turmoil
A shooting at CDC, and a regulator returns to FDA
A lot of news took place this weekend at the federal health agencies. Here's what you need to know:
A gunman attacked the main campus of the CDC in Atlanta on Friday, further shaking an agency in the midst of a tumultuous year. The shooter had blamed the Covid-19 vaccine for making him ill. STAT's Daniel Payne wrote about what happened and the initial reaction of agency staffers.
On Saturday, Daniel and Helen Branswell reviewed a recording of an internal call in which CDC employees recounted emotional, harrowing experiences and asked questions about "misinformation" that may have influenced the shooter as well as about health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s response to the crisis. Read more about the concerns.
Former surgeon general Jerome Adams writes in a First Opinion essay that the shooting "is not an isolated event," but rather "a dire reflection of ever-escalating threats public health workers face in a climate increasingly shaped by misinformation, politicization, and inflammatory rhetoric." Read the essay.
Meanwhile, at the FDA: STAT's Lizzy Lawrence reviewed recordings of two recent meetings in which employees pushed leadership for answers on whether the agency would restore funding for research fellows, when they will be allowed to easily attend conferences again, and why FDA's leaders are holding ad-hoc panels including experts with clear conflicts of interest. Read about the meetings.
That was Friday. On Saturday, we learned that Vinay Prasad is returning to the FDA to resume his role overseeing vaccine, gene therapy, and blood product regulation. (He left a mere two weeks ago.) Prasad's return indicates that the administration considers him critical to their health policy goals, Lizzy reports, despite political backlash. It's also yet another sign of turbulence within the FDA. Read more.
politics
Trump tries to rewrite research funding rules
On Thursday night, President Trump signed a sweeping new executive order that seeks to transform how the federal government awards billions of dollars in research grants by giving political appointees unprecedented power over the projects agencies fund. Instead of experts and career civil servants setting funding decisions and priorities, the order places that authority with presidential appointees who, in coordination with the White House, are directed to use their "independent judgment" and "advance the President's policy priorities."
The executive power grab, which experts expect to be challenged in court, is likely to have massive and immediate impacts on the daily operations of American science. Read more about it from STAT's science team.
first opinion
YIMBY says what?
In all the conversation about industry concentration in health care — meaning the way that small clinics and hospitals are gobbled up by a smaller number of health systems — one question is rarely considered. How easy is it for new providers to jump into the fray by opening their own practice?
It's too hard, according to Dan O'Neill, who has spent the last four years helping to build a new primary care practice in California, Nevada, and Arizona. There's an administrative gauntlet that providers must navigate, and if they don't make it through, the care doesn't get delivered. Read more in O'Neill's First Opinion essay, in which he explains specific problems his business faced with some familiar names like Medicare Advantage and UnitedHealth Group.
No comments