July 25, 2025
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Disability in Health Care Reporting Fellow
Saturday marks the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Some folks in the disability community are spending it at a 60-hour rally pushing back against Medicaid cuts in honor of the 60th anniversary of Medicaid and Medicare.

SKEPTICS

FDA panels are getting weird

Adobe

The risks of untreated mental illness during pregnancy are serious, and tend to outweigh the small and uncertain risk of antidepressants harming unborn babies. But if you tuned into a recent discussion hosted by the Food and Drug Administration on the effects of SSRIs during pregnancy, however, you would have heard a different story, one overwhelmingly focused on the treatments’ risks. That seemed to be by design.

The FDA administration mainly invited clinicians and researchers who have a record of deep skepticism of antidepressants, including some who financially benefit from that skepticism. Meanwhile mental health conditions, including suicides and drug overdoses, are now the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths, according to a 2024 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

STAT’s Lizzy Lawrence with an excellent story about what the science actually says about SSRI use during pregnancy and about what this latest in a series of expert panels convened by FDA leaders portends for future regulatory actions. You should check out Anil Oza’s readout on the fluoride panel, too.

POLICY

Trump eyes involuntary commitment to end homelessness

President Trump wants to end homelessness in America. His plan? Make it easier to involuntarily treat people with serious mental illnesses, according to a new order signed Thursday.

Many public health professionals believe that involuntary commitment should be used as a last resort, if it is used at all, and that its expansion would only dissuade individuals from seeking care.

While the White House did not lay out its plans for enacting these actions, it instructs federal agencies to crack down on public drug use and loitering, pursue legal action against organizations who run safe injection sites, and — most notably — move away from a “housing first” approach to homelessness. More here.

PEPTo-BISMoL

Another raw milk…win?

Unpasteurized milk and heavy cream were the source of one of the country’s largest foodborne outbreaks in recent years, public health officials from California reported Thursday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 

The outbreak, which ran from early autumn 2023 through March 2024 was caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhimurium and was traced back to a California dairy that was licensed to sell raw milk products. There were at least 171 cases identified in California, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, with the majority in children and teens under the age of 18. Nearly 40% of the cases were kids younger than 5 years of age. There were at least 22 hospitalizations, again mostly in children.

Salmonella can cause diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps, with symptoms that can last up to a week. Though Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an avid proponent of raw milk, public health officials urge people to stick to pasteurized products to avoid illnesses like those experienced in this outbreak. — Helen Branswell 

TAX BILL

Hospitals scramble for cash before Medicaid cuts hit

Congratulations to the states who just received $4 billion in extra Medicaid funds that will be routed to hospitals, doctors, nursing homes and other providers this year. It’s unlikely to happen again, however.

Republicans’ new tax law will phase out “state directed payments,” which were a staple under the Biden administration. These funds allowed states to submit proposals that increased Medicaid payment rates to hospitals and other providers to match higher commercial insurance rates  — arrangements that ballooned to more than $110 billion annually. Starting in 2028, the law will require these grandfathered arrangements to be slashed by 10 percentage points per year.

Medical providers based in New Mexico and West Virginia will get the lion’s share of newly disclosed payments. STAT’s Bob Herman has more. 

STARVING

Malnutrition expands, despite efforts

Good, healthy food is not just a luxury — it’s essential to a person’s growth and development. But too many children around the world are still malnourished, according to a new report from UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank Group.

The report details that 150.2 million children under five are stunted, meaning they will never reach their physical or cognitive potential. Another 43 million children are wasting, meaning they suffer from weakened immunity, are susceptible to long term developmental delays, and face elevated risks of death. While these numbers have improved per capita in recent decades, a recent rise in stunting threatens to undo these gains.

One doesn’t have to look much farther to see the ramifications of malnutrition than in Gaza, where a famine threatens many Palestinians. As skeletal children fill up hospital wards, doctors say many are dying of hunger while life-saving humanitarian aid piles up in nearby countries, its disbursement delayed as Israeli soldiers confine 2 million civilians into an area just 12% of the original Gaza Strip.

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What we're reading

  • Aid groups blame Israel’s Gaza restrictions for ‘Mass Starvation’, New York Times
  • Joy in hard times: Celebrating Disability Pride during a crisis, Mother Jones
  • For many Duchenne families, halt to gene therapy is heartbreak upon heartbreak, STAT
  • Over a million queer women rely on Medicaid. What happens if they lose it?, The 19th