Legislative Update: Memorial Day 2025
The AZ State Legislature remains on break for another week as they prepare to come back in June and hammer out the state budget. The majority of public health related bills have been thru the system and either passed and were signed or died a quiet death by not even having a hearing. There are a few bills still in limbo – bulls that have made it most of the
Happy Birthday Social Security – Guest Blog from Leonard Kirschner MD, MPH
Americans love anniversaries whether it is the birth of our nation on July 4th, our parents 50th, Pearl Harbor or 9/11. The year 2025 has a number of significant anniversaries of laws that have changed American society in uncountable ways. On August 14, 1935, in the height of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Social Security into law. Opponents fought long and hard to stop passage calling it
US House Agriculture Committee Advances Proposal Requiring States to Pay for Part of SNAP – Measure could end SNAP benefits if Legislature doesn’t pay up
This week, the House Agriculture Committee advanced a big (bad) change to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by approving a provision that would require states to contribute to the cost of SNAP benefits — a departure from the program’s longstanding federal funding model. For the last few decades, the federal government has covered 100% of SNAP benefits – with administrative costs shared between federal and state governments. Under the new
Kennedy’s War on Vaccination: FDA to Suspend Approval of Updated COVID Boosters Except for Seniors & Folks w/ High Risk Factors
In a major and dangerous policy shift, the FDA announced in a New England Journal of Medicine article that updated COVID-19 vaccines will now require randomized, controlled trials for approval in healthy individuals aged 6 months to 64 years. This marks a departure from previous decades long practice where annual updates were approved based on immune response data, similar to the approach for influenza vaccines. Under the new guidelines, only
A Familiar Idea Returns: Will ‘Most Favored Nation’ Drug Pricing Survive This Time?
Americans continue to pay more for prescription drugs than anyone else in the world. This has been a long-standing and well-documented problem. A key driver isn’t just what patients pay out of pocket—it’s the actual list prices of the drugs themselves. These prices inflate private insurance premiums, drain the Medicare trust fund, and strain household budgets across the country – damaging the social determinants of health. One of the key
A Breath of Fresh Air: Sheila Sjolander Named Interim ADHS Director
We’re delighted to share that Sheila Sjolander has been appointed as the interim director of ADHS! This is good news for public health in Arizona—and a breath of fresh air for county health departments across the state. Sheila is no stranger to public health and ADHS. She’s been shaping public health policy and strategy in Arizona for more than two decades. Most recently, she served as Deputy Director for Public