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First Edition

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Kennedy Sharpens Vaccine Attacks, Without Scientific Backing As the federal government prepares for the next meeting of its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has intensified his attacks on aluminum vaccine components used in many shots to boost the body's immune response. Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist before seeking public office, claims that aluminum adjuvants are neurotoxic and tied to autism, asthma, autoimmune disease, and food allergies. But science and medicine advances a different view. (Gounder, 11/24)

KFF Health News: Kids And Teens Go Full Throttle For E-Bikes As Federal Oversight Stalls E-bike of Colorado sales manager Perry Fletcher said his sales and repair shop saw an increase in back-to-school sales to young riders and families this fall as the popularity of the battery-powered bicycles revs up. But the kids' excitement for their new rides is tempered by a recurring question from worried parents: Are they safe? That can be a difficult question to answer. The federal government's e-bike regulations are sparse, and efforts to expand them have stalled, leaving states and even counties to fill the void with patchwork rules of their own. (Ruder, 11/24)

KFF Health News: What To Know About The CDC's Baseless New Guidance On Autism The rewriting of a page on the CDC's website to assert the false claim that vaccines may cause autism sparked a torrent of anger and anguish from doctors, scientists, and parents who say Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is wrecking the credibility of an agency they've long relied on for unbiased scientific evidence. Many scientists and public health officials fear that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website, which now baselessly claims that health authorities previously ignored evidence of a vaccine-autism link, foreshadows a larger, dangerous attack on childhood vaccination. (Allen, 11/21)

HEALTH CARE COSTS AND COVERAGE

Politico: White House To Pitch A Trump Obamacare Extension With Limits The White House expects to soon unveil a health policy framework that includes a two-year extension of Obamacare subsidies due to expire at the end of next month and new limits on eligibility, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the unannounced plans. The proposal would mark President Donald Trump's foray into Capitol Hill negotiations over how to address health care premium spikes set to hit Affordable Care Act enrollees if Congress lets the premium subsidies expire. (Guggenheim, 11/23)

Bloomberg: Bessent Says Health-Care Announcement Coming This Week Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration is working on bringing down US health-care costs and an announcement to address the issue is planned for this week. "We believe health care's going to come down," Bessent said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press in response to a question about Vice President JD Vance asking Americans for "a little bit of patience" as the White House works out a plan to address the cost of living. "We will see an announcement this coming week on that," he said. (Czuczka, 11/23)

The Washington Post: Some Republicans Want To Try To Pass Another Mega-Bill On Health Care President Donald Trump and some congressional Republicans are mulling a second round of party-line legislation — like Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act — to pursue GOP health care goals and other priorities if a bipartisan effort fails. Such a proposal, known as a reconciliation bill, would require near-unanimity among Republicans in both chambers, and some say there's little appetite for another partisan policy battle ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. But others argue that now is the time to try for a second GOP law — while Republicans still control the House, Senate and the White House and as the party splinters over extending expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. (Beggin and Bogage, 11/24)

Bloomberg: Americans Googling Obamacare Are Finding Junk Health Insurance Instead Over the next few weeks, millions of Americans will shop for health insurance online. Many will find comprehensive plans through Affordable Care Act marketplaces like HealthCare.gov. Others will be steered elsewhere — toward insurance products that sound great but don't provide much coverage. For many buyers, the trouble starts with a Google search, where the first click on a results page can be the difference between getting the coverage they need — and getting ripped off. (Bengani, Mider and Meghjani, 11/22)

The Washington Post: More States Are Offering Cheap Health Plans To Farmers, With A Catch More and more states are allowing their farm bureaus to sell low-cost health plans to farmers. The catch is that they don't comply with Affordable Care Act requirements. (Cooley, 11/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Calls Obamacare Insurers Fat And Rich. Investors See Them As Vulnerable. Healthcare politics and investing might as well be living in alternate universes. President Trump and some Republicans have been describing Obamacare as a gravy train for insurers. Trump's latest broadside slammed "big, fat, rich insurance companies who have made trillions," and he urged Congress to send healthcare subsidies directly to patients instead. (Wainer, 11/23)

ABORTION

AP: Abortion Is Illegal Again In North Dakota After High Court's Ruling Abortion is again illegal in North Dakota after the state's Supreme Court on Friday couldn't muster the required majority to uphold a judge's ruling that struck down the state's ban last year. The law makes it a felony crime for anyone to perform an abortion, though it specifically protects patients from prosecution. Doctors could be prosecuted and penalized by as much as five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Three justices agreed that the ban is unconstitutionally vague under the state constitution. The other two justices said the law is not unconstitutional. (Dura, 11/22)

The Hill: States Challenge FDA Approval Of Generic Mifepristone Three Republican-led states have challenged the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of a generic form of the abortion pill mifepristone earlier this year, arguing the agency's decision had ignored the "dangerous effects of mifepristone on pregnant women and girls." The attorney generals for Missouri, Kansas and Idaho earlier this week filed an amended complaint in their ongoing lawsuit against the FDA to restrict mifepristone usage. In the complaint, the generals moved to revoke the FDA's September approval of a new generic form of mifepristone. (Venkat, 11/21)

VACCINES

The New York Times: RFK Jr. Says He Instructed CDC To Change Vaccines And Autism Language On Website Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in an interview that he personally instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to abandon its longstanding position that vaccines do not cause autism — a move that underscores his determination to challenge scientific consensus and bend the health department to his will. (Gay Stolberg, 11/21)

Politico: Vaccine-Supporting Cassidy Declines To Speak Against RFK Jr. Sen. Bill Cassidy on Sunday declined to criticize Robert F. Kennedy after the Health and Human Services head personally instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change its stance on vaccines and autism. In an interview with CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, the Republican lawmaker and physician emphasized that vaccines are safe and that President Donald Trump agrees — but did not specifically name Kennedy in his critique of the new guidance. (Daniels, 11/23)

MedPage Today: 'Dangerous': Medical Groups Slam CDC Changes On Vaccines And Autism The American Medical Association (AMA) and other groups warned that recent changes to the CDC website may ignite a dangerous surge in vaccine misinformation and erode public trust. (George, 11/21)

AP: Experts Question Trump And RFK Jr.'s 'Gold Standard' Science The message is hammered over and over, in news conferences, hearings and executive orders: President Donald Trump and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., say they want the government to follow "gold standard" science. Scientists say the problem is that they are often doing just the opposite by relying on preliminary studies, fringe science or just hunches to make claims, cast doubt on proven treatments or even set policy. This week, the nation's top public health agency changed its website to contradict the scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism. The move shocked health experts nationwide. (Shastri, 11/22)

CIDRAP: CDC Outlines New Initiatives Such As Expanded Hepatitis B Screening With Potential Vaccine Policy Impacts This week, leaders at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) circulated a list of 16 strategic initiatives that offer the clearest view yet of the Trump administration's plans for the agency under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The list, shared in an internal memo obtained by STAT, includes initiatives such as decreasing animal testing, advancing diagnostic preparedness, and "invigorating the CDC workforce." (Bergeson, 11/21)

MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

The Washington Post: EPA Moves To Approve New 'Forever Chemical' Pesticides The Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with approvals for pesticides containing "forever chemicals" as an active ingredient, dismissing concerns about health and environmental impacts raised by some scientists and activists. This month, the agency approved two new pesticides that meet the internationally recognized definition for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or fluorinated substances, and has announced plans for four additional approvals. The authorized pesticides, cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram, which was approved Thursday, will be used on vegetables such as romaine lettuce, broccoli and potatoes. (Ajasa, 11/22)

Politico: The White House Has Asked For The Resignation Of A Top Aide To FDA Chief The White House on Thursday emailed HHS leadership asking for the resignation of a top aide to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary whom he had sought to promote, according to two administration officials granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive personnel matter. Makary pushed back on the request to force policy and research staffer Sanjula Jain-Nagpal out of the agency, officials told POLITICO. (Gardner, 11/21)

Stat: CDC Moves To Ends Telework For Employees, Including Those With Medical Needs The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ended full-time telework agreements for reasonable accommodations for many employees, according to multiple employees familiar with the policy. Supervisors in some centers have been told in recent days that they can no longer approve temporary 90-day agreements for full-time telework, even requiring people with existing agreements to come into the office. (Broderick, 11/21)

Politico: DOGE Had A Cutting Spree. 550 Vet-Owned Businesses Felt It A nine-year Navy veteran started walking dogs when he lost his translation business. One 10-year veteran of the Army furloughed half of their staff while another considered selling their car to make payroll. Ten months into the Trump administration, the nation's military veterans doing business with Washington are feeling the sting of President Donald Trump's efforts to shrink the federal government and DOGE's crusade to combat what it calls waste, fraud and abuse. The fallout has hit hundreds of veteran-owned businesses across the country. (Blaeser, 11/22)

CANCER

The New York Times: Tatiana Schlossberg, John F. Kennedy's Granddaughter, Reveals Terminal Cancer Diagnosis Tatiana Schlossberg, the 35-year-old daughter of Caroline Kennedy and a granddaughter of John F. Kennedy, revealed in an essay published in The New Yorker on Saturday that she is fighting a rare and aggressive blood cancer, acute myeloid leukemia. Ms. Schlossberg, an environmental journalist, said in the essay that her cancer was discovered in May 2024, while she was in the hospital for the birth of her second child. ... Ms. Schlossberg, a former science writer for The New York Times, lashes out at her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for policy decisions and budget cuts that put the nation's well being, and her own fragile health, at risk. (Russell, 11/22)

The Washington Post: Lung Cancer Screening Guidelines Should Change, New Study Finds A new study reveals that current lung cancer screening guidelines may be missing most cases, prompting calls for changes to detect the disease earlier. (Chiu, 11/24)

Axios: Nearly 1 In 10 U.S. Adults Have Had Cancer: Gallup Nearly one in ten U.S. adults have been diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, a new high in Gallup's surveys dating back nearly two decades. Cancer death rates have declined in recent decades, along with incidences of certain types of cancer like lung cancer. But other cancers, notably those associated with obesity, have seen an uptick. (Lotz, 11/24)

BIRD FLU

The Washington Post: Bird Flu Patient Dies, Marking Second U.S. Fatality In 2025 A Washington resident who was the first human case of bird flu in the U.S. since February died on Friday, state health officials said. The person was an older adult with underlying conditions and had been hospitalized since early November with a strain that was previously reported in animals but never before in humans. The person had been undergoing treatment for infection with H5N5 avian influenza, the health department said in a news release. State epidemiologist Scott Lindquist said last week that the person, who was hospitalized after developing high fever, confusion and respiratory distress, was "a severely ill patient." (Sun, 11/21)

INFANT HEALTH

The New York Times: Botulism Bacteria Found In Infant Formula, ByHeart Confirms ByHeart, the company linked to an outbreak of botulism from infant formula, said late Wednesday that a private lab had found the bacteria that causes the illness in samples of its product. So far, 31 babies in 15 states have been hospitalized, many in intensive care units, after becoming weak and unable to swallow. No deaths have been reported. (Jewett, 11/20)

Bloomberg: 2024-25 Baby Botulism Cases Under Investigation In California The California Department of Public Health is investigating six additional cases of botulism in the state in infants who were given ByHeart formula before the start of the current outbreak in August, a department spokesperson told Bloomberg. Those babies became ill between November 2024 and June 2025, said Brian Micek, a CDPH spokesperson. The department hasn't linked the cases to the babies' consumption of ByHeart. (Edney, 11/22)

NBC News: More Families Sue Infant Formula Maker ByHeart Over Botulism Outbreak At least four families have sued infant formula maker ByHeart saying their babies contracted botulism from contaminated formula, as the company faces ongoing scrutiny from federal investigators and a separate class action lawsuit filed last week. In the lawsuits, affected families described harrowing days or weeks in the hospital with their babies, who were placed on IVs and feeding tubes. Many said they had chosen ByHeart's formula because it contained organic whole milk and minimal additives, making it seem like the healthiest option. (Bendix, 11/22)

COVID

Axios: Long COVID Systems Can Start And Stop 8 Different Ways. Here They Are There are eight different ways people experience long COVID symptoms, according to a new study from the National Institutes of Health's research initiative. The new study represents one of the most substantive findings on long COVID from the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) project, launched by the NIH in 2021. (Scribner, 11/22)

Newsweek: COVID Vaccine Tech May Reduce Disabilities In Snakebite Victims COVID vaccine technology could help reduce disabilities in people caused by injuries from snakebites. Researchers at the University of Reading, England, found that the same mRNA tech used in coronavirus vaccinations could help to prevent muscle damage in snakebite victims and the knock-on impacts that linger even after treatment. (Millington, 11/24)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 'Micro-Hospital' To Open In North St. Louis A Houston-based for-profit health care company says it will restart emergency care at a "micro-hospital" on the site of the short-lived Homer G. Phillips Memorial Hospital at Jefferson and Cass avenues. Archview ER & Hospital plans to open before the end of the year in the 15-bed healthcare facility completed in 2023 as part of North St. Louis landowner Paul McKee's 15-year-old NorthSide Regeneration plan. (Barker, 11/21)

Post-Tribune: Franciscan Fires Two Employees After Dolton Woman Turned Away While In Labor Less than one week after a woman reported that she was turned away while in active labor, Franciscan Health Crown Point has taken corrective action, including firing the nurse and physician directly involved. (Wilkins, 11/21)

Chicago Tribune: Hospitals Funnel Patients Into Long-Lasting Guardianships As Gary Ellis lay dying in August 2023, no one at the facility caring for him called his son. Instead, staffers called Ellis' court-appointed state guardian, who had recently taken charge of all decisions related to the 69-year-old man's care. Not until it was too late did Gary Brown learn his father had been at death's door, Brown told the Tribune. (Hoerner, Gutowski and Schencker, 11/23)

Modern Healthcare: CMS' TEAM Model Leaves Hospitals Scrambling Before 2026 Launch Hospitals are running out of time to prepare for a new mandatory Medicare bundled payment model, and there's lots left to do. Starting in January, more than 700 hospitals will be held accountable for coordinating care and constraining costs for five common procedures under a five-year bundled payment demonstration called the Transforming Episode Accountability Model, or TEAM. The model, which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized last November, will test bundled payments for 30-day episodes of care in fee-for-service Medicare. (Early, 11/21)

Minnesota Public Radio: University Of Minnesota To Restart Negotiations With Fairview And M Physicians After several weeks of turmoil over funding the state's largest medical school, all parties will soon return to the negotiating table. Last week, Fairview Health Services and University of Minnesota Physicians, a nonprofit clinical practice for the faculty of the University of Minnesota Medical School, announced they had reached a deal to support physician training and academic health programs and fund the medical school for the next 10 years. (Zurek, 11/21)

PHARMACEUTICALS

The New York Times: Eli Lilly, Drug Maker Of Zepbound And Mounjaro, Reaches $1 Trillion In Value Eli Lilly, the maker of hugely popular weight loss drugs, has reached $1 trillion in value, becoming the first publicly traded company in health care to hit the milestone. Lilly's stock has surged in large part because of the company's success in seizing the biggest potential market in the history of the drug industry: the class of weight loss medicines known as GLP-1s. The company's injection, sold as Zepbound and Mounjaro, is on track to be the top-selling drug in the world this year. (Robbins, 11/21)

Bloomberg: Bayer Drug Cut Stroke Risk After First Hitting Roadblock Bayer AG said an experimental stroke-prevention drug showed positive results in a late-stage study, a boost for the German company as it seeks to counter sales declines from aging blockbuster medicines. Patients who took a 50-milligram dose of asundexian once a day, along with standard antiplatelet therapy, had a significantly lower risk of another stroke occurring compared with those who took a placebo, the drugmaker said Sunday. The news is positive for Bayer, which is struggling with dwindling sales for some of its blockbuster drugs and litigation over its Roundup herbicide. (Wind and Schroers, 11/23)

STATE WATCH

The New York Times: Mother Accused Of Delaying Medical Care For Daughter Who Died On Road Trip A woman has been charged with manslaughter after she failed to obtain medical treatment for her 10-year-old daughter, who had Type 1 diabetes and was showing signs of complications from the disease before she died on a summer road trip, the police said. Investigators believe the girl slipped into a coma in July and died from prolonged diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening complication of diabetes, according to a statement on Friday from the Kirkland Police Department in Washington State. (Holpuch, 11/23)

Stat: What Closing The 'THC Loophole' Will Mean For Patients In the mid-2010s, families across the country uprooted themselves to move to Colorado for reasons unrelated to outdoor adventures or craft beer. Instead, they moved for the state's first-in-the-nation legal marijuana laws, which allowed access to cannabis-derived products they said were essential to their or their children's health. (Facher, 11/24)

LIFESTYLE AND HEALTH

The New York Times: U.S. Introduces New Female Crash-Test Dummy Standards When a woman gets behind the wheel of a vehicle today, she is protected by safety features — from seatbelts to airbags — that have largely been designed to protect the average man from about 50 years ago. But female drivers in the United States are 73 percent more likely than a male driver to be severely injured in vehicle crashes, and they are 17 percent more likely to die, according to government data. (Hassan, 11/23)

Fox News: More Adults Suddenly Developing Food Allergies, Baffling Experts More adults are suddenly developing allergic reactions later in life — and experts aren't sure why. Nearly 50% of adults developed at least one food allergy in adulthood, according to a 2019 investigation published in JAMA. Illana Golant, founder and CEO of the Food and Allergy Fund (FAF) in New York City, told Fox News Digital that she developed allergies in her 40s. (DiMella, 11/23)

CELEBRITIES AND POP CULTURE

The Washington Post: Donald Glover Says He Had Stroke, Surgeries For Hole In Heart In 2024 Donald Glover, the multitalented creative known as Childish Gambino, addressed last year's world tour cancellation during a weekend concert, telling fans he had suffered a stroke and doctors discovered a hole in his heart. Glover recalled performing in Louisiana in 2024 with "a really bad pain" in his head. "So when we went to Houston, I went to the hospital, and the doctor was like, 'You had a stroke,'" he said during a Saturday performance at Tyler, the Creator's Camp Flog Gnaw festival in Los Angeles. (Masih, 11/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Celebrities Are Making Smoking Cigarettes Cool Again The stars are lighting up again. "Need a cigarette to make me feel better," crooned pop star Addison Rae on her 2025 single "Headphones On," while Lorde sang "this is the best cigarette of my life" in her own 2025 release, "What Was That." Sabrina Carpenter was recently photographed wearing a corset made of Marlboro Gold packages, and sells shirts with song names emblazoned on mock-ups of cigarette boxes and lighters. (Cooper and Wright, 11/23)

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