February 25, 2026 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | February 25, 2026
Reproductive Rights/Attacks on Medication Abortion
Twenty-one states, 60 members of Congress, and 58 anti-choice organizations and advocates filed friend-of-the-court briefs last Friday with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana in the case State of Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration in support of banning telehealth abortions using mifepristone. Meanwhile, “the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, …nine former FDA Commissioners; the National Domestic Violence Hotline; disability rights advocates; and more than 100 organizations supporting people in need of abortion care” filed in support of protecting access.
Yesterday, a federal district court heard arguments in this case, and we now await a ruling.
RELATED from Mother Jones: Red States Are Doing What Trump Won’t: Going After Abortion Pills in Court
Wyoming Republicans are advancing a fetal heartbeat bill following a recent loss in a ruling by the state Supreme Court that the state’s abortion pill ban is unconstitutional.
Monty Fritts, a GOP state legislator running for governor in Tennessee, wants women to be executed for having an abortion. “If you kill a baby from embryo on up with a pill or a scalpel, we ought to execute you,” he told attendees of a Washington County Republican Party meeting last summer.
Apparently it’s not okay to even discuss late-pregnancy abortions in Texas any longer.
CNN: Abortion clinics are closing, even in states that have become key access points
Trump Administration News
Federal judges are sounding alarms about the Trump administration’s treatment of pregnant and nursing detainees in ICE custody. In related news, ProPublica’s reporting on “The Children of Dilley” pulls back the curtain on the cruel conditions faced by kids in the Dilley, Texas, immigrant detention center.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro says the Trump administration deported a 2-month-old baby with bronchitis, who at some point had been unresponsive, to Mexico along with his family. He had been incarcerated at the Dilley facility.
RELATED from NHPR: Proposed location for ICE facility in Merrimack sits within PFAS contamination zone
Following a shakeup at HHS, what they called a “management team enhancement,” that left the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention without a director, the Trump administration has decided that National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya will also be the CDC’s acting director. Meanwhile, the CDCs No. 2 official, Ralph Abraham, has resigned and 16 NIH institutes are operating without permanent directors.
At the same time the FDA is considering making vaccine approvals more difficult, it “plans to drop its longtime standard of requiring two rigorous studies to win approval for new drugs, the latest change from Trump administration officials vowing to speed up the availability of certain medical products,” reports MedPage Today.
FDA is planning another RE-review, this time of anti-depressants used during pregnancy and infant RSV immunizations.
A meeting by the FDA’s top vaccine advisory committee, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), that was scheduled for this week has been cancelled. An ACIP spokesperson said “Further information will be shared as available” but the reason appears to be that they forgot to issue a legally-required public notice in time. Meanwhile, ACIP’s changes to the childhood vaccine schedule are being challenged in federal court by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The Trump administration is proposing to spend $2 billion annually to do things the World Health Organization did at a fraction of the cost.
Last week, Trump signed an executive order to compel the domestic production of glyphosate-based herbicides, the chemical in Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup. The move has MAHA supporters furious and RFK Jr. stunned supporters with a lengthy statement defending Trump’s order. The executive order comes as Bayer and attorneys for cancer patients have announced a proposed $7.25 billion settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn people that Roundup could cause cancer.
Last week we reported that the FDA refused to review Moderna’s new mRNA-based flu shot. Turns out Trump made a call and now they’ve changed their mind.
Limiting the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in health insurance is a rare source of bipartisanship. However, purveyors of AI services seem to have convinced the Trump administration to remove guardrails and go so far as to limit steps states can take.
In related news, a former executive from a Harrison.ai subsidiary has been tapped to direct the office that informs FDA policy on AI. This comes at the same time Harrison.ai is petitioning the FDA to be exempt from the agency’s review of its AI products.
Other Health Care News
Wyoming received $205 million in rural hospital dollars from the Trump Big Beautiful Tax Giveaway (BBTG) law’s Rural Healthcare Transformation program, $5 million more than it asked for. Instead of spending it directly on health care, the state is investing it in equities, including stocks, to create a fund that will last “forever.” It is uncertain if the federal government will approve the move.
On the topic of rural hospitals, Hospital Sisters Health System and Prevea announced a “complete exit” from Western Wisconsin in January, which included closing two hospitals and 19 clinics.
RELATED in Pennsylvania: Bradford hospital submits closure notice. Ending emergency, inpatient and long-term care services by mid-2026.
With more and more direct-to-customer prescription drug portals opening, it’s probably not surprising that Big Pharma spent over $9 billion in direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs last year.
This week, Elon Musk encouraged people to “just take a picture of your medical data or upload the file to get a second opinion from Grok,” his AI-driven bot. Grok wasn’t impressed:
When asked by another user in the replies to Musk’s original post if Grok was bound by HIPPA medical privacy laws, Grok responded that it was not and discouraged people from using it for medical advice.
“While Grok can analyze uploaded data for insights, it’s not a medical professional or HIPAA compliant. Elon’s post highlights the capability, but we strongly recommend not sharing sensitive info and consulting doctors for opinions,” Grok said, later adding it “isn’t a substitute for professional medical advice.”
KFF Health News: State Lawmakers Seek Restraints on Wage Garnishment for Medical Debt:
Lawmakers in at least eight states this year are aiming to reel in wage garnishment for unpaid medical bills. The legislation introduced in Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington builds on efforts made in other states in past years.
The US has had more than four times the number of measles cases as this time last year.
RELATED from The Washington Post: As measles cases climb, these 9 diseases threaten comebacks
Seth Glickman at HEALTH CARE un-covered reveals how independent physicians are exploited by big insurance corporations:
Independent physicians, especially those in primary care, live a strikingly similar reality. They invest years in education and training before taking on the substantial costs of running a practice: rent, staff salaries, electronic health records, and equipment. They also hold the responsibility of caring for thousands of patients who depend on access and continuity of care. Then commercial health insurers present contract “offers” at 50% percent of already inadequate Medicare rates, treating the exchange as a “negotiation.” On paper, doctors can walk away. In practice, they can’t. The fixed costs, patient commitments, and limited commercial payer alternatives mean they must accept unsustainable rates or risk dismantling the practices their communities rely on.
Wellness influencers are Making Nicotine Great Again.
Not all health influencers are grifters, however. Some scientists and medical experts are on the front lines, countering climate denialism, vaccine scepticism and wellness pseudoscience on social media.
Despicable treatment of American citizens by this government… women’s reproductive rights are nine of their business!!!