Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: Saving Lives By Changing Lives: The Next Frontier In Suicide Prevention Someone in America dies by suicide every 11 minutes. It’s that common. But not normal. Humans have evolved over centuries to survive. So when people try to kill themselves, something has gone wrong. Typically, the assumption is that something happened in the person’s mind — a mental illness. But in recent decades, there’s been a growing movement to ask a different question: What went wrong in the world around that person? (Pattani, 4/29)
KFF Health News: Trump’s Medicaid Work Mandate Debuting In Nebraska To Much Dismay Schmeeka Simpson of Omaha works as a patient navigator for the American Civil Liberties Union and an administrative assistant at Nebraskans for Peace, plus picks up shifts at a Dunkin’ shop. Still, even with three jobs, she worries about losing her health coverage when Nebraska, on May 1, becomes the first state to require certain Medicaid enrollees to work, train, or go to school under a rule mandated by congressional Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act. (Galewitz, 4/29)
KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest 'KFF Health News Minute' Arielle Zionts reads the week’s news: The Trump administration wants to kick off a new baby boom with big changes to Title X. Plus, tips to make sure a life change doesn’t leave you without health insurance. (Cook, 4/28)
OPIOID CRISIS
AP: OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma Is Sentenced, Set To Dissolve OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is set to be dissolved and replaced by a company focused on the public good by the week’s end, as a massive legal settlement resolving thousands of lawsuits takes effect. A federal judge on Tuesday delivered a criminal sentence to the company to resolve a U.S. Department of Justice probe — a last necessary step to clear the way for the settlement. U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo made her decision after listening to hours of impact statements from people who lost loved ones or struggled with addiction themselves and requested she reject the negotiated sentence. (Mulvihill, 4/29)
CAPITOL WATCH
The Hill: GOP Blames Hospitals For Soaring Healthcare Expenses House Republicans during a Tuesday hearing blamed hospital and health systems for high health costs, excoriating a group of CEOs for exorbitant benefits packages, large profit margins and mergers. “Our communities are better off with hospitals in them, but large health systems have taken advantage of that reality,” Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said. “Simply put, hospitals are charging an insane amount for care.” Hospitals are one of the primary drivers of increased health spending, accounting for about 31 percent of all health care costs, according to the most recent federal data. Smith noted that hospital prices have skyrocketed 300 percent in just over two decades. (Weixel, 4/28)
NOTUS: Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Brought Back ‘Bad Memories’ For Scalise House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Metairie, heard the gunshots at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He saw waitstaff duck for cover and Secret Service agents rush towards President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. “Some bad memories started coming back,” Scalise told NOTUS. Scalise survived an assassination attempt while at a practice for the Congressional Baseball Game in 2017. A gunman opened fire and struck Scalise, nearly killing him and leading to a lengthy recovery. (Gorman, 4/28)
Politico: Barney Frank, Entering Hospice Care, Embarks On A Final Act: Taking On The Left Former Rep. Barney Frank, a liberal icon who was a key architect of the landmark Wall Street regulations Democrats enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, has entered hospice care at his home in Maine. And as one of his last acts, he is preparing to release a book repudiating his party’s left flank. A champion of liberal causes during his 32 years representing Massachusetts in the House, Frank says progressive Democrats have “embraced an agenda that goes beyond what’s politically acceptable.” (Goodman, 4/28)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The Wall Street Journal: FDA Turns To AI To Speed Up Clinical Trials The U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeks to accelerate clinical trials of new medicines by using artificial intelligence to streamline the laborious process of collecting and submitting study data. Typically, medical centers involved in clinical trials pull study data from electronic-health records and enter them manually into a data-capture system. Then, the drug company developing the medicine reviews the data and submits them to the FDA. (Gormley, 4/28)
The New York Times: A.I. Bots Told Scientists How To Make Biological Weapons Scientists shared transcripts with The Times in which chatbots described how to assemble deadly pathogens and unleash them in public spaces. (Dance, 4/29)
AUTISM
Stat: In First Meeting, Federal Autism Committee Focuses On ‘Profound Autism’ The federal autism advisory committee met for the first time since Trump took office, months after health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired most of the committee’s scientific experts and replaced them with activists and advocates who more closely align with his controversial views on the link between autism, vaccines, and environmental factors. (Broderick, 4/28)
MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
NPR: RFK Jr. Wants To Treat Addiction On Farms, Without Medication During a combative Senate hearing last week, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat from Maryland, leaned forward and asked U.S. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy about his vision for a national system of "wellness farms." "You said every black kid can be reparented on a wellness farm, can you admit that you said that?" Alsobrooks said, describing the concept as "dangerous" and "irresponsible." (Mann, 4/29)
Politico: RFK Jr. Is Holding Up $600M In Vaccines For Poor Countries Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to remake the U.S. vaccination schedule is on hold following a federal judge’s decision last month, but the health secretary is still using his power to affect which shots children in poor countries receive. Kennedy says the children are getting obsolete shots with dangerous ingredients that the U.S. has long since phased out. He is holding up $600 million Congress appropriated for the vaccines to pressure the international humanitarian group, Gavi, that distributes them. (Paun, 4/28)
Stat: AIDS Group Sues Trump Administration Over Gilead Agreement An AIDS activist group filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for failing to disclose a research and development agreement that was at the heart of a settlement between the U.S. government and Gilead Sciences over patents for HIV prevention. (Silverman, 4/28)
CANCER RESEARCH
MedPage Today: FDA Staff Raises Concerns On Two Cancer Drug Applications For the first time since last July the FDA's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) will meet on Thursday to evaluate two cancer drugs after FDA staff voiced concerns about benefit-risk assessments, despite positive trial results. (Bassett, 4/28)
HealthDay: Pooled Umbilical Cord Blood Improves Stem Cell Transplant Success A new way of using umbilical cord blood — by pooling blood from multiple donors — could make it easier to receive a stem cell transplant for leukemia, a new study says. Nearly everyone in a small group of patients who received these pooled transplants survived at least one year without severe signs of rejection, researchers reported April 27 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. (Thompson, 4/29)
The Baltimore Sun: New Research Suggests Skipping This Vitamin If You Have Cancer Vitamins are supposedly good for you, but some might also be good for cancer, Swiss researchers at the University of Lausanne found. Cancer cells have a weakness. They depend on the protein glutamine to produce the energy needed to divide and grow. The Swiss researchers found that cancer cells can escape this weakness with the help of Vitamin B7, or biotin. Without biotin, a protein produced mainly in muscle tissue, cancer cells lose that flexibility and stop growing. (Hille, 4/28)
The Baltimore Sun: Hidden Master Switch Driving Skin Cancer Growth Exposed Tumors need two things to thrive: a good blood supply and a way to keep the immune system at bay. Scientists have discovered the protein that helps skin cancer achieve both, and proved that disabling it shrinks tumors and reactivates the immune system. (Hille, 4/28)
The Wall Street Journal: Married Adults Are Less Likely To Get Cancer Than Singles, Study Suggests Marriage is linked to a lower risk of developing cancer, recent research found. A study of more than 4 million cancer cases in the U.S. found that cancer rates were about 68% higher among men who have never married compared with those who have. For never-married women, the relationship was even more pronounced, with cancer rates roughly 83% higher, according to research published recently in the journal Cancer Research Communications. (Woodward, 4/29)
MedPage Today: Lung Cancer Screening Rates In Eligible Adults Remain Low, Uneven Lung cancer screening uptake with low-dose CT increased from 2022 to 2024, but remains low, according to a cross-sectional study. Across the U.S., 24.49% of survey respondents who met U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) eligibility criteria were up to date on their lung cancer screening in 2024 -- an increase in prevalence of 6 percentage points since 2022, with significant increases across most subgroups and no declines, reported Todd Burus, PhD, of the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and colleagues. (Bassett, 4/28)
OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS
The Hill: CDC Warns Of Drug-Resistant Salmonella Cases In 13 States The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning of more than two dozen cases of possibly drug-resistant salmonella cases across 13 states. In an update last week, the CDC said all 34 people — several of whom are children— have the same strain of salmonella, which has been linked to backyard poultry. To make matters more difficult, the CDC says an analysis of all 34 patients showed the strain may be resistant to the antibiotic fosfomycin. Samples from eight of those patients showed there could be resistance to other antibiotics commonly used in salmonella infections. (Bink, 4/28)
CIDRAP: Hepatitis B And C Claimed 1.3 Million Lives In 2024, WHO Reports The World Health Organization (WHO) released a new report on hepatitis today, marking the World Hepatitis Summit. Since 2015, the annual number of new hepatitis B infections has dropped by 32%, and hepatitis C-related deaths have fallen by 12% around the world. But despite progress, the virus still causes significant mobility and mortality, with more than 4,900 new infections caused by hepatitis B and C every day, or 1.8 million each year. (Soucheray, 4/28)
COVID
The New York Times: Former Fauci Adviser Indicted On Covid-Related Charges Dr. David Morens, a former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci at the National Institutes of Health, has been indicted on charges of skirting federal record-keeping laws and concealing emails related to the origins of the coronavirus outbreak in China. The indictment, unsealed on Monday by the district court in Maryland, accuses Dr. Morens of working in concert with scientists outside the federal government to protect their funding for virus research. (Mueller, 4/28)
CIDRAP: Study: Universal COVID Screening Among Hospitalized Patients Has Unintended Consequences A cohort study on systematic SARS-CoV-2 screening for asymptomatic hospitalized patients during the COVID-19 pandemic shows that 36.5% of all positive results were false-positives, which led to unintended consequences. The study, recently published in JAMA Network Open, was based on 42,666 asymptomatic patients seen at the University Hospital Basel in Basel, Switzerland, from February 2021 through December 2022. (Soucheray, 4/28)
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Kansas City Star: Jury Awards $7.65 Million In Deadly KU Med Infection Case A Wyandotte County jury on Tuesday awarded $7.65 million in damages to the wife and son of a Raytown man who the family alleged contracted a fatal infection from a contaminated device used during his heart surgery at KU Med. (Thomas, 4/28)
Pioneer Press: West Suburban Medical Center Staff Detail Poor Conditions When Sallanshell Wilson saw a family member of one of her patients walking down a lengthy hall at West Suburban Medical Center with a cane, she noticed that every few steps the woman slouched to the right. At that moment, Wilson thought, “If she had a walker, that will keep her more stable and possibly prevent her from falling,” she said. Wilson, a former registered nurse at the hospital, took it upon herself to buy a walker for the woman, paying for it out of her own pocket. (Hardy, 4/28)
Chicago Tribune: Defendant Who Allegedly Shot Chicago Cops At Hospital Back In Court The last time Alphanso Talley came before Judge John Lyke, things seemed to be going well. Talley was on electronic monitoring after being paroled in January from the Illinois Department of Corrections, where he’d been serving sentences for aggravated battery to a police officer and possession of a stolen vehicle. He also had a pair of cases pending for alleged carjacking and armed robbery, records show. (Kubzansky and Charles, 4/28)
North Carolina Health News: Atrium Board Schedules Long Closed Meeting The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority board has scheduled a special meeting for today with four hours set aside for a closed session, an unusually long stretch of private discussion for a public body. (Crouch, 4/29)
Modern Healthcare: Bayada, Compassus Forge Hospital Home Health Joint Ventures Health systems are teaming with outside operators in a bid to make their home health units more financially viable. About 8% to 10% of patients discharged from the hospital need home health services such as wound care, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. For many health systems, though, home care isn’t meaningfully contributing to the bottom line: The units typically account for only about 3% of overall revenues, said Tom Lillis, a post-acute care consultant with mergers and acquisitions advisory firm Stoneridge Partners. (Eastabrook, 4/28)
St. Louis Public Radio: SIUE Completes New $117M Health Sciences Complex The renovation and construction of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s new $117.4 million health sciences building has been completed, the university said Tuesday. The more than 172,000-square-foot facility, which will hold both pharmacy and nursing schools, will provide new classrooms, laboratories, study areas and administrative offices. (Bauer, 4/28)
The CT Mirror: Bristol Hospital Aims To Finalize UConn Deal By January A deal for the University of Connecticut Health Center to take over Bristol Hospital is on track to be finalized by December or January, the hospital’s CEO Kurt Barwis said. (Golvala, 4/28)
Modern Healthcare: Inside Mayo Clinic Platform’s Accelerator Program For Startups Early detection of chronic diseases, reducing surgical risk and care transition coordination are just a few of the complex challenges the latest group of startups in Mayo Clinic Platform’s accelerator program are tackling. Since its 2022 launch, Mayo Clinic Platform_Accelerate, the program for emerging digital health companies, has featured about 100 companies. OpenEvidence, the well-funded, AI-powered clinical decision support platform, is one of the successful companies that was part of the program. (Famakinwa, 4/28)
Stat: New Report On Closing Health Disparities Finds Fragile Gains A report released Wednesday highlights successes in reducing health disparities in U.S. states. Since the last iteration of the analysis by the Commonwealth Fund, two states expanded eligibility for Medicaid, many states extended postpartum coverage for mothers, and enrollment in Affordable Care Act marketplace plans increased at an unprecedented clip. (Oza, 4/29)
PHARMACEUTICALS
MedPage Today: FDA Claims 'Manipulated' Data Led To Drug's Approval, Proposes Withdrawal The FDA said that "manipulated" data supported the approval of avacopan (Tavneos) for anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis, and the agency is proposing to withdraw the drug's marketing approval. In a Monday letter to Amgen, which now holds avacopan's rights, the agency's top drug regulator said that new information came to light showing avacopan lacks "substantial evidence of effectiveness," and that developer ChemoCentryx's new drug application (NDA) contained "untrue statements of material facts" -- both legal bases for pulling a drug. (Ingram, 4/28)
Bloomberg: Boehringer Obesity Shot Prompts 16.6% Weight Loss In Trial Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH said patients using its experimental obesity shot lost 16.6% of their body weight in a large study, disappointing hopes it could outperform Eli Lilly & Co.’s market leader Zepbound. Patients in the trial shed the weight after 76 weeks of treatment with survodutide, compared with 3.2% weight loss for those given a placebo, Boehringer said Tuesday. Key details are still to be reported on side effects, patient dropouts, liver benefit and how much of the weight loss was from fat, which will help determine how competitive the drug can be. (Wind and Kresge, 4/28)
Bloomberg: Canada Approves First Generic Ozempic, Opening Door To Cheaper Diabetes Drugs Canada has approved its first generic versions of Novo Nordisk A/S’s Ozempic, paving the way for cheaper access to the popular diabetes drugs. On Tuesday, Health Canada assigned drug identification numbers to semaglutide injections made by India-based Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd., according to its drug product database. Semaglutide is the main ingredient in Ozempic, and Novo’s protection against generics expired in Canada on Jan. 4. Dr. Reddy’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Kresge, Shin, and Heinzl, 4/28)
STATE WATCH
The CT Mirror: CT Bill Criminalizing Female Genital Mutilation Gets Final Passage A bill that makes female genital mutilation a crime in the state of Connecticut, among other provisions, received final passage in the House on Tuesday afternoon with the unanimous support of those voting. For survivors, the bill’s passage was a hard-fought victory, with several other attempts at legislation failing to cross the finish line in recent years. (Tillman, 4/28)
AP: AP Investigation: Adopted Kids Confined In Private For-Profit Facilities She was 13 years old and scared of the dark when she arrived at a residential treatment center that had promised her adoptive parents it would help her heal — from the pain of not knowing who her mother was or why she’d given her away. Kate plugged in a night light in the dorm room. She had needed one since she was sexually assaulted at another facility, she said. Her roommate turned it off. She panicked. She ran and then curled into a ball, heaving, weeping. Three employees followed her — to comfort her, Kate thought. (Galofaro and Ho, 4/28)
New Hampshire Public Radio: Lawsuit Over State’s Management Of Home And Community-Based Care Program Heads To Trial A class action lawsuit against New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services over its management of a Medicaid-funded program is headed to trial, following a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro. (Richardson, 4/28)
North Carolina Health News: NC Braces For Medicaid Work Requirement Cases On a Thursday morning in March, Tyrome Powell was holding court over a small group of men at the Tiny House HOPE Center in Greensboro as he talked about basketball. That morning, more than a dozen people stopped by the desk in a corner where Marie Lee and Brittany Scott set up once a month. They work for the Guilford County Department of Social Services to help people apply for federal food aid and Medicaid. (Baxley and Fernandez, 4/29)
LIFESTYLE AND HEALTH
MedicalXpress: Microplastics Turn Up In Nearly Every Human Brain Sample, Including Healthy Tissue Tiny micro- and nanoplastic fragments seem to be turning up everywhere, including one of the most well-protected parts of the human body—the brain. In a recent study conducted by Chinese researchers, they found microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs) in nearly all the brain samples they tested, both healthy and diseased human brains. (Mondal, 4/28)
The Washington Post: ‘Longevity Drug’ Rapamycin May Have A Surprising Impact On Exercise A drug taken by thousands of Americans to improve longevity might have an unexpected side effect, a study has found. It may blunt some of the health benefits of exercise. The drug, rapamycin, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent organ-transplant rejection in people. But recent studies in yeast, flies and mice showed that relatively low doses of the drug often increase the creatures’ lifespans, prompting many longevity enthusiasts to start using it off-label to extend their lifespans. (Reynolds, 4/28)
Bloomberg: Sleepless Americans Are Relying On Medicine And Pot To Doze Off Nearly 13% of US adults are relying on medication, supplements or marijuana to help them sleep, a new federal study found, underscoring the potential need for new treatment options. They are relying on prescription medication, over-the-counter drugs, supplements, marijuana or CBD to help fall or stay asleep, according to a survey by the National Center for Health Statistics. The survey, conducted in 2024, included results from more than 31,500 people who were asked about their use of sleep aids over the past month. (Inampudi, 4/29)
MENTAL HEALTH
The Texas Tribune: Texas Wants To Ban In-Home Ketamine The Texas Medical Board is proposing tighter regulations around ketamine, a popular fast-acting sedative used to treat mental illness, including more physician oversight during administration of the drug and banning in-home use of it. The revised rules are expected to publish May 8, and the Texas Medical Board is scheduled to vote on the changes in June. Supporters of ketamine regulations in Texas say the drug, which can cause comas and even death, has grown in popularity because it is easy to access. One of the most common ways people access ketamine is through telehealth prescriptions, which allows them to take it at home while a medical professional monitors them online. (Simpson, 4/28)
CBS News: Chicago Invests $16.2 Million To Expand Mental Health Services, Launch Street Psychology Pilot Program The Chicago Department of Public Health announced a new street psychiatry pilot program and expanded mental health safety net thanks to an investment of over $16 million. The city's Mental Health Equity Initiative partner network, which launched in 2020, has enrolled more than 173,000 new clients between 2020 and 2025. Now it will launch its next phase, the Healthy Chicago Mental Health Collective, the city said. (Tenenbaum, 4/28)
MedicalXpress: A New Algorithm Can Spot Who May Be Headed For Self-Harm Before Warning Signs Become Obvious Researchers at the University of Hong Kong have developed a new model that was found to predict the risk that individuals with depression will harm themselves with good accuracy. This model, introduced in a paper published in Molecular Psychiatry, could help to devise more effective and personalized depression treatment plans. (Fadelli, 4/27)
The New York Times: Could At-Home Brain Stimulation Reduce Psychiatry’s Reliance On S.S.R.I.s? The first question Sophie Davies had was: Will it affect my memory? In the three weeks since giving birth, Ms. Davies had been in a downward spiral. She checked herself into the mother-and-baby unit of her hospital in East Anglia, England, where doctors ratcheted up the dose of Prozac she took to manage her obsessive-compulsive disorder. But every morning she woke up in tears, and every time she looked at her baby boy, she felt hollow with guilt. “I’m never going to be able to be a mom,” she recalled thinking, “or if I am, I’m not going to be able to be a good one.” (Gross, 4/28)
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