How vaccine and Covid backlash impacts Ebola response

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In 2020, the NIH funded a network of 10 centers focused on emerging infectious diseases. Last year, the Trump administration terminated those centers’ grants as part of broader cuts on work related to Covid-19 and pandemic preparedness. And as you know, this year we’ve seen a major Ebola outbreak in Central Africa.

The centers weren’t on the front lines of outbreak responses in the way that CDC or USAID have been. But some researchers who were involved in the network say the cuts weakened relationships with experts abroad that had been fostered over years, undercutting research collaborations on dangerous diseases like Ebola. STAT’s Anil Oza has more on the current status of the work and what the future might look like.

coverage

An unwelcome surprise in Medicaid work requirements

Guidance released Monday offers the most detail yet about how new work requirements will change the Medicaid program, which serves close to 70 million people. STAT reporters have combed through the nearly 400-page document and spoken with Medicaid leaders and advocates to get a better understanding of the impact these changes will have.

Put bluntly: “It’s not going to work,” per Harvard economics professor Benjamin Sommers. Much of the conversation revolves around one of the ways that people can be exempted from the work requirements: medical frailty. It’s a tricky, two-step process: A person must have a serious medical condition and they must show that it impairs their ability to work. Read more from a team of reporters on the ramifications.

commercial determinants

Ultra-processed food researchers want policy change

A new survey of 2,000 adults found overwhelming agreement across political parties that ultra-processed foods are addictive and a major cause of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Despite the consensus, the government is not doing enough to rein in the food industry that produces these products, according to top researchers. Both the survey results and expert policy recommendations were included alongside more than a dozen articles in a special edition of the American Journal of Public Health focused on ultra-processed foods, published this morning.

Contributors to the issue have one overarching message for lawmakers, as articulated by scholar Marion Nestle: “Do policy!” STAT’s Sarah Todd wrote about the do’s and don’ts these experts laid out for future government action.

more infectious disease

A brief hantavirus update

It’s been a month since the last hantavirus death was reported, according to an X post yesterday from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The situation is stable, and the global risk remains low,” he wrote.

Also yesterday, HHS sent an email to American cruise ship passengers quarantining in Nebraska to participate in “a fun and completely optional opportunity to help us share a glimpse of your experience with the public,” according to an email shared with Inside Medicine’s Jeremy Faust. The email, sent by an HHS field operations account, requests photos of activities people are doing in their rooms. Faust categorizes the effort as “some free government propaganda.”

data

Some good news about death

Deaths of despair — from suicide, overdose, and alcohol — declined in the United States in 2024, marking a hopeful turning point after years of increases. Drug overdose deaths in particular dropped significantly, down by 26% from 2023. Provisional estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest just under 80,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2024, down from over 100,000 deaths at the peak of the opioid epidemic in 2022. “That is more than 80 American lives saved every single day,” Allison Arwady, the recently departed director of the CDC Injury Center, told reporters Tuesday.

While combined death rates from suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol are still higher than pre-pandemic levels, they declined in 2024. Suicide deaths fell by 3%, and mortality from specific alcohol-driven causes, including alcohol poisoning and liver disease, fell by 4%. (Data did not include all alcohol-attributable causes, such as violence or car crashes, which make alcohol a deadlier substance than opioids in the U.S.)

It has taken years of work and investment to see an improvement in overdose death stats, Arwady said Tuesday at a press conference hosted by the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health, which published the data analysis. It will take a similarly coordinated intention to drive down suicide and alcohol deaths, she said. With more cuts to public health looming, she said now is not the time to let up.

“A decade ago, we didn't have any of this. We were barely counting drug overdoses,” Arwady said. “This is not a partisan issue, this is not a political issue.” — Isabella Cueto

first opinion

Is the military fueling eating disorders?

The U.S. has the strongest military in the world. Nevertheless, the Trump administration seems intent on making its members even stronger — or, at least aesthetically so. Last fall, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that there will be no “fat troops” or “fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon.” In January, the military implemented a strict waist-to-height body composition ratio, regardless of a troop’s particular role.

Paula Chesley teaches yoga at a clinic for people with eating disorders, including both service members and veterans. She’s worried about how this approach could worsen the pressures that already contribute to eating disorders among troops and veterans. Read more on what she’s learned working with male military clients.

(In related news, a federal appeals court in D.C. ruled Monday that “animus-filled reasons” were behind the administration’s ban on transgender people in the military. Chris Geidner, a lawyer who writes the helpful LawDork blog, broke down the decision and its implications.)

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What we're reading

I didn't want weight loss to be the thing that cured me. It did anyway, Vogue
Courts may deliver the anti-vaccine movement's biggest win, Washington Post
Senior NIH scientist, research fellow charged with bringing deactivated mpox virus into U.S., AP
Sleuths say Thermo Fisher doctored data to sell antibodies, Chemical & Engineering News
Listen: The Amish way of health care, STAT

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