September 1, 2026
Tonight: Medicaid cuts coming for women (and men), preeclampsia in the blood, and more.
— Meghan McCarthy
WOMEN MORE LIKELY TO LOSE MEDICAID NEXT YEAR
Next year adults covered through Medicaid expansion will have to document 80 hours of work or other qualifying activities each month. Pregnant and postpartum enrollees are exempt — an important carveout in a program that pays for over 40% of U.S. births. But a new analysis found that nearly one in five working adults could still fall short because their hours hover near the threshold or change from week to week. Women were 22% more likely than men to be at risk of losing coverage.
THE ABORTION PILL CASE IS PAUSED, NOT GONE
A federal judge in Texas paused a case seeking to revoke the FDA's 2000 approval of the abortion pill until December 1 or until the FDA finishes its own review of the drug, whichever comes first. That review is expected to take about six months. The states are invoking the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-vice law, to try to stop abortion pills from moving through the mail. The Trump administration has reportedly delayed the FDA review until after the midterm elections, because banning the abortion pill would be politically unpopular.
MAHA MET THE MENOPAUSE STARTUPS
Wired has a deep dive that finds the hormone-therapy revival has produced an unusual alliance of menopause specialists, venture-backed telehealth companies and MAHA officials increasingly pitching estrogen as a longevity intervention. The movement accelerated after the FDA removed boxed warnings last fall. At the announcement, ARPA-H Director Alicia Jackson — who founded menopause telehealth company Evernow — said hormone therapy could add “up to a decade of healthy years” to women’s lives. Traffic to four leading menopause startups rose 490% between 2023 and 2026. But experts warn that the evidence supports hormones for treating menopause symptoms, not prescribing them broadly to prevent aging or explain nearly every discomfort of midlife.
TWELVE WEEKS IN, ONE PROTEIN TALKS
Researchers screening nearly 3,000 proteins found that low levels of a placental protein called isthmin-2 around week 12 were strongly associated with later preeclampsia or fetal growth restriction. The finding came from a study nested within a cohort of over 4,500 first-time mothers, and the protein distinguished affected pregnancies better than five measurements currently used in first-trimester risk screening. Lab experiments offered a possible explanation: reducing the protein made placental cells less able to invade surrounding tissue.
IT'S NOT THE TRANSITION. IT'S THE CALENDAR.
A study of over 7,600 women covering nearly 14 years found a hormone that signals potential thyroid problems rose steadily with age, with no sharp increase at menopause. The rates of underactive and overactive thyroid climbed on the same aging curve. Clinical attention, the authors write, "should be focused on the age-related progression of thyroid abnormalities, independent of menopausal status."