate why Alzheimer's disproportionately affects women. The first showed that cognitively unimpaired women over 70 years old on menopausal hormone therapy had more tau accumulation in three regions of the temporal lobe compared with those not on hormone therapy. (George, 3/5)

A new center in Brooklyn is working to change the conversation surrounding menopause. Maimonides Health has officially unveiled its dedicated Menopause Center, designed to provide specialized care and support for women navigating midlife changes. (Kliger, 3/5)

Florida’s insurance regulator has demanded an unusually intrusive trove of data on millions of prescription drugs filled in the state last year, including the names of patients taking the medications, their dates of birth and doctors they’ve seen. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation in January sought this information from pharmacy benefit managers like UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx and CVS Health’s Caremark, companies that oversee prescription drugs for employers and government programs. (Abelson and Robbins, 3/5)

It was a punishment for mutiny in colonial times, a way to discourage desertion during the Civil War and a dose of frontier justice in the Old West. In modern times, some consider it a more humane alternative to lethal injection. The firing squad has a long and thorny history in the U.S. South Carolina on Friday is scheduled to put the first person to death by firing squad in the U.S. in 15 years. Brad Sigmon, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 2001, chose it over the two other methods in South Carolina — the electric chair and lethal injection. The state’s Supreme Court rejected what will likely be his final appeal Wednesday. (Johnson, 3/5)

A bill filed in the Texas House co-authored by a majority of the chamber is aiming to restrict the use of bathrooms by transgender people in public spaces and may potentially go further than previous iterations of similar bills to outline restrictions and penalties. (Runnels, 3/5)

Lifesaving training is now available to the Hispanic and Latino community in North Philadelphia. At Wednesday's ribbon cutting event, the Maria de los Santos Health Center welcomed a new lifesaving training device aimed at helping people who speak Spanish learn how to perform CPR. It's a Spanish-speaking, hands-only CPR kiosk that teaches people how to help someone in cardiac arrest. (Stahl, 3/5)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: For Seniors With Hoarding Disorder, A Support Group Helps Confront Stigma And Isolation

A dozen people seated around folding tables clap heartily for a beaming woman: She’s donated two 13-gallon garbage bags full of clothes, including several Christmas sweaters and a couple of pantsuits, to a Presbyterian church. A closet cleanout might not seem a significant accomplishment. But as the people in this Sunday-night class can attest, getting rid of stuff is agonizing for those with hoarding disorder. (Boden, 3/6)

A Miami Palmetto Senior High School student has been diagnosed with measles, Miami-Dade County Public Schools confirmed on Tuesday. Parents of students at the school in Pinecrest told WLRN that they received an email blast and automated voicemail on Tuesday from the school’s principal, Victoria Dobbs, who also confirmed the measles case. (La Roche Pietri, 3/5)

A retrospective analysis reveals that H5 avian flu surfaced in Oregon wastewater weeks before the state's first outbreak in poultry and wild birds and 2 years before the first outbreak in US cattle. (Van Beusekom, 3/5)

The bird flu outbreak that has been ripping through California farms since August is starting to abate, state health and agriculture officials said Wednesday, heralding “good news” in a health crisis that has sent egg prices soaring nationwide. “Thankfully, we do see here in California the flu outbreak is slowing down,” said Dr. Erica Pan, the director of the California Department of Public Health, during a committee hearing at the state Senate. (Bluth, 3/5)

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) was linked with an increased risk of Parkinson's disease, but continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment reduced that risk, Veterans Administration (VA) data showed. At 5 years after OSA onset, veterans with OSA had 1.8 more cases of Parkinson's disease per 1,000 than those without the sleep disorder, said Gregory Scott, MD, PhD, of the VA Portland Health Care System in Oregon, and co-authors. (George, 3/2)

Transplanted epithelial stem cells from a healthy eye repaired irreversible corneal injury and restored at least partial vision in more than 90% of patients, a preliminary clinical study showed. Within 3 months of the transplant, seven of 14 patients had completely restored corneas, increasing to 11 of 14 at 12 months. Including partial responses, more than 90% of the patients achieved successful outcomes at 12 and 18 months. (Bankhead, 3/4)

Scientists worry that persistent cognitive issues caused by Covid signal that a surge in dementia cases and other mental conditions is on the horizon. (Gale, 3/3)

Among asthma patients infected with COVID-19, those who received the antiviral drug nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) had significantly lower risks of all-cause hospitalization than those given molnupiravir (Lagevrio), Chinese University of Hong Kong researchers report. (Van Beusekom, 3/3)

Although they have similar 90-day death rates, influenza types A and B have unique clinical trajectories, and patients with type A are more likely to receive the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), French researchers report today in CMI Communications. (Van Beusekom, 3/5)

Sleep spindles on electroencephalography (EEG) helped predict whether unresponsive patients with acute brain injury would recover, prospective data showed. In a cohort of behaviorally unresponsive patients with recent brain injury, 31% had well-formed sleep spindles that frequently preceded the detection of cognitive motor dissociation, said Jan Claassen, MD, of Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, and co-authors. (George, 3/4)

Dr. Marty Makary, President Trump’s nominee to lead the F.D.A., would step into a role increasingly defined by the tension between fostering lifesaving innovation and ensuring that the public is protected from unsafe or ineffective drugs. (Daniela J. Lamas, 3/6)

Nine states have now reported measles cases this year. The worst outbreak is in Texas, where low vaccination rates have resulted in more than 100 confirmed infections and the death of a child — the first measles death in 10 years. Public health officials fear that this could become a nationwide crisis given that rates of inoculation have been steadily falling across the country. (3/4)

I doubt people outside prison walls give a thought to what happens when one gets sick or old behind bars. Do they wonder who nurses the sick and the injured, who holds the hands of the critically ill and dying in prisons? In Connecticut state prisons, much of that work falls to certified nursing assistants who are incarcerated themselves. I was one of them: While incarcerated at Connecticut’s maximum security prison, MacDougall-Walker, I trained, and became, a CNA. For two of my 19 years in prison, I was a caregiver inside the prison infirmary. (Abraham Santiago, 3/6)

The relationship between Connecticut hospitals and the Connecticut Medicaid program can sometimes sound like a bad marriage – “Can’t live with ‘em but can’t live without ‘em either!”  The rhetoric can be heated at times, with alleged Medicaid underpayment being blamed for a myriad of problems in the healthcare system. But this rhetoric can obscure the facts, especially when it comes to Medicaid hospital payments. (Andrea Barton Reeves and Deidre S. Gifford, MD, 3/5)

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to reinstate a pandemic-era border policy known as Title 42, which would permit the swift expulsion of migrants at the border on the grounds that they might spread dangerous infectious disease. This policy prevents migrants from exercising their right to seek asylum. (Amesh A. Adalja and Agustina Vergara Cid, 3/6)