Axios

The White House announced Friday that Rochelle Walensky will be stepping down as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Driving the news: Walensky, who has served as CDC director since the beginning of the Biden presidency in 2021, "has saved lives with her steadfast and unwavering focus on the health of every American," President Biden said in a statement.

COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared Friday.

The big picture: It's been more than three years since the WHO first declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern — the global body's highest alert level. Since then, there have been more than 765 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and nearly 7 million people have died of the virus.

Lawmakers should consider raising the legal age for purchasing guns and ban high-capacity magazines and assault-style weapons, former Republican Senate Majority Leader and physician Bill Frist wrote in Forbes.

Why it matters: Frist used to be one of the top GOP leaders in the country — but now he sees gun-related injuries as a public health crisis.

Endometriosis and fibroids in both Black and white women are associated with a greater risk for ovarian cancer, a new study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology found.

Why it matters: It is the first study to include enough Black women to confirm the association between fibroids — noncancerous tumors that develop in the uterus — and a modestly increased risk of ovarian cancer in this group, the study's authors said.

Death rates in the U.S. dropped an estimated 5.3% in 2022 compared to the previous year as the overall number of COVID-19 deaths fell, according to provisional data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday.

Why it matters: Even though the data is incomplete and not yet finalized, the estimates provide an "early signal" about shifts in mortality trends, the CDC said.

If the federal government breaches the debt ceiling, Medicare wouldn't be able to pay providers — and states wouldn't get their federal Medicaid funding, experts tell Axios.

Why it matters: Losing out on those payments, even for a short time, could be disastrous for providers’ bottom lines — and the effects could trickle down to patients.

Immigrant adults and children under the age of 65, including those who are undocumented, account for 8% of the U.S. population but make up nearly 32% of the uninsured population in the country, according to a new report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Why it matters: During the pandemic, states were required to keep residents on their Medicaid rolls. But as they reassess who is eligible, the number of uninsured people nationwide will likely increase.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday "gun violence is tearing the American family apart" as he confirmed a CDC employee died in this week's mass shooting in Atlanta.

Driving the news: Becerra said in a statement that officials were "still trying to process this heart-breaking news" of Wednesday's shooting that killed CDC worker Amy St. Pierre and injured four other women, per The Hill.

Emergency room visits for young people in mental distress rose sharply over the last decade, per a report published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

What they found: Between 2011 to 2020, emergency department visits among children, adolescents and young adults for mental health reasons approximately doubled, a group of researchers and physicians found.

The North Carolina state Senate on Thursday passed a 12-week abortion ban that is almost certain to become law in the state.

Why it matters: Gov. Roy Cooper (D) plans to veto the bill, but Republicans, who hold a veto-proof supermajority in the legislature, have said they plan to override him.

The Florida legislature on Thursday passed a bill that bans gender-affirming care for transgender youth and adds restrictions for adults seeking care, sending it to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

Why it matters: The Florida Board of Medicine already barred health providers from offering this type of care to trans minors. If enacted, this bill would codify those restrictions into state law, and would also add criminal penalties for physicians who provide gender-affirming treatments.

Hispanics with disabilities in the U.S. have reached a record employment rate, in part thanks to remote work.

By the numbers: About 35.5% of U.S. Latinos ages 16 to 64 with a disability were employed between April 2022 and March of this year, according to the National Trends in Disability Employment (nTIDE) project from the Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire.

The mental health crisis among Latinos is not letting up, and experts tell Axios it's time for political leaders and others to step up and promote seeking help in a more culturally relevant way.

The big picture: The pandemic exacerbated mental health needs in the U.S., especially among Latinos, whose rates of depression, anxiety and suicide grew.

Food and Drug Administration advisers have set their next meeting to decide how to make the next round of COVID-19 boosters available to the general public this fall, now that they're available for older adults and high-risk people.

Driving the news: An FDA expert panel will meet June 15 to discuss and make recommendations on what strains to include in the "periodic updated" COVID vaccines this fall.

Employers are fielding a surge of demand from their workers for obesity care benefits — specifically, for a buzzy class of weight loss drugs — and it's getting pricey.

Why it matters: The drugs — known as glucagon-like peptide agonists, or GLP-1s — have been found to effectively help people lose excess weight, which is tied to a slew of health conditions that can be costly in their own right.

Michelle Obama announced Wednesday that she's co-founded PLEZi Nutrition, a food and drink company that says it aims "to help raise a healthier generation of kids."

Driving the news: Building on Obama's "Let's Move!" health campaign that she launched at the White House in 2010 when she was first lady, the first product is a kids' drink called PLEZi , which has no added sugar and 75% less sugar than average leading 100% fruit juices.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has asked the White House for more time to finalize draft rules that proposed reinstating stricter limits requiring doctors to evaluate patients in-person before prescribing certain drugs — like Adderall and opioid use disorder treatment — via telehealth.

Driving the news: DEA administrator Anne Milgram said on Wednesday that temporarily keeping the pandemic-era flexibilities in place would allow Americans to access needed medications “while we work to find a way forward to give Americans that access with appropriate safeguards.”