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President-elect Donald Trump has continued naming out-of-the-box selections to guide key federal well being businesses. Three of these picks — Marty Makary, who would lead the FDA; Jay Bhattacharya, who would head the National Institutes of Health; and Dave Weldon, chosen to manage the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — have one thing notable in frequent: All have proposed main adjustments to the organizations they’d oversee.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court heard a case difficult Tennessee’s ban on transgender well being take care of minors, with the conservative justices seeming prone to assist the state’s legislation.
This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins University’s faculties of public well being and nursing and Politico, and Shefali Luthra of The nineteenth.
Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:
In current weeks, Trump has named his picks to guide key federal well being businesses, together with the FDA, NIH, and CDC. His choices recommend massive adjustments might be in retailer. For occasion, Weldon — a former congressman and a practising doctor — has typically advocated in opposition to scientific consensus, together with on vaccines.
The Supreme Court this week heard arguments on Tennessee’s legislation barring transitional take care of transgender minors, and from listening to the conservative majority’s remarks, it appears possible they are going to uphold the legislation — with implications for these dwelling within the greater than 20 states with related measures on the books. Plus, in a separate case on vaping, the court docket sounded sympathetic to the FDA’s choices to reject purposes for flavored e-cigarettes that might put kids vulnerable to dependancy.
Meanwhile, the incoming Trump administration is poised to take custody of some health-related lawsuits it might very nicely drop, in addition to some massive insurance policies it might finish — but it surely stays to be seen what actions it chooses to take. Medicare drug negotiations, for instance, are a Biden administration coverage, although Trump and his decide for Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have additionally advocated for cracking down on the drug trade.
In abortion information, a federal appeals court docket has cleared the best way for Idaho to start to implement components of its legislation making it a criminal offense to assist a minor receive an abortion in one other state. And officers in Texas and Georgia throttled state commissions finding out maternal mortality after circumstances confirmed the states’ abortion bans have been accountable for no less than some girls’s deaths.
Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Bram Sable-Smith, who reported and wrote the newest KFF Health News-Washington Post Well+Being “Bill of the Month” characteristic, about an emergency room invoice for a go to that didn’t make it previous the ready room. If you have got an outrageous or inscrutable medical invoice you’d prefer to ship us, you can do that here.
Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists recommend well being coverage tales they learn this week that they suppose it’s best to learn, too:
Julie Rovner: The New Yorker’s “The Texas OB-GYN Exodus,” by Stephania Taladrid.
Shefali Luthra: The Washington Post’s “Post Reports” podcast’s “A Trans Teen Takes Her Case to the Supreme Court,” by Casey Parks, Emma Talkoff, Ariel Plotnick, and Bishop Sand.
Joanne Kenen: ProPublica’s “For Decades, Calls for Reform to Idaho’s Troubled Coroner System Have Gone Unanswered,” by Audrey Dutton.
Sarah Karlin-Smith: Stat’s “What YouTube Health Is Doing To Combat Misinformation and Promote Evidence-Based Content,” by Nicholas St. Fleur.
Also talked about on this week’s podcast:
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