Former National Institutes of Health official Anthony Fauci has faced many hostile questions from members of Congress, but when he appears before a House panel on Monday, he’ll have something new to answer for: a trove of incendiary emails written by one of his closest advisers. In the emails, David Morens, a career federal scientist now on administrative leave, described deleting messages and using a personal email account to evade disclosure of correspondence under the Freedom of Information Act. “i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the ..read more

Even a peep of news about a new flu pandemic is enough to set scientists clucking about eggs. They worried about them in 2005, and in 2009, and they’re worrying now. That’s because millions of fertilized hen eggs are still the main ingredient in making vaccines that, hopefully, will protect people against the outbreak of a new flu strain. “It’s almost comical to be using a 1940s technology for a 21st-century pandemic,” said Rick Bright, who led the Health and Human Services Department’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) during the Trump administration. It’s not so ..read more

The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie's stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z,” now in its third edition. June means it’s time for the Supreme Court to render rulings on the biggest and most controversial cases of the term. This year, the court has two significant abortion-related cases: one involving the abortion pill mifepristone and ..read more

One of Montana’s largest health clinics that serves people in poverty has cut back services and laid off workers. The retrenchment mirrors similar cuts around the country as safety-net health centers feel the effects of states purging their Medicaid rolls. Billings-based RiverStone Health is eliminating 42 jobs this spring, cutting nearly 10% of its workforce. The cuts have shuttered an inpatient hospice facility, will close a center for patients managing high blood pressure, and removed a nurse who worked within rural schools. It also reduced the size of the clinic’s behavioral health care te ..read more

Facing ongoing concerns about rural hospital closures, Capitol Hill lawmakers have introduced a spate of proposals to fix a federal program created to keep lifesaving services in small towns nationwide. In Anamosa, Iowa — a town of fewer than 6,000 residents located more than 900 miles from the nation’s capital — rural hospital leader Eric Briesemeister is watching for Congress’ next move. The 22-bed hospital Briesemeister runs averages about seven inpatients each night, and its most recent federal filings show it earned just $95,445 in annual net income from serving patients. Yet Briesemeiste ..read more

LOS ANGELES — The party was winding down. Its young hosts, María Rivas Cruz and her fiancé, Raymond Olivares, had accompanied friends to their car to bid them farewell. As the couple crossed a four-lane main road back to the home they had just bought, Rivas Cruz and Olivares were struck by a car fleeing an illegal street race. The driver was going 70 in a 40-mph zone. Despite years of pleading for a two-lane road, lower speed limits, safety islands, and more marked crosswalks, residents say the county had done little to address speeding in this unincorporated pocket of southeastern Los Angeles ..read more

Farmworkers face some of the most intense exposures to the bird flu virus, but advocates say many of them would lack resources to fall back on if they became ill. So far, only two people in the United States have tested positive after being exposed to a wave of bird flu spreading among cows. Those people, dairy farm workers in Texas and Michigan, experienced eye irritation. Scientists warn the virus could mutate to spread from person to person like the seasonal flu, which could spark a pandemic. By keeping tabs on farmworkers, researchers could track infections, learn how dangerous they are, a ..read more

A Tennessee agency that is supposed to hold accountable and grade the nation’s largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly awards full credit on dozens of quality-of-care measurements as long as it reports any value — regardless of how its hospitals actually perform. Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system in northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia, has received A grades and an annual stamp of approval from the Tennessee Department of Health. This has occurred as Ballad hospitals consistently fall short of performance targets established by the state, according to health department documents. Be ..read more

En 2020 y 2023, el gobierno federal cambió su postura sobre quiénes podían donar órganos y sangre de manera segura, reduciendo las restricciones para hombres que tienen sexo con hombres. Pero las limitaciones que impone la Administración de Drogas y Alimentos (FDA) sobre la donación de tejidos, un término general que abarca desde los ojos hasta la piel y los ligamentos, siguen vigentes. Defensores, legisladores y grupos enfocados en eliminar estas barreras, en particular la de la donación de córneas, dijeron sentirse frustrados porque la FDA no ha escuchado sus pedidos. Lo que piden es que las ..read more

Lori Tipton is among the growing number of people who say that MDMA, also known as ecstasy, saved their lives. Raised in New Orleans by a mother with untreated bipolar disorder who later killed herself and two others, Tipton said she endured layers of trauma that eventually forced her to seek treatment for crippling anxiety and hypervigilance. For 10 years nothing helped, and she began to wonder if she was “unfixable.” Then she answered an ad for a clinical trial for MDMA-assisted therapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Tipton said the results were immediate, and she is convinced the ..read more