global health

Trump moves to exit WHO 

President Trump started his presidency with a late-night order for the U.S. to withdraw from the World Health Organization, a move global health experts fear will both cripple the agency and substantially weaken international health security — in the United States and abroad.

In his executive order calling for the U.S. to withdraw from the WHO, Trump resurrected 2020 complaints about the agency, saying the WHO mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic and didn't take on emergency reforms

He also said the WHO demands an unfair level of payments from the U.S., relative to other nations’ contributions. More from Helen Branswell.

trump 2025

Making sense of the executive order storm 

President Trump signed his first batch of executive orders at a crowded Capital One Arena last night, to cheers from ardent supporters. While he didn’t bring up health care provisions explicitly while flourishing his EO pens, at least one signature — to rescind more than 70 Biden administration orders — has put immediate targets on regulations related to health care costs, coronavirus aid, and gender equity.

They include an October 2022 order to test Medicare and Medicaid models that could lower health care costs, an extension, Biden said, of his administration’s signature achievement to negotiate drug prices in the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Trump is also peeling back certain Biden administration efforts to expand access to Covid-19 treatments and vaccines, ordering federal workers to return to the office full time, and ordering a freeze on federal hiring. More from the STAT team.

public health

A populist health care message for the new president

Trump’s first-administration efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act didn’t prove popular. His earlier attempts to lower drug prices didn’t pan out. Even his Covid-19 successes, including vaccines developed in record time, are now mired in politics.

During his presidential campaigns and first administration, Trump could not quite land on the right health care message to harness the populist momentum that drove his commanding influence over the Republican party, Rachel Cohrs Zhang writes. But Trump seems to have found an answer that will resonate with many Americans in Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. 

RFK Jr.’s focus on health lifestyles, paired with interrogating public health officials and industry practices, has proved to be a rallying point across a range of voters and lawmakers. What that focus means for other voter priorities — like lowering the cost of health care — remains to be seen. More from Rachel.