KELLY: Does HHS's vaccine webpage reflects the department's view on covid vaccines? RFK JR: I haven't seen the website KELLY: It's kind of troubling that you're unaware of what your own department's website states. It says they're safe and effective.

RARE DISEASES folks: medicaid work requirements were obviously the big news from last night release of the E&C reconciliation bill. But there’s also a pretty big win for rare disease drug makers and groups like @nordrare.bsky.social

DOGE head Amy Gleason denied responsibility for mass federal worker firings in a private group chat message obtained by the Chronicle. www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...

Noticeably silent amid the upheaval at HHS? Big pharma. Every new drug has NIH somewhere in its DNA--and NIH funding supports the training of their workforce. Now they're finding out FDA isn't safe, either. Wrote about how keeping quiet isn't working My latest @opinion.bloomberg.com (gift link):

Had a peaceful, gorgeous morning viewing the cherry blossoms over sunrise …then I checked my work inbox …

The mixed response from congressional Republicans to the Trump administration’s cuts for NIH F&A costs could signal reductions for the National Institutes of Health down the line when lawmakers draft spending bills, Nancy Vu reports for @bgov.com news.bgov.com/bloomberg-go...

Scoop: Trump DOJ removes head of Tax Division, a 40-year veteran who is latest civil servant reassigned to the sanctuary cities office. He's resigned, prompting alarm over how Trump may deploy tax enforcement against enemies. w/ Erin Slowey, David Voreacos news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...

📣 Since the response to my archive index of the CDC & FDA websites has been so positive, I'm tackling a much larger site: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The CMS site is 10x larger than either the CDC or FDA sites, so this may take awhile... acasignups.net/25/02/07/lin...

Scoop: DOJ tells all US attorneys to justify retaining any probationary employee who isn't working on immigration, national security or public safety cases. They have until Monday to explain why these recent hires should be allowed to keep their jobs. news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...

On the issue of NIH cutting indirect costs down to 15% (which has averaged 27% to 28% over time, according to their grants statement). What does this portend for the Trump 2.0's first budget proposal? some context 👇

More from @bgov.com’s Nancy Vu on RFK jr’s nomination moving to the Senate floor No floor vote scheduled, but Thune has generally been moving to confirm Trump’s cabinet picks swiftly (he laid out a pathway for it last month) news.bgov.com/bloomberg-go...

Several senators made statements after the vote. Cassidy was not one of them. However, he does have a statement on X.

So what commitments did Cassidy get from the White House and why does he have any confidence they will follow through on them?

Yes. I 've mentioned it before and it is so important. The government is filling in a key market failure and we still have huge gaps and needs to new antibiotics to address resistance etc.

Following up on RFK’s confirmation hearing comments in which he repeatedly said to senators that NIH spends so much money on infectious disease at the expense chronic disease. He told Sen. Collins yesterday (who is also chair of Appprops so obviously she knows how spending works)

RFK jr said he wants to spend about 20% of NIH’s budget on replication. Reproducibility is a well known challenge in research and NIH for sure but…that’s more than $9 billion a year on reproducibility, more than any one IC gets NCI gets about $7.2billion annually

Whenever NIH makes grant policy changes, they typically issue a notice explaining what’s up and why. But it looks like the freeze on public statements means they can’t talk about the impact of the federal funding freeze. Last update I see is Jan 13. grants.nih.gov/policy-and-c...

Happy covering RFK jr nomination hearings day (part one) to anyone who’s participating. We’ve got Nancy Vu & Ian Lopez on the ground for @bgov.com + Madison Muller for Bloomberg News (Neither are on Bluesky yet, but friendly reminder that I always love a good news tip!)

Lisa does a great job breaking down why a freeze on NIH grant reviews (among other things) is a really big deal that could have a domino effect and delaying medical research. 👇👇

JUST IN: Trump DOJ reassigns 2 civil rights officials to newly-formed sanctuary cities group, per five people familiar. They headed the appellate section, which adopts litigating stances on trans rights, policing, race discrimination, hate crimes. news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...

Do sanctions still count if you misspell the name of the country you’re sanctioning? …or is Columbia, Mo., (or S.C) in for one heckuva surprise? (To be fair, POTUS spelled it correctly in his post)

Late-night scoop DOROTHY FINK set to be interim HHS secretary while RFK Jr awaits confirmation HOUSTON PARK, retired Palm Beach County fire captain, is Trump’s pick to run health agency that leads emergency response JOHN KNOX, firefighter who sued over Los Angeles vax mandate, is Park’s deputy

Donald Trump will be at the zenith of his political power when he takes office, but the clock will also immediately start ticking on his second — and final — term.

Important issue here that could impact coverage/access to GLP-1s, if it’s considered a treatment for obesity (which has been classified as a disease since 2013 ) vs taking it for vanity reasons (hello MMA coverage bans)

NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli and NCI Director Kimryn Rathmell officially stepped down today as expected. Bertagnolli was the first woman to run NCI ever, and only the second Senate-confirmed woman to run NIH.

🧵As the Biden administration wraps up, my colleagues on the @bloomberglaw.com health team have conducted a flurry of exit interviews: 1) Califf reflects on his second tour as FDA commissioner. Nyah Phengsitthy has the story news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-a...

Hello! Going to try to be better about posting on here

Notice, this is targeting Medicare drug price negotiation (costing $20B): "Reform the Inflation Reduction Act’s prescription drug policies to discourage price setting on innovative drugs treating rare patient populations"