First Edition: Feb. 16, 2024

KFF Health News: Patients See First Savings From Biden’s Drug Price Push, As Pharma Lines Up Its Lawyers 
Last year alone, David Mitchell paid $16,525 for 12 little bottles of Pomalyst, one of the pricey medications that treat his multiple myeloma, a blood cancer he was diagnosed with in 2010. The drugs have kept his cancer at bay. But their rapidly increasing costs so infuriated Mitchell that he was inspired to create an advocacy movement. Patients for Affordable Drugs, which he founded in 2016, was instrumental in getting drug price reforms into the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Those changes are kicking in now, and Mitchell, 73, is an early beneficiary. (Allen, 2/16)

KFF Health News: Southern Lawmakers Rethink Long-Standing Opposition To Medicaid Expansion 
As a part-time customer service representative, Jolene Dybas earns less than $15,000 a year, which is below the federal poverty level and too low for her to be eligible for subsidized health insurance on the Obamacare marketplace. Dybas, 53, also does not qualify for Medicaid in her home state of Alabama because she does not meet the program requirements. She instead falls into a coverage gap and faces hundreds of dollars a month in out-of-pocket payments, she said, to manage multiple chronic health conditions. “I feel like I’m living in a state that doesn’t care for me,” said Dybas, a resident of Saraland, a suburb of Mobile. (Chang and Miller, 2/16)

KFF Health News' 'What The Health?' Podcast: Biden Wins Early Court Test For Medicare Drug Negotiations 
A federal judge in Texas has turned back the first challenge to the nascent Medicare prescription-drug negotiation program. But the case turned on a technicality, and drugmakers have many more lawsuits in the pipeline. Meanwhile, Congress is approaching yet another funding deadline, and doctors hope the next funding bill will cancel the Medicare pay cut that took effect in January. (2/15)

NPR: Abortion Pills That Patients Got Via Telehealth And The Mail Are Safe, Study Finds
Was the Food and Drug Administration correct when it deemed the drug safe to prescribe to patients in a virtual appointment? A study published Thursday in Nature Medicine looks at abortion pills prescribed via telehealth and provides more support for the FDA's assessment that medication abortion is safe and effective. ... The researchers found that the medication was effective – it ended the pregnancy without any additional follow-up care for 97.7% of patients. It was also found to be safe – 99.7% of abortions were not followed by any serious adverse events. (Simmons-Duffin, 2/15)

AP: Iowa's Abortion Providers Now Have Some Guidance For The Paused 6-Week Ban, If It Is Upheld 
Iowa’s medical board on Thursday approved some guidance abortion providers would need to follow if the state’s ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy is upheld by the Iowa Supreme Court. The restrictive abortion law is currently on hold as the court considers Gov. Kim Reynolds ' appeal of the lower court’s decision that paused the crux of it, but the medical board was instructed to continue with its rulemaking process to ensure physicians would have guidance in place when the court rules. (Fingerhut, 2/15)

Roll Call: In Carolinas, Mental Health Becomes Part Of The Abortion Debate
As lawmakers raced to pass new abortion bans in the Carolinas last year, Charlotte Driscoll, a 26-year-old North Carolina native with bipolar disorder who has struggled with suicidal thoughts, worried aloud to a statehouse panel. She’d finally found a medication that had worked for her called Lamotrigine. “But unfortunately it makes birth control ineffective. And birth control makes Lamotrigine ineffective,” she told the North Carolina Committee on Rules, Calendar and Operations of the House in May. (Raman, 2/15)

The New York Times: 2 Teens in Custody in Kansas City, Where Police Say Dispute Led to Shooting
The authorities in Kansas City, Mo., said on Thursday that they were keeping two teenagers in custody after a shooting that tore through the city’s Super Bowl celebration, killing one person and wounding nearly two dozen others in what appeared to be the result of an argument. Stacey Graves, the city’s police chief, said at least 22 people were wounded in the shooting on Wednesday, in addition to the person who died, and that the victims ranged in age from 8 to 47 years old. At least half of the wounded were younger than 16.The police said they had initially taken three young people into custody but released one of them after determining that the person was not involved. (Bogel-Burroughs, Fortin, Draper and Edmonds, 2/15)

Kansas City Star: MO Gun Law Debate Renewed After KC Chiefs Rally Shooting
Missouri’s firearms laws, a gun rights fortress that protects concealed weapons and seeks to limit federal law enforcement, was built over the years by state lawmakers brick by brick. Across Missouri, lawmakers, local officials, members of the public and even Chiefs players themselves are now wondering whether the fortress has any vulnerabilities. (Bayless, Shorman and Bernard, 2/15)

Kansas City Star: Tips For Talking To Kids After Mass Shooting At KC MO Rally 
Thousands of fans flocked to Union Station for the 2024 Chiefs Super Bowl rally in Kansas City, ready to celebrate the team’s victory. But the day turned bloody as shots rang out, killing a radio host and mother of two, and injuring at least 23 other parade goers. (Nash, 2/15)

NBC News: CDC May Recommend Some People Get A New Covid Booster This Spring
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering whether to recommend yet another Covid booster shot this spring, especially for people most at risk for severe complications of the illness. ... While it's unlikely that the majority of Americans would opt for another dose — just 21.9% of adults received the latest version of the vaccine — experts say that it's critical to make it available sooner rather than later. (Edwards, 2/15)

CIDRAP: New COVID Antiviral Candidate Linked To Shorter Symptoms
Treatment with ensitrelvir, an oral SARS-CoV-2 3C-like protease inhibitor developed in Japan, shortened COVID-19 symptoms in people who received the medication within 3 days of symptom onset, researchers reported recently in JAMA Network Open. In 2023, the drug—made by Shionogi—was authorized for emergency use in Japan and received a fast-track review designation from the US Food and Drug Administration. (Schnirring, 2/15)

CIDRAP: Long COVID Incidence In US Varies By State, Highest In West Virginia 
New state and territory surveillance data on long COVID in the United States shows the prevalence of long COVID exceeded 8.8% in seven states and was highest in West Virginia and lowest in the US Virgin Islands. The study is published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. (Soucheray, 2/15)

Stat: ACIP Vaccine Advisory Panel Sees Its Vacancies Filled
The Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday that it is filling eight vacancies, including the chairmanship, on an important advisory panel on vaccine policy that was down to less than half of its normal roster for months. (Branswell, 2/15)

Stat: Covid-19 Vaccine Confidence Soured By Officials, GOP Argues
A House hearing on vaccine safety claims sought to pierce through Americans’ falling confidence in routine shots and the spread of Covid-19 misinformation — sometimes from people in the room. (Owermohle, 2/15)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Schools Report Soaring Nonmedical Vaccine Exemption Rates
Nonmedical vaccine exemptions continued to hit record levels among Texas schoolchildren last year amid state lawmakers' attempts to weaken immunization requirements further. During the 2022-23 school year, 3.24% of Texas kindergartners received an exemption “for reasons of conscience,” which includes religious beliefs, from at least one immunization required to attend school, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. That's almost double the rate from 10 years ago, data shows. (Gill and Zdun, 2/15)

USA Today: Nearly Half Of Health Care Workers Have Witnessed Racism, Discrimination, Report Shows
Younger and Black or Latino health care workers were more likely than their older or white counterparts to say they noticed discrimination against patients. Among the key findings in the survey: 47% of U.S. health care workers said they witnessed discrimination against patients, and 52% said that racism against patients was a major problem. (Alltucker, 2/15)

Modern Healthcare: Nursing Homes Grapple With CNA Training Backlogs 
Instructor shortages and regulatory hurdles are creating training logjams for certified nursing assistants as nursing homes struggle to find enough of them to meet increased demand. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires nursing assistants to receive at least 75 hours of training for certification. Those workers are vital to nursing homes because they provide most of the hands-on patient care and are at the heart of a proposed federal staffing mandate. (Eastabrook, 2/15)

Boston Globe: Sick Patients Collapsed Waiting For Care At Massachusetts Hospital With Known Safety Violations
Struggling to breathe, the patient stepped out of the registration line in the hospital’s overwhelmed emergency department to find help. Her chest hurt, she told the triage nurse on duty that evening at Brockton’s Good Samaritan Medical Center. The nurse, backed up with more than a dozen waiting patients, thought it was anxiety and told her to get back in line. That is where the patient collapsed. Medical personnel rushed in and tried to jump-start her heart using a defibrillator and life-saving medications, according to a state inspection document and an internal staffing report. But it was too late. (Kowalczyk and Freyer, 2/15)

Stat: 340B Hospital Says It Was 'Drastically' Overcharged By Drugmakers 
For several years, some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies that participate in a U.S. drug discount program overcharged the federal government and numerous hospitals by hundreds of millions of dollars, according to claims made in a recently unsealed lawsuit. (Silverman, 2/15)

Modern Healthcare: Congress Tiptoes Toward Healthcare AI Legislation
Artificial intelligence is already a fact of life for the healthcare sector but for Congress, dealing with it remains a matter for the future. Congress doesn't appear anywhere close to moving significant legislation. For the most part, lawmakers are stuck in the stage of declaring that they should act, even as businesses embrace the technology and federal agencies issue regulations to address emerging issues and to carry out President Joe Biden's executive order. (McAuliff, 2/15)

Modern Healthcare: UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Oscar Implement Generative AI
The health insurance industry increasingly is utilizing artificial intelligence and similar technologies to streamline operations, train employees and enhance customer service. Insurers have been using so-called traditional AI to process claims, identify fraud and predict risk for years. Now, companies such as UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, Oscar Health and Florida Blue are experimenting with generative AI models that use context to answer prompts and have great potential in healthcare settings. (Berryman, 2/15)

The New York Times: A Columbia Surgeon’s Study Was Pulled. He Kept Publishing Flawed Data
The stomach cancer study was shot through with suspicious data. Identical constellations of cells were said to depict separate experiments on wholly different biological lineages. Photos of tumor-stricken mice, used to show that a drug reduced cancer growth, had been featured in two previous papers describing other treatments. Problems with the study were severe enough that its publisher, after finding that the paper violated ethics guidelines, formally withdrew it within a few months of its publication in 2021. The study was then wiped from the internet, leaving behind a barren web page that said nothing about the reasons for its removal. (Mueller, 2/15)

The New York Times: CooperSurgical’s Botched IVF Liquid Destroyed Embryos, Lawsuits Claim 
CooperSurgical, a major medical supply company, is facing a wave of lawsuits from patients who claim that one of its products destroyed embryos created with in vitro fertilization. Fertility clinics across the world used the product, a nutrient-rich liquid that helps fertilized eggs develop into embryos. This week federal regulators made public that the company had recalled three lots of the liquid, which was used by clinics in November and December. The number of affected patients is unclear, although experts estimated that it is in the thousands. (Kliff and Ghorayshi, 2/15)

Fox News: Erectile Dysfunction Meds Like Viagra Linked To Reduced Alzheimer's Risk, Study Suggests
Erectile dysfunction medication could reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, a new study is suggesting, though some experts cast doubt on the link between the two. In a study by University College London researchers in the U.K., men who were prescribed phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors, otherwise known as erectile dysfunction drugs, were 18% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease years later. (Stabile, 2/16)

Reuters: Exclusive: Wegovy Fuels Sharp Rise In Use Of Weight-Loss Drugs For US Youth 
A small but rapidly growing number of U.S. adolescents began treatment with Novo Nordisk's weight-loss drug Wegovy last year, a powerful new tool to address record rates of pediatric obesity, according to data shared exclusively with Reuters. In the first 10 months of 2023, 1,268 children ages 12 to 17 with an obesity diagnosis started taking Wegovy, according to U.S. insurance claims data compiled by health technology company Komodo Health. (Respaut and Terhune, 2/15)

Los Angeles Times: New Synthetic Molecule May Outsmart Drug-Resistant Bacteria
An estimated 2.8 million people in the U.S. contract infections each year from bacteria resistant to antibiotics, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. More than 35,000 of them die. ... Researchers at Harvard and the University of Illinois at Chicago have created a new molecule that effectively vanquished multiple types of bacteria when tested in animals. The organisms on its hit list included strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and other pathogens that have become resistant to most antibiotics currently available. The new molecule, dubbed cresomycin, was described Thursday in the journal Science. (Purtill, 2/15)

NPR: DOJ Watchdog Finds 187 Inmate Suicides In Federal Prisons Over 8-Year Period
Over an eight-year period, 344 inmates in federal prison died from suicide, homicide or accidents, according to a report released Thursday by the Justice Department's inspector general. ... "Today's report identified numerous operational and managerial deficiencies, which created unsafe conditions prior to and at the time of a number of theses deaths," Inspector General Michael Horowitz said. (Lucas, 2/15)

The Hill: Doulas Improve Health Outcomes For Pregnant Women With Medicaid: Report
Doula care improves health outcomes for pregnant women with Medicaid, according to a new report from public policy institute Elevance Health.  The country’s worsening maternal health crisis has stirred interest in using doulas as an additional support for expecting mothers, especially Black women, who have the highest maternal mortality rate in the U.S.  But most insurance companies do not cover doula care, and only 13 states, along with Washington D.C., offer reimbursed doula care through Medicaid.  (O'Connell-Domenech, 2/15)

AP: Why 14 GOP-Led States Turned Down Federal Money To Feed Low-Income Kids
Lower-income families with school-age kids can get help from the federal government paying for groceries this summer, unless they live in one of the 14 states that have said no to joining the program this year. The reasons for the rejections, all from states with Republican governors, include philosophical objections to welfare programs, technical challenges due to aging computer systems and satisfaction with other summer nutrition programs reaching far fewer children. (Mattise and Mulvihill, 2/16)

The Washington Post: Trans Adults On Edge As Legislatures Broaden Focus Beyond Children 
Medical school is hard enough, but Charlie Adams’s existence was on the line, so he took a day off from clinic rotations in Kansas City and drove three hours to the Missouri Capitol. Republican legislators had proposed nine bills to restrict transgender rights. Two sought to limit the definition of sex. Another gave doctors the right to discriminate against trans people. And four aimed to keep them out of the bathrooms that match their identities. Adams, 27, has a full beard and a deep voice, and as he spoke recently to a committee of legislators, a patch of chest hair peeked out from his navy blue scrubs. “Do you want to see me in the women’s restroom next time you’re at the hospital?” he asked. (Parks, 2/15)

Fox News: Hawaii Confirms 5 Cases Of Whooping Cough, Child's Hospitalization
Health officials in Hawaii have confirmed five cases of whooping cough among members of a family, including a case that has led to the hospitalization of a child. The Hawaii Department of Health says each case of pertussis affected an unvaccinated individual and that it is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other states to "notify travelers who were exposed." "The family had traveled from the United States mainland and stayed at a hotel accommodation on Oahu," the department said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that an investigation has "identified no close contacts after the family’s arrival in Hawaii." (Norman, 2/15)

Los Angeles Times: California Tightens Workplace Rules On Poisonous Lead
For the first time in decades, California is tightening its rules on workplace exposure to lead, a poisonous metal that can wreak havoc throughout the body. Experts said the new regulations will make California a national leader in battling the insidious and deadly effects of lead in the workplace. The California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted 5 to 2 on Thursday to adopt the rules over the objections of business groups that said they were unworkable and difficult to understand. (Alpert Reyes, 2/15)

San Francisco Chronicle: Employee At S.F.’s Largest Drug Treatment Provider ODed At Work
An employee of San Francisco’s largest drug treatment provider, which is currently under investigation by the state, fatally overdosed while at work, according to nonprofit and city records. David Hamilton, who worked at a sober living facility run by HealthRight 360, overdosed ... with fentanyl and cocaine in his system, according to records from the San Francisco Medical Examiner. Hamilton’s job was to dispense medications to clients in the facility. ... Hamilton, 33, was one of four people who died of an overdose inside HealthRight 360 facilities within the past year, records show. (Angst, 2/15)

AP: Lyme Disease Case Counts In The US Rose By Almost 70% In 2022 Due To A Change In How It's Reported 
Lyme disease cases in the U.S. jumped nearly 70% in 2022, which health officials say is not due to a major increase of new infections but instead a change in reporting requirements. Reported cases surpassed 62,000 in 2022, after averaging about 37,000 a year from 2017 through 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released Thursday. Numbers for 2023 will be released later this year. (Stobbe, 2/15)

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: 17% Of US Adults Have Noise-Induced Hearing Loss. A New Study Uncovers A Biologic Reason
It could be a band at a wedding, an explosion on a battlefield or the constant drone of machinery: In the United States, about 17% of adults have hearing loss caused by exposure to loud noises. (Sostek, 2/15)

The Baltimore Sun: Can This New Padding Improve Bike, Football Helmet Safety? 
A potential new design for padding in sports helmets could absorb as much as 25% more impact than existing foams, adding additional protection from head injuries. The design, created by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, could help advance foams and padding that have been used for decades, improving safety and preventing head injuries. (Doak, 2/15)