​BATON ROUGE, La. — The ambitious liver doctor would go just about anywhere in his home state to give people the hepatitis B vaccine.. This story also ran on Verite News. It can be republished for free.. Bill Cassidy offered jabs to thousands of inmates at Louisiana’s maximum-security prison in the early 2000s. A decade before that, he set up vaccine clinics in middle schools, a model hailed nationally as a success.. “He got that whole generation immunized in East Baton Rouge,” said Holley Galland, a retired doctor who worked with Cassidy vaccinating schoolchildren.. About the same time, a lawyer and environmental activist with a famous last name was starting to build the loyal anti-vaccine coalition that, two decades later, would move President Donald Trump to nominate him as the nation’s top health official.. Today, a year after now-Sen. Cassidy warily cast the vote that ensured Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ascension to that role, the Louisiana Republican’s life’s work — in medicine and in politics — is unraveling.. Newborn hepatitis B vaccination rates in the U.S. had plunged to 73% as of August, down 10 percentage points since a February 2023 high, according to research published in JAMA last month. In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices — remade by Kennedy — voted to revoke a two-decade-old recommendation that all newborns get the shot.. The next month, Trump endorsed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, a Cassidy challenger in what’s shaping up to be a competitive Republican Senate primary. Letlow’s foray into politics began in 2021 when she took the seat won by her husband, left vacant after he died from covid.. KFF Health News made multiple requests for comment from Cassidy over three months. His staff declined to make him available for an interview or provide comment. Letlow’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.. Email Sign-Up. Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free weekly newsletter, “The Week in Brief.”. Your Email Address Sign Up. Rise of the Skeptics. As the May primary nears, some Louisiana doctors are worried they’ve begun a long trek down a dark road when it comes to vaccine-preventable diseases.. Last year, on the day Kennedy was sworn in a thousand miles away in Washington, Louisiana’s health department stopped promoting vaccines, halting its clinics and advertising. Its communications about an ongoing whooping cough outbreak in the state have nearly ceased. It took months for the state to announce last year that two infants had died from the illness. A Louisiana child’s death from the flu was confirmed this January, and a couple of cases of measles were reported last year.. Spokespeople for the Louisiana Department of Health did not respond to questions.. “It’s so hard to see children get sick from illnesses that they should have never gotten in the first place,” said Mikki Bouquet, a pediatrician in Baton Rouge. “You want  

​The Host. Julie Rovner. KFF Health News. @jrovner. @julierovner.bsky.social. Read Julie’s stories.. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z,” now in its third edition.. This month marks host Julie Rovner’s 40th anniversary reporting on health policy in Washington. Over that time, she’s covered a vast range of topics, from the response to the AIDS epidemic, to Medicare and Medicaid changes, to the fight over the “Patients’ Bill of Rights” — and a half-dozen major reform fights, including the introduction of the Affordable Care Act and the efforts to repeal it.. In honor of the occasion, Rovner invited two of her longtime sources to chat about what has — and has not — changed in health policy over the past four decades.. Email Sign-Up. Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.. Your Email Address Sign Up. Click to open the transcript Transcript: 40 Years of Health Policy. [Editor’s note: This transcript was generated using both transcription software and a human’s light touch. It has been edited for style and clarity.]. Julie Rovner: Hello from KFF Health News and WAMU Public Radio in Washington, D.C. Welcome to What the Health? I’m Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News. Usually we’re joined by some of the best reporters covering Washington, but today we’re bringing you something special. I hope you enjoy it. We’re taping this episode on Friday, Feb. 27, at 4 p.m. As always, news happens fast, and things might have changed by the time you hear this. So here we go.. I have two special guests today, who I will introduce in a moment. But first I’m going to explain why I chose them. I started reporting on health policy in 1986, covering health and welfare on Capitol Hill and at the Department of Health and Human Services for what was then the Congressional Quarterly “Weekly Report.” This month marks my 40th anniversary on the health beat, and as anniversaries so often do, it got me thinking about everything I’ve seen and covered, including a half a dozen major health reform fights, a dozen budget reconciliation bills, years-long fights over everything from the Patients’ Bill of Rights and human cloning to bioterrorism and a pandemic. It also got me thinking about where I thought the U.S. health system would be four decades after I began, and where it actually is. And I thought it might be fun to reminisce with a couple of people who not only were there when I started, but who also taught me a lot of what I know. So without further ado, let me introduce my guests. Chip Kahn just stepped down as president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals after 25 years in that post. Chip previously worked in both the House and the Senate for the major h  

​MINNEAPOLIS. — Gabi tiene grandes ojos color café, trenzas y una afección genética que hace que sus huesos sean frágiles. Se fracturan con facilidad, lo que le provoca a la niña de 2 años tanto dolor que su madre dejó su trabajo limpiando oficinas para quedarse en casa y cargarla por el apartamento de una habitación que comparten con seis familiares.. Sobre Noticias En Español. Noticias en español es una sección de KFF Health News que contiene traducciones de artículos de gran interés para la comunidad hispanohablante, y contenido original enfocado en la población hispana que vive en los Estados Unidos.. Use Nuestro Contenido. Este contenido puede usarse de manera gratuita.. Detalles. Hablemos de Salud. Forma parte del grupo de Facebook de KFF Health News en español KFF Health News-Hablemos de Salud”.. KFF Health News – Hablemos de Salud. Cuando agentes federales de inmigración llegaron a su ciudad, deportaron primero al padre de Gabi y luego a su tía.. Gabi nació en Estados Unidos y es ciudadana estadounidense. Su mejor oportunidad de algún día pararse, o incluso caminar, es una cirugía compleja en las piernas y los pies que estaba programada para enero.. Pero su madre, quien está tan asustada que ni siquiera se anima a sacar la basura, y mucho menos a atravesar la ciudad hasta el hospital, canceló el procedimiento. (En este artículo, KFF Health News y NPR acordaron identificar solo parcialmente a los pacientes y a sus familias porque temen convertirse en blanco de la ofensiva migratoria del presidente Donald Trump).. “Quiero más que nada, mi deseo, es que mi bebé empiece a caminar”, dijo su madre, mientras Gabi se movía en sus brazos, con una sonda de alimentación que salía de su estómago conectada a un soporte de suero intravenoso. “Pero con la situación que está pasando, cancelé la cita de cirugía porque le van a hacer cirugía en sus piernas y todas las citas de terapia física; lo cancelé todo. Porque tengo miedo de salir”.. El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS, por sus siglas en inglés) declaró el fin de lo que llamó Operation Metro Surge (Operación Metro Surge), llevada a cabo por agentes del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE, por sus siglas en inglés) y de la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza (CBP, por sus siglas en inglés). Aun así, trabajadores de salud dicen que los agentes de inmigración siguen apostados en los estacionamientos de hospitales. Y drones sobrevuelan zonas agrícolas en las afueras de Minneapolis, donde inmigrantes somalíes y latinos se han establecido en los últimos años.. La ofensiva en Minnesota mostró el alcance del sistema de vigilancia y detención que la administración Trump está utilizando para desarraigar a comunidades inmigrantes del país y su fuerte impacto en el sistema de salud.. Crisis de salud similares surgieron dondequiera que se concentraron oficiales de inmigración en el último año.. En Dallas, clínicas  

​Tighter regulations and an influx of federal money in recent years have helped communities across the U.S. initiate efforts to clean up lead contamination in soil, drinking water, and older homes. But Congress and the Trump administration have partially rolled back those rules and resources, potentially making it more challenging for cash-strapped cities and towns to undertake sweeping lead remediation programs.. This story also ran on Verite News. It can be republished for free.. That’s the case in New Orleans, where an investigation by Verite News found high lead levels in about half of the playgrounds on city property and found detectable levels of the toxic metal in most homes that tested their drinking water in a voluntary program.. No level of lead exposure is safe, according to federal environmental officials, but undertaking a comprehensive cleanup can be financially prohibitive. New Orleans is facing a $220 million budget deficit that has led to city employee furloughs and layoffs.. Congress allocated $15 billion over five years to lead pipe replacement under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a Biden-era measure set to expire at the end of this year. In 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency also tightened the standards for lead-contaminated soil for the first time in 30 years and mandated that water systems replace all lead service lines by late 2037.. But a spending package passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in January redirected $125 million of that lead remediation money to wildfire prevention. And since October, the EPA has partially rolled back protections against soil contamination, raising the federal hazard level in urban areas and the threshold for removing contaminated soil.. Tom Neltner, the national director of the nonprofit advocacy group Unleaded Kids, said it was the first time an administration had loosened the limits on lead in soil.. “ We’ve seen the Trump administration say positive things about its commitment to lead but then take actions that undermine that,” Neltner said.. But, he added, progress is still being made in some communities.. EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch said the changes made under the Trump administration have reduced confusion and uncertainty that could hamper cleanup efforts.. “The Trump EPA’s record on protecting Americans — especially American children — from lead is unmatched,” Hirsch said in an emailed statement. “In just the last year, the Trump EPA backed up its commitment to reducing lead exposure in children with BILLIONS of dollars and historic action.”. She cited a November EPA announcement of $3 billion available to pay for water pipe replacement. That money is from the 2021 infrastructure law passed during the Biden administration.. Verite News spoke with people in Michigan, Indiana, and Rhode Island to learn how they addressed their lead pollution, with the aim of finding options that could be applied in New Orleans and other cities..  

​KFF Health News Southern California correspondent Claudia Boyd-Barrett discussed how family members and lawyers of those in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody are struggling to find them in California hospitals on CapRadio’s Insight With Vicki Gonzalez on Feb. 25.. Click here to hear Boyd-Barrett on Insight With Vicki Gonzalez.. Read Boyd-Barrett’s “‘I Can’t Tell You’: Attorneys, Relatives Struggle To Find Hospitalized ICE Detainees.”. Céline Gounder, KFF Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed the neurodegenerative disease ALS on CBS News’ CBS Mornings on Feb. 20.. Click here to watch Gounder on CBS Mornings.. KFF Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed Elyse Stevens, a New Orleans doctor who faced investigation because of her patient-centered approach to substance use disorders, on The Lens’ Behind The Lens podcast on Feb. 20.. Click here to hear Pattani on Behind The Lens.. Read Pattani’s “Inside the Battle for the Future of Addiction Medicine.”. KFF Health News chief rural correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble discussed major cuts to Medicaid on WBUR’s Here & Now on Feb. 19. Tribble also discussed Alabama’s plan for robotic ultrasounds on The Daily Yonder’s The Yonder Report on Feb. 19.. Click here to hear Tribble on Here & Now.. Click here to hear Tribble on The Yonder Report.. Read Tribble’s “Alabama’s ‘Pretty Cool’ Plan for Robots in Maternity Care Sparks Debate.”. Related Topics. Medicaid. Public Health. States. Alabama. Doctors. Hospitals. Immigrants. Mississippi. Pregnancy. Trump Administration. Contact Us Submit a Story Tip