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A food aid program that supports millions of low-income mothers and their young children received a USD 300 million infusion from the Trump administration this week, alleviating some anxiety that it would run out of money during the government shutdown. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children helps more than 6 million low-income mothers, young children and expectant parents to purchase nutritious staples like fruits and vegetables, low-fat milk and infant formula. The program, known as WIC, was at risk of running out of money this month because of the government shutdown, which occurred right before it was slated to receive its annual appropriation. This week, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt posted on X that said that the White House had found a creative solution to use tariff revenues to keep the program afloat. By Thursday, at least some states were receiving WIC money. Alaska and Washington said they received enough federal funds to keep
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has adopted recommendations by a new group of vaccine advisers, and stopped recommending COVID-19 shots for anyone leaving the choice up to patients. The government health agency on Monday announced it has adopted recommendations made last month by advisers picked by US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Before this year, US health officials following recommendations by infectious disease experts recommended annual COVID-19 boosters for all Americans ages 6 months and older. The idea was to update protection against the coronavirus as it continues to evolve. As the COVID-19 pandemic waned, experts increasingly discussed the possibility of focusing vaccination efforts on people 65 and older who are among those most at risk for death and hospitalization. But Kennedy, who has questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, abruptly announced in May that COVID-19 vaccines were no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant wom
Members of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s family are calling for him to step down as health secretary following a contentious congressional hearing this past week, during which the Trump Cabinet official faced bipartisan questioning about his tumultuous leadership of federal health agencies. Kennedy's sister, Kerry Kennedy, and his nephew, Joseph P. Kennedy III, issued scathing statements Friday, calling for him to resign as head of the Health and Human Services Department. The calls from the prominent Democratic family came a day after Kennedy had to defend his recent efforts to pull back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and fire high-level officials at the Centers for Disease Control at a three-hour Senate hearing. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a threat to the health and wellbeing of every American, Joseph P. Kennedy III said in a post on X. The former congressman added: None of us will be spared the pain he is inflicting. His aunt echoed those claims, saying medical decisions belong in the .
US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, facing pointed bipartisan questioning at a rancorous three-hour Senate committee hearing on Thursday, tried to defend his efforts to pull back Covid-19 vaccine recommendations and explain the turmoil he has created at federal health agencies. Kennedy said the fired CDC director was untrustworthy, stood by his past anti-vaccine rhetoric, and disputed reports of people saying they have had difficulty getting Covid-19 shots. A longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement, Kennedy has made sweeping changes to agencies tasked with public health policy and scientific research by laying off thousands of workers, firing science advisers and remaking vaccine guidelines. The moves -- some of which contradict assurances he made during his confirmation hearings -- have rattled medical groups and officials in several Democratic-led states, which have responded with their own vaccine advice. Medical groups and several Democrats in Congress have called for
Jim O'Neill, a top deputy to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will serve as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to an administration official. The official requested anonymity to discuss a personnel change that has not been formally announced. The administration wants O'Neill to replace Susan Monarez, whom the White House is trying to remove only a month after starting the job. Monarez is fighting to keep her job. Her removal has left the nation's top public health agency reeling and three senior officials were escorted from its headquarters Thursday. The turmoil triggered rare bipartisan alarm as Kennedy tries to advance anti-vaccine policies that are contradicted by decades of scientific research. The chaos comes weeks before a key advisory committee, which Kennedy has reshaped with vaccine skeptics, is expected to meet to issue new recommendations on immunisations. Two Republican senators called for congressional oversight and som
Democrats used a Louisiana town hall Thursday night to preview one of their main strategies for attempting to retake the U.S. House next year, ripping into the health care changes in the just-passed Republican tax and spending bill. The House's Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said the event was the first stop on a nationwide tour to educate voters about the bill's potential impacts. He described the legislation as an unprecedented assault on health care from a group of people who promised not to touch Medicaid. And during the first chance they got, they do the exact opposite, Jeffries told a crowd of several hundred at Xavier University in New Orleans. Shame on them. The gathering of some of the top House Democrats comes at a crucial time for the party. It is seeking a pathway back to power in Washington but is grappling for a message that will resonate with the working class voters who have migrated toward Republicans in recent elections. Democratic leaders believe the bill, .
It is big and it is beautiful, says President Donald Trump. But for many Democratic leaders, the tax break and spending cut package adopted by Trump's Republican allies in Congress Thursday represents the key to the Democratic Party's resurgence. Even before the final vote was tallied, Democratic officials were finalising ambitious plans for rallies, voter registration drives, attack ads, bus tours and even a multiday vigil all designed to highlight the most controversial elements of Trump's big beautiful bill: the deep cuts to the nation's safety net that will leave nearly 12 million more Americans without health coverage and millions of others without food assistance, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Indeed, in political battlegrounds across Alaska and Iowa, Pennsylvania and California, Democrats have already begun to use Trump's bill to bludgeon their Republican rivals. Democrats are promising that the package Trump's biggest domestic policy achievement
Tyler Sherman, a nurse at a rural Nebraska hospital, is used to the area's aging farmers delaying care until they end up in his emergency room. Now, with Congress planning around USD 1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years, he fears those farmers and the more than 3,000 residents of Webster County could lose not just the ER, but also the clinic and nursing home tied to the hospital. Our budget is pretty heavily reliant on the Medicaid reimbursement, so if we do see a cut of that, it'll be difficult to keep the doors open, said Sherman, who works at Webster County Community Hospital in the small Nebraska town of Red Cloud just north of the Kansas border. If those facilities close, many locals would see their five-minute trip to Webster County hospital turn into a nearly hour-long ride to the nearest hospital offering the same services. That's a long way for an emergency, Sherman said. Some won't make it. Already struggling hospitals would be hit particularly hard States and rura
More than 460 laid-off employees at the nation's top public health agency received notices on Wednesday that they are being reinstated, according to a union representing the workers. The US Department of Health and Human Services confirmed reinstatement notices went out to the former Centres for Disease Control and Prevention employees, but provided few details. About 2,400 CDC employees lost their jobs in a wave of cuts across federal health agencies in early April, according to a tally at the time. Whole CDC programmes were essentially shut down, including some focused on smoking, lead poisoning, gun violence, asthma and air quality, and workplace safety and health. The entire office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests was shuttered. Infectious disease programmes took a hit, too, including programmes that fight outbreaks in other countries, labs focused on HIV and hepatitis in the US, and staff trying to eliminate tuberculosis. An estimated 200 of the reinstated work
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would revoke guidance to the nation's hospitals that directed them to provide emergency abortions for women when they are necessary to stabilise their medical condition. That guidance was issued to hospitals in 2022, weeks after the US Supreme Court upended national abortion rights in the US. It was an effort by the Biden administration to preserve abortion access for extreme cases in which women were experiencing medical emergencies and needed an abortion to prevent organ loss or severe haemorrhaging, among other serious complications. The Biden administration had argued that hospitals including states with near-total bans needed to provide emergency abortions under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. That law requires emergency rooms that receive Medicare dollars to provide an exam and stabilising treatment for all patients. Nearly all emergency rooms in the US rely on Medicare funds. The Trump administratio