numbers

U.S. infant mortality drops in 2025

Infant mortality dropped to a new all-time low last year, according to preliminary CDC data. It sounds small: There were 5.6 infant deaths per 1,000 in 2022 and 2023, 5.5 in 2024, and slightly fewer than 5.4 in 2025. Still, experts say the results are statistically meaningful, translating to hundreds of fewer annual deaths. Read more from the AP.

policy

Trump administration will bring special ed to HHS

As part of the Trump administration’s continued efforts to close the Department of Education, the oversight of special education will now be the purview of HHS, officials announced yesterday.

Project 2025, a policy blueprint for the administration created by the Heritage Foundation, called for the elimination of the Education Department and for HHS to take over responsibilities for administering grants related to disability education.

People with disabilities have fearfully anticipated this decision, as it hands stewardship of disability education over to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has called autism an “epidemic” and historically purported a false link between the condition and vaccines.

addiction

FDA approves another OTC nasal naloxone

The FDA yesterday approved Rextovy, a 4-milligram naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray for emergency overdose situations. The move, which the agency touted as part of the president’s Great American Recovery Initiative, comes about three years after the FDA’s first approval of a nasal naloxone over-the-counter.

Adding more over-the-counter options “expands access and market availability, encourages competition that may reduce cost, and offers alternative sourcing options,” an FDA press release stated. But as STAT’s Lev Facher reported back in 2023, over-the-counter status doesn’t automatically ease access. Research shows that in the first year of such availability, over-the-counter sales were limited.