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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. kicked off a tour through southwestern states on Monday by calling on states to ban fluoride in drinking water supplies, a move that would reverse what some medical experts consider one of the most important public health practices in the country’s history. The announcement came at a news conference in Utah, the first state to enact such a ban into law. The state’s new law is set to take effect in early May, despite concerns from public health experts who consider fluoridation of water core to preventing tooth decay. (Baumgaertner Nunn, 4/7)

The US Department of Health and Human Services said Monday that it is reconvening the Community Preventative Services Task Force, an independent panel of public health and prevention experts, “to study and make a new recommendation on fluoride.” (Christensen and McPhillips, 4/7)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will likely delay his appearance before the Senate’s health committee by several weeks, even as he makes historic changes to the Department of Health and Human Services and contends with a surging measles outbreak. (Payne and Wilkerson, 4/7)

April 1 was the first day of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It's also the day the Department of Health And Human Services fired the teams that work on sexual violence prevention. The layoffs were part of a round of dramatic cuts to the federal health agencies, amid the Trump administration and Elon Musk's efforts to shrink the federal workforce. (Simmons-Duffin, 4/8)

Last week’s layoffs across the Department of Health and Human Services left a significant casualty in the vast ecosystem of government-backed science: an entire division focused on researching pain. (Facher, 4/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Firings At Federal Health Agencies Decimate Offices That Release Public Records

Public access to government records that document the handling of illnesses, faulty products, and safety lapses at health facilities will slow after mass firings at the federal Department of Health and Human Services swept out staff members responsible for releasing records, according to transparency advocates and health experts. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s layoffs across health agencies in recent days eliminated workers who handled Freedom of Information Act requests at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and cut FOIA staff at the FDA and the National Institutes of Health. (Pradhan and Kelman, 4/7)

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Department of Government Efficiency are reshaping the U.S. health care system, starting with deep cuts to the agencies Kennedy now leads. Kennedy and his allies argue such moves are needed to change federal culture and improve efficiency in the name of long-term health improvements. But critics question how Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, movement can be successful with a weakened federal health department. (Weixel, 4/7)

Rick Clark, a fifth-generation farmer in Indiana, started going all natural more than a decade ago. Today, the land where he grows corn, soybeans and alfalfa is fully organic and free of all chemical inputs. More producers will start to follow suit, he says, thanks in part to a new ally: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy has long advocated for American growers to curb their reliance on certain chemicals to grow and protect crops, claiming they can be toxic. (Chipman, 4/7)

A federal commission is calling for $15 billion in new financing to reinforce the United States’ biotech leadership amid encroaching competition from China. (DeAngelis, 4/8)

In the absence of a federal framework to monitor the impact of artificial intelligence in the clinic, the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) is stepping in on post-deployment oversight. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lacks the capability to assess how models are performing in the real world after they are authorized for use by the agency. The failure to monitor AI products in the post-deployment phase has been a major hurdle for the industry to adopt AI. (Beavins, 4/7)

The Trump administration will substantially increase payment rates for Medicare insurers next year, generating more than $25 billion in additional revenue for the industry and doubling the boost proposed in January. The rate increase of 5.06%, compared with 2.23% in the earlier proposal from the Biden administration, overshoots even optimistic expectations from many Wall Street analysts, and will likely lead to a rally in the shares of big Medicare insurers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana and CVS Health, parent of Aetna. (Wilde Mathews, 4/7)

Health insurers in the private Medicare business have a big incentive to diagnose their members with lots of health conditions: The government pays them more money. A new study shows the extent to which the biggest player in that business, UnitedHealth Group, stands out from the rest for its prowess at raking in extra cash from that program. (Bannow, 4/7)

Republicans in Congress, long an unwavering source of support for privatized Medicare plans, are increasingly calling for reforms amid widespread evidence that health insurers are abusing the system to collect billions of dollars in unwarranted payments. (Ross, Bannow, Herman and Lawrence, 4/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Rural Hospitals Question Whether They Can Afford Medicare Advantage Contracts

Rural hospital leaders are questioning whether they can continue to afford to do business with Medicare Advantage companies, and some say the only way to maintain services and protect patients is to end their contracts with the private insurers. Medicare Advantage plans pay hospitals lower rates than traditional Medicare, said Jason Merkley, CEO of Brookings Health System in South Dakota. Merkley worried the losses would spark staff layoffs and cuts to patient services. So last year, Brookings Health dropped all four contracts it had with major Medicare Advantage companies. (Zionts, 4/8)

Congressional Republicans agree that cutting taxes is their top priority, but the House and Senate have diverged on how, and how much, to cut Medicaid. The Senate approved a budget resolution in the early hours of Saturday that calls for $4 billion in spending cuts to offset a small portion of the $5.8 trillion cost for the tax cuts. By contrast, the House-passed budget resolution seeks at least $1.5 trillion in spending reductions including $880 billion from the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid. (McAuliff, 4/7)

A majority of Americans who voted for President Trump oppose cuts to Medicaid funding, according to a recent poll. Two-thirds of surveyed swing voters oppose cutting Medicaid spending to pay for tax cuts, as do 51 percent of surveyed Trump voters, according to the poll conducted by the firm Fabrizio Ward. (O’Connell-Domenech, 4/7)

Hope Florida will face further scrutiny this week over its relationship with the state Agency for Health Care Administration, with state lawmakers probing newly enacted requirements for Medicaid operators that include sharing patient data, incentivized participation and the transfer of $10 million last year. The program, led by first lady Casey DeSantis, aims to connect eligible residents in need with resources in the community. (Sarkissian, 4/7)

Almost 15 million Californians are covered by Medicaid. Cuts to the program could weaken mental health programs that connect people with housing and treatment. (Ibarra, 4/7)

A federal judge in Texas late Monday blocked a federal nursing homes staffing mandate former President Joe Biden's administration rolled out last year. United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk said in his decision the Health and Human Services Department did not have the authority to go beyond laws passed by Congress governing nursing homes staffing. (Eastabrook, 4/7)

A government reorganization of a program aimed at keeping older adults out of nursing homes is raising concerns that changes could hamper the program's growth. Some organizations that offer Programs of All-Inclusive Care for Elderly worry changes in how Health and Human Services Department plans to manage PACE could make it more difficult to launch new programs and enroll participants. (Eastabrook, 4/7)

The assisted-living facility in Edina, Minn., where Jean H. Peters and her siblings moved their mother in 2011, looked lovely. “But then you start uncovering things,” Ms. Peters said. Her mother, Jackie Hourigan, widowed and developing memory problems at 82, too often was still in bed when her children came to see her in mid-morning. ... Most ominously, Ms. Peters said, “we noticed bruises on her arm that we couldn’t account for.” Complaints to administrators — in person, by phone and by email — brought “tons of excuses.” (Span, 4/7)

CVS Health Corp.’s chief financial officer plans to leave his post as new Chief Executive Officer David Joyner charts a path forward for the health-care conglomerate. Thomas Cowhey, the current CFO, will leave the position, according to people familiar with the situation. The timing of his departure is unclear. A spokesperson for CVS declined to comment. (Swetlitz, 4/8)

Staffing company Envision Healthcare plans to lay off 120 employees at its subsidiaries by May 31 due to the end of its contract with San Antonio-based Baptist Health System. The cuts are expected to affect physicians, nurse practitioners, practice coordinators and clinical operations specialists at Envision Physician Services, Questcare Hospitals and Questcare Matrix, according to an April 1 letter accompanying the company's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filing. (DeSilva, 4/7)

A "first of its kind" surgery developed in Minnesota to provide relief from debilitating back pain is one step closer to FDA approval. WCCO first learned about SynerFuse in 2023 after a patient shared her chronic pain journey and the successful results a year after the surgery. The path ahead looks promising for the innovative technology as researchers learn about more Minnesotans who took part in the initial trial. (James, 4/7)

A new study by researchers at the University of Utah suggests one of the most common healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) spreads more widely in intensive care units (ICUs) than previously understood. The findings, published last week in JAMA Network Open, are based on genomic analysis of Clostridium difficile isolates collected from two ICUs in Utah in 2018. (Dall, 4/7)

Health care systems can reduce suicides through patient screening, safety planning and mental health counseling, a new study suggests, an important finding as the U.S. confronts it 11th leading cause of death. The “Zero Suicide Model” was developed in 2001 at Detroit-based Henry Ford Health, where the focus on people considering suicide included collaborating with patients to reduce their access to lethal means such as firearms and then following up with treatment. (Johnson, 4/7)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has begun redeploying staff to respond to the deadly outbreak of measles in Texas, a spokesperson said Monday, a week after steep layoffs at the agency impacted its response to the spread of the virus. "A team of three deployed yesterday to meet with county and state officials to assess the immediate needs to respond to this outbreak. The team is meeting with officials again today," CDC spokesperson Jason McDonald said in an email. (Tin, 4/7)

Health officials across the US are increasingly concerned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the federal health department, is sowing confusion about the effectiveness of the measles vaccine amid an outbreak that has left two unvaccinated children in Texas dead. On Sunday, in a post on X disclosing the latest death, Kennedy wrote that “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” marking his clearest endorsement of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to date. (Garde, 4/7)

Six years ago, as measles outbreaks cropped up across the country, President Donald Trump was asked what parents should do. “They have to get the shots,” he said. “The vaccinations are so important.” On Sunday, Trump was asked about the growing measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico. “It’s so far a fairly small number of people,” he said, though the outbreaks were similar in size at the time of both interviews. “This is not something new.” (Weber, Sun, Nirappil and Roubein, 4/8)

 The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is on the ground in Texas for the second time this year, as an ongoing multistate measles outbreak centered in the western part of the state has grown to one of the worst the United States has seen in decades. (McPhillips, Mukherjee and Tirrell, 4/7)

A child under 1 years old living in Denver has become the second confirmed measles case in the state in 2025, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment confirmed on its website Monday. According to CDPHE, the baby is unvaccinated and had recently traveled with family to an area of Chihuahua, Mexico, where there has been an ongoing measles outbreak. The department says the child was too young to be vaccinated; babies normally receive the vaccine for measles between 12 and 15 months old. (Lowenstein, 4/7)

New York State Department of Health officials are cautioning residents to be vaccinated when traveling domestically and abroad to avoid contracting the measles amid an uptick in national cases. Measles cases across the United States by March 26 had already eclipsed the total number of viruses contracted from the disease the entire 2024 calendar year, according to New York state health officials. (Mordowanec, 4/7)

A former top official at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said he blocked members of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s team from directly accessing a vaccine database over concerns they would rewrite or erase the stored information. Peter Marks, who headed the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research before being ousted in March, told The Associated Press in an interview published Monday that he agreed to allow Kennedy’s associates to read reports from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) but refused to allow them to directly edit the information. (Choi, 4/7)

The Army has reenlisted more than 23 soldiers who were discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, officials said Monday, rushing to implement President Donald Trump’s order that troops be rehired and given back pay. Three people rejoined active duty Army service, and more than 20 came back either to the National Guard or the Reserve, the Army said. The soldiers have signed their contracts and were sworn in, and the active duty troops were reporting to their units, the Army said. (Baldor, 4/7)

A state lawmaker has filed a bill that would significantly expand the definition of “coerced abortion,” potentially making reproductive health laws in Louisiana even more restrictive. The proposed legislation, House Bill 425, builds on the existing definition of coerced abortion, first approved in 2018, as one committed by a person who engages in the “use or threatened use of force, control, or intimidation” against a pregnant woman to compel her to undergo an abortion against her will. The existing law already defines this as a crime “whether or not the abortion procedure has been attempted or completed.” (O'Neil, 4/7)

State lawmakers are considering what would be one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. House Bill 804, filed by Republican Representative Keith Kidwell, would make abortion after conception illegal except only to save the life of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. (Harley, 4/7)

The initial and enthusiastic bipartisan support to clarify Texas’ abortion laws is hitting the realities of the legislative process, as forces from each side of the debate raise concerns. At a House committee meeting Monday, conservative lawmakers questioned the need for this clarification and whether doctors would use it as a workaround to provide “elective abortions on demand,” as Katy Rep. Mike Schofield put it. (Klibanoff, 4/7)

When the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, Justice Brett Kavanaugh took the time to reassure Americans that there would be no threat to the right to travel. If a state made it a crime to travel for abortion, Kavanaugh suggested, that would simply be unconstitutional. A major ruling from Alabama this week in a case called Yellowhammer Fund v. Attorney General is a reminder that states are finding more creative ways to limit abortion-related travel, and when a case on the subject ultimately reaches the Supreme Court, the question will be much more complicated than Kavanaugh wanted to believe. (Ziegler, 4/7)

Abortion opponents believe that a repeal is in the works for a Biden administration policy allowing abortions for veterans and their dependents in limited circumstances at Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities. (Wilkerson, 4/7)

A federal judge in Rockford has ruled that a portion of a 2016 Illinois law violates the constitutional right to free speech for compelling anti-abortion medical professionals to provide information about abortion care to patients without being prompted. (Sfondeles, 4/7)

A “defeated” single mother seeking health coverage, a disabled Navy veteran who wants to move to Kansas but can’t afford the taxes and a former state internal auditor fed up with corruption and bureaucracy were among the suggestions submitted to Kansas’ GOP-led Senate Committee on Government Efficiency. The majority of submissions to the committee’s public suggestion portal, which debuted Jan. 31 and was the subject of public records requests, included complaints that do not align with the policy priorities of the majority party. Instead, top suggestions included maintaining abortion rights, leaving school vouchers out of public education funding, critiques of leadership, expanding the state’s Medicaid program, focusing on substantial policy issues instead of legislation targeted at trans kids, and more than 60 references to legalizing marijuana. (Kaminski, 4/7)

Maternal diabetes, a pregnancy complication that can affect up to a third of women globally, is linked with a higher risk of neurodevelopmental issues in children, a large new study found. The study, which was published in the journal Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology on Monday, adds to a growing body of evidence that ties maternal diabetes to a range of health complications for both the mother and the child. (Gupta and Agrawal, 4/7)

At its bimonthly meeting Monday, the Baltimore City Council introduced a bill to expand access to menstrual products in bathrooms at city buildings. (Swick, 4/7)

An agreement between Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna to rely on vote “pairing” for recent and expecting parents falls short of making Congress a more welcoming place for them, Rep. Brittany Pettersen said Monday. (Papp, 4/7)

Severe, possibly life-threatening strep infections are rising in the United States. The number of invasive group A strep infections more than doubled from 2013 to 2022, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Prior to that, rates of invasive strep had been stable for 17 years. Invasive group A strep occurs when bacteria spread to areas of the body that are normally germ-free, such as the lungs or bloodstream. (Bendix, 4/7)

A new study has found why MRI scans may leave harmful metals behind in a person's body. The University of New Mexico (UNM) study explored health risks caused by toxic rare earth metal gadolinium, which is used in MRI imaging. Gadolinium-based contrast agents, which create sharper images of the scan, are injected into the body before an MRI to explore any potential issues in the body. (O'Connor, 4/7)

The preliminary data, presented Monday at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in San Diego, analyzed biomarkers on 54 participants in an ongoing preventive neurology study called the Biorepository Study for Neurodegenerative Diseases, or BioRAND. (LaMotte, 4/7)

Comorbidities in midlife were associated with a modestly higher risk of cancer overall and more strongly associated with a risk for multiple individual cancer types, according to a secondary analysis of the prospective Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) screening trial. ... None of the other comorbidity classifications (gastrointestinal, liver, and metabolic) had a significant association with the risk of cancer overall. (Bassett, 4/7)

Running 26.2 miles can do some damage to the brain, according to a recent study, though the impact is temporary and reversible. A group of researchers studied how marathon running impacts the brain by conducting MRIs on 10 runners within two days of a run. In a study published in the Nature Metabolism Journal on March 24, scientists observed eight men and two women and found their myelin levels “diminished by severe exercise.” (Soriano, 4/7)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: For Opioid Victims, Payouts Fall Short While Governments Reap Millions 

Christopher Julian’s opioid journey is familiar to many Americans. He was prescribed painkillers as a teenager for a series of sports injuries. He said the doctor never warned him they could be addictive. Julian didn’t learn that fact until years later, when he was cut off and began suffering withdrawal symptoms. At that point, he started siphoning pills from family members and buying them from others in his southern Maine community. After his brother died of brain cancer in 2011, Julian used opioids to cope with more than physical pain. (Pattani with Zuraw and Larweh, 4/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Public Health Risks Of Urban Wildfire Smoke Prompt Push For More Monitoring

When the catastrophic Los Angeles fires broke out, John Volckens suspected firefighters and residents were breathing toxic air from the burning homes, buildings, and cars, but it was unclear how much risk the public faced. So, the professor of environmental health at Colorado State University devised a plan to get answers. Volckens shipped 10 air pollution detectors to Los Angeles to measure the amounts of heavy metals, benzene, and other chemicals released by the flames, which burned more than 16,000 homes, businesses, and other structures, making it one of the country’s costliest natural disasters. (Gammon, 4/8)

Too bad the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decided on Friday not to broadly cover new anti-obesity medications. For the moment, at least, the Trump administration has missed a chance to achieve a spectacular return on investment — try 13 percent a year. (Alison Sexton Ward and Dana Goldman, 4/7)

Among other cuts to federal health agencies, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is said to be planning to lay off the entire staff of the Office of Infectious Diseases and H.I.V./AIDS Policy, which was working to end the H.I.V. epidemic in the United States and to solve related racial health disparities. (Ruth Madievsky, 4/8)

As one of many pulmonary and critical care physicians in this country who served during the pandemic, I had a difficult time wrapping my head around how we could get to this place where public health is the enemy, that opting out is strength. (MeiLan Han, 4/8)

My education of measles was, at one point, limited to a single page in a medical school textbook with a grainy photo from decades ago displaying an unwell child covered in a rash. Previously, measles was nearly an eradicated disease thanks to vaccines. Now physicians need to revisit this disease — not as the success story of the past but to prepare for the next outbreak. (Rachel Cole and James M. Gaylor, 4/7)

At the start of the year, the National Institutes of Health finalized a policy that will require anyone seeking to license certain NIH-owned patents to submit an “access plan” detailing how they plan to make their products available to underserved groups. (Jon Soderstrom, 4/8)

Before fertility patients begin the long journey through hormone treatments, egg retrieval, fertilization and — hopefully, if everything goes well — a baby, there’s the paperwork. As a first order of business, would-be parents are typically presented with a form that requires them to choose the fate of embryos they do not use in the course of building their families. (Anna Louie Sussman, 4/8)