Author: Hill Castle
James Gallagher, republicano de California y ex líder de la bancada del Partido Republicano en la Asamblea estatal, ha acusado con frecuencia a los legisladores progresistas del estado de intervenir demasiado en las cuestiones de gobierno. Sin embargo, este año sumó su nombre a una iniciativa legislativa para que las comidas escolares sean más saludables. Su partido también respaldó la medida: todos los republicanos, excepto uno, votaron a favor de enviar un proyecto de ley al gobernador demócrata Gavin Newsom que establecería por primera vez en el país una definición legal de alimentos ultraprocesados, seguida de una prohibición de los…
Not long after California surgeon Andrew S. Hsu landed a job with a cosmetic surgery chain in Georgia, several of his patients suffered disfiguring injuries, and even his new employer had doubts about his competence, court records allege. Hsu, a board-certified general surgeon, was one of six out-of-state doctors who joined the Atlanta Goals Aesthetics & Plastic Surgery center during the pandemic. The surgeons received temporary licenses to practice in Georgia, which state officials granted in response to the sudden need for more medical personnel to address the covid-19 outbreak — even though the center specialized in elective cosmetic surgeries,…
El sector de la salud ha sido un punto positivo en la economía este año, representando casi la mitad del crecimiento del empleo en el país. Sin embargo, economistas y expertos advierten que las políticas contra inmigrantes y los recortes a Medicaid podrían poner en riesgo ese crecimiento en el futuro. De enero a agosto, los empleadores sumaron 487.000 empleos, según los últimos datos de nómina no agrícola de la Oficina de Estadísticas Laborales. El sector de salud representó el 48% de ese modesto crecimiento, con un aumento de aproximadamente 232.000 empleos, a pesar de que este sector representa solo…
The debate over which doctors are best qualified to perform cosmetic surgery — and who gets the best results for patients — has raged for decades. Here’s why: A state-issued medical license grants a physician what a Federation of State Medical Boards policy statement called the “privilege of practicing the full breadth of medicine.” That policy leaves the door open for any licensed doctor to perform cosmetic surgery after scant training, such as a weekend course in liposuction, and some doctors have done just that. The federation adds that doctors “have a professional and ethical duty to put their patients’…
Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. A reporter at Just the News shared our article about a man whose organs were nearly harvested while he was still alive: Disinformed consent is standard operating procedure in the organ donation industry. And much of medicine. “The sisters said hospital staffers told them the movements were involuntary.”https://t.co/tDSp4oCNgL— Greg Piper (@gregpiper) September 13, 2025 — Greg Piper, Washington, D.C. Too Close a Call With Organ Donation When I was a third-year med student doing a rotation…
The health care sector is a bright spot in the economy this year, driving nearly half of the nation’s employment gains, but economists and experts say immigration crackdowns and looming Medicaid cuts pose a threat to future job growth. Employers added 487,000 jobs from January to August, according to the latest nonfarm payroll data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The health care sector accounted for 48% of that lackluster growth, expanding by about 232,000 jobs, even though the sector employs only about 11% of workers. “On the labor side, health care growth is driving the economy,” said Stanford economics…
Jackie Fortiér The Trump administration is continuing its push to revise federal guidelines to delay the hepatitis B vaccine newborn dose for most children. This comes despite a failed attempt to do so at the most recent meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Both President Donald Trump and some newly appointed ACIP members have mischaracterized how the liver disease spreads, according to medical experts, including those working at the CDC. The ACIP panel’s recommendations can determine insurance coverage for immunizations. At a White House press conference on Sept. 22, Trump, in advocating…
California Republican James Gallagher, the GOP’s former Assembly leader, has often accused the state’s progressive lawmakers of heavy-handed government intrusion, but this year he added his name to a legislative push for healthier school meals. His party followed suit, with all but one Republican voting to send a bill to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom that would put into law a first-in-the nation legal definition of ultraprocessed foods, followed by a public school ban on those deemed most concerning. And while it was California Democrats who led the passage of the nation’s first state-level bans on certain artificial food dyes and…
Millions of Medicaid enrollees may have a way out of the new federal work requirement — if they live in a county with high unemployment. By January 2027, President Donald Trump’s far-reaching domestic policy law will require many adult, nondisabled Medicaid enrollees in 42 states and Washington, D.C., to work or volunteer 80 hours a month or go to school. But under the law, Medicaid enrollees in counties where unemployment is at least 8% or 1.5 times the national unemployment rate could be shielded from the work requirement, if their state applies for an exemption. A new analysis by KFF…
KFF Health News Midwest correspondent Cara Anthony discussed problems with the organ transplantation industry on Apple News’ “Apple News Today” on Sept. 23. Click here to hear Anthony on “Apple News Today.” Read Anthony’s “A Surgical Team Was About To Harvest This Man’s Organs — Until His Doctor Intervened.” KFF Health News senior correspondent Julie Appleby discussed the changing availability of Affordable Care Act plans on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Wisconsin Today” on Sept. 19. Click here to hear Appleby on “Wisconsin Today.” KFF Health News senior correspondent Renuka Rayasam discussed federal changes to Medicaid funding on WUGA’s “The Georgia Health…
Amy Maxmen On Monday, President Donald Trump stood beside the “Make America Healthy Again” team for a “historic” announcement on autism. Back in April, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had promised to reveal what was causing “the autism epidemic” by September. At the start of this month, people close to the MAHA movement suggested that Kennedy’s upcoming autism announcement would link Tylenol use during pregnancy with the condition. Researchers worried it would veer into vaccines. Both Kennedy and Trump have spread misinformation about an association between vaccines and autism in the past, despite many rigorous studies…
In late August 2020, Ashlee Guidry and her staff kept a wary eye on guidance from local officials as Hurricane Laura passed over Cuba en route to southwestern Louisiana. Guidry was responsible for the safety of dozens of people living at Stonebridge Place, an assisted living and memory care facility in Sulphur. For days, Laura was just a tropical storm, wet and disorganized. But the Gulf of Mexico was warm — much warmer than average. Local officials worried the temperatures could supercharge the storm as it spun toward the Louisiana coast. So, just as Laura approached the open Gulf, two…
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Caroline Connor’s concerns about her son’s development began around his 1st birthday, when she noticed he wasn’t talking or using any words. Their pediatrician didn’t seem worried, but the speech delay persisted. At 2½, Mason was diagnosed with autism. The Connors went on a mission, searching for anything that would help. “We just started researching on our own. And that’s when my husband Joe came across Dr. Frye in a research study he was doing,” Caroline said. Richard Frye, a pediatric neurologist, is one of many doctors searching for treatments that can help kids with autism. He’s studying leucovorin, an…
The Host In a highly unusual White House news conference this week, President Donald Trump — without evidence — boldly blamed the painkiller Tylenol and a string of childhood vaccines for causing a recent rise in autism. That came just days after the newly reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, now populated with vaccine skeptics and opponents, voted to change long-standing recommendations. Podcast host Julie Rovner interviews Demetre Daskalakis, who until last month was the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, about the reaction to these unprecedented actions. Meanwhile, as…
Quinn Cochran-Zipp went to the emergency room three times with severe abdominal pain before doctors figured out she had early-stage cancer in the germ cells of her right ovary. After emergency surgery four years ago, the Greeley, Colorado, lab technician is cancer-free. The two hospitals that treated Cochran-Zipp at the time determined that she qualified for 100% financial assistance, since her income as a college student was extremely low. Not having to worry about the roughly $100,000 in bills she racked up for her care was an enormous relief, she said. Then she started receiving unexpected bills from doctors who…
Taking a page from the private insurance industry’s playbook, the Trump administration will launch a program next year to find out how much money an artificial intelligence algorithm could save the federal government by denying care to Medicare patients. The pilot program, designed to weed out wasteful, “low-value” services, amounts to a federal expansion of an unpopular process called prior authorization, which requires patients or someone on their medical team to seek insurance approval before proceeding with certain procedures, tests, and prescriptions. It will affect Medicare patients, and the doctors and hospitals who care for them, in Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma,…
Noam N. Levey and Katheryn Houghton and Arielle Zionts With the Trump administration scaling back federal efforts to protect Americans from medical bills they can’t pay, advocates for patients and consumers have shifted their work to contain the nation’s medical debt problem to state Capitols. Despite progress in some mostly blue states this year, however, recent setbacks in more conservative legislatures underscore the persistent challenges in strengthening patient protections. Bills to shield patients from medical debt failed this year in Indiana, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota, and Wyoming in the face of industry opposition. And advocates warn that states need to…
As soon as she fell, Deborah Buttgereit knew she couldn’t avoid going to the hospital. “I could hear the bones moving around in my elbow,” said Buttgereit, who was 60 when she slipped on a patch of ice in December outside her apartment in Bozeman, Montana. Emergency room scans showed she had fractured her left arm near the joint. Doctors told her she needed surgery to repair it. At the time, Buttgereit didn’t have health insurance — she had struggled to afford coverage after her husband’s death. The local health system, Bozeman Health, estimated Buttgereit would have to pay $50,560…
Céline Gounder When the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met last week, confusion filled the room. Members admitted they didn’t know what they were voting on, first rejecting a combined measles-mumps-rubella-chickenpox vaccine for young toddlers, then voting to keep it funded minutes later. The next day, they reversed themselves on the funding. Now Jim O’Neill, the deputy health and human services secretary and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s acting director (a lawyer, not a doctor), must sign off. The panel’s recommendations matter, because insurers and federal programs rely on them, but they are not binding. States can…
Madison Czopek, PolitiFact “There’s no downside” to avoiding Tylenol or acetaminophen use while pregnant. President Donald Trump on Sept. 22, 2025, in a press conference Obstetricians have long advised their pregnant patients that Tylenol is the safest option to reduce fever or pain. President Donald Trump stood before a national audience on Sept. 22 and contradicted that. “Don’t take Tylenol,” Trump said during an hourlong White House press conference that included his leading health appointees. “There’s no downside. Don’t take it. You’ll be uncomfortable. It won’t be as easy, maybe, but don’t take it. If you’re pregnant, don’t take Tylenol.”…
Ann Bauer, una investigadora que estudia la relación entre el Tylenol y el autismo, se sintió mareada de la ansiedad en las semanas previas al tan anticipado anuncio sobre autismo de la Casa Blanca. En agosto, Bauer y sus colegas publicaron un análisis de 46 estudios previos sobre Tylenol, autismo y trastorno por déficit de atención e hiperactividad (TDAH). Muchos no encontraron ninguna relación entre el medicamento y estas afecciones, mientras que algunos sugirieron que el Tylenol podría ocasionalmente agravar otras posibles causas del autismo, como los factores genéticos. Bauer, epidemióloga de la Universidad de Massachusetts-Lowell, y su equipo pidieron…