Morning Briefing
MORE HEALTH NEWS TAILORED TO YOU
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!
In This Edition:
- KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
- 1. Hospitals Fighting Measles Confront a Challenge: Few Doctors Have Seen It Before
- 2. Political Cartoon: ‘Bad Hair Day?’
- EDITORIALS AND OPINIONS
- 9. Viewpoints: Entering Advanced Nursing Careers Just Got Harder; The Truth About Youth Gender Care
From KFF Health News:
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
1. 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)
2. 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:
STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE
Homelessness is hard.
Sweeps, sickness, and loneliness.
You don’t feel much love.
– Barbara DiPietro
If you have a health policy haiku to share, please Contact Usand 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.
Summaries Of The News:
3. 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.
4. 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)
5. 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)
6. 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 descri