New York Times: “Buried in the fine print of Obamacare regulations, the Trump administration is floating a novel idea for those who can’t afford to shell out tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical costs.”

“Why not borrow the money from your health insurance company?”

“In the dense 1,121-page final rule issued last month about how the Affordable Care Act market will operate next year, the administration suggested that insurers consider offering loans to cash-strapped customers.”

NBC News: “There’s a glaring lack of permanent leadership at the country’s major health agencies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has gone from one acting director to another. The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration was ousted last month. The FDA’s second-in-command seat remains empty. And there has been no surgeon general for President Donald Trump’s entire second term.”

“Following a wave of firings and resignations over the last four months, about half of the positions listed on the leadership pages for the CDC, the FDA and the National Institutes of Health are filled by temporary appointees or simply remain vacant.”

“A report on alcohol’s health effects, commissioned by the federal government but unreleased under President Trump, came out Tuesday — in a scientific journal,” Stat reports.

“The study finds even low levels of drinking may increase the risk of various diseases or even death.”

“The Alcohol Intake and Health Study began in 2023 and was run by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration as part of an update to the United States’ dietary guidelines. However, the panel’s work was quickly embroiled in controversy, with some members of Congress and alcohol industry trade groups alleging scientists on the project held an anti-alcohol bent.”

Katherine Wu: “In a typical year, the process of bringing a new seasonal flu shot to market is one of the United States’ most predictable vaccine routines. This, however, is not a typical year.”

“Vaccine manufacturers have prepared updated versions of the annual flu shot, as they normally do. The FDA has green-lighted those recipes, as it normally does. And normally, the next step would fall to the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel, known as ACIP, which guides the agency’s recommendations for which Americans should take those shots…”

“But in March, a ruling from a federal judge effectively suspended ACIP, on the grounds that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had violated the lawful procedure for selecting new members when he hastily remade the panel’s roster last June. Currently, no functional ACIP exists to guide this autumn’s immunization campaigns.”

Wall Street Journal: “Coverage for Ozempic and other drugs used for weight loss has fast become one of the most coveted workplace benefits—so much so that companies say they can no longer afford to provide it.”

New York Times: “Mr. Kennedy has shown little interest in managing the details of work in his department, according to multiple colleagues. Instead, they say, he is single-mindedly focused on his top priorities, including food recommendations and pesticide exposures, and hunting for evidence to support his long-held beliefs that vaccines are harmful.”

Politico: “The Make America Healthy Again coalition, made up largely of women who followed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into the MAGA fold, has reached the end of its rope with the Trump administration.”

“Now many among the group of vaccine skeptics and healthy food crusaders say their vote is up for grabs in the midterms after a string of perceived losses on pesticides and chemical regulations, not to mention disappointing leadership picks and an unpopular war in Iran.”

The Guardian: “Three scientific papers that raised questions about vaccine safety and were used by the Trump administration to justify controversial changes to US vaccine policies have over the last two months been removed, retracted or placed under investigation by the journals that published them.”

“In some cases, the actions occurred years after scientists first raised alarms about the studies’ scientific merits.”

New York Times: “Doctors around the country say they are seeing more cases of serious, sometimes life-threatening illnesses that vaccines have long kept at bay, including whooping cough and bacterial infections that can cause pneumonia or meningitis.”

“The concern among doctors comes on the heels of a resurgence of measles nationwide, fueled by distrust in vaccines that grew during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Trump have amplified.”

“Former Attorney General Pam Bondi was diagnosed with thyroid cancer after leaving the Justice Department in April,” CNN reports.

“Bondi said she is undergoing treatment, including having surgery a few weeks ago.”

“Key officials responsible for leading US research on infectious disease threats have been barred from speaking directly with the World Health Organization — effectively shutting some of them out of the global discussions on virus outbreaks,” CNN reports.

“The Trump administration issued the directive stopping individuals at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from communicating with the WHO.”

New York Times: “The tobacco company Reynolds American donated $5 million to a super PAC backed by President Trump last month, about one week before his administration rolled out a new policy that could prove lucrative to the tobacco industry.”

New York Times: “The Ebola crisis in East Africa is rapidly escalating, with cases now confirmed in major population centers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Public health experts around the world and health workers on the ground say that the response has been significantly hindered by the near-absence so far of the United States, historically the leader in any major outbreak.”

“The United States used to fund robust disease surveillance networks across the region and maintained emergency teams to take charge in public health crises like this one. Much of that work ended with the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development early last year.”

President Trump said he was concerned about Ebola after an American tested positive for it, CNBC reports.

Said Trump: “I’m concerned about everything, but certainly I am.”

He added: “I think that it’s been confined right now to Africa, and but it’s something that has had a breakout.”

“The Trump administration’s recent moves to make flavored e-cigarettes and vapes more widely available have caused a splintering among prominent voices in the MAHA movement and even some federal health officials,” NBC News reports.