Politico: Senate Clears $1.7T Government Funding Bill
The Senate passed a $1.7 trillion government funding bill on Thursday in a 68-29 vote, sending the package to the House for approval on Friday. Before the bill cleared the upper chamber, senators voted to add more than a half-dozen amendments to the bill, including major policy provisions that would expand federal protections for pregnant workers and nursing mothers, in addition to helping 9/11 families. The entire chamber also gave a bipartisan standing ovation to the top two retiring appropriators, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), for successfully negotiating one last spending deal to cap off their lengthy careers. (Emma and Carney, 12/22)

Fast Company: Senate Votes On Pregnant Workers Fairness And PUMP Acts
The Senate has voted to include the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act as an amendment to Congress’s 2023 omnibus spending package. The vote on Thursday was 73 to 24, meaning it garnered significant bipartisan support. And in another surprise—also with bipartisan support—the Senate voted to include the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers, or PUMP, Act as an amendment to the package. Both proposals have been championed by workers’ rights advocates as a significant step forward. (Rainey, 12/22)

Forbes: Senate Passes Two Bills For Pregnant And Breastfeeding Moms At Work
The PUMP Act for nursing mothers requires organizations to provide time and space for breastfeeding parents. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 already requires that employers provide reasonable time to express breast milk and provide a place for pumping, other than the bathroom, that is shielded from view and private. But the previous pumping law excluded most salaried employees, and the PUMP Act will extend these rights to all breastfeeding employees for the first year of the baby’s life. In addition, the new bill states, “Further, time spent to express breast milk must be considered hours worked if the employee is also working.” (Elsesser, 12/22)

Axios: Senate Passes Protections For Pregnant Workers And New Mothers
It's a major milestone for women's workplace civil rights. Advocates have pushed for protections for pregnant workers for over a decade, arguing that thousands of women lose their jobs each year — either fired or placed on unpaid leave — because employers are under no obligation to offer pregnant workers reasonable accommodations. Those would include things like extra bathroom breaks, the ability to sit while working a cash register or restrictions on how much weight they can lift. (Peck, 12/22)

CBS News: Omnibus Bill Includes Changes To Federal Drug Treatment Programs
A portion of the $1.7 trillion in the federal government's proposed omnibus bill will go to opioid treatment programs, as the U.S. continues to see high rates of substance use and overdose deaths. The bill was passed by the Senate Thursday, and now heads to the House. (Breen, 12/22)

The Hill: These Are The Last-Minute Changes The Senate Made To The $1.7 Trillion Omnibus
The Senate voted 73-24 to adopt an amendment brought by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) to attach the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to the omnibus. A release from the office of Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who has also been pushing for the legislation, said the bill follows a model similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act and would “require employers to make reasonable accommodations to allow pregnant workers to continue working safely, such as additional bathroom breaks, light duty, or a stool to sit on if a worker stands all day.” (Folley, 12/22)

Reuters: U.S. Senate Passes Increased Protections For Pregnant Workers 
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, is expected to sign the spending bill ahead of a midnight Friday deadline if it passes the House. Biden has supported the PWFA, saying last year that many pregnant workers are unfairly forced to choose between their health and their jobs. (Wiessner, 12/22)

In other news —

The Wall Street Journal: White House Looks At Benefits To Lure Americans Back Into Workforce 
Top White House economic officials are considering a renewed push for a suite of policies aimed at luring more Americans back to work, including enhanced child- care and eldercare benefits, as they hammer out priorities for the coming year. ... Many economists argue that increasing child-care benefits will help the U.S. catch up with other countries, which have higher workforce-participation rates among women in their prime working years. (Linskey, 12/20)

AP: Final Tally: Nearly 107,000 US Overdose Deaths Last Year
Nearly 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, according to final figures released Thursday. The official number was 106,699, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s nearly 16% higher than the nearly 92,000 overdose deaths in 2020. (Stobbe, 12/22)

The CT Mirror: CT Sees Rise In Deadly Overdoses Involving Animal Tranquilizer
The number of fatal drug overdoses in Connecticut is holding steady with last year, but xylazine, a tranquilizer used on horses and cows, is showing up in more and more cases, officials said. The state first started seeing xylazine mixed with heroin or fentanyl in 2019 when it was found in 71 deaths, records show. So far this year, xylazine has been detected in 279 deaths. (Altimari, 12/22)

ABC News: An Animal Tranquilizer Is Showing Up In The Nation's Illicit Drug Supply
More than 40% of street drug samples tested in Rhode Island contained the animal tranquilizer xylazine, according to a new analysis out of Brown University. It’s the latest sign that the drug, which causes sedation and can lead to skin infections and overdoses, is continuing to spread through the illicit drug supply in the United States. (Wetsman, 12/22)

More on the opioid crisis —

AP: Group Urges Feds To Investigate Snapchat Over Fentanyl Sales
As the U.S. deals with its deadliest overdose crisis to date, a national crime-prevention group is calling on the Justice Department to clamp down on social media’s role in the spread of fentanyl, the drug largely driving a troubling spike in overdose deaths among teenagers. The National Crime Prevention Council sent a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, calling for an investigation. The group known for ads featuring McGruff the Crime Dog is especially concerned about the sale of fake pills laced with fentanyl on Snapchat, a popular platform among teens. (Whitehurst, 12/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Sour U.S.-China Relations Feed The Fentanyl Crisis 
Chinese chemical companies are making more ingredients for illegal fentanyl than ever. Strained relations between Beijing and Washington are undermining efforts to stop the flow. Among the available products are compounds with obscure names such as N-Phenyl-4-piperidinamine, which Mexican cartels purchase to make into fentanyl. The opioid has become the most deadly illegal drug the U.S. has ever seen. (Spegele and Wernau, 12/22)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Lawmakers Warming To Opioid Harm-Reduction Policies They Once Opposed
Texas lawmakers are changing their tune about how to tackle a growing fentanyl crisis in the state ahead of the next legislative session starting in January. Earlier this month, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott led the way by coming out in favor of legalizing fentanyl test strips, which help users identify whether the drugs they are planning on taking contain the deadly synthetic opioid. Abbott previously opposed such a policy but said the increase in opioid overdose deaths had brought a “better understanding” that more needs to be done by the state to tackle the problem. (Barragan, 12/23)

AP: Washington AG Sues Pharmacy Chains Over Opioids 
Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Wednesday that his office is suing Kroger, Albertsons and Rite Aid, arguing their pharmacy chains failed to act as the “final barrier” against opioid over-prescription. (12/21)

Fox News: Arizona Border Officers Find More Than 700,000 Fentanyl Pills Hidden In Train Arriving From Mexico
A train entering the United States from Mexico contained hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills and other drugs, border officials said Wednesday. Officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection were working rail operations when they searched a train coming into the Nogales, Arizona, Port of Entry. (Casiano, 12/22)

NBC News: CDC Warns Of A Rise In Severe Strep A Infections Among Children
Group A streptococci are the same bacteria that cause strep throat and scarlet fever, but invasive infections refer to more serious cases in which the bacteria spread to areas of the body that such pathogens normally don't reach, like the bloodstream. The CDC warned in its health advisory that although rare, "these severe and invasive diseases are associated with high mortality rates and require immediate treatment, including appropriate antibiotic therapy." (Planas and Bendix, 12/22)

The Hill: CDC Issues Warning About Strep A Infections In Children
Invasive group A streptococcal bacteria “can cause a range of illnesses, from pharyngitis (i.e., strep throat) and skin and soft tissue infections to uncommon but severe diseases such as sepsis, streptococcal toxic shock syndrome and necrotizing fasciitis. These severe and invasive diseases are associated with high mortality rates and require immediate treatment, including appropriate antibiotic therapy,” according to the CDC. (Jacquez, 12/22)

On the spread of flu —

CIDRAP: Experts Challenge The Narrative For This Season's Flu Activity
Danuta Skowronski, MD, the epidemiology lead for influenza and emerging respiratory pathogens at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, said she's not yet convinced this year's flu season will be more deadly or lead to a greater number of hospitalizations than typical years. And as for immunity debt, Skowronski said she finds the idea unclear and ultimately unhelpful. "The piper must be paid at some point in nature; kids will get sick, and it has nothing to do with a more compromised immune system," Skowronski said. "It is the cohort effect, the accumulated residual cohort effect, especially [among] older children and teens, who have richer social networks." (Soucheray, 12/22)

Bangor Daily News: Maine Sees The Season's 1st Child Death From The Flu
Maine has recorded its first flu death of a child for the season. The child who died had tested positive for influenza A, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which announced the death Thursday. (Burns, 12/22)

Iowa Public Radio: Hospitals Across 4 States Band Together To Treat Acute Pediatric Cases Amid ‘Tripledemic’
Every morning at about 7 a.m., staff members in the transport department at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, start calling dozens of hospitals in the region. They’re looking for information from hospitals that provide pediatric care in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska – the states that make up the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Region 7. Specifically, they ask: “How many pediatric ICU beds do you have available?" (Edgell, 12/22)

On cold medicines and shortages —

The Wall Street Journal: Why Many Cold Medicines Don’t Work To Relieve Congestion
Some of the most widely used decongestants don’t work, several studies have found, prompting doctors and researchers to call for ending sales of the drugs. Versions of Benadryl, Mucinex and Tylenol, which more people are taking now as reports of respiratory infections increase, are among dozens of over-the-counter pills, syrups and liquids that rely on an ingredient called phenylephrine to clear up stuffy noses. The ingredient has proven safe, but at least four studies have found the medicines don’t relieve congestion. (Hopkins, 12/22)

NPR: The Strategic National Stockpile, The Nation's Huge Medicine Cabinet, Explained
It's true. There is a network of warehouses, each the size of several Walmart Supercenters, located in top-secret locations across the country. And while much about the stockpile remains a secret, it continues to play a vital role in the COVID pandemic. (Heyward, 12/23)

CIDRAP: Some 'Long-COVID' Symptoms Also Occur After Cold, Flu, Pneumonia 
Some conditions considered long-COVID symptoms don't seem to occur more often than after other viral respiratory illnesses (VRIs), but heart palpitations, fatigue, chest pain, and shortness of breath were among the problems unique to SARS-CoV-2, finds a study published yesterday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. (Van Beusekom, 12/22)

On covid treatments and vaccines —

CIDRAP: Molnupiravir Doesn't Cut Omicron Hospitalization, Death But Can Speed Recovery
A randomized, controlled UK trial published today in the Lancet shows that the antiviral drug molnupiravir doesn't prevent COVID-19 hospitalizations or deaths in high-risk, nonhospitalized, vaccinated patients but can speed recovery. (Van Beusekom, 12/22)

Reuters: Moderna Blasts Pfizer Counterclaims In COVID-19 Vaccine Patent Lawsuit 
Moderna Inc fired back at counterclaims by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE in a U.S. lawsuit over COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday, arguing that Pfizer and BioNTech were "clearly aided" by Moderna's technology in developing their shot. Moderna said Pfizer and BioNTech copied its innovations and called their argument that its patented technology was pioneered by other scientists an attempt to "distract from the issues in this case." (Brittain, 12/22)

AP: Florida High Court OKs Grand Jury Probe Of COVID-19 Vaccines 
The Florida Supreme Court will convene a grand jury at Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ request to investigate any wrongdoing with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines, the court announced Thursday. The Republican governor, who is often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2024, earlier this month called for the investigation. He suggested it would be in part aimed to jog loose more information from pharmaceutical companies about the vaccines and potential side effects. (12/22)

Bloomberg: US Prepared To Help China With Vaccines To Control Covid
The US is prepared to help China with vaccines to help address its Covid-19 outbreak, but the government in Beijing hasn’t asked for assistance so far, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. (McBride, 12/22)

More on the spread of covid —

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID In California: Bay Area Counties Enter CDC’s ‘High’ Community Virus Tier
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday updated its nationwide ranking of U.S. coronavirus hotspots and five Bay Area counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Santa Clara and Solano — moved up from the medium or yellow tier to the highest, or worst tier, designated as red. (Beamish, Hao, Reinhardt and Asimov, 12/22)

Los Angeles Times: Weekly L.A. County COVID Deaths Top Summer Surge
Weekly COVID-19 deaths in Los Angeles County are higher than at any point during the summer surge, illustrating the persistent toll the pandemic continues to exact amid concerns that cases could surge again this winter. (Money and Lin II, 12/22)

The Boston Globe: Coronavirus Waste Water Numbers Continue To Creep Up Ahead Of Holidays
Levels of coronavirus in Boston-area waste water have crept up ahead of the Christmas holiday, a reminder that three years into the pandemic, COVID-19 continues circulating in Massachusetts. (Prignano, 12/22)

Also —

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: The Covid Response Coordinator Speaks 
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House covid-19 response coordinator, is the guest for a wide-ranging interview on this week’s “What the Health?” podcast. Jha, who is on leave from his “day job” as dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said he’s particularly worried about the nation making the transition from public health emergency status back to a more normal footing and routine — particularly for low-income and uninsured people who may not be able to get the kind of covid tests, treatments, and vaccines that have so far been free through federal subsidies. (12/22)

Los Angeles Times: Fauci Warns Of 'A Progressively Anti-Science Era' In U.S.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who turns 82 on Saturday, wants the record to reflect that he is not retiring. Really, he isn’t. It’s just that after 54 years as a government scientist and advisor to seven presidents, he is leaving the National Institutes of Health at the end of the year. (Healy, 12/22)

Reuters: Forget Politics, Biden Urges Americans To Embrace The Christmas Spirit 
U.S. President Joe Biden urged Americans on Thursday to cast aside the partisan politics that have divided the nation and embrace the caring spirit of the holiday season. In a short holiday speech, Biden said Americans are emerging from a brutal couple of years where the COVID-19 pandemic robbed people of loved ones and new memories. He said Americans should embrace this time of year as reminder to care for one another and look past partisan divides and labels like Republican or Democrat. (Bose, 12/22)

Bloomberg: Malaria Vaccine Trials Start By BioNTech In New Test For MRNA Vaccines
BioNTech SE has begun human trials on a vaccine for malaria, a fresh test for the messenger RNA technology that powered the most successful immunizations against Covid-19. The first patient was dosed on Dec. 21, Chief Executive Officer Ugur Sahin said in an interview. The Phase 1 study will enroll 60 patients and use three different doses for a single vaccine candidate, the BioNTech CEO said. The Mainz, Germany-based company plans to evaluate different versions of the shot to see which one works best. (Kresge, 12/23)

On HIV therapies —

Reuters: U.S. FDA Approves Gilead's Long-Acting HIV Drug Sunlenca
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved Gilead Sciences Inc's Sunlenca therapy for HIV infections, paving the way for a drug that requires less frequent dosing than existing treatments. Sunlenca injection and tablets are expected to cost $42,250 in the first year of therapy and $39,000 annually after that, the company told Reuters. (Mahobe, 12/22)

In other pharmaceutical news —

NPR: A Common DNA Test Can Find Cancer In Bodies Of Seemingly Healthy Pregnant People
When Kathleen Aukstikalnis was expecting her first baby, she turned to a common prenatal test that a lot of her friends had gotten done during their pregnancies. The simple blood test looks at DNA that's floating freely in a pregnant person's bloodstream. It searches for bits released by cells in the placenta, which should have the same genetic make-up as the fetus. (Greenfieldboyce, 12/23)

CIDRAP: Trial Results Show Superiority Of Shorter, All-Oral Treatment For Drug-Resistant TB 
Clinical trial results published today in the New England Journal of Medicine show that a shorter, all-oral treatment regimen for drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) is more effective and safer than standard care. (Dall, 12/22)

Bloomberg: ALS Patients Seek Access To Experimental Drug That Hasn't Been Proven To Work
For years, a family tree spanning two pages of blueprint paper gathered dust at the back of Cynthia Weber’s closet. Going back to a family matriarch born in 1812, it detailed the relationships and causes of death of more than 350 ancestors. (Langreth, 12/23)

CBS News: Biotech Company Aims To Treat Sudden Hearing Loss With Early-Stage Drug
Chris Sopuch has taught at Oakcrest High School in New Jersey for 25 years. But in 2017, Sopuch was almost forced to walk away from his life's work at the age of 48. "I woke up Jan. 5 to realize I could not hear properly out of my left ear," he told CBS News. Immediately, Sopuch knew something was wrong. (Duncan and Knox, 12/22)

Stat: Eisai And Biogen’s Latest Alzheimer’s Drug Needs To Be Cheaper Than The Last One, Analysts Say
The latest Alzheimer’s disease treatment from Eisai and Biogen needs to be cheaper than $20,000 a year to be cost-effective, according to a draft analysis from an influential nonprofit organization published Thursday. The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, or ICER, dug into the evidence for lecanemab and concluded that the drug’s demonstrated benefits, a modest but statistically significant delay in the advance of Alzheimer’s, are worth between $8,500 and $20,600 per year. (Garde, 12/22)

Reuters: U.S. Baby Formula Shortage Leads To Boom In Advertisements
It's not your imagination if you feel like you're seeing more ads for baby formula than ever before. ... The number of viewers of TV and streaming ads for formula skyrocketed to roughly 562 million this year, up from just 200,000 last year, according to data from media measurement firm ISpotTV. Some ads came from new brands the U.S. government approved to ease the shortage. Others came from already approved brands stepping up marketing. (DiNapoli, 12/22)

Wired: The Bittersweet Defeat Of Monkeypox 
While one reason is that access to vaccines and testing improved, and another is that mpox is inherently much harder to transmit than Covid, the biggest, most agree, is that the people most at risk took their protection into their own hands in those crucial early weeks when the authorities were flailing. “The success was the community mobilization,” says Joseph Osmundson, a queer activist, molecular microbiologist, and clinical assistant professor at New York University. (Lichfield and McKenna, 12/22)

BuzzFeed News: Why Mpox Cases Dropped This Year And What We Got Right
Overall, there have been 29,646 mpox cases in the US as of Dec. 14, including 20 deaths, and more than 83,000 cases and 66 deaths worldwide (as of Dec. 20), many in countries that historically never had cases of the disease. Most of these cases were identified in gay and bisexual men, with the greatest danger of severe illness posed to those living with certain autoimmune conditions, including HIV. Particularly in the US, Black and Latine men have been disproportionately affected by the current mpox outbreak. Cases are way down and trending in the right direction. The highest single-day case count in the US for mpox was 635 on Aug. 1, and the highest seven-day average was 462 on Aug. 6. Compare those figures to the latest data from the CDC, where there were less than 10 cases most days in early December. Can’t argue with data; the tides seem to have turned. (Waechter, 12/20)

LAist: Mpox Vaccine Now Open To Everyone In LA, No Questions Asked
Anyone who wants to be vaccinated against mpox can now receive the shots, regardless of their sexual history or personal risk, county health officials said on Thursday. “This is a change in policy which will allow more people to be able to access the vaccine without questions asked,” said Andrea Kim, director of vaccine preventable disease control at Los Angeles County Public Health. (Fortier, 12/22)

CIDRAP: Experts Debate Mpox Status As A Sexually Transmitted Infection
Today in Clinical Infectious Diseases two opposing commentaries debate whether or not mpox should be considered a sexually transmitted infection (STI). While the 2022 global outbreak has largely been defined by sexual transmission among men who have sex with men (MSM), the disease has historically been defined via household contact, or animal-to-human contact via the ingestion of bushmeat. (Soucheray, 12/22)

In other health and wellness news —

The Wall Street Journal: Target Recalls Over 200,000 Weighted Blankets After Deaths Of Two Children
Target Corp. has recalled more than 200,000 weighted blankets after receiving reports that two young children died by suffocation earlier this year, the retail giant and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday. The federal agency said a young child can unzip the cover of the Pillowfort Weighted Blanket and become trapped inside. A 4-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl in North Carolina reportedly became trapped in the cover and died due to asphyxiation this April, according to the CPSC. (Ansari, 12/22)

USA Today: Have High Blood Pressure? Study Says Avoid Drinking Too Much Coffee
There have been loads of research done about the benefits of drinking coffee, but you may want to limit yourself to one cup of coffee a day if you have severely high blood pressure, according to a new study. (Mendoza, 12/22)

KHN: Seasonal Cooks’ Secret Sauce: Heaping Nutrition And Cultural Zest 
Oldways Ambassadors Brenda Atchison and Glorya Fernandez walked a KHN reporter through two cooking demonstrations to showcase modern takes on cultural classics — like a cold black-eyed pea salad just in time for the new year, and a garlicky dill mojo sauce served over spinach salad. Last year, Kelly LeBlanc, director of nutrition at Oldways, shared the organization’s heritage-based food guide pyramids with KHN for a report on USDA food guidelines. It’s the 10-year anniversary of Oldways’ A Taste of African Heritage nutrition curriculum, and this year, the curriculum became part of the Department of Agriculture’s SNAP-Ed Toolkit, a collection of interventions from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program educational effort focused on helping low-income households make healthier food choices and reinforce healthy eating habits. (Giles, 12/23)

KHN: Survivors Of Gangs And Gun Violence, These Women Now Help Others Navigate Grief
When April Roby-Bell joined the Gangster Disciples in middle school, the street gang treated her like family when she felt abandoned by her own. She was looking for love, acceptance, and stability. “They trained us as little kids. How to own your ’hood, own your street: ‘This is my territory,’” Roby-Bell said. The experience also taught her tough lessons about life and death at an early age. At least half of the friends she grew up with are now dead. “At times, it became hard because you just get tired of fighting,” she said. “I probably should have been dead a long time ago.” (Anthony, 12/23)

KHN: Journalists Recap Coverage Of Gun Violence, Drug Imports, And Mental Health 
Midwest correspondent Cara Anthony discussed how an artist makes art from bullet shell casings to highlight gun violence on KMOX on Dec. 19. KHN senior correspondent Phil Galewitz discussed state plans to import prescription drugs from Canada on KKCO-TV on Dec. 15. KHN correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed the revolving door of mental health in the United States on Vox’s “The Weeds” podcast on Dec. 13. (12/23)

Stat: Apple Watch Hit With Import Ban But Suspended For Now
In the latest twist in a battle between Apple and medical device company AliveCor, the U.S. International Trade Commission issued a ban preventing Apple from importing all watches that use the hotly contested heart monitoring technology, but said the enforcement of that order will be suspended until appeals over the patents in question have played out. (Aguilar, 12/22)

Reuters: Apple Watches Violate AliveCor Patents But Import Ban On Hold -U.S. ITC
AliveCor accused Apple last year of infringing three patents related to its KardiaBand, an Apple Watch accessory that monitors a user's heart rate, detects irregularities and performs an ECG to identify heart problems like atrial fibrillation. ... Apple Watch Series 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 have ECG technology. Apple introduced its most recent Series 8 in September. (Brittain, 12/22)

In other health industry news —

Stat: How New Health Data Rules Could Hold Providers Accountable
Last year, medical records opened up to patients. This year, they’re opening up to the nation. Before the ball drops on New Year’s Eve, electronic health care record vendors will have to provide tools to easily pull big batches of patient data from their systems. (Palmer, 12/23)

Crain's New York Business: Humana's SeniorBridge To Close All NY Locations, Lays Off Workers
Humana at Home, doing business as SeniorBridge, has filed with the state to close sites in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, in Westchester and on Long Island and lay off 1,005 workers. According to the filing which is dated earlier this month, the home care business’s New York locations will close on Jan. 27 and employees will be laid off on March 6. SeniorBridge cited economic reasons for the layoffs. (Neber, 12/22)

KHN: KHN-NPR’s ‘Bill Of The Month’ At 5: A Treasury Of Solutions For Confounding Medical Bills 
In 2022, readers shared more than 1,000 personal stories of medical billing problems, contributing one patient at a time to an ongoing portrait of the rippling financial consequences of becoming sick or injured in the United States. Many of the submissions received during the fifth year of KHN-NPR’s “Bill of the Month” investigative series conveyed the same message: I want to tell my story so what happened to me won’t happen to anyone else. (12/23)

AP: Appeals Court Halts Louisville Abortion Clinic Buffer Zone
A federal appeals court has temporarily barred the enforcement of a Louisville city ordinance that creates a buffer zone around health care centers, including a downtown abortion clinic that attracts protests. The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled the buffer zone infringes on the First Amendment rights of protesters who demonstrate in front of the EMW Women’s Surgical Center. The lawsuit challenging the buffer zone was brought by Sisters For Life and the Kentucky Right to Life Association, along with a few individual protesters. (12/22)

In other health news from across the U.S. —

Salt Lake Tribune: This Year, At Least 159 Homeless Utahns Died. The Death Toll Is Likely Higher, Officials Say
Rhonda Hufferd died in May. She was 52 years old, short and blonde. Born in Tacoma, Washington, she and her husband James were living, unsheltered, in Salt Lake City for about eight years before her death. (Harkins, 12/22)

AP: Have A Safe Trip: Oregon Trains Magic Mushroom Facilitators
At a woodsy retreat center in Oregon, some 30 men and women are seated or lying down, masks covering their eyes and listening to serene music. They are among the first crop of students being trained how to accompany patients tripping on psilocybin, as Oregon prepares to become the first U.S. state to offer controlled use of the psychedelic mushroom to the public. (Selsky, 12/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. School District’s Emergency Removal Of Toxic Soil Raises Broader Questions
Workers were to begin digging up part of a courtyard and garden at a San Francisco school this week after high levels of lead and arsenic were found under two feet of soil during a routine inspection. (Tucker, 12/22)

AP: Noem Appoints New Health Secretary 
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Thursday appointed the owner of a South Dakota health clinic company to lead the state’s Department of Health following the retirement of the previous secretary of health earlier this week. The Republican governor named Melissa Magstadt, who also served two terms as a Republican in the state House of Representatives, as her next health secretary. (12/22)

KHN: Colorado Considers Changing Its Red Flag Law After Mass Shooting At Nightclub 
A Nov. 19 shooting that killed five people and wounded 19 at a Colorado Springs nightclub has officials considering changes to strengthen Colorado’s red flag law, particularly in self-declared “Second Amendment sanctuaries,” where emergency petitions to remove a person’s guns are filed less frequently and usually denied. The three-year-old state law allows law enforcement officials or family members to seek a court order to seize the guns of a person who poses a threat to themselves or others. But the Club Q shooting underscores a fundamental challenge for it and other red flag laws: Sheriffs often refuse to use the measures based on a belief that they infringe on the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. (Hawryluk, 12/23)

AP: Loved Or Hated, Fauci’s Parting Advice: Stick To The Science
In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he leaves excited by the prospect of advances such as next-generation coronavirus vaccines -- but worried that misinformation and outright lies mark a “profoundly dangerous” time for public health and science. “Untruths abound and we almost normalize untruths,” Fauci said. “I worry about my own field of health, but I also worry about the country.” (Neergaard, 12/19)

The Washington Post: Doctor Brings Smiles To Thousands Of Anxious NICU Parents By Playing Santa
Robert Sinkin was a doctor in training the first time he donned a fake white beard and a red velvet Santa suit in 1984. (Free, 12/22)

The Washington Post: 5 Easy Steps To Be Healthier In The New Year
Did you focus on self-care this year? Make and keep the necessary doctor’s appointments? Prioritize family and relationships? Here’s a checklist of five key areas of health, and easy-to-follow advice for how to make them a priority in the new year. (Parker-Pope, 12/22)

The Washington Post: Want To Drink Less In 2023? These Habit-Tracking Apps Can Help
This year, Mel Turnage decided to stop self-harming. Finding an easy-to-use “habit-tracking” app so she could log how often she cut herself was a priority. ... Now, it’s been 20 days since she cut herself. (Hunger, 12/21)

The Boston Globe: The ‘Mozart Effect’ Is Bunk. But Your Brain On Music Is Still A Wondrous Thing
In 1993, three dozen college students filed into a lab in Irvine, Calif., to take part in an unusual experiment. The lead researcher, Frances Rauscher, a red-haired woman in her late 30s and a former child prodigy, had abandoned her career as a concert cellist, burned out by the grind of performing gala recitals in Paris and New York. In her new life as an experimental psychologist, she dedicated herself to studying the cognitive benefits of music, especially Mozart. (Barton, 12/21)

NPR: Time Cells In The Brain Help Record Memories In The Right Sequence
Time is woven into our personal memories. Recall a childhood fall from a bike and the brain replays the entire episode in excruciating detail: the glimpse of wet leaves on the road ahead, the moment of weightless dread, and then the painful impact. This exact sequence has been embedded in the memory, thanks to some special neurons known as time cells. (Hamilton, 12/20)

The New York Times: Welcome To The Menopause Gold Rush 
We’re in the middle of a menopause gold rush. The market is flooding with high-profile, well-funded menopause-related beauty products and telemedicine start-ups, as well as a growing roster of celebrities willing to admit it’s happening to them. There’s the potential not only for a big cultural shift to happen, but for some number of people to profit off it. (Larocca, 12/20)

Bloomberg: The Golden Age Of Cocaine Is Happening Right Now
The biggest cocaine boom in history has its origins outside towns like La Dorada, Colombia. Here, a few miles down a rutted track through the Amazon, cattle ranches and fish farms give way to endless fields of coca, the pale green shrub used for making the drug. (Bristow, 12/20)

Politico: Racist Doctors And Organ Thieves: Why So Many Black People Distrust The Health Care System 
One Friday in 1968, a 54-year-old Black laborer named Bruce Tucker fell off a brick ledge, suffering what would prove to be a fatal head injury. The next afternoon, May 25, his heart was sewn into the chest of a white business executive named Joseph Klett, also 54, at the Medical College of Virginia. It was one of the first heart transplants in the country, and it gave the med school the status it had sought at the forefront of transplant science. Tucker’s family hadn’t consented. In fact, they didn’t even learn about the transplant until the funeral home in Stony Creek, Va., told them that there was something peculiar about the dead man’s body. It was missing its kidneys and its heart. (Kenen and Batchlor, 12/18)

The New York Times: How NYU’s Emergency Room Favors The Rich
In New York University’s busy Manhattan emergency department, Room 20 is special. Steps away from the hospital’s ambulance bay, the room is outfitted with equipment to perform critical procedures or isolate those with highly infectious diseases. Doctors say Room 20 is usually reserved for two types of patients: Those whose lives are on the line. And those who are V.I.P.s. (Kliff and Silver-Greenberg, 12/22)

News from around the world —

CBS News/AFP: Italian Police Use Lamborghini Supercar To Deliver Kidneys To Donor Patients Hundreds Of Miles Apart
Italian police used a specially adapted Lamborghini supercar to deliver two kidneys to donor patients on Tuesday hundreds of miles apart, they announced. "Traveling on the motorway to deliver the most beautiful Christmas present: life," they said in a statement posted on social media, alongside a picture of a medical cool box in a purpose-built compartment at the front of the Huracan. (12/20)

AP: Sidecar Ambulances Help Moms Give Birth In India
Motorbike ambulances are helping mothers give birth in Naryanpur district, in central India’s Chhattisgarh state. The heavily forested district is one of India’s most sparsely populated, with about 139,820 inhabitants spread over an area larger than Delaware. ... While authorities and health workers agree that bike ambulances don’t offer a long-term solution, they are making a difference. (Qadri and Ghosal, 12/22)

Reuters: China Lacked A 'Zero COVID' Exit Plan. Its People Are Paying The Price.
At the public hospital in Shanghai where Nora, a 30-year-old doctor, works, tension has spiraled since China relaxed its stringent zero-COVID policy on Dec. 7. Patients quarrel with doctors to access drugs that are in short supply, like cough medicines and pain killers. Medics are overloaded; infected staff continue to work because of a scarcity of personnel. (Master and Stanway, 12/22)

The Washington Post: What We Still Don't Know About Long Covid
We are nearly three years into the covid-19 pandemic, and the debate about the need for health measures such as vaccine and mask mandates is as hot as ever. One big reason for that: long covid. (Francesca L. Beaudoin, 12/22)

Bloomberg: Rural China Faces Crisis In The Coming Wave Of Covid 
Millions in China are preparing to trek home to celebrate the Chinese New Year in late January. Many will travel from cities where large swaths of the population have been infected with Covid since the loosening of the country’s notorious Covid Zero policy to small cities and the countryside where — so far — few significant outbreaks have been reported. (Adam Minter, 12/22)

The Washington Post: The World Must Prepare For The Fallout From China’s Covid U-Turn 
Less than a month ago, I interviewed global health experts about how China can emerge from its nearly three years of “zero covid” lockdowns without creating an overwhelming surge of severe infections and deaths. A cautious approach, carefully synchronized to gradually reopen while increasing vaccinations, could avert catastrophe. (Leana S. Wen, 12/22)

Los Angeles Times: Finally, Some Promising News On Opioids For Patients In Severe Pain
The U.S. remains in the midst of an ever-worsening drug overdose crisis. Because prescription opioids drove its earlier phases, the nation responded by drastically reducing access to those drugs — with prescriptions dropping by nearly 50% over the last decade. But it’s now clear that approach was ineffective at combating overdoses, and it left many patients with painful medical conditions stranded. (Joseph Friedman, 12/23)

The Washington Post: Anthony Fauci’s Retirement Leaves Massive Shoes To Fill 
When Anthony S. Fauci leaves government service at the month’s end, he won’t be retiring, he insists. Somehow this isn’t surprising — even though he is turning 82 years old. The infectious disease-expert turned-presidential adviser has proved over a career of more than half a century that he is nothing if not persistent. (12/22)

Dallas Morning News: Holidays At The Hospital: Private Nurse Shortage Will Keep Some Children From Going Home
Private duty nurses, or PDNs, are specially trained to manage a patient’s condition and keep them safe in their homes. Unfortunately, many Texas children with complex conditions who would benefit from a private duty nurse are either not receiving enough care in the home or are unable to access services due to the lack of nurses. This is forcing children and their families to wait for a nurse in a costly hospital bed — even over the holidays. (Sonia Whitebird, 12/23)