Federal health officials are moving ahead with plans to broaden access to a class of unproven injectable drugs called peptides. According to a government online posting Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services submitted a plan to the White House that would allow temporary access to some of the products. Peptides are essentially unapproved, injectable drugs that have become popular among people looking to build muscle, look younger or boost energy. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has described himself as “a big fan” of peptides and directed the Food and Drug Administration to consider loosening restrictions on their use.

CVS Pharmacy Inc. and various subsidiaries have agreed to pay $315 million to resolve a Justice Department case alleging it unlawfully dispensed medically unnecessary prescriptions of highly addictive opioids. The settlement announced Tuesday resolves a lawsuit brought in 2024 that accused the healthcare giant of prescribing massive amounts of opioids and other controlled substances “to fuel its own profits at the expense of public health and safety.” It’s the latest effort by the federal government to hold accountable companies that officials have alleged helped fuel the U.S. addiction and overdose crisis.

The Food and Drug Administration says its ongoing safety review of the nation’s main abortion pill will continue into next year. The FDA gave a court-ordered update on its progress in a legal filing late Wednesday. It's the first substantive information about the reevaluation ordered by the Trump administration. Mifepristone was first approved by the FDA in 2000 and the FDA repeatedly has reaffirmed the pill’s safety and effectiveness. But since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, anti-abortion groups and their allies in Congress have pushed Trump administration officials to revisit the pill, in the hopes of restricting its use.

Christa Pike has regained consciousness and is speaking a week after receiving two doses of execution drugs in Tennessee. Her attorneys called her recovery “medically unprecedented” after she was placed on a ventilator following the bungled Sept. 30 attempt to make her the first woman put to death in Tennessee in 200 years. Many details of the execution process remain secretive. Tennessee officials say they are investigating what went wrong. Medical experts say there are a few factors that could explain how Pike was able to survive the injections. The point to the potential drug quality and the placement of IV lines.