First Edition: April 6, 2023

KHN: Gov. Newsom Wanted California To Cut Ties With Walgreens. Then Federal Law Got In The Way.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared last month that California was “done” doing business with Walgreens after the pharmacy chain said it would not distribute an abortion pill in 21 states where Republicans threatened legal action. Since then, KHN has learned that the Democratic governor must compromise on his hard-line tweet. California is legally bound to continue doing business with Walgreens through the state’s massive Medicaid program, health law experts said. And according to a public records request, the state paid Walgreens $1.5 billion last year. (Young, 4/6)

KHN: The Big Squeeze: More Enrollees And Smaller Networks Plague Some ACA Plans 
The Affordable Care Act may be struggling with its own success. Record enrollment over the last two years brought more consumers into the market. At the same time, many insurers began offering smaller networks of doctors and hospitals, partly to be price-competitive. That combination left some patients scrambling to find an available in-network physician or medical facility. That can be a challenge, especially when enrollees must rely on inaccurate provider lists from their insurance company. (Appleby, 4/6)

The New York Times: Idaho Bans Out-Of-State Abortions For Minors Without Parent’s Consent
Idaho on Wednesday became the first state to make it illegal for minors to leave the state to get an abortion without parental consent. The new law, signed by Gov. Brad Little, would create a crime called “abortion trafficking,” carrying a penalty of two to five years in jail for anyone who helps a person under 18 get an abortion or obtain abortion pills without permission from a parent or guardian. (Chen, 4/5)

AP: Idaho Governor Signs 'Abortion Trafficking' Bill Into Law 
The law is the first of its kind in the U.S. and creates a new crime of “ abortion trafficking,” barring adults from obtaining abortion pills for a minor or “recruiting, harboring or transporting the pregnant minor” without the consent of the minor’s parent or guardian. Anyone convicted of breaking the law will face two to five years in prison and could also be sued by the minor’s parent or guardian. Parents who raped their child will not be able to sue, though the criminal penalties for anyone who helped the minor obtain an abortion will remain in effect. (4/6)

The Hill: ACLU, Planned Parenthood Sue Idaho AG Over Out-Of-State Abortion Referral Ban 
Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday separately announced they’re filing suit against the Idaho attorney general over an interpretation of state law that would punish medical professionals who refer patients out-of-state for abortion services. Idaho’s attorney general Raúl Labrador issued a legal opinion last week that said state law prohibits medical providers from referring a patient across state lines to undergo an abortion, or from prescribing abortion pills for a patient to pick up across state lines. (Mueller, 4/5)

The 19th: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Repeals 1931 Abortion Ban
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday signed into law a bill that repeals a 1931 abortion ban, cementing access in the state and fulfilling a promise she made during her reelection campaign. Whitmer signed the legislation surrounded by Michigan doctors, lawmakers and abortion advocates. (Rodriguez, 4/5)

AP: New Mexico Governor Signs Bill To Shield Abortion Providers 
Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill Wednesday that protects providers of abortions from related prosecution, professional disciplinary action or extradition attempts by out-of-state interests. A companion abortion-rights bill signed in March guarantees access to reproductive health care in response to a string of anti-abortion ordinances by cities and counties in eastern New Mexico where opposition to abortion access runs deep. (Lee, 4/5)

AP: Narrow Abortion Exemption Bill Passed By Tennessee Lawmakers 
Tennessee’s GOP-dominant Senate gave final approval Wednesday to legislation that would add a narrow exemption to one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States, with it now heading to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk for his approval. The Senate passed the bill on a 26-1 vote, with several of the chamber’s Democratic lawmakers voting “present” rather than picking a side. (Kruesi, 4/5)

The Washington Post: Air Pollution May Raise Risk Of Dementia, Analysis Shows 
It has long been known that inhaling these microscopic particles — also known as PM 2.5, particles less than 2.5 microns in width — can cause serious health issues. (In comparison, the width of a single human hair is 50 to 100 microns.) But “their relationship to the brain and dementia is a relatively recent thing,” said lead study author Marc Weisskopf, Cecil K. and Philip Drinker Professor of environmental epidemiology and physiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Dementia is a massive problem worldwide. If we can reduce exposure to these particles, we can reduce the burden of dementia.” (Cimons, 4/5)

AP: EPA Tightens Mercury Emissions Limits At Coal Power Plants 
The Environmental Protection Agency is tightening rules that limit emissions of mercury and other harmful pollutants from coal-fired power plants, updating standards imposed more than a decade ago. The rules proposed Wednesday would lower emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants that can harm brain development of young children and contribute to heart attacks and other health problems in adults. (Daly, 4/5)

ProPublica: Major Chemical Company Changes Tune on Asbestos, No Longer Opposes EPA Ban
For decades, chemical companies fought attempts to ban asbestos, claiming they needed the potent carcinogen to manufacture chlorine. As recently as last April, in fact, the CEO of one of the last major companies still clinging to the toxic substance argued for it to remain legal. Acceptable alternatives “do not exist,” Olin Corp. CEO Scott Sutton told regulators. In a dramatic turnaround, Olin said on Tuesday that it would support a federal ban on the deadly mineral. (McGrory and Bedi, 4/5)

The New York Times: China Publishes Data Showing Raccoon Dog DNA At Wuhan Market 
Chinese government scientists on Wednesday published a long-awaited study about a market in the city of Wuhan, acknowledging that animals susceptible to the coronavirus were there around the time the virus emerged. But the scientists also said that it remained unclear how the pandemic began. The study, published in the journal Nature, focused on swabs taken from surfaces in early 2020 at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a large market where many of the earliest known Covid patients had worked or shopped. The Chinese scientists had posted an early version of their genetic analysis of those samples in February 2022, but at the time downplayed the possibility of animal infections at the market. (Mueller, 4/5)

CIDRAP: With New Nature Study, Scientists Continue To Debate SARS-CoV-2 Origins
Chinese researchers who isolated three live SARS-CoV-2 viruses and viral DNA from environmental samples at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, say the findings don't definitively show that the pandemic spilled over into humans from animals, according to a study published today in Nature. ... On the Zenodo preprint server, the group posted its own analysis of the sequences, which it said support—but don't definitively prove—that the virus likely jumped from animals (eg, raccoon dog) to people at the market. (Van Beusekom, 4/5)

Stat: Where Is The White House’s New Pandemic Response Office?
In the wake of a pandemic that claimed more than 1 million American lives, Congress in December instructed the White House to create a new, permanent office to coordinate the government’s readiness for the next pandemic threat. The White House hasn’t gotten around to actually getting it up and running. The office was intended to be a permanent solution for the ongoing need for the White House to hire “czars” to handle public health threats like Ebola, AIDS, and Covid-19. But Biden hasn’t nominated anyone to lead it, just a month before a crucial turning point in the administration’s pandemic response. (Cohrs, 4/6)

Becker's Hospital Review: Solidifying Long COVID-19's Definition Is Key, Researchers Say
While some aspects of long COVID-19 — sometimes referred to as post-COVID-19 condition, or PCC — are much better understood than before, researchers have yet to land on a unified definition for the condition. ... he major complications around research on the condition relate both to its various names and broad references to a collection of different symptoms after a coronavirus infection, which "makes assimilating and comparing findings from current studies difficult," U.K. researchers Daniel Pan, MD, and Manish Pareek, PhD, wrote in an April 5 report published in JAMA. (Hollowell, 4/5)

FiercePharma: FDA Authorizes InflaRx's Anti-Inflammation Drug For Severe COVID
The FDA has granted an emergency use authorization for InflaRx’s vilobelimab to treat critically ill COVID patients, the German company said in a press release Monday. The drug also bears the moniker Gohibic, and it’s only allowed for use within 48 hours of a patient receiving invasive mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), which are typically utilized in the most severe patients experiencing acute respiratory failure. (Liu, 4/4)

Reuters: Pfizer RSV Vaccine 82% Effective Vs Severe Infection In Infants, Final Data Shows 
Pfizer Inc's experimental respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine was 82% effective in preventing severe infections in infants when given to expecting mothers in the second half of their pregnancy, according to trial details published on Wednesday that confirm preliminary data from the study. Final data from the study that was halted early when it became clear the vaccine was effective was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. (4/5)

The New York Times: Robert Kennedy Jr., A Noted Vaccine Skeptic, Files To Run For President
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the political activist known most recently for his campaign to discredit coronavirus vaccines, filed paperwork on Wednesday to run for president as a Democrat, offering a potential long-shot challenge to President Biden. (Gabriel, 4/5)

Military Times: Suicide Surges Among Soldiers Not Inherently Tied To Wars, Study Finds
Suicide rates among active duty soldiers do not appear to be significantly impacted during times of war, a recent study found. Despite an uptick in suicides amid the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, historically times of combat are not solely accountable for surges in self-harm among troops, according to the study slated for the May issue of Psychiatry Research. (Lehrfeld, 4/4)

Military Times: Military Still Mismanaging Troops’ Traumatic Brain Injury Care
Nearly half a million service members suffered traumatic brain injuries in the past two decades, but the Defense Department isn’t sure exactly how many, how they are being treated or how they are doing now, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general. A DoD inspector general report released Monday found inconsistencies with how the military health system handles screening, tracking and treating brain injury, often because the existing process is cumbersome. It concluded that DoD is “unable to accurate identify, treat and track” incidents of brain injury across the forces. (Myers, 4/5)

Military.Com: Guardsmen, Reservists Would Get Expanded Parental Leave Under Senate Bill
On the heels of Congress securing a win for active-duty military parents by expanding their parental leave, a bipartisan pair of senators wants National Guardsmen and reservists to have comparable benefits. Under the Reserve Component Parental Leave Parity Act, the text of which was obtained by Military.com ahead of its release, Guardsmen and reservists on drill status who are non-birthing parents, adoptive parents or foster parents would get parental leave -- not just birth mothers, as is the case right now. (Kheel, 4/5)

Fox News: ADHD Numbers Climbing Dramatically In The U.S., Especially Among Women, Says New Study
The number of people diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is climbing steadily in the U.S. — especially among women, a new study found. While cases have risen across all age groups, the spike has been most significant among women. The share of females between the ages of 23 and 49 years of age diagnosed with the disorder nearly doubled from 2020 to 2022. (Rudy, 4/5)

AP: Novel Treatment Shows Promise Against Rare Cancer In Kids
A novel treatment using supercharged immune cells appears to work against tumors in children with a rare kind of cancer, researchers reported Wednesday. Nine of 27 children in the Italian study had no sign of cancer six weeks after the treatment, although two later relapsed and died. The treatment — called CAR-T cell therapy — is already used to help the immune system fight leukemia and other cancers in the blood. This is the first time researchers have achieved such encouraging results in solid tumors, experts in the field said, and raises hopes that it can be used against other kinds of cancers. (Johnson, 4/5)

The Wall Street Journal: These Drugs Are So Futuristic That Doctors Need New Training 
Promising therapies include antisense oligonucleotides (or ASOs) which affect how proteins inside cells are made; Crispr gene editors that can cut, rewrite, or replace faulty genes; and other novel approaches. But there’s a hitch. Some of these drugs, as well as therapies in development for other conditions, are administered through lumbar punctures, which aren’t a routine part of doctors’ daily practices. They may involve infusions of a gene packaged inside the shell of a virus, which can lead to potential immune complications and can require close monitoring of patients. Some drugs need to be stored in special conditions, which can take complicated planning and coordination that few doctors have experienced. (Marcus, 4/5)

Stat: Can U.S. Cancer Drug Shortages Be Fixed?
Roughly two million Americans are expected to receive a cancer diagnosis this year. Some members of this already vulnerable group will wind up facing what physician Andrew Schuman recently called “a tragedy happening in slow motion” — an ongoing, nationwide shortage of critical oncology drugs that routinely save or extend the lives of children and adults. Speaking at a March 22 Senate hearing on drug shortages, Schuman, a head and neck surgeon at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, described the agonizing decisions that doctors must make when critical medicines are in short supply. (Neimark, 4/5)

The Boston Globe: Former Top Officials At Mass. Company Charged With Knowingly Selling Defective Lead-Testing Machines Used By Tens Of Thousands Of Children
Three former executives at a Massachusetts medical device company knowingly sold defective lead-testing machines between 2013 and 2017 that generated inaccurate results for tens of thousands of children across the country and for clients of at least one international relief organization, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. (Ellement and Lazar, 4/5)

AP: Indiana, Idaho Governors Sign Bans On Gender-Affirming Care 
Republican governors in Indiana and Idaho have signed into law bills banning gender-affirming care for minors, making those states the latest to restrict transgender health care as Republican-led legislatures continue to curb LGBTQ+ rights this year. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed legislation Wednesday that will prohibit transgender youth from accessing medication or surgeries that aid in transition and mandate those currently taking medication to stop by the end of the year. Idaho Gov. Brad Little had signed legislation Tuesday evening that criminalizes gender-affirming care for youth. (Rodgers, 4/6)

USA Today: Kansas Enacts Transgender Athletes Ban Over Veto Of Gov. Laura Kelly
After years of failed efforts, Kansas legislators successfully enacted a bill to ban transgender athletes in women’s sports over the veto of Gov. Laura Kelly, joining 19 other states with similar measures. The Kansas Legislature on Wednesday voted to overide the Democratic governor's third veto in three years of a bill to ban transgender athletes and came a day after state lawmakers passed a 'bathroom bill.' (Bahl, Tidd and Ngyuen, 4/5)

NBC News: North Dakota Advances Record-Setting 10 Anti-LGBTQ Bills In One Day, Advocates Say
North Dakota’s Legislature advanced 10 bills Tuesday that advocates say target the state’s LGBTQ community, setting a single-day record for such legislation, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group. The state Senate passed all 10 bills, which had already passed the House, on Monday. Eight of them are headed to Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican, for either a signature or a veto. (Yurcaba, 4/5)

The Hill: South Carolina House Votes To Repeal Period Tax
The South Carolina House voted on Wednesday to remove the state’s sales tax from period products in an effort to up the affordability of menstrual necessities. The bill passed unanimously 114-0, with 10 state lawmakers absent or not voting. ... South Carolina is among many states with a so-called “period tax” or “tampon tax” in place, meaning menstrual products — like tampons, menstrual pads, liners and cups — don’t get the sales tax exemption often afforded to other basic necessities. (Mueller, 4/5)

USA Today: Catholic Sex Abuse: Report Details Claims Against 150 Baltimore Priests
More than 150 Catholic priests and clergy members associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore were accused of "horrific and repeated" sexual abuse of at least 600 children since the 1940s, according to a Maryland Office of the Attorney General report made public on Wednesday. (Santucci, 4/5)

AP: Hospital: Treatment, Discharge Of Woman Who Died Appropriate 
A woman who died after being discharged from a Tennessee hospital and forced to leave despite her pleas for more help received appropriate medical treatment, the hospital said, but changes were being made to security procedures. The findings from an internal investigation by Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center in Knoxville over its treatment of 60-year-old Lisa Edwards were released Tuesday, news outlets reported. (4/5)

AP: Massachusetts Weighs Letting Judges Order Mental Health Care 
A bill before Massachusetts lawmakers would let family members and mental health professionals ask courts to order outpatient mental health care for adults with a persistent mental illness and significant history of serious physical harm to themselves or others. The court would be allowed to order a personalized treatment plan, including a monthly assessment by a mental health professional to see if the person should remain in court-ordered community treatment, according to the bill’s author, Democratic state Sen. Cindy Friedman. The bill is still in the very early stages of making its way through the Legislature. (LeBlanc, 4/6)

Los Angeles Times: Norovirus Outbreaks Grow In California. How To Avoid Infection
The highly contagious norovirus, sometimes referred to as the stomach flu, is on the rise in California, prompting state health officials to urge healthcare providers to step up disinfection efforts in a bid to check the spread. There have been at least 25 outbreaks of norovirus since Feb. 1, likely adding up to hundreds of cases statewide, according to a recent advisory from the California Department of Public Health. (Lin II and Money, 4/5)

The Washington Post: D.C. Elementary Students Hospitalized After Sharing ‘Gummies,’ Officials Say 
Five students at Key Elementary School were hospitalized Wednesday for what appeared to be reactions to drugs after consuming “gummies,” officials said. They are in stable condition. Officials at the Northwest Washington school said a student brought “gummies containing an unidentified controlled substance” to school and shared them with other fifth-graders. Students started to feel unwell and were evaluated by the school’s nurse, according to a letter Assistant Principal Jennifer Green sent to families. (Lumpkin and Davies, 4/5)

The Washington Post: How Exercise Leads To Sharper Thinking And A Healthier Brain
To build a better brain, just exercise. That’s the message of two important new studies of how physical activity changes our minds. In one, scientists delved into the lives, DNA and cognition of thousands of people to show that regular exercise leads to much sharper thinking. Another study helps explain why exercise is good for the brain. Researchers found that just six minutes of strenuous exertion quintupled production of a neurochemical known to be essential for lifelong brain health. (Reynolds, 4/5)

CIDRAP: Canada Reports H5N1 Avian Flu In Pet Dog
Canadian health officials yesterday announced that H5N1 avian influenza has been detected in a domestic dog, the country's first such case, adding to the list of mammal species infected in ongoing activity involving the 2.3.4.4b clade of the virus. ... The dog got sick after chewing on a dead goose and died. A necropsy revealed respiratory symptoms involvement, and further investigation is underway. (Schnirring, 4/5)