HHS Office ‘Looted’; COVID Vax Delay; NIH Grant Panel

HHS moved $12 million from its Office of Minority Health to help cover the rising cost of security for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Wall Street Journal)

A Washington meeting for Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement — which features speakers from the Trump administration — will be paid for by corporate sponsors such as Walmart and OpenAI. (Politico)

The CDC hasn’t initiated the process for states to order COVID shots through the Vaccines for Children program. (Wall Street Journal)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is trying to compel testimony from a “longtime former assistant” of Anthony Fauci, MD, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Two Democratic senators are pressing Kennedy on why HHS hasn’t released funding allotted to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) as the Sept. 30 fiscal year-end deadline looms.

Members of Congress are pushing back on reported Trump administration plans to create a panel of political appointees to sign off on all NIH grants. (STAT)

Heidi Overton, MD, PhD, President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the FDA, will appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee on Thursday.

Several senators introduced a bill to ban the corporate practice of medicine.

Some details of the Trump administration’s “Most Favored Nation” pricing negotiations with pharmaceutical companies have been revealed. They include inducements to raise drug prices overseas and promise protection from Trump’s tariffs. (Washington Post)

CMS has exempted some pharma companies from its Globe and Guard pricing demonstrations in Medicare because they agreed to provide additional drug rebates to the Medicaid program. (Endpoints News)

The agency is proposing to cut Medicare payments for lab tests, claiming it pays 16% more on average for such tests compared with private insurers.

Josh Denny, head of the NIH’s “All Of Us” genomic research program, has resigned after 6 years on the job, NIH announced. But the agency also filled a leadership position, appointing Jonathan Burke as head of the Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

A Senate bill to let consumers know where their drugs are manufactured has had several critical provisions deleted. (ProPublica)

Investors are now wading back into the market for drugs to treat rare diseases. (Wall Street Journal)