Tara Bannow

Whenever I'm feeling low, I remind myself that at least I'm not that guy who committed Medicare fraud and emailed his co-conspirators: “WOWIE!!!!! HOW DO WE GET SOME MORE OF THAT???!!!!!!!” statnews.com/2022/06/01/doj… Anyway, happy Friday.

How could the Trump's admin's cuts to CDC affect Americans' health? @EricBoodman has a striking example. At least 6 of the authors on CDC's paper on how they pinpointed applesauce as the source of lead poisoning in 566 kids in 2023 have been fired. shorturl.at/8Bylo

UnitedHealth confirms DOJ investigations into Medicare practices, says it’s cooperating statnews.com/2025/07/24/uni… via @statnews

Elevance became the fourth major health insurer to lower or scrap its profit forecast, with the CFO call citing a "market-wide morbidity shift." trib.al/z6v7RxD

Since becoming health secretary, RFK Jr. has installed former prominent members of that group and other vaccine skeptics in positions at the department he runs or agencies it oversees. Here is who that includes and what it means: statnews.com/2025/07/14/ant…

Exclusive: I spoke with 15 employees at the FDA to get a sense of how the agency is functioning since the April 1 layoffs. They described tanking morale and an intensifying staff exodus. Read more here: statnews.com/2025/07/07/fda…

Memo said to describe biotech industry meeting calls RFK Jr. a ‘direct threat to public health’ statnews.com/2025/07/02/bio… via @statnews

How the tax-cut bill that just passed the Senate would upend health care statnews.com/2025/07/02/tru… via @statnews

#Breaking: The Senate passed a $4.5 trillion tax cut bill after last-minute changes to its health care provisions, as Republicans scrambled to get their party on board. trib.al/seVM5yZ

Supreme Court rejects challenge to free preventive care, bolsters RFK Jr.’s power statnews.com/2025/06/27/sup… via @statnews

CDC advisory panel, selected by RFK Jr., recommends thimerosal be dropped from flu vaccines statnews.com/2025/06/26/rfk… via @HelenBranswell @statnews

Just hours after RFK Jr. announced a new CDC vaccine advisory panel, 7 (!!) of my @statnews colleagues put together this staggeringly thorough breakdown of what we know about the new ACIP members. Well worth a read. 👇 statnews.com/2025/06/11/rfk…

5 food power players have strong ties to the MAHA movement statnews.com/2025/06/09/mah… via @statnews

UnitedHealth Group mistakenly sent us confidential talking points that were prepared for the company's shareholder meeting this week. Casey Ross, @TaraBannow, and I wrote about the document and how executives prepared to assuage investors. statnews.com/2025/06/04/uni…

The man at the center of DOGE's health care cuts has quite the history: Top execs from a startup he founded feel he ripped them off & lower-level workers say their jobs were to cut services from vulnerable patients. shorturl.at/Y7d7m via @statnews

Reeling from Trump contract cuts, the National Academies prepares for ‘a fairly radical downsizing’ statnews.com/2025/05/23/nat… via @statnews

From @TaraBannow / @brittanytrang, a look at some of the legal challenges facing AI in health care, with a solid 💩 quote, to boot: statnews.com/2025/05/15/ai-… @statnews

On the Trump admin's cuts to science funding, @PublicHealth exec director Georges Benjamin said at #STATBreakthrough: "We're not using science. We've taken apart the public health infrastructure. And the truth of the matter is, as they say, we're up the creek."

"When you're already in crisis w/your family member, there’s this added stress of, ‘This care is going to end and you’re going to have to figure out what you're going to do.'" -Megan Bent, whose dad died after his insurer stopped paying for inpatient rehab #STATBreakthrough

On all the 🤑health tech IPOs lately (Omada, Hims, Hinge), Lux Capital's Deena Shakir says: "I think all of this is not a coincidence. I think it’s a referendum and it's foretelling for what next year and the years to come will bring for digital health." #STATBreakthrough