Floridians facing severe illnesses could soon have access to health care treatments produced uniquely for themselves and their conditions.

Doral Republican Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez filed a bill (SB 680) that would allow eligible patients with life-threatening or severely debilitating illnesses to request and receive individualized treatments from their physicians.

An individualized investigational treatment is defined in the bill as meaning drugs, biological products or devices that are unique and produced exclusively for use by an individual patient based on their own genetic profile. It includes individualized gene therapy antisense oligonucleotides (which targets messenger RNA) and individualized neoantigen vaccines.

To be eligible, a patient would need to meet several requirements, including having a life-threatening or debilitating condition attested to by their physician — based on analysis of the patient’s genomic sequence, human chromosomes, DNA, RNA, genes or gene products, such as enzymes or metabolites.

Patients would further be required to consider all other treatment options currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Written and informed consent for the use of an individualized investigational treatment would be required. That would include an attestation that current treatments would be unlikely to prolong the patient’s life; details on the specific proposed alternative treatment; potential outcomes; and a statement from the patient saying their physician, health plan or third-party administrator are not obligated to pay for any treatment unless required by law or contract.

Hospice eligibility could be withdrawn if the patient begins a curative treatment with the investigational product. However, eligibility for hospice care could be reinstated if the treatment ends and the patient meets requirements.

Patients would further be required to provide a statement acknowledging they are liable for all expenses related to the use of the treatment, which would extend to their estate, unless a contract states otherwise. A patient’s heirs would be protected from liability for debts related to the treatments if the patient dies during the course of their treatment.

Licensing boards and certain state entities who are responsible for Medicare certification, would be prohibited from taking disciplinary action against physicians solely because they recommended the treatments. State officials, employees and agents would be prevented from blocking access.

Health care facilities and manufacturers operating under a Federalwide Assurance for the Protection of Human Subjects under certain U.S. codes, regulations, policies and guidelines would be able to provide the treatments to eligible patients. Health care providers and manufacturers would have limited liability if they comply with the bill’s terms.

The bill further stipulates that it does not expand the coverage an insurer must provide under the Florida Insurance Code.

If passed, the bill would come into effect July 1.

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Major League Soccer (MLS) will have some competition in the coming years, and it could impact the sports landscape in Florida.

The Tampa-based United Soccer League (USL) just announced plans to launch a first-division professional men’s soccer league.

Currently, MLS is the only first-division professional men’s soccer league in the United States. The USL operates the second-division USL Championship, which includes the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Miami FC, and third-division USL League 1.

With today’s announcement, the USL says it plans to launch a 12-14 team league in 2027-28 that will petition for first-division status from U.S. Soccer. It is unclear whether the league would begin playing in 2027 or the following year.

Currently, Inter Miami CF and Orlando City SC are Florida’s only professional men’s soccer teams in the first division. But if the USL gains first-division status, as many as three more Florida teams could play in the top tier. Sporting Club Jacksonville (Sporting JAX) has plans to launch a USL Championship team in the coming years. The club is kicking off with a women’s team in the first-division USL Super League in August.

“Today is a defining moment for the USL and the future of soccer in the United States,” said Alec Papadakis, CEO of the United Soccer League.

“Creating a Division One league is a bold step forward, expanding access to top-tier competition, deepening the connection between our communities and taking another step in aligning with the structure of the global game. By uniting people through soccer and bringing Division One to more cities, we’re not just growing the sport — we’re creating lasting opportunities while building a more sustainable and vibrant soccer ecosystem in the U.S.”

In order to obtain first-division status, the new USL league would have to have at least 12 teams and have teams in the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones. At least 75% of the clubs would have to play in metropolitan areas with populations of over 1 million people. All teams must have stadiums with a capacity of at least 15,000, and ownership would have to meet certain financial requirements as well.

The USL Super League women’s league obtained first-division status before launching in 2024, joining the NWSL as the second professional women’s league at the top of the pyramid. That provided some precedent from U.S. Soccer.

The timing of the announcement by the USL is significant as well. Last week, the North American Soccer League lost an antitrust lawsuit against MLS and U.S. Soccer.

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The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Donald Trump’s Health Secretary, putting the prominent vaccine skeptic in control of $1.7 trillion in federal spending, vaccine recommendations and food safety as well as health insurance programs for roughly half the country.

Nearly all Republicans fell in line behind Trump despite hesitancy over Kennedy views on vaccines, voting 52-48 to elevate the scion of one of America’s most storied political — and Democratic — families to secretary of the Health and Human Services Department. Democrats unanimously opposed Kennedy.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a child, was the only “no” vote among Republicans, mirroring his stands against Trump’s picks for the Pentagon chief and Director of National Intelligence.

“I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world,” McConnell said in a statement afterwards. “I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.”

The rest of the GOP, however, has embraced Kennedy’s vision with a directive for the public health agencies to focus on chronic diseases such as obesity.

“We’ve got to get into the business of making America healthy again,” said Sen. Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, adding that Kennedy will bring a “fresh perspective” to the office.

Kennedy, 71, whose name and family tragedies have put him in the national spotlight since he was a child, has earned a formidable following with his populist and sometimes extreme views on food, chemicals and vaccines.

His audience only grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Kennedy devoted much of his time to a nonprofit that sued vaccine makers and harnessed social media campaigns to erode trust in vaccines as well as the government agencies that promote them.

With Trump’s backing, Kennedy insisted he was “uniquely positioned” to revive trust in those public health agencies, which include the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes for Health.

Last week, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said he hoped Kennedy “goes wild” in reining in health care costs and improving Americans’ health. But before agreeing to support Kennedy, potential holdout Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor who leads the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, required assurances that Kennedy would not make changes to existing vaccine recommendations.

During Senate hearings, Democrats tried to prod Kennedy to deny a long-discredited theory that vaccines cause autism. Some lawmakers also raised alarms about Kennedy financially benefiting from changing vaccine guidelines or weakening federal lawsuit protections against vaccine makers.

Kennedy made more than $850,000 last year from an arrangement referring clients to a law firm that has sued the makers of Gardasil, a human papillomavirus vaccine that protects against cervical cancer. If confirmed as health secretary, he promised to reroute fees collected from the arrangement to his son.

Kennedy will take over the agency in the midst of a massive federal government shakeup, led by billionaire Elon Musk, that has shut off — even if temporarily — billions of taxpayer dollars in public health funding and left thousands of federal workers unsure about their jobs.

On Friday, the NIH announced it would cap billions of dollars in medical research given to universities and cancer being used to develop treatments for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Kennedy, too, has called for a staffing overhaul at the NIH, FDA and CDC. Last year, he promised to fire 600 employees at the NIH, the nation’s largest funder of biomedical research.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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