This week, Miles and Dr. Rob cover a week of troubling health care news: Senator Bill Cassidy goes soft on RFK Jr. at Senate hearings as he faces a tough Senate primary, a former tobacco executive lands a CDC deputy director role, and the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Fund is shaping up to be a corporate cash grab that leaves small rural clinics behind.
They also unpack the Trump administration’s quiet rewrite of Title X, steering the country’s flagship family planning program away from contraception toward pro-natalist goals lifted straight from Project 2025, and close on a silver lining as the MAHA movement sours on Trump, with major influencers saying their followers feel lied to, even as the MAHA PAC is revealed to be funded largely by Big Pharma.
Background reading:
MedPage Today: How ‘The Pitt’ Gets Emergency Medicine Right
NBC News: Cassidy clashes with RFK Jr. on vaccines and abortion medicine
POLITICO: Bill Cassidy’s still attacking RFK Jr. Now it’s about abortion.
AP: RFK Jr. faced the Senate. One lawmaker’s competing loyalties were on display
The New York Times: MAHA Group Pledges $1 Million to Help Defeat Senator Cassidy in Louisiana Primary
STAT: Former tobacco executive joins CDC senior leadership, raising concerns over industry influence
KFF Health News: Big Companies Position Themselves for Payday From $50B Federal Rural Health Fund
The New York Times: The Trump Administration Is Coming After Birth Control Access in a Terrifying New Way
Newsweek: Stephen Miller’s Wife Condemns Teen Birth Rate Falling-‘Biological Destiny’
Katie Miller’s tweet lamenting falling teen birthrates
The New York Times: The ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Movement Is Cooling on Trump and Republicans
The Hill: Supreme Court hears Roundup case that could limit Americans’ ability to sue pesticide companies
POLITICO: The groups backing RFK Jr. are running low on cash
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