First Edition: Monday, Sept. 16, 2024

KFF Health News: Tossed Medicine, Delayed Housing: How Homeless Sweeps Are Thwarting Medicaid’s Goals
Andrew Douglass shoved his clothes and belongings into plastic trash bags as five police officers surrounded his encampment — a drab gray tent overflowing along a bustling sidewalk in the gritty Tenderloin neighborhood, where homeless people lie sprawled on public sidewalks, sometimes in drug overdoses. Officers gave him a choice: Go to a shelter or get arrested and cited for sleeping outside. (Hart, 9/16)

KFF Health News: Decades Of National Suicide Prevention Policies Haven’t Slowed The Deaths
When Pooja Mehta’s younger brother, Raj, died by suicide at 19 in March 2020, she felt “blindsided.” Raj’s last text message was to his college lab partner about how to divide homework questions. “You don’t say you’re going to take questions 1 through 15 if you’re planning to be dead one hour later,” said Mehta, 29, a mental health and suicide prevention advocate in Arlington, Virginia. She had been trained in Mental Health First Aid — a nationwide program that teaches how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illness — yet she said her brother showed no signs of trouble. (Platzman Weinstock, 9/16)

KFF Health News: Journalists Explore Breast Cancer Rates And The Medical Response To Mass Shootings
KFF Health News and California Healthline journalists made the rounds on local and state media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances. (9/14)

CBS News: Competing Abortion Rights Measures Can Appear On Nebraska Ballot, High Court Rules 
Competing measures that would expand or restrict abortion rights can appear on the ballot in Nebraska this fall, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday. One initiative would enshrine in the Nebraska Constitution the right to have an abortion until viability or later to protect the health of the pregnant woman. The other would write into the constitution Nebraska's current 12-week abortion ban, passed by the Legislature in 2023. The ban includes exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the pregnant woman. (9/13)

Los Angeles Times: Arizona's 1864 Abortion Ban Is Officially Off The Books
Arizona’s Civil War-era ban on nearly all abortions officially was repealed Saturday. The Western swing state has been whipsawed over recent months, starting with the Arizona Supreme Court deciding in April to let the state enforce the long-dormant 1864 law that criminalized all abortions except when a woman’s life was jeopardized. Then state lawmakers voted on a bill to repeal that law once and for all. (Govindarao, 9/14)

Central Florida Public Media: A Florida Physicians Group Comes Out Against The Abortion Ballot Initiative
Physicians from around Florida gathered Wednesday in downtown Orlando to denounce a November ballot measure that seeks to amend abortion protections in the state constitution. It was the first public appearance of the group Physicians Against Amendment 4, an organization of over 300 Florida doctors of differing specialties. (Pedersen, 9/13)

Politico: Vance Backtracks On Whether Trump Would Veto National Abortion Ban 
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance on Sunday dodged answering whether former President Donald Trump would veto a national abortion ban if he were president. “I think that I’ve learned my lesson on speaking for the president before he and I have actually talked about an issue,” Vance said on NBC. Trump’s “been incredibly clear that he doesn’t support a national abortion ban,” Vance said in an interview with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.” “He wants abortion policy to be made by the states, because he thinks, look, Alabama is going to make a different decision from California, and that’s OK. We’re a big country. We can disagree.” (McCarthy, 9/15)

Axios: Patients Turn To DIY Drug Recipes For Abortion Pills, Medical Treatments
Patients are increasingly joining online communities to learn how to make pirated versions of abortion pills, GLP-1s and other prescription drugs and medical treatments. It's an outgrowth of frustration with high prices and bottlenecks in the health system, combined with a broader medical freedom movement built around patient empowerment and fueled by social media. (Reed, 9/16)

AP: Abortion: New Clinic In Rural Kansas Is Meant To Serve Nearby States 
A place this size, especially one in a historically red state, was unlikely to have an abortion clinic before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. (Hollingsworth and Hanna, 9/15)

The Washington Post: Tubal Sterilization Less Effective Than Previously Thought 
More than 5 percent of women who get their tubes tied later become pregnant, a new analysis suggests — and researchers say the failure of tubal sterilization procedures, which are widely considered permanent, “may be considerably more common than many expect.” The study, published in NEJM Evidence, used data from the National Survey of Family Growth, which looks at contraception use, pregnancy and birth outcomes among a representative sample of U.S. women aged 15 to 44. The data was assembled during four waves of data collection from about 4,000 women who had tubal ligations between 2002 and 2015. (Blakemore, 9/15)

CNN: Trump Safe After Being Targeted In Second Apparent Assassination Attempt
The FBI is investigating what it said is an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump at his Florida golf club Sunday, the second time in two months there’s been an apparent attempt on the former president’s life. Trump is safe and was not harmed in the incident, his campaign said. Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said during a Sunday news conference that his office was informed at 1:30 p.m. ET of shots fired by the Secret Service, when agents fired at a man who had a rifle in the bushes along the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club. Trump had been playing golf at the time, moving between holes five and six, a source briefed on the matter told CNN. (Holmes, Miller, Sullivan, Perez and Herb, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Here’s What We Know About The Weapon Recovered At Trump’s Golf Course 
Authorities said they recovered the rifle that a gunman pointed into a Florida golf course where Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was playing Sunday. Unlike in the assassination attempt against Trump in July, and in many of the mass shootings that have plagued the country in recent years, authorities believe the suspected gunman did not use an AR-style rifle. The weapon recovered by authorities was identified by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office as an “AK-47-style rifle” equipped with a scope. However, a firearms expert told The Washington Post the gun more closely resembled an SKS-type rifle. (Wu and Kelly, 9/15)

NBC News: CDC Says Close Contact Of Missouri Bird Flu Patient Showed Symptoms
A day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had yet to identify “a clear source” of infection in a Missouri patient who tested positive for the bird flu virus, the agency quietly disclosed in its weekly influenza report that a close contact was sick around the same time as the Missouri patient but was not tested for influenza. A CDC spokesperson said in an email Friday the close contact was within the household of the Missouri patient and developed symptoms that weren’t typical of flu. The simultaneous development of symptoms, the spokesperson said, doesn’t provide evidence of person-to-person spread. Additionally, a second close contact — a health care worker — subsequently developed mild symptoms and tested negative for influenza. (Lovelace Jr., 9/12)

CNN: Mysterious Bird Flu Case In Missouri Was Similar To Strain Circulating In Cattle, CDC Says
A patient in Missouri who was hospitalized after an infection with bird flu had the H5N1 strain of the virus, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Friday. The viral sequence was uploaded Friday to the GISAID database, which makes genetic sequences of viruses publicly available for research and study. It shows that the virus is closely related to the strain that has been infecting dairy cattle in 14 states this year. (Goodman, 9/13)

Stat: On H5N1 Bird Flu, The U.S. Can And Should Do More, A Top WHO Official Says
More work needs to be done by the agricultural sector to get to the bottom of — and put a stop to — transmission of H5N1 bird flu in dairy cattle in the United States, a senior World Health Organization official said over the weekend. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s acting director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, said the world is watching how the U.S., with its advanced scientific expertise, is responding to this outbreak. (Branswell, 9/16)

Los Angeles Times: Bird Flu Outbreaks Are Rising Among California Dairy Herds 
The number of California dairy herds reported to have outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu has grown to eight. Officials have refused to disclose the locations of the infected herds, but have said they are in close proximity somewhere in California’s Central Valley — an 18,000-square-mile expanse that is roughly the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined. (Rust, 9/13)

NBC News: Florida Discourages MRNA Covid Vaccine Use In Older Adults
Even as the Covid wave in Florida continues, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is once again advising against the mRNA vaccines: this time in the most vulnerable residents. In updated guidance for health care providers released Thursday, the Florida Health Department and state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo questioned the safety and effectiveness of the mRNA Covid vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, including for older adults and people with underlying health problems. (Lovelace Jr., 9/13)

CIDRAP: US COVID Activity Remains Elevated, Though Some Markers Decline
COVID-19 activity stayed elevated across the United States last week, with wastewater SARS-CoV-2 detections highest in the West, where levels are trending upward again, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its latest weekly data updates. Levels are highest in the central states, which include Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. (Schnirring, 9/13)

CIDRAP: National Academies: Wastewater Surveillance Could Be Even Better For Detecting Pathogens 
A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report recommends five actions to transition the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS)—developed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic—to a forward-looking version for both endemic and emerging pathogens. One of the recommendations was to "strategically add more endemic pathogens, namely respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza, to SARS-CoV-2 routine surveillance." (Van Beusekom, 9/13)

CIDRAP: Tennessee Reports First Measles Case In 5 Years 
Tennessee has reported its first measles case since 2019, which involves someone who traveled internationally and spent time in Kentucky while infectious. The infected person has recovered. (Soucheray, 9/13)

The Boston Globe: Massachusetts Records 11th Human Case Of West Nile Virus
The state’s 11th instance of a human case of West Nile virus, a man in his 60s, was announced Friday by state health officials, nearly doubling the total number of human cases reported in Massachusetts last year. In 2023, there were six human cases of the mosquito-borne virus reported in the state. The number this year has been on the rise with the last three human cases reported on Tuesday, and now another on Friday. (Alanez, 9/13)

CIDRAP: WHO Prequalifies Jynneos Mpox Vaccine, Releases Countermeasure Allocation Plan 
The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that it has prequalified Bavarian Nordic's mpox vaccine (Jynneos), which paves the way for wider use in Africa's widening mpox outbreak. Also today, the agency unveiled a mechanism for allocating vaccines and treatments among the outbreak countries. That group now include Morocco, which reported its first case, making it the first affected country this year in North Africa. (Schnirring, 9/13)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Eyes Cybersecurity Oversight Policies For Vendors
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is planning oversight of third-party healthcare vendors in the wake of the Change Healthcare cyberattack, said Jonathan Blum, the agency's principal deputy administrator. Blum, who also serves as chief operating officer for CMS, said at Modern Healthcare's Leadership Symposium Thursday that the agency is working to determine what levers it can pull to ensure severe disruptions in care like those linked to the cyberattack on the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary aren’t repeated. (Early, 9/13)

St. Louis Public Radio: Mercy Sends Notice To Anthem, Threatens To Drop Insurer 
Mercy, one of the largest health systems in Missouri, is threatening to stop accepting Anthem insurance unless an agreement on how much the insurer reimburses hospitals for care is reached by the end of the year. (Fentem, 9/16)

AP: Florida Hospitals Ask Immigrants About Their Legal Status. Texas Will Try It Next 
For three days, the staff of an Orlando medical clinic encouraged a woman with abdominal pain who called the triage line to go to the hospital. She resisted, scared of a 2023 Florida law that required hospitals to ask whether a patient was in the U.S. with legal permission. The clinic had worked hard to explain the limits of the law, which was part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ sweeping package of tighter immigration policies. The clinic posted signs and counseled patients: They could decline to answer the question and still receive care. Individual, identifying information wouldn’t be reported to the state. (Gonzalez, Salomon and Shastri, 9/16)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Exeter Hospital Delays Closure Of Paramedic Intercept Program, After AG Steps In
Exeter Hospital is delaying plans to end a paramedic intercept program that many area towns rely on, after the New Hampshire attorney general stepped in. The hospital’s Advanced Life Support program sends paramedics in a specially equipped “intercept” vehicle to emergencies that call for more advanced care than EMTs can provide. Local fire chiefs say it’s critical for smaller towns that don’t have their own paramedics on staff 24/7.Earlier this week, Exeter Hospital announced plans to discontinue the program on Sept. 20, sparking an outcry from local emergency officials. (Cuno-Booth, 9/13)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Donated Breast Milk Now Available For All SSM Health Babies
Hospitals have long provided donor breast milk for sick newborns in neonatal intensive care units, but now SSM Health hospitals are the first to expand the free service to include all patients at its birth centers in the St. Louis region. (Munz, 9/13)

Modern Healthcare: American Cancer Society CEO Karen Knudsen To Step Down
American Cancer Society CEO Karen Knudsen is stepping down after more than three years at the helm. Knudsen, who also leads the affiliated American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, will serve as a strategic adviser through early 2025 to help with the leadership transition. The organization plans to name an interim CEO by the end of the year and conduct a national search for a permanent CEO, according to a Friday news release. (Hudson, 9/13)

WLRN: CEO Of Memorial Healthcare System Is Out After A Negative Board Review
The CEO of one of South Florida’s largest health care networks has resigned following a negative review from the hospital's board. Scott Wester, who was hired in 2022 under a three-year contract to run Memorial Healthcare System, resigned Wednesday, and the board voted unanimously to terminate his contract a day later. (Sanchez, 9/13)

Los Angeles Times: California OB-GYN Barred From Practice After Investigation
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has barred a Beverly Hills obstetrician-gynecologist from practicing at its facilities after an investigation into “concerning complaints from patients,” according to a spokesperson. Dr. Barry Brock, a longtime physician who has advertised his low rate of cesarean section births, has had his hospital privileges terminated and the matter reported to the Medical Board of California, according to Cedars-Sinai. (Purtill and Alpert Reyes, 9/14)

CNN: Women Say They Were Abused For Years By Oregon Family Doctor 
The three women sit huddled together, hands and arms intertwined, heads on each other’s shoulders. For too long, each felt utterly alone and it’s as if their physical closeness gives them a boost of strength. Each tells CNN they were sexually abused by their family doctor. An investigation following similar accounts by other women led to his medical license being revoked. Dozens of women have come forward saying they were molested, often repeatedly. (Duerson and Edwards, 9/15)

The Washington Post: George Berci, Innovative Surgeon Who Pioneered Laparoscopy, Dies At 103 
George Berci, a surgeon who revolutionized the modern operating room by developing the tools and techniques of laparoscopy, a minimally invasive procedure that has improved the experience of millions of patients under the knife, died Aug. 30 at a hospital in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 103. His death was announced by Cedars-Sinai, a medical center in Los Angeles where he was recruited in 1967 and where he remained for the rest of his career, reporting for work until he recently became ill with covid-19. He died of complications from the virus, said his daughter, Katherine Berci DeFevere. (Langer, 9/13)

Crain's Chicago Business: Walgreens To Pay $107M Fine For Prescription Billing Fraud Claims
Walgreens Boots Alliance has agreed to pay a $106.8 million fine to the U.S. Department of Justice to settle allegations that it billed government healthcare programs for prescriptions never dispensed. In a statement today, the DOJ said Deerfield-based Walgreens had allegedly violated the False Claims Act and state statues between 2009 and 2020 when it submitted false claims for payment to federal healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid for prescriptions that it processed but were never picked up by patients. (Davis, 9/13)

NBC News: 'Making Peoples' Lives Hell': When He Couldn't Pay For Cancer Treatment, The Hospital Sued
In 2012, Terry Belk’s beloved wife, Sandra, died after a yearslong battle with breast cancer. The car salesman in Charlotte, North Carolina, had quit work to take care of his wife, and the bills for her treatment were more than he could pay, even with health insurance. Adding to his burden, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer that year, generating additional bills for his own treatment. Atrium Health, the nonprofit hospital treating the Belks, pursued them aggressively for their debts. (Morgenson, 9/14)

Stat: Incyte's Checkpoint Inhibitor Delays Disease Progression In Anal Cancer Trial
A widely used immunotherapy approach helped stave off disease progression in patients with a type of anal tumor, researchers reported Saturday, potentially setting up the drug for approval in a cancer that’s largely caused by human papillomavirus. (Joseph, 9/14)

Stat: Exact Sciences’ Colon Cancer Blood Test Shows Initial Promise
Exact Sciences, which has for years sold a stool-based colon cancer test, on Monday announced that a blood-based test it’s developing showed promise in accurately detecting the disease. In a study of more than 3,000 samples, the company reported that its test detected 88.3% of cancers and correctly returned a negative result 90.1% of the time, test features known as sensitivity and specificity, respectively. Notably, the test also detected 31.2% of advanced precancers, abnormal cell growths that precede disease. (Wosen, 9/16)

Bloomberg: Bayer Eyes Wider Use For Prostate Cancer Drug
Bayer AG’s fast-selling prostate cancer drug reduced the risk of the disease progressing in data that could see it receive approval for wider use. Nubeqa alongside androgen deprivation therapy reduced the risk of death or cancer progression by 46% compared with just receiving androgen deprivation therapy, according to full data from a late stage study. If approval is secured it could mean doctors could prescribe the drug for patients both with and without chemotherapy, expanding treatment options. (Furlong, 9/16)

Bloomberg: Pfizer Drug Helped Cancer Patients Regain Weight, Study Shows
Pfizer Inc.’s experimental drug for cancer weight loss was shown to help patients regain weight in a mid-stage study, offering fresh promise for treating the dangerous muscle-wasting condition. In cancer patients, a syndrome called cachexia causes changes in metabolism and appetite. It can lead to the loss of critical skeletal muscle and fat that weakens the body and, in some cases, can make cancer treatments less effective. (Muller, 9/14)

The New York Times: Boar’s Head Shuts Down Virginia Plant Tied To Deadly Listeria Outbreak
Boar’s Head announced on Friday that it would indefinitely shut down the troubled Jarratt, Virginia, deli meat plant that it acknowledged had caused a deadly listeria outbreak, killing nine people and sickening dozens more in 18 states. The company also said it had identified liverwurst processing as the source of contamination and would permanently discontinue the product. (Jewett and Rosenbluth, 9/13)

The Washington Post: Used Hypodermic Needles Halt Swimming In Ocean City, Other Maryland And Virginia Beaches 
Swimming was banned at beaches in Ocean City and on Assateague Island on Sunday after used hypodermic needles and other medical waste washed ashore, authorities said. (Laris, 9/15)

Stat: Pediatricians’ Obesity Guidelines Misconstrued Eating Disorder Studies
To address soaring rates of childhood obesity, the American Academy of Pediatrics last year endorsed tactics it once considered risky. “Watchful waiting” had been standard practice, in part from concern that a doctor’s focus on weight could inadvertently plant the seed for stigma or eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. The influential academy now said pediatricians should pursue “early treatment at the highest level of intensity appropriate for and available to the child.” (Raphael, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Young People Are Drinking More Sugary Beverages 
Despite concern about sugary drinks and health, global consumption of the sweetened beverages by young people has increased by 23 percent, according to recent research. Researchers from four countries looked at data from global surveys of 1.4 million children and adolescents, ages 3 to 19, conducted from 1990 to 2018 and found that the rise in consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks occurred at the same time as an increase in obesity among young people. (McMahan, 9/14)

NPR: Regular Exercise Leads To Healthy Belly Fat, New Study Finds
There are lots of good reasons to exercise that have nothing to do with weight loss. Now, science has found yet another one: It turns out that a regular exercise habit can make your fat tissue healthier. And that, in turn, keeps you healthier. To find out how exercise impacts fat tissue, researchers at the University of Michigan recruited 32 adults with obesity. Half of them were consistent long-term exercisers. (Godoy, 9/16)

NPR: Low Iron Is Common Among Women But Not Commonly Screened For
Although estimates vary, some research suggests that about a third of women of reproductive age in the United States may not get enough iron, which helps support various functions in the body. But despite the high risks, iron deficiency isn’t routinely screened for during annual health examinations. “Women are only tested if they present to a health care provider and are having symptoms,” said Angela Weyand, a pediatric hematologist at the University of Michigan Medical School. (Medrano, 9/15)