First Edition: April 26, 2023

KFF Health News: As Federal Emergency Declaration Expires, The Picture Of The Pandemic Grows Fuzzier 
Joel Wakefield isn’t just an armchair epidemiologist. His interest in tracking the spread of covid is personal. The 58-year-old lawyer who lives in Phoenix has an immunodeficiency disease that increases his risk of severe outcomes from covid-19 and other infections. He has spent lots of time since 2020 checking state, federal, and private sector covid trackers for data to inform his daily decisions. “I’m assessing ‘When am I going to see my grandkids? When am I going to let my own kids come into my house?’” he said. (Whitehead, 4/26)

KFF Health News: How A 2019 Florida Law Catalyzed A Hospital-Building Boom 
In BayCare Hospital Wesley Chapel’s 86 private rooms, patients can use voice-activated Alexa devices to dim the lights, play music, or summon a nurse. BayCare boasts some of the latest high-tech equipment. Yet, the company said, its $246 million facility that opened here in March doesn’t provide any health care services beyond what patients could receive at a hospital just 2 miles away. BayCare Wesley Chapel’s luster as the newest hospital in this fast-growing Tampa suburb of 65,000 people won’t last. Another general hospital is on the way — the third within a five-minute drive. (Galewitz, Sausser and Chang, 4/26)

KFF Health News: Disability Rights Groups Sue To Overturn California’s Physician-Assisted Death Law
Disability rights advocates sued Tuesday to overturn California’s physician-assisted death law, arguing that recent changes make it too easy for people with terminal diseases whose deaths aren’t imminent to kill themselves with drugs prescribed by a doctor. California’s original law allowing terminally ill adults to obtain prescriptions for life-ending drugs was passed in 2016. Advocates say the revised version that took effect last year removes crucial safeguards and violates the U.S. Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act. (Thompson, 4/25)

KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest ‘KFF Health News Minute’ 
The KFF Health News Minute this week explains why some people with long covid feel swept under the rug and how a joint report with CBS News led to the criminal investigation of a dental appliance. (4/25)

The Washington Post: Washington State Bans Assault Weapons Including AR-15s 
Washington state on Tuesday banned sales of assault weapons, including the AR-15, which has been used in some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States. Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed into law House Bill 1240, which prohibits the “manufacture, importation, distribution, selling, and offering for sale of assault weapons” and lists dozens of specific firearms — the AR-15, AK-47, M16 and M4 among them. It also prohibits equipment that can turn weapons into assault-style firearms and any semiautomatic weapon shorter than 30 inches in length. The bill includes some exceptions for firearms intended for military or law enforcement uses. (Ables, 4/26)

AP: New Washington Gun Law Already Faces Federal Court Challenge 
The sales ban, which took effect immediately, drew a quick legal challenge from the Second Amendment Foundation, based in Bellevue, Washington; and the Firearms Policy Coalition, based in Sacramento, California. The groups sued in U.S. District Court in Tacoma on Tuesday, saying the law violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. (Baumann and Valdes, 4/25)

USA Today: Sen. Tommy Tuberville Blocks 184 Military Promotions In Abortion Fight
Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama blocked 184 military promotions Tuesday in the latest chapter of his protest against the Pentagon's new abortion policy. The drama unfolded in the Senate as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, moved a request to allow the promotions and Tuberville blocked the action. (Woodall, 4/25)

USA Today: Florida Sen. Rick Scott Wants Armed Officers In Every K-12 School
Sen. Rick Scott on Tuesday took action in response to the recent Nashville school shooting that looks a lot like what he did as Florida governor after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. Five years ago, he led an effort to provide armed police officers in every public school in Florida. Now he wants to do the same across the nation with his new "School Guardian Act." (Woodall, 4/25)

Axios: Biden's 2024 Re-Election Bid Puts Abortion Front And Center
The Biden administration wasted little time making it clear that abortion access will be a cornerstone of President Biden's 2024 re-election bid as red states continue to enact bans and restrictions. Last year's midterm elections showed voter sentiment breaking for new protections for abortion rights following the fall of Roe v. Wade. Biden is hoping he can replicate that. (Gonzalez, 4/26)

USA Today: Kamala Harris Warns Republicans Not To "Get In Our Way" On Abortion Rights
Vice President Kamala Harris opened the 2024 presidential campaign with a warning to Republican leaders who want to scale back access to abortion: Don't get in our way. Appearing before Democratic activists and young voters, Harris launched into a fiery attack on Republican-led states and anti-abortion groups that have been making use of legislatures and friendly courts to limit access to the procedure. (Chambers, 4/25)

Roll Call: Pence Nods To Role Of Judges In Conservative Push On Abortion 
Former Vice President Mike Pence told a legal group Tuesday in Washington that the next Republican administration should work to curtail the power of executive agencies and pointed to recent legal fights over abortion access. “Restraining and reclaiming the legislative prerogatives of the legislative branch from the administrative state should be one of the most important objectives of the next Republican administration,” Pence said at an event put on by the Federalist Society. (Tarinelli, 4/25)

The Hill: Haley Calls For National ‘Consensus’ On Abortion
Arlington, Va. — Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley called for a national consensus on the issue of abortion on Tuesday during an address from the headquarters of the influential anti-abortion group SBA List Pro-Life America. “We have to face this reality,” Haley told reporters. “The pro-life laws that have passed in strongly Republican states will not be approved at the federal level. That’s just a fact notwithstanding what the Democrat fearmongers say.” (Manchester, 4/25)

The Texas Tribune and The New York Times: Senate OKs Bill To Allow Construction Of Anti-Abortion Monument At Capitol
The Texas Senate on Tuesday advanced legislation that could initiate the process for construction of a sculpture of a mother with a fetus visible in her womb on Capitol grounds. The sculpture would be a replica of the “Life Monument,” a bronze sculpture created by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz. The original sculpture was installed in the Church of San Marcello al Corso in Rome last year and is often interpreted as a depiction of the central figures of Christianity, Mary and Jesus. Replicas have since been installed elsewhere. (Tompkins, 4/25)

PBS NewsHour: Support For Abortion Rights Has Grown In Spite Of Bans And Restrictions, Poll Shows
Support for abortion rights overall has increased as state legislatures and courtrooms have instituted a growing number of restrictions and bans, according to the latest PBS NewHour/NPR/Marist poll. Sixty-one percent of U.S. adults say they support abortion rights, marking a 6-percentage point increase since last June. (Santhanam, 4/26)

NPR: In Oklahoma, A Woman Was Told To Wait Until She's 'Crashing' For Abortion Care
The molar pregnancy Jaci Statton had would never become a baby. It was cancerous, though. At the last hospital in Oklahoma she went to during her ordeal last month, Statton says staff told her and her husband that she could not get a surgical abortion until she became much sicker. (Simmons-Duffin, 4/25)

Politico: McCarthy Struggles To Lock Down Votes For Debt Plan
Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his team are vowing to move ahead with their sprawling debt measure as soon as Wednesday, but the path to locking down votes turned murky after a day of internal deliberations. The Californian Republican spent the day holding back-to-back meetings with leadership allies and key holdouts to shore up support before a tentative vote Wednesday. By Tuesday evening, though, the GOP’s whip count remained short of the votes needed for passage, with a cohort of Midwestern Republicans demanding changes to a major tax rollback in the bill. A smaller group of conservatives is also raising concerns of their own over work requirements for certain assistance programs. (Ferris, Carney, Hill and Beavers, 4/25)

Axios: CBO: 600,000 More Uninsured From House GOP Bill
About 600,000 people would become uninsured under the House Republican debt bill's plan to impose Medicaid work requirements, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday. The estimate from Congress' nonpartisan scorekeeper gives a sense of the coverage loss from the proposal, while also highlighting the federal savings. (Sullivan, 4/26)

Roll Call: Scope Of COVID-19 Funding Cuts Emerges As Debt Limit Flashpoint
​Democrats are jumping on the House GOP plan to recoup unspent pandemic aid in their debt limit bill, charging that the move will harm agencies counting on that funding, including the Department of Veterans Affairs. The bill, which Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is hoping to get on the floor this week, would rescind $72 billion in unobligated pandemic relief aid. (Quigley, 4/25)

Stat: Medicare Official Insists Drug Price Negotiation Will Consider Value
When Medicare starts negotiating drug prices, it will take into account how important a drug is for patients, Meena Seshamani, the director of the Center for Medicare, said Tuesday. (Wilkerson, 4/25)

Stat: Sens. Bernie Sanders, Bill Cassidy Reach Deal On PBM, Generic Reform
Senate health committee leaders Bernie Sanders and Bill Cassidy on Tuesday announced an agreement on a bipartisan package to increase access to generic drugs and increase the transparency required of pharmacy middlemen. (Cohrs, 4/25)

Modern Healthcare: Sanders, Cassidy Target PBMs In New Senate Bill
The pressure on pharmacy benefit managers mounts on Capitol Hill as the leaders of the Senate health committee unveiled the latest bills targeting prescription drug costs on Tuesday. (Tepper and Nzanga, 4/25)

AP: More Sanctions For Deadly Fentanyl If Bill Becomes Law 
Over the past year, the U.S. Treasury Department has used its sanctions powers to impose wide-ranging financial penalties on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine — turning Russia into the most sanctioned country in the world. Now, the federal agency is facing increasing pressure, including from legislation introduced Tuesday in the Senate, to use those tools with similar vigor against the people, financial institutions and companies that have participated in the explosion of fentanyl use and distribution in the U.S. (Hussein, 4/25)

Stat: FDA Approves New Biogen Treatment For Rare Form Of ALS
The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday granted conditional approval to a new treatment for a rare, genetic form of ALS — basing its decision for the first time on preliminary evidence that may also speed the development of future medicines for the fatal, neurodegenerative disease. The new drug, called Qalsody, is made by Biogen. (Feuerstein, 4/25)

The Washington Post: Tobacco Company Pleads Guilty To Violating U.S. Sanctions On North Korea
A subsidiary of one of the world’s largest tobacco companies pleaded guilty in a D.C. courtroom Tuesday morning to conspiring to commit bank fraud and violating U.S. sanctions by selling tobacco products to North Korea and illegally concealing those sales so American banks would process the transactions. (Stein and Hsu, 4/25)

Modern Healthcare: GoodRx's Trevor Bezdek, Doug Hirsch Replaced As Co-CEOs
GoodRx's co-founders Trevor Bezdek and Doug Hirsch are stepping down from their roles as co-CEOs, the company said Tuesday. Scott Wagner was appointed interim CEO of the consumer drug price comparison and digital health company. The company will search for a permanent CEO, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday. (Turner, 4/25)

Becker's Hospital Review: Hospitals Will Spend Up To 3% More On Drugs In 2023, Study Finds
Nonfederal hospitals' costs have hovered around $35 billion to $40 billion since 2018, and in 2023, overall prescription drug spending is expected to be about $38 billion, or a 1 percent to 3 percent increase from the prior year. This increase is moderate compared to the previous year's change; in 2021, hospital drug spending grew 8.4 percent from 2020. (Twenter, 4/25)

NBC News: Cancer Drug Shortage: Supply Of Pluvicto For Prostate Cancer Should Increase Later This Year
Supply of the cancer drug Pluvicto should increase “meaningfully” in the second half of the year, the drug’s manufacturer Novartis said Tuesday amid widespread shortages. Pluvicto, a drug for advanced prostate cancer, started having supply problems in February as demand increased. The Food and Drug Administration listed it as being in short supply in early March. (Lovelace Jr., 4/25)

The Washington Post: Hospital That Faced Lawsuit Provides Irvo Otieno Records To Va. Nonprofit 
The private hospital in Virginia where Irvo Otieno was taken days before his death at a different, state-run facility has turned over records to a nonprofit group investigating his treatment while in custody, short-circuiting a lawsuit over the materials. The disAbility Law Center on Monday requested to withdraw the lawsuit it had filed in Richmond federal court against Parham Doctors’ Hospital, saying the records the hospital was withholding had since arrived in the mail. (Rizzo, 4/25)

The Boston Globe: ‘Everyone Gets Away With It Because There Isn’t Accountability’: Boston Center Launches New Plan To Reduce Medical Errors 
Nearly 30 years after Betsy Lehman died from an accidental overdose of chemotherapy drugs, Massachusetts facilities are still grappling with the issue of medical errors. (Bartlett, 4/26)

Los Angeles Times: Alleged Phony Doctor May Have Illegally Treated Thousands
A Studio City man is facing criminal charges after investigators say he illegally provided medical care to thousands of patients at his Toluca Lake facility without a license, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. (Toohey, 4,/25)

The Hill: Health Groups Sound The Alarm Over Foreign Nurse Visa Freeze 
Newly announced limits on visas for foreign nurses threatens to further a staffing strain on hospitals, nursing homes and other major health employers. The State Department in its May Visa Bulletin announced that nearly all the available green card slots that nurses are eligible for had been filled. Only people who applied prior to June 1, 2022 will be eligible to continue with visa interviews, even if an applicant already had a job offer in the U.S. (Weixel, 4/25)

The Baltimore Sun: Notre Dame Of Maryland, Mount St. Mary’s Universities Partner To Help Address Nursing Shortage
Aiming to help ease a statewide nursing shortage, Notre Dame of Maryland University and Mount St. Mary’s University have partnered to make it a bit faster to become a nurse. The two schools signed an agreement Tuesday morning that will simplify the enrollment process from Mount St. Mary’s pre-nursing track into Notre Dame’s fast-track bachelor of science in nursing program. After graduating from Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, students can complete the Notre Dame program in a minimum of 15 months. (LeBoeuf, 4/25)

Becker's Hospital Review: RN Average Wage For All 50 States 
Registered nurses receive $42.80 on average, according to data published by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational employment statistics survey. RNs in California had the highest average annual wage, followed by Hawaii and Oregon. The data was gathered in May 2022. (Robertson, 4/25)

Stat: Students Leading A Nascent Climate Movement In Medical Education
When Cecilia Sorensen was an emergency medicine resident practicing at Denver Health in Colorado a few years ago, summer was known as “trauma season.” Gunshot and motor vehicle accident victims, people with heart attacks and COPD would stream into the ER. Later, on a fellowship, she witnessed the health impacts of drought in Syria. The common driver, she realized, was climate change and its impact, both locally and globally. (Pennar, 4/26)

AP: Blue Cross Oversight Bill Riles North Carolina Regulator 
North Carolina’s dominant health insurance provider could transfer billions to a holding company instead of returning portions of that surplus to policyholders, under legislation that advanced Tuesday in the state House. The House Health Committee passed a bill with broad bipartisan support that would restructure Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the largest nonprofit provider in all 100 counties, and allow it to behave more like its for-profit national competitors. The House Insurance Committee will debate the bill Wednesday. (Schoenbaum, 4/25)

Arizona Republic: Sexually Transmitted Infections In Arizona Increased During Pandemic
Arizona in 2021 led the nation for its rate of syphilis in newborns, and preliminary state data indicates the problem got worse last year. Arizona's rate of babies born with syphilis in 2021 was nearly three times the national average rate, according to new data on sexually transmitted infections ― STIs ― released this month by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Innes, 4/25)

CIDRAP: Study On Mpox In Homeless Notes That 60% Also Had HIV 
Today in Emerging Infectious Diseases, researchers describe the epidemiologic characteristics of 118 mpox patients in Los Angeles who were homeless at the time of their diagnosis and note that 60% also had HIV. All patients were identified from July to September 2022. (Soucheray, 4/25)

The 19th: Lawmakers Are Being Silenced For Speaking Out Against Anti-Trans Bills
State Rep. Zooey Zephyr stood on the Montana House floor, holding her microphone in the air. Protesters’ chants echoed as they demanded she be allowed to speak. Police officers, some carrying batons, removed her supporters. Seven people were arrested.  Monday’s protest came after days in which Zephyr has been prevented from speaking on the House floor after she denounced Republicans for supporting anti-transgender legislation. (Rummler, 4/25)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Agency's Employees Told To Dress Based On 'Biological Gender'
A memo sent to Texas Department of Agriculture employees last week told employees at the department to dress "in a manner consistent with their biological gender." Employees who don't follow the new rules could be disciplined or fired, according to the memo. Advocates for LGBTQ people in Texas said the directive appears to target transgender people and could run afoul of federal anti-discrimination laws. (Wayne Ferguson, 4/25)

USA Today: Is Melatonin Safe For Kids? Gummies Can Cause Poisoning, Study Finds
Amid a sixfold rise in poisonings from melatonin supplements among U.S. children over the past decade, a study released Tuesday sheds light on how unregulated the sleep aid actually is. Because melatonin is sold as a supplement, it’s not regulated as a drug – so the U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn’t have oversight over ingredient content or accuracy. (Hassanein, 4/25)

MedPage Today: Be Wary Of Unproven Eye Drop Treatment With Amniotic Fluid, FDA Says
In its ongoing battle against companies selling unapproved stem cell products, the FDA issued a safety communication earlier this month about amniotic fluid eye drops being improperly marketed for dry eye disease. (Fiore, 4/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Salmonella In Breaded Raw Chicken Is Target Of USDA Crackdown 
The Agriculture Department proposed new rules Tuesday aimed at minimizing salmonella outbreaks from some breaded chicken products, a move the industry said could significantly affect availability and price. Part of a broader effort to contain salmonella, the new proposal takes aim at breaded, stuffed raw chicken products, such as frozen chicken cordon bleu. Because these products are often prebrowned, consumers might mistakenly think they are cooked, leading to consumption of undercooked chicken, the USDA said. (Peterson and Thomas, 4/25)

CNN: Fried Food Is Linked To Increased Risk Of Anxiety And Depression
French fries — they’re greasy, starchy and a comfort food for many. But reaching for fried foods may have a negative impact on mental health. A research team in Hangzhou, China, found that frequent consumption of fried foods, especially fried potatoes, was linked with a 12% higher risk of anxiety and 7% higher risk of depression than in people who didn’t eat fried foods. (Nicioli, 4/24)

The Washington Post: Mattel Introduces First Barbie Doll With Down Syndrome 
Kayla McKeon loved playing with Barbie dolls growing up in the ’90s. She brushed their hair and dressed them up. Together, they went on walks, hosted dinner parties and cruised around in toy convertibles. McKeon’s Barbies looked all sorts of ways. Some were blonde, while others were brunette. Some had blue eyes; others, green. But none of them looked quite like McKeon, because none of them had Down syndrome. (Edwards, 4/26)