The New York Times (5/15, Jewett , Thacker) reports that budget cuts under the Trump Administration have affected anti-smoking programs across the United States. Experts on tobacco control said the “funding cuts would set back a quarter-century of public health efforts that have driven the smoking rate to a record low and saved lives and billions of dollars in health care spending.” FDA officials “fired many staff members who levied fines on retailers that sold tobacco to minors or marketed illicit vapes. Some scientists who were experts in addiction and toxicology lost their jobs.” Meanwhile, the NIH “canceled grants to researchers examining tobacco use among certain groups, including L.G.B.T.Q. youths, Black people and young people.” The White House also closed the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. The cuts were discussed during budget hearings on Wednesday, with lawmakers expressing concerns to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Psychiatric News (5/15) reports a study found that “individuals with first-episode psychosis who experience a shorter period between first use of an antipsychotic and enrollment in a coordinated specialty care (CSC) program show improved functioning and quality of life at six months.” Researchers “examined outcomes for 147 first-episode psychosis patients enrolled from 2014 to 2019 in Specialized Treatment in Early Psychosis (STEP), a CSC in New Haven, Connecticut, that ran a dedicated four-year early detection campaign focused on raising public awareness of psychosis, training health professionals to identify symptoms, and streamlining the CSC referral process.” They observed the average total duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) “for patients enrolled in STEP was 5.9 months shorter than those in the CSC with standard detection protocols. This included a 1.3-month reduction in DUP-Demand and a 4.6-month reduction in DUP-Supply.” Notably, the “time reduction translated into improvements in functional outcomes.” The study was published in Schizophrenia Bulletin.

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— “Shorter Time Between Antipsychotic Initiation and CSC Referral Improves Outcomes,” Psychiatric News , May 15, 2025

CBS News (5/14, Moniuszko ) reports a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association suggests that “men are twice as likely to die from the stress-related heart condition commonly called ‘broken heart syndrome’ compared to women.” Formally known as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, the syndrome is “associated with severe emotional distress or stressful events, such as the death of a loved one,” with symptoms including “chest discomfort, shortness of breath, heart palpitations and arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat.” Researchers “analyzed nearly 200,000 U.S. adults with data from 2016 to 2020” and found that “despite the condition being more common among women, the death rate among them was 5.5%, compared to 11.2% for men. The cause of the mortality discrepancy is not fully understood, the authors said, adding it could be due to hormonal differences or physical stress being a more common trigger for men than emotional stress.”

Related Links:

— “Men more likely to die of “broken heart syndrome” compared to women, study finds,” Sara Moniuszko, CBS News, May 14, 2025

Psychiatric News (5/14) reports a study found the implementation of the Texas Heartbeat Act Senate Bill 8 – the strictest abortion law in the nation – in September 2021 “was associated with worsening mental health among women, particularly younger adult women.” Researchers “collected responses from 15,614 adult women and 14,500 adult men in Texas who completed the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System…between 2012 and 2022.” They analyzed “changes in frequent mental distress…between women and men in Texas before and after SB8 implementation.” They observed that “on average, 14.2% of Texas women experienced frequent mental distress each year prior to SB8 implementation, compared with 21.9% in the year after implementation; among Texas men, frequent mental distress rose from 11.1% to 15%.” The law’s implementation “appeared to have the biggest impact on women ages 18 to 29, which was not surprising to the researchers.” The study was published in JAMA Network Open.

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— “Texas Abortion Ban Increased Women’s Mental Distress,” Psychiatric News, May 14, 2025

The AP (5/14, Stobbe , Mulvihill ) reports early CDC data released Wednesday indicate “there were 30,000 fewer U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2024,” a decline of 27% from the 110,000 in 2023 and the “largest one-year decline ever recorded.” The previous one-year decline was 4% in 2017, “according to the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics.” All states but Nevada and South Dakota saw declines last year, with some of the most significant drops in Ohio, West Virginia, “and other states that have been hard-hit in the nation’s decades-long overdose epidemic.” Among the factors experts cited to explain the decline were the increased availability of naloxone, expanded addiction treatment, a shift in how people use drugs, and the “growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money.” Nevertheless, “annual overdose deaths are higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic.”

ABC News (5/14, Kekatos ) reports this marks the “second year in a row that drug overdose deaths have dropped after year-over-year increases were seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, and researchers say they’re cautiously optimistic about the declines.” The CDC noted “the biggest drop in deaths by drug type was seen in fatalities linked to synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, which fell from 76,282 to 48,422 between 2023 and 2024. Declines were also seen in overdose deaths from psychostimulants, such as methamphetamine;cocaine; and natural or semi-synthetic drugs such as morphine.”

Related Links:

— “US overdose deaths fell 27% last year, the largest one-year decline ever seen,” Mike Stobbe and Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press, May 14, 2025