Trump’s reform law that seeks to make coverage harder to get, and to keep, includes working 80 hours per month
It is a date keeping US healthcare providers up at night: 1 January 2027.
As the midterm elections loom, everyone from hospital leaders and to patient advocates are focused on the New Year, when Republicans scheduled the most controversial elements of their healthcare reform law to go into effect.
Continue reading...Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ spending cuts will be fully felt next year, but hospitals are already feeling the squeeze
Maternity wards across the United States are facing a wave of closures as cuts to federal Medicaid funding take effect, experts have warned.
According to analysis by the non-profit Protect Our Care, 52 maternity wards have closed since the HR1 bill was announced in July 2025, with a further eight having announced their upcoming closure.
Continue reading...Various factors block sufferers of disease from receiving treatment that is effective and has widespread availability
Sickle cell patients are missing out on an effective treatment despite widespread US hospital access to the technology, new research has found.
That treatment is called a red blood cell exchange, a procedure that discards a patient’s damaged red blood cells while simultaneously mixing the patient’s remaining plasma, platelets and white blood cells with red blood cells from a donor before returning them to the body.
Continue reading...Trump administration move weakens federal insurance programs – and some poor people will likely forego healthcare
The Trump administration is removing 760,000 people enrolled in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace on allegations of fraud, officials said on Tuesday – adding to previous efforts to chip away at federally subsidized insurance programs and likely causing some of the lowest-income Americans to forego healthcare, experts said.
The US government is also investigating about 420,000 people whom they suspect of fraud, and they are putting a six-month enrollment moratorium on new agents and brokers selling Obamacare policies, officials said at a press conference.
Continue reading...Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refuses to count four measles deaths in the state though doctors are ‘seeing new forms’ of disease
The US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its measles dashboard on Friday – but it’s still not counting four measles deaths in Pennsylvania, where the outbreak appears to be accelerating and cases are appearing in ways providers have never seen before.
Members of Congress on Monday requested an “immediate briefing” on the decision to change how measles deaths are reported as cases continue to rise throughout the United States, reaching levels not seen in decades. A possible measles exposure was reported in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia last week.
Continue reading...President’s latest order expected to bring NIH funding under control of Trump administration to align with agenda
Donald Trump’s latest executive order is expected to establish a board responsible for approving National Institutes of Health grant funding, marking another attempt by the Trump administration to censor topics that do not align with the president’s agenda.
The executive order, reported by outlets including the Washington Post and Politico, was discussed in a meeting on Friday where senior administration officials accused the NIH of funding “woke” initiatives that went against Trump’s political priorities.
Continue reading...The US health secretary added that he would’ve made sweeping changes ‘on day one’ but he had to follow the law
As the death toll from the worst measles outbreak in decades rises, Robert F Kennedy Jr headlined the Washington DC conference of the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense, which he led for nearly a decade.
“Let me be clear. You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,” Kennedy, now serving as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told anti-vaccine activists at the conference in a nearly hour-and-a-half-long speech. He urged patience, saying that he would’ve made sweeping changes “on day one” but that he had to follow the law in order to make permanent change.
Continue reading...HHS releases report linking ‘gender ideology’ to political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a report linking “gender ideology” to leftwing authoritarianism and political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted and “nakedly political”, likely leading to greater politicization of science and health.
It follows attempts by the administration to limit access to gender-affirming care – including, on Friday, an agreement reached between the Department of Justice and a New York hospital to no longer offer pediatric gender-affirming care. Dozens of hospitals stopped offering gender-affirming care after the Trump administration began investigating them for offering the standard of care.
Continue reading...Naegleria fowleri is commonly found in warm freshwater, and if it enters through the nose, can cause brain damage
A North Carolina teenager has died after contracting a rare and often fatal brain-eating amoeba.
The state’s health department (NCDHHS) confirmed the boy’s death on Monday, saying: “NCDHHS has been informed that the teen who developed a rare illness, caused by Naegleria fowleri died on Aug. 31, 2026. We extend our condolences to the family, friends and community impacted by this loss.”
Continue reading...FDA officials approve first-of-a-kind pill called daraxonrasib to fight one of the deadliest types of cancer
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a groundbreaking new drug for the most common form of pancreatic cancer, offering US patients a more effective treatment against one of the deadliest types of the disease.
FDA officials gave expedited approval to the first-of-a-kind pill, called daraxonrasib, that blocks a mutated protein which fuels tumor growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases. It’s an approach that has eluded drugmakers for decades.
Continue reading...New CDC data shows MMR vaccination among kindergarteners declining slightly as non-medical exemptions climb to 4.2%
A week after Donald Trump made a series of misleading claims about vaccines – including that some injections look “like the size of a soda bottle” – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the latest data on national kindergarten vaccination rates.
CDC communications downplayed the changes – a three-sentence announcement said, “overall vaccination rates among kindergarteners remained high” – but medical experts immediately saw cause for concern in the trends.
Continue reading...About 1.6m dozen eggs from Texas recalled amid one of the largest recorded foodborne illness outbreaks in US history
A massive egg recall affecting nearly 1.6m dozen eggs has been elevated to the US Food and Drug Administration’s highest-risk warning as officials investigate a salmonella outbreak that has sickened nearly 100 people.
The FDA on 12 August reclassified the recall of nearly 1.6m dozen white and brown cage-free eggs over concerns they may be contaminated with salmonella.
Continue reading...President and RFK Jr, the health secretary, repeatedly referred to autism during signing, though studies show no link between it and vaccines
Donald Trump has signed an executive order with plans for sweeping changes to the childhood vaccination schedule that attempts to override the authority of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
It is an attempt to undergird the changes made earlier this year to CDC vaccination recommendations, which were halted by a federal judge. The CDC is the federal agency tasked with recommending vaccines, not the White House.
Continue reading...Health secretary, longtime vaccination skeptic, spent years boosting misinformation about vaccines including MMR
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, on Sunday told American parents that they should get their children vaccinated against measles, as the surge in infections has reached numbers not seen in the past 35 years.
Kennedy, a leading vaccination skeptic who has spent years amplifying misinformation about vaccines, including the shot that protects against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), made his call in the course of a contentious interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning.
Continue reading...Adviser to Trump and Biden for pandemic says Republican senator has ‘unhinged obsession’ with him
Anthony Fauci, who served as a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the Covid-19 pandemic, has refused to answer questions at a high-profile congressional hearing, accusing a Republican senator of having an “unhinged obsession” with him.
Fauci, the veteran former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), invoked his constitutional right against incrimination when appearing before a Senate committee on Wednesday.
Continue reading...White House has halted changing vaccine schedule as it is unpopular, but anti-vaxx Trump set on ‘alleviating autism’
Donald Trump is pushing longtime vaccine opponent and current health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr to be more aggressive on cutting vaccines in the US, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
Trump has a long record of anti-vaccine statements, but the White House recently put a hold on vaccine changes after polling indicated they were a losing issue in the midterm elections.
Continue reading...Researchers tracked mother-child pairs for up to 11 years, finding Pfas mixtures may affect developing guts
Prenatal and early life exposure to Pfas mixtures is probably linked to higher levels of intestinal inflammation in children, new first-of-its-kind research shows. Intestinal inflammation can cause irritable bowel diseases, like ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease and colorectal cancer.
While Pfas has been linked to irritable bowel disease and intestinal inflammation in adults, the new peer-reviewed Mt Sinai study is the first to look at how the chemicals impact children during a critical developmental phase.
Continue reading...US health officials say source of Upper East Side cluster has probably been eliminated after 76 people fell ill
An outbreak of legionnaires’ disease in New York City has claimed a fourth life, officials have said, as they again expressed confidence the source of the exposure had been eliminated.
A statement from the city’s health department on Monday said the outbreak, which was traced to cooling towers in buildings in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, had sickened 76 people – with 53 discharged after hospital treatment, and 12 others managing their recovery at home.
Continue reading...Cyclosporiasis outbreak comes a year after Trump officials cut funding for state and local health departments
State health officials in Michigan and Ohio are reporting thousands of cases of cyclosporiasis – a parasitic infection that causes “watery diarrhea”, loss of appetite and weight loss.
The outbreak of more than 2,800 cases comes a year after the Trump administration cut funding to state and local health departments and reduced the remit of a program dedicated to coordinating information on foodborne illness, including of cyclospora.
Continue reading...Bipartisan group warns HHS that older adults and people with disabilities risk being pressured to end their lives
Lawmakers urged the health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, on Thursday to establish strict hospice reporting rules to prevent discrimination and coercion in medically assisted suicide.
The bipartisan group of members of Congress warned that older adults, people with disabilities, or those with disaffected caregivers face a particular risk of being pressured to end their lives.
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