Fierce Healthcare: Physicians Are Twice As Likely As The General Population To Attempt Suicide, Medscape Survey Finds
Nearly a quarter of physicians reported clinical depression in a new Medscape survey, while 9% admitted to suicidal thoughts, and 1% shared that they attempted to end their lives. Medscape surveyed 9,100 physicians across 29 specialties last year. While physicians often address the suicide crisis throughout the U.S., many are struggling with their own mental health. Two-thirds of doctors reported colloquial depression, according to the survey. (Burky, 3/3)

Medscape: Specialty, Age May Contribute To Doctors' Suicidal Thoughts
A physician's specialty can make a difference when it comes to having suicidal thoughts. Doctors who specialize in family medicine, obstetrics-gynecology, and psychiatry reported double the rates of suicidal thoughts than doctors in oncology, rheumatology, and pulmonary medicine, according to Doctors' Burden: Medscape Physician Suicide Report 2023."The specialties with the highest reporting of physician suicidal thoughts are also those with the greatest physician shortages, based on the number of job openings posted by recruiting sites," said Peter Yellowlees, MD, professor of psychiatry and chief wellness officer at UC Davis Health. (Lehmann, 3/7)

If you are in need of help —

Dial 9-8-8 for 24/7 support from the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. It's free and confidential.

In related news about health workers —

Stat: Why Doctors Leave Clinical Medicine To Work For Insurers
Gastroenterologist Alin Botoman had been on hold for almost an hour. The drone of muzak taunted him on speaker phone. It was the second day in a row he’d spent trying to get insurance to cover a dual CT/PET scan he’d already performed for his patient with esophageal cancer. The day before, after the insurance company unexpectedly denied the request, he’d called to contest the decision and spent an hour on hold. (Pasricha, 3/8)

Axios: Immigration Seen As A Solution To Nursing Home Labor Woes
Increased immigration could help solve nursing homes' persistent workforce shortages and improve the quality of care in communal health settings, a new National Bureau of Economic Research paper found. (Dreher, 3/7)

In other health care industry developments —

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Craig Yabuki Mental Health Walk-In Clinic At Children's Wisconsin Has Treated Nearly 1,000 Children In First Year
It's a clinic unlike any other on the Children's Wisconsin hospital campus. There are no needles, no shots, no X-rays or prescriptions for medication. Yet since the Craig Yabuki Mental Health Walk-In Clinic opened its doors one year ago Wednesday, nearly 1,000 children and teenagers ages 5 to 18 have received care by staff using two seemingly simple tools − talking and listening. (Van Egeren, 3/7)

The CT Mirror: Report: CT Hospital Finances Shrinking Amid Pandemic, Inflation
Connecticut hospitals faced their worst year financially in 2022 since before the coronavirus struck, facing shrinking revenues, sicker patients and surging labor and other costs, according to a new study released Tuesday by the Connecticut Hospital Association. (Phaneuf, 3/7)

KHN: Reentry Programs To Help Former Prisoners Obtain Health Care Are Often Underused
When Matthew Boyd was released from a Georgia state prison in December 2020, officials sent him home without medicines he uses to manage chronic heart and lung conditions and high blood pressure, he said. Less than a month later, he spent eight days in an intensive care unit, the first of more than 40 hospital stays since. These days, he can barely get out of bed in his home south of Atlanta. (Rayasam, 3/8)

PBS NewsHour: Why Cancer Patients Leaving Prison Struggle To Get Care 
People who have been incarcerated are more likely to die when they have cancer than those who were never in prison, recent research suggests – an effect of systems that have not been designed to care for individuals when they are in the criminal justice system or after they’ve been released. (Santhanam, 3/7)

KHN: Watch: Emergency Room Turns Simple Injury Into A Big Bill
Leigh Fava wound up in the emergency room after injuring her thumb at her New Orleans home. She said she received a tetanus shot and a badly wrapped bandage — and an unexpectedly high bill. Her experiences trying to dispute the hospital’s charges left her feeling ignored, she said. In this installment of InvestigateTV and KHN’s “Costly Care” series, Caresse Jackman, InvestigateTV’s national consumer investigative reporter, illuminates the practice of up-charging for common medications and supplies in the emergency room. (3/7)

ABC News: House Panel Investigating COVID-19's Origins Will Hold First Hearing
On the heels of a federal agency's new assessment that COVID-19 "mostly likely" emerged from a lab leak rather than natural human exposure, a special panel formed by House Republicans to investigate the origins of the virus will hold its first hearing on Wednesday. (Hutzler, 3/8)

The New York Times: Hearing On Covid’s Origins Promises Politics Mixed With Substance
House Republicans on Wednesday will dig into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic in a hearing that promises to be filled with political theater alongside substantive questions about laboratory safety and what, if anything, could have been done to prevent the worst public health crisis in a century. The hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is expected to focus largely on the intensifying debate over whether Covid-19 was the result of a laboratory leak. In advance of the session, Republicans issued a memorandum critical of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leader in the federal response to the pandemic. (Stolberg and Mueller, 3/7)

More on the lab leak theory —

FiveThirtyEight: Does It Matter Where COVID-19 Came From? 
We spoke to Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and one of the scientists investigating COVID-19’s origins, to understand how scientists were thinking about lab safety before the pandemic politicized it — and what needs to happen to protect the world from pandemics, wherever they might come from. (Koerth, 3/7)

Bloomberg: Covid Lab Leak Fight Masks A Global Boom In High Security Biolabs
The number of high-containment labs around the world conducting potentially risky scientific research is surging, despite a lack of global agreement on how to make sure they're safe. (Griffin and Muller, 3/8)

In related news about public trust in government —

CIDRAP: Survey Reveals Low Trust In US Public Health Agency Information Amid Pandemic 
More than a third of US adults said they trusted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide quality health information during the COVID-19 pandemic, while a quarter trusted state and local health departments, and 10% said they had no trust at all in these agencies, according to the first nationally representative survey on the public's faith in sources of health information. A team led by Harvard University researchers conducted an online and phone survey of 4,208 US adults from Feb 1 to 22, 2022. (Van Beusekom, 3/7)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. To Ease Covid Testing Requirements For Travelers From China 
The U.S. government is planning to lift Covid-19 testing requirements on travelers from China on Friday, amid a decline in cases there following a winter surge, according to people familiar with the matter. Those traveling to the U.S. from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau were previously required to submit a negative Covid test before departure following a Biden administration order that went into effect on Jan. 5. At the time, U.S. officials said the restrictions were necessary because of a deadly wave of infections across China and cited a lack of transparency from Beijing about the scale of the surge or specific variants. (Siddiqui, 3/7)

On covid vaccines —

NPR: COVID Vaccine Prices Could Quadruple
The U.S. government paid around $10 billion in the early years of the pandemic to develop and purchase Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine as part of Operation Warp Speed. So far, any American who wants the shot has paid nothing out-of-pocket for it — the federal government has footed the bill. (Lupkin, 3/8)

San Francisco Chronicle: Court Rejects Religious Objection To COVID Vaccine For Boy In Custody
In its decision Monday, the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles quoted a 1944 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on the limits of religious exemptions from secular laws: “The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease.” (Egelko, 3/7)

More on the spread of covid —

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Can Be Transmitted By Dead Bodies, Hamster Research Reveals
Bodies of individuals who died from COVID-19 potentially can transmit the virus to others, according to a new study that researched the issue with hamsters. Following up on previous evidence showing COVID-19 could still be active in dead bodies, researchers at the University of Tokyo in Japan used a Syrian hamster model to analyze the possibility of transmission from a human corpse and whether there are protocols that could reduce that risk. (Vaziri, 3/7)

Read the study —

SARS-CoV-2 Transmission from Virus-Infected Dead Hamsters

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID In California: Why Deaths Are Rising In Vaccinated Population
The proportion of COVID-19 deaths among vaccinated people rose sharply toward the end of last year. But that is not a measure of the efficacy of the coronavirus vaccines, according to a new report from the American Medical Association. “Fortunately, there are a lot more people who are vaccinated now,” said Elisa Choi, an infectious diseases physician and a member of the American College of Physicians’ delegation to the AMA House of Delegates. (Vaziri, 3/7)

Fox News: Post-COVID, Chest Pains May Linger For Up To A Year, New Study Finds
People who have had COVID-19 may experience lingering chest pains for up to a year after infection, a new study found. "Long COVID," which refers to conditions that linger for months or even years after infection, impacts nearly one in five people who have had the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported. (Rudy, 3/7)

Politico: Florida Republicans Seek Ban On Abortions After 6 Weeks Of Pregnancy
Florida’s Republican-led legislature on Tuesday filed bills that would ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy but offer exemptions for victims of rape and incest if they can provide official proof of the crime. Lawmakers in the House and Senate filed similar legislation to make abortions illegal two weeks after a pregnant person’s first missed period, tightening the 15-week ban they approved last year. The measure also seeks to prevent government entities and educational institutions from using public money to financially help people to travel outside the state for an abortion. (Sarkissian, 3/7)

The 19th: Abortion In Florida: Lawmaker Introduces Bill Proposing Six-Week Ban
A Republican lawmaker in Florida has introduced a bill that would ban abortion past six weeks of pregnancy — legislation that, if passed, would effectively eliminate most abortion access in the South. (Luthra, 3/7)

In news about Texas' abortion law —

Houston Chronicle: Biden’s White House Slams Gov. Abbott Over Abortion Ban Impacts
The White House on Tuesday said a lawsuit by five women who were denied abortions despite having dangerous or unviable pregnancies shows "the reality of Governor Abbott’s abortion ban." (Wermund, 3/7)

Axios: Texas Abortion Lawsuit Puts Medical Exceptions Under Spotlight
A lawsuit brought by abortion patients in Texas is focusing attention on how some strict state abortion bans could imperil lives by leaving it to providers to prove if a person qualifies for an emergency exception. (Gonzalez, 3/7)

In abortion updates from Utah —

Salt Lake Tribune: ‘Regulated By Somebody Else’s Faith.’ Why Some Utah Religious Groups Oppose Abortion Restrictions
As the courts consider whether Utah’s trigger ban is constitutional under the state constitution, several local religious communities wrote to the courts to explain how the law would violate their religious beliefs. A few leaders and members of those groups sat down with The Salt Lake Tribune to explain why. (Anderson Stern, 3/7)

On the availability of abortion pills and birth control pills —

Stat: Becerra: Judge Set To Rule On Abortion Pill Is 'Beginning To Read The Law'
Health secretary Xavier Becerra on Tuesday warned of dramatic consequences if a federal judge revokes the federal approval of mifepristone, a form of medication abortion. The judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, is set to rule on a case brought in Texas by anti-abortion advocates seeking to overturn the drug’s initial approval more than two decades ago. Mifepristone, taken in combination with misoprostol, accounts for over half of U.S. abortions. It is also used to treat miscarriage. “Everyone thought by now we would have a ruling from that judge,” Becerra said, speaking at a STAT event. “My suspicion is he’s beginning to read the law.” (Facher, 3/7)

The New York Times: Walgreens Faces Blowback For Not Offering Abortion Pill In 21 States 
In an emailed statement, Rite Aid said it was continuing to monitor and evaluate the situation. CVS, Walmart, Costco, Kroger and Albertsons did not respond to emails seeking comment. “All of the pharmacies are facing the same problem,” said Andrew Gilman, the chief executive of CommCore Consulting Group, a crisis communications firm. “But Walgreens, as the first one to be publicly identified with going along with the state attorneys general request, will face the biggest hit to its reputation.” (Belluck and Creswell, 3/7)

The Washington Post: Walgreens' History Of Refusing Abortion Pills, Birth Control To Customers 
Walgreens spokesman Jim Cohn told The Washington Post in a statement Tuesday that the policy of allowing pharmacists and other employees “to step away from completing a transaction to which they have a moral objection” is still in place. Walgreens’s policy is similar to that of other drugstore chains and pharmacies in the U.S. Among them is CVS, which also allows employees to deny prescriptions for birth control or purchases of condoms based on their religious or moral beliefs, according to USA Today. (Bella, 3/7)

KHN: Girls In Texas Could Get Birth Control At Federal Clinics, Until A Christian Father Objected
On the vast Texas Panhandle, raked by wind and relentless sun, women might drive for hours to reach Haven Health, a clinic in Amarillo. One of more than 3,200 federal family-planning clinics nationwide, Haven serves both English and Spanish speakers, providing contraception, testing for pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and cervical cancer screening, all at low cost or without charge to patients who are anxious, impoverished, or both. Those patients include teenage girls — under 18 — seeking birth control pills or long-acting contraception. (Varney, 3/8)

On women's rights —

The Washington Post: It's International Women's Day. How Did Women's Rights Fare This Year? 
As the world marks International Women’s Day on Wednesday, the United Nations has warned that the world is 300 years away from gender equality, with hard-won progress toward the goal “vanishing before our eyes.” Speaking Monday, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warned that “women’s rights are being abused, threatened and violated around the world.” (Bisset and Schanen, 3/8)

AP: Mississippi Backs 1 Year Of Postpartum Medicaid For New Moms
Low-income new mothers in Mississippi will be eligible for a full year of Medicaid health coverage under a bill passed Tuesday by the state Legislature. The bipartisan move is the culmination of a two-year effort to convince a majority of the Republican-controlled House to provide longer postpartum coverage in one of the poorest states in the U.S. Republican proponents said change was a necessary after the U.S. Supreme Court upended abortion rights nationwide by overturning Roe v. Wade last year using the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which arose from Mississippi. (Goldberg, 3/7)

More Medicaid updates —

AP: North Carolina Medicaid Expansion Consensus Moves Forward
The details of a consensus North Carolina Medicaid expansion deal reached last week by top Republican lawmakers cleared a Senate committee Tuesday. The released legislation explains how the state would cover potentially 600,000 low-income adults who otherwise earn too much to qualify for conventional Medicaid. It directs the state to enter a federal program by which hospitals would receive additional Medicaid reimbursement funds. This money will help hospitals cover the state’s share of expansion health expenses, or 10% of costs. (Robertson, 3/7)

North Carolina Health News: Gov. Cooper Heralds Health Progress In Biannual Speech
Gov. Roy Cooper prompted loud cheers, whoops and a standing ovation during his state of the state address on Monday evening when he mentioned Medicaid expansion. (Blythe, 3/8)

USA Today: Medicaid Money Can Now Be Used To Treat Drug Addiction For Inmates
As the country's opioid epidemic kills tens of thousands of Americans each year, some of those most at risk – the incarcerated – may soon be getting some help.    States will be allowed to use Medicaid to pay for drug treatments for people in jails and prisons under new federal guidelines announced last month. (Thornton, 3/8)

Bangor Daily News: Maine Prepares For End Of Pandemic-Era Medicaid Eligibility Safety Net
At the end of this month, a federal requirement that prevented people enrolled in Medicaid during the pandemic from losing coverage will expire. That means states will need to determine who is no longer eligible, and Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services is estimating that figure to be between 65,000 and 90,000 recipients. The process will take at least a year, and the Department says it is launching a campaign to try to ensure people maintain health coverage even if they lose their Medicaid benefits. (Wight, 3/7)

In updates about Medicare Advantage —

Axios: Docs Join Insurers Slamming Medicare Advantage Payment Proposal
Physicians and other health care providers contend the Biden administration's proposed update to Medicare Advantage payment policies could wind up hurting their practices and patients. With providers joining insurers against the proposed changes, the Biden administration is left with few allies. (Goldman, 3/8)

Modern Healthcare: Humana's Bruce Broussard Touts Upside To Medicare Advantage Cuts
The health insurance industry at large may be marshaling its forces to fight proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage rates next year, but one CEO doesn't seem too worried. Humana would actually benefit from lower rates and has in the past, President and CEO Bruce Broussard said during a TD Cowen conference in Boston on Tuesday. “We found in years that there’s pressure on the rate notice, we do much better,” he said. “I feel that 2024 will be that way.” (Tepper, 3/7)

The New York Times: With a Marijuana Shop on ‘Every Corner,’ Oklahoma Rejects Full Legalization
In the past few years, Oklahoma, long a solid bastion of conservatism, has quietly undergone a street-level transformation when it comes to marijuana. Dispensaries dot the landscape, with more than 400 in Oklahoma City alone. And that’s just for medical marijuana. On Tuesday, voters across Oklahoma opted against going further, according to The Associated Press, rejecting a ballot initiative that would have legalized recreational marijuana use by adults 21 and over. With the vote, Oklahoma joined a number of conservative states whose voters have recently decided against recreational marijuana legalization. (Goodman, 3/7)

Politico: ‘Tokelahoma’ At The Crossroads
Johnny Teehee was sworn in as police chief of Muskogee in the summer of 2018, barely three weeks after the state passed a referendum legalizing medical marijuana. Nearly five years later, as he patrols the city, he is overwhelmed by the transformation weed has wrought on this struggling eastern Oklahoma town. A block away from the First Baptist Church of Muskogee, where Teehee is a parishioner, is a marijuana grow operation occupying what used to be the central post office. A plot of land Teehee bought with the intention of one day building a house on it now sits next to a 10-acre weed farm. Dispensaries are everywhere — The Treehouse, Big Pappa’s, Blaze-n-Bake, Natural Grass, Johnny D’s. At 420 Main St. in downtown Muskogee is a weed shop emblazoned with a giant mural featuring the likenesses of Merle Haggard and Bob Marley. “We do smoke marijuana in Muskogee,” it proclaims, cheekily refuting the opening line of Haggard’s 1969 redneck anthem “Okie from Muskogee.” (Demko, 3/7)

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

AP: NC Senate Considers Stiffer Penalties For Drug Distribution 
As fentanyl overdoses continue to plague communities across North Carolina, the state Senate is considering legislation to increase punishments for drug dealers whose distribution of the synthetic opioid results in an overdose death. A bill that advanced Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee would revise state laws to create high-grade felony offenses for deaths caused by distributing certain controlled substances and doing so with malice. It would also increase fine amounts for trafficking heroin, fentanyl and carfentanil, setting a sliding scaled based on drug quantity. (Schoenbaum, 3/7)

The Colorado Sun: 80% Of Local Governments Opted Out Of Colorado’s Paid Family Leave
So far, more than 1,250 local governments have opted out of the contentious Colorado program requiring employers to provide paid family and medical leave. That number stands to grow as the new March 31 deadline to opt out approaches. (Chuang, 3/7)

Des Moines Register: Iowa Lawmakers Approve Gender-Affirming Care Ban For Transgender Youth
Transgender kids in Iowa would no longer be able to access gender-affirming healthcare under a bill passed Tuesday by the Iowa Senate. Senate File 538 would prohibit Iowa doctors from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgeries to a transgender person younger than 18. (Akin, 3/7)

Des Moines Register: Iowa Senate Votes To Restrict School Bathroom Use For Trans Students
Transgender students would not be allowed to use bathrooms in elementary and secondary schools that align with their gender identity under a bill passed Tuesday by the Iowa Senate. Senate File 482 prohibits people from entering a school restroom or changing room that does not align with their sex at birth. Students would need parental consent to request a special accommodation, such as using a faculty or single-occupancy restroom. (Akin, 3/7)

Anchorage Daily News: Dunleavy Education Bills Would Restrict Sex Ed, Offer Teacher Bonuses
While education advocates continue to call for increased funding to go directly to Alaska public school districts, Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Tuesday introduced education policy proposals that would limit sexual education and the rights of gender non-conforming students in public schools. “There should never be a case where a parent sends their kid to school, and the child comes back having discussions about things they learned in school that may be a sensitive issue or an affront to a parent’s values,” Dunleavy, a Republican, said while surrounded by a gaggle of conservative education advocates and children on Tuesday. (Samuels and Maguire, 3/7)

Chicago Tribune and ProPublica: The Federal Government Is Investigating An Illinois School That Often Had Students With Disabilities Arrested 
The U.S. Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into a tiny Illinois school district for students with disabilities to determine whether children enrolled there have been denied an appropriate education because of the “practice of referring students to law enforcement for misbehaviors.” (Richards and Cohen, 3/8)

The Hill: EPA Watchdog Knocks Trump Officials Over Weakened Assessment For Toxic Chemical 
The Environmental Protection Agency’s internal watchdog on Tuesday knocked a Trump-era move in which political officials weakened an assessment on the dangers of a toxic chemical. The Office of the EPA’s Inspector General issued a new report that stated political appointees used a last-minute disagreement to take the “unprecedented” step of listing a range of values for the toxicity of a chemical known as PFBS instead of a definitive toxicity level. (Frazin, 3/7)

KHN: California Offers Bipartisan Road Map For Protecting Kids Online Even As Big Tech Fights Back 
In California, a Democrat and a Republican figured out how to pass the country’s toughest online privacy law protecting kids. If their experience is any indication, though, federal legislators can expect fierce pushback from Big Tech if they heed President Joe Biden’s call for similar action on a national scale. The law, modeled after legislation in the United Kingdom, will ban websites from profiling users in California under age 18, tracking their locations, or nudging them to provide personal information. It will also require online services to automatically put privacy settings at their highest levels on sites that kids access when the law goes into effect next year. (Kreidler, 3/8)

USA Today: Springtime Arrives 3 Weeks Early, Setting Off Seasonal Allergies
Early spring can be good for trees and blossoms but miserable for allergy sufferers. Springtime has arrived three weeks earlier than usual in several southeastern states this year. In the mid-Atlantic and northeast regions, it has arrived nearly four weeks ahead of schedule. (Loehrke, 3/8)

ABC News: Allergy Season Is Getting Longer In Over 170 Cities 
Temperatures have been on the rise in 203 U.S. cities since 1970, leading to longer allergy seasons in over 170 cities across the U.S., a new report by Climate Central finds. Climate change is bringing an earlier spring and later fall, the report found. This means a longer growing season for plants, allowing more than two weeks longer on average to grow, flower and release pollen. (Loo, 3/8)

More on lung health —

Bloomberg: Child Respiratory Infections Raise Risk Of Fatal Lung Disease, Study Finds 
People were twice as likely to die prematurely from a respiratory disease if they had contracted one as a young child in a decades-long study looking at how childhood lung infections impact adult health. (Ring, 3/7)

On nutrition —

The Washington Post: Nearly Half Of U.S. Children Ages 1 To 5 Don’t Eat A Vegetable Daily 
Nearly half of American children ages 1 to 5 — 49 percent — do not eat a vegetable daily, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, not quite 1 in 3 young children (32 percent) eat fruit daily, and more than half (57 percent) drink a sugar-sweetened beverage at least once a week. (Searing, 3/7)

The Washington Post: How Sugar Substitutes Sneak Into Foods And Affect Your Health 
Many people are cutting back on their sugar intake for health reasons. But the food industry has found another way to give consumers their sweet fix. It is quietly replacing the sugar in many packaged foods with sucralose, stevia, allulose, erythritol and a wide variety of other artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes. ... These include bread, yogurt, oatmeal, muffins, canned soups, salad dressings, condiments and snack bars. (O'Connor, Steckelberg and Reiley, 3/7)

In other health and wellness news —

Houston Chronicle: Princess Cruises Passengers On Galveston-Based Ship Fell Ill, CDC Says
More than 300 people on board a Galveston-based cruise ship became ill with vomiting and diarrhea during their eight-day voyage from Texas to Mexico and back, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the Feb. 26 voyage of Princess Cruises' Ruby Princess, 284 passengers and 34 crew members reported becoming ill from the the yet-to-be identified illness. The ship returned to Galveston on Sunday. (Wayne Ferguson, 3/7)

NBC News: Carnival Says 'All Indications' Are A Medical Issue Is To Blame In The Death Of Passenger
Carnival Cruise Line said Tuesday that "all indications" are a passenger died of a medical condition and that it continues to cooperate with authorities. The passenger died Feb. 27 on a trip on the Carnival Sunshine to Nassau, Bahamas, the FBI said in a statement Sunday. (Helsel, 3/8)

USA Today: How Many People Are Born A Day? What About In The U.S.?
According to the United Nations, the Earth reached a population of 8 billion people in November 2022. The UN predicts it will take until 2037 to reach 9 billion. But this prediction is not based on a linear birth rate. In fact, the UN expects the global fertility rate to gradually decrease between now and 2037. (Livesay, 3/7)

Stat: ‘A Different Type Of Fatigue’: Living With Parkinson’s 
In 2020, Sandra Coplin, now 66, moved her life from her native New York — at the time, an epicenter of Covid’s devastation — to North Haven, Conn., to be close to family. She had retired earlier that year from a 42-year career as a legal records manager for seven law firms in the city. And she had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which left her with flagging energy levels and an unsteady gait. (Cueto, 3/8)

KHN: Listen To The Latest ‘KHN Health Minute’ 
The KHN Health Minute this week looks at how profit-driven policies influence emergency room staffing and why Mark Cuban’s new discount drug company may not always be the cheapest option. (3/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Two Of Four Americans Kidnapped In Matamoros, Mexico, Found Dead
Two Americans were found dead and two were rescued Tuesday in the Mexican city of Matamoros after their planned trip across the border for cosmetic surgery turned deadly following an ambush and kidnapping by armed gunmen. The van in which they were traveling was fired on shortly after crossing the border Friday from Brownsville, Texas. After a four-day search, Latavia “Tay” McGee and Eric James Williams were found alive, said Irving Barrios, Tamaulipas state attorney general. Mr. Williams had a major wound to his left leg, the official said. The two others, Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard, were found dead, officials said. (Montes and de Cordoba, 3/7)

The Hill: Deaths Of US Citizens Puts Pressure On Biden Over Handling Of Mexican Cartels 
“Attacks on U.S. citizens are unacceptable no matter where or under what circumstances they occur,” John Kirby, a national security spokesperson for the White House, told reporters Tuesday. “And we’re going to work closely with the Mexican government to make sure justice is done in this case.” (Samuels, 3/7)

CBS News: Kidnapping Of Americans In Mexico Puts Spotlight On "Medical Tourism" 
Violent crime targeting people who leave the U.S. to seek care is extremely rare, said Josef Woodman, CEO of Patients Beyond Borders, a medical tourism group. Instead, the risks typically involve failing to do sufficient research to find certified physicians and clinics in other countries, which could increase the risk of substandard care, he said. Attacks "almost never happens to a medical traveler," Woodman said. "People who travel to get medical care usually get picked up at the airport by the better clinics and hospitals and they are shuttled to their hotels." (Picchi, 3/7)

CNN: Medical Tourism To Mexico Is On The Rise, But It Can Come With Risks
A growing number of US residents are traveling internationally to seek more affordable medical care, more timely care or access to certain treatments or procedures that are unapproved or unavailable in the United States. (Howard and Chavez, 3/7)

AP: Medical Tourism: Traveling Outside US For Care Is Common
Medical tourism has been growing in popularity for years, according to Lydia Gan, an economist at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke who studies the practice. This travel is popular with people who have no health insurance or plans that make them pay thousands of dollars before coverage begins. Big employers also sometimes send people covered by their insurance to other countries for hip or knee replacements or bariatric surgery. Some also send people to Mexico for expensive prescription drugs. (Murphy, 3/7)

AP: Cosmetic Surgery Prices In US Vs. Mexico 
Many Americans travel to Mexico because medical care can be cheaper than in the U.S. Here are some examples. (3/7)

Stat: Controversial Drug For Premature Birth Is Withdrawn By Manufacturer After Battle With FDA 
After months of anticipation, the manufacturer of a controversial drug for premature births has agreed to withdraw its treatment, capping an unusual battle with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over its authority to have medicines removed from the market. (Silverman, 3/7)

AP: FDA: Two More Eyedrop Brands Recalled Due To Risks 
U.S. health officials are alerting consumers about two more recalls of eyedrops due to contamination risks that could lead to vision problems and serious injury. ... The Food and Drug Administration posted separate recall notices for certain eyedrops distributed by Pharmedica and Apotex after the companies said they are voluntarily pulling several lots of their products from the market. Both companies said the recalls were conducted in consultation with the FDA. (3/7)

Reuters: U.S. FDA Clears Abbott's Blood Test For Concussions
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared Abbott Laboratories' blood test that would help doctors assess traumatic brain injury (TBI), commonly known as concussions, the company said on Tuesday. The clearance marks the first commercially available laboratory blood test for TBI, according to the company, helping the doctors to rule out need for a CT scan in patients with mild TBI. (3/7)

Reuters: FDA Says No Indication Contaminated Cough Syrups Have Entered U.S. Supply Chain
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday there was no indication that contaminated cough and paracetamol syrups that caused deaths of children in Gambia last year have entered the U.S. drug supply chain. This comes after an investigation led by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Gambian scientists reported on Thursday that these medicines contaminated with toxic levels of diethylene and ethylene glycol led to acute kidney injury among 78 children in Gambia. (3/3)

The Virginian-Pilot: As Adderall Shortage Continues, DEA Plans To Limit Some Telemedicine Prescriptions
The Food and Drug Administration added Adderall to its drug shortage website in October 2022. Five of the eight listed drug manufacturers still report partial or complete shortages.This is not the nation’s first Adderall shortage. The FDA announced a similar shortage in 2011, and some of the same concerns raised now were raised then. (Nadeau, 3/2)

Stat: BridgeBio Drug For Cause Of Dwarfism Speeds Growth In Small Study
A novel drug for the most common cause of dwarfism accelerated children’s growth in a small but closely watched clinical trial, the company BridgeBio said Monday, advancing the latest treatment in what has been a polarizing field of study. (Garde, 3/6)

CIDRAP: Cost Of China-Made Drug Ingredients More Than Doubled During Pandemic 
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, prices of some active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) exported from China have more than doubled, The Times of India reports.(Van Beusekom, 3/3)

CIDRAP: US Analysis Finds Antibiotic Prescribing Common In Kids Hospitalized With COVID 
An analysis of surveillance data found that US children commonly received antibiotics for severe COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic, despite a low prevalence of bacterial infections, researchers reported today in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. (Dall, 3/6)

Los Angeles Times: Walgreens Is Despicable For Bowing To Pressure Not To Sell Abortion Pills In Some States 
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced earlier this year that it would allow drugstore chains to sell mifepristone, the highly regulated first drug taken in a two-drug regimen for medication abortion, Walgreens and other pharmacy chains eagerly stepped up and said they would go through the required certification process. (3/8)

Los Angeles Times: Abortion Opponents Are Trying To Revoke FDA Approval Of A Drug. That's Scary 
In the post-Roe world, one of the prime targets of antiabortion activists is medication abortion, a two-drug regimen in which a pregnant person takes mifepristone followed by misoprostol. (3/6)

Chicago Tribune: Banning Abortion Pill Mifepristone Would Be A Terrible Policy Choice And Violate Human Rights
Patients’ access to lifesaving medicine is under threat because an anti-abortion rights organization sued in federal district court to overrule the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, which has been used to terminate early pregnancies for almost a quarter century in the U.S. If the judge, appointed by the previous federal administration, rules for the plaintiffs, a medicine considered essential by the World Health Organization will become illegal to distribute or use in the U.S. (Anna Calasanti, Tamara Kay and Susan Ostermann, 3/6)

The Washington Post: Antiabortion-Pill Suit Imperils Drug Development And Access 
The lawsuit in Texas filed with the goal of removing a common abortion medication, mifepristone, from the market nationwide has the potential to disrupt the drug approval and development system more broadly. This could affect patients’ access to a variety of medications and weaken pharmaceutical companies’ incentives to develop new drugs. (Greer Donley and Rachel Sachs, 3/3)

The New York Times: A New Battle In The War On Abortion Pills 
A ruling expected soon from a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas could halt the provision of a drug called mifepristone for use in abortions. This would potentially make the drug very difficult to come by in all states — including those where abortion is legal. (Dana M. Johnson, 3/5)

Also —

The Star Tribune: All We Have To Fear Is High Drug Prices
Pharmaceutical lobbyists are once again using scare tactics to mislead the public on our efforts to bring Minnesotans real relief on prescription drug costs. The latest comes from a Washington-based executive claiming "Price controls would harm state's biotech economy" (Opinion Exchange, Feb. 23). (Zack Stephenson and Kelly Morrison, 3/2)

Modern Healthcare: Pharmacists Know All About Medications, So Why Can’t They Prescribe Them? 
The neighborhood pharmacist has played a critical role in American towns for centuries. People usually see their pharmacists more often than their family doctor. These professionals understand medications, dosages and drug interactions. (Alicia Plemmons, 3/2)

Stat: Congress Must Fix The IRA's Small Molecule Penalty 
In opposing a fix to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, a leading voice in the effort to move the U.S. biopharmaceutical system toward European-style price controls cited “complicated details” in his reasoning for changing the law, adding that “getting it straight is critically important.” (John Stanford, 3/6)

Houston Chronicle: One Twin Was Dying. To Save The Other, I Needed An Abortion
As my medical providers tried to counsel me on my options, they would stop mid-sentence looking for the right words. It was like they were afraid they would be arrested just for saying the word “abortion” out loud. (Lauren Miller, 3/7)

The Washington Post: Available Evidence Still Points To Covid Originating From Spillover
The news last week that the Energy Department had concluded with “low confidence” that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a “lab leak” caused FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to remind Fox News viewers that his agency reached the same conclusion about the coronavirus in 2021. (Angela Rasmussen and Saskia Popescu, 3/7)

Dallas Morning News: Will AI Replace Your Physician?
Recently, the Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence developed at the OpenAI research laboratory, passed or nearly met the passing threshold for all three medical exams without any specialized training, human input, or reinforcement. (Brian Rezel Carr, 3/8)

Chicago Tribune: Include Men In Conversations About Menopause 
Approximately 1 million women experience the start of menopause every year, yet many are surprised and bewildered by its arrival, so much so that they can’t even help themselves. According to a 2021 survey of 1,000 U.S. women, more than 70% of women don’t treat their menopausal symptoms because they don’t even understand what’s happening to their own bodies. (Margena Christian, 3/7)

Stat: Cross-State Telehealth Licensure: A Barrier To Mental Health Care
Teletherapy has made mental health care more accessible than ever before, making care possible for people who otherwise would never have been able to get it. But the antiquated system of licensure in the United States is creating a huge barrier to realizing the potential for telehealth. (Harry Ritter, 3/8)