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First Edition

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

KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES

KFF Health News: Florida Delays Children’s Health Insurance Expansion As Uninsured Rate Rises Like many parents, Tatiana Lafortune wants her children to get a good education, eat nutritious food, and see a doctor when they’re not feeling well. Public schools and her church’s pantry help Lafortune accomplish the first two goals. But insurance to cover doctor visits has been the most difficult to secure. As nursing assistants at a traumatic brain injury rehab center near Tampa, Florida, Lafortune and her husband cannot afford the health insurance benefits offered by their employer. (Chang, 4/27)

KFF Health News: The Help That Many Older Americans Need Most On a recent Monday, Sandy Guzman, a community health worker in rural Oregon, drove to visit a patient in her 60s in a small city called The Dalles. The patient lived alone, and “really struggles with social isolation,” Guzman said. After a serious fall and subsequent surgery, the woman was using a wheelchair. She confided that she would like to attend services at a church down the road but had no way to get there and did not want to seem “a bother.” (Span, 4/27)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘On Air’: Gounder Culls The News, From Ticks And AI To Who Might Lead CDC Céline Gounder, KFF Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed the increase in hospital visits during tick season on CBS’ CBS Mornings on April 20. On April 18, for CBS News’ The Daily Report, Gounder discussed how some health podcasts generated by artificial intelligence are spreading misinformation. She also spoke with Scripps News about President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Erica Schwartz. (4/25)

GUN VIOLENCE AND MENTAL HEALTH

The Washington Post: Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting Suspect Called Himself ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday the preliminary investigation indicated that the gunman acted alone and set out from his home in California last week before arriving in D.C. and checking into the Hilton on Friday with two firearms and a knife he had purchased years before. So far, the suspect had refused to cooperate with investigators, Blanche said. But interviews with family members as well as writings recovered from Allen’s home outside Los Angeles and the hotel room he booked at the Washington Hilton contributed to a growing confidence among authorities that his attack was politically motivated. (Roebuck, Stein, Kirkpatrick and Davies, 4/26)

The Orange County Register: The Accused Attacker’s Apparent Past Caltech. Cal State Dominguez Hills. Teacher of the month. Torrance. Cole Tomas Allen, the man arrested Saturday, April 25, in the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner, appears to have left a trail through Southern California higher education on his alleged path to Washington, D.C. That trail, according to interviews and social media posts, shows a 31-year-old, highly educated tutor and amateur video game developer from Torrance who studied at one of the most elite learning institutions in the world, Caltech. (Carter, Emery, Saavedra and Armstrong, 4/26)

Politico: Trump Lashes Out At ‘60 Minutes’ Anchor For Reading Alleged Gunman’s Manifesto President Donald Trump lashed out at CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell in an interview Sunday for quoting from the manifesto of the suspected gunman who tried to storm the White House Correspondents Dinner less than 24 hours earlier. ... When O’Donnell, during an interview recorded at the White House on Sunday, quoted from the accused gunman Cole Allen’s apparent manifesto — “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” she read — Trump, who’d been relatively subdued in his responses, flashed a familiar anger. “I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people. Horrible people,” Trump said. “Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.” O’Donnell interjected, “Oh, do you think he was referring to you?” But the president blew past her question, declaring, “I’m not a pedophile.” (Stokols, 4/26)

The Washington Post: White House Correspondents’ Dinner Was Not Given Top Security Status When so many officials gather in one place for official functions such as an inauguration or State of the Union address, the secretary of homeland security typically puts the Secret Service in charge of coordinating all security through a formal designation known as a “National Special Security Event.” There was no such designation on Saturday night at an event also attended by thousands of journalists and other government officials, according to local and federal officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss security details. ... A worst-case scenario might have resulted in passing the power of the presidency to the senior-most senator of the majority party, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who was not at the event and is third in line to the presidency behind Vance and Johnson. (Davies, Arnsdorf, Roebuck and Heim, 4/26)

The New York Times: Security At Correspondents’ Dinner Worked As Intended, Experts Say The gunman who sprinted through a security checkpoint on Saturday night at the Washington Hilton believed that the Secret Service was poorly prepared to guard top administration officials against him, according to writing he left behind. Agents, in turn, stopped him in a matter of seconds. The episode raised fresh questions about whether the Secret Service was sufficiently prepared to protect the president in an age of rising threats and spasms of political violence. But officials insisted that the security measures had worked as intended, pointing to the fact that the suspect never made it into the hotel ballroom where President Trump and hundreds of journalists were gathered for the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. (Barrett, Sullivan and Marcius, 4/26)

FEDERAL FUNDING

The New York Times: Trump Fires Board Members Of Group That Oversees U.S. Science Funding The Trump administration on Friday dismissed members of an independent board that oversees the National Science Foundation, which finances much of the public scientific research in the United States. On Friday afternoon, National Science Board members received a terse email “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump” that said their position was “terminated, effective immediately.” (Sella, 4/25)

Los Angeles Times: Critics Slam Trump’s Purge Of National Science Board: ‘Wholesale Evisceration Of American Leadership In Science’ With Trump purging the National Science Board, and the NSF director seat vacant, scientists warn of a shift away from fundamental research toward a narrow focus on AI. (Jarvie, 4/26)

Stat: Kristine Blanche, Wife Of Acting Attorney General, Named To NIH Advisory Council Kristine Blanche, an integrative medicine doctor and wife of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, has been named as a member to one of the advisory councils that provides critical funding recommendations to the National Institutes of Health. Her appointment, to serve on the advisory council to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, is the first of such appointments to be made in over a year. (Molteni, 4/26)

PSYCHEDELICS

ABC News: FDA Issues Vouchers To 3 Companies To Help Fast Track Review Of Potential Psychedelic Medications The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Friday It's issuing national priority vouchers to three companies to help fast-track the review of certain psychedelic medications. The companies are studying psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression and major depressive disorder and methylone for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These vouchers mean the FDA has 60 days to review the medications for approval. (Kekatos, 4/24)

HealthDay: New Survey Estimates 8 Million Americans Used Psilocybin in 2024 This survey is one of the few to track psilocybin use in the previous 12 months, rather than just lifetime use. The study found that 2.8% of the U.S. population — about 8 million people — had used psilocybin during the study period. (Neff, 4/24)

TRANSGENDER CARE

MedPage Today: Trump Administration To Revive Axed 988 Line For LGBTQ+ Youth In Crisis Advocates for the LGBTQ+ community claimed a win this week after the Trump administration pledged to reinstate the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline specialized support program tailored to their needs. During a Senate hearing earlier this week, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked whether he would commit to restoring the tailored line for LGBTQ+ callers to 988, as required by law, after the Trump administration removed it last summer. "We are working on getting it up now," Kennedy said. (Firth, 4/24)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Block On Child Abuse Investigations For Trans Care Ends The Texas Supreme Court tossed temporary injunctions Friday that halted child abuse investigations against parents who allowed their transgender kids to access puberty blockers and hormone therapy, in large part because the state has closed such inquiries into three families who sued and a fourth child is now an adult. (Langford, 4/24)

PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES

CBS News: Johnson & Johnson To Launch On TrumpRx With 4 Of Its Prescription Drugs Drug-making giant Johnson & Johnson will officially start marketing four of its medications on the Trump administration's TrumpRx website on Friday, CBS News exclusively learned. The pharmaceutical company announced in January that it had entered into a voluntary agreement with the Trump administration to lower costs for Americans by providing Medicaid access to affordable prescriptions and marketing its drugs on TrumpRx in exchange for exemption from the president's tariff agenda. (Rinaldi, 4/24)

'MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN'

The New York Times: As Trump Officials Pushed Health Savings Accounts, RFK Jr. Aide Ran Wellness Company Poised To Benefit For most of last year, Calley Means, a top aide to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was advising on changes to the American health system while running a rapidly growing wellness company poised to benefit from Trump administration health policies. Records released to The New York Times by an ethics office at the Department of Health and Human Services show that Mr. Means held between $25 million and $50 million in stock in the company, Truemed, through November, as he continued to serve as its president. For months, Mr. Means has ignored questions from Democrats in Congress about his finances, including the extent of his stake in Truemed, and how they related to federal policy. (Jewett and Mueller, 4/24)

Politico: The Groups Backing RFK Jr. Are Running Low On Cash Leaders of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement say they’ll help Republicans stay in power – but they’ve got little money to do it. Last month, Tony Lyons, the ally of the health secretary who runs the MAHA PAC, said he’d raise $100 million to support Republicans, bolstering President Donald Trump’s view that MAHA voters will help Republicans maintain their majorities in Congress this year. (Chu, 4/24)

CIDRAP: New Global Health Misinformation Survey Reveals Deep Divides About a quarter of people worldwide say they believe that raw milk is healthier than pasteurized milk, that use of acetaminophen during pregnancy causes autism, and that vaccines are used for population control. These are a few of the harmful health claims that were surveyed in the 5th annual Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Trust and Health. The report was authored by the Edelman Trust Institute. The think tank, which is part of the Edelman global communications firm, studies shifts in trust across institutions, geographies, and society. (Boden, 4/24)

VACCINES AND OUTBREAKS

CIDRAP: CDC: 6 More US Children Die Of Flu As Season Winds Down Six more US children died of influenza last week as seasonal respiratory virus activity continues slowing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today in its weekly FluView report. Pediatric flu deaths so far this season now total 149. About 85% of the children who died and had a known vaccination status were unvaccinated. (Van Beusekom, 4/24)

CIDRAP: Flu Vaccination Rate Lags In US Nursing Homes The first national data on influenza vaccination among nursing home residents finds that they are less likely to receive flu shots than older adults living in the community, according to a new analysis. Only 61% of nursing home residents received flu shots during the 2024-2025 flu season, compared with 76% of people over age 75 who live in the community, according to a report published yesterday in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. (Szabo, 4/24)

Stat: Nancy Cox, A CDC Veteran And Stalwart In Global Flu Research, Dies At 77 Nancy Cox, who for decades was a global leader in influenza research, has died. Cox headed the influenza team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 22 years, shepherding it from a branch of 14 people to a division of over 100. She was also director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Control of Influenza at the CDC. (Branswell, 4/25)

The Baltimore Sun: Health Officials Confirm Two Measles Cases In Anne Arundel Area Two cases of measles in the Baltimore metro area have been confirmed by health officials, the Maryland Department of Health announced in a release. (Byrne, 4/24)

Stat: Is Covid Still A Thing? The Risk Has Waned, But Hasn't Vanished In April 2020, people around the globe were struggling to come to grips with the strictures of unprecedented societal shutdowns aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19. Flattening the curve, in 2020-speak. Six years later, school and business closures, mask wearing, and social distancing are dim, unpleasant memories. And Covid, though it still animates political animus plenty, feels like a threat from yesteryear. (Branswell, 4/27)

CIDRAP: COVID Virus Clears From Placenta Weeks After Maternal Infection, Study Suggests The virus that causes COVID-19 does not appear to linger in placental tissue after a pregnant patient recovers from acute infection, according to a small case-control study published this week in JAMA Network Open. The findings suggest that placental infection is unlikely in the weeks and months after illness, even in cases with adverse outcomes. (Bergeson, 4/24)

CIDRAP: Low Risk Of Clade 1 Mpox Spread During Air Travel Revealed Transmission of clade 1 mpox virus during commercial air travel appears to be uncommon, according to a study published yesterday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The analysis looked at data from five commercial flights taken by three men with active mpox symptoms to assess the risk of in-flight transmission. The three men were aged 20 to 40 years. The flights took place from November 2024 to January 2025. (Bergeson, 4/24)

HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

AP: Police Officer Killed In Chicago Hospital Shooting Identified A Chicago officer who was fatally shot by a man receiving treatment at a hospital while in police custody has been identified as 38-year-old John Bartholomew, authorities said. Bartholomew, a 10-year veteran of the force, was pronounced dead just before 1 p.m. Saturday after being shot at Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. A second officer was wounded in the Saturday morning shooting and remained in critical condition Sunday, police said. (4/26)

Modern Healthcare: Cigna, Humana, Others To Standardize Prior Authorization Process Major insurance companies are taking more steps to simplify the prior authorization process. Insurers including Centene, Cigna, Humana and UnitedHealth Group unit UnitedHealthcare will standardize electronic submission requirements for commonly preauthorized services across Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial insurance. Widespread adoption of the new standards is expected in January, according to a Friday news release from industry groups AHIP and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. (Tong, 4/24)

Bloomberg: US Life Insurers Have Shifted More General Account Risk Offshore US life insurers have shifted more of their general account risk to entities abroad than in the US as of year-end, the first time that offshore reinsurance hubs have overtaken domestic ones for that business. Deals to cut the risk of US life insurers’ general accounts with offshore entities represented $1.06 trillion in reserves in 2025, accounting for nearly 52% of the industry’s total use of reinsurance, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence report published Friday. (Rajbhandari, 4/24)

Bloomberg: BayMark Health Creditors To Take Control In Debt Restructuring Deal BayMark Health Services creditors will take control of the provider of opioid addiction treatments, as part of a deal to restructure the company’s debt, according to people familiar with the matter. Private equity firm Webster Equity Partners will hand the keys of the business to lenders in exchange for cutting the company’s debt by more than 40%, the people familiar added, asking not to be identified discussing private information. (Garcia Perez, 4/24)

Border Belt Independent: Behavioral Health Urgent Care Set To Open In Robeson County Dozens of health care workers, law enforcement officers, and representatives of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina celebrated Southeastern Integrated Care’s new behavioral health urgent care in Lumberton on Friday. (Casey, 4/26)

Axios: Hospitals That Take The Sickest Patients Are Closing Hospitals that treat patients who require extended stays have been closing at a rapid clip, driving up demand for the remaining beds and prompting health systems to appeal to the Trump administration and Congress for relief. (Goldman, 4/27)

PHARMA AND TECH

Bloomberg: Supreme Court Weighs Bayer Appeal Of `Failure-To-Warn' Roundup Lawsuits Bayer AG is counting on the US Supreme Court to pare down lawsuits over its top-selling Roundup weedkiller and help corral the decade-long litigation that has cost the company more than $10 billion and cast a pall over its stock price. Bayer’s attorneys during arguments Monday will urge the high court to overturn a $1.25 million Missouri jury verdict for a man who claims Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma and should have had a cancer warning label. The company contends that since US regulators didn’t require a cancer warning, federal law bars those types of suits. (Feeley, Stohr, and Wind, 4/26)

Katie Couric Media: Cancer Vaccines At Risk As 'Turbo Cancer' Lies Spread Scientists are making rapid progress toward a long-awaited goal that could help to reshape cancer care: mRNA cancer vaccines with the potential to significantly boost the immune system’s ability to fight and eliminate tumors. At the same time, misinformation about so-called turbo cancer began spreading widely on social media, with mainstream media outlets first reporting on it in late 2022. Turbo cancer refers to the false claim that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause unusually aggressive cancers. (Boatman, 4/24)

Bloomberg: Lilly’s New Obesity Pill Off To Slow Start In Race With Novo Eli Lilly & Co.’s new weight-loss pill Foundayo has gotten off to a sluggish start, according to new prescription data, an early sign of the challenge the drugmaker will have as it tries to catch up with rival Novo Nordisk A/S. Foundayo generated 3,707 prescriptions in its second week, according to IQVIA data cited by RBC Capital Markets analyst Trung Huynh. For comparison, an oral version of Novo’s Wegovy drew 18,410 prescriptions in its second week of launch. (Smith and Kresge, 4/24)

The Hill: GLP-1s And Endometriosis: Could Weight Loss Drugs Offer A New Treatment? Weight-loss drugs like Ozempic could be a possible treatment for endometriosis, with research investigating the possible benefits. Although they were originally developed to treat diabetes, GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy have been found to help with weight loss and have other benefits for the heart, kidneys and brain. Research on GLP-1s and endometriosis is in its very early stages, with few studies and more research needed. However, some women have shared experiences on social media, saying that their endometriosis symptoms improved while on a GLP-1. (Whiteside, 4/25)

Stat: Motif Neurotech Gets FDA Nod To Test Its Brain Implant For Depression Wake up. Brush your teeth. Wash your face. And put on your lifesaving baseball hat. That’s right. If you have treatment-resistant depression, this could be the regular morning routine in your future. (Broderick, 4/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: ALS Took His Voice. A Brain Implant Helped Him Speak To His Girl Again At the darkest point of his life, Casey Harrell found a kind of magic. It was the summer of 2023, and Harrell, then 45 and living in Oakland, was battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. The neurodegenerative disease eats away at a person’s muscles, and for Harrell, the devastation was quick and unsparing. He had already lost the ability to mount a bicycle, pick up his daughter or get out of bed on his own. Now Harrell’s voice was breaking down, making each sentence an impossible contortion. (Swan, 4/26)

The New York Times: Eugene Braunwald, Whose Research Reshaped Cardiology, Dies At 96 Eugene Braunwald, a groundbreaking cardiologist whose research helped transform heart disease from a near-certain killer into a condition often manageable with medications, procedures and careful monitoring, died on Wednesday in Newton, Mass. He was 96. His death, at a hospital, was confirmed by his daughter Jill Braunwald Porter. He lived in Weston, Mass. (Kandell, 4/25)

STATE WATCH

MPR News: In Minnesota’s Group Home Industry, 50 Deaths But Few Consequences Ryan Riggs died alone by a chain link fence in the backyard of the group home that was paid to take care of him. Disabled by a traumatic brain injury after crashing his motorcycle in 2024, the 44-year-old needed more help than his family could handle. His wife, Julie, moved him to a site run by Fortunate Homes in Brooklyn Center, believing it was the best place for him. (Roth, Lu and Peak, 4/27)

North Carolina Health News: NC Moves To Rein In Soaring Autism Therapy Costs Meredith McCumbee has seen firsthand the difference applied behavioral analysis therapy, commonly known as ABA, can make in children with autism. Aaron, her 16-year-old son, was diagnosed with autism and apraxia of speech — a disorder that makes it difficult to coordinate the muscle movements needed to form words — in 2014. His inability to communicate growing up often led to aggressive “meltdowns,” his mother said, creating a near-constant state of crisis at home. (Baxley, 4/27)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Agency Finds Camp Mystic Emergency Plan Insufficient Camp Mystic’s emergency plan does not yet fully comply with new rules for youth camps, a state agency wrote in a letter to the camp’s director on Thursday, giving the camp 45 days to make corrections to meet state licensing requirements. (Foxhall, 4/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Startup Pairs Seniors, Students For Help At Home When Paige Miller was diagnosed with early stage dementia in 2019, the San Rafael resident knew she’d soon need to hand off some parts of her daily routine. She had to stop driving, for one. Miller, 72, and her husband, Robert, 70, didn’t yet need a caregiver or nurse, or to move to a senior living facility. Paige was still active and independent, and they made a conscious decision to prioritize her dignity and their social and emotional well-being as they navigated the future. (Ho, 4/26)

PUBLIC HEALTH

AP: Tick Season Seems To Be Off To A Fast Start Tick season seems to be off to a fast start, with an unusually high number of bites already reported across the country. Some U.S. doctors are worried about the potential for a bad year for tick-borne diseases. “If you have a lot of exposures, there will probably be more cases of tick-related infections,” said Dr. Alina Filozov, an infectious disease doctor at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, Connecticut. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an early advisory to the public this week to guard against ticks. (Stobbe, 4/25)

The Washington Post: What To Do If You’ve Been Bitten By A Tick Experts explained what to do if you find a tick attached to your skin, including how to remove it and document it, and when to seek medical advice. (Felton, 4/25)

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