There are “zero” signs that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will leave the Trump administration after the midterms. (Axios)
Kennedy is reportedly considering Shebani Sethi, MD, a psychiatrist who coined the term “metabolic psychiatry,” to lead the National Institute of Mental Health. Kennedy overruled NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, who was considering a different candidate. (Science)
The CDC ignored requests from California and Washington state to validate a new measles test. (New York Times)
Jennifer Shuford, MD, MPH, who had been serving as CDC’s chief medical officer, is leaving the agency. (Washington Post)
Calley Means resigned in frustration last week over Trump administration deals that he felt went against MAHA policies. (Wall Street Journal)
A 28-year-old supposed Department of Government Efficiency employee broke apart the U.S. Agency for International Development, but there is no record of him actually working at DOGE. (Wired)
The Trump administration is backing down from a plan to ban kratom. (New York Times)
Bird flu is ravaging a mink farm in Utah, but officials there aren’t rushing to mitigate the problem. (ProPublica)
Opioid deaths in 2025 fell to their lowest rate in nearly a decade, HHS said.
The Washington Post profiled former CDC immunization chief Demetre Daskalakis, MD, MPH, who resigned from his office in protest of Trump administration policies and is now fighting against them from the outside.
HHS said it has secured commitments from more than 250 hospitals nationwide to take a pledge to serve healthier food.
A group of Senate Democrats sent letters to major Affordable Care Act health insurers seeking more details on their work with the Trump administration to remove 760,000 people from the ACA insurance rolls because of suspected fraud. (The Hill)
The American Medical Association, the Maryland State Medical Society, and several other physician groups filed a “friend of the court” brief in a lawsuit alleging that the Trump administration has made the definition of “medical frailty” too narrow in its Medicaid work requirements rule.
Consumers who seek advanced premium tax credits for their Affordable Care Act health insurance plans would have to undergo eligibility verification under a proposed CMS rule.
