The Host
President Donald Trump this week nominated a former deputy surgeon general who has expressed support for vaccines to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Considered a more traditional fit for the job, Erica Schwartz would be the agency’s fourth leader in roughly a year, should she be confirmed by the Senate.
And Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on Capitol Hill this week in the first of several hearings discussing Trump’s budget request for the department. But the topics up for discussion deviated quite a bit from the subject of federal funding, with lawmakers raising issues of Medicaid fraud, measles outbreaks, the hepatitis B vaccine, peptides, unaccompanied minors, and much, much more.
This week’s panelists are Mary Agnes Carey of KFF Health News, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Emmarie Huetteman of KFF Health News, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine.
Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:
- Trump on Thursday named four officials to the CDC’s leadership team. Schwartz, whom he picked as director, is a physician and Navy officer who served as a deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first term. She has voiced support for vaccines and played a key role in the covid-19 pandemic response.
- RFK Jr. testified before three committees of the House of Representatives this week on the president’s budget request for HHS. While the hearings touched on a wide variety of topics, notable moments included a slight softening of Kennedy’s stance on the measles vaccine, including the acknowledgment that being immunized is safer than having measles — although he also stood by the decision to remove the recommendation for the newborn dose of the hepatitis B vaccine.
- New studies on the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and the effects of water fluoridation on cognitive function refute Trump administration claims. And a White House meeting that brought together Trump, Kennedy, and other leaders of the Make America Healthy Again movement aimed to soothe concerns among supporters — yet there’s reason to believe the overture won’t completely mend fences between the Trump administration and the MAHA constituency ahead of the midterm elections.
Also this week, KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner interviews Michelle Canero, an immigration attorney, about how the Trump administration’s policies affect the medical workforce.
Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read (or wrote) this week that they think you should read, too:
Mary Agnes Carey: Politico’s “‘A Crisis in the Making’: Nebraska Races To Impose Work Requirements on Medicaid,” by Alice Miranda Ollstein.
Joanne Kenen: The New York Times’ “He Warned About the Dangers of A.I. If Only His Father Had Listened,” by Teddy Rosenbluth.
Anna Edney: Bloomberg’s “Hormone Drugs Make $6.3 Billion Comeback After FDA Nixes Safety Warnings,” by Anna Edney.
Emmarie Huetteman: KFF Health News’ “Your New Therapist: Chatty, Leaky, and Hardly Human,” by Darius Tahir.
Also mentioned in this week’s podcast:
- JAMA Pediatrics’ “Acetaminophen Exposure During Pregnancy and the Risk of Autism in Offspring,” by Kira Philipsen Prahm, Pingnan Chen, Line Rode, et al.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ “Municipal Water Fluoridation, Adolescent IQ, and Cognition Across the Life Course: Evidence From the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study,” by John Robert Warren, Gina Rumore, Kamil Sicinski, and Michal Engelman.
- KFF Health News’ “Pennsylvania Town Faces Fallout From Trump’s Environmental Rule Rollback,” by Stephanie Armour and Maia Rosenfeld.
- The New York Times’ “In Private Meeting, Trump Soothes Disenchanted MAHA Leaders,” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg.
- Wakely Consulting Group’s “Who Paid, and Who Stayed? Early 2026 Enrollment Trends in the Individual Market,” by Michelle Anderson, Chia Yi Chin, and Michael Cohen.
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