September 17, 2025 – The Week in Health Care News
Your digest on the happenings in health care this week | September 17, 2025
The Committee in the News
On Sept. 9, Committee Member Dr. Greg Gelburd spoke at a campaign stop for Democratic Attorney General nominee Jay Jones in Charlottesville, VA. The event focused on affordability, particularly in health care and was covered by 29 News.
You can watch Dr. Gelburd’s remarks HERE, beginning at the 5:45 mark.
Trump Administration News
RFK Jr. has released his chronic disease-fighting MAHA report he calls the “Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy” that is largely the same as a leaked version. STAT has the details HERE. Los Angeles Times points out that it ignores the leading cause of death for kids: gun violence. It also doesn’t mention smoking. It does, however, call for more scrutiny of vaccines and autism.
Leana S. Wen at The Washington Post says, “At best, it’s a disappointing grab bag of half-baked ideas. At worst, it’s a blueprint for how Kennedy’s health agenda will actively make Americans sicker. The most charitable assessment of the document is that it is incoherent and disorganized.”
Attacks on Vaccines
As the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is set to meet this week, The Washington Post reports that Trump officials will present a report linking COVID-19 shots to 25 child deaths. The panel is expected to consider changing recommendations on shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox.
Just days ahead of the ACIP meeting, RFK Jr. named five new members to the panel, some of whom are antagonistic to vaccines and COVID-19 protocols.
In an interview with CNBC, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb warned that Kennedy may use a forthcoming agency report to link alum -- an aluminum-based adjuvant used in some vaccines -- with autism, and that this claim could ultimately "take down the whole pediatric vaccine enterprise" because it is "used in about 10 vaccines," and there is "no good alternative."
Trump officials are hunting for examples of potential harm COVID vaccines have caused pregnant women, The Wall Street Journal reported. To facilitate their hunt, officials want to waive medical privacy protections.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, called on Kennedy Jr. to publicly support the whooping cough vaccine as Louisiana experiences one of the worst outbreaks in recent history.
NBC News: Data investigation: Childhood vaccination rates are backsliding across the U.S.
FLASHBACK: Before he became HHS Secretary, RFK Jr. called the COVID shots the "deadliest vaccine ever made" and petitioned the FDA to remove them from the market.
STAT: House appropriators snub Kennedy, include mRNA vaccine funding in spending bill
HHS has awarded a no-bid contract to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, an engineering school, to once again study whether there is a link between vaccinations and autism. "Every aspect of this contract is of grave concern to the Coalition of Autism Scientists," said coalition leader Dr. Helen Tager-Flusberg.
RFK Jr. claimed last week that children receive up to 92 vaccine doses in early childhood "in order to be fully compliant." The real number is less than a third of that.
Related from Reuters: Just 1 in 4 Americans believe Trump administration vaccine shifts are based on science, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds
Other Trump Administration News
Op-ed in STAT: If RFK Jr. doesn’t resign, physicians should join a limited strike
Dr. Jerome Adams, Surgeon General during Trump’s first term, is calling on RFK Jr. to resign. STAT has an interview with him HERE.
The Trump administration doesn’t want information about dozens of infectious diseases to be easily available. They also don’t want people with Medicare Advantage health insurance plans to be notified if they have unused benefits available.
Speaking of the FDA, they apparently don’t need experts to review new drug approvals. Critics say this will shield the agency’s decisions from public scrutiny.
New York plans to phase out a program that offers zero-premium health coverage for working-class residents due to funding cuts from Trump’s budget bill. Cleveland’s only safety net hospital may close because of the billionaire tax break law, as well. Also, as predicted, it’s causing rural hospitals and medical centers to close their doors.
In an op-ed in The Washington Post, Sec. of Education Linda McMahon and RFK Jr. cite Aristotle and 2nd-century Roman poet Juvenal to argue that kids these days need less therapy and more “natural sources of mental well-being: strong families, nutrition and fitness, and hope for the future.”
The Trump administration is finding that it’s difficult to crack down on drug advertising when you’ve fired most of the people who enforce those regulations.
The Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID may result in nearly 11 million global tuberculosis deaths over the next six years.
Reproductive Rights/Attacks on Medication Abortion
An Electronic Frontier Foundation investigation found that Meta and other social media platforms are illegally censoring posts about abortion and abortion medications.
AP: Appeals court allows Trump’s administration to block Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood
The New York Times reports that $10 Million in Contraceptives Have Been Destroyed on Orders From Trump Officials. Strangely, they said they aren’t contraceptives, they’re means to an abortion:
“President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world,” the statement said. “The administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.”
However, Belgian officials who searched the warehouse where they were being stored say they have actually NOT been destroyed. Trump administration officials later retracted their claim. More than 70 reproductive groups are asking the Trump administration to call off their plans.
Anti-abortion groups in Missouri are attempting to use draconian requirements on abortion clinics to circumvent the state’s new law legalizing abortion.
Washington State Standard: Washington plans to destroy 30K expiring abortion pills –
NPR Shots: California considers allowing doctors to prescribe abortion drugs anonymously
Other Health Care News
KFF reports that, if the enhanced ACA tax credits are allowed to expire at the end of 2025, out-of-pocket premiums would rise by over 75% on average. This is driving Democrats to threaten a government shutdown over the issue. Unfortunately, extending the subsidies is running into the buzzsaw of anti-abortion zealots.
RELATED at NBC News: Families on Obamacare brace for higher health care premiums next year
New Jersey, Virginia, Minnesota, Arizona, North Carolina, Illinois, and Connecticut are the latest states to issue directives to ensure anyone wanting a COVID-19 vaccine can get one amid efforts by the federal government to restrict access. This means that nearly half (44.1%) of Americans are in states – 18 so far – that have to make vaccines easier to get in opposition to the CDC (based on 2024 census figures.)
Meanwhile, California wants to create its own state-level version of the NIH.
While Florida Surgeon General Joe Ladapo may not have looked into what the impact the ending of vaccine mandates will have on his state, scientists have and they found that, in Florida alone, a 15% decline in vaccinations against measles over 25 years would lead to 1 million measles cases which would result in about 1,000 preventable deaths.
RELATED: Tampa Bay Times: Banning mRNA COVID vaccine is ‘the goal,’ Florida surgeon general says