First Edition: Feb. 7, 2023

KHN: A Secret Weapon In Preventing The Next Pandemic: Fruit Bats
More than four dozen Jamaican fruit bats destined for a lab in Bozeman, Montana, are set to become part of an experiment with an ambitious goal: predicting the next global pandemic. Bats worldwide are primary vectors for virus transmission from animals to humans. Those viruses often are harmless to bats but can be deadly to humans. Horseshoe bats in China, for example, are cited as a likely cause of the covid-19 outbreak. And researchers believe pressure put on bats by climate change and encroachment from human development have increased the frequency of viruses jumping from bats to people, causing what are known as zoonotic diseases. (Robbins, 2/7)

Politico: Biden To Push For Universal Insulin Price Cap In State Of The Union 
President Joe Biden will call for expanding a new cap on insulin prices to all Americans as part of his State of the Union address, the White House said Monday. During the Tuesday speech, Biden plans to tout his administration’s efforts to make health care more affordable, which included imposing a $35-per-month limit on insulin that took effect in January. (Cancryn, 2/6)

Axios: Biden To Push For Expanded Insulin Caps, Medicaid Coverage In SOTU
President Biden's State of the Union address will include calls for insulin cost caps for privately insured patients and a renewed bid to close the Medicaid coverage gap in Republican-controlled states that haven't accepted the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion. (Bettelheim, 2/7)

WBUR: Here Are The Key Issues To Watch For In Biden's State Of The Union 
President Biden has been able to deliver on many of his promises from last year, and he will almost certainly be touting those accomplishments: Fewer Americans are uninsured than ever before, thanks in part to increased subsidies on the Obamacare exchanges. 988, the national suicide prevention hotline, launched last year, along with historic investments in mental health. (2/7)

Politico: White House Struggles To Explain The Fate Of Title 42
President Joe Biden has called for a bipartisan immigration policy since he stepped into office. He’s likely to make another appeal at Tuesday’s State of the Union. But it’s questionable whether he’ll address the one Trump-era policy currently overseeing all others at the southern border, Title 42. That’s because the White House won’t fully explain where it stands. (Ward, 2/6)

The New York Times: Biden’s State Of The Union Prep: No Acronyms And Tricks To Conquer A Stutter 
As President Biden prepared to deliver one of the biggest speeches of his presidency, he met with a close group of aides at the White House and read drafts aloud from top to bottom. He practiced in front of teleprompters at Camp David, making sure the language was relatable and clear. And, in quiet moments ahead of the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, he marked up his speech with subtle lines and dashes that he has long used as a signal to take a breath, pause between his words or steer through a tricky transition. Mr. Biden is the first modern president to have a stutter, which he has navigated since childhood and still speaks of in emotional terms. (Rogers, 2/6)

Politico: Lawyers For U.S., Navy Seals Battle Over Revoked Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate
A lawyer representing Navy Seals who do not want to be vaccinated against Covid-19 told a federal appeals court Monday that their lawsuit over a now-withdrawn vaccine mandate isn’t moot even though Congress passed legislation last December ordering the policy canceled. During arguments before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, attorney Heather Hacker said the service members still face the possibility of discipline over their refusal to get vaccinated and the government has not ruled out taking vaccination status into account when doling out future assignments. (Gerstein, 2/6)

San Francisco Chronicle: FDA Asks People To Report Home Test Results
With a majority of people now using over-the-counter coronavirus tests at home, public health officials are having a hard time tracking COVID-19 case trends. To that end, the Food and Drug Administration on Monday encouraged people to start submitting their test results on the website MakeMyTestCount.org. (Beamish and Vaziri, 2/6)

Bloomberg: Face Masks’ Ability To Stop Viruses Needs Study, Review Finds
More than three years after Covid-19 emerged, and despite influenza outbreaks that kill thousands of people annually, there’s still not definitive proof on how much — or whether — wearing masks slows the transmission of respiratory viruses. That’s the takeaway message from a 2023 Cochrane Review, the gold standard analysis of medical research that’s intended to help shape future health care decisions. (Fay Cortez, 2/6)

CIDRAP: Healthy Pre-Infection Lifestyle Linked To Lower Risk Of Long COVID In Women 
Women who maintained a healthy weight, didn't smoke, exercised regularly, got adequate sleep, ate high-quality food, and consumed alcohol in moderate amounts were at roughly half the risk of long COVID as those who followed none of these recommended practices, concludes a prospective study today in JAMA Internal Medicine. (Van Beusekom, 2/6)

Axios: Immunocompromised Worry They're Getting Left Behind Again
The end of the COVID public health emergency is near, but that's small consolation to the estimated 7 million to 10 million immunocompromised Americans who are soldiering on with a dwindling number of tools to protect them. (Reed and Moreno, 2/7)

The Washington Post: Conservative Doctors Were More Likely To View Ivermectin As Effective 
It turns out that doctors who are politically conservative were actually more likely to consider hydroxychloroquine as an effective treatment, despite the understood research. (Bump, 2/6)

San Francisco Chronicle: Experts Debunk Theory That Egg Yolks Prevent Infection
Social media users are sharing a conspiracy theory claiming a protein naturally found in egg yolks protects against COVID-19 in humans, and claiming that is why there is an egg shortage. The claim misrepresents a 2021 study by a group of Chinese researchers who immunized hens with part of the coronavirus spike protein in order to extract antibodies from yolks in the hens’ eggs, reports the Associated Press. (Beamish and Vaziri, 2/6)

The Hill: ‘Tripledemic’ Infected Nearly 40 Percent Of Households, Survey Finds 
The winter’s “tripledemic” of respiratory viruses impacted nearly 40 percent of U.S. households, with someone there getting sick with the flu, COVID-19 or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), according to a new survey from KFF released Tuesday. The flu and RSV hit much harder and earlier this year than in years past, as viruses kept at bay during the height of the pandemic began infecting people again following the resumption of every-day activities. (Weixel, 2/7)

CIDRAP: US Cancer Screenings Slow To Recover From Initial Pandemic Dip 
As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the United States in February and March 2020, observed rates of both lung and breast cancer screenings among Medicare enrollees were 24% and 17%, respectively, below expected rates, rising to -14% and -4% from March 2021 to February 2022, shows a study published late last week in JAMA Network Open. (Van Beusekom, 2/6)

CNN: Know Cancer Symptoms And When To Get Checked 
Cancer deaths are on the decline in the United States, and the outlook for winning the war against this deadly disease is both good and bad. In the United States, deaths from cancer have dropped 33% since 1991, with an estimated 3.8 million lives saved, mostly due to advances in early detection and treatment. Still, 10 million people worldwide lost their lives to cancer in 2020. (LaMotte, 2/4)

Politico: Federal Judge Says Constitutional Right To Abortion May Still Exist, Despite Dobbs
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., suggested Monday that there may be a constitutional right to abortion baked into the 13th Amendment — an area she said went unexplored by the Supreme Court in its momentous decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade. In a pending criminal case against several anti-abortion activists, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concluded only that the 14th Amendment included no right to abortion but stopped short of definitively ruling out other aspects of the Constitution that might apply. (Cheney and Gerstein, 2/6)

The Washington Post: Small Towns Rebel Against Abortion Rights In Left-Leaning New Mexico
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, Laura Wight, a liberal here in conservative eastern New Mexico, saw one small silver lining. Although abortion was illegal 10 miles away in Texas, she figured it remained safe in this blue state. It hasn’t felt that way to her lately. On a recent afternoon, Wight was at a small rally in a strip mall parking lot, waving a giant pink flag that read “PRO-WOMEN, PRO-CHOICE” at passing pickups. Other participants were collecting signatures in hopes of overturning an ordinance passed last month by the city commission aimed at keeping abortion — in pill or surgical form — out of Clovis. (Brulliard, 2/6)

San Francisco Chronicle: Biden’s Justice Department Is Using A Law Meant To Protect Abortion Clinics In Defense Of A Crisis Pregnancy Center
A 1994 federal law that makes it a crime to intentionally damage property that provides “reproductive health services” has been used to prosecute people who try to trash abortion clinics. But the law has never been deployed in defense of abortion opponents — until now, with charges filed by President Biden’s Justice Department against two abortion-rights activists who spray-painted slogans on the walls of one of the thousands of anti-abortion facilities known as crisis pregnancy centers. (Egelko, 2/6)

The Wall Street Journal: CVS Nearing $10.5 Billion Deal For Primary-Care Provider Oak Street Health
CVS Health Corp. is close to an agreement to acquire Oak Street Health Inc. for about $10.5 billion including debt, a deal that would rapidly expand the big healthcare company’s footprint of primary-care doctors with a large network of senior-focused clinics, according to people with knowledge of the matter. (Mathews, Thomas and Cooper, 2/6)

Axios: Why Amazon's RxPass Is A Bigger Deal Than You Think
Amazon's new RxPass prescription service further increases the downward pressure on the cost of generic drugs, the Wall Street Journal reports. Last month, Amazon announced the new benefit to its Prime subscription service, allowing members access to unlimited prescriptions for generics for more than 80 conditions for $5 a month. (Reed, 2/6)

Modern Healthcare: Headwinds Didn't Quell Healthcare Private Equity Deals In 2022
Private equity firms had one of their strongest years yet for healthcare services deal activity in 2022, according to an analysis PitchBook published Monday. An estimated 863 healthcare services private equity deals were announced or closed last year. That's a nearly 15% decrease from 2021, but a more than 18% increase from 2020, the market research firm reported. PitchBook extrapolated the annual estimate using recorded deals through the third quarter and historical data to approximate fourth quarter transactions. (Hudson, 2/6)

Stateline: States Strive To Reverse Shortage Of Paramedics, EMTs
Last year, the turnover rate for full-time emergency medical technicians, known as EMTs, was 36% and for full-time paramedics, it was 27%, according to an American Ambulance Association survey. The turnover rate includes both resignations and firings, but nearly all of the EMTs and paramedics who left did so voluntarily. More than one-third of new hires don’t last through their first year, the survey found. (Mercer, 2/6)

AP: Florida Hospital Taking Expectant Moms, Delaying Surgeries 
A major regional hospital system based in northern Florida resumed seeing patients at its clinical practices on Monday, days after a security problem forced it to take its IT network offline. But Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare was still being forced to use paper documentation, and non-emergency surgeries and out-patient procedures were canceled on Monday. (2/6)

Bay Area News Group: Major Violations Found At Santa Clara County’s Main Hospital
State regulators have discovered a slew of violations at Santa Clara County’s main hospital in San Jose, according to documents obtained by the Bay Area News Group. The deficiencies, identified in an October survey of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, puts the hospital at risk of losing its ability to receive Medicare reimbursements, which would leave the facility in a financially perilous position. (Greschler, 2/6)

CNN: An 82-Year-Old Woman Was Found Alive At A New York Funeral Home After She Was Pronounced Dead Hours Earlier, Police Say
An 82-year-old woman who’d been pronounced dead at nursing home on Long Island, New York, was found to be alive nearly three hours later at a funeral home, authorities said, spurring investigations by police and health officials. (Frehse, 2/7)

AP: Hurricane Deaths At Nursing Home: Accident Or Manslaughter? 
A Florida nursing home administrator charged with causing the overheating deaths of nine patients after Hurricane Irma in 2017 went on trial Monday, with a prosecutor calling him a “captain who abandoned ship” while his attorney said he’s a “scapegoat” for failures of the electric company to restore power. Prosecutor Chris Killoran told the six-member jury that Jorge Carballo is guilty of manslaughter because he failed to give adequate direction to his staff at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills after power to the facility’s air conditioning system was lost. He said Carballo went home even as it became “ridiculously hot” inside the 150-bed, two-story facility and failed to order his patients’ evacuation to Memorial Regional Hospital across the street, which had working air conditioning. (Spencer, 2/6)

Modern Healthcare: Remote Prescribing In Limbo As Federal COVID-19 Emergency Ends
The coming end of the COVID-19 public health emergency and pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities could rattle an already besieged behavioral health system and force providers to make ethical decisions. The public health emergency, which President Biden will end May 11, allowed clinicians to prescribe controlled substance medications via telehealth without an office visit. (Perna and Turner, 2/6)

CIDRAP: CDC Analysis Finds More Staph Bloodstream Infections In Blacks, Hispanics 
Another key step is to more equitably promote lower-risk access types, Shannon Novosad, MD, MPH, the CDC's dialysis safety team lead, said. "Our data show that use of a central venous catheter as a vascular access type had six times higher risk for staph bloodstream infections when compared to the lowest-risk access, a fistula." (Schnirring, 2/6)

The Boston Globe: FDA Sets A Decision Date For Sage’s Postpartum Depression Pill
An experimental drug that in a clinical trial helped some women quickly recover from postpartum depression could be approved by federal regulators by Aug. 6. The medicine, developed by Sage Therapeutics, is poised to become the first pill for the condition, which afflicts as many as 1 in 8 new mothers. (Cross, 2/6)

Stat: Eisai Reports First U.S. Sales Of Treatment For Alzheimer's Disease
Japanese drugmaker Eisai reported Monday the first U.S. sales of Leqembi, its treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, although exact numbers were not provided and people taking the drug appear to be paying out of pocket because insurance coverage has not yet been established. (Feuerstein, 2/6)

The Wall Street Journal: What Doctors Are Learning About Marijuana And Surgery 
There’s a surprising side effect of a marijuana habit that many people don’t know: Regular users may need more anesthesia during medical procedures to remain sedated. As more states allow people to smoke pot and eat edibles legally, more doctors say they are asking about marijuana use—and urging honesty—before surgeries or procedures because habitual users may need more anesthesia and painkillers. In one study, people who reported they used cannabis required more anesthesia than people who didn’t use it. (Reddy, 2/6)

Politico: Pot Is Making People Sick. Congress Is Playing Catch-Up
Recognition of marijuana’s medical benefits, the harms of punitive drug policies, and the prospect of new tax revenue to fund popular services, have driven that change in attitudes and led 21 states to legalize recreational sales. But the policymakers overseeing legalization were flying surprisingly blind about its effect on public health. Only recently has a steady flow of data emerged on health impacts, including emphysema in smokers and learning delays in adolescents. Lawmakers’ reaction to the bad news raises the prospect that the loosely regulated marijuana marketplace, worth $13.2 billion last year and growing 15 percent annually, could come under pressure. (Leonard, 2/6)

Reuters: Ban On Marijuana Users Owning Guns Is Unconstitutional, U.S. Judge Rules 
A federal law prohibiting marijuana users from possessing firearms is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Oklahoma has concluded, citing last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that significantly expanded gun rights. (Raymond, 2/6)

Bloomberg: Fake Vapes, Counterfeit Cannabis Products Threaten New York Legal Weed
Kyle Kazan, from his company’s headquarters in Southern California, often gets texts from acquaintances in Brooklyn asking him to authenticate a package of weed that really shouldn’t be anywhere near New York City. (LaPara, 2/6)