MedPage Today's weekly Washington Watch roundup covers several separate health-policy developments rather than a single story. In one item, HHS moved $12 million from its Office of Minority Health to help cover rising security costs for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Wall Street Journal reported.
Two items concern the CDC and agency funding. The CDC has not initiated the process for states to order COVID shots through the Vaccines for Children program, and two Democratic senators are pressing Kennedy on why HHS has not released funding earmarked for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality before the Sept. 30 fiscal-year deadline.
Research policy also features in the roundup: members of Congress are pushing back on a reported plan for political appointees to sign off on all NIH grants. Separately, FDA nominee Heidi Overton is scheduled to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee on Thursday, and Josh Denny, head of NIH's All of Us genomics program, has resigned after six years.