First Edition: Friday, Nov. 22, 2024

KFF Health News: Georgians With Disabilities Are Still Being Institutionalized, Despite Federal Oversight
Lloyd Mills was tired of being stuck in a small, drab hospital room. On a rainy mid-September morning, a small TV attached to a mostly blank white wall played silently. There was nothing in the space to cheer it up — no cards, no flowers. In February, the 32-year-old with autism, cerebral palsy, and kidney disease was brought to Grady Memorial Hospital from the group home where he had been living because he was having auditory hallucinations and suicidal thoughts, he said. (Whitehead, 11/22)

KFF Health News: TV’s Dr. Oz Invested In Businesses Regulated By Agency Trump Wants Him To Lead
President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the sprawling government agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act marketplace — celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz — recently held broad investments in health care, tech, and food companies that would pose significant conflicts of interest. Oz’s holdings, some shared with family, included a stake in UnitedHealth Group worth as much as $600,000, as well as shares of pharmaceutical firms and tech companies with business in the health care sector, such as Amazon. (Tahir, 11/21)

KFF Health News: Florida Gov. DeSantis’ Canadian Drug Import Plan Goes Nowhere After FDA Approval
Nearly a year after the Biden administration gave Florida the green light to become the first state to import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada — a longtime goal of politicians across the political spectrum, including President-elect Donald Trump — the program has yet to begin. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hailed the FDA’s approval of his plan in January, calling it a victory over the drug industry, which opposes importation on the grounds that it would lead to a surge in counterfeit medications. (Galewitz, 11/21)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News' 'What The Health?': Trump’s Nontraditional Health Picks
Not only has President-elect Donald Trump chosen prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Trump also has said he will nominate controversial TV host Mehmet Oz to run the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which oversees coverage for nearly half of Americans. Meanwhile, the lame-duck Congress is back in Washington with just a few weeks to figure out how to wrap up work for the year. (Rovner, 11/21)

KFF Health News: Readers Embrace 'Going It Alone' Series On Aging And Chastise Makers Of Pulse Oximeters
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. (11/22)

Politico: Project 2025 Author Rejected For Top Health Position 
Donald Trump’s transition team has rejected a push to install a prominent Project 2025 author in a senior role at the Department of Health and Human Services over concerns that his strident anti-abortion views would prove too controversial. Anti-abortion groups had been lobbying Trump’s HHS secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to select Roger Severino, a longtime anti-abortion stalwart, as the department’s deputy secretary. The installation of Severino, director of HHS’ Office for Civil Rights during the first Trump administration, was aimed at allaying some of the groups’ concerns about Kennedy’s abortion record. But senior Trump officials rejected Severino because of the anti-abortion policies he outlined in the health care section of Project 2025, according to six people familiar with the situation. (Messerly and Cancryn, 11/21)

The Washington Post: RFK Jr. Weighs Major Changes To How Medicare Pays Physicians 
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his advisers are considering an overhaul of Medicare’s decades-old payment formula, a bid to shift the health system’s incentives toward primary care and prevention, said four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The discussions are in their early stages, the people said, and have involved a plan to review the thousands of billing codes that determine how much physicians get paid for performing procedures and services. (Diamond, 11/21)

The New York Times: Trump Picks Pam Bondi For Attorney General After Matt Gaetz Withdraws 
President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that he would nominate Pam Bondi to be attorney general, turning to a longtime loyalist who served as state attorney general in Florida to put his stamp on a Justice Department that he sees as politically hostile to him. Ms. Bondi, who became the Florida attorney general in 2011, became the public face of opposition to same-sex marriage in Florida, defending a statewide ban that voters had passed in 2008. She said she was obligated to defend it because it was in the state Constitution. After a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, Ms. Bondi adopted a more conciliatory tone toward the L.G.B.T.Q. community. As Florida’s first female attorney general, Ms. Bondi focused on combating drug abuse and child trafficking. But she also embraced partisan legal fights, including trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act. She also opposed the legalization of medical marijuana. (Barrett, Haberman, Lipton and Vogel, 11/21)

The New York Times: Marjorie Taylor Greene Will Lead New ‘DOGE’ Panel on Government Efficiency
When she arrived in Congress in 2021, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, was quickly stripped of her two committee assignments by Democrats and shunned by her colleagues on Capitol Hill. Almost three years later, Ms. Greene is poised to hold a gavel for the first time, a sign of the ascendancy of the MAGA wing of the G.O.P. in Congress, where President-elect Donald J. Trump’s most loyal allies will occupy prominent posts next year. (Karni, 11/21)

Military.com: Musk, Ramaswamy Proposal To Slash Spending Could Include VA Medical Services 
A plan by the incoming Trump administration to slash government funding could kneecap Department of Veterans Affairs health care. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal this week, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency," confirmed that they plan to target "unauthorized" federal spending, a category that includes the VA's medical services. [Scroll down to our Editorials and Opinions section to read the op-ed.] (Kheel, 11/21)

The Hill: Mark Milley Supports Women In Military Combat If They 'Meet The Standards'
Mark Milley, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, said that women should be actively deployed for military combat if they “meet the standards.” “Women have been in combat, and it doesn’t matter if that 762 hits you in the chest, no one gives a sh– if it’s a woman or guy who pulled the trigger,” he said during the National Security Innovation Forum on Wednesday. “If you meet the standards, our military must be and always should be a standard-based merit-based military, period, full stop. Doesn’t matter if you are white, black, a man, a woman, Catholic, Protestant,” he added. (Fields, 11/21)

NPR: Foreign Nationals Propel U.S. Science. If Trump Limits Immigration Again, That Could Change
Foreign-born workers account for about half of the doctoral-level scientists and engineers working in the U.S. Many were initially hired under H-1B visas, which are granted to as many as 85,000 highly skilled specialists each year, allowing them to work in the U.S. for up to six years. But the incoming Trump administration has signaled that it will crack down on H-1B visas, which could make it harder for universities, research institutions, and tech firms in the U.S. to find enough highly educated workers. (Hamilton, 11/21)

The Washington Post: Senate Democrats Drop 4 Appeals Court Picks So They Can Confirm 12 Judges
Senate Democrats have reached a deal with their Republican counterparts to confirm a dozen judges nominated by President Joe Biden while pulling four of his nominees from consideration, the latest step in a battle over who controls the nation’s federal courthouses on the eve of a second Donald Trump presidency. At the same time, lawmakers are facing new pushback against a bill that would increase the number of federal judges across the country, with some Democrats reluctant to give Trump more judgeships to fill. (Raji, 11/21)

Politico: Schumer Explains Reported GOP Deal On Judges 
The office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is defending a reported deal where Democrats ceded four appeals court nominations in favor of confirming more of President Joe Biden’s lower-level federal judicial appointees. “The trade was four circuit nominees — all lacking the votes to get confirmed — for more than triple the number of additional judges moving forward,” a spokesperson for Schumer said Thursday. (Adragna, 11/21)

The Hill: 2 House Republicans Seek To Stop IVF Expansion In Defense Bill
Two House Republicans, Reps. Matt Rosendale (Mont.) and Josh Brecheen (Okla.), are asking the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees to not include provisions in the annual defense authorization bill that expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Thursday letter to the committee chairs and ranking members, first shared with The Hill, is an example of divisions that remain in the Republican Party amid threats to the fertility treatment. The topic came to the forefront after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, spurred by social conservatives’ belief that life begins at conception — even as President-elect Trump and the majority of vocal Republicans say they support IVF. (Brooks, 11/21)

The Washington Post: Meet The 119th Congress: Republicans Control The Senate 53-47
Once President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20, the Senate will hold power to advance his legislative priorities and to confirm or reject his nominees for hundreds of positions across the federal government. Voters in Montana, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania voted for Republicans to take over Senate seats currently held by Democrats, helping their party secure control of the upper chamber of Congress. Here are some things to know about the incoming Republican-controlled Senate, which starts work on Jan. 3. (Dormido, Ramos and Mourtoupalas, 11/21)

CNN: Less-Potent Fentanyl Pills May Be Playing A Role In Decrease Of US Overdose Deaths, DEA Says
The US Drug Enforcement Administration says that less fentanyl is present in the nation’s illicit pill supply and that is helping drive down overdose deaths in the United States. But experts say that there are limitations to this claim and that many other factors are probably playing a role. (McPhillips, 11/21)

Reuters: McKinsey Nears $600m Settlement With US Government Over Role In Opioid Crisis 
McKinsey is in the final stages of negotiating a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve a US criminal investigation into the consulting firm’s work helping opioid manufacturers boost sales that allegedly contributed to a deadly addiction epidemic, people familiar with the matter said. McKinsey is in talks to pay more than $600m to resolve the longstanding US Department of Justice investigation, which also encompasses findings of civil violations, the people said. (11/21)

Stateline: Expecting Challenges, Blue States Vow To Create ‘Firewall’ Of Abortion Protections
Officials in blue states are vowing to build a “firewall” of reproductive health protections as they anticipate federal and state attacks on abortion access under the Trump administration. “We’re going on offense,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, told Stateline. “We are in an unprecedented war on American women and patients. State attorneys general, particularly my colleagues and I who support abortion rights and reproductive freedom, have been building this firewall for some time now.” (Claire Vollers, 11/21)

ProPublica: Georgia Dismissed All Members of Maternal Mortality Committee After ProPublica Obtained Internal Details of Two Deaths
Georgia officials have dismissed all members of a state committee charged with investigating deaths of pregnant women. The move came in response to ProPublica having obtained internal reports detailing two deaths. ProPublica reported in September on the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, which the state maternal mortality review committee had determined were preventable. They were the first reported cases of women who died without access to care restricted by a state abortion ban, and they unleashed a torrent of outrage over the fatal consequences of such laws. The women’s stories became a central discussion in the presidential campaign and ballot initiatives involving abortion access in 10 states. (Yurkanin, 11/21)

Iowa Public Radio: Abortions Drop In Iowa In The Months Following 'Heartbeat' Law Going Into Effect
Abortions dropped in Iowa after a controversial new law went into effect in late July, according to new data obtained by IPR. Iowa's so-called 'fetal heartbeat' law bans abortion when cardiac activity is detected, which can be as early as six weeks of pregnancy. State lawmakers passed the law during a special session last year, but it faced legal challenges and didn't go into effect until July 29, 2024, following an Iowa Supreme Court ruling in June. (Krebs, 11/21)

LA Blade: Biden, Other Administration Officials Mark Transgender Day Of Remembrance
Democratic officials marked Transgender Day of Remembrance, which took place on Wednesday, honoring the lives lost to anti-trans violence and calling out rising anti-trans rhetoric and discrimination. President Joe Biden in a statement said “we mourn the transgender Americans whose lives were taken this year in horrific acts of violence.” “There should be no place for hate in America — and yet too many transgender Americans, including young people, are cruelly targeted and face harassment simply for being themselves. It’s wrong,” he said. (Forster, 11/21)

Nashville Tennessean: Trans Rights At Forefront Of Tennessee-Based Supreme Court Case
On a mild February evening in Nashville, a curly-haired teenager and her dad climbed the steps to the public gallery of the Tennessee Senate, where a group of lawmakers in the wood-paneled chamber below would, after a brief debate and the bang of a gavel, seize control of her family’s medical decisions. ... On Dec. 4, she will climb another set of steps. This time they’ll lead to the U.S. Supreme Court, where her story sits at the center of a watershed legal case that could affect transgender youth medical treatment across the U.S. (Brown, 11/21)

Crain's Chicago Business: AMA President-Elect Bobby Mukkamala Diagnosed With Brain Tumor
AMA President-elect Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and plans to undergo surgery in December, the Chicago-based physicians organization announced yesterday. Mukkamala, 53, an otolaryngologist and head-and-neck surgeon from Flint, Mich., is scheduled to take over as AMA president in June. (Asplund, 11/21)

NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth: Former Anesthesiologist Found Guilty Of Tampering With IV Bags Sentenced To Prison
A former Dallas anesthesiologist found guilty earlier this year of tampering with IV bags has been sentenced to 190 years behind bars on Wednesday morning. "He got exactly what he deserved," said John Kaspar, the widower of one of the victims. Dr. Raynaldo Riviera Ortiz Jr., 60, was accused of injecting heart-stopping drugs into five IV bags and placing them in a warming bin for other medical staff to use on their patients at Baylor Scott & White’s SurgiCare in North Dallas over five days in August 2022. (Beausoleil and Heinz, 11/20)

The Mercury News: Kaiser Preps Construction Project For Modern Hospital In San Jose
Construction of a new state-of-the-art Kaiser Permanente hospital in San Jose is underway following a groundbreaking for an ultra-modern complex to replace its aging medical center nearby. The hospital is being built at the corner of Hospital Parkway and International Circle on the same Santa Teresa Kaiser campus in south San Jose where the 50-year-old current hospital is located. (Avalos, 11/21)

Modern Healthcare: Headspace Layoffs Hit 13% Of Staff
Headspace, a digital mental health "unicorn," laid off 13% of its staff. A spokesperson on Thursday declined to say how many employees were affected. In June 2023 Headspace laid off 181 employees, or 15% of its staff. (Turner, 11/21)

The Boston Globe: About 160 Cambridge Health Alliance Clinicians Unionize
Adding to the steady drumbeat of health care labor organizing in New England, about 160 clinicians at Cambridge Health Alliance on Thursday informed the state that they were forming a union to push back against what they say have become unsustainable, burnout-inducing working conditions. The bargaining unit includes physicians, psychologists, and physician associates in a range of fields at the safety-net health system. (Gerber, 11/21)

Modern Healthcare: Hospital Fundraising Increases To Offset Lower Operating Margins
Nonprofit health systems, cancer centers and pediatric hospitals are increasingly depending on big donors to boost oncology, cardiology and other services. Many nonprofit providers have ramped up investment in fundraising campaigns, often targeting high-profile donors, as operating margins have been slow to recover in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Philanthropy is poised to play a bigger role in those systems' finances as other sources of revenue wane and expenses remain relatively high, analysts and provider executives said. (Kacik, 11/21)

Fox News: Popular Anxiety Drug, Clonazepam, Recalled Nationwide For ‘Possibly Life-Threatening’ Error
The anxiety-reducing drug, Clonazepam, has been recalled after a potentially "life-threatening" label mix-up, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said. According to a release from the federal agency, Endo Inc. announced a voluntary recall of 16 lots of Clonazepam Orally Disintegrating Tablets. The pharmaceutical company said the immediate recall came after it was discovered that 16 lots of the anxiety drug were mislabeled with the incorrect strength and National Drug Code (NDC) on them. The company said the labeling error was made by a third-party packager. (Rumpf-Whitten, 11/22)

MedPage Today: Malaria Vaccine Delivered By Mosquito Bite Shows Safety, Efficacy
Immunization with a second-generation genetically attenuated parasite was safe and provided strong protection from malaria infection in young adults, a small clinical trial in the Netherlands suggested. (Vaida, 11/21)

Reuters: First Double Lung Transplant Performed With Help From A Robot
A New York hospital says it has performed the first fully robotic double lung transplant. The procedure is aimed at speeding up the healing process and shortening hospital stays. It builds on other minimally invasive procedures; back in 2022, Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles completed a partially robotic single lung transfer. And here at the NYU Langone Health Center on the East Side of Manhattan, doctors announced in September that they had performed the first fully robotic single lung transplant. The double lung procedure was conducted on 57-year-old resident of upstate New York, Cheryl Mehrkar, on Oct. 22. (Nathanson and Fastenberg, 11/21)

Los Angeles Times: California Voters Approve Measure Aimed At Restricting AIDS Healthcare Foundation Spending 
California voters have approved Proposition 34, a measure from an apartment trade group that aimed to restrict spending by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has bankrolled several rent control initiatives and criticized the measure as unconstitutional revenge. The Associated Press called the initiative Wednesday evening. According to the California Secretary of State, the measure is ahead 50.8% to 49.2%. (Khouri, 11/21)

AP: A Growing Number Of Oregon Cities Vote To Ban Psychedelic Mushroom Compound Psilocybin
Drug reform advocates hailed Oregon as a progressive leader when it became the first in the nation to legalize the therapeutic use of psilocybin, the compound found in psychedelic mushrooms. But four years later, voters in a growing list of its cities have banned the substance. (Rush, 11/22)

AP: Alabama Carries Out Nation’s Third Nitrogen Gas Execution On A Man For A Hitchhiker's Killing 
Alabama began using nitrogen gas earlier this year to carry out some executions. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen. Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm said the nitrogen flowed for 15 minutes and an electrocardiogram showed Carey Dale Grayson, 50, no longer had a heartbeat about 10 minutes after the gas began flowing. (Chandler, 11/21)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Owner Of Home Health Care Firm Accused Of $800,000 Fraud
A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted the owner of a local home health care company with defrauding the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Missouri Medicaid program out of more than $800,000. Natavia Boyd-Wells, 40, was charged with four counts of wire fraud and two counts of making false statements. (Kull, 11/21)

CIDRAP: Construction Dust In A Wisconsin Neighborhood May Have Led To 2021-22 Blastomycosis Cluster 
A 2021-2022 blastomycosis outbreak that sickened five people—one fatally—and six dogs in a Wisconsin neighborhood may have stemmed from sources such as a riverbank, riverside trails or yards, or dust from extensive construction and excavation, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-led research team reported yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases. Blastomycosis, which can lead to life-threatening disease in people and animals, is caused by the infectious Blastomyces fungus. Blastomyces thrives in moist, rich soil that, when disrupted, can lead to aerosolization of spores that can then be inhaled. Most US cases occur sporadically in the midwestern, south-central, and southeastern states, but clusters related to waterway-related occupational and recreational activities occasionally occur. (Van Beusekom, 11/21)

The Hill: National COVID-19 Vaccination Rate Less Than 20 Percent: CDC Survey
Just 17.9 percent of U.S. adults have gotten a COVID-19 vaccine, and 34.7 percent have received an influenza vaccine during the 2024-25 respiratory disease season, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  The report, published Thursday, notes that 35 percent of adults are open to receiving an influenza vaccine, 41 percent are willing to get a COVID-19 vaccine and 40 percent are open to getting a vaccine for RSV.  (O'Connell-Domenech, 11/21)

USA Today: Valley Fever Cases In Arizona Up Nearly 50%
With winter approaching, seasonal illnesses like the flu are already surging. There is another to add to the long list of illnesses to look out for – Valley fever. Cases of Valley fever are spiking across the southwest. Infections in Arizona have jumped 45% from what they were this time last year, an uptick of almost 4,000 cases. California cases have increased by about 600 since last year, according to the state's health department. (De Young and Rodriguez, 11/22)

USA Today: Byproduct Of Tap Water Purification Could Be Toxic, Study Says
Tap water for about 1 in 3 Americans could contain a byproduct from the decontamination process that may be toxic, according to a study published Thursday. For over a century, public water systems have used chemical compounds to kill pathogens that cause waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever, saving countless lives. This purification process has been carried out using chlorine. In the 1970s, researchers found chlorine could react to organic compounds in water to produce chemical reactions that cause cancer, low birth weight babies and miscarriages. (Cuevas, 11/21)

MedPage Today: Flooding May Be The Climate Health Hazard Of Our Time, Report Suggests
Floods are emerging as a major health hazard with inequitable global effects -- both short and long term -- as climate change alters weather patterns. Flooding is the most common climate hazard, affecting more than 1.65 billion people from 2000 to 2019, with approximately 104,614 lives lost, reported Yuming Guo, MD, PhD, and Shanshan Li, MD, PhD, both of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues, in a special report in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Putka, 11/21)

Fox News: Dementia Risk Could Be Linked To Walking Speed, Study Suggests
A slower walking pace could be a sign of cognitive decline or dementia, a new study suggests. Researchers assessed more than 16,800 healthy people over the age of 65 in the U.S. and Australia during a seven-year period (2010 to 2017), according to the published study in JAMA Network Open. ... Those who demonstrated a decrease in walking speed by at least 2 inches per second a year — along with slower cognitive ability — had a higher risk of dementia, as compared to individuals considered to be "non-decliners, cognitive-only decliners or gait-only decliners," according to the report. (McGorry, 11/21)

CNN: Ground Beef Recalled Due To Possible E. Coli Contamination
Wolverine Packing Co. is recalling more than 167,000 pounds of ground beef shipped to restaurants due to possible E. coli contamination. Fifteen cases have been reported in Minnesota, with illnesses starting from November 2 to November 10, the US Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service said Wednesday. (Gumbrecht, 11/21)

BBC: Methanol Poisoning Deaths Highlight SE Asia's Fake Alcohol Problem
Methanol poisoning has long been a well-known issue across South East Asia, particularly in the poorer countries along the Mekong river. But despite foreign governments posting warnings about alcohol consumption in these places, there is still little awareness among the backpacker party scene. (Mao, 11/221)