Kennedy Cancels Vaccine Funding – KFF Health News

The Host

Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announcement that the federal authorities will cancel practically $500 million in mRNA analysis funding is unnerving not solely for many who develop vaccines, but in addition for public well being specialists who see the expertise behind the primary covid-19 pictures because the nation’s greatest hope to fight a future pandemic.

And President Donald Trump is demanding that main pharmaceutical corporations provide many American sufferers the identical costs obtainable to sufferers abroad. It isn’t the primary time he’s made such threats, and drugmakers — who scored a few wins in opposition to Medicare negotiations within the president’s tax and spending legislation — are unlikely to volunteer to drop their costs.

This week’s panelists are Emmarie Huetteman of KFF Well being Information, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Name, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Publish.

Among the many takeaways from this week’s episode:

• Explaining the choice to cancel some mRNA vaccine funding, a precedence for vaccine critics, Kennedy falsely claimed that the expertise is ineffective in opposition to respiratory sicknesses. Researchers have been making headway into mRNA vaccines for maladies comparable to chicken flu and even most cancers, and the Trump administration’s opposition to backing vaccine growth weakens the prospects for future breakthroughs.
• Trump’s insistence that big-name drugmakers voluntarily decrease their costs underscores how few instruments the presidency has to ship outcomes on this vital pocketbook challenge for a lot of People. Medicare’s capacity to barter drug costs took successful below Trump’s large tax-and-spending legislation, which included two provisions advocated by the pharmaceutical trade that will delay or exclude some costly medication from the dealmaking course of.
• A yr after Trump promised on the marketing campaign path to safe protection of in vitro fertilization, the White Home reportedly is just not planning to compel insurers to pay for these dear reproductive providers — a change that will require an act of Congress and will increase prices general.
• And with Congress again house for its August recess and a late September deadline looming, the annual authorities funding course of is in progress — however unlikely to resolve shortly or cleanly. Senate appropriators are additional alongside of their work than regular, however the Home of Representatives has but to launch its model, which is predicted to chop deeper and hit social points like abortion more durable.

Plus, for “further credit score” the panelists recommend well being coverage tales they learn (or wrote) this week that they suppose you must learn, too: 

Emmarie Huetteman: KFF Well being Information’ “New Medicaid Federal Work Necessities Imply Much less Leeway for States,” by Katheryn Houghton and Bram Sable-Smith. 

Sarah Karlin-Smith: Slate’s “Confessions of a Welfare Queen,” by Maria Kefalas. 

Sandhya Raman: CQ Roll Name’s “Sweden’s Push for Smokeless Merchandise Leads Some To Marvel About Dangers,” by Sandhya Raman. 

Lauren Weber: The New York Instances’ “‘Scorching Wasps’ Discovered at Nuclear Facility in South Carolina,” by Emily Anthes. 

Additionally talked about on this week’s podcast:

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