Supreme Court ok’s Trump’s anti-DEI push at NIH

Why is there cat hair at the pharma factory?

August 22, 2025 Check out STAT+

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By O. Rose Broderick Disability in Health Care Reporting Fellow

Are you a psychiatrist or psychologist seeing patients with or working on research about so-called "AI psychosis" or "ChatGPT psychosis"? I want to talk with you. I am wearing a cozy sweater as I write this newsletter for the first time in months. Fall is right around the corner, as is the 10th edition of our annual Summit! Get your tickets today!

POLITICS CDC shooter 'conducted reconnaissance' days before attack Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images The man who attacked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tried to enter the agency's Atlanta campus in the run-up to the shooting, according to an internal CDC email reviewed by STAT.  Security camera footage appears to capture the shooter trying to enter the campus visitor's center late in the afternoon. Investigators believe the attacker "was conducting reconnaissance" for the shooting, which he carried out two days later on Aug. 8 when he fired hundreds of rounds at the CDC campus from across the street. No CDC staff were injured in the shooting, but a police officer, David Rose, was killed. Staff have raised concerns about the agency's vulnerabilities on internal calls following the shooting and increasingly asked Trump administration officials — especially health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — to tamp down rhetoric demonizing public health workers. The shooter targeted the CDC in the attack because he was upset about the Covid vaccine. Read more from STAT's Daniel Payne. GRANTS Supreme Court ok's Trump's anti-DEI push at NIH Tough times at the National Institutes of Health continued Thursday, when the Supreme Court decided that the Trump administration can slash hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of research funding in its push to cut federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The high court majority lifted a judge's order blocking $783 million worth of cuts made by the NIH to align with President Donald Trump's priorities. It's the latest judicial win for Trump and allows the administration to forge ahead with canceling hundreds of grants while lawsuits continue to unfold. The plaintiffs, including states and public-health advocacy groups, have argued that the cuts will harm the country's potential for scientific breakthroughs and inflict "incalculable losses in public health and human life." The lawsuit addresses only part of the estimated $12 billion of NIH research projects that have been cut, but in its emergency appeal, the Trump administration also took aim at nearly two dozen other times judges have stood in the way of its funding cuts. Read more. YUCk FDA finds cat hair at Novo Nordisk plant Pests and bacteria and cat hair — oh, my! Materials such as these were found during a recent Food and Drug Administration inspection of a historically troubled drug manufacturing plant that Novo Nordisk bought last year as part of its parent company's acquisition of Catalent, one of the largest contract manufacturers serving the pharmaceutical industry.  Several pages of the report listed instances in which the company did not investigate the failure of critical equipment that had the "potential to impact drug products." Foreign matter was reported by a clinician when removing product from a vial into a syringe. Microbiological decontamination procedures were not established either, inspectors wrote. More worrisome nuggets in this colorful writeup from STAT's Elaine Chen, including why the long-maligned plant has been plaguing Regeneron.

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DISABILITY No more minimum wage for domestic workers, says Labor Department Whether it's a cook, a home health aide, or a direct support professional, domestic workers are critical for so many people with disabilities. But these caregivers could soon lack federal wage protections. A potential rule from the Department of Labor would end minimum wage and overtime pay for all domestic workers. In 2013, the Obama administration made it more difficult for providers to claim that domestic workers should be exempt from minimum wage and overtime requirements. The Trump administration wants to roll back this update to the Fair Labor Standards Act and return to the 1975 interpretation of the rule. If it goes through, it would be the latest blow to wage standards for the disability community: In July, the Trump administration rolled back a proposed regulation that would have ended the subminimum wage for disabled folks. I missed this rule when it was first announced in early July, so a big thank you to the source that pointed this out to me on Thursday. Anyway, the comment period for this potential rule ends on September 2. If you have thoughts about it, you can comment here.  FIRST OPINION Don't separate postpartum people from their newborns Hospitals need better plans to keep infants with their mothers in a safe, caring environment, even during a mental health or substance use emergency, writes Anneli M. Merivaara, a master's of public health and physician assistant student at George Washington University.  The experience stems from Merivaara's time in an emergency department, when a woman came into triage with her 6-week-old baby, explaining that she was worried that she might hurt herself. Per protocol, Merivaara took the woman's baby away from her. But when she reflected on this decision later, "I searched for guidelines from any emergency, obstetric, or psychiatric board regarding postpartum people to determine whether the policy was based on expert recommendations, but I could not find any such guidelines." Empathic story from Merivaara. Read more about her experience and how she believes medical professionals should respond instead.

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What we're reading Gutted: How deeply Trump has cut federal health agencies, ProPublica  Novo Nordisk freezes hiring in noncritical areas, Wall Street Journal As Trump weighs I.V.F., Republicans back new 'natural' approach to infertility, New York Times Try this when your doctor says 'yes' to a preventive test but insurances says 'no,' KFF Health News Operation Warp Speed was miraculous. Trump admin should not abandon technology that made it possible, Fox News

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Thanks for reading!  Rose Timmy

rose.broderick@statnews.com

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