Katie Scarlett Brandt

"It's Been Really Stressful" - Chicago Health With SNAP funding in jeopardy, Greater Chicago Food Depository sounds alarm on food access.

For people in need of food help this month, @chicagohealth.bsky.social put together a list of local mutual aid groups, food pantries, and restaurants offering free/discounted meals: chicagohealthonline.com/its-been-rea...

Meteorologists now face a Trump ‘loyalty test’ when applying to National Weather Service jobs After firing hundreds of meteorologists, the National Weather Service announced it is filling vacant positions. Applicants are being asked to detail their support for Trump’s policies.

After firing hundreds of meteorologists, the National Weather Service announced it is filling vacant positions. Applicants are being asked to detail their support for Trump’s policies.

Live Long and Prosper Life expectancy varies widely between Chicago neighborhoods. Pollution, education, access to healthy food, and racism play a role.

“We don’t need more research to help the disadvantaged live longer. We just need to get them access to what we already know works.” chicagocaregiving.com/live-long-an...

"How Did This Happen?" - Chicago Health Anger, confusion, and sadness take root among community in the early days of Weiss Memorial Hospital’s closure.

“These billionaires think they can buy anything, but they come in here & destroy our neighborhood,” said one woman as Weiss Memorial closed. The safety net hospital served an immigrant & senior population, with 87% of its 2024 income from Medicare, Medicaid. chicagohealthonline.com/how-did-this...

Anas al-Sharif among five Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel in Gaza Al Jazeera staff killed in targeted Israeli attack on a tent housing journalists near al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City.

Four Al Jazeera staff, including reporter Anas Al Sharif, were killed in an Israeli attack on a tent for journalists outside the main gate of Gaza's al-Shifa hospital aje.io/onll19

Medicaid's Many Names - Chicago Health Many Medicaid recipients don’t realize they’re enrolled because the program goes by different names in different states. Here's the name for Medicaid in each state.

Medicaid covers 83 million people, including +60% of nursing home residents, 20% of assisted living facility residents, and half of long-term care residents.

Yet many Medicaid recipients don’t realize they’re enrolled because the program goes by so many nicknames - via @chicagohealth.bsky.social

EPA To Drop 'E,' 'P' From Name

EPA To Drop 'E,' 'P' From Name
theonion.com/epa-to-...

Life After the Cut - Chicago Health Patients with rare diseases like stiff-person syndrome grapple with uncertainty amid NIH funding cuts.

NIH funding cuts are putting rare disease research — and lives — at risk. For Milan Afshar, a young Chicagoan living with stiff-person syndrome, life turned upside down after his clinical trial abruptly ended.

This isn’t just a budget issue. It’s a human one. Read the full story:

Suing the Secretary - Chicago Health American Academy of Pediatrics and others sue the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. over vaccine changes

Major medical organizations are suing RFK Jr. + HHS: “This administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America, and those in charge are only just getting started."

At risk: vaccine guidance integrity, vulnerable populations' health, public trust.

Without Polio Vaccines, How Quickly Will the Disease Return? Polio, a disease that can cause lifelong paralysis, has been eliminated from the U.S. Experts fear a resurgence if lifesaving vaccines are revoked under the new administration

One of the vaccines on that schedule? Polio.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/here...

Who’s In Charge? Although local health departments set vaccine requirements, the federal government plays a significant role in development and approval

RFK ousted the vaccine advisory committee (ACIP). What are the chances he'll fill it w/ anti-vaxxers who change the immunization schedule, prompting insurers not to cover vaccines? Here's how the vaccine process typically works: chicagohealthonline.com/whos-in-char... cc: @chicagohealth.bsky.social

Award Season - Chicago Health Read our 2024 award-winning stories and latest recognitions

Read our 2024 award-winning stories and latest recognitions! We’re excited to share the honors that @caregivingmag.bsky.social and @chicagohealth.bsky.social have received this past year for outstanding work. Congratulations to all, and please enjoy! chicagohealthonline.com/awards-fello...

Op-Ed: Don't Blow Out the Candles on the Older Americans Act Speak up during an Older Americans Act day of action to protect our future

Cuts to the Older Americans Act risk fall-prevention programs, respite care, adult protective services, and more.

How we treat older adults reflects who we are as a society — and previews the future we're building for ourselves. @caregivingmag.bsky.social

chicagocaregiving.com/older-americans-act/

HHS to stop recommending routine Covid shots for children, pregnant people, RFK Jr. ally says A change in recommending Covid vaccines for children and pregnant women would circumvent an expert panel but please many MAHA fans.

It appears Sec. Kennedy is getting ready to over-ride vaccine policy experts & scrub Covid shot recommendations for children, teens & pregnant people. Having a HHS secretary reset vaccine policy without hearings or expert advice is unprecedented, experts tell STAT. www.statnews.com/2025/05/15/c...

Social media - what's not to love?!

Ongoing Fear Older Venezuelans in the U.S. struggle with shifting immigration policies.

A former criminal court judge, Mariela says the Venezuelan govt removed her b/c she refused to align with its agenda. “They did the same to many other judges.” Here, she works as a delivery driver. "It feels like nothing is guaranteed.” @clavelrangel.bsky.social for @caregivingmag.bsky.social

“Our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

The Trump Administration Is Going After Your Grandma When older adults lose access to vital services, their entire families face the consequences.

"We may be teens & 20-somethings today, but our parents, and we, are the older adults of the future. Cuts to Medicaid & the elimination of the ACL are crumbling a system that one day we too will rely on for our well-being & our economic security."

Excellent op-ed, Arielle Galinsky in @teenvogue.com

New images could change cancer diagnostics, but ICE detained the Harvard scientist who analyzes them Without scientist Kseniia Petrova’s expertise, no one can fully unlock the data’s potential, putting crucial advancements in early cancer detection at risk.

How many people in his lab could do embryology, modeling, data analysis, and bioinformatics? Only her.

Petrova developed computer scripts to analyze the 100k images from a one-of-a-kind microscope. “Without her, I fully believe that all the insights into cures that we could make will not be made.”

For our next issue of @caregivingmag.bsky.social, we're asking readers:

What would you tell your younger self about aging?

Respond here, or message me if you'd like to be included!

CREW sues to challenge destruction of CDC FOIA office - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington The closure of the CDC's entire FOIA office violates both FOIA and the Administrative Procedure Act and the CDC must be compelled to follow the law.

The closure of the CDC’s entire FOIA office is unacceptable and in fact, illegal.

Americans shouldn't be left in the dark about how the CDC is operating.

Transparency matters. So we're suing.

I’m scared, too. But writer Audre Lorde’s words keep coming to my mind: “Your silence will not protect you.”

I can only hope that taking care of each other — and speaking out — will.

“I keep seeing stuff about the Dept of Education closing, the DEI stuff being messed with. Misinformation is sooo bad, I can’t tell what’s actually happening anymore,” my friend texted me as I sat down to write this letter. “The general unrest of it all has me so scared for [my daughter’s] future.”

I’m not saying our previous system was perfect. It wasn’t. That’s part of what led us here. And President Trump is holding true to many of his campaign promises — ones that people voted for. But many likely didn’t anticipate how those promises would affect their own healthcare access and outcomes.

The rapid changes happening at the federal level — mass layoffs, defunding of critical research and nonprofits, threats to Medicaid, Social Security, the Veterans Administration, and support for public school children — will all have local consequences.

What happens globally affects our country. What happens federally affects our states, counties, towns. So as we turned our attention in this issue to the state of our state’s health, we also examine the broader national picture.

“Some of those partnerships were established over decades. We had their trust, and now that rapport is broken. The agency is losing a lot, and maybe that’s the point. Everyone who can will leave the federal government for now, and will they want to come back?”

“We’re essentially cutting ourselves off from the world’s data,” a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told me, speaking anonymously.

Some Chicago hospitals have halted certain treatments. At the federal level, crucial public health meetings and comms have been canceled as bird flu and measles rage. Government health data I once relied on have disappeared overnight. And the U.S. has severed ties with the World Health Organization.

Researchers I’ve interviewed have urged me not to name their grants or programs. They don’t want to become targets. And they tailor their words to fit what they think the new administration wants to hear. I’ve left these interviews shaken — by how shaken they are.