Sarah Karlin-Smith

CVS warns bill would force shutdown of 134 pharmacies in this state — USA TODAY A Tennessee Republican state senator sponsored a bill that would prohibit companies from owning retail pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers.

CVS said it would close all 134 of its pharmacy locations in TN if the state enacts legislation that would prohibit companies from owning retail pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers.

!!

PEPFAR, the program to stop hundreds of thousands of children and adults from dying of HIV/AIDS, was $6.5 billion a year.

‘We’re in it’: Democrats won’t rule out giving Trump more money for Middle East war Democrats will have to balance a desire to criticize Trump’s offensive in Iran with pressure to support funding to defend the nation now at war.

Senate Dem looking at funding Trump's war, per Politico:

Jack Reed (RI): @reed.senate.gov
Gary Peters (MI): @peters.senate.gov
Tim Kaine (VA): @kaine.senate.gov
Elissa Slotkin (MI): @slotkin.senate.gov
Chris Coons (DE): @coons.senate.gov
Jeanne Shaheen (NH): @shaheen.senate.gov

RFK Jr. Tells Joe Rogan He’s About to Unleash 14 Banned Peptides RFK Jr. plans to reverse a sweeping compounding ban of certain peptides issued by the FDA in late 2023.

This is madness. I wrote about "peptides" a few years ago, before the trend really hit. People are injecting themselves with black-market liquids purported to contain experimental drugs that were abandoned for failing to show benefits or being unsafe.

gizmodo.com/rfk-jr-tells...

UnitedHealth promised transparency. Instead, it’s cutting back key disclosures UnitedHealth used to disclose more than 3,100 subsidiaries. Its latest annual reports shows just 10.

Last year, UnitedHealth Group disclosed 3,100 subsidiaries. This year? Just 10. The health care giant is paring back transparency right as its executives say they are embracing it. www.statnews.com/2026/03/04/u...

US FDA Memos Reveal Reasons For COVID Vaccine Policy Shift For Children And Pregnant Women FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Sara Brenner and Tracy Beth Høeg, then special assistant to the commissioner, wrote the scientific analyses underlying HHS' May 2025 decision to eliminate the recomme...

Who wrote the memos that led to CDC schedule changes for COVID vaccines last May? Why NIH and FDA political appointees of course. Nice find from @pinksheetsutter.bsky.social in court docs over ongoing AAP litigation over various Trump-era vaccine policy. First time these docs are public.

No delays to tax filing...BUT he still won't count the roughly $600 million in revenue for the city's budget.

Essentially he's saying the mere risk of litigation is enough reason to keep this money out of the revenue estimate. Can't imagine the council/mayor will be pleased.

NEWS: D.C. CFO Glen Lee has spoken! In a letter to @mayorbowser.dc.gov and D.C. Council, Lee says that tax-filing season *will continue* and that the council's decoupling bill is the law of the land.

Inside the Underground Safe Houses Sheltering Immigrants From ICE

In Springfield, Ohio, some Americans have converted their basements and spare bedrooms into shelters for immigrant families who could be targeted in raids.

Public Citizen Demands Florida Reverse HIV Medication Cuts - Public Citizen Public Citizen Comments to Florida Department of Health on Rules Updating Eligibility for AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) Citizen is…

Today is the last day to submit public comments on Florida's attempt to kick half its residents who rely on the state's AIDS Drug Assistance Program for their HIV medications off the program.

www.citizen.org/article/publ...

Two of the Biggest Patient-Assistance Charities Are Combining The merger will create a foundation with more than $800 million in assets to help patients afford drug copays and navigate health insurance.

These kind of copay support programs are typically heavily funded by drug companies and help them keep prices.

www.wsj.com/health/healt...

There's been a lot of debate within the Democratic establishment about what rhetoric to use via ICE.

Well, an incumbent doesn't lose by 48 percentage points very often—and her vote on collaborating with ICE was the defining issue here.

body camera footage from DC officers seems like a DC issue to me, despite Bowser’s statement.

And the pedantic facts are that in the US, cyclists kill 3 pedestrians a year. Drivers kill 7500.

That's 20 people out for a walk a day. Nearly one an hour. 20 people every day on sidewalks and crosswalks who don't make it home.

NEW at SCOTUS: the court votes 6-3 to block a California law preventing public schools from outing gender-questioning students to their parents.

somehow it seems many of the people who experienced the least disruption in their lives based on where they lived and/or faced the fewest exposure risks due to their personal circumstances actually were the loudest critics of any precautions taken.

that's an interesting observation as seems very consistent with how U.S. handled things. experiences varied a lot depending exactly where you were located and local or even non-governmental orgs decided to do.

there were no good options. no one was pretending restricting size of a funeral or delaying and so forth is not traumatic. but most people probably prefer that over killing more loved ones due to a funeral.

I know of restrictions on size and how things were held but not sure if any of that came from government or just various orgs trying to protect people.

States Move to Limit Access to H.I.V. Treatment

“The changes will have ripple effects… The cost of thousands of people losing their insurance will have to be absorbed by other parts of the public health system.

“This is really an economic disaster, a public health disaster, a moral disaster,” said Esteban Wood”

No, Trump Didn’t Make Historic Progress on Drug Prices Go ahead and guess which president did.

Trump wants to make his prescription drug deals a focus of the midterms

Here's what he's not telling you about them

NEW at @thebulwark.com www.thebulwark.com/p/no-trump-d...

ok bike people of bluesky, why does a light flurry hurt my eyes and vision more than rain? very oddly painful.

Kindly ask reporters to do more digging before repeating pharma's claims they aren't making enough money in Europe to fund R&D.

There's plenty of evidence pharma is doing just fine. More than fine.

Here's one example: www.publiceye.ch/fileadmin/do...

The European industry’s own data indicates its member spent €55 billion on R&D in 2024 and took in €185 in payment from state health insurance systems for ambulatory care, which is an underestimate of total drug payments received in these countries.
www.efpia.eu/media/uj0pop...

Kindly ask reporters to do more digging before repeating pharma's claims they aren't making enough money in Europe to fund R&D.

Pharma is doing just fine.

www.publiceye.ch/fileadmin/do...

Reported airstrike hits Iranian girls’ school Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said the strike killed more than 100 children at the girls’ elementary school in southern Iran.

The U.S. military is “looking into” reports of a strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab after Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. said more than 100 children were killed.

Footage verified by the Post showed a frantic crowd outside the school.

colin!!

Federal judge blocks new DHS policy that would allow arrest of thousands of legal refugees "The new policy turns the refugees’ American Dream into a dystopian nightmare," Judge Tunheim wrote.

BREAKING: Federal judge blocks new DHS policy that would allow arrest of thousands of legal refugees.

"The new policy turns the refugees’ American Dream into a dystopian nightmare," Judge Tunheim wrote.

Tonight, at Law Dork:

this is extremely dangerous.