Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
US Did Not Destroy $10 Million Worth Of Contraceptives, Belgium Says
U.S.-funded contraceptives and medicines valued at nearly $10 million remain in a Belgian warehouse despite reports of their destruction, a spokesperson for Belgium's environment ministry said in a statement on Friday. ... On Friday morning, Flemish Environment Minister Jo Brouns, who is responsible for the matter, sent an inspection team to the warehouse in Geel, in the province of Antwerp, following a New York Times report on Thursday that the supplies had been destroyed. "The Enforcement Division of the Department of Environment carried out on-site inspections this morning and confirmed that no shipments have been transported for incineration," a spokesperson for Brouns said. (Van Campenhout and Kannampilly, 9/12)
More than 70 reproductive groups are asking the Trump administration to call off the planned destruction of roughly $10 million of usable birth control products. Planned Parenthood is leading the most recent charge to save the contraceptives and sent a letter Friday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio with 77 co-signers. In the letter, the groups write that they “strongly oppose” the administration’s “cruel and wasteful” decision to incinerate the commodities. (O’Connell-Domenech, 9/12)
On the immigration crisis —
A federal judge on Thursday issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against a directive from the Trump administration banning children who lack permanent legal status from enrolling in Head Start. The ruling came after Head Start associations in multiple states sued over the Trump change from this spring. (Lonas Cochran, 9/12)
On prescription drug advertising —
The Food and Drug Administration has warned Hims & Hers, a major telehealth purveyor of widely popular obesity drugs, to stop “false or misleading” marketing, according to a copy of a letter sent to the company and obtained by The New York Times. The F.D.A.’s letter was one of about 100 warning letters sent to drug advertisers this week. (Jewett, Robbins and Blum, 9/12)
An effort by President Trump’s administration to curb advertising for pharmaceutical drugs on television is posing a potential marketing hurdle for some of the country’s largest drugmakers while threatening a key revenue stream for media companies. Advertising and pharmaceutical industry experts say an executive order Trump signed this week could pose an existential threat to the business model of both drugmakers and the media companies, which raked in an estimated $5 billion in advertising revenue from pharmaceutical companies in 2024. (Mastrangelo, 9/14)
An FBI drug burn goes awry —
A cloud of smoke from two pounds of methamphetamine seized by the FBI and incinerated inside a Montana animal shelter sent its workers to the hospital, city officials in Billings said. The smoke started to fill the building during a drug burn on Wednesday, apparently because of negative pressure that sucked it back inside, Billings Assistant City Administrator Kevin Iffland said Friday. A fan was supposed to be on hand in such situations to reverse the pressure so smoke would flow out of the building, but Iffland said it wasn’t readily available. (Brown, 9/13)
