Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: This Geriatrics Training Program Escaped The Ax. For Now In St. Louis, a team of students aboard a well-equipped van visits senior centers, a nursing home, a church, and other sites, learning to conduct comprehensive, hourlong geriatric assessments. The team — future doctors, social workers, psychologists, and therapists — looks for such common problems as frailty, muscle weakness, and cognitive decline. The patients they evaluate, free of charge, receive printed plans to help guide their care. (Span, 10/8)
KFF Health News: California's Nursing Shortage Is Getting Worse. Front-Line Workers Blame Management California, like much of the nation, is not producing enough nurses working at bedsides to meet the needs of an aging and diverse population, fueling a workforce crunch that risks endangering quality patient care. Nearly 60% of California counties, stretching between the borders with Mexico and Oregon, face a nursing shortage, according to state data. (Hart, 10/8)
KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest 'KFF Health News Minute' Oct. 2: Sam Whitehead reads the week's news: Hospital charity care programs can still leave patients who qualify with big bills, and the Trump administration is rolling out a pilot program to use AI to deny care for Medicare patients in six states. Sept. 25: Arielle Zionts reads this week's news: Asking AI tools to interpret your lab results can have downsides, and more Americans are choosing environmentally friendly "green burials." (10/7)
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
The Hill: White House To Use Tariff Revenue For WIC Program The White House said Tuesday it will use money from tariff revenue to fund a supplemental nutrition program facing a funding shortage amid the ongoing government shutdown. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on the social platform X that President Trump and the White House had identified the "creative solution" to shift tariff funds to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, commonly known as WIC, which was set to run out of money in the coming days. (Samuels, 10/7)
Axios: Government Shutdown: Organ Transplant Network Oversight Stalled The Health and Human Services Department last week ordered the federal organ procurement and transplant network to halt many operations until the government shutdown is over, Axios has learned. Patients will still be able to receive and donate organs, but many compliance and policy development activities will stop for the remainder of the shutdown, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. (Goldman, 10/8)
The New York Times: Mass Layoffs Trump Is Threatening In Shutdown Fight May Be Illegal Throughout the government shutdown, President Trump and his top aides have repeatedly threatened to conduct another round of mass federal layoffs, insisting at times that they may have to shed workers to keep essential services from closing down. But the firings now under consideration may be unlawful or unnecessary, according to a wide range of budget experts, legal scholars and union officials. They say that the White House is only looking to exploit the fiscal stalemate to further its political agenda, shrink the government and punish Democrats. (Romm, 10/7)
Fox News: Senate Republicans Confirm More Than 100 Trump Nominees As Government Shutdown Continues Senate Republicans confirmed a staggering tranche of President Donald Trump's nominees on Tuesday as the government shutdown continues. Lawmakers voted along party lines to confirm the batch of 107 of Trump's nominees, a move that whittled down the remaining pending nominees on the Senate's calendar to double digits. It also came as the upper chamber was deadlocked in the midst of a government shutdown, during which floor votes have largely been dedicated to trying to reopen the government. (Miller, 10/7)
NPR: Democrats Take Legal Aim At 'the Radical Left' Language During Shutdown There are brewing legal fights against the Trump administration for language it's posting on federal websites and in government emails blaming the Democrats for the government shutdown. (Siegler, 10/7)
The Hill: Greene Doubles Down On Remarks About Affordable Care Act Subsidies Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) doubled down on recent remarks about Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies amid a government shutdown battle centered around health care. "The issues of the subsidies are real. It's not something that anybody can say is made up," Greene told NewsNation's Blake Burman on "The Hill. "Also, people with regular or private plans, their premiums are looking to go up a median of 18 percent, that's brutal. I know a lot of small business owners, like a family of four, and they're paying $2,000 a month." (Suter, 10/7)
PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES
Stat: Court Rules Against Novo Nordisk On Medicare Price Negotiations A federal appeals court unanimously rejected a Novo Nordisk challenge to Medicare's drug price negotiation program, a ruling that will allow the government to lump together products with the same ingredient for the purpose of choosing drugs for negotiation. (Wilkerson, 10/7)
The Wall Street Journal: Trump Wants To Overhaul Drug Sales. A Company Tied To His Son Stands To Benefit. The country's top drugmakers are set to meet in early December at the Four Seasons hotel in Georgetown with Donald Trump Jr. and senior Trump administration officials that regulate the pharmaceutical industry. The host: BlinkRx, an online prescription drug delivery company that this year installed Trump Jr. as a board member. The summit will conclude with a dinner at the Executive Branch, the exclusive new club founded by Trump Jr. and his close friends, according to people with knowledge of the event and a copy of the invitation viewed by The Wall Street Journal. (Linskey and Dawsey, 10/7)
Stat: Pharma Companies Scramble To Strike Deals With Trump After Pfizer The agreement between Pfizer and the Trump administration to lower drug prices has sent other companies scrambling to make a deal. Several major pharmaceutical firms that received letters from President Trump demanding lower prices have been hustling to show progress, with some hoping to announce a deal with the White House as soon as this week, according to five Washington representatives and lobbyists for the companies, granted anonymity to speak about private deliberations. (Payne, 10/7)
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
AP: Judge Blocks Trump Administration's Changes To Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program A judge Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump's administration from requiring recipients of federal teen pregnancy prevention grants to comply with Trump's orders aimed at curtailing "radical indoctrination" and "gender ideology." The ruling is a victory for three Planned Parenthood affiliates — in California, Iowa and New York — that sued to try to block enforcement of a U.S. Department of Human Services policy document issued in July that they contend contradict the requirements of the grants as established by Congress. (Mulvihill, 10/7)
AP: Planned Parenthood Officials Say Missouri Is Seeking Abortion Patient Records Missouri's Republican attorney general is trying to get the medical records of Planned Parenthood patients who've had abortions, officials who oversee clinics in Kansas City and St. Louis said in legal filings. The fight over the subpoenas is playing out in a lawsuit filed last year by Planned Parenthood Great Plains, the abortion provider's affiliate for Kansas City, and Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, the affiliate for St. Louis. Planned Parenthood officials argue that the state's restrictions violate an amendment to the Missouri Constitution narrowly approved by voters in November to protect abortion rights. (Hanna, 10/7)
The 19th: ICE Fears Put Pregnant Immigrants And Their Babies At Risk In the lead up to her son's birth, Jacqueline made plans to call 911 for an ambulance to pick her up from her North Florida home and transport her to a hospital about an hour away. The second-time mom and Guatemalan immigrant, who has lived in the country for a decade, would have relied on her husband to drive her to the hospital. But a few months ago he was deported, leaving Jacqueline and her daughter without the family's primary source of income, transportation and support. (Barclay and Luthra, 10/7)
DISABILITIES
The Washington Post: These Veterans Are Defrauding VA's 'Honor System' Disability Program Kinsley Kilpatrick put on a convincing show. During visits to Atlanta VA Medical Center, the Iraq War veteran arrived in a wheelchair, claiming multiple sclerosis had paralyzed his arms and legs. By the time he turned 35, the onetime athlete said he could barely move from the neck down, leaving him dependent on others to eat, dress and bathe, according to court records. ... The hoax lasted for three years and might have continued indefinitely, if not for a whistleblower who sent VA proof that Kilpatrick was lying: videos of the Army veteran backflipping on a trampoline, prancing around a sports field like a ballerina and swan diving into a playground ball pit. ... The Kilpatricks pleaded guilty in 2019 to defrauding taxpayers of more than $200,000. (Whitlock, Rein and Jones, 10/8)
LGBTQ+ HEALTH
Stat: In Supreme Court Conversion Therapy Case, Justices Doubt Medical Experts At the Supreme Court on Tuesday, a majority of justices seemed poised to rule against a Colorado law banning licensed mental health practitioners from engaging in any therapy that tries to change a young person's sexual or gender identity. The justices have until the end of June 2026 to release their decision on the case. (Gaffney, 10/7)
The New York Times: What Is Conversion Therapy? A History Of The Practice. As a teenager, Julie Rodgers attended Tuesday night group therapy sessions in which young people confessed their same-sex transgressions: anal sex, fondling, masturbation, reaching out to an ex or watching "The L Word," a television show about lesbians. What followed was a kind of psychological analysis, in which participants looked for reasons for their lapses. Maybe they had slipped because of a painful conversation with a parent, or a failure at school or work. Understanding those circuits, the group leader told them, would allow them to reprogram their brains and live as heterosexuals. (Barry, 10/7)
HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY
ABC7 Los Angeles: Reports Of Active Shooter At Hoag Hospital In Newport Beach Was Swatting, Police Say Reports of an active shooter at a hospital in Newport Beach turned out to be a case of swatting, authorities confirmed Tuesday. Officers responded to Hoag Hospital and searched the facility, but eventually determined that there was no shooter, according to the Newport Beach Police Department. Police said there was not threat to the hospital or surrounding community. The department added that there was a similar false report at another nearby hospital Monday night, but details about that incident were not available. (10/7)
San Francisco Chronicle: Kaiser Permanente Workers Plan Historic Strike Tens of thousands of Kaiser Permanente nurses and health professionals across Northern California are preparing to strike Oct. 14 in what union leaders say will be the largest work stoppage in the company's history. The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), which represents 31,000 workers, issued a 10-day strike notice to Kaiser executives Friday. (Vaziri, 10/7)
San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Brings Back Mask Mandates In Health Care Settings Mask requirements are returning to health care settings across parts of the Bay Area, as local health officials brace for the annual surge in respiratory illnesses — including COVID-19, influenza and RSV — that typically arrives with colder weather. Starting Nov. 1, several counties — including Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Sonoma, Napa, San Mateo and Santa Cruz — will again require health care workers, and in some cases patients and visitors, to wear masks in patient care areas through the winter and early spring. (Vaziri, 10/7)
St. Louis Public Radio: St. Louis Residents Demand Change At Vacant South City Hospital Urban explorers love vacant hospitals. Stephanie Botkin should know — she lives across from one, the former St. Alexius Hospital on Jefferson Avenue. "They're totally attracted to it," Botkin said. "Because you've got the morgue, and how scary is that? You've got the old operating rooms with all the equipment still in them. "There's something about abandoned hospitals, like where people lived and died," she continued. "Are there ghosts? Are there spirits?" (Fentem, 10/8)
Fierce Healthcare: Geisinger, WellSpan Hospital To Pay $28.5M Over No-Poach Claims Geisinger, which runs 10 hospitals and in 2024 was acquired by Kaiser Permanente's Risant Health, told Fierce Healthcare in an emailed statement that it disagrees with the allegations of running a no-poach agreement with Evangelical Community Hospital and that its settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing. (Muoio, 10/7)
Bloomberg: Diagnostics Firm BillionToOne Files For US IPO Despite Shutdown BillionToOne Inc. filed for a US initial public offering, becoming the second notable health-care company to advance public listing plans despite the US government shutdown. The Menlo Park, California-based company had a net loss of $4.23 million on revenue of $125.54 million in the six months ending June 30, compared with a net loss of $15.19 million on revenue of $69.09 million a year earlier, according to a Tuesday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. (Lipschultz, 10/7)
PHARMA AND TECH
Bloomberg: J&J Must Pay Record $966 Million In Talc Baby Powder Cancer Case Johnson & Johnson was told by a California jury to pay $966 million to the family of a deceased woman who blamed her cancer on life-long use of the company's baby powder in the largest verdict for a single user in the 15-year litigation. The Los Angeles state court jury late Monday found J&J liable for Mae Moore's mesothelioma — a cancer tied to asbestos exposure — and awarded her $16 million in compensatory damages and $950 million in punitive damages. Moore died in 2021 at age 88. The award will go to her family, who alleged J&J hid the health risks of its iconic powder. (Feeley, 10/7)
Stat: Ex-FDA Regulator Peter Marks Joins Eli Lilly Peter Marks, the former top vaccine regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, has joined Eli Lilly to oversee molecule discovery and infectious diseases — a move that quickly drew criticism for the revolving door between the agency and industry. (Lawrence, 10/7)
Modern Healthcare: Zimmer Biomet Completes Monogram Technologies Acquisition Zimmer Biomet announced on Tuesday that it has completed its acquisition of orthopedic robotics company Monogram Technologies. When the proposed deal was announced in July, Zimmer Biomet said it would acquire all outstanding shares of Monogram stock for $4.04 per share in cash, which is worth an estimated $177 million in equity value and $168 million in enterprise value. (Dubinsky, 10/7)
The Guardian: Scientists Develop First 'Accurate Blood Test' To Detect Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Scientists say they have developed the world's first blood test to diagnose myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). There is currently no test for the condition and patients tend to be diagnosed based on symptoms, which means many can go undiagnosed for years. (Gregory, 10/8)
The Baltimore Sun: Carbon Monoxide Antidote A new engineered molecule shows promise as an antidote for carbon monoxide poisoning with fewer side effects than other remedies currently being tested, according to research from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. (Hille, 10/7)
CNN: Commonly Used Opioid Tramadol Not That Effective For Easing Chronic Pain, New Study Finds Tramadol, a potent synthetic opioid, has been widely used to treat moderate to severe pain, but a new study suggests that the medication's potential risks outweigh its "limited" benefits for chronic pain and that the use of it should be minimized. (Howard, 10/7)
The New York Times: Taking Too Much Tylenol Has Proven Risks. Trump Didn't Talk About Those President Trump went far beyond the science when, based on an unproven link and inconclusive studies, he warned last month that taking the pain reliever acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, during pregnancy caused autism. But for decades, doctors and scientists have sounded an alarm about a different risk associated with acetaminophen products that is well established: liver damage from accidentally overdosing on the drug. (Robbins, 10/7)
STATE WATCH
Bloomberg: Massachusetts Counter To Trump Science Cuts Stalls In Statehouse Business leaders, investors and academics have cheered Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey's efforts to counter the Trump administration's research funding cuts with state money — so much so that a recent meeting on the initiative required overflow seating. But the state legislature, whose support is key to making the idea a reality, has yet to hold a hearing on the proposal and has signaled concern about earmarking funds for research from the already-strained budget. (Ryan, 10/7)
The Texas Tribune: Federal Funding Cuts Threaten Texas Opioid Response System In just a few years, Texas established one of the largest no-cost systems for distributing opioid reversal medications in the United States, thanks to an influx of federal and state funding supporting local community efforts. The sudden loss of $68 million in federal substance abuse response funding this year due to the end of COVID-19 funding, plus the potential for more federal cuts in the future, is threatening this fragile ecosystem. (Simpson, 10/7)
Modern Healthcare: How The Primary Care Shortage Is Driving Provider, State Funding Primary care investments are lagging, leading health systems, medical schools and state officials to try and reverse the trend. Health systems and their educational affiliates are employing different methods to beef up primary care resources, including free tuition and tailored programs. The cause is also gaining traction among states. Legislators and healthcare advocates are assessing statutory or regulatory solutions such as spending targets to push for more funding and get payers involved. (Hudson, 10/7)
Stat: Coverage Of Sarepta Duchenne Drug May Be Halted By N.Y. State Medicaid In a setback for Sarepta Therapeutics, a New York panel has voted unanimously to recommend the state Medicaid program should pause coverage of a treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy in response to a high-profile safety controversy this past summer. (Silverman, 10/8)
CIDRAP: West Nile Death Reported In California California yesterday reported its fifth West Nile virus–related death this year, in a man from Placer County in the Central Valley. There have been 54 confirmed human West Nile virus cases in the state this year, 5 of them in Placer County, where county officials said high numbers of West Nile virus-positive mosquitoes and dead birds have been found. It's the first West Nile virus–related death in the county this year. (Dall, 10/7)
CIDRAP: Locally Transmitted US Malaria Cases Highlight Increased Risk, CDC Report Suggests A new paper describes the first locally acquired cases of mosquito-transmitted malaria in the United States in 20 years. The paper, published yesterday in JAMA Network Open, examines the epidemiology of 10 locally transmitted malaria cases that were identified from May to September 2023 in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, and Maryland, and how public health officials responded to and contained the outbreaks. (Dall, 10/7)
CANCER
Newsweek: Weight Loss Jabs Can Compromise Cancer Scans, Study Warns The rise of GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs prescribed for weight loss and type 2 diabetes could be compromising the interpretation of some cancer scans and throwing doctors off course. This is the discovery of UK-based researchers who found the medications—known to alter glucose metabolism, stomach function and the body's stress and energy system—may lead to "unique uptake" patterns of FDG PET-CT scans. (Millington, 10/7)
ABC News: A Hard-To-Spot Breast Cancer Now Makes Up More Than 1 In 10 Cases In The US: Report A fast-rising form of breast cancer that's harder to detect on mammograms now makes up more than one in ten cases in the United States, according to a new report from the American Cancer Society (ACS). Invasive lobular carcinoma, the second most common breast cancer type, is increasing about 3% each year, more than triple the rate of other breast cancers, the report, published on Tuesday morning, found. (Parkerson, 10/7)
NBC News: U.S. Women Are Increasingly Shut Out Of A Breast Cancer Treatment Valued Around The World It's not uncommon for breast cancer patients in the rural South to travel hundreds of miles to reach the medical practice run by Dr. Phillip Ley, a cancer surgeon in Jackson, Mississippi. For those who are good candidates, Ley recommends a therapy that delivers a single, targeted radiation dose to a patient's breast tissue immediately after surgery to remove a tumor. Known as intraoperative radiation therapy, or IORT, it costs patients less in both time and money than traditional radiation treatments, and it is far less grueling. (Morgenson, 10/7)
MedPage Today: New Drug Approved For Deadly Lung Condition, First In Over A Decade The FDA approved nerandomilast (Jascayd) tablets for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), the first new product for the progressive lung condition in over a decade, the agency announced on Tuesday. (Ingram, 10/7)
MedPage Today: Medicaid Expansion Linked To Better Cancer Survival At 5 Years States that expanded Medicaid coverage had significantly better cancer survival among patients in rural and high-poverty areas as compared with non-expansion states, data from U.S. cancer registries showed. Five-year cause-specific survival improved by 2.55 percentage points (ppt) among patients in rural areas of states that expanded Medicaid coverage versus those that did not. (Bankhead, 10/8)
LIFESTYLE AND HEALTH
Newsweek: Landmark Study Reveals Long-Term Impact Of Heart Health In Your 20s Heart health (or lack of) in your 20s could have more of a long-term impact than you realize. As well as being generally linked to heart attack and stroke, researchers discovered young adults who failed to maintain good heart health saw their risk of future cardiovascular disease directly increase by 10 times compared to people who stayed healthy. (Millington, 10/7)
NBC News: 'Exercise Snacks,' Or Short Bursts Of Activity, Shown To Improve Fitness And Strength Short bursts of purposeful activity — such as walking around the block or lifting small weights — may be the best way to get in the habit of exercising. Bite-sized bits of exercise also improve heart and muscle fitness, a study published Tuesday in BMJ Sports Medicine found. Less than half of adults in the United States get enough aerobic activity and less than a quarter get the recommended amount of both aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercise. (Sullivan, 10/7)
Bloomberg: Nestle Bows Out Of Initiative To Reduce Dairy's Climate Impact Less than two years ago, a group of the world's biggest food companies, including Nestle SA, Danone SA and Kraft Heinz Co., announced a major alliance to cut methane emissions from their hundreds of thousands of dairy suppliers. Last month, however, Nestle's logo vanished from the initiative's website. Officials at the Swiss food giant confirmed that they've withdrawn from the effort, known as the Dairy Methane Action Alliance. (Elgin, Raimonde, and Peng, 10/8)
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