Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here.
Good morning. A Trump administration draft budget for HHS was leaked yesterday, and STAT reporters have the details. For NIH, the document proposes a $20 billion cut in 2026 — roughly a 40% reduction — and a sweeping consolidation. The document also outlines how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may cut up HHS to build his planned chronic disease-fighting agency, the Administration for a Healthy America.
The health care at stake in Monday’s Supreme Court arguments
For a decade and a half, health insurers have been required to fully cover certain preventive care services that are given an A or B rating by the U.S. PreventiveServices Task Force. Think mammograms, statins, many vaccinations, PrEP, and screening for lung and colorectal cancers. But that could be about to change. On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the Affordable Care Act provision that ensures this care be given free of charge.
Either way the court decides, legal and medical experts told STAT’s Angus Chen, the ruling could have profound ramifications for the future of preventive health care in the United States. Read more.
The latest news from Harvard Yard
The Boston Globe has been doing some great reporting on the situation at Harvard University after the school said it would not bow to a list of demands from the Trump administration. Yesterday, Chris Serres reported that the university is urging researchers whose grants are frozen by the Trump administration to stop hiring and limit spending to “essential needs only.”
“While there will inevitably be important research that will suffer as a result of the funding freeze, we are asking for your help in assessing how best to preserve vital work and support our researchers,” John Shaw, the vice provost for research, wrote in an email.
By Tuesday, a top scientist at the institution focused on tuberculosis had already received a stop-work order from the NIH. The same day, a Department of Education spokesperson told the Globe that hospitals affiliated with the university will not be affected by the freeze.
Meanwhile, Harvard has converted its entire homepage to emphasize the importance of the institution’s research, which it says “touches countless lives, moving us closer to disease cures, next-generation technology, and a more secure future for millions of people.”
‘The same Bobby Kennedy’
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that HHS will determine the cause of autism by September. And at a press conference yesterday, he said the agency will announce a series of new studies investigating the disorder’s rising numbers “within three weeks, probably — we’re hoping two weeks.” But who is “we”?
There’s little sign that Kennedy has a team in place yet, STAT’s Isabella Cueto reports. Nearly two dozen prominent voices from both mainstream autism research and the anti-vaccine world said they have not been approached by Kennedy, and have no details about the proposed studies. Read more in Isa’s status update.
Kennedy’s recent comments on autism are just one example of how he has frequently returned to old anti-vaccine talking points. “He’s the same Bobby Kennedy, 100%,” said Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine advocacy group Kennedy founded. The return to old rhetoric comes after months of downplaying his past criticism of vaccines as he sought to become the nation’s health secretary. Read more from Daniel Payne about how the vaccine criticism came rushing back.
How an FDA layoff set off one veteran’s PTSD
When Karen Hollitt was growing up in a Wisconsin town of 500 people, the military felt like the only way to get out — door number three, leading her to a comfortable, white collar lifestyle, her only other options being the farm or the factory.
It wasn’t an easy path. She was assaulted while still in training, and as the years went on, she often felt morally conflicted about the work. Eventually, she landed at the FDA, in the Office of Pharmaceutical Quality. But after Donald Trump won the presidency, her PTSD symptoms — which she’d spent years getting under control — came back. She worried constantly about her job. When the email came on April Fool’s Day, she felt betrayed.
“They say they care about us and our health care, and then they cut us from the workforce,” she told STAT’s Eric Boodman. Read more in Eric’s intimate profile of how the government’s job cuts have jeopardized one woman’s shot at the American dream.
Hunting season isn’t just dangerous for deer
We already know that the more people that own guns, the more people get hurt by them. But a new study, published yesterday in The BMJ, found that the start of deer hunting season (which typically falls in autumn or early winter) is associated with higher rates of both hunting-related and other types of firearm incidents.
Researchers analyzed data on gun injuries in 10 states with the highest number of hunting accidents between 2016 and 2019 (as a proxy for the states with the most hunting activity). Overall, they found a 12% relative increase in the rate of gun-related incidents at the start of hunting season. Specifically, there was an 11% increase in suicide incidents, 88% increase in incidents involving alcohol or substances, and a 27% increase in domestic violence incidents.
The association can be explained by the fact that there are more firearms and ammunition available within these communities at the start of the season, the study authors write. They also cited another striking example of how availability — or the perception of availability — can affect risk: In the five months after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there were 3 million more firearms purchased in the U.S. than was typical at that time. These purchases, presumably due to a fear of future restrictions, were associated with an estimated 60 more accidental shooting deaths in that time.
What we’re reading
Top NIH nutrition researcher studying ultraprocessed foods departs, citing censorship under Kennedy, CNN
U.K. high court says trans women don’t meet definition of women under equalities law, NPR
Trump’s plans to lower drug prices have echoes of past efforts, STAT
Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards, Washington Post
Device maker that helped UnitedHealth collect billions offers to settle fraud claims with DOJ, STAT
