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Politico
15 hours ago
- Health
- Politico
Kennedy's plan to ‘fix' vaccine injury compensation
With help from Carmen Paun Driving the Day WHAT IS VICP? Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took to the social media platform X on Monday — as well as conservative activist Charlie Kirk's show — to promote his plan to 'fix' the system that HHS uses to compensate people injured by vaccines. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has long been a target of Kennedy's ire, and now, he plans major changes to it. I spoke with POLITICO's Lauren Gardner, who covers the program closely, about how it operates and what we know so far about Kennedy's plans. Here's our conversation, edited for length and clarity. Why was the VICP created and how does it work? Congress created the VICP in 1986 after a series of lawsuits against vaccine makers prompted many of them to pull out of the market. Lawmakers worked with companies, public health advocates and parents who said their children were vaccine-injured to establish a no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system. Under the program, drugmakers' liability is limited, and compensation from an industry-funded tax is available with a lower burden of proof. The intention was to reduce the uncertainty for everyone involved and ensure the stability of the domestic supply of childhood vaccines. To be considered for compensation, a petitioner must file a claim generally within three years of the injury's onset. If the person's injury is listed on a table of injuries presumed to be caused by a given vaccine during a certain timeframe, it's typically easier for them to win compensation; otherwise, they must show their injury was 'more likely than not' caused by the immunization. Kennedy has repeatedly critiqued the program. What does he say is the issue? Some of the secretary's problems with the program are shared by public health experts and, unsurprisingly, vaccine injury lawyers who say the process has become more adversarial in recent years and can take many years to resolve. On the latter point, legal experts point to the law's limit on the number of 'special masters' — essentially judges who consider these cases — at the vaccine court as something Kennedy can't address without Congress. However, Kennedy also made several false or misleading claims Monday, including stating that 'the act has changed' so that the vaccine court is the 'exclusive remedy' for families who might prefer to sue drugmakers in state court. They can do that — as he should know, given his work as an injury lawyer outside of the program — but they have to exhaust their claim at the VICP first. What details do we have about how Kennedy wants to 'fix' VICP? Kennedy didn't say anything new about his plans in Monday's interview. So far, we know he wants to increase the statute of limitations and to somehow compensate people injured by Covid-19 vaccines via the VICP; they currently fall under a separate program that's been widely panned as ineffective. Kennedy specifically referenced a 1995 change to the vaccine injury table's definition of encephalopathy, a broad term for brain dysfunction, that he said 'made it so there's no way you can prove' it was caused by a vaccine. He called the program a 'heartless system that is designed to deny vaccine injury and to deny compensation to people who badly need it, and we are about to fix all that.' He also namechecked Attorney General Pam Bondi as someone who's working with him on this, so since the Justice Department works with HHS to administer the VICP, we could see changes come from that side of Washington, too. WELCOME TO TUESDAY PULSE. Glad to be back in your inbox after taking some time off last week. What are you watching this week before the Senate heads out? Send your tips, scoops and feedback to khooper@ and sgardner@ and follow along @kelhoops and @sophie_gardnerj. AROUND THE AGENCIES PREMIUM RISES — Medicare drug plan premiums are expected to rise next year, according to the 2026 preliminary rate information for Medicare's prescription drug program released by CMS. The agency is projecting the average base premium will be $38.99, a slight increase from 2025's average base premium of $36.78, POLITICO's Robert King reports. CMS said it worked with insurers to blunt larger premium hikes from plans. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the rate release. 'Following these negotiations, CMS approved some revised bids and, for the first time, rejected standalone [prescription drug plan] bids that failed to address concerns regarding significant year-over-year premium increases,' the agency said in a release. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act included several major changes to Part D, chief among them a $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket drug costs. CMS was concerned that Medicare Part D plans would raise premiums to compensate for the changes. Key context: Last year, the agency sought to blunt the premium impact through a $5 billion program that's expected to end after 2027. It provided insurers who signed with an additional $15 per member per month. Insurers will still receive extra money, but only $10. It will also increase the limit on a plan's total Part D monthly premium from $35 to $50. CMS said the changes will result in approximately $3.6 billion in additional Medicare payments for 2026, a 42 percent reduction compared to 2025 costs. GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS IN DRUG-USE SURVEY — The percentage of teenagers who seriously considered suicide declined between 2021 and 2024, Carmen reports. That's according to the Annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which reflects 2024 data, that HHS's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, published Monday. The good news: The percentage of teens who made a suicide plan over the past year dropped from 6.2 percent in 2021 to 4.6 percent in 2024, according to the survey, which relies on self-reported data. And the percentage of teens who attempted suicide decreased from 3.6 percent in 2021 to 2.7 percent in 2024. The use of certain drugs also declined in teenagers and adults, with reported prescription opioid misuse lowering from 3 percent in 2021 to 2.6 percent in 2024. The bad news: The percentage of people ages 12 and older who reported having a drug use disorder in the past year increased from 8.7 percent in 2021 to 9.8 percent in 2024. The use of marijuana increased from 19 percent in 2021 to just over 22 percent last year. So did the use of hallucinogens, also known as psychedelics, with 3.6 percent reporting using them last year compared with 2.7 percent in 2021. Why it matters: In response to the country's mental health and drug use crises that worsened during the pandemic, federal officials and lawmakers have made efforts to regulate social media use and expand access to substance use disorder treatment. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's in long-term recovery from past opioid use, has promoted the ban of cellphone use in schools and healthier food to improve children and teens' wellbeing. HHS LAUNCHES HEP C PILOT — SAMHSA has put $100 million into a pilot program focusing on hepatitis C in people with a substance use disorder, a serious mental illness or both, Carmen reports. State and community-based organizations are among the entities that can apply for funding from the program, which 'is designed to support communities severely affected by homelessness and to gain insights on effective ways to identify patients, complete treatment, cure infections, and reduce' hepatitis C reinfection, HHS said in a statement Monday. HHS hailed the pilot program as 'a significant accomplishment in President Trump's agenda to Make America Healthy Again … This upfront investment is a common-sense and scientifically driven initiative projected to both save lives and save community health care costs in the long run.' The CDC estimates that between 2.4 million and 4 million people in the U.S. had hepatitis C between 2017 and 2020. The disease is an inflammation of the liver, caused mainly by a viral infection that can progress to severe liver disease or liver cancer if left untreated, according to the World Health Organization. Oral medication can treat and cure the disease if taken for eight to 12 weeks, but greater access to treatment is needed to achieve disease elimination, according to former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, who has advocated for the cause as former President Joe Biden's science adviser. WHAT WE'RE READING POLITICO's Maya Kaufman reports that the Justice Department has launched an antitrust probe into New York-Presbyterian, one of the nation's largest hospitals. STAT's Anil Oza reports on a new analysis that outlines what the Trump administration's proposed cuts to the NIH could mean long-term.
Politico
6 days ago
- Health
- Politico
The GOP's Obamacare problem
Presented by With help from Carmen Paun and Erin Schumaker Driving the Day KILLING THE BUZZ? Republicans might unwittingly undermine the growing popularity of a first-term Trump policy that encourages Obamacare sign-ups, Kelly reports. In 2019, the first Trump administration finalized a rule permitting employers to offer their workers a tax credit to purchase health insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchange in lieu of offering them a group plan. Few employers initially took up the offer, but the high costs and administrative burden that come with providing traditional group plans have lately prompted more companies to adopt the arrangements, health insurance brokers told POLITICO. Republicans favor the policy, called Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements, because it promotes individual choice in health coverage. Democrats don't mind it either because it bolsters Obamacare. And employers are growing more interested: ICHRA adoption has surged more than 1,000 percent since 2020, according to an HRA Council report. But major obstacles threaten its course. Why it matters: Changes to the ACA in Republicans' recently enacted megabill, the expiration of enhanced federal Obamacare subsidies at year's end and a new Trump administration marketplace rule could lead to fewer young and healthy people in the ACA market and higher premiums. The blend of federal policies could make offering ICHRAs much less attractive for employers, policy experts said. 'For that to be a viable option for the employer to do, the individual market has to be a sustainable, viable market to send your workers to,' said Cori Uccello, a senior health fellow at the American Academy of Actuaries. Key context: Republicans argue the new policies, some of which crack down on ACA enrollment verification, are necessary to address widespread broker and enrollment fraud, even if the changes mean a less stable marketplace with higher premiums. 'I don't think we want a structure where there's millions of people who are receiving subsidies that they don't qualify for,' said Brian Blase, president of the right-leaning Paragon Health Institute and a former Trump adviser who was one of the architects of the ICHRA policy. An earlier version of the GOP megabill that passed the House would have codified the ICHRA policy into statute and offered tax incentives to employers choosing to adopt the arrangements. The provisions were ultimately stripped from the final version of the bill, but Blase and other ICHRA proponents still hope Congress will pass the provisions in a future spending bill or a bipartisan standalone health care package. And state lawmakers nationwide are promoting the policy, too, introducing and passing legislation to incentivize uptake. Even so: Policy experts said the efforts are ill-fated, given the spate of Republican-led policy changes expected to weaken the Obamacare marketplace and increase premium costs over the next few years. 'ICHRAs are only going to be as attractive as the individual market is attractive,' said Ellen Montz, a managing director with advisory firm Manatt Health and a former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services official during the Biden administration. WELCOME TO THURSDAY PULSE. President Donald Trump's plans for artificial intelligence include a push to grow AI adoption in health care. Send your tips, scoops and feedback to khooper@ and sgardner@ and follow along @kelhoops and @sophie_gardnerj. MORNING MONEY: CAPITAL RISK — POLITICO's flagship financial newsletter has a new Friday edition built for the economic era we're living in: one shaped by political volatility, disruption and a wave of policy decisions with sector-wide consequences. Each week, Morning Money: Capital Risk brings sharp reporting and analysis on how political risk is moving markets and how investors are adapting. Want to know how health care regulation, tariffs or court rulings could ripple through the economy? Start here. In Congress CHRISTINE GETS A VOTE — A key Senate committee will vote today on whether to advance President Donald Trump's nomination of Dr. Brian Christine to serve as one of the highest-ranking HHS officials. Christine, a men's sexual health doctor and a longtime GOP donor, faced the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee last week for a confirmation hearing to be assistant HHS secretary for health. During the hearing, Christine positioned himself as a 'main street doctor' with a direct link to the patient experience, noting his alignment with the Make America Healthy Again movement to combat chronic disease and his opposition to gender-affirming care. He received little pushback from Republicans on the HELP Committee and endured an expected probe from Democrats — who tried to make him answer for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s fringe views or Trump's Medicaid cuts. Why it matters: If confirmed by the full Senate, Christine would be charged with overseeing the uniformed public health service and helping carry out Kennedy's public health agenda. The assistant secretary for health advises the HHS secretary and recommends policy related to public health matters like disease prevention, vaccine programs and health disparities. What's next: If the committee approves Christine's nomination today, it will advance to the full Senate floor for a vote. PUBLIC OPINION ON THE BBB — Nearly half of Americans believe the GOP's recently enacted 'big, beautiful bill' will hurt them, according to a new poll from health policy think tank KFF. About a quarter of adults — including more than half of Republicans — believe the law will help them, according to the poll. People identifying as supporters of President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again movement were over five times more likely to say the law will help their families than hurt them. The remaining quarter said they don't expect to be affected by the law. Background: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes key components of Trump's domestic agenda, like tax cuts and border security, and is estimated to reduce health care spending by more than $1 trillion, with most of those cuts coming from Medicaid, the health insurance program serving more than 70 million low-income Americans. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that about 10 million people could lose health insurance as a result of the changes in the megabill, which also includes changes to the Affordable Care Act. Two-thirds of Medicaid enrollees said the law will hurt their families, according to the poll. The survey was conducted from July 8 to 14, online and by telephone, among a nationally representative sample of 1,283 U.S. adults. In the States 'MAHA WINS' IN IDAHO — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held an event with Idaho's Republican Gov. Brad Little on Wednesday to celebrate new initiatives in the state his office dubbed 'MAHA wins,' Carmen reports. The measures include the Agriculture Department approving the state's waiver to allow Idaho to exclude soda and candy from items that can be purchased with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. They also touted a bill the governor signed into law in April barring businesses, schools and other entities from restricting entry, services or employment based on requirements to be vaccinated or undergo certain medical tests or treatments. 'I'm very happy to be here in Idaho, which is the home of medical freedom, home of good health,' Kennedy said. Why it matters: The Idaho visit is part of a tour Kennedy has embarked on across Republican-led states to highlight state legislation in line with his Make America Healthy Again movement. Today, he'll visit the Nez Perce Tribe in Lenore, Idaho, where he'll discuss with tribe leaders 'the importance of preserving traditional foods and the role they play in combating chronic disease,' according to HHS. At the Agencies MICROSOFT HACK HITS NIH — The National Institutes of Health is among the victims of a breach of Microsoft's SharePoint collaboration software, HHS confirmed to POLITICO on Wednesday, Erin reports. 'The Department and its security teams are actively engaged in monitoring, identifying and mitigating all risks to our IT systems posed by the Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability,' HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement. 'At present, we have no indication that any information was breached as a result of this vulnerability,' Nixon said. 'HHS takes the protection of our information, systems and networks seriously, and are handling this issue with the utmost diligence and care.' Big picture: Microsoft first reported the widespread cyberattack, which has impacted dozens of organizations globally, on Saturday. On Tuesday, the company confirmed in a blog post that three Chinese hacking groups, known as Violet Typhoon, Linen Typhoon and Storm-2603, were among those behind the attack. Multiple federal agencies are believed to have been breached, while more have yet to be fully investigated. The SharePoint breach is considered severe because it lets hackers remotely access Microsoft users' self-hosted versions of the service. Once inside, hackers can go deeper into the users' networks to access sensitive material. Versions of the software hosted on the cloud are not vulnerable to the attack. The Washington Post first reported that NIH was involved in the breach. OZ ON THE HILL — Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz defended the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's steep Medicaid cuts during a closed-door meeting with House Ways and Means Democrats and Republicans today, framing them as efforts to curb 'waste, fraud and abuse,' POLITICO's Robert King reports. The $1 trillion in health spending reductions projected by the CBO — mostly cuts from Medicaid — sparked skepticism from Democrats, who warned of coverage losses, especially under new work requirements for some able-bodied adults. Oz argued that those losing Medicaid could shift to other insurance, while critics said most affected already work and predicted enrollment drops tied to red tape. CMS did not return a request for comment on the roundtable. Names in the News Tony Dieste has been named chief marketing officer at health care technology company Dieste is the founder and chair of Dieste, Inc. WHAT WE'RE READING POLITICO's Kimberly Leonard and Arek Sarkissian report on the abortion rights fight at the center of the Florida Democratic governor primary. POLITICO's Katherine Tully-McManus reports on the House Appropriations Committee approving a bill that cuts funding for the State Department and foreign-aid programs by 22 percent. The New York Times' Stephanie Nolen reports on the U.S. quietly drafting plans to end a federal program that saved millions from AIDS.
Politico
22-05-2025
- Health
- Politico
Organ-chips not ready to replace animal studies
Presented by EXAM ROOM One of the cutting-edge technologies the Food and Drug Administration wants to use to replace animal studies might not be ready for a solo performance. Organ-on-a-chip technology, which uses human cells on microfluidic chips to mimic the structure and function of organs in a laboratory setting, can't yet replace animal tests, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. Standing in the way: Challenges include cost, availability of materials, a time-intensive process and the need for highly trained staff to operate the technology. OOCs aren't standardized, which makes reproducibility difficult. The National Institute of Standards and Technology told the GAO that standards are needed, particularly for multi-organ chips, but the technology is evolving too rapidly to set them. The report also highlights a lack of agreed-upon benchmarks for OOCs and validation studies. However, OOCs could work alongside animal studies, particularly for exploring toxicity, the GAO said. It also found that OOCs could be used in lieu of animal studies for certain standardized tests, for example, to assess skin damage from a compound. Some recommendations: GAO called for policies that: — Increase access to diverse, high-quality human cells — Create standards around the technology — Encourage more research and validation studies — Provide regulatory guidance Notably, it said companies were confused about FDA guidance regarding OOCs. And as of the end of last year, the agency hadn't qualified an OOC for use in regulatory review. However, the FDA's Innovative Science and Technology Approaches for New Drugs pilot program accepted a letter of intent for an OOC that would eventually predict drug-induced liver injury. What's next: 'Body-on-a-chip' is coming. Instead of chips with single organs, the next generation of OOCs will link multiple organs, including intestines, livers and kidneys— to understand how they interact. WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Kids advocacy group Fairplay and the Electronic Privacy Information Center are asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether a new kid-focused release of Google's AI chatbot Gemini is violating children privacy laws. Google says the technology is available through parent-supervised accounts and parents are free to disable it. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Danny Nguyen at dnguyen@ Carmen Paun at cpaun@ Ruth Reader at rreader@ or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@ Want to share a tip securely? Message us on Signal: Dannyn516.70, CarmenP.82, RuthReader.02 or ErinSchumaker.01. AROUND THE NATION States are increasingly interested in making Apple and Google responsible for protecting kids from online harms. Texas is poised to be the second state to require app stores, like Apple's App Store and Google's Google Play store, to verify their users' ages and — if they're minors — get parental consent to download apps. In March, Utah became the first state to sign an app store age-verification bill into law. The bill sailed through the Texas House with support from 80 percent of the state Legislature and passed in the Senate by voice vote last week. Now it's awaiting Governor Greg Abbott's signature. In practice, app stores must verify a user's age. If the user is a minor, the app store must obtain parental consent for each app download. The app stores would then relay this information to the app developer, because some apps provide different experiences based on age. However, certain apps like crisis hotlines and emergency services won't require parental consent. Pushback: Google isn't happy about the bill's advancement (Apple also opposes this legislation). In particular, the company says there's no commercially reasonable way to verify who a child's parent is. 'Will they need to show a birth certificate or custody document to demonstrate that they have the legal authority to make decisions on behalf of a child?' asked Kareem Ghanem, Google's Senior Director of Government Affairs & Public Policy. Google prefers a targeted approach: Send 'an age signal' with explicit parental consent only to developers whose apps pose risks to minors. But such picking and choosing could open this legislation up to legal scrutiny. Long-time concerns: Doctors, including former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy; parents; and even kids are frustrated with the state of online media. For years, growing evidence has suggested that social media apps wear on kids' mental health. But social media platforms enjoy protections from a decades-old law that prevents them from being sued their platforms' content. And states like California and Maryland that have tried to put guardrails on social media have been sued for blocking free speech. Legal challenges: Requiring app stores to verify ages isn't likely run into First Amendment issues. What's more, the policy rests on a fairly well-established legal foundation: contract law. For years, app stores have required minors to sign lengthy contracts — the ones most people don't read — before creating accounts, and legally, it can't do that. Minors can sign contracts but they aren't legally enforceable. App store age-verification laws, however, require sign-off from a legal guardian. Supporters hope app store accountability laws will provide a first-line defense, funneling more kids into parent-linked app store accounts. It could also render the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which limits the amount of data that apps and websites can collect on children under 13, more enforceable. However, the law doesn't change social media or the risks associated with those platforms. What's next: As more states take up app-store age verification, federal lawmakers considering similar legislation are likely to feel more pressure to prioritize it.
Politico
19-03-2025
- Health
- Politico
Google embraces health care's AI agentic era
TECH MAZE Google is betting big on bots. The company is working on several initiatives that give doctors and researchers access to AI agents built on large language models that can review scientific journals more quickly than humans and advise on research proposals, patient diagnoses and treatment options. This use of bots as agents is referred to as agentic AI. Developing new therapies: The newest of the bots is TxGemma, a collection of language models aimed at helping pharmaceutical companies with drug discovery. Google announced the initiative Tuesday at its annual Check-Up event in New York City. TxGemma is based on Google's Gemini artificial intelligence chatbot, a general-purpose large language model. Jöelle Barral, senior director of research and engineering at Google Deepmind, the company's artificial intelligence laboratory, said that developers can use TxGemma to build products that can answer questions about a gene's relationship to disease, a drug's potential for toxicity, and whether a drug would likely clear a clinical trial. Researchers can also ask Gemma-bots to explain their reasoning and how they arrived at specific answers — opening up the algorithm's black box. Acquiring patient data previsit: The company's other bets are more focused on patient care. Google has deployed its Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston as part of a prospective study to explore how well AMIE can collect information from patients before their visit and what role it can best play in patient care. Google also has a 'co-scientist' — a Gemini-based chatbot to help researchers review scientific literature, reach a hypothesis and even compose potential research proposals. Customizing tools for doctors and patients: Google is helping doctors design tools for their own purposes. At the Netherlands' Princess Maxima Center, doctors built a bot called Capricorn, using Gemini, that helps them pick personalized cancer treatments for kids. One doctor from Princess Maxima said the task once took him two to three days to complete, but 'now it takes 40 seconds.' Meanwhile, the American Cancer Society is using Gemini as the basis for a bot called Ana that's designed to answer basic questions patients have about their cancer diagnosis, their treatments and where to find social support resources. Why it matters: AI is moving fast in health care, and Google seems eager to develop a go-to assistant for doctors, researchers and, now, drug developers. WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Nursing unions are pushing back against AI health care workers, the Associated Press reports. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@ Daniel Payne at dpayne@ Ruth Reader at rreader@ or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@ Are you a current or former federal worker who wants to share a tip securely? Message us on Signal: CarmenP.82, DanielP.100, RuthReader.02 or ErinSchumaker.01. FORWARD THINKING For years, Congress has extended pandemic-era telehealth rules without making them permanent. Lawmakers opted for another short-term solution earlier this month, extending the pandemic policies through September. But some health providers and remote care-related businesses are tired of the short-term stopgaps. Jiang Li, CEO of remote patient-monitoring company Vivalink, said in a statement that 'progress will stall' without a long-term policy strategy that would allow providers to invest in new methods to offer care. The chance the pandemic rules could change or lapse in a fight over government funding could discourage further investment. Even so: Concerns about stalled progress from Congress' last-minute, short-term fixes have been shared on the Hill before — and remote care has continued to boom. Why it matters: The rise of telehealth, hospital-at-home programs and other remote care services represents significant transformation in how patients experience health care today. How policymakers handle remote care could determine access to — and the cost of — care in the coming decades.
Politico
12-03-2025
- Health
- Politico
Seeking: Responsible AI worldwide
WORLD VIEW The World Health Organization will team up with a Dutch university to help its member countries adopt responsible artificial intelligence technologies, the global health body said earlier this month. The WHO has designated a research center at Delft University of Technology as a WHO Collaborating Centre on AI for health governance. The Digital Ethics Centre in the Netherlands will research key AI health applications and help inform the WHO's guidance and policies on the technology. Why it matters: The global health body said AI has the potential to reshape health care, save lives and improve health and well-being. But for that to happen, ethical safeguards must be included and evidence-based policies must be followed, the WHO said. The WHO and the United Nations, its parent organization, aim to ensure that developing and wealthy countries benefit from the rapid development and adoption of AI while algorithms adhere to local laws without harming the public's health. WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Robots could help parents have better conversations with their children, according to a small study published today in Science Robotics. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@ Daniel Payne at dpayne@ Ruth Reader at rreader@ or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@ FORWARD THINKING Chronic disease rates among children may be higher than previously believed, according to new research published in Academic Pediatrics. The share of people ages 5-25 with one or more chronic diseases rose from nearly 23 percent from 1999 to 2000 to more than 30 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to the researchers, from UCLA and Harvard. A few diagnoses are behind the larger swell, researchers found: ADHD, ADD, autism, asthma, prediabetes, depression and anxiety. 'It is incumbent for the U.S. health system to seek ways to treat these patients in pediatric settings and eventually matriculate them into adult care,' the researchers wrote. Why it matters: The incoming administration's health work, led by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., promises to focus on better understanding and treating chronic diseases. President Donald Trump created the Make America Healthy Again Commission, headed by Kennedy, to spearhead the work across agencies. Even so: Kennedy has for years spread baseless claims about the cause of the rising chronic disease rates in kids — and that may influence the administration's approach to tackling the problem.
