🕷️ Crawler Inspector

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Direct Parameter Lookup

Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 13 (from laksa055)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa013.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/","crawl_time":1775535057,"first_indexed_time":1771950601,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"org,kffhealthnews!\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/ s443","src_root_hash":"10752370093283136413","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Tuesday, February 24, 2026 - KFF Health News","meta_descriptions":[],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"From KFF Health News - Latest Stories:\nHospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before\nAs the number of cases grows to about 1,000 in the Carolinas, health care workers who’ve never seen the vaccine-preventable disease can get caught by surprise.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Andrew Jones,\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2\/24)\nPolitical Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'\nKFF Health News provides a fresh take on health policy developments with\n\"Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'\" by Karsten Schley\n.\nHere's today's health policy haiku:\nIf you have a health policy haiku to share, please\nContact Us\nand let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the format of 5-7-5 syllables. We give extra brownie points if you link back to an original story.\nOpinions expressed in haikus and cartoons are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions of KFF Health News or KFF.\nEach month, KFF Health News’ Rural Dispatch newsletter covers health issues in places where accessing care can be more challenging. Check out our Montana, Colorado, Georgia, and California newsletters, too.\nSign up here!\nSummaries Of The News:\nCDC's Second-In-Command Resigns After Less Than 2 Months On The Job\nRalph Abraham said “unforeseen family obligations” are pulling him away from his role as the agency’s deputy secretary general. Plus, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force might be in HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s crosshairs, former members warn.\nStat:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRalph Abraham, No. 2 Official At CDC, Abruptly Steps Down \nThe drama and chaos surrounding the leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken another twist, with the announcement Monday that the agency’s No. 2 official, Ralph Abraham, has resigned. (Branswell, 2\/23)\nMedPage Today:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRFK Jr. May Eliminate The USPSTF, Original Task Force Members Warn\nHHS could completely eliminate the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) or delegitimize the independent body like it did with CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two original USPSTF members warned. \"The USPSTF, the entity established by the Reagan administration to bring scientific rigor to prevention policy, is now under threat by the Trump administration, particularly Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,\" argued Robert Lawrence, MD, the first chair of the task force when it started over four decades ago, and Steven Woolf, MD, MPH, its first scientific advisor, in an Annals of Internal Medicine commentary. (Frieden, 2\/23)\nKeep scrolling to our Editorials and Opinions section to read the commentary. \nRelated news on measles, flu, covid, and the pandemic —\nThe Washington Post:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMeasles Is Back. Nine Other Vaccine-Preventable Diseases May Be Next. \nThere are more than 900 confirmed measles cases in the United States, as of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent weekly count. It’s less than two months into the year, “and we already have over a quarter of [the measles cases] we had all of 2025, so things are not great,” said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. (Felton, 2\/24)\nKFF Health News:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tHospitals Fighting Measles Confront A Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before \nAt around 2 a.m., 7-year-old twin brothers arrived at Mission Hospital in Asheville. Both had a fever, a cough, a rash, pink eye, and cold symptoms. The boys sat in one waiting room and then another. Two hours and 20 minutes passed before the two were isolated, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services records obtained by KFF Health News. Then two more hours ticked by. (Jones, 2\/24)\nCIDRAP:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tModerna’s 2-In-1 Flu And COVID Vaccine Shows Encouraging Results In Small Trial\nModerna announced late last week that its mRNA combined seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccine proved robust and produced a durable immune response in a small, mid-stage trial. There were also no serious safety concerns. According to Reuters, the study involved 550 healthy US adults ages 18 to 75 who received either the experimental combo vaccine (mRNA-1073) and a placebo, or two separate shots of Moderna’s commercially available mRNA flu and COVID vaccines. (Soucheray, 2\/23)\nCIDRAP:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCollege Students Bounced Back After Pandemic, Long-Term Study Suggests\nA long-term study from Michigan State University (MSU) finds that most college students bounced back emotionally after the COVID-19 pandemic, with improved psychological functioning, less loneliness, and more satisfaction with their lives. (Szabo, 2\/23)\nIn other public health news —\nNewsweek:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tGetting Sick During Pregnancy Increases Child’s Suicide Risk Later In Life\nGetting sick during pregnancy may have lasting consequences for a child’s mental health, according to a new study. The research, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, analyzed national health data from Denmark, following more than two million people from childhood into adulthood. (Gray, 2\/23)\nMedPage Today:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tYouth Alcohol Cravings May Rise While Scrolling Social Media, Study Suggests\nFor young adults, seeing alcohol-related social media content translated to greater desire to drink alcohol, especially when coming from lifestyle influencers whom they saw as highly credible, found a randomized trial. (Firth, 2\/23)\nIf you need help —\nDial 988 for 24\/7 support from the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. It's free and confidential.\nFDA Unveils Framework To Fast-Track Rare Disease Gene Therapy Approvals\nThe proposed system would create a standardized process for authorizing cutting-edge treatments where there is a plausible reason to think they might work, the AP reported.\nAP:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRare Diseases: FDA Proposes New System To Therapy Approvals\nFederal health officials on Monday laid out a proposal to spur development of customized treatments for patients with hard-to-treat diseases, including for rare genetic conditions that the pharmaceutical industry has long considered unprofitable. The preliminary Food and Drug Administration guidelines, if implemented, would create a new pathway for bespoke therapies that have only been tested in a handful of patients due to the challenges of conducting larger studies. The FDA announcement specifically mentions gene editing, although agency officials said the new approach could also be used by other drugs and therapies. (Perrone, 2\/23)\nMore news from the Trump administration —\nThe Marshall Project:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFederal Prisons Prohibit Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender People\nThe federal prison system will stop providing gender-affirming medical or social transition care to almost any transgender people, under a new policy released by the Bureau of Prisons Thursday. (Schwartzapfel, 2\/23)\nBecker's Hospital Review:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAHA Urges HHS To Align AI Rules With Existing Healthcare Regulations\nThe American Hospital Association is calling on federal health officials to reduce regulatory barriers and ensure clinician oversight as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into clinical care. In a Feb. 23 letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, the AHA outlined recommendations in response to the agency’s request for information on accelerating AI adoption in healthcare. (Diaz, 2\/23)\nThe New York Times:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTrump, Bruised And Unpopular, Turns To State Of The Union For A Reset \nThis year, a substantial number of Democrats are planning to boycott the speech and attend an alternative event, a rally called the “People’s State of the Union,” which will take place on the National Mall near the Capitol. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has encouraged members to either sit silently through the speech or boycott it altogether, rather than attend and create distractions in the House chamber. Such protests potentially risk alienating swing voters ahead of the midterms. (Broadwater, 2\/24)\nIn news about the Epstein files —\nAP:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMedical Influencer Attia Quits CBS News After Name In Epstein Files\nDr. Peter Attia, a medical influencer whose emails with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in the latest U.S. Justice Department release of files, has resigned a post with CBS News. Attia, podcast host and author of “Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity,” was one of a group of people named last month by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss as a contributor to network programming. He was the subject of a “60 Minutes” profile that ran on the network last October. But shortly after the appointment, Attia’s name surfaced in hundreds of Epstein documents. (2\/23)\nStat:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tEpstein Blood Samples Ignited A 2013 Furor In Harvard Genome Lab \nAmong several fridges inside the Harvard Medical School lab of renowned geneticist George Church is one devoted to housing tubes of human blood and spit destined to have their cellular contents cracked open, the DNA letters read out and posted to the wilds of the open internet. Eventually. (Molteni, 2\/24)\nKaiser Mental Health Therapists Vote To Strike Just As Nurses Are Returning\nA day after the union representing more than 31,000 Kaiser Permanente health care professionals noted productive labor negotiations and agreed to end the four-week walkout, KP mental health therapists in California voted to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike.\nSan Francisco Chronicle:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tKaiser Mental Health Therapists Authorize Strike In Northern California\nKaiser Permanente mental health therapists across Northern California and the Central Valley have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike, just as the health system’s largest union ended a historic four-week walkout. The National Union of Healthcare Workers said Monday that 92% of participating members backed the strike authorization. The vote covers about 2,400 therapists, social workers and psychologists who provide care in the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley. (Vaziri, 2\/23)\nAP:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tKaiser Permanente Health Workers Return After 4-Week Strike\nAn estimated 31,000 registered nurses and other front-line Kaiser Permanente health care workers will return to work on Tuesday after a four-week strike in California and Hawaii to demand better wages and staffing. The United Nurses Associations of California\/Union of Health Care Professionals said in a statement Monday that “significant movement at the bargaining table” prompted an end to the walkout. The statement didn’t offer more specifics. (Weber, 2\/24)\nMore health care industry developments —\nBloomberg:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCVS Boosts Employee Bonuses After Beating 2025 Profit Target\nCVS Health Corp. increased bonuses for regular corporate employees as new executives grew profitability, fixing some of the challenges that had previously dragged down the company’s Aetna insurance unit. Bonuses for 2025 will be 42.3% above baseline levels, according to records reviewed by Bloomberg News. That’s a drastic reversal from last year, when bonuses were more than 60% below targets. (Swetlitz, 2\/23)\nModern Healthcare:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tEnhabit To Be Acquired By Kinderhook Industries In $1.1B Deal\nPrivate equity firm Kinderhook Industries has inked a $1.1 billion deal to acquire Enhabit Home Health and Hospice. Enhabit is one of the nation’s largest home care providers, with 376 locations across 34 states. It was a unit of Encompass Health until its spinoff in 2022. Under terms of the definitive agreement, Kinderhook would pay stockholders $13.80 per share for Dallas-based Enhabit, the home care company said Monday. (Eastabrook, 2\/23)\nModern Healthcare:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tViVe 2026: How Health Plans Are Implementing AI Agents\nHealth plans are strategically implementing artificial intelligence agents to manage member services. At the ViVE 2026 conference in Los Angeles, health plan leaders from Clever Care Health Plan and Medical Mutual of Ohio detailed the ways their organizations have been able to handle call volume and engage members. (Famakinwa, 2\/23)\nStat:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDigital Twins In Health Care: Promising Technology Still Years Away \nTwo decades ago, futurist Ray Kurzweil laid out a bold vision for next-generation medicine in his book “The Singularity Is Near.” Technology, he predicted, could one day help doctors eradicate disease by anticipating and responding to it in real time. (Ravindranath, 2\/24)\nModern Healthcare:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNo Surprises Act Arbitration Drags Patients Into Billing Disputes\nProviders and health insurance companies are accusing each other of gaming the No Surprises Act of 2020, sometimes pulling patients back into the middle of billing disputes the law was meant to prevent. Physician groups, hospitals and air ambulance companies have flooded third-party mediators with millions of claims seeking higher reimbursement from insurers for out-of-network care. Providers argue insurers’ flawed reimbursement methodology is decreasing payment and forcing them to seek arbitration, while insurers contend providers are committing fraud by submitting ineligible claims. (Kacik and Tepper, 2\/23)\nDentists Keep Prescribing Clindamycin Despite 'Black Box' Label, C Diff Risk\nCIDRAP takes a deeper look at the antibiotic's health effects. Also in the news: The FDA has approved milsaperidone to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; Bayer sues Johnson & Johnson; Mounjaro may reduce alcohol intake; and more.\nCIDRAP:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDentists Still Write Millions Of Prescriptions A Year For An Antibiotic With Life-Threatening Risks \nDentists wrote more than 2.3 million prescriptions last year for an antibiotic called clindamycin, whose label has carried a black box warning for more than four decades, due to its high rate of life-threatening complications. One of those prescriptions was given to Dolores Hernandez Owens. (Szabo, 2\/24)\nIn other pharma and tech updates —\nMedPage Today:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNew Pill Approved For Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder\nThe FDA approved milsaperidone (Bysanti) tablets as first-line therapy for adults with schizophrenia and manic or mixed episodes related to bipolar I disorder, Vanda Pharmaceuticals announced on Friday. Milsaperidone is an active metabolite of Vanda's existing drug iloperidone (Fanapt) and represents a new chemical entity in the atypical antipsychotic class. In clinical research, milsaperidone was bioequivalent to iloperidone across all therapeutic doses, Vanda said. (Monaco, 2\/23)\nStat:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tBayer Sues J&J Over 'Misleading Claims' About Prostate Cancer Drug\nUnderscoring the high-stakes market for prostate cancer medicines, Bayer filed a lawsuit accusing Johnson & Johnson of launching a “false advertising campaign” that uses flawed data to wrongfully promote its rival drug as a more effective treatment. (Silverman, 2\/23)\nThe Hill:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDiabetes Drug Mounjaro Linked To Reduced Alcohol Intake: Study\nAn ingredient in the prescription diabetes drug Mounjaro was found to reduce alcohol intake in rodents, according to a recent study. In the study, published in early January in the medical journal eBioMedicine, researchers in Sweden, South Carolina and Brazil looked at how the ingredient, tirzepatide, affected rodents. The researchers found that alcohol’s “rewarding properties” were lessened by the ingredient and that behaviors including the voluntary consumption of alcohol and binge drinking dropped. (Suter, 2\/23)\nStat:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tInflammatory Bowel Disease Drug Combos Spark Pharma R&D Race\nFinding the right treatment for someone with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis is more of an art than a science. The chronic autoimmune conditions — both considered types of inflammatory bowel disease — cause a myriad of symptoms including ulcers, stomach cramps, fatigue, and diarrhea. (DeAngelis, 2\/24)\nCNN:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tEstrogen Patch Shortage As Demand For Menopause Hormone Therapy Grows \nEmily Padgett has spent months trying to get her hands on estrogen patches, bouncing between pharmacies, transferring prescriptions and switching brands three times. For a couple of anxious weeks in January, she had to go without them entirely. (Howard, 2\/23)\nThe Wall Street Journal:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMerck Revamps Pharmaceutical Unit, Creating Separate Cancer Business\nMerck is shaking up the leadership of its main pharmaceutical unit as the U.S. drugmaker braces for sales pressure later this decade. The Rahway, N.J.-based company said Monday it will split its human-health business into two divisions. One will house its cancer drugs, including the blockbuster Keytruda. The immunotherapy accounts for nearly half of total Merck sales but is due to lose U.S. patent protection in 2028, exposing it to lower-cost copycat competition. (Loftus, 2\/23)\nMedPage Today:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tBreakable Mechanical Heart Valves Eyed For Future Intervention\nFailed mechanical heart valves could get a new life with device fracture and subsequent valve-in-valve therapy, research suggested. Contemporary mechanical valve leaflets were successfully fractured using standard angioplasty balloons in controlled lab experiments, leaving the intact valve rings unobstructed and available for possible transcatheter heart valve implantation -- which has implications for people with dysfunctional mechanical heart valves, reported Paulina Jankowska, MD, of University Hospital Heart Center Brandenburg in Neuruppin, Germany, and colleagues. (Lou, 2\/23)\nIn global news —\nAP:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tZimbabwe Is One Of The First To Roll Out New And Long-Acting HIV Drug\nYoung women, mothers holding babies and some men lined up in a dusty field on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. They came for injections of a new HIV prevention drug launched in the country on Thursday, one that only needs to be administered twice a year. Zimbabwe, where HIV has led to tens of thousands of deaths over the past two decades, is one of the first countries to roll out lenacapavir, a long-acting drug that authorities hope will slow new infections. With clinical studies demonstrating near-total protection, the drug has been described by some health officials as a turning point for high-risk groups. (Mutsaka, 2\/22)\nOn Trump's Request, High Court Agrees To Hear Case On Fossil Fuel Lawsuits\nIn an unusual move, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to take up the case of whether or not states and cities can sue large oil and gas companies for climate change damages driven by greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from the industry.\nThe Washington Post:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSupreme Court To Consider Whether States Can Sue Over Greenhouse Gas Emissions \nThe Supreme Court agreed Monday to take a case examining whether states and cities can sue fossil fuel companies over harms caused by climate change, a legal tactic modeled on the push to hold tobacco companies responsible for the health effects of smoking. The case is significant because dozens of municipalities are seeking billions in damages from oil and gas companies, often accusing them of misleading the public or hiding evidence about the links between greenhouse gases and climate risks. The companies deny any wrongdoing. (Jouvenal, 2\/23)\nOn pesticides and chemicals —\nPolitico:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRFK Jr. Says We Need More Herbicide Production, Stunning His Followers\nHealth Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to endorse increased production of a chemical herbicide he has previously called a carcinogen has sparked a furious reaction among his followers and stressed the MAGA-MAHA alliance. The health secretary explained in a post to X on Sunday night he was backing a directive from President Donald Trump to boost manufacturing of agricultural chemicals he says “put Americans at risk” in order to reduce dependence on them from “adversarial nations,” alarming supporters of his Make America Healthy Again movement. (Reader, Burns and Brown, 2\/23)\nCIDRAP:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tOne Month After Spill, Potomac River Still Testing Positive For E Coli, Staph\nUniversity of Maryland School of Public Health researchers continue to test water from the Potomac River one month after a wastewater pipe broke, dumping millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river, and find the river still has high levels of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, or staph. (Soucheray, 2\/23)\nSan Francisco Chronicle:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSF Bay Area Regulators Issue $10 Million Penalty Against Refinery\nAn East Bay refinery will pay $10 million to settle allegations stemming from more than 100 notices of environmental violations over four years, including multiple releases of harmful dust that blanketed nearby properties, local officials announced last week. (Park, 2\/23)\nRiver City Journalism Fund:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tHow East St. Louis Became Ground Zero Against A Chemical Giant \nJoe Harrison’s quest for justice against the Swiss agrochemical giant Syngenta began, officially at least, in August 2023 — just three months before his death. That’s when Harrison’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in the federal courthouse in East St. Louis, Illinois. Harrison owned a small cattle ranch in northeastern Oklahoma, and the lawsuit accuses Syngenta of failing to provide adequate warnings about the dangers of paraquat, the key ingredient in its blockbuster weedkiller Gramoxone. (Fitzgerald, 2\/23)\nOn the health effects of microplastics —\nNBC News:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMicroplastics Found In Prostate Tumors In Small Study\nIn a new study, researchers found microplastics deep inside prostate cancer tumors, raising more questions about the role the ubiquitous pollutants play in public health. The findings — which come from a small study of 10 men — were presented Monday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Genitourinary Cancers Symposium and have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. (Cox, 2\/23)\nFortune:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tScientists Are Pushing Back On The Health Damage Microplastics May Cause, Saying People Are Obese\nDon’t toss that scratched-up, questionably stained, borderline EPA Superfund site, 12-year-old cutting board just yet! Your vintage fermentation lab with knife marks might not be so dangerous after all. (Gioino, 2\/24)\nFlorida, Trump Administration At Odds Over Medicaid Program Application\nFlorida’s Republican congressional delegation is getting involved in an effort to get approval for the program, which boosts payments to state hospitals. Also: AbbVie is planning two manufacturing facilities in North Chicago; Camp Mystic parents sue the state of Texas; and more.\nRoll Call:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFlorida Officials, Lawmakers Probe Stalled Medicaid Application \nThe state of Florida and the Trump administration are at odds over the status of a multibillion-dollar application for a Medicaid program that boosts payments to state hospitals. Inaction by the administration has prompted members of Florida’s Republican congressional delegation, who less than a year ago voted to rein in these programs in part to help pay for tax cuts, to intervene to get approval. (Hellmann, 2\/23)\nChicago Tribune:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAbbVie Plans To Build Two New Manufacturing Facilities\nBiopharmaceutical company AbbVie plans to spend $380 million building two new manufacturing facilities in North Chicago — a rare example of a project that’s in line with initiatives by the administrations of Gov. JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump. (Schencker, 2\/23)\nThe Texas Tribune:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCamp Mystic Parents Sue State, Accusing Texas Officials Of Not Enforcing Evacuation Plan Requirement\nTexas health officials failed to follow state law when they licensed Camp Mystic without making sure it had an evacuation plan, parents of nine children and counselors who died in the July 4 flood allege in a new federal lawsuit. Camp Mystic’s emergency instructions directed kids to stay in their cabins during floods, even though Texas rules require youth camps to have evacuation plans for disasters, the lawsuit states. (Foxhall, 2\/23)\nSan Francisco Chronicle:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFormer S.F. Nonprofit CEO Misspent $1.2 Million, Collected Hidden ‘Double Salary,’ DA Says\nThe former chief executive of a major San Francisco homeless services provider is facing charges for allegedly misappropriating at least $1.2 million in public funds, some of which appeared to bankroll her luxury lifestyle, prosecutors said Monday. (Barba, 2\/23)\nSan Francisco Chronicle:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCartel Leader ‘El Mencho’ Was First Caught Dealing Drugs In San Francisco At Age 19\nMore than two decades before Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes built the violent cartel that made him one of the most wanted fugitives in Mexico, he was a young man selling drugs on the streets of San Francisco. The killing of 59-year-old Oseguera Cervantes by the Mexican army on Sunday brought renewed attention to the powerful drug lord known as “El Mencho,” including his early beginnings as a small-time drug dealer in the Bay Area, where he lived with family. (Bauman, 2\/23)\nViewpoints: Entering Advanced Nursing Careers Just Got Harder; The Truth About Youth Gender Care\nOpinion writers tackle these public health topics.\nThe Washington Post:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tGraduate Student Loan Limits Will Harm Advanced Nurses And U.S. Health\nAn ’80s-inspired student loan tweak will make it harder to enter advanced nursing roles. (Kymberlee Montgomery and Mary Ellen Glasgow, 2\/23)\nThe New York Times:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMedical Associations Trusted Belief Over Science On Youth Gender Care\n“Trust the science”? Which science? (Jesse Singal, 2\/24)\nAnnals Of Internal Medicine:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Current Threat To The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force And Why It Matters \nHealth care and public health practice in the United States faced a serious problem when the U.S. Public Health Service established the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) in 1984. We should know. We were there. (Robert S. Lawrence, MD, and Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH, 2\/24)\nThe Washington Post:\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAluminum In Vaccines: Why You Shouldn’t Be Concerned \nPeople are exposed to far more aluminum from food and drink than from vaccines. (Leana S. Wen, 2\/24)\nStat:\n\t\t\t\t\t\t‘Two-Sided Risk’ Medicare Advantage Plans Improve Patient Outcomes \nAmerica’s health system is buckling under the weight of several converging pressures: an aging population, high rates of chronic disease, a shortage of clinicians, and rising costs. The response to these challenges will determine the future of care in this country — and new evidence suggests the solution is rooted in how we deliver and pay for care. 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[Abortion](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/tag\/abortion\/)\n  - [Aging](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/topics\/aging\/)\n  - [Climate](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/tag\/environmental-health\/)\n  - [COVID-19](http:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/coronavirus)\n  - [Health Care Costs](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/topics\/health-care-costs\/)\n  - [Insurance](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/topics\/insurance\/)\n  - [Medicaid](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/topics\/medicaid\/)\n  - [Medicare](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/topics\/medicare\/)\n  - [Mental Health](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/topics\/mental-health\/)\n  - [Pharma](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/topics\/pharmaceuticals\/)\n  - [Rural Health](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/topics\/rural-health\/)\n  - [Uninsured](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/topics\/uninsured\/)\n\n## [Morning Briefing](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/monday-april-6-2026\/)\n### Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations\n\nTuesday, Feb 24 2026\n\n- [KFF Health News Original Stories](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#section-originals)  1\n- [Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#original-1)\n- [Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#original-2)\n\n- [Note To Readers](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#section-note)\n\n- [Public Health](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#section-291813940) 1\n- [CDC's Second-In-Command Resigns After Less Than 2 Months On The Job](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#breakout-2161265)\n\n- [Administration News](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#section-11220782) 1\n- [FDA Unveils Framework To Fast-Track Rare Disease Gene Therapy Approvals](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#breakout-2161262)\n\n- [Health Industry](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#section-439528697) 1\n- [Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Vote To Strike Just As Nurses Are Returning](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#breakout-2161264)\n\n- [Pharma and Tech](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#section-439529879) 1\n- [Dentists Keep Prescribing Clindamycin Despite 'Black Box' Label, C Diff Risk](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#breakout-2161266)\n\n- [Environmental Health](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#section-439528996) 1\n- [On Trump's Request, High Court Agrees To Hear Case On Fossil Fuel Lawsuits](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#breakout-2161263)\n\n- [State Watch](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#section-803914) 1\n- [Florida, Trump Administration At Odds Over Medicaid Program Application](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#breakout-2161267)\n\n- [Editorials And Opinions](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#section-9144399) 1\n- [Viewpoints: Entering Advanced Nursing Careers Just Got Harder; The Truth About Youth Gender Care](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-february-24-2026\/#breakout-2161280)\n\n## From KFF Health News - Latest Stories:\nKFF Health News Original Stories\n\n[Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/measles-outbreak-cdc-carolina-sc-nc-vaccines\/)\n\nAs the number of cases grows to about 1,000 in the Carolinas, health care workers who’ve never seen the vaccine-preventable disease can get caught by surprise. (Andrew Jones, 2\/24)\n\n[Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/multimedia\/bad-hair-day\/)\n\nKFF Health News provides a fresh take on health policy developments with [\"Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'\" by Karsten Schley](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/multimedia\/bad-hair-day\/).\n\nHere's today's health policy haiku:\n\n##### STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE\n[Homelessness is hard.](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/washington-dc-homelessness-crackdown-hiding-plain-sight-street-medicine\/)  \n Sweeps, sickness, and loneliness.  \n You don’t feel much love.\n\n\\- Barbara DiPietro\n\nIf you have a health policy haiku to share, please [Contact Us](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/contact-haiku\/) and let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the format of 5-7-5 syllables. We give extra brownie points if you link back to an original story.\n\nOpinions expressed in haikus and cartoons are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions of KFF Health News or KFF.\n\nNote To Readers\n\nEach month, KFF Health News’ Rural Dispatch newsletter covers health issues in places where accessing care can be more challenging. Check out our Montana, Colorado, Georgia, and California newsletters, too. [Sign up here\\!](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/email-signup\/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20Daily%20Health%20Policy%20Report&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--DAoywKEm8rUEe5q1GP8xJPdr7Q_w9qKnk1itbBt8_oJwE_k54Kkqdq6UtgsHGIJZwoYoJ5ofZweRaFSBp76cwccSD_A&_hsmi=2&utm_content=2&utm_source=hs_email)\n## Summaries Of The News:\nPublic Health\n\n[CDC's Second-In-Command Resigns After Less Than 2 Months On The Job](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/cdcs-second-in-command-resigns-after-less-than-2-months-on-the-job\/)\n\nRalph Abraham said “unforeseen family obligations” are pulling him away from his role as the agency’s deputy secretary general. Plus, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force might be in HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s crosshairs, former members warn.\n\n[Stat: Ralph Abraham, No. 2 Official At CDC, Abruptly Steps Down](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/02\/23\/ralph-abraham-cdc-resigns\/)    \n The drama and chaos surrounding the leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken another twist, with the announcement Monday that the agency’s No. 2 official, Ralph Abraham, has resigned. (Branswell, 2\/23)\n\n[MedPage Today: RFK Jr. May Eliminate The USPSTF, Original Task Force Members Warn](https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/primarycare\/preventivecare\/120005)    \n HHS could completely eliminate the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) or delegitimize the independent body like it did with CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two original USPSTF members warned. \"The USPSTF, the entity established by the Reagan administration to bring scientific rigor to prevention policy, is now under threat by the Trump administration, particularly Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,\" argued Robert Lawrence, MD, the first chair of the task force when it started over four decades ago, and Steven Woolf, MD, MPH, its first scientific advisor, in an Annals of Internal Medicine commentary. (Frieden, 2\/23)\n\n*Keep scrolling to our Editorials and Opinions section to read the commentary.*\n\nRelated news on measles, flu, covid, and the pandemic —\n\n[The Washington Post: Measles Is Back. Nine Other Vaccine-Preventable Diseases May Be Next.](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wellness\/2026\/02\/24\/measles-vaccine-preventable-diseases\/)    \n There are more than 900 confirmed measles cases in the United States, as of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent weekly count. It’s less than two months into the year, “and we already have over a quarter of \\[the measles cases\\] we had all of 2025, so things are not great,” said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. (Felton, 2\/24)\n\n[KFF Health News: Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront A Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/measles-outbreak-cdc-carolina-sc-nc-vaccines\/)    \n At around 2 a.m., 7-year-old twin brothers arrived at Mission Hospital in Asheville. Both had a fever, a cough, a rash, pink eye, and cold symptoms. The boys sat in one waiting room and then another. Two hours and 20 minutes passed before the two were isolated, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services records obtained by KFF Health News. Then two more hours ticked by. (Jones, 2\/24)\n\n[CIDRAP: Moderna’s 2-In-1 Flu And COVID Vaccine Shows Encouraging Results In Small Trial](https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/influenza-vaccines\/moderna-s-2-1-flu-and-covid-vaccine-shows-encouraging-results-small-trial)    \n Moderna announced late last week that its mRNA combined seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccine proved robust and produced a durable immune response in a small, mid-stage trial. There were also no serious safety concerns. According to Reuters, the study involved 550 healthy US adults ages 18 to 75 who received either the experimental combo vaccine (mRNA-1073) and a placebo, or two separate shots of Moderna’s commercially available mRNA flu and COVID vaccines. (Soucheray, 2\/23)\n\n[CIDRAP: College Students Bounced Back After Pandemic, Long-Term Study Suggests](https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/covid-19\/college-students-bounced-back-after-pandemic-long-term-study-suggests)    \n A long-term study from Michigan State University (MSU) finds that most college students bounced back emotionally after the COVID-19 pandemic, with improved psychological functioning, less loneliness, and more satisfaction with their lives. (Szabo, 2\/23)\n\nIn other public health news —\n\n[Newsweek: Getting Sick During Pregnancy Increases Child’s Suicide Risk Later In Life](https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/getting-sick-during-pregnancy-increases-childs-suicide-risk-later-in-life-11566378)    \n Getting sick during pregnancy may have lasting consequences for a child’s mental health, according to a new study. The research, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, analyzed national health data from Denmark, following more than two million people from childhood into adulthood. (Gray, 2\/23)\n\n[MedPage Today: Youth Alcohol Cravings May Rise While Scrolling Social Media, Study Suggests](https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/psychiatry\/addictions\/120009)    \n For young adults, seeing alcohol-related social media content translated to greater desire to drink alcohol, especially when coming from lifestyle influencers whom they saw as highly credible, found a randomized trial. (Firth, 2\/23)\n\nIf you need help —\n\n[Dial 988 for 24\/7 support from the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. It's free and confidential.](https:\/\/988lifeline.org\/)\n\nAdministration News\n\n[FDA Unveils Framework To Fast-Track Rare Disease Gene Therapy Approvals](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/fda-unveils-framework-to-fast-track-rare-disease-gene-therapy-approvals\/)\n\nThe proposed system would create a standardized process for authorizing cutting-edge treatments where there is a plausible reason to think they might work, the AP reported.\n\n[AP: Rare Diseases: FDA Proposes New System To Therapy Approvals](https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/rare-diseases-fda-gene-editing-drugs-e6a3d5f318ccf082c7f277025136df62)    \n Federal health officials on Monday laid out a proposal to spur development of customized treatments for patients with hard-to-treat diseases, including for rare genetic conditions that the pharmaceutical industry has long considered unprofitable. The preliminary Food and Drug Administration guidelines, if implemented, would create a new pathway for bespoke therapies that have only been tested in a handful of patients due to the challenges of conducting larger studies. The FDA announcement specifically mentions gene editing, although agency officials said the new approach could also be used by other drugs and therapies. (Perrone, 2\/23)\n\nMore news from the Trump administration —\n\n[The Marshall Project: Federal Prisons Prohibit Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender People](https:\/\/19thnews.org\/2026\/02\/gender-affirming-care-prohibited-federal-prisons\/)    \n The federal prison system will stop providing gender-affirming medical or social transition care to almost any transgender people, under a new policy released by the Bureau of Prisons Thursday. (Schwartzapfel, 2\/23)\n\n[Becker's Hospital Review: AHA Urges HHS To Align AI Rules With Existing Healthcare Regulations](https:\/\/www.beckershospitalreview.com\/healthcare-information-technology\/ai\/aha-urges-hhs-to-align-ai-rules-with-existing-healthcare-regulations\/)    \n The American Hospital Association is calling on federal health officials to reduce regulatory barriers and ensure clinician oversight as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into clinical care. In a Feb. 23 letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, the AHA outlined recommendations in response to the agency’s request for information on accelerating AI adoption in healthcare. (Diaz, 2\/23)\n\n[The New York Times: Trump, Bruised And Unpopular, Turns To State Of The Union For A Reset](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/24\/us\/politics\/trump-popularity-agenda-state-of-the-union.html)    \n This year, a substantial number of Democrats are planning to boycott the speech and attend an alternative event, a rally called the “People’s State of the Union,” which will take place on the National Mall near the Capitol. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has encouraged members to either sit silently through the speech or boycott it altogether, rather than attend and create distractions in the House chamber. Such protests potentially risk alienating swing voters ahead of the midterms. (Broadwater, 2\/24)\n\nIn news about the Epstein files —\n\n[AP: Medical Influencer Attia Quits CBS News After Name In Epstein Files](https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/cbs-news-epstein-files-attia-medical-428aacc5f6ba7dc3f441047e37d351c6)    \n Dr. Peter Attia, a medical influencer whose emails with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in the latest U.S. Justice Department release of files, has resigned a post with CBS News. Attia, podcast host and author of “Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity,” was one of a group of people named last month by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss as a contributor to network programming. He was the subject of a “60 Minutes” profile that ran on the network last October. But shortly after the appointment, Attia’s name surfaced in hundreds of Epstein documents. (2\/23)\n\n[Stat: Epstein Blood Samples Ignited A 2013 Furor In Harvard Genome Lab](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/02\/24\/epstein-cell-line-george-church-harvard-personal-genome-project\/)    \n Among several fridges inside the Harvard Medical School lab of renowned geneticist George Church is one devoted to housing tubes of human blood and spit destined to have their cellular contents cracked open, the DNA letters read out and posted to the wilds of the open internet. Eventually. (Molteni, 2\/24)\n\nHealth Industry\n\n[Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Vote To Strike Just As Nurses Are Returning](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/kaiser-mental-health-therapists-vote-to-strike-just-as-nurses-are-returning\/)\n\nA day after the union representing more than 31,000 Kaiser Permanente health care professionals noted productive labor negotiations and agreed to end the four-week walkout, KP mental health therapists in California voted to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike.\n\n[San Francisco Chronicle: Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Authorize Strike In Northern California](https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/health\/article\/kaiser-therapists-strike-authorization-21875765.php)    \n Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists across Northern California and the Central Valley have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike, just as the health system’s largest union ended a historic four-week walkout. The National Union of Healthcare Workers said Monday that 92% of participating members backed the strike authorization. The vote covers about 2,400 therapists, social workers and psychologists who provide care in the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley. (Vaziri, 2\/23)\n\n[AP: Kaiser Permanente Health Workers Return After 4-Week Strike](https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/kaiser-permanente-strike-california-united-nurses-1726260636f3a6bc5f6efbf830f353e2)    \n An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and other front-line Kaiser Permanente health care workers will return to work on Tuesday after a four-week strike in California and Hawaii to demand better wages and staffing. The United Nurses Associations of California\/Union of Health Care Professionals said in a statement Monday that “significant movement at the bargaining table” prompted an end to the walkout. The statement didn’t offer more specifics. (Weber, 2\/24)\n\nMore health care industry developments —\n\n[Bloomberg: CVS Boosts Employee Bonuses After Beating 2025 Profit Target](https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-02-23\/cvs-employee-bonuses-surge-after-beating-2025-profit-target)    \n CVS Health Corp. increased bonuses for regular corporate employees as new executives grew profitability, fixing some of the challenges that had previously dragged down the company’s Aetna insurance unit. Bonuses for 2025 will be 42.3% above baseline levels, according to records reviewed by Bloomberg News. That’s a drastic reversal from last year, when bonuses were more than 60% below targets. (Swetlitz, 2\/23)\n\n[Modern Healthcare: Enhabit To Be Acquired By Kinderhook Industries In \\$1.1B Deal](http:\/\/www.modernhealthcare.com\/post-acute-care\/mh-enhabit-kinderhook-industries-home-health\/)    \n Private equity firm Kinderhook Industries has inked a \\$1.1 billion deal to acquire Enhabit Home Health and Hospice. Enhabit is one of the nation’s largest home care providers, with 376 locations across 34 states. It was a unit of Encompass Health until its spinoff in 2022. Under terms of the definitive agreement, Kinderhook would pay stockholders \\$13.80 per share for Dallas-based Enhabit, the home care company said Monday. (Eastabrook, 2\/23)\n\n[Modern Healthcare: ViVe 2026: How Health Plans Are Implementing AI Agents](http:\/\/www.modernhealthcare.com\/health-tech\/mh-vive-2026-health-plans-ai-agents\/)    \n Health plans are strategically implementing artificial intelligence agents to manage member services. At the ViVE 2026 conference in Los Angeles, health plan leaders from Clever Care Health Plan and Medical Mutual of Ohio detailed the ways their organizations have been able to handle call volume and engage members. (Famakinwa, 2\/23)\n\n[Stat: Digital Twins In Health Care: Promising Technology Still Years Away](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/02\/24\/digital-twins-health-care-hype-reality\/)    \n Two decades ago, futurist Ray Kurzweil laid out a bold vision for next-generation medicine in his book “The Singularity Is Near.” Technology, he predicted, could one day help doctors eradicate disease by anticipating and responding to it in real time. (Ravindranath, 2\/24)\n\n[Modern Healthcare: No Surprises Act Arbitration Drags Patients Into Billing Disputes](http:\/\/www.modernhealthcare.com\/providers\/mh-no-surprises-act-independent-dispute-resolution\/)    \n Providers and health insurance companies are accusing each other of gaming the No Surprises Act of 2020, sometimes pulling patients back into the middle of billing disputes the law was meant to prevent. Physician groups, hospitals and air ambulance companies have flooded third-party mediators with millions of claims seeking higher reimbursement from insurers for out-of-network care. Providers argue insurers’ flawed reimbursement methodology is decreasing payment and forcing them to seek arbitration, while insurers contend providers are committing fraud by submitting ineligible claims. (Kacik and Tepper, 2\/23)\n\nPharma and Tech\n\n[Dentists Keep Prescribing Clindamycin Despite 'Black Box' Label, C Diff Risk](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/dentists-keep-prescribing-clindamycin-despite-black-box-label-c-diff-risk\/)\n\nCIDRAP takes a deeper look at the antibiotic's health effects. Also in the news: The FDA has approved milsaperidone to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; Bayer sues Johnson & Johnson; Mounjaro may reduce alcohol intake; and more.\n\n[CIDRAP: Dentists Still Write Millions Of Prescriptions A Year For An Antibiotic With Life-Threatening Risks](https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/antimicrobial-stewardship\/dentists-still-write-millions-prescriptions-year-antibiotic-life)    \n Dentists wrote more than 2.3 million prescriptions last year for an antibiotic called clindamycin, whose label has carried a black box warning for more than four decades, due to its high rate of life-threatening complications. One of those prescriptions was given to Dolores Hernandez Owens. (Szabo, 2\/24)\n\nIn other pharma and tech updates —\n\n[MedPage Today: New Pill Approved For Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder](https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/psychiatry\/bipolardisorder\/120004)    \n The FDA approved milsaperidone (Bysanti) tablets as first-line therapy for adults with schizophrenia and manic or mixed episodes related to bipolar I disorder, Vanda Pharmaceuticals announced on Friday. Milsaperidone is an active metabolite of Vanda's existing drug iloperidone (Fanapt) and represents a new chemical entity in the atypical antipsychotic class. In clinical research, milsaperidone was bioequivalent to iloperidone across all therapeutic doses, Vanda said. (Monaco, 2\/23)\n\n[Stat: Bayer Sues J\\&J Over 'Misleading Claims' About Prostate Cancer Drug](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/pharmalot\/2026\/02\/23\/bayer-jnj-prostate-cancer-false-advertising-lawsuit\/)    \n Underscoring the high-stakes market for prostate cancer medicines, Bayer filed a lawsuit accusing Johnson & Johnson of launching a “false advertising campaign” that uses flawed data to wrongfully promote its rival drug as a more effective treatment. (Silverman, 2\/23)\n\n[The Hill: Diabetes Drug Mounjaro Linked To Reduced Alcohol Intake: Study](https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/healthcare\/5751372-tirzepatide-mounjaro-alcohol-study\/)    \n An ingredient in the prescription diabetes drug Mounjaro was found to reduce alcohol intake in rodents, according to a recent study. In the study, published in early January in the medical journal eBioMedicine, researchers in Sweden, South Carolina and Brazil looked at how the ingredient, tirzepatide, affected rodents. The researchers found that alcohol’s “rewarding properties” were lessened by the ingredient and that behaviors including the voluntary consumption of alcohol and binge drinking dropped. (Suter, 2\/23)\n\n[Stat: Inflammatory Bowel Disease Drug Combos Spark Pharma R\\&D Race](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/02\/24\/ibd-combination-therapy-race-abbvie-lilly-pfizer-merck-jnj\/)    \n Finding the right treatment for someone with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis is more of an art than a science. The chronic autoimmune conditions — both considered types of inflammatory bowel disease — cause a myriad of symptoms including ulcers, stomach cramps, fatigue, and diarrhea. (DeAngelis, 2\/24)\n\n[CNN: Estrogen Patch Shortage As Demand For Menopause Hormone Therapy Grows](https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/02\/23\/health\/estrogen-patch-shortage-menopause-hormone-therapy-wellness)    \n Emily Padgett has spent months trying to get her hands on estrogen patches, bouncing between pharmacies, transferring prescriptions and switching brands three times. For a couple of anxious weeks in January, she had to go without them entirely. (Howard, 2\/23)\n\n[The Wall Street Journal: Merck Revamps Pharmaceutical Unit, Creating Separate Cancer Business](https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/health\/pharma\/merck-creates-separate-cancer-business-as-sales-pressure-looms-2d6b1b65)    \n Merck is shaking up the leadership of its main pharmaceutical unit as the U.S. drugmaker braces for sales pressure later this decade. The Rahway, N.J.-based company said Monday it will split its human-health business into two divisions. One will house its cancer drugs, including the blockbuster Keytruda. The immunotherapy accounts for nearly half of total Merck sales but is due to lose U.S. patent protection in 2028, exposing it to lower-cost copycat competition. (Loftus, 2\/23)\n\n[MedPage Today: Breakable Mechanical Heart Valves Eyed For Future Intervention](https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/cardiology\/interventionalcardiology\/120008)    \n Failed mechanical heart valves could get a new life with device fracture and subsequent valve-in-valve therapy, research suggested. Contemporary mechanical valve leaflets were successfully fractured using standard angioplasty balloons in controlled lab experiments, leaving the intact valve rings unobstructed and available for possible transcatheter heart valve implantation -- which has implications for people with dysfunctional mechanical heart valves, reported Paulina Jankowska, MD, of University Hospital Heart Center Brandenburg in Neuruppin, Germany, and colleagues. (Lou, 2\/23)\n\nIn global news —\n\n[AP: Zimbabwe Is One Of The First To Roll Out New And Long-Acting HIV Drug](https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/hiv-drug-lenacapavir-zimbabwe-africa-health-0450d59217b295107829cd6380de7bcc)    \n Young women, mothers holding babies and some men lined up in a dusty field on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. They came for injections of a new HIV prevention drug launched in the country on Thursday, one that only needs to be administered twice a year. Zimbabwe, where HIV has led to tens of thousands of deaths over the past two decades, is one of the first countries to roll out lenacapavir, a long-acting drug that authorities hope will slow new infections. With clinical studies demonstrating near-total protection, the drug has been described by some health officials as a turning point for high-risk groups. (Mutsaka, 2\/22)\n\nEnvironmental Health\n\n[On Trump's Request, High Court Agrees To Hear Case On Fossil Fuel Lawsuits](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/on-trumps-request-high-court-agrees-to-hear-case-on-fossil-fuel-lawsuits\/)\n\nIn an unusual move, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to take up the case of whether or not states and cities can sue large oil and gas companies for climate change damages driven by greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from the industry.\n\n[The Washington Post: Supreme Court To Consider Whether States Can Sue Over Greenhouse Gas Emissions](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2026\/02\/23\/supreme-court-greenhouse-gas-case\/)    \n The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take a case examining whether states and cities can sue fossil fuel companies over harms caused by climate change, a legal tactic modeled on the push to hold tobacco companies responsible for the health effects of smoking. The case is significant because dozens of municipalities are seeking billions in damages from oil and gas companies, often accusing them of misleading the public or hiding evidence about the links between greenhouse gases and climate risks. The companies deny any wrongdoing. (Jouvenal, 2\/23)\n\nOn pesticides and chemicals —\n\n[Politico: RFK Jr. Says We Need More Herbicide Production, Stunning His Followers](https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/02\/23\/rfk-jr-s-endorsement-of-trumps-plan-to-boost-u-s-herbicide-production-threatens-maga-maha-alliance-00793648)    \n Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to endorse increased production of a chemical herbicide he has previously called a carcinogen has sparked a furious reaction among his followers and stressed the MAGA-MAHA alliance. The health secretary explained in a post to X on Sunday night he was backing a directive from President Donald Trump to boost manufacturing of agricultural chemicals he says “put Americans at risk” in order to reduce dependence on them from “adversarial nations,” alarming supporters of his Make America Healthy Again movement. (Reader, Burns and Brown, 2\/23)\n\n[CIDRAP: One Month After Spill, Potomac River Still Testing Positive For E Coli, Staph](https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/e-coli\/one-month-after-spill-potomac-river-still-testing-positive-e-coli-staph)    \n University of Maryland School of Public Health researchers continue to test water from the Potomac River one month after a wastewater pipe broke, dumping millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river, and find the river still has high levels of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, or staph. (Soucheray, 2\/23)\n\n[San Francisco Chronicle: SF Bay Area Regulators Issue \\$10 Million Penalty Against Refinery](https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/climate\/article\/martinez-refining-company-penalty-21367532.php)    \n An East Bay refinery will pay \\$10 million to settle allegations stemming from more than 100 notices of environmental violations over four years, including multiple releases of harmful dust that blanketed nearby properties, local officials announced last week. (Park, 2\/23)\n\n[River City Journalism Fund: How East St. Louis Became Ground Zero Against A Chemical Giant](https:\/\/www.stlpr.org\/health-science-environment\/2026-02-23\/east-st-louis-illinois-federal-court-paraquat-parkinsons)    \n Joe Harrison’s quest for justice against the Swiss agrochemical giant Syngenta began, officially at least, in August 2023 — just three months before his death. That’s when Harrison’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in the federal courthouse in East St. Louis, Illinois. Harrison owned a small cattle ranch in northeastern Oklahoma, and the lawsuit accuses Syngenta of failing to provide adequate warnings about the dangers of paraquat, the key ingredient in its blockbuster weedkiller Gramoxone. (Fitzgerald, 2\/23)\n\nOn the health effects of microplastics —\n\n[NBC News: Microplastics Found In Prostate Tumors In Small Study](https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/health\/mens-health\/microplastics-found-prostate-tumors-small-study-rcna260296)    \n In a new study, researchers found microplastics deep inside prostate cancer tumors, raising more questions about the role the ubiquitous pollutants play in public health. The findings — which come from a small study of 10 men — were presented Monday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Genitourinary Cancers Symposium and have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. (Cox, 2\/23)\n\n[Fortune: Scientists Are Pushing Back On The Health Damage Microplastics May Cause, Saying People Are Obese](https:\/\/fortune.com\/2026\/02\/24\/scientists-microplastics-human-health-studies-joke-obesity\/)    \n Don’t toss that scratched-up, questionably stained, borderline EPA Superfund site, 12-year-old cutting board just yet! Your vintage fermentation lab with knife marks might not be so dangerous after all. (Gioino, 2\/24)\n\nState Watch\n\n[Florida, Trump Administration At Odds Over Medicaid Program Application](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/florida-trump-administration-at-odds-over-medicaid-program-application\/)\n\nFlorida’s Republican congressional delegation is getting involved in an effort to get approval for the program, which boosts payments to state hospitals. Also: AbbVie is planning two manufacturing facilities in North Chicago; Camp Mystic parents sue the state of Texas; and more.\n\n[Roll Call: Florida Officials, Lawmakers Probe Stalled Medicaid Application](https:\/\/rollcall.com\/2026\/02\/23\/florida-officials-lawmakers-probe-stalled-medicaid-application\/)    \n The state of Florida and the Trump administration are at odds over the status of a multibillion-dollar application for a Medicaid program that boosts payments to state hospitals. Inaction by the administration has prompted members of Florida’s Republican congressional delegation, who less than a year ago voted to rein in these programs in part to help pay for tax cuts, to intervene to get approval. (Hellmann, 2\/23)\n\n[Chicago Tribune: AbbVie Plans To Build Two New Manufacturing Facilities](https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/2026\/02\/23\/abbvie-new-manufacturing-facilities\/)    \n Biopharmaceutical company AbbVie plans to spend \\$380 million building two new manufacturing facilities in North Chicago — a rare example of a project that’s in line with initiatives by the administrations of Gov. JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump. (Schencker, 2\/23)\n\n[The Texas Tribune: Camp Mystic Parents Sue State, Accusing Texas Officials Of Not Enforcing Evacuation Plan Requirement](https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/general-news-lawsuits-texas-bc7a25ab767bfe7cba4cad385c64bad8)    \n Texas health officials failed to follow state law when they licensed Camp Mystic without making sure it had an evacuation plan, parents of nine children and counselors who died in the July 4 flood allege in a new federal lawsuit. Camp Mystic’s emergency instructions directed kids to stay in their cabins during floods, even though Texas rules require youth camps to have evacuation plans for disasters, the lawsuit states. (Foxhall, 2\/23)\n\n[San Francisco Chronicle: Former S.F. Nonprofit CEO Misspent \\$1.2 Million, Collected Hidden ‘Double Salary,’ DA Says](https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/westbrook-homeless-ceo-nonprofit-charges-21884016.php)    \n The former chief executive of a major San Francisco homeless services provider is facing charges for allegedly misappropriating at least \\$1.2 million in public funds, some of which appeared to bankroll her luxury lifestyle, prosecutors said Monday. (Barba, 2\/23)\n\n[San Francisco Chronicle: Cartel Leader ‘El Mencho’ Was First Caught Dealing Drugs In San Francisco At Age 19](https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/bayarea\/article\/el-mencho-san-francisco-21886556.php)    \n More than two decades before Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes built the violent cartel that made him one of the most wanted fugitives in Mexico, he was a young man selling drugs on the streets of San Francisco. The killing of 59-year-old Oseguera Cervantes by the Mexican army on Sunday brought renewed attention to the powerful drug lord known as “El Mencho,” including his early beginnings as a small-time drug dealer in the Bay Area, where he lived with family. (Bauman, 2\/23)\n\nEditorials And Opinions\n\n[Viewpoints: Entering Advanced Nursing Careers Just Got Harder; The Truth About Youth Gender Care](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/viewpoints-entering-advanced-nursing-careers-just-got-harder-the-truth-about-youth-gender-care\/)\n\nOpinion writers tackle these public health topics.\n\n[The Washington Post: Graduate Student Loan Limits Will Harm Advanced Nurses And U.S. Health](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2026\/02\/23\/nurse-practitioner-loans-aprns-professional\/)    \n An ’80s-inspired student loan tweak will make it harder to enter advanced nursing roles. (Kymberlee Montgomery and Mary Ellen Glasgow, 2\/23)\n\n[The New York Times: Medical Associations Trusted Belief Over Science On Youth Gender Care](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/24\/opinion\/medical-associations-youth-gender-care.html)    \n “Trust the science”? Which science? (Jesse Singal, 2\/24)\n\n[Annals Of Internal Medicine: The Current Threat To The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force And Why It Matters](https:\/\/www.acpjournals.org\/doi\/10.7326\/ANNALS-26-00514)    \n Health care and public health practice in the United States faced a serious problem when the U.S. Public Health Service established the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) in 1984. We should know. We were there. (Robert S. Lawrence, MD, and Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH, 2\/24)\n\n[The Washington Post: Aluminum In Vaccines: Why You Shouldn’t Be Concerned](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2026\/02\/24\/vaccines-aluminum-safety-science-kennedy\/)    \n People are exposed to far more aluminum from food and drink than from vaccines. (Leana S. Wen, 2\/24)\n\n[Stat: ‘Two-Sided Risk’ Medicare Advantage Plans Improve Patient Outcomes](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/02\/24\/medicare-advantage-plans-doctors-risk-outcomes-optum-research\/)    \n America’s health system is buckling under the weight of several converging pressures: an aging population, high rates of chronic disease, a shortage of clinicians, and rising costs. The response to these challenges will determine the future of care in this country — and new evidence suggests the solution is rooted in how we deliver and pay for care. (Ken Cohen, 2\/24)\n\n### Recent Morning Briefings\n- [Monday, April 6](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/monday-april-6-2026\/)\n- [Friday, April 3](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/friday-april-3-2026\/)\n- [Thursday, April 2](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/thursday-april-2-2026\/)\n- [Wednesday, April 1](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/wednesday-april-1-2026\/)\n- [Tuesday, March 31](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/tuesday-march-31-2026\/)\n- [Monday, March 30](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/monday-march-30-2026\/)\n\n[More](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-briefing\/)\n\n[RSS](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/rss-feeds\/)\n\n[We want to hear from you: Contact Us](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/contact-us\/)\n\n### More From KFF Health News\n[![A woman sits on a couch with a tabby cat beside her. Her hand gently rests beside her cat.](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/03\/Bassan_01.jpg?w=270&h=180&crop=1) These Women Had Their Breasts Removed To Thwart Cancer. 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All rights reserved.\n\n- [About Us](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/about-us\/)\n- [Donate](https:\/\/kff.org\/support-our-work\/?utm_campaign=KHN)\n- [Contact Us](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/contact-us\/)\n- [Editorial Policy](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/editorial-policy\/)\n- [Privacy Policy](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/privacy-policy\/)\n- [Staff](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/staff\/)\n- [Republish Our Content](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/syndication\/)\n- [Email Sign-Up](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/email\/)\n\n- [X](https:\/\/twitter.com\/KFFHealthNews \"X\")\n- [Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/KFFHealthNews \"Facebook\")\n- [LinkedIn](http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/2328770 \"LinkedIn\")\n- [Instagram](https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/KFFHealthNews\/ \"Instagram\")\n- [RSS](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/rss-feeds\/ \"RSS\")\n\nPowered by [WordPress VIP](https:\/\/wpvip.com\/?utm_source=vip_powered_wpcom&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=VIP%20Footer%20Credit&utm_term=kffhealthnews.org)\n\n×\n\nThank you for your interest in supporting KFF Health News, the nation’s leading nonprofit newsroom focused on health and health policy. We distribute our journalism for free and without advertising through media partners of all sizes and in communities large and small. We appreciate all forms of engagement from our readers and listeners, and welcome your support.\n\nKHN is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). You can support KHN by making a contribution to KFF, a non-profit charitable organization that is not associated with Kaiser Permanente.\n\nClick the button below to go to KFF’s donation page which will provide more information and FAQs. Thank you\\!\n\nGo Back\n\n[Continue](https:\/\/www.kff.org\/about-us\/support-our-work\/?utm_campaign=KHN?utm_campaign=KHN)\n\nNotifications","attrs_readable_markdown":"## From KFF Health News - Latest Stories:\n[Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/measles-outbreak-cdc-carolina-sc-nc-vaccines\/)\n\nAs the number of cases grows to about 1,000 in the Carolinas, health care workers who’ve never seen the vaccine-preventable disease can get caught by surprise. (Andrew Jones, 2\/24)\n\n[Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/multimedia\/bad-hair-day\/)\n\nKFF Health News provides a fresh take on health policy developments with [\"Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'\" by Karsten Schley](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/multimedia\/bad-hair-day\/).\n\nHere's today's health policy haiku:\n\nIf you have a health policy haiku to share, please [Contact Us](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/contact-haiku\/) and let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the format of 5-7-5 syllables. We give extra brownie points if you link back to an original story.\n\nOpinions expressed in haikus and cartoons are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions of KFF Health News or KFF.\n\nEach month, KFF Health News’ Rural Dispatch newsletter covers health issues in places where accessing care can be more challenging. Check out our Montana, Colorado, Georgia, and California newsletters, too. [Sign up here\\!](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/email-signup\/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20Daily%20Health%20Policy%20Report&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--DAoywKEm8rUEe5q1GP8xJPdr7Q_w9qKnk1itbBt8_oJwE_k54Kkqdq6UtgsHGIJZwoYoJ5ofZweRaFSBp76cwccSD_A&_hsmi=2&utm_content=2&utm_source=hs_email)\n\n## Summaries Of The News:\n[CDC's Second-In-Command Resigns After Less Than 2 Months On The Job](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/cdcs-second-in-command-resigns-after-less-than-2-months-on-the-job\/)\n\nRalph Abraham said “unforeseen family obligations” are pulling him away from his role as the agency’s deputy secretary general. Plus, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force might be in HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s crosshairs, former members warn.\n\n[Stat: Ralph Abraham, No. 2 Official At CDC, Abruptly Steps Down](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/02\/23\/ralph-abraham-cdc-resigns\/)    \n The drama and chaos surrounding the leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken another twist, with the announcement Monday that the agency’s No. 2 official, Ralph Abraham, has resigned. (Branswell, 2\/23)\n\n[MedPage Today: RFK Jr. May Eliminate The USPSTF, Original Task Force Members Warn](https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/primarycare\/preventivecare\/120005)    \n HHS could completely eliminate the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) or delegitimize the independent body like it did with CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two original USPSTF members warned. \"The USPSTF, the entity established by the Reagan administration to bring scientific rigor to prevention policy, is now under threat by the Trump administration, particularly Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,\" argued Robert Lawrence, MD, the first chair of the task force when it started over four decades ago, and Steven Woolf, MD, MPH, its first scientific advisor, in an Annals of Internal Medicine commentary. (Frieden, 2\/23)\n\n*Keep scrolling to our Editorials and Opinions section to read the commentary.*\n\nRelated news on measles, flu, covid, and the pandemic —\n\n[The Washington Post: Measles Is Back. Nine Other Vaccine-Preventable Diseases May Be Next.](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wellness\/2026\/02\/24\/measles-vaccine-preventable-diseases\/)    \n There are more than 900 confirmed measles cases in the United States, as of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent weekly count. It’s less than two months into the year, “and we already have over a quarter of \\[the measles cases\\] we had all of 2025, so things are not great,” said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. (Felton, 2\/24)\n\n[KFF Health News: Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront A Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/measles-outbreak-cdc-carolina-sc-nc-vaccines\/)    \n At around 2 a.m., 7-year-old twin brothers arrived at Mission Hospital in Asheville. Both had a fever, a cough, a rash, pink eye, and cold symptoms. The boys sat in one waiting room and then another. Two hours and 20 minutes passed before the two were isolated, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services records obtained by KFF Health News. Then two more hours ticked by. (Jones, 2\/24)\n\n[CIDRAP: Moderna’s 2-In-1 Flu And COVID Vaccine Shows Encouraging Results In Small Trial](https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/influenza-vaccines\/moderna-s-2-1-flu-and-covid-vaccine-shows-encouraging-results-small-trial)    \n Moderna announced late last week that its mRNA combined seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccine proved robust and produced a durable immune response in a small, mid-stage trial. There were also no serious safety concerns. According to Reuters, the study involved 550 healthy US adults ages 18 to 75 who received either the experimental combo vaccine (mRNA-1073) and a placebo, or two separate shots of Moderna’s commercially available mRNA flu and COVID vaccines. (Soucheray, 2\/23)\n\n[CIDRAP: College Students Bounced Back After Pandemic, Long-Term Study Suggests](https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/covid-19\/college-students-bounced-back-after-pandemic-long-term-study-suggests)    \n A long-term study from Michigan State University (MSU) finds that most college students bounced back emotionally after the COVID-19 pandemic, with improved psychological functioning, less loneliness, and more satisfaction with their lives. (Szabo, 2\/23)\n\nIn other public health news —\n\n[Newsweek: Getting Sick During Pregnancy Increases Child’s Suicide Risk Later In Life](https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/getting-sick-during-pregnancy-increases-childs-suicide-risk-later-in-life-11566378)    \n Getting sick during pregnancy may have lasting consequences for a child’s mental health, according to a new study. The research, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, analyzed national health data from Denmark, following more than two million people from childhood into adulthood. (Gray, 2\/23)\n\n[MedPage Today: Youth Alcohol Cravings May Rise While Scrolling Social Media, Study Suggests](https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/psychiatry\/addictions\/120009)    \n For young adults, seeing alcohol-related social media content translated to greater desire to drink alcohol, especially when coming from lifestyle influencers whom they saw as highly credible, found a randomized trial. (Firth, 2\/23)\n\nIf you need help —\n\n[Dial 988 for 24\/7 support from the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. It's free and confidential.](https:\/\/988lifeline.org\/)\n\n[FDA Unveils Framework To Fast-Track Rare Disease Gene Therapy Approvals](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/fda-unveils-framework-to-fast-track-rare-disease-gene-therapy-approvals\/)\n\nThe proposed system would create a standardized process for authorizing cutting-edge treatments where there is a plausible reason to think they might work, the AP reported.\n\n[AP: Rare Diseases: FDA Proposes New System To Therapy Approvals](https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/rare-diseases-fda-gene-editing-drugs-e6a3d5f318ccf082c7f277025136df62)    \n Federal health officials on Monday laid out a proposal to spur development of customized treatments for patients with hard-to-treat diseases, including for rare genetic conditions that the pharmaceutical industry has long considered unprofitable. The preliminary Food and Drug Administration guidelines, if implemented, would create a new pathway for bespoke therapies that have only been tested in a handful of patients due to the challenges of conducting larger studies. The FDA announcement specifically mentions gene editing, although agency officials said the new approach could also be used by other drugs and therapies. (Perrone, 2\/23)\n\nMore news from the Trump administration —\n\n[The Marshall Project: Federal Prisons Prohibit Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender People](https:\/\/19thnews.org\/2026\/02\/gender-affirming-care-prohibited-federal-prisons\/)    \n The federal prison system will stop providing gender-affirming medical or social transition care to almost any transgender people, under a new policy released by the Bureau of Prisons Thursday. (Schwartzapfel, 2\/23)\n\n[Becker's Hospital Review: AHA Urges HHS To Align AI Rules With Existing Healthcare Regulations](https:\/\/www.beckershospitalreview.com\/healthcare-information-technology\/ai\/aha-urges-hhs-to-align-ai-rules-with-existing-healthcare-regulations\/)    \n The American Hospital Association is calling on federal health officials to reduce regulatory barriers and ensure clinician oversight as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into clinical care. In a Feb. 23 letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, the AHA outlined recommendations in response to the agency’s request for information on accelerating AI adoption in healthcare. (Diaz, 2\/23)\n\n[The New York Times: Trump, Bruised And Unpopular, Turns To State Of The Union For A Reset](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/24\/us\/politics\/trump-popularity-agenda-state-of-the-union.html)    \n This year, a substantial number of Democrats are planning to boycott the speech and attend an alternative event, a rally called the “People’s State of the Union,” which will take place on the National Mall near the Capitol. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has encouraged members to either sit silently through the speech or boycott it altogether, rather than attend and create distractions in the House chamber. Such protests potentially risk alienating swing voters ahead of the midterms. (Broadwater, 2\/24)\n\nIn news about the Epstein files —\n\n[AP: Medical Influencer Attia Quits CBS News After Name In Epstein Files](https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/cbs-news-epstein-files-attia-medical-428aacc5f6ba7dc3f441047e37d351c6)    \n Dr. Peter Attia, a medical influencer whose emails with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in the latest U.S. Justice Department release of files, has resigned a post with CBS News. Attia, podcast host and author of “Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity,” was one of a group of people named last month by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss as a contributor to network programming. He was the subject of a “60 Minutes” profile that ran on the network last October. But shortly after the appointment, Attia’s name surfaced in hundreds of Epstein documents. (2\/23)\n\n[Stat: Epstein Blood Samples Ignited A 2013 Furor In Harvard Genome Lab](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/02\/24\/epstein-cell-line-george-church-harvard-personal-genome-project\/)    \n Among several fridges inside the Harvard Medical School lab of renowned geneticist George Church is one devoted to housing tubes of human blood and spit destined to have their cellular contents cracked open, the DNA letters read out and posted to the wilds of the open internet. Eventually. (Molteni, 2\/24)\n\n[Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Vote To Strike Just As Nurses Are Returning](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/kaiser-mental-health-therapists-vote-to-strike-just-as-nurses-are-returning\/)\n\nA day after the union representing more than 31,000 Kaiser Permanente health care professionals noted productive labor negotiations and agreed to end the four-week walkout, KP mental health therapists in California voted to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike.\n\n[San Francisco Chronicle: Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Authorize Strike In Northern California](https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/health\/article\/kaiser-therapists-strike-authorization-21875765.php)    \n Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists across Northern California and the Central Valley have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike, just as the health system’s largest union ended a historic four-week walkout. The National Union of Healthcare Workers said Monday that 92% of participating members backed the strike authorization. The vote covers about 2,400 therapists, social workers and psychologists who provide care in the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley. (Vaziri, 2\/23)\n\n[AP: Kaiser Permanente Health Workers Return After 4-Week Strike](https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/kaiser-permanente-strike-california-united-nurses-1726260636f3a6bc5f6efbf830f353e2)    \n An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and other front-line Kaiser Permanente health care workers will return to work on Tuesday after a four-week strike in California and Hawaii to demand better wages and staffing. The United Nurses Associations of California\/Union of Health Care Professionals said in a statement Monday that “significant movement at the bargaining table” prompted an end to the walkout. The statement didn’t offer more specifics. (Weber, 2\/24)\n\nMore health care industry developments —\n\n[Bloomberg: CVS Boosts Employee Bonuses After Beating 2025 Profit Target](https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-02-23\/cvs-employee-bonuses-surge-after-beating-2025-profit-target)    \n CVS Health Corp. increased bonuses for regular corporate employees as new executives grew profitability, fixing some of the challenges that had previously dragged down the company’s Aetna insurance unit. Bonuses for 2025 will be 42.3% above baseline levels, according to records reviewed by Bloomberg News. That’s a drastic reversal from last year, when bonuses were more than 60% below targets. (Swetlitz, 2\/23)\n\n[Modern Healthcare: Enhabit To Be Acquired By Kinderhook Industries In \\$1.1B Deal](http:\/\/www.modernhealthcare.com\/post-acute-care\/mh-enhabit-kinderhook-industries-home-health\/)    \n Private equity firm Kinderhook Industries has inked a \\$1.1 billion deal to acquire Enhabit Home Health and Hospice. Enhabit is one of the nation’s largest home care providers, with 376 locations across 34 states. It was a unit of Encompass Health until its spinoff in 2022. Under terms of the definitive agreement, Kinderhook would pay stockholders \\$13.80 per share for Dallas-based Enhabit, the home care company said Monday. (Eastabrook, 2\/23)\n\n[Modern Healthcare: ViVe 2026: How Health Plans Are Implementing AI Agents](http:\/\/www.modernhealthcare.com\/health-tech\/mh-vive-2026-health-plans-ai-agents\/)    \n Health plans are strategically implementing artificial intelligence agents to manage member services. At the ViVE 2026 conference in Los Angeles, health plan leaders from Clever Care Health Plan and Medical Mutual of Ohio detailed the ways their organizations have been able to handle call volume and engage members. (Famakinwa, 2\/23)\n\n[Stat: Digital Twins In Health Care: Promising Technology Still Years Away](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/02\/24\/digital-twins-health-care-hype-reality\/)    \n Two decades ago, futurist Ray Kurzweil laid out a bold vision for next-generation medicine in his book “The Singularity Is Near.” Technology, he predicted, could one day help doctors eradicate disease by anticipating and responding to it in real time. (Ravindranath, 2\/24)\n\n[Modern Healthcare: No Surprises Act Arbitration Drags Patients Into Billing Disputes](http:\/\/www.modernhealthcare.com\/providers\/mh-no-surprises-act-independent-dispute-resolution\/)    \n Providers and health insurance companies are accusing each other of gaming the No Surprises Act of 2020, sometimes pulling patients back into the middle of billing disputes the law was meant to prevent. Physician groups, hospitals and air ambulance companies have flooded third-party mediators with millions of claims seeking higher reimbursement from insurers for out-of-network care. Providers argue insurers’ flawed reimbursement methodology is decreasing payment and forcing them to seek arbitration, while insurers contend providers are committing fraud by submitting ineligible claims. (Kacik and Tepper, 2\/23)\n\n[Dentists Keep Prescribing Clindamycin Despite 'Black Box' Label, C Diff Risk](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/dentists-keep-prescribing-clindamycin-despite-black-box-label-c-diff-risk\/)\n\nCIDRAP takes a deeper look at the antibiotic's health effects. Also in the news: The FDA has approved milsaperidone to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; Bayer sues Johnson & Johnson; Mounjaro may reduce alcohol intake; and more.\n\n[CIDRAP: Dentists Still Write Millions Of Prescriptions A Year For An Antibiotic With Life-Threatening Risks](https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/antimicrobial-stewardship\/dentists-still-write-millions-prescriptions-year-antibiotic-life)    \n Dentists wrote more than 2.3 million prescriptions last year for an antibiotic called clindamycin, whose label has carried a black box warning for more than four decades, due to its high rate of life-threatening complications. One of those prescriptions was given to Dolores Hernandez Owens. (Szabo, 2\/24)\n\nIn other pharma and tech updates —\n\n[MedPage Today: New Pill Approved For Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder](https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/psychiatry\/bipolardisorder\/120004)    \n The FDA approved milsaperidone (Bysanti) tablets as first-line therapy for adults with schizophrenia and manic or mixed episodes related to bipolar I disorder, Vanda Pharmaceuticals announced on Friday. Milsaperidone is an active metabolite of Vanda's existing drug iloperidone (Fanapt) and represents a new chemical entity in the atypical antipsychotic class. In clinical research, milsaperidone was bioequivalent to iloperidone across all therapeutic doses, Vanda said. (Monaco, 2\/23)\n\n[Stat: Bayer Sues J\\&J Over 'Misleading Claims' About Prostate Cancer Drug](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/pharmalot\/2026\/02\/23\/bayer-jnj-prostate-cancer-false-advertising-lawsuit\/)    \n Underscoring the high-stakes market for prostate cancer medicines, Bayer filed a lawsuit accusing Johnson & Johnson of launching a “false advertising campaign” that uses flawed data to wrongfully promote its rival drug as a more effective treatment. (Silverman, 2\/23)\n\n[The Hill: Diabetes Drug Mounjaro Linked To Reduced Alcohol Intake: Study](https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/healthcare\/5751372-tirzepatide-mounjaro-alcohol-study\/)    \n An ingredient in the prescription diabetes drug Mounjaro was found to reduce alcohol intake in rodents, according to a recent study. In the study, published in early January in the medical journal eBioMedicine, researchers in Sweden, South Carolina and Brazil looked at how the ingredient, tirzepatide, affected rodents. The researchers found that alcohol’s “rewarding properties” were lessened by the ingredient and that behaviors including the voluntary consumption of alcohol and binge drinking dropped. (Suter, 2\/23)\n\n[Stat: Inflammatory Bowel Disease Drug Combos Spark Pharma R\\&D Race](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/02\/24\/ibd-combination-therapy-race-abbvie-lilly-pfizer-merck-jnj\/)    \n Finding the right treatment for someone with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis is more of an art than a science. The chronic autoimmune conditions — both considered types of inflammatory bowel disease — cause a myriad of symptoms including ulcers, stomach cramps, fatigue, and diarrhea. (DeAngelis, 2\/24)\n\n[CNN: Estrogen Patch Shortage As Demand For Menopause Hormone Therapy Grows](https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/02\/23\/health\/estrogen-patch-shortage-menopause-hormone-therapy-wellness)    \n Emily Padgett has spent months trying to get her hands on estrogen patches, bouncing between pharmacies, transferring prescriptions and switching brands three times. For a couple of anxious weeks in January, she had to go without them entirely. (Howard, 2\/23)\n\n[The Wall Street Journal: Merck Revamps Pharmaceutical Unit, Creating Separate Cancer Business](https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/health\/pharma\/merck-creates-separate-cancer-business-as-sales-pressure-looms-2d6b1b65)    \n Merck is shaking up the leadership of its main pharmaceutical unit as the U.S. drugmaker braces for sales pressure later this decade. The Rahway, N.J.-based company said Monday it will split its human-health business into two divisions. One will house its cancer drugs, including the blockbuster Keytruda. The immunotherapy accounts for nearly half of total Merck sales but is due to lose U.S. patent protection in 2028, exposing it to lower-cost copycat competition. (Loftus, 2\/23)\n\n[MedPage Today: Breakable Mechanical Heart Valves Eyed For Future Intervention](https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/cardiology\/interventionalcardiology\/120008)    \n Failed mechanical heart valves could get a new life with device fracture and subsequent valve-in-valve therapy, research suggested. Contemporary mechanical valve leaflets were successfully fractured using standard angioplasty balloons in controlled lab experiments, leaving the intact valve rings unobstructed and available for possible transcatheter heart valve implantation -- which has implications for people with dysfunctional mechanical heart valves, reported Paulina Jankowska, MD, of University Hospital Heart Center Brandenburg in Neuruppin, Germany, and colleagues. (Lou, 2\/23)\n\nIn global news —\n\n[AP: Zimbabwe Is One Of The First To Roll Out New And Long-Acting HIV Drug](https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/hiv-drug-lenacapavir-zimbabwe-africa-health-0450d59217b295107829cd6380de7bcc)    \n Young women, mothers holding babies and some men lined up in a dusty field on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. They came for injections of a new HIV prevention drug launched in the country on Thursday, one that only needs to be administered twice a year. Zimbabwe, where HIV has led to tens of thousands of deaths over the past two decades, is one of the first countries to roll out lenacapavir, a long-acting drug that authorities hope will slow new infections. With clinical studies demonstrating near-total protection, the drug has been described by some health officials as a turning point for high-risk groups. (Mutsaka, 2\/22)\n\n[On Trump's Request, High Court Agrees To Hear Case On Fossil Fuel Lawsuits](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/on-trumps-request-high-court-agrees-to-hear-case-on-fossil-fuel-lawsuits\/)\n\nIn an unusual move, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to take up the case of whether or not states and cities can sue large oil and gas companies for climate change damages driven by greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from the industry.\n\n[The Washington Post: Supreme Court To Consider Whether States Can Sue Over Greenhouse Gas Emissions](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2026\/02\/23\/supreme-court-greenhouse-gas-case\/)    \n The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take a case examining whether states and cities can sue fossil fuel companies over harms caused by climate change, a legal tactic modeled on the push to hold tobacco companies responsible for the health effects of smoking. The case is significant because dozens of municipalities are seeking billions in damages from oil and gas companies, often accusing them of misleading the public or hiding evidence about the links between greenhouse gases and climate risks. The companies deny any wrongdoing. (Jouvenal, 2\/23)\n\nOn pesticides and chemicals —\n\n[Politico: RFK Jr. Says We Need More Herbicide Production, Stunning His Followers](https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/02\/23\/rfk-jr-s-endorsement-of-trumps-plan-to-boost-u-s-herbicide-production-threatens-maga-maha-alliance-00793648)    \n Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to endorse increased production of a chemical herbicide he has previously called a carcinogen has sparked a furious reaction among his followers and stressed the MAGA-MAHA alliance. The health secretary explained in a post to X on Sunday night he was backing a directive from President Donald Trump to boost manufacturing of agricultural chemicals he says “put Americans at risk” in order to reduce dependence on them from “adversarial nations,” alarming supporters of his Make America Healthy Again movement. (Reader, Burns and Brown, 2\/23)\n\n[CIDRAP: One Month After Spill, Potomac River Still Testing Positive For E Coli, Staph](https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/e-coli\/one-month-after-spill-potomac-river-still-testing-positive-e-coli-staph)    \n University of Maryland School of Public Health researchers continue to test water from the Potomac River one month after a wastewater pipe broke, dumping millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river, and find the river still has high levels of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, or staph. (Soucheray, 2\/23)\n\n[San Francisco Chronicle: SF Bay Area Regulators Issue \\$10 Million Penalty Against Refinery](https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/climate\/article\/martinez-refining-company-penalty-21367532.php)    \n An East Bay refinery will pay \\$10 million to settle allegations stemming from more than 100 notices of environmental violations over four years, including multiple releases of harmful dust that blanketed nearby properties, local officials announced last week. (Park, 2\/23)\n\n[River City Journalism Fund: How East St. Louis Became Ground Zero Against A Chemical Giant](https:\/\/www.stlpr.org\/health-science-environment\/2026-02-23\/east-st-louis-illinois-federal-court-paraquat-parkinsons)    \n Joe Harrison’s quest for justice against the Swiss agrochemical giant Syngenta began, officially at least, in August 2023 — just three months before his death. That’s when Harrison’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in the federal courthouse in East St. Louis, Illinois. Harrison owned a small cattle ranch in northeastern Oklahoma, and the lawsuit accuses Syngenta of failing to provide adequate warnings about the dangers of paraquat, the key ingredient in its blockbuster weedkiller Gramoxone. (Fitzgerald, 2\/23)\n\nOn the health effects of microplastics —\n\n[NBC News: Microplastics Found In Prostate Tumors In Small Study](https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/health\/mens-health\/microplastics-found-prostate-tumors-small-study-rcna260296)    \n In a new study, researchers found microplastics deep inside prostate cancer tumors, raising more questions about the role the ubiquitous pollutants play in public health. The findings — which come from a small study of 10 men — were presented Monday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Genitourinary Cancers Symposium and have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. (Cox, 2\/23)\n\n[Fortune: Scientists Are Pushing Back On The Health Damage Microplastics May Cause, Saying People Are Obese](https:\/\/fortune.com\/2026\/02\/24\/scientists-microplastics-human-health-studies-joke-obesity\/)    \n Don’t toss that scratched-up, questionably stained, borderline EPA Superfund site, 12-year-old cutting board just yet! Your vintage fermentation lab with knife marks might not be so dangerous after all. (Gioino, 2\/24)\n\n[Florida, Trump Administration At Odds Over Medicaid Program Application](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/florida-trump-administration-at-odds-over-medicaid-program-application\/)\n\nFlorida’s Republican congressional delegation is getting involved in an effort to get approval for the program, which boosts payments to state hospitals. Also: AbbVie is planning two manufacturing facilities in North Chicago; Camp Mystic parents sue the state of Texas; and more.\n\n[Roll Call: Florida Officials, Lawmakers Probe Stalled Medicaid Application](https:\/\/rollcall.com\/2026\/02\/23\/florida-officials-lawmakers-probe-stalled-medicaid-application\/)    \n The state of Florida and the Trump administration are at odds over the status of a multibillion-dollar application for a Medicaid program that boosts payments to state hospitals. Inaction by the administration has prompted members of Florida’s Republican congressional delegation, who less than a year ago voted to rein in these programs in part to help pay for tax cuts, to intervene to get approval. (Hellmann, 2\/23)\n\n[Chicago Tribune: AbbVie Plans To Build Two New Manufacturing Facilities](https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/2026\/02\/23\/abbvie-new-manufacturing-facilities\/)    \n Biopharmaceutical company AbbVie plans to spend \\$380 million building two new manufacturing facilities in North Chicago — a rare example of a project that’s in line with initiatives by the administrations of Gov. JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump. (Schencker, 2\/23)\n\n[The Texas Tribune: Camp Mystic Parents Sue State, Accusing Texas Officials Of Not Enforcing Evacuation Plan Requirement](https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/general-news-lawsuits-texas-bc7a25ab767bfe7cba4cad385c64bad8)    \n Texas health officials failed to follow state law when they licensed Camp Mystic without making sure it had an evacuation plan, parents of nine children and counselors who died in the July 4 flood allege in a new federal lawsuit. Camp Mystic’s emergency instructions directed kids to stay in their cabins during floods, even though Texas rules require youth camps to have evacuation plans for disasters, the lawsuit states. (Foxhall, 2\/23)\n\n[San Francisco Chronicle: Former S.F. Nonprofit CEO Misspent \\$1.2 Million, Collected Hidden ‘Double Salary,’ DA Says](https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/westbrook-homeless-ceo-nonprofit-charges-21884016.php)    \n The former chief executive of a major San Francisco homeless services provider is facing charges for allegedly misappropriating at least \\$1.2 million in public funds, some of which appeared to bankroll her luxury lifestyle, prosecutors said Monday. (Barba, 2\/23)\n\n[San Francisco Chronicle: Cartel Leader ‘El Mencho’ Was First Caught Dealing Drugs In San Francisco At Age 19](https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/bayarea\/article\/el-mencho-san-francisco-21886556.php)    \n More than two decades before Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes built the violent cartel that made him one of the most wanted fugitives in Mexico, he was a young man selling drugs on the streets of San Francisco. The killing of 59-year-old Oseguera Cervantes by the Mexican army on Sunday brought renewed attention to the powerful drug lord known as “El Mencho,” including his early beginnings as a small-time drug dealer in the Bay Area, where he lived with family. (Bauman, 2\/23)\n\n[Viewpoints: Entering Advanced Nursing Careers Just Got Harder; The Truth About Youth Gender Care](https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/morning-breakout\/viewpoints-entering-advanced-nursing-careers-just-got-harder-the-truth-about-youth-gender-care\/)\n\nOpinion writers tackle these public health topics.\n\n[The Washington Post: Graduate Student Loan Limits Will Harm Advanced Nurses And U.S. Health](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2026\/02\/23\/nurse-practitioner-loans-aprns-professional\/)    \n An ’80s-inspired student loan tweak will make it harder to enter advanced nursing roles. (Kymberlee Montgomery and Mary Ellen Glasgow, 2\/23)\n\n[The New York Times: Medical Associations Trusted Belief Over Science On Youth Gender Care](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/24\/opinion\/medical-associations-youth-gender-care.html)    \n “Trust the science”? Which science? (Jesse Singal, 2\/24)\n\n[Annals Of Internal Medicine: The Current Threat To The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force And Why It Matters](https:\/\/www.acpjournals.org\/doi\/10.7326\/ANNALS-26-00514)    \n Health care and public health practice in the United States faced a serious problem when the U.S. Public Health Service established the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) in 1984. We should know. We were there. (Robert S. Lawrence, MD, and Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH, 2\/24)\n\n[The Washington Post: Aluminum In Vaccines: Why You Shouldn’t Be Concerned](https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2026\/02\/24\/vaccines-aluminum-safety-science-kennedy\/)    \n People are exposed to far more aluminum from food and drink than from vaccines. (Leana S. Wen, 2\/24)\n\n[Stat: ‘Two-Sided Risk’ Medicare Advantage Plans Improve Patient Outcomes](https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/02\/24\/medicare-advantage-plans-doctors-risk-outcomes-optum-research\/)    \n America’s health system is buckling under the weight of several converging pressures: an aging population, high rates of chronic disease, a shortage of clinicians, and rising costs. The response to these challenges will determine the future of care in this country — and new evidence suggests the solution is rooted in how we deliver and pay for care. (Ken Cohen, 2\/24)","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	From KFF Health News - Latest Stories: Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before As the number of cases grows to about 1,000 in the Carolinas, health care workers who’ve never seen the vaccine-preventable disease can get caught by surprise. (Andrew Jones, 2/24) Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?' KFF Health News provides a fresh take on health policy developments with "Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'" by Karsten Schley . Here's today's health policy haiku: If you have a health policy haiku to share, please Contact Us and let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the format of 5-7-5 syllables. We give extra brownie points if you link back to an original story. Opinions expressed in haikus and cartoons are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions of KFF Health News or KFF. Each month, KFF Health News’ Rural Dispatch newsletter covers health issues in places where accessing care can be more challenging. Check out our Montana, Colorado, Georgia, and California newsletters, too. Sign up here! Summaries Of The News: CDC's Second-In-Command Resigns After Less Than 2 Months On The Job Ralph Abraham said “unforeseen family obligations” are pulling him away from his role as the agency’s deputy secretary general. Plus, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force might be in HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s crosshairs, former members warn. Stat: Ralph Abraham, No. 2 Official At CDC, Abruptly Steps Down The drama and chaos surrounding the leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken another twist, with the announcement Monday that the agency’s No. 2 official, Ralph Abraham, has resigned. (Branswell, 2/23) MedPage Today: RFK Jr. May Eliminate The USPSTF, Original Task Force Members Warn HHS could completely eliminate the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) or delegitimize the independent body like it did with CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two original USPSTF members warned. "The USPSTF, the entity established by the Reagan administration to bring scientific rigor to prevention policy, is now under threat by the Trump administration, particularly Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.," argued Robert Lawrence, MD, the first chair of the task force when it started over four decades ago, and Steven Woolf, MD, MPH, its first scientific advisor, in an Annals of Internal Medicine commentary. (Frieden, 2/23) Keep scrolling to our Editorials and Opinions section to read the commentary. Related news on measles, flu, covid, and the pandemic — The Washington Post: Measles Is Back. Nine Other Vaccine-Preventable Diseases May Be Next. There are more than 900 confirmed measles cases in the United States, as of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent weekly count. It’s less than two months into the year, “and we already have over a quarter of [the measles cases] we had all of 2025, so things are not great,” said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. (Felton, 2/24) KFF Health News: Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront A Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before At around 2 a.m., 7-year-old twin brothers arrived at Mission Hospital in Asheville. Both had a fever, a cough, a rash, pink eye, and cold symptoms. The boys sat in one waiting room and then another. Two hours and 20 minutes passed before the two were isolated, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services records obtained by KFF Health News. Then two more hours ticked by. (Jones, 2/24) CIDRAP: Moderna’s 2-In-1 Flu And COVID Vaccine Shows Encouraging Results In Small Trial Moderna announced late last week that its mRNA combined seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccine proved robust and produced a durable immune response in a small, mid-stage trial. There were also no serious safety concerns. According to Reuters, the study involved 550 healthy US adults ages 18 to 75 who received either the experimental combo vaccine (mRNA-1073) and a placebo, or two separate shots of Moderna’s commercially available mRNA flu and COVID vaccines. (Soucheray, 2/23) CIDRAP: College Students Bounced Back After Pandemic, Long-Term Study Suggests A long-term study from Michigan State University (MSU) finds that most college students bounced back emotionally after the COVID-19 pandemic, with improved psychological functioning, less loneliness, and more satisfaction with their lives. (Szabo, 2/23) In other public health news — Newsweek: Getting Sick During Pregnancy Increases Child’s Suicide Risk Later In Life Getting sick during pregnancy may have lasting consequences for a child’s mental health, according to a new study. The research, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, analyzed national health data from Denmark, following more than two million people from childhood into adulthood. (Gray, 2/23) MedPage Today: Youth Alcohol Cravings May Rise While Scrolling Social Media, Study Suggests For young adults, seeing alcohol-related social media content translated to greater desire to drink alcohol, especially when coming from lifestyle influencers whom they saw as highly credible, found a randomized trial. (Firth, 2/23) If you need help — Dial 988 for 24/7 support from the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. It's free and confidential. FDA Unveils Framework To Fast-Track Rare Disease Gene Therapy Approvals The proposed system would create a standardized process for authorizing cutting-edge treatments where there is a plausible reason to think they might work, the AP reported. AP: Rare Diseases: FDA Proposes New System To Therapy Approvals Federal health officials on Monday laid out a proposal to spur development of customized treatments for patients with hard-to-treat diseases, including for rare genetic conditions that the pharmaceutical industry has long considered unprofitable. The preliminary Food and Drug Administration guidelines, if implemented, would create a new pathway for bespoke therapies that have only been tested in a handful of patients due to the challenges of conducting larger studies. The FDA announcement specifically mentions gene editing, although agency officials said the new approach could also be used by other drugs and therapies. (Perrone, 2/23) More news from the Trump administration — The Marshall Project: Federal Prisons Prohibit Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender People The federal prison system will stop providing gender-affirming medical or social transition care to almost any transgender people, under a new policy released by the Bureau of Prisons Thursday. (Schwartzapfel, 2/23) Becker's Hospital Review: AHA Urges HHS To Align AI Rules With Existing Healthcare Regulations The American Hospital Association is calling on federal health officials to reduce regulatory barriers and ensure clinician oversight as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into clinical care. In a Feb. 23 letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, the AHA outlined recommendations in response to the agency’s request for information on accelerating AI adoption in healthcare. (Diaz, 2/23) The New York Times: Trump, Bruised And Unpopular, Turns To State Of The Union For A Reset This year, a substantial number of Democrats are planning to boycott the speech and attend an alternative event, a rally called the “People’s State of the Union,” which will take place on the National Mall near the Capitol. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has encouraged members to either sit silently through the speech or boycott it altogether, rather than attend and create distractions in the House chamber. Such protests potentially risk alienating swing voters ahead of the midterms. (Broadwater, 2/24) In news about the Epstein files — AP: Medical Influencer Attia Quits CBS News After Name In Epstein Files Dr. Peter Attia, a medical influencer whose emails with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in the latest U.S. Justice Department release of files, has resigned a post with CBS News. Attia, podcast host and author of “Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity,” was one of a group of people named last month by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss as a contributor to network programming. He was the subject of a “60 Minutes” profile that ran on the network last October. But shortly after the appointment, Attia’s name surfaced in hundreds of Epstein documents. (2/23) Stat: Epstein Blood Samples Ignited A 2013 Furor In Harvard Genome Lab Among several fridges inside the Harvard Medical School lab of renowned geneticist George Church is one devoted to housing tubes of human blood and spit destined to have their cellular contents cracked open, the DNA letters read out and posted to the wilds of the open internet. Eventually. (Molteni, 2/24) Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Vote To Strike Just As Nurses Are Returning A day after the union representing more than 31,000 Kaiser Permanente health care professionals noted productive labor negotiations and agreed to end the four-week walkout, KP mental health therapists in California voted to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike. San Francisco Chronicle: Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Authorize Strike In Northern California Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists across Northern California and the Central Valley have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike, just as the health system’s largest union ended a historic four-week walkout. The National Union of Healthcare Workers said Monday that 92% of participating members backed the strike authorization. The vote covers about 2,400 therapists, social workers and psychologists who provide care in the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley. (Vaziri, 2/23) AP: Kaiser Permanente Health Workers Return After 4-Week Strike An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and other front-line Kaiser Permanente health care workers will return to work on Tuesday after a four-week strike in California and Hawaii to demand better wages and staffing. The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals said in a statement Monday that “significant movement at the bargaining table” prompted an end to the walkout. The statement didn’t offer more specifics. (Weber, 2/24) More health care industry developments — Bloomberg: CVS Boosts Employee Bonuses After Beating 2025 Profit Target CVS Health Corp. increased bonuses for regular corporate employees as new executives grew profitability, fixing some of the challenges that had previously dragged down the company’s Aetna insurance unit. Bonuses for 2025 will be 42.3% above baseline levels, according to records reviewed by Bloomberg News. That’s a drastic reversal from last year, when bonuses were more than 60% below targets. (Swetlitz, 2/23) Modern Healthcare: Enhabit To Be Acquired By Kinderhook Industries In $1.1B Deal Private equity firm Kinderhook Industries has inked a $1.1 billion deal to acquire Enhabit Home Health and Hospice. Enhabit is one of the nation’s largest home care providers, with 376 locations across 34 states. It was a unit of Encompass Health until its spinoff in 2022. Under terms of the definitive agreement, Kinderhook would pay stockholders $13.80 per share for Dallas-based Enhabit, the home care company said Monday. (Eastabrook, 2/23) Modern Healthcare: ViVe 2026: How Health Plans Are Implementing AI Agents Health plans are strategically implementing artificial intelligence agents to manage member services. At the ViVE 2026 conference in Los Angeles, health plan leaders from Clever Care Health Plan and Medical Mutual of Ohio detailed the ways their organizations have been able to handle call volume and engage members. (Famakinwa, 2/23) Stat: Digital Twins In Health Care: Promising Technology Still Years Away Two decades ago, futurist Ray Kurzweil laid out a bold vision for next-generation medicine in his book “The Singularity Is Near.” Technology, he predicted, could one day help doctors eradicate disease by anticipating and responding to it in real time. (Ravindranath, 2/24) Modern Healthcare: No Surprises Act Arbitration Drags Patients Into Billing Disputes Providers and health insurance companies are accusing each other of gaming the No Surprises Act of 2020, sometimes pulling patients back into the middle of billing disputes the law was meant to prevent. Physician groups, hospitals and air ambulance companies have flooded third-party mediators with millions of claims seeking higher reimbursement from insurers for out-of-network care. Providers argue insurers’ flawed reimbursement methodology is decreasing payment and forcing them to seek arbitration, while insurers contend providers are committing fraud by submitting ineligible claims. (Kacik and Tepper, 2/23) Dentists Keep Prescribing Clindamycin Despite 'Black Box' Label, C Diff Risk CIDRAP takes a deeper look at the antibiotic's health effects. Also in the news: The FDA has approved milsaperidone to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; Bayer sues Johnson & Johnson; Mounjaro may reduce alcohol intake; and more. CIDRAP: Dentists Still Write Millions Of Prescriptions A Year For An Antibiotic With Life-Threatening Risks Dentists wrote more than 2.3 million prescriptions last year for an antibiotic called clindamycin, whose label has carried a black box warning for more than four decades, due to its high rate of life-threatening complications. One of those prescriptions was given to Dolores Hernandez Owens. (Szabo, 2/24) In other pharma and tech updates — MedPage Today: New Pill Approved For Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder The FDA approved milsaperidone (Bysanti) tablets as first-line therapy for adults with schizophrenia and manic or mixed episodes related to bipolar I disorder, Vanda Pharmaceuticals announced on Friday. Milsaperidone is an active metabolite of Vanda's existing drug iloperidone (Fanapt) and represents a new chemical entity in the atypical antipsychotic class. In clinical research, milsaperidone was bioequivalent to iloperidone across all therapeutic doses, Vanda said. (Monaco, 2/23) Stat: Bayer Sues J&J Over 'Misleading Claims' About Prostate Cancer Drug Underscoring the high-stakes market for prostate cancer medicines, Bayer filed a lawsuit accusing Johnson & Johnson of launching a “false advertising campaign” that uses flawed data to wrongfully promote its rival drug as a more effective treatment. (Silverman, 2/23) The Hill: Diabetes Drug Mounjaro Linked To Reduced Alcohol Intake: Study An ingredient in the prescription diabetes drug Mounjaro was found to reduce alcohol intake in rodents, according to a recent study. In the study, published in early January in the medical journal eBioMedicine, researchers in Sweden, South Carolina and Brazil looked at how the ingredient, tirzepatide, affected rodents. The researchers found that alcohol’s “rewarding properties” were lessened by the ingredient and that behaviors including the voluntary consumption of alcohol and binge drinking dropped. (Suter, 2/23) Stat: Inflammatory Bowel Disease Drug Combos Spark Pharma R&D Race Finding the right treatment for someone with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis is more of an art than a science. The chronic autoimmune conditions — both considered types of inflammatory bowel disease — cause a myriad of symptoms including ulcers, stomach cramps, fatigue, and diarrhea. (DeAngelis, 2/24) CNN: Estrogen Patch Shortage As Demand For Menopause Hormone Therapy Grows Emily Padgett has spent months trying to get her hands on estrogen patches, bouncing between pharmacies, transferring prescriptions and switching brands three times. For a couple of anxious weeks in January, she had to go without them entirely. (Howard, 2/23) The Wall Street Journal: Merck Revamps Pharmaceutical Unit, Creating Separate Cancer Business Merck is shaking up the leadership of its main pharmaceutical unit as the U.S. drugmaker braces for sales pressure later this decade. The Rahway, N.J.-based company said Monday it will split its human-health business into two divisions. One will house its cancer drugs, including the blockbuster Keytruda. The immunotherapy accounts for nearly half of total Merck sales but is due to lose U.S. patent protection in 2028, exposing it to lower-cost copycat competition. (Loftus, 2/23) MedPage Today: Breakable Mechanical Heart Valves Eyed For Future Intervention Failed mechanical heart valves could get a new life with device fracture and subsequent valve-in-valve therapy, research suggested. Contemporary mechanical valve leaflets were successfully fractured using standard angioplasty balloons in controlled lab experiments, leaving the intact valve rings unobstructed and available for possible transcatheter heart valve implantation -- which has implications for people with dysfunctional mechanical heart valves, reported Paulina Jankowska, MD, of University Hospital Heart Center Brandenburg in Neuruppin, Germany, and colleagues. (Lou, 2/23) In global news — AP: Zimbabwe Is One Of The First To Roll Out New And Long-Acting HIV Drug Young women, mothers holding babies and some men lined up in a dusty field on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. They came for injections of a new HIV prevention drug launched in the country on Thursday, one that only needs to be administered twice a year. Zimbabwe, where HIV has led to tens of thousands of deaths over the past two decades, is one of the first countries to roll out lenacapavir, a long-acting drug that authorities hope will slow new infections. With clinical studies demonstrating near-total protection, the drug has been described by some health officials as a turning point for high-risk groups. (Mutsaka, 2/22) On Trump's Request, High Court Agrees To Hear Case On Fossil Fuel Lawsuits In an unusual move, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to take up the case of whether or not states and cities can sue large oil and gas companies for climate change damages driven by greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from the industry. The Washington Post: Supreme Court To Consider Whether States Can Sue Over Greenhouse Gas Emissions The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take a case examining whether states and cities can sue fossil fuel companies over harms caused by climate change, a legal tactic modeled on the push to hold tobacco companies responsible for the health effects of smoking. The case is significant because dozens of municipalities are seeking billions in damages from oil and gas companies, often accusing them of misleading the public or hiding evidence about the links between greenhouse gases and climate risks. The companies deny any wrongdoing. (Jouvenal, 2/23) On pesticides and chemicals — Politico: RFK Jr. Says We Need More Herbicide Production, Stunning His Followers Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to endorse increased production of a chemical herbicide he has previously called a carcinogen has sparked a furious reaction among his followers and stressed the MAGA-MAHA alliance. The health secretary explained in a post to X on Sunday night he was backing a directive from President Donald Trump to boost manufacturing of agricultural chemicals he says “put Americans at risk” in order to reduce dependence on them from “adversarial nations,” alarming supporters of his Make America Healthy Again movement. (Reader, Burns and Brown, 2/23) CIDRAP: One Month After Spill, Potomac River Still Testing Positive For E Coli, Staph University of Maryland School of Public Health researchers continue to test water from the Potomac River one month after a wastewater pipe broke, dumping millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river, and find the river still has high levels of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, or staph. (Soucheray, 2/23) San Francisco Chronicle: SF Bay Area Regulators Issue $10 Million Penalty Against Refinery An East Bay refinery will pay $10 million to settle allegations stemming from more than 100 notices of environmental violations over four years, including multiple releases of harmful dust that blanketed nearby properties, local officials announced last week. (Park, 2/23) River City Journalism Fund: How East St. Louis Became Ground Zero Against A Chemical Giant Joe Harrison’s quest for justice against the Swiss agrochemical giant Syngenta began, officially at least, in August 2023 — just three months before his death. That’s when Harrison’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in the federal courthouse in East St. Louis, Illinois. Harrison owned a small cattle ranch in northeastern Oklahoma, and the lawsuit accuses Syngenta of failing to provide adequate warnings about the dangers of paraquat, the key ingredient in its blockbuster weedkiller Gramoxone. (Fitzgerald, 2/23) On the health effects of microplastics — NBC News: Microplastics Found In Prostate Tumors In Small Study In a new study, researchers found microplastics deep inside prostate cancer tumors, raising more questions about the role the ubiquitous pollutants play in public health. The findings — which come from a small study of 10 men — were presented Monday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Genitourinary Cancers Symposium and have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. (Cox, 2/23) Fortune: Scientists Are Pushing Back On The Health Damage Microplastics May Cause, Saying People Are Obese Don’t toss that scratched-up, questionably stained, borderline EPA Superfund site, 12-year-old cutting board just yet! Your vintage fermentation lab with knife marks might not be so dangerous after all. (Gioino, 2/24) Florida, Trump Administration At Odds Over Medicaid Program Application Florida’s Republican congressional delegation is getting involved in an effort to get approval for the program, which boosts payments to state hospitals. Also: AbbVie is planning two manufacturing facilities in North Chicago; Camp Mystic parents sue the state of Texas; and more. Roll Call: Florida Officials, Lawmakers Probe Stalled Medicaid Application The state of Florida and the Trump administration are at odds over the status of a multibillion-dollar application for a Medicaid program that boosts payments to state hospitals. Inaction by the administration has prompted members of Florida’s Republican congressional delegation, who less than a year ago voted to rein in these programs in part to help pay for tax cuts, to intervene to get approval. (Hellmann, 2/23) Chicago Tribune: AbbVie Plans To Build Two New Manufacturing Facilities Biopharmaceutical company AbbVie plans to spend $380 million building two new manufacturing facilities in North Chicago — a rare example of a project that’s in line with initiatives by the administrations of Gov. JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump. (Schencker, 2/23) The Texas Tribune: Camp Mystic Parents Sue State, Accusing Texas Officials Of Not Enforcing Evacuation Plan Requirement Texas health officials failed to follow state law when they licensed Camp Mystic without making sure it had an evacuation plan, parents of nine children and counselors who died in the July 4 flood allege in a new federal lawsuit. Camp Mystic’s emergency instructions directed kids to stay in their cabins during floods, even though Texas rules require youth camps to have evacuation plans for disasters, the lawsuit states. (Foxhall, 2/23) San Francisco Chronicle: Former S.F. Nonprofit CEO Misspent $1.2 Million, Collected Hidden ‘Double Salary,’ DA Says The former chief executive of a major San Francisco homeless services provider is facing charges for allegedly misappropriating at least $1.2 million in public funds, some of which appeared to bankroll her luxury lifestyle, prosecutors said Monday. (Barba, 2/23) San Francisco Chronicle: Cartel Leader ‘El Mencho’ Was First Caught Dealing Drugs In San Francisco At Age 19 More than two decades before Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes built the violent cartel that made him one of the most wanted fugitives in Mexico, he was a young man selling drugs on the streets of San Francisco. The killing of 59-year-old Oseguera Cervantes by the Mexican army on Sunday brought renewed attention to the powerful drug lord known as “El Mencho,” including his early beginnings as a small-time drug dealer in the Bay Area, where he lived with family. (Bauman, 2/23) Viewpoints: Entering Advanced Nursing Careers Just Got Harder; The Truth About Youth Gender Care Opinion writers tackle these public health topics. The Washington Post: Graduate Student Loan Limits Will Harm Advanced Nurses And U.S. Health An ’80s-inspired student loan tweak will make it harder to enter advanced nursing roles. (Kymberlee Montgomery and Mary Ellen Glasgow, 2/23) The New York Times: Medical Associations Trusted Belief Over Science On Youth Gender Care “Trust the science”? Which science? (Jesse Singal, 2/24) Annals Of Internal Medicine: The Current Threat To The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force And Why It Matters Health care and public health practice in the United States faced a serious problem when the U.S. Public Health Service established the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) in 1984. We should know. We were there. (Robert S. Lawrence, MD, and Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH, 2/24) The Washington Post: Aluminum In Vaccines: Why You Shouldn’t Be Concerned People are exposed to far more aluminum from food and drink than from vaccines. (Leana S. Wen, 2/24) Stat: ‘Two-Sided Risk’ Medicare Advantage Plans Improve Patient Outcomes America’s health system is buckling under the weight of several converging pressures: an aging population, high rates of chronic disease, a shortage of clinicians, and rising costs. The response to these challenges will determine the future of care in this country — and new evidence suggests the solution is rooted in how we deliver and pay for care. (Ken Cohen, 2/24)
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[More Topics](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/) - [Abortion](https://kffhealthnews.org/news/tag/abortion/) - [Aging](https://kffhealthnews.org/topics/aging/) - [Climate](https://kffhealthnews.org/news/tag/environmental-health/) - [COVID-19](http://kffhealthnews.org/coronavirus) - [Health Care Costs](https://kffhealthnews.org/topics/health-care-costs/) - [Insurance](https://kffhealthnews.org/topics/insurance/) - [Medicaid](https://kffhealthnews.org/topics/medicaid/) - [Medicare](https://kffhealthnews.org/topics/medicare/) - [Mental Health](https://kffhealthnews.org/topics/mental-health/) - [Pharma](https://kffhealthnews.org/topics/pharmaceuticals/) - [Rural Health](https://kffhealthnews.org/topics/rural-health/) - [Uninsured](https://kffhealthnews.org/topics/uninsured/) ## [Morning Briefing](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/monday-april-6-2026/) ### Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations Tuesday, Feb 24 2026 - [KFF Health News Original Stories](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#section-originals) 1 - [Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#original-1) - [Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#original-2) - [Note To Readers](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#section-note) - [Public Health](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#section-291813940) 1 - [CDC's Second-In-Command Resigns After Less Than 2 Months On The Job](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#breakout-2161265) - [Administration News](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#section-11220782) 1 - [FDA Unveils Framework To Fast-Track Rare Disease Gene Therapy Approvals](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#breakout-2161262) - [Health Industry](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#section-439528697) 1 - [Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Vote To Strike Just As Nurses Are Returning](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#breakout-2161264) - [Pharma and Tech](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#section-439529879) 1 - [Dentists Keep Prescribing Clindamycin Despite 'Black Box' Label, C Diff Risk](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#breakout-2161266) - [Environmental Health](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#section-439528996) 1 - [On Trump's Request, High Court Agrees To Hear Case On Fossil Fuel Lawsuits](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#breakout-2161263) - [State Watch](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#section-803914) 1 - [Florida, Trump Administration At Odds Over Medicaid Program Application](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#breakout-2161267) - [Editorials And Opinions](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#section-9144399) 1 - [Viewpoints: Entering Advanced Nursing Careers Just Got Harder; The Truth About Youth Gender Care](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/tuesday-february-24-2026/#breakout-2161280) ## From KFF Health News - Latest Stories: KFF Health News Original Stories [Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before](https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/measles-outbreak-cdc-carolina-sc-nc-vaccines/) As the number of cases grows to about 1,000 in the Carolinas, health care workers who’ve never seen the vaccine-preventable disease can get caught by surprise. (Andrew Jones, 2/24) [Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'](https://kffhealthnews.org/multimedia/bad-hair-day/) KFF Health News provides a fresh take on health policy developments with ["Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'" by Karsten Schley](https://kffhealthnews.org/multimedia/bad-hair-day/). Here's today's health policy haiku: ##### STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE [Homelessness is hard.](https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/washington-dc-homelessness-crackdown-hiding-plain-sight-street-medicine/) Sweeps, sickness, and loneliness. You don’t feel much love. \- Barbara DiPietro If you have a health policy haiku to share, please [Contact Us](https://kffhealthnews.org/contact-haiku/) and let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the format of 5-7-5 syllables. We give extra brownie points if you link back to an original story. Opinions expressed in haikus and cartoons are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions of KFF Health News or KFF. Note To Readers Each month, KFF Health News’ Rural Dispatch newsletter covers health issues in places where accessing care can be more challenging. Check out our Montana, Colorado, Georgia, and California newsletters, too. [Sign up here\!](https://kffhealthnews.org/email-signup/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20Daily%20Health%20Policy%20Report&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--DAoywKEm8rUEe5q1GP8xJPdr7Q_w9qKnk1itbBt8_oJwE_k54Kkqdq6UtgsHGIJZwoYoJ5ofZweRaFSBp76cwccSD_A&_hsmi=2&utm_content=2&utm_source=hs_email) ## Summaries Of The News: Public Health [CDC's Second-In-Command Resigns After Less Than 2 Months On The Job](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/cdcs-second-in-command-resigns-after-less-than-2-months-on-the-job/) Ralph Abraham said “unforeseen family obligations” are pulling him away from his role as the agency’s deputy secretary general. Plus, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force might be in HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s crosshairs, former members warn. [Stat: Ralph Abraham, No. 2 Official At CDC, Abruptly Steps Down](https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/23/ralph-abraham-cdc-resigns/) The drama and chaos surrounding the leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken another twist, with the announcement Monday that the agency’s No. 2 official, Ralph Abraham, has resigned. (Branswell, 2/23) [MedPage Today: RFK Jr. May Eliminate The USPSTF, Original Task Force Members Warn](https://www.medpagetoday.com/primarycare/preventivecare/120005) HHS could completely eliminate the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) or delegitimize the independent body like it did with CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two original USPSTF members warned. "The USPSTF, the entity established by the Reagan administration to bring scientific rigor to prevention policy, is now under threat by the Trump administration, particularly Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.," argued Robert Lawrence, MD, the first chair of the task force when it started over four decades ago, and Steven Woolf, MD, MPH, its first scientific advisor, in an Annals of Internal Medicine commentary. (Frieden, 2/23) Keep scrolling to our Editorials and Opinions section to read the commentary. Related news on measles, flu, covid, and the pandemic — [The Washington Post: Measles Is Back. Nine Other Vaccine-Preventable Diseases May Be Next.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2026/02/24/measles-vaccine-preventable-diseases/) There are more than 900 confirmed measles cases in the United States, as of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent weekly count. It’s less than two months into the year, “and we already have over a quarter of \[the measles cases\] we had all of 2025, so things are not great,” said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. (Felton, 2/24) [KFF Health News: Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront A Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before](https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/measles-outbreak-cdc-carolina-sc-nc-vaccines/) At around 2 a.m., 7-year-old twin brothers arrived at Mission Hospital in Asheville. Both had a fever, a cough, a rash, pink eye, and cold symptoms. The boys sat in one waiting room and then another. Two hours and 20 minutes passed before the two were isolated, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services records obtained by KFF Health News. Then two more hours ticked by. (Jones, 2/24) [CIDRAP: Moderna’s 2-In-1 Flu And COVID Vaccine Shows Encouraging Results In Small Trial](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/influenza-vaccines/moderna-s-2-1-flu-and-covid-vaccine-shows-encouraging-results-small-trial) Moderna announced late last week that its mRNA combined seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccine proved robust and produced a durable immune response in a small, mid-stage trial. There were also no serious safety concerns. According to Reuters, the study involved 550 healthy US adults ages 18 to 75 who received either the experimental combo vaccine (mRNA-1073) and a placebo, or two separate shots of Moderna’s commercially available mRNA flu and COVID vaccines. (Soucheray, 2/23) [CIDRAP: College Students Bounced Back After Pandemic, Long-Term Study Suggests](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/college-students-bounced-back-after-pandemic-long-term-study-suggests) A long-term study from Michigan State University (MSU) finds that most college students bounced back emotionally after the COVID-19 pandemic, with improved psychological functioning, less loneliness, and more satisfaction with their lives. (Szabo, 2/23) In other public health news — [Newsweek: Getting Sick During Pregnancy Increases Child’s Suicide Risk Later In Life](https://www.newsweek.com/getting-sick-during-pregnancy-increases-childs-suicide-risk-later-in-life-11566378) Getting sick during pregnancy may have lasting consequences for a child’s mental health, according to a new study. The research, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, analyzed national health data from Denmark, following more than two million people from childhood into adulthood. (Gray, 2/23) [MedPage Today: Youth Alcohol Cravings May Rise While Scrolling Social Media, Study Suggests](https://www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/addictions/120009) For young adults, seeing alcohol-related social media content translated to greater desire to drink alcohol, especially when coming from lifestyle influencers whom they saw as highly credible, found a randomized trial. (Firth, 2/23) If you need help — [Dial 988 for 24/7 support from the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. It's free and confidential.](https://988lifeline.org/) Administration News [FDA Unveils Framework To Fast-Track Rare Disease Gene Therapy Approvals](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/fda-unveils-framework-to-fast-track-rare-disease-gene-therapy-approvals/) The proposed system would create a standardized process for authorizing cutting-edge treatments where there is a plausible reason to think they might work, the AP reported. [AP: Rare Diseases: FDA Proposes New System To Therapy Approvals](https://apnews.com/article/rare-diseases-fda-gene-editing-drugs-e6a3d5f318ccf082c7f277025136df62) Federal health officials on Monday laid out a proposal to spur development of customized treatments for patients with hard-to-treat diseases, including for rare genetic conditions that the pharmaceutical industry has long considered unprofitable. The preliminary Food and Drug Administration guidelines, if implemented, would create a new pathway for bespoke therapies that have only been tested in a handful of patients due to the challenges of conducting larger studies. The FDA announcement specifically mentions gene editing, although agency officials said the new approach could also be used by other drugs and therapies. (Perrone, 2/23) More news from the Trump administration — [The Marshall Project: Federal Prisons Prohibit Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender People](https://19thnews.org/2026/02/gender-affirming-care-prohibited-federal-prisons/) The federal prison system will stop providing gender-affirming medical or social transition care to almost any transgender people, under a new policy released by the Bureau of Prisons Thursday. (Schwartzapfel, 2/23) [Becker's Hospital Review: AHA Urges HHS To Align AI Rules With Existing Healthcare Regulations](https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/ai/aha-urges-hhs-to-align-ai-rules-with-existing-healthcare-regulations/) The American Hospital Association is calling on federal health officials to reduce regulatory barriers and ensure clinician oversight as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into clinical care. In a Feb. 23 letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, the AHA outlined recommendations in response to the agency’s request for information on accelerating AI adoption in healthcare. (Diaz, 2/23) [The New York Times: Trump, Bruised And Unpopular, Turns To State Of The Union For A Reset](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/us/politics/trump-popularity-agenda-state-of-the-union.html) This year, a substantial number of Democrats are planning to boycott the speech and attend an alternative event, a rally called the “People’s State of the Union,” which will take place on the National Mall near the Capitol. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has encouraged members to either sit silently through the speech or boycott it altogether, rather than attend and create distractions in the House chamber. Such protests potentially risk alienating swing voters ahead of the midterms. (Broadwater, 2/24) In news about the Epstein files — [AP: Medical Influencer Attia Quits CBS News After Name In Epstein Files](https://apnews.com/article/cbs-news-epstein-files-attia-medical-428aacc5f6ba7dc3f441047e37d351c6) Dr. Peter Attia, a medical influencer whose emails with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in the latest U.S. Justice Department release of files, has resigned a post with CBS News. Attia, podcast host and author of “Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity,” was one of a group of people named last month by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss as a contributor to network programming. He was the subject of a “60 Minutes” profile that ran on the network last October. But shortly after the appointment, Attia’s name surfaced in hundreds of Epstein documents. (2/23) [Stat: Epstein Blood Samples Ignited A 2013 Furor In Harvard Genome Lab](https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/epstein-cell-line-george-church-harvard-personal-genome-project/) Among several fridges inside the Harvard Medical School lab of renowned geneticist George Church is one devoted to housing tubes of human blood and spit destined to have their cellular contents cracked open, the DNA letters read out and posted to the wilds of the open internet. Eventually. (Molteni, 2/24) Health Industry [Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Vote To Strike Just As Nurses Are Returning](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/kaiser-mental-health-therapists-vote-to-strike-just-as-nurses-are-returning/) A day after the union representing more than 31,000 Kaiser Permanente health care professionals noted productive labor negotiations and agreed to end the four-week walkout, KP mental health therapists in California voted to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike. [San Francisco Chronicle: Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Authorize Strike In Northern California](https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/kaiser-therapists-strike-authorization-21875765.php) Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists across Northern California and the Central Valley have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike, just as the health system’s largest union ended a historic four-week walkout. The National Union of Healthcare Workers said Monday that 92% of participating members backed the strike authorization. The vote covers about 2,400 therapists, social workers and psychologists who provide care in the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley. (Vaziri, 2/23) [AP: Kaiser Permanente Health Workers Return After 4-Week Strike](https://apnews.com/article/kaiser-permanente-strike-california-united-nurses-1726260636f3a6bc5f6efbf830f353e2) An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and other front-line Kaiser Permanente health care workers will return to work on Tuesday after a four-week strike in California and Hawaii to demand better wages and staffing. The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals said in a statement Monday that “significant movement at the bargaining table” prompted an end to the walkout. The statement didn’t offer more specifics. (Weber, 2/24) More health care industry developments — [Bloomberg: CVS Boosts Employee Bonuses After Beating 2025 Profit Target](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-23/cvs-employee-bonuses-surge-after-beating-2025-profit-target) CVS Health Corp. increased bonuses for regular corporate employees as new executives grew profitability, fixing some of the challenges that had previously dragged down the company’s Aetna insurance unit. Bonuses for 2025 will be 42.3% above baseline levels, according to records reviewed by Bloomberg News. That’s a drastic reversal from last year, when bonuses were more than 60% below targets. (Swetlitz, 2/23) [Modern Healthcare: Enhabit To Be Acquired By Kinderhook Industries In \$1.1B Deal](http://www.modernhealthcare.com/post-acute-care/mh-enhabit-kinderhook-industries-home-health/) Private equity firm Kinderhook Industries has inked a \$1.1 billion deal to acquire Enhabit Home Health and Hospice. Enhabit is one of the nation’s largest home care providers, with 376 locations across 34 states. It was a unit of Encompass Health until its spinoff in 2022. Under terms of the definitive agreement, Kinderhook would pay stockholders \$13.80 per share for Dallas-based Enhabit, the home care company said Monday. (Eastabrook, 2/23) [Modern Healthcare: ViVe 2026: How Health Plans Are Implementing AI Agents](http://www.modernhealthcare.com/health-tech/mh-vive-2026-health-plans-ai-agents/) Health plans are strategically implementing artificial intelligence agents to manage member services. At the ViVE 2026 conference in Los Angeles, health plan leaders from Clever Care Health Plan and Medical Mutual of Ohio detailed the ways their organizations have been able to handle call volume and engage members. (Famakinwa, 2/23) [Stat: Digital Twins In Health Care: Promising Technology Still Years Away](https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/digital-twins-health-care-hype-reality/) Two decades ago, futurist Ray Kurzweil laid out a bold vision for next-generation medicine in his book “The Singularity Is Near.” Technology, he predicted, could one day help doctors eradicate disease by anticipating and responding to it in real time. (Ravindranath, 2/24) [Modern Healthcare: No Surprises Act Arbitration Drags Patients Into Billing Disputes](http://www.modernhealthcare.com/providers/mh-no-surprises-act-independent-dispute-resolution/) Providers and health insurance companies are accusing each other of gaming the No Surprises Act of 2020, sometimes pulling patients back into the middle of billing disputes the law was meant to prevent. Physician groups, hospitals and air ambulance companies have flooded third-party mediators with millions of claims seeking higher reimbursement from insurers for out-of-network care. Providers argue insurers’ flawed reimbursement methodology is decreasing payment and forcing them to seek arbitration, while insurers contend providers are committing fraud by submitting ineligible claims. (Kacik and Tepper, 2/23) Pharma and Tech [Dentists Keep Prescribing Clindamycin Despite 'Black Box' Label, C Diff Risk](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/dentists-keep-prescribing-clindamycin-despite-black-box-label-c-diff-risk/) CIDRAP takes a deeper look at the antibiotic's health effects. Also in the news: The FDA has approved milsaperidone to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; Bayer sues Johnson & Johnson; Mounjaro may reduce alcohol intake; and more. [CIDRAP: Dentists Still Write Millions Of Prescriptions A Year For An Antibiotic With Life-Threatening Risks](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/antimicrobial-stewardship/dentists-still-write-millions-prescriptions-year-antibiotic-life) Dentists wrote more than 2.3 million prescriptions last year for an antibiotic called clindamycin, whose label has carried a black box warning for more than four decades, due to its high rate of life-threatening complications. One of those prescriptions was given to Dolores Hernandez Owens. (Szabo, 2/24) In other pharma and tech updates — [MedPage Today: New Pill Approved For Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder](https://www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/bipolardisorder/120004) The FDA approved milsaperidone (Bysanti) tablets as first-line therapy for adults with schizophrenia and manic or mixed episodes related to bipolar I disorder, Vanda Pharmaceuticals announced on Friday. Milsaperidone is an active metabolite of Vanda's existing drug iloperidone (Fanapt) and represents a new chemical entity in the atypical antipsychotic class. In clinical research, milsaperidone was bioequivalent to iloperidone across all therapeutic doses, Vanda said. (Monaco, 2/23) [Stat: Bayer Sues J\&J Over 'Misleading Claims' About Prostate Cancer Drug](https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2026/02/23/bayer-jnj-prostate-cancer-false-advertising-lawsuit/) Underscoring the high-stakes market for prostate cancer medicines, Bayer filed a lawsuit accusing Johnson & Johnson of launching a “false advertising campaign” that uses flawed data to wrongfully promote its rival drug as a more effective treatment. (Silverman, 2/23) [The Hill: Diabetes Drug Mounjaro Linked To Reduced Alcohol Intake: Study](https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5751372-tirzepatide-mounjaro-alcohol-study/) An ingredient in the prescription diabetes drug Mounjaro was found to reduce alcohol intake in rodents, according to a recent study. In the study, published in early January in the medical journal eBioMedicine, researchers in Sweden, South Carolina and Brazil looked at how the ingredient, tirzepatide, affected rodents. The researchers found that alcohol’s “rewarding properties” were lessened by the ingredient and that behaviors including the voluntary consumption of alcohol and binge drinking dropped. (Suter, 2/23) [Stat: Inflammatory Bowel Disease Drug Combos Spark Pharma R\&D Race](https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/ibd-combination-therapy-race-abbvie-lilly-pfizer-merck-jnj/) Finding the right treatment for someone with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis is more of an art than a science. The chronic autoimmune conditions — both considered types of inflammatory bowel disease — cause a myriad of symptoms including ulcers, stomach cramps, fatigue, and diarrhea. (DeAngelis, 2/24) [CNN: Estrogen Patch Shortage As Demand For Menopause Hormone Therapy Grows](https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/23/health/estrogen-patch-shortage-menopause-hormone-therapy-wellness) Emily Padgett has spent months trying to get her hands on estrogen patches, bouncing between pharmacies, transferring prescriptions and switching brands three times. For a couple of anxious weeks in January, she had to go without them entirely. (Howard, 2/23) [The Wall Street Journal: Merck Revamps Pharmaceutical Unit, Creating Separate Cancer Business](https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/merck-creates-separate-cancer-business-as-sales-pressure-looms-2d6b1b65) Merck is shaking up the leadership of its main pharmaceutical unit as the U.S. drugmaker braces for sales pressure later this decade. The Rahway, N.J.-based company said Monday it will split its human-health business into two divisions. One will house its cancer drugs, including the blockbuster Keytruda. The immunotherapy accounts for nearly half of total Merck sales but is due to lose U.S. patent protection in 2028, exposing it to lower-cost copycat competition. (Loftus, 2/23) [MedPage Today: Breakable Mechanical Heart Valves Eyed For Future Intervention](https://www.medpagetoday.com/cardiology/interventionalcardiology/120008) Failed mechanical heart valves could get a new life with device fracture and subsequent valve-in-valve therapy, research suggested. Contemporary mechanical valve leaflets were successfully fractured using standard angioplasty balloons in controlled lab experiments, leaving the intact valve rings unobstructed and available for possible transcatheter heart valve implantation -- which has implications for people with dysfunctional mechanical heart valves, reported Paulina Jankowska, MD, of University Hospital Heart Center Brandenburg in Neuruppin, Germany, and colleagues. (Lou, 2/23) In global news — [AP: Zimbabwe Is One Of The First To Roll Out New And Long-Acting HIV Drug](https://apnews.com/article/hiv-drug-lenacapavir-zimbabwe-africa-health-0450d59217b295107829cd6380de7bcc) Young women, mothers holding babies and some men lined up in a dusty field on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. They came for injections of a new HIV prevention drug launched in the country on Thursday, one that only needs to be administered twice a year. Zimbabwe, where HIV has led to tens of thousands of deaths over the past two decades, is one of the first countries to roll out lenacapavir, a long-acting drug that authorities hope will slow new infections. With clinical studies demonstrating near-total protection, the drug has been described by some health officials as a turning point for high-risk groups. (Mutsaka, 2/22) Environmental Health [On Trump's Request, High Court Agrees To Hear Case On Fossil Fuel Lawsuits](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/on-trumps-request-high-court-agrees-to-hear-case-on-fossil-fuel-lawsuits/) In an unusual move, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to take up the case of whether or not states and cities can sue large oil and gas companies for climate change damages driven by greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from the industry. [The Washington Post: Supreme Court To Consider Whether States Can Sue Over Greenhouse Gas Emissions](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/23/supreme-court-greenhouse-gas-case/) The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take a case examining whether states and cities can sue fossil fuel companies over harms caused by climate change, a legal tactic modeled on the push to hold tobacco companies responsible for the health effects of smoking. The case is significant because dozens of municipalities are seeking billions in damages from oil and gas companies, often accusing them of misleading the public or hiding evidence about the links between greenhouse gases and climate risks. The companies deny any wrongdoing. (Jouvenal, 2/23) On pesticides and chemicals — [Politico: RFK Jr. Says We Need More Herbicide Production, Stunning His Followers](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/23/rfk-jr-s-endorsement-of-trumps-plan-to-boost-u-s-herbicide-production-threatens-maga-maha-alliance-00793648) Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to endorse increased production of a chemical herbicide he has previously called a carcinogen has sparked a furious reaction among his followers and stressed the MAGA-MAHA alliance. The health secretary explained in a post to X on Sunday night he was backing a directive from President Donald Trump to boost manufacturing of agricultural chemicals he says “put Americans at risk” in order to reduce dependence on them from “adversarial nations,” alarming supporters of his Make America Healthy Again movement. (Reader, Burns and Brown, 2/23) [CIDRAP: One Month After Spill, Potomac River Still Testing Positive For E Coli, Staph](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/e-coli/one-month-after-spill-potomac-river-still-testing-positive-e-coli-staph) University of Maryland School of Public Health researchers continue to test water from the Potomac River one month after a wastewater pipe broke, dumping millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river, and find the river still has high levels of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, or staph. (Soucheray, 2/23) [San Francisco Chronicle: SF Bay Area Regulators Issue \$10 Million Penalty Against Refinery](https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/article/martinez-refining-company-penalty-21367532.php) An East Bay refinery will pay \$10 million to settle allegations stemming from more than 100 notices of environmental violations over four years, including multiple releases of harmful dust that blanketed nearby properties, local officials announced last week. (Park, 2/23) [River City Journalism Fund: How East St. Louis Became Ground Zero Against A Chemical Giant](https://www.stlpr.org/health-science-environment/2026-02-23/east-st-louis-illinois-federal-court-paraquat-parkinsons) Joe Harrison’s quest for justice against the Swiss agrochemical giant Syngenta began, officially at least, in August 2023 — just three months before his death. That’s when Harrison’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in the federal courthouse in East St. Louis, Illinois. Harrison owned a small cattle ranch in northeastern Oklahoma, and the lawsuit accuses Syngenta of failing to provide adequate warnings about the dangers of paraquat, the key ingredient in its blockbuster weedkiller Gramoxone. (Fitzgerald, 2/23) On the health effects of microplastics — [NBC News: Microplastics Found In Prostate Tumors In Small Study](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mens-health/microplastics-found-prostate-tumors-small-study-rcna260296) In a new study, researchers found microplastics deep inside prostate cancer tumors, raising more questions about the role the ubiquitous pollutants play in public health. The findings — which come from a small study of 10 men — were presented Monday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Genitourinary Cancers Symposium and have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. (Cox, 2/23) [Fortune: Scientists Are Pushing Back On The Health Damage Microplastics May Cause, Saying People Are Obese](https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/scientists-microplastics-human-health-studies-joke-obesity/) Don’t toss that scratched-up, questionably stained, borderline EPA Superfund site, 12-year-old cutting board just yet! Your vintage fermentation lab with knife marks might not be so dangerous after all. (Gioino, 2/24) State Watch [Florida, Trump Administration At Odds Over Medicaid Program Application](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/florida-trump-administration-at-odds-over-medicaid-program-application/) Florida’s Republican congressional delegation is getting involved in an effort to get approval for the program, which boosts payments to state hospitals. Also: AbbVie is planning two manufacturing facilities in North Chicago; Camp Mystic parents sue the state of Texas; and more. [Roll Call: Florida Officials, Lawmakers Probe Stalled Medicaid Application](https://rollcall.com/2026/02/23/florida-officials-lawmakers-probe-stalled-medicaid-application/) The state of Florida and the Trump administration are at odds over the status of a multibillion-dollar application for a Medicaid program that boosts payments to state hospitals. Inaction by the administration has prompted members of Florida’s Republican congressional delegation, who less than a year ago voted to rein in these programs in part to help pay for tax cuts, to intervene to get approval. (Hellmann, 2/23) [Chicago Tribune: AbbVie Plans To Build Two New Manufacturing Facilities](https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/23/abbvie-new-manufacturing-facilities/) Biopharmaceutical company AbbVie plans to spend \$380 million building two new manufacturing facilities in North Chicago — a rare example of a project that’s in line with initiatives by the administrations of Gov. JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump. (Schencker, 2/23) [The Texas Tribune: Camp Mystic Parents Sue State, Accusing Texas Officials Of Not Enforcing Evacuation Plan Requirement](https://apnews.com/article/general-news-lawsuits-texas-bc7a25ab767bfe7cba4cad385c64bad8) Texas health officials failed to follow state law when they licensed Camp Mystic without making sure it had an evacuation plan, parents of nine children and counselors who died in the July 4 flood allege in a new federal lawsuit. Camp Mystic’s emergency instructions directed kids to stay in their cabins during floods, even though Texas rules require youth camps to have evacuation plans for disasters, the lawsuit states. (Foxhall, 2/23) [San Francisco Chronicle: Former S.F. Nonprofit CEO Misspent \$1.2 Million, Collected Hidden ‘Double Salary,’ DA Says](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/westbrook-homeless-ceo-nonprofit-charges-21884016.php) The former chief executive of a major San Francisco homeless services provider is facing charges for allegedly misappropriating at least \$1.2 million in public funds, some of which appeared to bankroll her luxury lifestyle, prosecutors said Monday. (Barba, 2/23) [San Francisco Chronicle: Cartel Leader ‘El Mencho’ Was First Caught Dealing Drugs In San Francisco At Age 19](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/el-mencho-san-francisco-21886556.php) More than two decades before Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes built the violent cartel that made him one of the most wanted fugitives in Mexico, he was a young man selling drugs on the streets of San Francisco. The killing of 59-year-old Oseguera Cervantes by the Mexican army on Sunday brought renewed attention to the powerful drug lord known as “El Mencho,” including his early beginnings as a small-time drug dealer in the Bay Area, where he lived with family. (Bauman, 2/23) Editorials And Opinions [Viewpoints: Entering Advanced Nursing Careers Just Got Harder; The Truth About Youth Gender Care](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/viewpoints-entering-advanced-nursing-careers-just-got-harder-the-truth-about-youth-gender-care/) Opinion writers tackle these public health topics. [The Washington Post: Graduate Student Loan Limits Will Harm Advanced Nurses And U.S. Health](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/02/23/nurse-practitioner-loans-aprns-professional/) An ’80s-inspired student loan tweak will make it harder to enter advanced nursing roles. (Kymberlee Montgomery and Mary Ellen Glasgow, 2/23) [The New York Times: Medical Associations Trusted Belief Over Science On Youth Gender Care](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/opinion/medical-associations-youth-gender-care.html) “Trust the science”? Which science? (Jesse Singal, 2/24) [Annals Of Internal Medicine: The Current Threat To The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force And Why It Matters](https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ANNALS-26-00514) Health care and public health practice in the United States faced a serious problem when the U.S. Public Health Service established the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) in 1984. We should know. We were there. (Robert S. Lawrence, MD, and Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH, 2/24) [The Washington Post: Aluminum In Vaccines: Why You Shouldn’t Be Concerned](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/02/24/vaccines-aluminum-safety-science-kennedy/) People are exposed to far more aluminum from food and drink than from vaccines. (Leana S. Wen, 2/24) [Stat: ‘Two-Sided Risk’ Medicare Advantage Plans Improve Patient Outcomes](https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/medicare-advantage-plans-doctors-risk-outcomes-optum-research/) America’s health system is buckling under the weight of several converging pressures: an aging population, high rates of chronic disease, a shortage of clinicians, and rising costs. The response to these challenges will determine the future of care in this country — and new evidence suggests the solution is rooted in how we deliver and pay for care. 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Readable Markdown	## From KFF Health News - Latest Stories: [Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before](https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/measles-outbreak-cdc-carolina-sc-nc-vaccines/) As the number of cases grows to about 1,000 in the Carolinas, health care workers who’ve never seen the vaccine-preventable disease can get caught by surprise. (Andrew Jones, 2/24) [Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'](https://kffhealthnews.org/multimedia/bad-hair-day/) KFF Health News provides a fresh take on health policy developments with ["Political Cartoon: 'Bad Hair Day?'" by Karsten Schley](https://kffhealthnews.org/multimedia/bad-hair-day/). Here's today's health policy haiku: If you have a health policy haiku to share, please [Contact Us](https://kffhealthnews.org/contact-haiku/) and let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the format of 5-7-5 syllables. We give extra brownie points if you link back to an original story. Opinions expressed in haikus and cartoons are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions of KFF Health News or KFF. Each month, KFF Health News’ Rural Dispatch newsletter covers health issues in places where accessing care can be more challenging. Check out our Montana, Colorado, Georgia, and California newsletters, too. [Sign up here\!](https://kffhealthnews.org/email-signup/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20Daily%20Health%20Policy%20Report&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--DAoywKEm8rUEe5q1GP8xJPdr7Q_w9qKnk1itbBt8_oJwE_k54Kkqdq6UtgsHGIJZwoYoJ5ofZweRaFSBp76cwccSD_A&_hsmi=2&utm_content=2&utm_source=hs_email) ## Summaries Of The News: [CDC's Second-In-Command Resigns After Less Than 2 Months On The Job](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/cdcs-second-in-command-resigns-after-less-than-2-months-on-the-job/) Ralph Abraham said “unforeseen family obligations” are pulling him away from his role as the agency’s deputy secretary general. Plus, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force might be in HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s crosshairs, former members warn. [Stat: Ralph Abraham, No. 2 Official At CDC, Abruptly Steps Down](https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/23/ralph-abraham-cdc-resigns/) The drama and chaos surrounding the leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken another twist, with the announcement Monday that the agency’s No. 2 official, Ralph Abraham, has resigned. (Branswell, 2/23) [MedPage Today: RFK Jr. May Eliminate The USPSTF, Original Task Force Members Warn](https://www.medpagetoday.com/primarycare/preventivecare/120005) HHS could completely eliminate the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) or delegitimize the independent body like it did with CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two original USPSTF members warned. "The USPSTF, the entity established by the Reagan administration to bring scientific rigor to prevention policy, is now under threat by the Trump administration, particularly Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.," argued Robert Lawrence, MD, the first chair of the task force when it started over four decades ago, and Steven Woolf, MD, MPH, its first scientific advisor, in an Annals of Internal Medicine commentary. (Frieden, 2/23) Keep scrolling to our Editorials and Opinions section to read the commentary. Related news on measles, flu, covid, and the pandemic — [The Washington Post: Measles Is Back. Nine Other Vaccine-Preventable Diseases May Be Next.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2026/02/24/measles-vaccine-preventable-diseases/) There are more than 900 confirmed measles cases in the United States, as of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent weekly count. It’s less than two months into the year, “and we already have over a quarter of \[the measles cases\] we had all of 2025, so things are not great,” said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. (Felton, 2/24) [KFF Health News: Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront A Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before](https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/measles-outbreak-cdc-carolina-sc-nc-vaccines/) At around 2 a.m., 7-year-old twin brothers arrived at Mission Hospital in Asheville. Both had a fever, a cough, a rash, pink eye, and cold symptoms. The boys sat in one waiting room and then another. Two hours and 20 minutes passed before the two were isolated, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services records obtained by KFF Health News. Then two more hours ticked by. (Jones, 2/24) [CIDRAP: Moderna’s 2-In-1 Flu And COVID Vaccine Shows Encouraging Results In Small Trial](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/influenza-vaccines/moderna-s-2-1-flu-and-covid-vaccine-shows-encouraging-results-small-trial) Moderna announced late last week that its mRNA combined seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccine proved robust and produced a durable immune response in a small, mid-stage trial. There were also no serious safety concerns. According to Reuters, the study involved 550 healthy US adults ages 18 to 75 who received either the experimental combo vaccine (mRNA-1073) and a placebo, or two separate shots of Moderna’s commercially available mRNA flu and COVID vaccines. (Soucheray, 2/23) [CIDRAP: College Students Bounced Back After Pandemic, Long-Term Study Suggests](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/college-students-bounced-back-after-pandemic-long-term-study-suggests) A long-term study from Michigan State University (MSU) finds that most college students bounced back emotionally after the COVID-19 pandemic, with improved psychological functioning, less loneliness, and more satisfaction with their lives. (Szabo, 2/23) In other public health news — [Newsweek: Getting Sick During Pregnancy Increases Child’s Suicide Risk Later In Life](https://www.newsweek.com/getting-sick-during-pregnancy-increases-childs-suicide-risk-later-in-life-11566378) Getting sick during pregnancy may have lasting consequences for a child’s mental health, according to a new study. The research, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, analyzed national health data from Denmark, following more than two million people from childhood into adulthood. (Gray, 2/23) [MedPage Today: Youth Alcohol Cravings May Rise While Scrolling Social Media, Study Suggests](https://www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/addictions/120009) For young adults, seeing alcohol-related social media content translated to greater desire to drink alcohol, especially when coming from lifestyle influencers whom they saw as highly credible, found a randomized trial. (Firth, 2/23) If you need help — [Dial 988 for 24/7 support from the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. It's free and confidential.](https://988lifeline.org/) [FDA Unveils Framework To Fast-Track Rare Disease Gene Therapy Approvals](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/fda-unveils-framework-to-fast-track-rare-disease-gene-therapy-approvals/) The proposed system would create a standardized process for authorizing cutting-edge treatments where there is a plausible reason to think they might work, the AP reported. [AP: Rare Diseases: FDA Proposes New System To Therapy Approvals](https://apnews.com/article/rare-diseases-fda-gene-editing-drugs-e6a3d5f318ccf082c7f277025136df62) Federal health officials on Monday laid out a proposal to spur development of customized treatments for patients with hard-to-treat diseases, including for rare genetic conditions that the pharmaceutical industry has long considered unprofitable. The preliminary Food and Drug Administration guidelines, if implemented, would create a new pathway for bespoke therapies that have only been tested in a handful of patients due to the challenges of conducting larger studies. The FDA announcement specifically mentions gene editing, although agency officials said the new approach could also be used by other drugs and therapies. (Perrone, 2/23) More news from the Trump administration — [The Marshall Project: Federal Prisons Prohibit Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender People](https://19thnews.org/2026/02/gender-affirming-care-prohibited-federal-prisons/) The federal prison system will stop providing gender-affirming medical or social transition care to almost any transgender people, under a new policy released by the Bureau of Prisons Thursday. (Schwartzapfel, 2/23) [Becker's Hospital Review: AHA Urges HHS To Align AI Rules With Existing Healthcare Regulations](https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/ai/aha-urges-hhs-to-align-ai-rules-with-existing-healthcare-regulations/) The American Hospital Association is calling on federal health officials to reduce regulatory barriers and ensure clinician oversight as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into clinical care. In a Feb. 23 letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, the AHA outlined recommendations in response to the agency’s request for information on accelerating AI adoption in healthcare. (Diaz, 2/23) [The New York Times: Trump, Bruised And Unpopular, Turns To State Of The Union For A Reset](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/us/politics/trump-popularity-agenda-state-of-the-union.html) This year, a substantial number of Democrats are planning to boycott the speech and attend an alternative event, a rally called the “People’s State of the Union,” which will take place on the National Mall near the Capitol. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has encouraged members to either sit silently through the speech or boycott it altogether, rather than attend and create distractions in the House chamber. Such protests potentially risk alienating swing voters ahead of the midterms. (Broadwater, 2/24) In news about the Epstein files — [AP: Medical Influencer Attia Quits CBS News After Name In Epstein Files](https://apnews.com/article/cbs-news-epstein-files-attia-medical-428aacc5f6ba7dc3f441047e37d351c6) Dr. Peter Attia, a medical influencer whose emails with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in the latest U.S. Justice Department release of files, has resigned a post with CBS News. Attia, podcast host and author of “Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity,” was one of a group of people named last month by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss as a contributor to network programming. He was the subject of a “60 Minutes” profile that ran on the network last October. But shortly after the appointment, Attia’s name surfaced in hundreds of Epstein documents. (2/23) [Stat: Epstein Blood Samples Ignited A 2013 Furor In Harvard Genome Lab](https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/epstein-cell-line-george-church-harvard-personal-genome-project/) Among several fridges inside the Harvard Medical School lab of renowned geneticist George Church is one devoted to housing tubes of human blood and spit destined to have their cellular contents cracked open, the DNA letters read out and posted to the wilds of the open internet. Eventually. (Molteni, 2/24) [Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Vote To Strike Just As Nurses Are Returning](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/kaiser-mental-health-therapists-vote-to-strike-just-as-nurses-are-returning/) A day after the union representing more than 31,000 Kaiser Permanente health care professionals noted productive labor negotiations and agreed to end the four-week walkout, KP mental health therapists in California voted to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike. [San Francisco Chronicle: Kaiser Mental Health Therapists Authorize Strike In Northern California](https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/kaiser-therapists-strike-authorization-21875765.php) Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists across Northern California and the Central Valley have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike, just as the health system’s largest union ended a historic four-week walkout. The National Union of Healthcare Workers said Monday that 92% of participating members backed the strike authorization. The vote covers about 2,400 therapists, social workers and psychologists who provide care in the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley. (Vaziri, 2/23) [AP: Kaiser Permanente Health Workers Return After 4-Week Strike](https://apnews.com/article/kaiser-permanente-strike-california-united-nurses-1726260636f3a6bc5f6efbf830f353e2) An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and other front-line Kaiser Permanente health care workers will return to work on Tuesday after a four-week strike in California and Hawaii to demand better wages and staffing. The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals said in a statement Monday that “significant movement at the bargaining table” prompted an end to the walkout. The statement didn’t offer more specifics. (Weber, 2/24) More health care industry developments — [Bloomberg: CVS Boosts Employee Bonuses After Beating 2025 Profit Target](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-23/cvs-employee-bonuses-surge-after-beating-2025-profit-target) CVS Health Corp. increased bonuses for regular corporate employees as new executives grew profitability, fixing some of the challenges that had previously dragged down the company’s Aetna insurance unit. Bonuses for 2025 will be 42.3% above baseline levels, according to records reviewed by Bloomberg News. That’s a drastic reversal from last year, when bonuses were more than 60% below targets. (Swetlitz, 2/23) [Modern Healthcare: Enhabit To Be Acquired By Kinderhook Industries In \$1.1B Deal](http://www.modernhealthcare.com/post-acute-care/mh-enhabit-kinderhook-industries-home-health/) Private equity firm Kinderhook Industries has inked a \$1.1 billion deal to acquire Enhabit Home Health and Hospice. Enhabit is one of the nation’s largest home care providers, with 376 locations across 34 states. It was a unit of Encompass Health until its spinoff in 2022. Under terms of the definitive agreement, Kinderhook would pay stockholders \$13.80 per share for Dallas-based Enhabit, the home care company said Monday. (Eastabrook, 2/23) [Modern Healthcare: ViVe 2026: How Health Plans Are Implementing AI Agents](http://www.modernhealthcare.com/health-tech/mh-vive-2026-health-plans-ai-agents/) Health plans are strategically implementing artificial intelligence agents to manage member services. At the ViVE 2026 conference in Los Angeles, health plan leaders from Clever Care Health Plan and Medical Mutual of Ohio detailed the ways their organizations have been able to handle call volume and engage members. (Famakinwa, 2/23) [Stat: Digital Twins In Health Care: Promising Technology Still Years Away](https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/digital-twins-health-care-hype-reality/) Two decades ago, futurist Ray Kurzweil laid out a bold vision for next-generation medicine in his book “The Singularity Is Near.” Technology, he predicted, could one day help doctors eradicate disease by anticipating and responding to it in real time. (Ravindranath, 2/24) [Modern Healthcare: No Surprises Act Arbitration Drags Patients Into Billing Disputes](http://www.modernhealthcare.com/providers/mh-no-surprises-act-independent-dispute-resolution/) Providers and health insurance companies are accusing each other of gaming the No Surprises Act of 2020, sometimes pulling patients back into the middle of billing disputes the law was meant to prevent. Physician groups, hospitals and air ambulance companies have flooded third-party mediators with millions of claims seeking higher reimbursement from insurers for out-of-network care. Providers argue insurers’ flawed reimbursement methodology is decreasing payment and forcing them to seek arbitration, while insurers contend providers are committing fraud by submitting ineligible claims. (Kacik and Tepper, 2/23) [Dentists Keep Prescribing Clindamycin Despite 'Black Box' Label, C Diff Risk](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/dentists-keep-prescribing-clindamycin-despite-black-box-label-c-diff-risk/) CIDRAP takes a deeper look at the antibiotic's health effects. Also in the news: The FDA has approved milsaperidone to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; Bayer sues Johnson & Johnson; Mounjaro may reduce alcohol intake; and more. [CIDRAP: Dentists Still Write Millions Of Prescriptions A Year For An Antibiotic With Life-Threatening Risks](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/antimicrobial-stewardship/dentists-still-write-millions-prescriptions-year-antibiotic-life) Dentists wrote more than 2.3 million prescriptions last year for an antibiotic called clindamycin, whose label has carried a black box warning for more than four decades, due to its high rate of life-threatening complications. One of those prescriptions was given to Dolores Hernandez Owens. (Szabo, 2/24) In other pharma and tech updates — [MedPage Today: New Pill Approved For Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder](https://www.medpagetoday.com/psychiatry/bipolardisorder/120004) The FDA approved milsaperidone (Bysanti) tablets as first-line therapy for adults with schizophrenia and manic or mixed episodes related to bipolar I disorder, Vanda Pharmaceuticals announced on Friday. Milsaperidone is an active metabolite of Vanda's existing drug iloperidone (Fanapt) and represents a new chemical entity in the atypical antipsychotic class. In clinical research, milsaperidone was bioequivalent to iloperidone across all therapeutic doses, Vanda said. (Monaco, 2/23) [Stat: Bayer Sues J\&J Over 'Misleading Claims' About Prostate Cancer Drug](https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2026/02/23/bayer-jnj-prostate-cancer-false-advertising-lawsuit/) Underscoring the high-stakes market for prostate cancer medicines, Bayer filed a lawsuit accusing Johnson & Johnson of launching a “false advertising campaign” that uses flawed data to wrongfully promote its rival drug as a more effective treatment. (Silverman, 2/23) [The Hill: Diabetes Drug Mounjaro Linked To Reduced Alcohol Intake: Study](https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5751372-tirzepatide-mounjaro-alcohol-study/) An ingredient in the prescription diabetes drug Mounjaro was found to reduce alcohol intake in rodents, according to a recent study. In the study, published in early January in the medical journal eBioMedicine, researchers in Sweden, South Carolina and Brazil looked at how the ingredient, tirzepatide, affected rodents. The researchers found that alcohol’s “rewarding properties” were lessened by the ingredient and that behaviors including the voluntary consumption of alcohol and binge drinking dropped. (Suter, 2/23) [Stat: Inflammatory Bowel Disease Drug Combos Spark Pharma R\&D Race](https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/ibd-combination-therapy-race-abbvie-lilly-pfizer-merck-jnj/) Finding the right treatment for someone with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis is more of an art than a science. The chronic autoimmune conditions — both considered types of inflammatory bowel disease — cause a myriad of symptoms including ulcers, stomach cramps, fatigue, and diarrhea. (DeAngelis, 2/24) [CNN: Estrogen Patch Shortage As Demand For Menopause Hormone Therapy Grows](https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/23/health/estrogen-patch-shortage-menopause-hormone-therapy-wellness) Emily Padgett has spent months trying to get her hands on estrogen patches, bouncing between pharmacies, transferring prescriptions and switching brands three times. For a couple of anxious weeks in January, she had to go without them entirely. (Howard, 2/23) [The Wall Street Journal: Merck Revamps Pharmaceutical Unit, Creating Separate Cancer Business](https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/merck-creates-separate-cancer-business-as-sales-pressure-looms-2d6b1b65) Merck is shaking up the leadership of its main pharmaceutical unit as the U.S. drugmaker braces for sales pressure later this decade. The Rahway, N.J.-based company said Monday it will split its human-health business into two divisions. One will house its cancer drugs, including the blockbuster Keytruda. The immunotherapy accounts for nearly half of total Merck sales but is due to lose U.S. patent protection in 2028, exposing it to lower-cost copycat competition. (Loftus, 2/23) [MedPage Today: Breakable Mechanical Heart Valves Eyed For Future Intervention](https://www.medpagetoday.com/cardiology/interventionalcardiology/120008) Failed mechanical heart valves could get a new life with device fracture and subsequent valve-in-valve therapy, research suggested. Contemporary mechanical valve leaflets were successfully fractured using standard angioplasty balloons in controlled lab experiments, leaving the intact valve rings unobstructed and available for possible transcatheter heart valve implantation -- which has implications for people with dysfunctional mechanical heart valves, reported Paulina Jankowska, MD, of University Hospital Heart Center Brandenburg in Neuruppin, Germany, and colleagues. (Lou, 2/23) In global news — [AP: Zimbabwe Is One Of The First To Roll Out New And Long-Acting HIV Drug](https://apnews.com/article/hiv-drug-lenacapavir-zimbabwe-africa-health-0450d59217b295107829cd6380de7bcc) Young women, mothers holding babies and some men lined up in a dusty field on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. They came for injections of a new HIV prevention drug launched in the country on Thursday, one that only needs to be administered twice a year. Zimbabwe, where HIV has led to tens of thousands of deaths over the past two decades, is one of the first countries to roll out lenacapavir, a long-acting drug that authorities hope will slow new infections. With clinical studies demonstrating near-total protection, the drug has been described by some health officials as a turning point for high-risk groups. (Mutsaka, 2/22) [On Trump's Request, High Court Agrees To Hear Case On Fossil Fuel Lawsuits](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/on-trumps-request-high-court-agrees-to-hear-case-on-fossil-fuel-lawsuits/) In an unusual move, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to take up the case of whether or not states and cities can sue large oil and gas companies for climate change damages driven by greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from the industry. [The Washington Post: Supreme Court To Consider Whether States Can Sue Over Greenhouse Gas Emissions](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/23/supreme-court-greenhouse-gas-case/) The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take a case examining whether states and cities can sue fossil fuel companies over harms caused by climate change, a legal tactic modeled on the push to hold tobacco companies responsible for the health effects of smoking. The case is significant because dozens of municipalities are seeking billions in damages from oil and gas companies, often accusing them of misleading the public or hiding evidence about the links between greenhouse gases and climate risks. The companies deny any wrongdoing. (Jouvenal, 2/23) On pesticides and chemicals — [Politico: RFK Jr. Says We Need More Herbicide Production, Stunning His Followers](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/23/rfk-jr-s-endorsement-of-trumps-plan-to-boost-u-s-herbicide-production-threatens-maga-maha-alliance-00793648) Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to endorse increased production of a chemical herbicide he has previously called a carcinogen has sparked a furious reaction among his followers and stressed the MAGA-MAHA alliance. The health secretary explained in a post to X on Sunday night he was backing a directive from President Donald Trump to boost manufacturing of agricultural chemicals he says “put Americans at risk” in order to reduce dependence on them from “adversarial nations,” alarming supporters of his Make America Healthy Again movement. (Reader, Burns and Brown, 2/23) [CIDRAP: One Month After Spill, Potomac River Still Testing Positive For E Coli, Staph](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/e-coli/one-month-after-spill-potomac-river-still-testing-positive-e-coli-staph) University of Maryland School of Public Health researchers continue to test water from the Potomac River one month after a wastewater pipe broke, dumping millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river, and find the river still has high levels of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, or staph. (Soucheray, 2/23) [San Francisco Chronicle: SF Bay Area Regulators Issue \$10 Million Penalty Against Refinery](https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/article/martinez-refining-company-penalty-21367532.php) An East Bay refinery will pay \$10 million to settle allegations stemming from more than 100 notices of environmental violations over four years, including multiple releases of harmful dust that blanketed nearby properties, local officials announced last week. (Park, 2/23) [River City Journalism Fund: How East St. Louis Became Ground Zero Against A Chemical Giant](https://www.stlpr.org/health-science-environment/2026-02-23/east-st-louis-illinois-federal-court-paraquat-parkinsons) Joe Harrison’s quest for justice against the Swiss agrochemical giant Syngenta began, officially at least, in August 2023 — just three months before his death. That’s when Harrison’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in the federal courthouse in East St. Louis, Illinois. Harrison owned a small cattle ranch in northeastern Oklahoma, and the lawsuit accuses Syngenta of failing to provide adequate warnings about the dangers of paraquat, the key ingredient in its blockbuster weedkiller Gramoxone. (Fitzgerald, 2/23) On the health effects of microplastics — [NBC News: Microplastics Found In Prostate Tumors In Small Study](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mens-health/microplastics-found-prostate-tumors-small-study-rcna260296) In a new study, researchers found microplastics deep inside prostate cancer tumors, raising more questions about the role the ubiquitous pollutants play in public health. The findings — which come from a small study of 10 men — were presented Monday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Genitourinary Cancers Symposium and have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. (Cox, 2/23) [Fortune: Scientists Are Pushing Back On The Health Damage Microplastics May Cause, Saying People Are Obese](https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/scientists-microplastics-human-health-studies-joke-obesity/) Don’t toss that scratched-up, questionably stained, borderline EPA Superfund site, 12-year-old cutting board just yet! Your vintage fermentation lab with knife marks might not be so dangerous after all. (Gioino, 2/24) [Florida, Trump Administration At Odds Over Medicaid Program Application](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/florida-trump-administration-at-odds-over-medicaid-program-application/) Florida’s Republican congressional delegation is getting involved in an effort to get approval for the program, which boosts payments to state hospitals. Also: AbbVie is planning two manufacturing facilities in North Chicago; Camp Mystic parents sue the state of Texas; and more. [Roll Call: Florida Officials, Lawmakers Probe Stalled Medicaid Application](https://rollcall.com/2026/02/23/florida-officials-lawmakers-probe-stalled-medicaid-application/) The state of Florida and the Trump administration are at odds over the status of a multibillion-dollar application for a Medicaid program that boosts payments to state hospitals. Inaction by the administration has prompted members of Florida’s Republican congressional delegation, who less than a year ago voted to rein in these programs in part to help pay for tax cuts, to intervene to get approval. (Hellmann, 2/23) [Chicago Tribune: AbbVie Plans To Build Two New Manufacturing Facilities](https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/23/abbvie-new-manufacturing-facilities/) Biopharmaceutical company AbbVie plans to spend \$380 million building two new manufacturing facilities in North Chicago — a rare example of a project that’s in line with initiatives by the administrations of Gov. JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump. (Schencker, 2/23) [The Texas Tribune: Camp Mystic Parents Sue State, Accusing Texas Officials Of Not Enforcing Evacuation Plan Requirement](https://apnews.com/article/general-news-lawsuits-texas-bc7a25ab767bfe7cba4cad385c64bad8) Texas health officials failed to follow state law when they licensed Camp Mystic without making sure it had an evacuation plan, parents of nine children and counselors who died in the July 4 flood allege in a new federal lawsuit. Camp Mystic’s emergency instructions directed kids to stay in their cabins during floods, even though Texas rules require youth camps to have evacuation plans for disasters, the lawsuit states. (Foxhall, 2/23) [San Francisco Chronicle: Former S.F. Nonprofit CEO Misspent \$1.2 Million, Collected Hidden ‘Double Salary,’ DA Says](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/westbrook-homeless-ceo-nonprofit-charges-21884016.php) The former chief executive of a major San Francisco homeless services provider is facing charges for allegedly misappropriating at least \$1.2 million in public funds, some of which appeared to bankroll her luxury lifestyle, prosecutors said Monday. (Barba, 2/23) [San Francisco Chronicle: Cartel Leader ‘El Mencho’ Was First Caught Dealing Drugs In San Francisco At Age 19](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/el-mencho-san-francisco-21886556.php) More than two decades before Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes built the violent cartel that made him one of the most wanted fugitives in Mexico, he was a young man selling drugs on the streets of San Francisco. The killing of 59-year-old Oseguera Cervantes by the Mexican army on Sunday brought renewed attention to the powerful drug lord known as “El Mencho,” including his early beginnings as a small-time drug dealer in the Bay Area, where he lived with family. (Bauman, 2/23) [Viewpoints: Entering Advanced Nursing Careers Just Got Harder; The Truth About Youth Gender Care](https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/viewpoints-entering-advanced-nursing-careers-just-got-harder-the-truth-about-youth-gender-care/) Opinion writers tackle these public health topics. [The Washington Post: Graduate Student Loan Limits Will Harm Advanced Nurses And U.S. Health](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/02/23/nurse-practitioner-loans-aprns-professional/) An ’80s-inspired student loan tweak will make it harder to enter advanced nursing roles. (Kymberlee Montgomery and Mary Ellen Glasgow, 2/23) [The New York Times: Medical Associations Trusted Belief Over Science On Youth Gender Care](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/opinion/medical-associations-youth-gender-care.html) “Trust the science”? Which science? (Jesse Singal, 2/24) [Annals Of Internal Medicine: The Current Threat To The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force And Why It Matters](https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ANNALS-26-00514) Health care and public health practice in the United States faced a serious problem when the U.S. Public Health Service established the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) in 1984. We should know. We were there. (Robert S. Lawrence, MD, and Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH, 2/24) [The Washington Post: Aluminum In Vaccines: Why You Shouldn’t Be Concerned](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/02/24/vaccines-aluminum-safety-science-kennedy/) People are exposed to far more aluminum from food and drink than from vaccines. (Leana S. Wen, 2/24) [Stat: ‘Two-Sided Risk’ Medicare Advantage Plans Improve Patient Outcomes](https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/medicare-advantage-plans-doctors-risk-outcomes-optum-research/) America’s health system is buckling under the weight of several converging pressures: an aging population, high rates of chronic disease, a shortage of clinicians, and rising costs. The response to these challenges will determine the future of care in this country — and new evidence suggests the solution is rooted in how we deliver and pay for care. (Ken Cohen, 2/24)
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