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The Department of Health and Human Services recently removed a former surgeon general’s warning declaring gun violence a public health crisis to comply with the president’s executive order to protect Second Amendment rights, according to a White House official. Giffords, the gun violence prevention group founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, announced on Monday that former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s advisory recognizing gun violence as a public health crisis was wiped from the Department of Health and Human Services’ website. (Friedman, 3/17)

Amid the Trump administration’s reshaping of America’s public health authorities, Eric Green, longtime director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, has abruptly left his role, according to two NHGRI employees with knowledge of the situation and internal communications reviewed by STAT. (Molteni, Oza, Mast, Herper and Lawrence, 3/17)

The Trump administration has moved to reinstate at least 24,000 federal probationary employees fired in the president’s push to shrink the government, according to filings in one of two cases in which a federal judge ruled the terminations illegal. (Mettler, 3/17)

Thousands of employees returned to the Food and Drug Administration’s headquarters Monday to find overflowing parking lots, long security lines and makeshift office spaces without chairs and other basic supplies. The FDA is the latest agency scrambling to meet the Trump administration’s return-to-office mandate, part of a flurry of actions — including firings and buyouts — intended to radically shrink the federal workforce. Monday was the first day that all rank-and-file FDA staffers were required to report to offices, including the agency’s 130-acre campus just outside Washington. (Perrone, 3/18)

The Trump administration has canceled funding for an ongoing 30-year, nationwide study tracking patients with prediabetes and diabetes, researchers said, at a time when top officials have emphasized their determination to curb the incidence of such chronic conditions. (Chen, 3/17)

The abrupt withdrawal of U.S. global health funding that many disease control programs and developing countries have long relied on presages a leaner future for the sector, says the head of one of the world’s largest charitable foundations. Charities and other governments will be unable to fill all the gaps left by the Trump administration’s decision to slash aid spending, John-Arne Røttingen, CEO of the Wellcome Trust, told STAT in an interview. (Branswell, 3/18)

After a recent change by the Trump administration, the federal government no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms and drinking fountains. The segregation clause is one of several identified in a public memo issued by the General Services Administration last month, affecting all civil federal agencies. (Simmons-Duffin, 3/17)

A family that was deported to Mexico is requesting an investigation into abuses they say they faced in U.S. detention, according to a civil rights complaint first obtained by NBC News. The mixed-immigration status family, including four U.S. citizen children, one of whom is a 10-year-old girl recovering from brain surgery, are in an area of Mexico where, they say, they fear for their safety. Since the family was deported, the 10-year-old girl hasn’t been able to get the follow-up care she needs. With the swelling on her brain still not fully gone, she has difficulties with speech and mobility on the right side of her body, her mother said. (Acevedo, 3/17)

Despite being born with malformed limbs and later giving birth to four children, Francisca avoided going to the doctor as much as possible for about two decades. The 58-year-old Southwest Side resident lacked health insurance, so when she got sick or was in pain she often relied on home remedies. When she had a toothache, she wouldn’t go to the dentist. Nearly two years ago, though, Francisca’s situation changed dramatically. She obtained health coverage through a state program that provides taxpayer-funded insurance to immigrants like her who are in the country without legal permission as well as green card holders who haven’t been in the U.S. long enough to qualify for Medicaid, the traditional health care program for the poor. (Presa and Petrella, 3/17)

The Department of Veteran Affairs said that, effective immediately, it will no longer offer medical treatment for gender dysphoria to veterans who are not already receiving the treatment from the VA or the Department of Defense. "If Veterans want to attempt to change their sex, they can do so on their own dime," VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a press release Monday announcing the new policy. (Jingnan, 3/17)

Two transgender service members are suing the Trump administration over a pair of executive orders targeting transgender Americans and their implementation by the U.S. military. The lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey by two transgender men ... argues that President Trump’s executive orders proclaiming the government recognizes only two sexes, male and female, and barring trans people from serving openly in the military subject transgender service members “to unequal, harmful, and demeaning treatment.” (Migdon, 3/17)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Her Case Changed Trans Care In Prison. Now Trump Aims To Reverse Course

In 2019, Cristina Iglesias filed a lawsuit that changed the course of treatment for herself and other transgender inmates in federal custody. Iglesias, a trans woman who had been incarcerated for more than 25 years, was transferred from a men’s prison to a women’s one in 2021. And in 2022, she reached a landmark settlement with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to receive gender-affirming surgery, which the agency said it had never provided for anyone in its custody. (Sable-Smith, 3/18)

Transgender adults who received gender-affirming hormone therapy had a significantly lower risk of moderate-to-severe depression over four years compared to those who did not receive such care, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Network Open. ... The findings "support the mental health-promoting role of hormones" and their status as "a medically necessary treatment,” said Sari Reisner, an associate professor of epidemiology at University of Michigan School of Public Health and one of the study’s authors. (Gao, 3/17)

Since the first day of his presidency, Donald Trump has targeted transgender communities with executive orders that attempt to limit access to medical care, restrict how people identify on government documents, curb gender-inclusive research, and more. Two months later, Trump’s directive to eliminate “gender ideology” in particular is still reverberating through federal health agencies. (Gaffney, 3/18)

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration is asking for an extra $2.8 billion immediately for the state’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal, on top of a recently proposed $3.44 billion loan. New budget figures laid out to state lawmakers on Monday showed the state will need to allocate additional funds from the general fund to fully cover Medi-Cal bills through the end of the year, after the loan proposed by the administration last week. (Bluth, 3/17)

County-owned hospitals in Indiana have diverted away more than $2.5 billion in Medicaid money intended to provide care at nursing homes, leaving sick and elderly residents to languish in some of the most poorly staffed facilities in America, according to new financial data obtained by IndyStar. The data, acquired in part through a public records lawsuit, reveals the fullest picture yet of a secretive financing scheme that Indiana relies on to prop up its public hospitals, but that critics say enriches health care providers at the expense of vulnerable nursing home patients. (Cook, 3/18)

Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez, Colorado, received more than 59,000 patient visits last year. That’s enough to treat everyone in Cortez and surrounding Montezuma County twice. Staff call the small hospital a bedrock of both medical care and the local economy. But warnings that the Republican-controlled federal government might cut Medicaid funding have community members worried about the facility’s future.  (Melotte and Newman, 3/17)

The potential implementation of federal Medicaid work requirements poses a serious threat to healthcare access for millions of Americans. An analysis published March 17 by the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation warns that up to 5 million adults could lose their Medicaid coverage by 2026 — not because they fail to meet work criteria, but due to bureaucratic hurdles and reporting challenges. (Condon, 3/17)

Better Medicare Alliance continued its pressure on the Trump administration to protect Medicare Advantage, releasing a third ad Monday in its campaign targeting the Washington, D.C., area. The advocacy group's 30-second spot, part of a seven-figure campaign, features testimonials from seniors about their reliance on Medicare Advantage. It will run on connected TV, online news sites, social media platforms and podcasts. The alliance is a coalition of insurers, providers, patient advocates and business groups. (DeSilva, 3/17)

Post-acute providers are eager to show hospitals how they can help with a Medicare payment demonstration model that goes into effect early next year. Compassus, Elara Caring, ArchCare and other post-acute providers said careful coordination of patient care from the hospital through the post-acute system is essential for hospitals to succeed in the Transforming Episode Accountability Model, or TEAM. (Eastabrook, 3/17)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Congressman Blames Trump Team For Ending Telehealth Medicare Benefit. Not Quite Right

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) posted a Tiktok video on Feb. 20 saying he had “breaking news” about the fate of Medicare coverage for telehealth visits, which allow patients to see health care providers remotely from their homes. “Breaking news: The Trump administration just announced that Medicare will stop covering telehealth starting April 1,” Khanna said. “We need to stand up to these Medicare cuts.” (Redfearn, 3/17)

Sharon Regional Medical Center is set to reopen Tuesday, about two months after the former Steward Health Care facility in Pennsylvania closed. On Friday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health approved Pasadena, California-based Tenor Health Foundation’s plans to reopen the 163-bed hospital. In January, Judge Christopher Lopez of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston signed off on the hospital management company’s takeover of the facility, which employed more than 800 workers. (Kacik, 3/17)

When Ted Matthews came out of retirement in early 2023 to retake the helm of the rural Texas hospital where he’d started his health care career, it was something of a rescue mission. They were having bake sales to keep the place afloat. Staff were updating their resumes. At every board meeting, they’d decide which bills to pay. (Bannow, 3/18)

Scripps Health plans to build a $1.2 billion medical campus that will include a 200- to 250-bed hospital and outpatient facilities. The San Diego-based health system’s board last week approved the 13-acre development in San Marcos, California. The first phase of the project will feature space for specialty and primary care offices, ambulatory surgery, cancer care, imaging, lab and other services, and the second phase includes the hospital, according to a Monday news release. (Kacik, 3/17)

Day or night, Marc Cohen, a major donor to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, had a direct line to one of its leading oncologists. No question was too big or too small, and almost no hour was off limits for a consultation. Cohen and Dr. Kenneth C. Anderson exchanged hundreds of emails and texts over two decades about Cohen’s disease, multiple myeloma, a rare and incurable blood cancer that is Anderson’s specialty. It was no problem for the physician to pause a Sunday morning walk with his wife to weigh in on test results, respond to a 5:50 a.m. email on a Saturday to suggest medication for insomnia-inducing leg pain or jump on the phone at short notice. (Kowalczyk, 3/17)

Even chatbots get the blues. According to a new study, OpenAI’s artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT shows signs of anxiety when its users share “traumatic narratives” about crime, war or car accidents. And when chatbots get stressed out, they are less likely to be useful in therapeutic settings with people. The bot’s anxiety levels can be brought down, however, with the same mindfulness exercises that have been shown to work on humans. (Nazaryan, 3/17)

A preprint study suggested that GLP-1 receptor agonists may be associated with hair loss, though only in women. Using a random sample of 16 million patients, researchers found that women who newly initiated semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) had a twofold higher risk of hair loss than those starting on the weight-loss drug bupropion-naltrexone (Contrave). (Monaco, 3/17)

While each year features high-profile losses of exclusivity in the pharma industry, this year's list is something of a doozy. Johnson & Johnson, Amgen, Regeneron, Novartis and other Big Pharma players are facing down sizable U.S. losses of exclusivity in 2025. (Sagonowsky, Liu, Kansteiner, Park, Dunleavy and Becker, 3/17)

Ms. Delano is not a doctor; her main qualification, she likes to say, is having been “a professional psychiatric patient between the ages of 13 and 27.” During those years, when she attended Harvard and was a nationally ranked squash player, she was prescribed 19 psychiatric medications, often in combinations of three or four at a time. Then Ms. Delano decided to walk away from psychiatric care altogether. ... Since then, to the alarm of some physicians, an online DIY subculture focused on quitting psychiatric medications has expanded and begun to mature into a service industry. (Barry, 3/17)

GE HealthCare launched new editions of its Mac-Lab, CardioLab and ComboLab cardiac procedure recording systems on Monday. The AltiX AI.i editions of the systems received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration and are designed to improve the user experience and the workflow in the cardiac catheterization lab, the company said. It also is meant to provide support for complex electrophysiology procedures. (Dubinsky, 3/17)

OrganOx, maker of a device to preserve liver donations, has teamed up with ProCure On-Demand, an organ recovery services provider. The partnership aims to improve the recovery and assessment of donor livers for transplantation by leveraging OrganOx’s normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) technology and ProCure’s solutions. ProCure offers surgical, preservation and logistics services to transplant centers and organ procurement organizations. (Gliadkovskaya, 3/17)

A midwife in Texas has been arrested and charged with performing illegal abortions and practicing medicine without the appropriate license. Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, announced the arrest, which he said Monday happened earlier this month, after an investigation by his office. According to Paxton, the midwife, Maria Margarita Rojas, 49, is alleged to have owned and operated three health clinics in the northwest area of Houston. In a news release, Paxton accused Rojas of performing abortions in the clinics — which are banned by law in Texas — and of employing people who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals. The case appears to be the first in which a health care provider in Texas has been criminally charged with performing an abortion since the state’s ban went into effect in 2022. (Bendix and Stelloh, 3/17)

Hilary Perkins, a career lawyer and a conservative, was targeted by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri for defending the Biden administration’s position on the abortion pill. (Barrett, 3/17)

An Ohio anti-abortion rights lobby reported a reproductive care website to the state’s Department of Health, in an attempt to address what the lobbying group called “harmful circumvention of Ohio’s laws.” Those laws have been unenforceable by court order since last year. Hey Jane expanded its services to Ohio in February, and has been working in reproductive and sexual health spaces, providing mifepristone, the FDA-approved abortion medication, since it was approved for mail-order distribution in 2021. (Tebben, 3/18)

Abortion bans successfully prevented some women from getting abortions in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, according to a detailed new study of birth data from 2023. The effects were most pronounced among women in certain groups — Black and Hispanic women, women without a college degree, and women living farthest from a clinic. (Miller and Sanger-Katz, 3/17)

A new University of Missouri study found that first-time mothers living in rural Missouri are more likely to stop breastfeeding earlier than urban and suburban moms. Researchers found that women who chose to discontinue breastfeeding lacked support, including access to lactation consultants, and had feelings of being overwhelmed. (Lewis-Thompson, 3/17)

Women see seven physicians on average before getting diagnosed. One small study found women experience a median delay of 8.5 years for endometriosis to be correctly identified. (Pasricha, 3/17)

Over the past few years, Colorado has started to reissue a number of historic license plate designs in solid red, blue, or black, as well as green mountains on a white background. To get them, car owners must pay a $25 upfront fee, plus an annual $25 fee. The money goes to support programs for people with disabilities. (Birkeland, 3/18)

It was a damning nickname: Springfield, the 2018 asthma capital of the United States. And the challenge was daunting. How exactly could leaders fix a problem caused by a chronic condition that cannot be cured? But over the past seven years, Springfield has made a concerted effort to help manage people’s asthma, using a mix of state and federal funding to, among other initiatives, develop a widespread air monitoring system and remodel older homes prone to excess indoor pollutants. Though struggles remain, it hasn’t been the asthma capital since. (Jimenez, 3/17)

The bill's authors define, in the bill's wording, the syndrome as "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump," and go further to argue that it "produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior." (Henderson and Cummings, 3/17)

Mississippi state and federal officials have confirmed an outbreak of a strain of bird flu not reported in the U.S. since 2017, with quarantine and depopulation efforts already underway. In a statement released March 12, the Mississippi Board of Animal Health stated that poultry from a commercial broiler breeder chicken flock in Noxubee County had tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). (Choi, 3/17)

Measles cases are on the rise in the United States. The Pan American Health Organization declared the disease eliminated in 2000, thanks to widespread vaccination efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But it's still an issue globally, which means an unvaccinated person could catch the highly infectious disease abroad and bring it back to the United States. And declining vaccination rates, particularly in young children, are causing public health officials to worry about the impact of emerging outbreaks. (Godoy, Chinn, Barber, Ramirez and Greenhalgh, 3/18)

Teachers across the country are growing increasingly worried about childhood hunger, with three-quarters reporting students come to school hungry, a nationally representative survey of U.S. teachers found. Proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a federal food assistance program serving more than 41 million Americans, could exacerbate an already dire issue, experts say. (Habeshian, 3/17)

For years, ranchers and some conservationists have argued that grass-fed beef is better for the planet than conventional cattle. But a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences challenges that idea, finding that cattle raised only on pastures do not have a smaller carbon footprint than feedlot cattle, which are quickly fattened on corn and other grains. (Phillips, 3/17)

With Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a critic of food additives, now at the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services, other ingredients and dyes are likely to face scrutiny. Consumer advocates for years have pointed to studies that raised questions about the safety of other food colorings, and Kennedy has pledged to make cereal companies remove the dyes from their products in the US. In March, he began acting on that goal, telling executives of major food companies that he would take action if they failed to remove artificial coloring. (Edney and Shanker, 3/17)

By 2050, there will be an estimated 25.2 million people living with Parkinson’s disease worldwide, a 112 percent increase from 2021, according to a new study published in the journal BMJ. The World Health Organization estimated that 8.5 million people worldwide were living with Parkinson’s disease in 2019. (Docter-Loeb, 3/17)

An artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithm differentiated various forms of parkinsonian syndromes based on 3-T MRI. ... "This study is a game-changer for using a common MRI scan to differentiate Parkinson's disease, multiple system atrophy and PSP," Okun told MedPage Today. "The method was tested on a 21-center NIH and Parkinson's study group cohort, and was simple, fast, accurate, and effective when applied on many different types of MRI scanners." (George, 3/17)

For decades, doctors have used two numbers to determine whether a person has obesity: their weight divided by their height. The calculation, known as body mass index (BMI), has the benefit of simplicity. But that’s also a flaw, because it doesn’t account for all the factors that determine whether someone’s weight is healthy, including their race or ethnicity. (Leana S. Wen, 3/18)

As a reformed hypochondriac, I’m extremely vulnerable to the allure of pharmaceutical ads. I self-referred for GLP-1s years ago after seeing advertisements, and even though I am a diabetic, what followed were horrific health outcomes: hospitalizations, extensive procedures, scans, MRIs, pancreatitis, anemia, and thousands in medical expenses. (Hal Rosenbluth, 3/18)

My wife and I would both be dead, but for what many derisively call “Big Pharma.” (Erick Erickson, 3/17)

As the new Congress and administration are settling in, all eyes in Washington are focused on the trillion-dollar question: whether and how to pay for the expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA), signed into law in President Trump’s first term. Among the various revenue-generating proposals emerging from GOP circles — including some of the president’s most trusted advisers — is one that would increase taxes on American workers with employer-provided health care coverage. (D. Taylor and Katy Johnson, 3/18)

Consider that in 2023, about 4 in 10 Bay Staters reported having trouble affording health care, and nearly 1 in 3 avoided getting needed health care because of cost, according to the Center for Health Information and Analysis’s 2025 annual report, released March 12. (3/18)

Connecticut’s low Medicaid reimbursement rates inhibit access to care, drive up patient costs, and strain healthcare providers.  At the same time, residents and communities across the state are struggling to prevent and manage chronic disease and improve health.  The Medicaid program, which covers one in four people in Connecticut, can and should work better. (Jennifer Jackson, 3/13)