First Edition: July 3, 2024

KFF Health News: Beyond PMS: A Poorly Understood Disorder Means Periods Of Despair For Some Women
For the most part, Cori Lint was happy.She worked days as a software engineer and nights as a part-time cellist, filling her free hours with inline skating and gardening and long talks with friends. But a few days a month, Lint’s mood would tank. Panic attacks came on suddenly. Suicidal thoughts did, too. She had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, but Lint, 34, who splits her time between St. Petersburg, Florida, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, struggled to understand her experience, a rift so extreme she felt like two different people. (Peace, 7/3)

KFF Health News: Lack Of Affordability Tops Older Americans’ List Of Health Care Worries
What weighs most heavily on older adults’ minds when it comes to health care? The cost of services and therapies, and their ability to pay. “It’s on our minds a whole lot because of our age and because everything keeps getting more expensive,” said Connie Colyer, 68, of Pleasureville, Kentucky. She’s a retired forklift operator who has lung disease and high blood pressure. Her husband, James, 70, drives a dump truck and has a potentially dangerous irregular heart rhythm. (Graham, 7/3)

KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest 'KFF Health News Minute'
“Health Minute” brings original health care and health policy reporting from the KFF Health News newsroom to the airwaves each week. (7/2)

Stat: Early Alzheimer's Drug Developed By Eli Lilly Approved By FDA
Eli Lilly’s early Alzheimer’s treatment was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, making it the second drug on the U.S. market aimed at slowing progression of the debilitating neurological disease. (Chen and Herper, 7/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Approval Of Eli Lilly’s New Alzheimer’s Drug Will Accelerate New Era Of Treatment 
Until recently, Alzheimer’s treatment was limited. Some patients diagnosed with the disease would take a pill to relieve symptoms. More wound up at facilities that provided care for them once they couldn’t take care of themselves. With drugs such as Lilly’s newly approved Kisunla coming online, Alzheimer’s treatment promises to slow the cognitive decline, if only modestly, and to become more widely used. (Loftus and Walker, 7/2)

The Washington Post: Medicare Pushes New Payment Rule After Alleged $3 Billion Fraud Scheme 
Federal officials are seeking to overhaul how Medicare pays health-care providers after an alleged $3 billion scheme to defraud the program, which would be one of the largest such schemes in its history. For more than a year, officials said, about a dozen companies submitted bills to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for tens of millions of urinary catheters, using the personal information of Medicare beneficiaries and physicians — some of whom still have questions about how the companies obtained their private details and used them to bill the federal health program for catheters that they never wanted nor received. (Diamond and Weber, 7/2)

CIDRAP: Survey: Adults Dropped From Medicaid After Pandemic Faced Healthcare Access, Affordability Issues
A survey of low-income adults in four southern US states shows that nearly half of those disenrolled from Medicaid after COVID-19 pandemic protections ended had no insurance in late 2023, leading to struggles to afford healthcare and prescription drugs and threatening to broaden a gap that had narrowed during expanded governmental benefits. The data were derived from 89,130 adult residents of Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas participating in the National Health Interview Survey in 2019, 2021, and 2022. (Van Beusekom, 7/2)

Modern Healthcare: Chevron Ruling May Slow Telehealth, AI, PBM Bills In Congress
The post-election healthcare package Congress is slowly constructing has encountered a Supreme Court complication. The prospects of combining a slew of healthcare measures affecting providers, insurers, pharmacy benefit managers and technology companies by the end of the year dimmed Friday, when the high court overturned a longstanding legal precedent that gave federal agencies wide latitude to interpret laws. (McAuliff, 7/2)

The Washington Post: How The Supreme Court Has Roiled U.S. Health-Care Agencies
Recent Supreme Court decisions curbing the power of federal agencies will hobble government efforts to protect public health, legal experts warn. The rulings will make it harder for some federal agencies to bring enforcement actions, give judges more leeway to second-guess agency decisions and, following a decision Monday, make it easier to challenge long-settled regulations. Legal experts and heath officials expect a gusher of litigation that will complicate the regulation of drugs, tobacco products and cutting-edge medical technologies. The administration of government health insurance programs could be further mired in lawsuits. And decades-old agency decisions may be newly vulnerable to challenges. (Ovalle, Achenbach and Roubein, 7/2)

Roll Call: Fight Over Flavored Vapes Lands At Supreme Court 
The latest battle in the fight over e-cigarettes has landed in the nation’s highest court. The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a case next session concerning the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process for the sale of e-cigarettes amid concerns about use among children and teenagers. (Hellmann, 7/2)

CNN: Biden Administration Sends Sharp Reminder To Doctors About Obligation To Provide Emergency Abortions
In letters to health-care providers Tuesday, the Biden administration reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring that pregnant people have access to emergency treatment, even if that treatment necessitates an abortion and the person lives in a state with an abortion ban. (Christensen, 7/2)

AP: Wisconsin Supreme Court To Consider Whether 175-Year-Old Law Bans Abortion
The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided Tuesday to consider two challenges to a 175-year-old law that conservatives maintain bans abortion without letting the cases wind through lower courts. Abortion advocates stand an excellent chance of prevailing in both cases given the high court’s liberal tilt and remarks a liberal justice made on the campaign trail about how she supports abortion rights. (Richmond, 7/2)

AP: Pro-Choice Advocates Set To Turn In Around 800,000 Signatures For Arizona Abortion Ballot Measure
Pro-choice advocates are set to deliver petition signatures Wednesday in hopes of getting the abortion rights issue on Arizona’s November general election ballot. Organizers collected about 800,000 signatures and need 383,923 of them to be deemed valid. If that happens, Arizona voters will be asked whether to enshrine in the state constitution the right to an abortion. (Berry and Snow, 7/3)

Politico: Trump Campaign Blocks Pair Of Anti-Abortion Activists From RNC Platform Committee 
Two hardline anti-abortion delegates to next week’s GOP platform committee have been stripped of their positions, according to several members of the Republican National Committee, underscoring a broader fear among evangelicals and other social conservatives that the party is poised to moderate its stance on abortion at the direction of former President Donald Trump. The Trump campaign’s efforts to block the two South Carolina delegates from the platform committee and replace them with loyalists is described in several affidavits as “interference from paid RNC staff … to circumvent the will of the delegation.” (Allison and Messerly, 7/2)

Politico: Biden Administration Plans Major Cuts To AIDS Relief Programs In Africa 
The Biden administration plans to cut funding by more than 6 percent in fiscal 2025 from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the 21-year-old program credited with saving millions of lives in Africa, a senior PEPFAR official told POLITICO. The State Department, which oversees the program, confirmed the cuts. The department has gradually spent down a glut in the PEPFAR budget from years in which funding from Congress exceeded State’s ability to spend it, said a department spokesperson who, like the PEPFAR official, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive program decisions. Now the glut is gone and Congress in March held the program’s $4.4 billion budget flat. (Paun, 7/2)

CNN: Latinos Represent Nearly A Third Of New HIV Diagnoses In The US, CDC Data Shows
When Felix Hernandez learned that he had HIV, he had no one to lean on. In the years since his diagnosis, he found a way to support other people who may be feeling alone by helping administer HIV tests at a Tennessee clinic. (Chavez and Mclean, 7/2)

The 19th: Biden Admin Says It Opposes Gender-Affirming Surgery For Minors
The Biden administration on Tuesday afternoon provided more details about its opposition to gender-affirming surgery for transgender minors, a position at odds with its previously broad support for gender-affirming care — and one taken by a presidential administration that has closely aligned itself with LGBTQ+ advocates. (Rummler, 7/2)

AP: Judge's Order Greatly Expands Where Biden Can't Enforce A New Rule Protecting LGBTQ+ Students
Enforcement of a federal rule expanding anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students has been blocked in four states and a patchwork of places elsewhere by a federal judge in Kansas. U.S. District Judge John Broomes suggested in his ruling Tuesday that the Biden administration must now consider whether forcing compliance remains “worth the effort.” (Hanna, 7/2)

CIDRAP: HHS Awards Moderna $176 Million To Develop MRNA H5 Avian Flu Vaccine
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through its Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), today announced that it has awarded Moderna $176 million to develop a prepandemic vaccine against H5 avian influenza. In its announcement, HHS said the award helps bolster the nation's pandemic flu vaccine capacity, which currently relies on an older traditional vaccine platform. Moderna will leverage its domestic large-scale commercial mRNA vaccine manufacturing platforms and ongoing development of mRNA-based seasonal flu vaccines. (Schnirring, 7/2)

Stat: U.S. Expanding Capacity To Test People For H5N1 Bird Flu 
As the H5N1 bird flu outbreak in dairy cows enters its fourth month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is taking steps to ramp up the nation’s capacity to test for the virus in people. (Molteni, 7/2)

CIDRAP: NIH Announces Launch Of Clinical Trial For Nasal COVID Vaccine 
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) yesterday announced the launch of a phase 1 trial of a nasal vaccine against COVID-19, which also marks the first National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) trial conducted as part of the government's Project NextGen—an effort designed to advance the development of next-generation vaccines against the disease. (Schnirring, 7/2)

CIDRAP: No Link Between First Trimester COVID-19 Vaccination And Birth Defects
Maternal COVID-19 vaccination in the first trimester of pregnancy is not linked to major structural birth defects, according to a study yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics. The study was based on outcomes seen among women who received one or two mRNA COVID-19 vaccine doses in the first trimester of pregnancy and gave birth from March 5, 2021, to January 25, 2022, at eight US study sites. (Soucheray, 7/2)

CBS News: COVID Trend Reaches "High" Level Across Western U.S. In Latest CDC Data
A key indicator for tracking the spread of COVID-19 has officially reached "high" levels across western U.S. states, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now shows. But the agency says it remains too early to say whether this year's summer COVID-19 surge has arrived nationwide. Levels of SARS-CoV-2 virus showing up in wastewater samples are climbing in most parts of the country, according to figures from the agency through June 27. (Sheehan, 7/2)

Modern Healthcare: Prospect Medical Holdings Probed By DOJ
The Justice Department opened an investigation into potential fraud at Prospect Medical Holdings, according to recent court filings in a legal battle between Yale New Haven Health and Prospect. The DOJ on Nov. 3 sent a civil investigative demand to Prospect, the for-profit health system confirmed in a June 27 filing in the Superior Court for the Judicial District of Hartford. (Kacik, 7/2)

Modern Healthcare: Why M&A Antitrust Scrutiny Overlooks Academic Medical Centers
Academic medical centers are acquiring community hospitals, sometimes while benefiting from a gap in federal antitrust law. Alabama, California, Pennsylvania and Virginia have seen academic medical centers expand, and analysts expect merger and acquisition activity to continue. (Kacik, 7/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF, Bonta Agree To Terms Allowing $100 Million SF Hospital Takeover
UCSF must continue charity care, adhere to price growth caps and invest hundreds of millions of dollars into St. Mary’s Medical Center and Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, the two struggling San Francisco hospitals it is acquiring for $100 million, under a settlement reached with the California attorney general. The settlement, announced Tuesday, resolves a complaint brought by the AG that sought to halt the deal over concerns it could harm people’s access to medical services. (Ho, 7/2)

Reuters: Walmart Has Held Talks To Sell Its Shuttered Medical Clinics, Fortune Reports
Walmart has held talks with potential buyers to sell its already shuttered medical clinics, Fortune reported on Tuesday, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter. In April, Walmart decided to close all 51 of its health clinics and shut its virtual healthcare operations, saying it could not see them as a sustainable business model to continue. The report added that some of the talks have involved health insurance companies, including Fortune 50 firm Humana. (7/2)

Modern Healthcare: Cedars-Sinai Health System Names Dr. Peter Slavin Next CEO
Cedars-Sinai Health System named Dr. Peter Slavin its next president and CEO, effective Oct. 1. Slavin, who also will be president and CEO of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, succeeds Thomas Priselac, who is retiring after 30 years as president and CEO at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the subsequent Cedars-Sinai Health System. Priselac spent 45 years overall at the system, according to a Tuesday news release. (Hudson, 7/2)

The Boston Globe: House Passes Bill Targeting Sexual Assault By Health Care Provider
Patients who are sexually assaulted by medical professionals would gain expanded protections under a bill that has cleared the House and is awaiting action in the Senate. Medical providers and clergy members who inappropriately touch or assault patients while claiming to be providing legitimate care could face jail time under legislation (H 4350) the House passed last week. (Kuznitz, 7/2)

The Boston Globe: Boston Ends Funding For Needle Collection Program
Since it launched in 2020, Boston’s Community Syringe Redemption Program has taken about five million dirty needles off the street and halved calls to the city for syringe cleanup. In exchange, the program provided small cash payments to those living with addiction, keeping some from turning to theft and prostitution, according to Addiction Response Resources, the small business that runs the program. As of last Friday, though, the needle exchange program is defunct. (Laughlin, 7/2)

The Boston Globe: West Nile Virus Detected In Massachusetts For First Time This Year
West Nile virus has been detected in mosquitoes in Massachusetts for the first time this year, public health officials said Tuesday. The virus was found in two mosquito samples collected June 25 in Quincy and confirmed by the state’s public health laboratory Tuesday, the state Department of Public Health said. (Stoico, 7/2)

The Washington Post: Feds: D.C. Owes $4.4 Million Penalty For Poor SNAP Performance
D.C. is facing a $4.4 million penalty from the federal government due to persistent errors in processing critical food assistance benefits that thousands of Washingtonians rely on, once again putting in sharp focus the challenges the District has had in responding to high demand for public benefits. The U.S. Department of Agriculture notified D.C. officials in a letter Friday that it was issuing the fine because for the second consecutive year, the District far exceeded what federal officials consider an acceptable error rate in processing benefits in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). (Flynn, 7/2)

NBC News: Why U.S. Kids Are Dying At Higher Rates Than In Other Wealthy Countries
Children in the U.S. are dying at higher rates than in other wealthy, developed countries. Research published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics attempts to calculate these “excess deaths” — in other words, how many more kids under age 19 are dying in the U.S. compared to similar countries. The estimate: 20,000 per year. It’s a bleak picture of the country’s pediatric health. (Bendix, 7/2)

Reuters: US FDA To Ban Use Of Brominated Vegetable Oil In Food, Soda 
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it would revoke the regulation that authorized the use of brominated vegetable oil in food items, effective Aug. 2, as it was no longer safe. BVO is a chemical ingredient containing bromine, which is found in fire retardants. Small quantities of BVO are used legally in some citrus-flavored drinks in the United States to keep the flavor evenly distributed. (Vanaik, 7/2)

USA Today: Salmonella Outbreak In Cucumbers Linked To Florida Grower: CDC, FDA
A multistate investigation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration has identified a Florida grower as a likely source in an outbreak caused by salmonella-tainted cucumbers. Amidst the monthlong investigation – during which 449 people in 31 states and the District of Columbia have reported salmonella illnesses – salmonella found in untreated canal water used by Bedner Growers, Inc., of Boynton Beach, Florida, matched the strain (Salmonella Braenderup) sickening some in the outbreak, the agencies said. (Snider, 7/2)

NBC News: Your Diet At 40 May Affect How Healthy You Are At 70, Study Finds
If you eat well now, you may live better later. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables, whole grains and unsaturated fats in midlife can improve the chances of good mental, physical and cognitive health decades later, a new report shows. A study presented at a major nutrition conference Tuesday builds on years of research that a daily diet filled with highly nutritious foods can reduce the risk of developing common chronic diseases and help maintain cognitive functioning in older age. (Sudhakar, 7/3)

NPR: Medical Amputations Are No Longer A Uniquely Human Treatment
When an ant injures its leg, it sometimes will turn to a buddy who will help out by gnawing the leg off, effectively performing a lifesaving limb amputation. That’s according to some new experiments described in the journal Current Biology, which show that ants are the only animal other than humans known to practice amputation as a medical treatment. (Greenfieldboyce, 7/2)