First Edition: May 30, 2023

KFF Health News: Many People Living In The ‘Diabetes Belt’ Are Plagued With Medical Debt
Delores Lowery remembers vividly the day in 2016 when she was working in a weaving plant near her home in Bennettsville, South Carolina, and the world around her seemed to go dim. She turned to her co-workers. “And I asked, I said, ‘Why y’all got it so dark in here? They said, ‘Delores, it’s not dark in here.’ I said, ‘Yes, it is. It’s so dark in here.'” (Benincasa and McMillan, 5/30)

KFF Health News: Mammograms At 40? Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines Spark Fresh Debate
While physicians mostly applauded a government-appointed panel’s recommendation that women get routine mammography screening for breast cancer starting at age 40, down from 50, not everyone approves. Some doctors and researchers who are invested in a more individualized approach to finding troublesome tumors are skeptical, raising questions about the data and the reasoning behind the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s about-face from its 2016 guidelines. (Cohen, 5/30)

KFF Health News: Cardiovascular Disease Is Primed To Kill More Older Adults, Especially Blacks And Hispanics
Cardiovascular disease — the No. 1 cause of death among people 65 and older — is poised to become more prevalent in the years ahead, disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic communities and exacting an enormous toll on the health and quality of life of older Americans. (Graham, 5/30)

KFF Health News: California Governor And Democratic Lawmakers At Odds Over Billions In Health Care Funds
When Gov. Gavin Newsom took office four years ago, the Democrat went after Republicans on the national stage as they sought to gut the Affordable Care Act. Key to his ambitious health care agenda: reinstating the fine on Californians who don’t have health coverage, which had been eliminated at the federal level. (Hart, 5/30)

Politico: Debt Ceiling Agreement Claws Back About $30B In Unspent Covid Funds
It also would continue to fund veterans' health care associated with environmental hazards, such as toxic exposure to burn pits. The agreement does not contain changes to Medicaid, something that Democrats had said was essential to them. And White House officials said Sunday the deal also maintains the Inflation Reduction Act’s prescription drug provisions — as expected. (Lim, 5/28)

Politico: Playbook: The Debt Ceiling Glide Path Comes Into View
Covid aid clawbacks … Nearly $30 billion in unspent relief money Congress approved during the height of the pandemic would be clawed back from dozens of programs. There are cutouts for some programs such as veterans health care and Covid-19 treatment and vaccine research. (Daniels, Bade and Lizza, 5/29)

The New York Times: With Mpox At Risk of Flaring, Health Officials Advise, ‘Get Vaccinated’
Now, a year after a global mpox outbreak began and just as Pride celebrations and the summer party season are set to start, public health authorities are warning of a risk of new outbreaks, nationally and in New York City, primarily among men who have sex with men. (Otterman and Stack, 5/29)

AP: Mpox Is Down, But US Cities Could Be At Risk For Summertime Outbreaks
With Pride events planned across the country in the coming weeks, health officials and event organizers say they are optimistic that this year infections will be fewer and less severe. A bigger supply of vaccine, more people with immunity and readier access to a drug to treat mpox are among the reasons. But they also worry that people may think of mpox as last year’s problem.“Out of sight, out of mind,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who is advising the White House on its mpox response. “But we are beating the drum.” (Stobbe, 5/28)

CIDRAP: UK Reports More Mpox Cases, Urges Vaccination
The United Kingdom's Health Security Agency (HSA) yesterday reported more mpox cases, all from London, and encouraged people to stay vigilant over the summer months. The warning comes as health officials and affected communities brace for more mpox infections  linked to summer festivals and gatherings. Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a similar warning in the wake of a cluster of mpox infections in the Chicago area. (Schnirring, 5/26)

AP: Doctor's Supporters, Hospital At Odds With Indiana Penalty For Talking About 10-Year-Old's Abortion
Supporters of an Indianapolis doctor voiced frustration Friday with the Indiana medical board’s decision that she violated patient privacy laws when she talked with a newspaper reporter about providing an abortion to a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim. ... Some of Bernard’s colleagues criticized the Medical Licensing Board’s vote and the state attorney general’s pursuit of disciplinary action against her as trying to intimidate doctors in Indiana, where the Republican-dominated Legislature enacted an abortion ban last year that courts have put on hold. (Davies, 5/26)

The Hill: Poll: Most Don’t Trust Supreme Court To Decide Reproductive Health Cases
Most respondents in a new poll said they don’t trust the Supreme Court to decide cases related to reproductive and sexual health. Only 37 percent of adults said they trust the court “a lot” or “somewhat” to make the right decision on reproductive and sexual health, according to the poll released Friday by KFF. The results come amid an ongoing lawsuit that seeks to undo federal approval of the common medication abortion pill mifepristone, and almost a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. (Weixel, 5/26)

The Hill: Judge Temporarily Blocks New South Carolina Abortion Ban
A South Carolina judge Friday temporarily blocked the state’s new law that would ban most abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy. The injunction will remain in effect until the state Supreme Court can review the measure. The ruling comes just one day after the law took effect following Gov. Henry McMaster’s (R) signature. The decision means the state will revert back to the previous law, which allows abortion up to about 20 weeks after fertilization. (Weixel, 5/26)

Los Angeles Times: Even In California, Anti-Abortion 'Crisis Pregnancy Centers' Seem To Be Untouchable
At Sierra Pregnancy and Health, Executive Director Cary Wilcox beams with pride holding a plastic model of what will soon be a new mobile clinic thanks to a flood of donations after its “biggest year ever.” Outside the nondescript nonprofit just 20 miles from the California capital, a sign advertises “abortion pill reversal” — a practice involving the hormone progesterone that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists deems “unethical” and “not supported by science.” (Mays, 5/28)

USA Today: In Abortion Pill Battle, Mifepristone Patients Come To Its Defense
Amid the legal saga, people who’ve had medication abortions told USA TODAY the ability to choose mifepristone felt life-saving and gave them a sense of flexibility and control over their abortion experiences. (5/27)

CIDRAP: US COVID Indicators Remain Low
On the eve of the Memorial Day weekend, the two main metrics that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses to track US COVID-19 activity—hospitalizations and deaths—continue to decline, according to the latest data. Hospitalizations for COVID are down 11% compared to a week ago, and deaths from the virus are down 13.3%. (Schnirring, 5/26)

The Washington Post: Tally Of Covid-19 Cases After CDC Conference Climbs To 181
The tally of people infected with the coronavirus after attending a high-profile Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference in April has risen to at least 181, the agency reported Friday. No one was hospitalized. (Sun, 5/26)

The Washington Post: For Covid Long-Haulers, The Pandemic Is Far From Over
Ever since January, when President Biden announced plans for a springtime end to the coronavirus public health emergency, Frank Ziegler has been wrestling with what that would mean for covid long-haulers like him. “The president was telling the U.S. to just move on. The problem is that for however many million of us, we can’t just move on,” said the Nashville attorney, who has endured cognitive impairments since coming down with covid-19 more than two years ago. (Stead Sellers, 5/29)

The Atlantic: Fall's COVID Shots May Be Different In One Key Way
This fall, millions of Americans might be lining up for yet another kind of COVID vaccine:  their first-ever dose that lacks the strain that ignited the pandemic more than three and a half years ago. Unlike the current, bivalent vaccine, which guards against two variants at once, the next one could, like the first version of the shot, have only one main ingredient—the spike protein of the XBB.1 lineage of the Omicron variant, the globe’s current dominant clade. (Wu, 5/26)

The New York Times: As Covid Infections Rise, China Rejects A Return To Lockdowns 
In December, China abruptly abandoned its draconian “Zero Covid” policies, battered by a surge of infections and rising public anger against lockdowns. Half a year on, Covid cases again are on the rise, but this time the nation appears to be determined to press on with normal life as the government focuses on reigniting economic growth. (Buckley, 5/27)

The Hill: Millions Had Medicaid Coverage Tied To The Pandemic. Now They Stand To Lose It
Federal legislation passed during the pandemic prohibited states from terminating a Medicaid enrollee’s coverage until the end of the public health emergency, which enabled the federal program to grow and contributed to a record-low national uninsured rate. These provisions have concluded, however, and it’s become apparent that beneficiaries were not made aware of the change. (Choi, 5/29)

The Washington Post: Insurance Rules Keep Patients From Opioid, Mental Health Drugs
While insurance companies say a relatively small percentage of medication and services require approval, critics, including the American Medical Association (AMA), say prior authorization is overused, costs providers time and money, and delays treatment to patients with mental health and substance use disorders who are vulnerable to relapse when experiencing interruptions in care. The bill before the D.C. Council, introduced by Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), would set deadlines for insurers to respond to prior authorization requests and appeals, allow denials only by a District-licensed physician with the same specialty as the patient’s doctor, make approvals last at least a year and honor approvals for 60 days when a patient changes plans. (Portnoy, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Biden Urges Uganda To Repeal Drastic New Anti-LGBT Law
President Biden on Monday urged Uganda to repeal a sweeping new anti-LGBT law that introduces the death penalty for some same-sex relations and said his administration was re-evaluating U.S. assistance to the east African country. (Bariyo and Steinhauser, 5/29)

Politico: Congress Prods Biden Administration On Female Crash Dummies
Congress wants the Biden administration to move faster on addressing the gender gap in vehicle crash testing — something safety advocates have urged for years amid soaring traffic fatalities. The crash tests that regulators use to rate vehicles’ safety don’t use female test dummies in the driver’s seat in a key test, and in the tests where they are used, the dummies are less-accurate, scaled-down male versions. Advocates say the discrepancy means that hundreds of women needlessly die in crashes every year. (Guo, 5/29)

AP: Court Monitor Warned Of Medical Care Issues At Border Patrol Stations Before Girl’s Death
A court-appointed monitor said in January that child migrants held in medical isolation may be overlooked when Border Patrol stations get too crowded, a warning issued five months before an 8-year-old girl with a heart condition died in custody during an unusually busy period in the same Texas region he inspected. (Gonzalez and Spagat, 5/26)

The Washington Post: Military Members Half As Likely As Civilians To Receive HPV Vaccine
Active-duty military and veterans are twice as likely as civilians to develop cancers associated with human papillomavirus, or HPV. Now, research shows they are also half as likely to be vaccinated as those civilians — a disparity experts say will lead to preventable cancer deaths. To estimate HPV vaccination among veterans, researchers analyzed Veterans Health Administration data on more than 128,000 veterans ages 18 to 26 who had at least one primary care visit between 2018 and 2020, then compared it with federal data on civilians. (Blakemore, 5/28)

The Hill: What Are Poppers And Why Is The FDA Warning About Them?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning Americans to make sure the tiny bottles they’re drinking aren’t accidentally something else — poppers, in particular. But you may be wondering just what that means. “Poppers” is a term used to refer to a variety of liquid chemicals, typically amyl nitrate, which are sometimes inhaled by people recreationally for enhanced sexual arousal and temporary relaxation. While these items can be sold (and are widely available in places like adult novelty stores), their use is not approved in any way by the FDA and using them as a drug is illegal. (Falcon, 5/26)

USA Today: What Is Kratom? Herbal Drug's Side Effects, Withdrawal Explained
Millions of Americans have turned to kratom, an over-the-counter herbal drug extracted from the leaves of a tree native to Southeast Asia, for relief of pain, anxiety and even withdrawal symptoms from opioids. But the Food and Drug Administration has said kratom may be harmful. The agency has sought to restrict imports of the substance and recently seized a large shipment to an Oklahoma manufacturer. (Alltucker, 5/27)

The New York Times: To Prevent Heart Attacks, Doctors Try A New Genetic Test 
Cardiologists hope to use such tests, which cost about $150 and are not typically covered by health insurance, to identify people most likely to have heart attacks long before they have them. Some doctors envision testing children as part of routine pediatric care. “There’s a real unmet need to identify high-risk people very early in life,” said Dr. Nicholas Marston, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He has studied polygenic risk scores and has also been involved in trials for pharmaceutical companies that make cholesterol medicines. “We know the solution to preventing heart disease is getting your bad cholesterol as low as possible for as long as possible.” (Kolata, 5/30)

The Washington Post: More Exercise Appeared To Lower Women's Parkinson's Risk, Study Says
Getting regular exercise may reduce a woman’s chances of developing Parkinson’s disease by as much as 25 percent, according to research published in the journal Neurology. It involved 95,354 women, who were an average of age 49 and did not have Parkinson’s when the study began. The researchers compared the women’s physical exercise levels over nearly three decades, including such activities as walking, cycling, gardening, stair climbing, house cleaning and sports participation. (Searing, 5/28)

The New York Times: Ketamine Shows Promise For Hard-To-Treat Depression In New Study
A new study suggests that, for some patients, the anesthetic ketamine is a promising alternative to electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, currently one of the quickest and most effective therapies for patients with difficult-to-treat depression. The study is the largest head-to-head comparison of the two treatments. (Caron, 5/26)

CIDRAP: Artificial Intelligence Discovers New Antibiotic Candidate
A team of researchers from McMaster University in Toronto and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they have discovered, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), a new antibiotic with the potential to fight a multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogen. (Dall, 5/26)

CIDRAP: Bivalent COVID Vaccine Efficacy At 6 Months: 24% Against Hospitalization, Strong Against Death
Estimated bivalent (two-strain) COVID-19 mRNA vaccine effectiveness (VE) against hospitalization dropped from 62% 1 week after receipt to 24% at 4 to 6 months in adults with healthy immune systems, but protection against severe outcomes was sustained, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study. (Van Beusekom, 5/26)

CIDRAP: COVID-Related Cancer Screening Delays Will Lead To Later Diagnoses, Experts Note
Delayed diagnoses of lung, breast, and colorectal cancers will likely be on the rise as a direct consequence of missed cancer screenings during the COVID-19 pandemic, write researchers in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Researchers at Boston University created a predictive statistical model to quantify missed diagnoses of lung, breast, and colorectal cancers by comparing observed cancer rates in 2020 with pre-pandemic cancer rates in the previous decade (2010-2019). (Soucheray, 5/26)

Modern Healthcare: Primary Care Physician Compensation Grew Faster In 2022: MGMA 
Primary care physicians’ compensation saw a bigger boost in 2022 than a year earlier but the gain wasn't enough to offset last year's inflationary pressures. Median total compensation for primary care doctors rose 4.41% last year, compared with 2.13% in 2021, according to a Medical Group Management Association analysis released Thursday of data from more than 190,000 physicians. (Kacik, 5/26)

Reuters: U.S. FDA Approves Lexicon Pharma's Drug For Heart Failure
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc's (LXRX.O) drug for a broad treatment of heart failure, including in adult patients with type 2 diabetes, the company said on Friday. Shares of the company rose 13% in extended trading. The oral drug, sotagliflozin, is the company's first to be approved by the U.S. health agency and will be sold under the brand name Inpefa. It had previously failed to win U.S. approval as an add-on to insulin therapy for type 1 diabetes. (Mandowara, 5/26)

Reuters: EU Regulator Recommends Revoking Authorisation For Novartis' Sickle Cell Drug
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Friday it had recommended revoking marketing authorisation for Novartis' (NOVN.S) sickle cell disease drug Adakveo. The recommendation follows a review by EMA's human medicines committee (CHMP) that concluded the benefits of the drug did not outweigh risks, according to the regulator. (5/26)

Reuters: Pfizer, Moderna Hit With New Alnylam Patent Lawsuits Over COVID-19 Vaccines 
Biotech company Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc (ALNY.O) filed new lawsuits on Friday against Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) and Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) in Delaware federal court, again claiming that the companies' COVID-19 vaccines infringe its patents. The new lawsuits mark the third time Alnylam has sued Pfizer and Moderna in Delaware for allegedly violating its patent rights in lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology, which the vaccines use to deliver genetic material into the body. (Brittain, 5/26)

The Boston Globe: Prospect Medical Takes Next Step To Unload R.I.-Based Hospitals 
A deal for an out-of-state nonprofit to acquire two Rhode Island-based hospitals and their subsidiaries reached a new milestone on Friday, after the two organizations submitted their proposal to state regulators. (Gagosz, 5/26)

Reuters: Pharmacy Chain Walgreens Boots Alliance To Cut Corporate Jobs By 10%
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) said on Friday it would slash its corporate staff by about 10%, as it streamlines operations and focuses on consumer-facing healthcare businesses. None of the 504 roles being cut are based at its stores, micro-fulfillment outlets or call centers, a company spokesperson told Reuters. (5/26)

AP: New York City Makes It Illegal To Discriminate Against Weight And Height 
New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed legislation Friday that will ban discrimination based on body size by adding weight and height to the list of protected categories such as race, sex and religion. “We all deserve the same access to employment, housing and public accommodation, regardless of our appearance, and it shouldn’t matter how tall you are or how much you weigh,” said the mayor, who joined other elected officials as well as fat-acceptance advocates at a City Hall bill-signing ceremony. (Matthews, 5/27)

The Hill: Texas Lawmakers Send School Safety Bill To Gov. Abbott’s Desk A Year After Uvalde Shooting
State lawmakers in Texas on Sunday approved a school safety bill, sending the proposal to the governor’s desk one year after the mass shooting massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Texas House Bill 3 would require mental health training for school district employees who regularly interact with students and require at least one armed security officer at all campuses during regular school hours, among other provisions. (Mueller, 5/29)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Could Lose Billions In Medicaid Funding Under Biden Policy Shift
Texas could lose billions of dollars in federal health care funding as the Biden administration looks to crack down on the practice of hospitals pooling their Medicaid funds for the benefit of hospitals without as many qualifying patients. (Osborne, 5/29)

Politico: Minnesota Wanted To Curb Health Spending. Mayo Clinic Had Other Ideas
Mayo Clinic issued an ultimatum to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic lawmakers earlier this month: Kill a proposed health affordability bill, or say goodbye to $4 billion in new hospital investments. Minnesota lawmakers responded quickly — by watering down an ambitious proposal in the final days of the legislative session, which ended last week. (Messerly, 5/30)