health care affordability
33%
That's the share of Americans who reported cutting back on daily living expenses in the last 12 months to pay for health care, according to new polling from the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America.
The trade-offs include stretching prescriptions, borrowing money, or skipping a meal, some 20,000 U.S. adults told the group when surveyed last summer, Daniel Payne reports.
Those figures may worsen, with insurance premiums rising for many with the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies and the rise of health care costs.
Democrats have made health affordability and access central to their messaging in an important election year, and the Trump administration has looked to shake up its health policy approach with rising costs in mind.
men's health
Men's health is in the zeitgeist
Legislation to focus attention on men's health has been introduced in every congressional session since 2000. This year, Congress might actually pass a bill to create a federal office of men's health, Annalisa Merelli reports.
American men live shorter lives than women and their peers in other wealthy nations. They're more likely to die of cancer and suicide, and men's health is worse than women's across all socioeconomic and racial groups.
There's heightened interest in both Congress and the administration for an office dedicated to male health. Fortunately for them, a good template already exists: the HHS Office of Women's Health. Read more.
fda
FDA's handling of rare disease drugs scrutinized
Around the same time the FDA announced that Vinay Prasad was stepping down following controversial decisions about rare disease treatments, a GOP senator launched an investigation of the agency's rejections of rare disease drugs.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he didn't mention Prasad when he spoke with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary before deciding to launch the investigation. Johnson also isn't sure whether Prasad's exit will fix what he views as poor FDA judgement.
Johnson seeks the denial letters that the FDA sent to makers of rare disease treatments for conditions including ataxia and Sanfilippo syndrome.
An HHS spokesman said the number of drugs the FDA is approving and rejecting is consistent with the past decade and that the agency is aiming to review experimental treatments faster via a new pathway its leaders recently announced.
Read more.
rare diseases
FDA approves rare disease drug, kind of
The FDA on Tuesday approved a new indication for a drug that has long been generic to treat a rare brain disorder, O. Rose Broderick reports.
The FDA approved GSK's Wellcovorin (leucovorin calcium) in 1983 for other indications, including to lessen the toxicity of chemotherapy. The new approval adds an indication for cerebral folate deficiency. GSK no longer sells the drug, but by adding that indication, makers of generic leucovorin can update their labels, too.
Why would the FDA add an indication to a drug GSK stopped selling more than 25 years ago? Well, you may recall that back in September, HHS officials touted the drug as an autism treatment. Cerebral folate deficiency is not autism, but patients with that condition are characterized by similar developmental delays.
Read more for what the FDA had to say about the autism claim and the unusual way that the agency approved the new indication.
epstein files
Choose your friends wisely
Boris Nikolic fell out of favor with the biotech industry after his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein became public in 2019. Except Alexis Borisy, an influential biotech venture capitalist who helped Nikolic make a comeback, Damian Garde reports in an exclusive piece of investigative reporting.
Borisy helped Nikolic launch a fund of his own and raise more than $100 million in 2024 and 2025, five people told Damian. Nikolic also invested in at least one startup in the portfolio of Borisy's venture firm, Curie.Bio.
Borisy now regrets helping Nikolic, whom Borisy said misled him about Nikolic's relationship with Epstein. Read more.
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