First Edition: June 29, 2022

KHN: What You Need To Know About Monkeypox
The World Health Organization said June 25 that monkeypox wasn’t yet a public health emergency of international concern. More than 4,500 cases have been reported worldwide, with more than 300 in the U.S. And with public health officials unable to follow all chains of transmission, they’re likely undercounting cases. Everyone should be aware of its symptoms, how it spreads, and the risks of it getting worse. (Gounder, 6/29)

KHN: Government Watchdogs Attack Medicare Advantage For Denying Care And Overcharging
Congress should crack down on Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors that sometimes deny patients vital medical care while overcharging the government billions of dollars every year, government watchdogs told a House panel Tuesday. Witnesses sharply criticized the fast-growing health plans at a hearing held by the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. They cited a slew of critical audits and other reports that described plans denying access to health care, particularly those with high rates of patients who were disenrolled in their last year of life while likely in poor health and in need of more services. (Schulte, 6/29)

KHN: Overdose Deaths Behind Bars Rise As Drug Crisis Swells 
Annissa Holland should be excited her son is coming home from prison after four long years of incarceration. Instead, she’s researching rehab centers to send him to as soon as he walks out the gate. She doesn’t know the person who’s coming home — the person who she said has been doing every drug he can get his hands on inside the Alabama prison system. She can hear it in the 34-year-old’s voice when he calls her on the prison phone. (Dawson, 6/29)

Roll Call: Biden Administration Announces Actions To Protect Abortion Rights
The Biden administration is launching a multipronged effort to respond to the Supreme Court decision overturning the 1973 ruling establishing a right to an abortion, with Health and Human Services, the Defense Department and the Office of Personnel Management among the agencies to weigh in. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, reacting Tuesday to the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said the department will take steps to increase the availability of medication abortion, which involves a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol. (Raman, 6/28)

The New York Times: Biden’s Health Secretary: ‘No Magic Bullet’ For Preserving Abortion Access
As Democrats and reproductive rights advocates clamored for President Biden to forcefully counter the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, his health secretary, Xavier Becerra, stepped up to a lectern here on Tuesday to list the steps his department would take to preserve and expand access to abortion. The list, for now anyway, is short. “There is no magic bullet,” Mr. Becerra said at a morning news conference, “but if there is something we can do, we will find it and we will do it.” (Stolberg and Savage, 6/28)

Modern Healthcare: HHS Offers Scant Details On Post-Roe V. Wade Strategy
"We're not interested in going rogue and doing things just because," Becerra said. "We will do everything we can with what we find to make sure we're protecting our services. It takes a little time because we want to do it right. We want to do it according to law." The secretary outlined a handful of actions HHS will take to enforce largely preexisting protections, including directing the Office of Civil Rights to uphold privacy and nondiscrimination rules for providers offering reproductive healthcare and patients accessing care. (Goldman, 6/28)

Houston Chronicle: Judge Blocks 1925 Texas Abortion Law, Allowing Providers To Offer The Procedure For Two Weeks
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told attorneys for the plaintiffs that he planned to appeal the decision to the Texas Supreme Court. "These laws are 100 percent in effect and constitutional," Paxton tweeted Tuesday. "The judge’s decision is wrong. I’m immediately appealing. I’ll ensure we have all the legal tools to keep TX pro-life!" (Goldenstein, 6/28)

AP: Court Lets Tennessee 6-Week Abortion Ban Take Effect
A federal court on Tuesday allowed Tennessee’s ban on abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy to take effect, citing the Supreme Court’s decision last week overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights case. The action by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes before Tennessee’s other abortion ban, the so-called trigger ban, is expected to restrict abortion almost entirely by mid-August, according to a newly detailed legal interpretation by the state attorney general. Both measures would make performing an abortion a felony and subject doctors to up to 15 years in prison if convicted. (Mattise and Kruesi, 6/28)

AP: New Nevada Abortion Order Helps Blunt Outside Prosecution
Gov. Steve Sisolak signed an executive order Tuesday he says will help guard against outside prosecution of anyone who receives an abortion or other reproductive care in Nevada, and better protect healthcare workers who provide the services. His executive order comes as fellow Democratic governors in several states have vowed to help protect abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade last week. (6/29)

AP: Courts Asked To Reinstate Blocked Indiana Anti-Abortion Laws
Indiana’s attorney general is asking federal judges to lift orders blocking several state anti-abortion laws following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week to end constitutional protection for abortion. An appeal of one of those blocked Indiana laws aimed at prohibiting abortions based on gender, race or disability was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019. But that was before former President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett strengthened the court’s conservative majority. (Rodgers, 6/28)

AP: Wisconsin's Democratic AG Sues To Block State's Abortion Ban 
Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the state’s 173-year-old abortion ban, arguing that statutes passed in the 1980s supersede the ban and it’s so old that modern generations never consented to it. Wisconsin passed a law in 1849, the year after the territory became a state, banning abortions in every instance except to save the mother’s life. The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling, which essentially legalized abortion nationwide, nullified the ban. (Richmond, 6/28)

The Boston Globe: State Lawmakers Poised To Shield Providers Of Abortion, Transgender Care From Bounty-Style Laws In Other States
Legislative leaders appear to have reached broad agreement to pass a measure aimed at shielding providers of abortion and transgender health care in Massachusetts from bounty-style laws being enacted by other states. House Speaker Ronald Mariano said Tuesday said his chamber is expecting to pass a wide-ranging reproductive rights bill that codifies part of an executive order Governor Charlie Baker signed on Friday and goes further to shield patients and providers from out-of-state legal action. ”We have Roe on the books. We codified it,” Mariano said. “Now we want to protect the people who have to use it.” (Ebbert, 6/28)

NBC News: Pentagon Says Supreme Court's Roe Ruling Won't Affect Abortions On Military Facilities
The Pentagon on Tuesday said that last week's Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade won't impact service members, spouses and dependents who use military treatment facilities. The memo, sent by Gil Cisneros, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, came in response to Friday's Supreme Court ruling that overturned the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that had guaranteed abortion rights under the Constitution. (Kube and Richards, 6/28)

AP: California Budget Won't Cover Out-Of-State Abortion Travel 
While Gov. Gavin Newsom has pledged to make California a sanctuary for women seeking abortions, his administration won’t spend public money to help people from other states travel to California for the procedure. Newsom’s decision, included in a budget agreement reached over the weekend, surprised abortion advocates who have been working with the governor for nearly a year to prepare for a potential surge of patients from other states coming to California for abortions now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. (Beam, 6/29)

AP: Mexican Networks Ramp Up Help For US Women Seeking Abortions 
Abortion pills smuggled into the United States from Mexico inside teddy bears. A New York home used as a pill distribution hub. A small apartment just south of the U.S.-Mexico border converted into a safe place for women to end their pregnancies. Networks of Mexican feminist collectives working with counterparts in the United States are ramping up their efforts to help women in the U.S. who are losing access to abortion services to end their pregnancies. (Verza, 6/28)

AP: Instagram Hides Some Posts That Mention Abortion
Instagram is blocking posts that mention abortion from public view, in some cases requiring its users to confirm their age before letting them view posts that offer up information about the procedure. Over the last day, several Instagram accounts run by abortion rights advocacy groups have found their posts or stories hidden with a warning that described the posts as “sensitive content.” Instagram said it was working to fix the problem Tuesday, describing it as a “bug.” (Seitz, 6/29)

NPR: Supreme Court's Ruling Makes It Even Harder For Adolescents To Get Abortions
Before last week, adolescents seeking abortions in the U.S. already had to struggle through a thicket of legal hurdles and logistical challenges to access reproductive health care. The Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade made it that much harder. A number of states have already banned or severely restricted abortions in light of the ruling — laws that apply equally to adolescents and adults. Young people who go out of state to seek abortions elsewhere in the U.S. may run up against laws requiring parental involvement, which are common across the country. (Hernandez, 6/28)

The Washington Post: Physicians Face Confusion And Fear In Post-Roe World
It had been barely 80 minutes since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday when physician Nisha Verma’s phone pinged with an urgent group message from another obstetrician and gynecologist that made her catch her breath. There was a woman in Wisconsin carrying a fetus with anencephaly, a fatal birth defect in which parts of the brain and skull are missing. With abortion likely illegal in the state, the clinic had canceled her appointment for a termination later that day. But forcing her to continue the pregnancy was cruel and risked complications. What should I do? the doctor wrote. (Cha, 6/28)

Politico: Abortion Doctors’ Post-Roe Dilemma: Move, Stay Or Straddle State Lines 
The Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade and clearing the way for roughly half the states to ban abortion is forcing the nation’s providers to upend their lives and could radically alter the reproductive health care landscape. One clinic in Alabama, for example, is offering its roughly dozen staff members buyouts to give them a couple months’ cushion if they need to search for jobs in other states. (Ollstein, 6/29)

NBC News: In Texas, State-Funded Crisis Pregnancy Centers Gave Medical Misinformation To NBC News Producers Seeking Counseling
Across the U.S., more than 2,500 crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) provide free services and counseling for women struggling with unplanned pregnancies. They outnumber abortion clinics three to one nationwide, and as some states shutter clinics after Roe’s reversal, that ratio will grow. But when two NBC News producers visited state-funded CPCs in Texas to ask for counseling, counselors told them that abortions caused mental illness and implied abortions could also cause cancer and infertility. The nation’s largest national obstetricians’ group, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AGOC), says that’s medical misinformation. (McFadden, 6/29)

Politico: Roe Jolts The Midterms: 5 Takeaways From The 2022 Election Midpoint 
Donald Trump’s legacy was on trial in Washington on Tuesday. But it was his future as the leader of the Republican Party that was being tested elsewhere in the country in the first primaries of the post-Roe v. Wade world. More than half the states have now held primaries, and we’re beginning to see just how important Trump may be to the GOP — and how important Roe may be to the Democrats. They are desperate to stave off disaster in November, and from the Democrats’ messaging on Roe to their interventions in Republican primaries in Colorado and Illinois on Tuesday, the latest big round of multi-state primaries offered the first test of Democrats’ new outlook on the midterms. (Siders, 6/29)

NBC News: Illinois Governor's Race Shapes Up As Test Of Post-Roe Abortion Politics
Republicans nominated a Donald Trump-backed state senator to take on Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, NBC News projects, setting up a November contest where abortion is expected to be a defining issue. (Seitz-Wald, 6/28)

The Hill: The Senate Races That Could Be Impacted By End Of Roe V. Wade
Democrats and Republicans are split over how much impact the Supreme Court decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case establishing a right to an abortion, will have on Senate races, but early polling shows it could make a difference in several key states. Here are six battleground states where the Supreme Court’s ruling could tip the scales in November. (Bolton, 6/29)

Politico: State Lawmakers Are Shaping The Future Of Abortion. Watch These Names. 
In states with split legislatures, the future of abortion policy could come down to just one or two key lawmakers, like in Virginia, where Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, a Democrat, is expected to play an instrumental role in ensuring no abortion legislation advances from the Republican-controlled House of Delegates to Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk. POLITICO explores how these lawmakers and others like them are expected to help shape the future of abortion policy in their states in 2022 and 2023. (Messerly, 6/29)

Axios: Alabama Cites Roe Decision In Urging Court To Let State Ban Trans Health Care
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) on Tuesday urged a federal court to drop its block on the state's ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth arguing such care is not protected by the Constitution. Marshall used the U.S Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade to suggest that since the court rejected the idea that abortion cannot be protected under the 14th Amendment because it's not "deeply rooted" in the nation's history, the same could be said about access to gender-affirming care. (Gonzalez, 6/28)

NPR: The U.S. To Offer Nearly 300,000 Doses Of Monkeypox Vaccine In Coming Weeks
The Biden administration announced an "enhanced nationwide vaccination strategy" to curb the spread of monkeypox in the U.S. In a call with reporters on Tuesday, top federal health officials — including director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky and Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator — laid out the administration's plan to expand the availability of a vaccine for monkeypox. The Department of Health and Human Services will make 296,000 doses available in the coming weeks — within that amount, 56,000 doses will be made available immediately — and expects a total of 1.6 million doses to be available in the U.S. by the end of the year. The vaccine being distributed is the JYNNEOS vaccine, which is administered in two doses given 28 days apart. (Stone, 6/28)

CIDRAP: CDC Opens Monkeypox Center As Europe Begins Vaccinations 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today activated its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to better address the monkeypox outbreak. "CDC's activation of the EOC allows the agency to further increase operational support for the response to meet the outbreak’s evolving challenges. It is home to more than 300 CDC staff working in collaboration with local, national, and international response partners on public health challenges," the CDC said in a press release. (Soucheray, 6/28)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Vaccines Should Be Updated For Fall, FDA Advisers Say 
Companies need several months to manufacture a new vaccine, so the deadline to choose a vaccine formula to be ready to roll out in October has arrived. The FDA is expected to issue a final decision in the coming days. But no one knows what variants will be circulating this winter, and it is reasonable to expect that any omicron variant incorporated into the updated vaccine will be in the rearview mirror by the time shots are going into arms. Updated vaccines that include BA.1 have been in human tests for months, but that variant circulated this winter and has already been eclipsed by other versions of omicron; the subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 already make up half of the cases in the United States. (Johnson and Shepherd, 6/28)

ABC News: Millions Remain Unboosted, As Scientists Say 3rd COVID Shot Provides 'Significant' Protection 
As advisors to the FDA consider what type of COVID-19 shots should be offered in the fall, new federal data reveals a significant proportion of Americans have yet to receive their first and second boosters. ... Since the rollout, earlier this spring, fewer than a fifth of eligible people ages 50 to 64 have received their second boost -- only about 8% of the age group. Uptake is a bit higher among the elderly, with 35% of those eligible — representing just 20% of the age group. (Mitropoulos, 6/28)

Bloomberg: Sesame Street's Elmo Gets 'Vaccinated' In CDC Covid-19 Vaccine Advertisement
Elmo got his Covid-19 vaccine. Sesame Street’s iconic, perpetually three-year-old Muppet got his Covid-19 shot in a public service announcement released by the Centers for Disease Control and  Prevention on Tuesday. The video comes just days after the vaccinations became available for children five years and younger. The US Food and Drug Administration and CDC authorized the Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE shots for use in younger children on June 17 and 18, respectively. (York, 6/28)

CIDRAP: Study: In Most Young Adults, COVID-19 Infectious Period Lasts Only 5 Days
A new study from researchers at Boston University (BU) shows that, for all but 17% of healthy, vaccinated young adults, the infectious period for COVID-19 from the Delta and Omicron variants was 5 days. The study was recently published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The study involved 92 SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR–positive participants who had all been fully vaccinated with an initial series of COVID-19 vaccine. Tests showed 17 (18.5%) were infected with Delta and 75 (81.5%) with Omicron. (6/28)

Modern Healthcare: Supreme Court Denies ERISA Suit Against Anthem, Express Scripts
The Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from two self-insured employers and their workers, which sought to hold Anthem and Express Scripts accountable for prescription drug costs, the high court announced Monday. The court's decision not to take the case leaves unanswered the question of whether federal law obligates health insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers to reduce group health plans' drug spending. The move does not mean the end of scrutiny for the PBM industry, or a narrower scope of health plans' fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, said Dan Kuperstein, a senior vice president of compliance at Corporate Synergies consultancy and an attorney who specializes in employee benefits. (Tepper, 6/28)

Stat: 100 Lawmakers Ask HHS To Use Controversial Federal Laws To Combat High Drug Prices
A group of 100 federal lawmakers is urging the Biden administration to use controversial provisions of federal law to lower prescription drug prices, and also asked the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for a meeting to discuss the issue. In a letter to Becerra, the lawmakers reiterated calls for the administration to invoke either march-in rights or another federal law known as Section 1498. Both approaches allow the federal government to sidestep patents and have been championed by academics and advocacy groups, but the administration has not pursued either tactic amid pushback from the pharmaceutical industry. (Silverman, 6/28)

Modern Healthcare: Providers, Insurers Poised For 'Bloody' Negotiations Amid Inflation
Surging inflation has set the table for heated negotiations between providers and insurers. In May, year-over-year price increases of consumer goods and services outpaced healthcare inflation, bucking the historical trend. The consumer price index rose 8.6%, the steepest gain since December 1981. Medical expenditures grew 3.7% in May, the biggest year-over-year jump since September 2020, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The inflation spike will ripple throughout the healthcare industry. It may push more providers to cut services or seek merger partners as supply costs rise, wages grow and access to capital drops. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 0.75 of a percentage point to curb consumer spending, increasing health systems' borrowing costs and likely slowing capital projects— and a similar increase could come in July. (Kacik and Tepper, 6/28)

USA Today: AAP Says Breastfeed Longer In New Guidance, Calls For Policy Change
The American Academy of Pediatrics has updated its guidance on breastfeeding – extending the recommended time for parents to breastfeed their children, while calling for policy change and "nonjudgmental support" for all families' feeding choices. In policy recommendations published on Monday, the AAP maintained its guidance to breastfeed infants exclusively in the first six months of their lives, before introducing other foods to complement nutrition. Now, the AAP is also urging pediatricians to support those who choose continued breastfeeding after solid foods are introduced for two years or longer. (Grantham-Philips, 6/28)

The New York Times: New Guidelines Encourage Breastfeeding Longer, But Call For More Parental Support 
Much of the policy — the group’s first updated guidance on breastfeeding in a decade — is identical to what the A.A.P. has said in the past. The organization continues to recommend that babies be exclusively breastfed for about six months, at which point complementary foods can be introduced. The statement cites research linking breastfeeding to a range of benefits in infants, including decreased rates of lower respiratory tract infections, severe diarrhea and ear infections. (Pearson, 6/27)

AP: Officials Break Ground On New Western Louisville Hospital
Company officials have broken ground on a new campus in western Louisville that will house a hospital and a headquarters for Goodwill Industries. The new hospital will be the first in the predominantly African American area west of Ninth Street since a Marine hospital closed in the 1930s. (6/29)

Bay Area News Group: Kaiser May Convert Big San Jose Office Building Into Medical Complex
Kaiser Permanente is eyeing the conversion of a big office building in San Jose to medical uses, an effort that could greatly expand the health care titan’s Silicon Valley footprint. The building on Kaiser’s radar screen is at 1600 Technology Drive in North San Jose and totals about 198,000 square feet, according to San Jose city planning documents. “As one of the largest not-for-profit health care providers in the country, Kaiser Permanente is continuously looking for opportunities to better meet the needs of our members, and support the communities we serve,” Kaiser Permanente said in comments emailed to this news organization. (Avalos, 6/28)

North Carolina Health News: Yet Another Attempt To Expand Medicaid In NC 
For all those waiting with bated breath to find out whether Medicaid will be expanded to nearly 600,000 more North Carolinians, take a pause. Republicans in the state House of Representatives are not ready to embrace the policy whole hog. Instead, there will be one more study and more planning, while the lawmakers campaign for elections in November. The proposal to create a legislative committee with members from both chambers that will hear a Medicaid Modernization Plan to be developed by the state Department of Health and Human Services comes out of negotiations between state House and Senate leaders over a spending plan for the coming fiscal year. This committee comes on the heels of another, different, study committee that met six times from February to April of this year. (Blythe, 6/29)

The CT Mirror: Lamont Extends Public Health Emergency To Ensure Extra SNAP Funds
Gov. Ned Lamont announced Tuesday that he has signed a public health emergency declaration that will allow the state to continue to receive supplemental support from the federal government. The declaration means the state will continue to receive an extra $34 million through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program every month, said Deirdre Gifford, commissioner of the Department of Social Services. Gifford said the state has distributed about $748 million to SNAP recipients. The support will continue until Dec. 15, unless the federal government decides to end the program before that. (Bravo, 6/28)

AP: Court Kills Flint Water Charges Against Ex-Governor, Others 
The Michigan Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out charges against former Gov. Rick Snyder and others in the Flint water scandal, saying a judge sitting as a one-person grand jury had no power to issue indictments under rarely used state laws. It’s an astonishing defeat for Attorney General Dana Nessel, who took office in 2019, got rid of a special prosecutor and put together a new team to investigate whether crimes were committed when lead contaminated Flint’s water system in 2014-15. (White, 6/28)

Stat: In Boston Homes, Potentially Harmful Compounds Leak From Stovetops
Natural gas — just by nature of being the most common residential energy source in the U.S. — has the sheen of being a relatively safe and clean kind of power. But increasingly, researchers are concerned we don’t have a firm enough handle on its potential health effects. Research suggests somewhere around 1% of natural gas — which is mostly methane — wafts out of stovetops unburned and untouched. Cooking or heating with natural gas also releases potentially toxic compounds into the air. A new study, published Tuesday in Environmental Science & Technology, underscores the scope of those concerns: In natural gas samples collected from 69 homes in the Boston area, researchers detected 21 federally-regulated hazardous air pollutants. (Chen, 6/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Supervisor Calls For Overdose Prevention Plan As City Prepares To Close Controversial Tenderloin Center
A San Francisco supervisor is pushing for the city to develop an overdose prevention plan in the wake of Mayor London Breed’s decision to close at year’s end the controversial Tenderloin Center — a city-run site meant to link people on the street to drug treatment, among other services. Officials allow visitors to use drugs at the site, and city and nonprofit workers have reversed more than 100 overdoses at the facility at U.N. Plaza. Supervisor Dean Preston aims to keep the center’s programs running, or find a suitable replacement. The hearing he requested would go before the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, which Preston chairs. (Swan, 6/28)

AP: CTE Diagnosed In Ex-MLS Player Vermillion, A 1st For League 
Researchers have diagnosed chronic traumatic encephalopathy in a Major League Soccer player for the first time, saying Tuesday that defender Scott Vermillion suffered from the degenerative brain disease. The Boston University CTE Center said Vermillion, who died of an accidental drug overdose in December 2020 at the age of 44, had the disease. Although it is not possible to connect any individual case to a cause, CTE has been linked to repeated blows to the head. (Golen, 6/29)

NerdWallet: Millennial Money: Getting Therapy When Cost Is A Barrier 
The race to find mental health treatment can feel like a marathon when you may not have the energy or ability to even make it to the starting line. You may be faced with limited affordable options and a lack of available therapists. “Prior to the pandemic, we had an inadequate workforce to meet the mental health demand of the country,” says Vaile Wright, who has a doctorate in counseling psychology and is the senior director of health care innovation at the American Psychological Association. “And that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic.” (Rathner, 6/28)