First Edition: Monday, Oct. 21, 2024

KFF Health News: Medicare Drug Plans Are Getting Better Next Year. Some Will Also Cost More
When Pam McClure learned she’d save nearly $4,000 on her prescription drugs next year, she said, “it sounded too good to be true.” She and her husband are both retired and live on a “very strict” budget in central North Dakota. By the end of this year, she will have spent almost $6,000 for her medications, including a drug to control her diabetes. McClure, 70, is one of about 3.2 million people with Medicare prescription drug insurance whose out-of-pocket medication costs will be capped at $2,000 in 2025 because of the Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, according to an Avalere/AARP study. (Jaffe, 10/21)

KFF Health News: Watch: ‘Silence In Sikeston & The Effects Of Racial Violence’
KFF Health News Midwest correspondent Cara Anthony appeared in a two-part special of Nine PBS’ “Listen, St. Louis with Carol Daniel” to discuss her reporting for the “Silence in Sikeston” project. The first conversation, which aired Oct. 9, explores the connections between a 1942 lynching and a 2020 police shooting in a rural Missouri community — and what those killings say about the nation’s silencing of racial trauma. The second episode, which premiered Oct. 16, explores the health effects of such trauma with mental health counselor Lekesha Davis. (Anthony, 10/21)

KFF Health News: Journalists Address Opioid Settlements, Undiagnosed ADHD, And A Georgia Chemical Fire
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media in the last two weeks to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances. (10/19)

NPR: Biden Administration Proposes A Rule To Make Over-The-Counter Birth Control Free
The Biden administration is proposing a rule that would expand access to contraceptive products, including making over-the-counter birth control and condoms free for the first time for women of reproductive age who have private health insurance. Under the proposal by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor Department, and Treasury Department, which was announced by the administration on Monday, health insurance companies would be required to cover all recommended over-the-counter contraception products. (Duster, 10/21)

Politico: The Voter Gender Gap Is Growing, And Harris' Abortion Rights Campaign Could Make It Even Wider
When one of Kamala Harris’ pollsters asked a small group of women in a focus group in February to describe Donald Trump’s position on abortion, most said they thought he was “pro-choice.” But then the pollster, working for Harris and President Joe Biden when he was still atop the ticket, played a clip of Trump saying “there should be some form of punishment” for women who have an abortion. (Schneider and Ward, 10/20)

Newsweek: Abortion Overtakes Immigration In Voters' Minds 
Abortion has overtaken immigration to become the second most important issue for voters heading into the 2024 election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, Newsweek polling suggests. Over the past 16 months, a series of polls conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies ahead of the November 5 election asked participants: "Which issues are most likely to determine how you vote in the November 2024 Presidential Election? You may select up to three." Only four issues out of 24 were repeatedly selected by more than two in five respondents: the economy, abortion, immigration and healthcare. (10/21)

AP: How Does Abortion Translate? Ballot Measures Are A Challenge For Interpreters 
Reproductive rights measures are on the ballots in 10 states after heated debates over how to describe their impact on abortion — and that’s just in English. In 388 places across the U.S. where English isn’t the primary language among communities of voters, the federal Voting Rights Act requires that all elections information be made available in each community’s native language. Such translations are meant to help non-native English speakers understand what they’re voting for. But vague or technical terms can be challenging, even more so when it comes to Indigenous languages that have only limited written dictionaries. (Warren, Mulvihill and Marcelo, 10/21)

USA Today Network: Poll: Abortion, Recreational Marijuana Poised To Pass In Florida
A new opinion poll suggests Florida voters are primed to pass two of the most contentious questions on the November ballot, approving recreational marijuana and a right to abortion. The survey from the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab (PORL), released early Monday, shows 66% approval for Amendment 3 on adult-use pot and the bare minimum 60% for Amendment 4 on abortion access. (Rosica, 10/21)

NPR: Why Catholic Bishops Are Donating Less To Oppose Abortion Rights Measures This Year 
The Catholic Church has long been one of the most powerful opponents of abortion in the United States. In fact, it’s one of the largest private entities bankrolling campaigns against abortion rights. But Catholic bishops are taking a very different approach this year, according to an analysis by NPR and Religion News Service. As voters in 10 states consider abortion-related ballot questions, Catholic bishops have spent millions less on donations to anti-abortion campaigns than in previous years, according to public financial documents. (Westwood and Jenkins, 10/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: Rural California Abortion Clinics Challenge State Reputation As Haven
Protests increase at a small Redding clinic, and women seeking abortions have no alternatives for nearly 100 miles around. (Fagan, 10/20)

Los Angeles Times: Harris Revives Attacks On Trump As Mentally Unfit
Entering the final stretch of the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris is focusing on a simple message that she believes will resonate with undecided swing state voters: that former President Trump mentally unfit for office. Her argument is partly that the 78-year-old Trump has lost mental acuity on account of his advanced age, as was the chief line of attack that pushed President Biden from the race. (Rector, 10/18)

Politico: Trump, 78, Says He’s ‘Not That Close To 80’ As He Brags About WSJ’s Cognitive Praise 
Donald Trump is rounding down when it comes to his age. “I'm not 80, and I'm not that close to 80,” the 78-year-old former president said during a friendly town hall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Sunday. Trump made the comments after Right Side Broadcasting Network host Sage Steele asked him about his recent sit-down with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. [Scroll down to our op/ed section to read the story.] He called the resulting piece a “beautiful story” because it concluded he had zero signs of mental decline. (Leonard, 10/20)

Stat: RFK Jr. And Trump's 'Make America Healthy Again' Raising Alarm
One of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s longtime dreams seems to be coming true: He’s on a potentially winning president’s team, and he’s pretty sure he’ll get a top-ranking job out of it. But his ascension in Trump’s orbit has triggered alarm from leaders in the industry and even from some former GOP health officials who fear that Kennedy’s history of vaccine skepticism could delegitimize Trump’s genuine health care goals — or eclipse his previous health care wins, like a record-breaking vaccine effort. (Owermohle, 10/18)

AP: In New York, A Constitutional Amendment Provides Election Fodder For The Left And The Right
Democrats pushed to get a constitutional amendment on New York’s ballot because they believed it could energize liberals eager to protect abortion rights. Republicans are now hoping the same amendment will ignite a fire under people upset about transgender athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports. Voters will decide Nov. 5 whether to approve the state’s proposed “Equal Rights Amendment,” which has already been the subject of a court fight over its broad language. The amendment, called “Proposition 1” on the ballot, has emerged as one of the more unusual ideological battles of the 2024 election season, partly because of disagreements about what it will do if passed. (Izaguirre, 10/20)

The Colorado Sun: Denver Ballot Issue 2Q: Tax Increase For Denver Health, Explained
Denver voters this year will decide whether to toss a financial lifeline to the city’s safety net hospital and health system, Denver Health. The system serves a disproportionately low-income population both in its hospital and through a network of community and school-based clinics. But it has been struggling with higher amounts of what is known as uncompensated care — care that a hospital provides but does not receive payment for. That has placed the hospital in a more precarious financial position. (Ingold, 10/21)

The New York Times: Veterans Dept. Investigating Acadia Healthcare For Insurance Fraud 
The Veterans Affairs Department is investigating whether Acadia Healthcare, one of the country’s largest chains of psychiatric hospitals, is defrauding government health insurance programs by holding patients longer than is medically necessary, according to three people with knowledge of the inquiry. The investigation, led by the agency’s inspector general, comes three weeks after Acadia told investors that it was facing scrutiny for its admissions practices from several other federal investigators, including prosecutors in Manhattan and a grand jury in Missouri. The company, which relies on government insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid for much of its revenue, said it was also expecting to receive inquiries from the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies. (Silver-Greenberg and Thomas, 10/18)

Bloomberg: Cigna Resumes Merger Discussions With Humana
Cigna Group has revived efforts to combine with its smaller rival Humana Inc. after merger talks fell apart late last year, according to people familiar with the matter. The two health insurance giants, with a combined market value of more than $125 billion, have held informal discussions recently about a potential deal, said the people who asked to not be identified because the talks aren’t public. The discussions are in early stages, they added. (Davis and Tozzi, 10/18)

Bloomberg: Humana Sues To Reverse Cut To Medicare Ratings
Humana Inc. sued US health agencies seeking to reverse a cut to crucial Medicare quality ratings, linked to billions of dollars in revenue, that sent the company’s stock tumbling this month. The lawsuit argues that the US Medicare program was “arbitrary and capricious” in how it calculated the metrics for Humana’s health plans. The scores, known as star ratings, are linked to billions in bonus payments in future years. (Tozzi, 10/19)

Reuters: Sanofi In Exclusive Talks With CD&R Over Sale Of $17 Bln Opella
French drugmaker Sanofi said on Monday it had entered exclusive talks to sell a 50% controlling stake in its consumer health business Opella to U.S. private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R). (Patton, 10/21)

Harvard Public Health: U.S. Direct Care Worker Demand Outstrips Supply—Can Co-Ops Help?
Demand for home care workers is soaring, and the industry is struggling to keep up. Analysts project a steep care worker gap, with 4.6 million unfilled jobs by 2032. The industry is in turmoil over a combination of high turnover and low reimbursement rates from Medicare and Medicaid, which account for 73 percent of the industry’s $123.4 billion annual revenue, according to a 2023 analysis from PHI, an elder care services research and advocacy organization. But the shortage is driven by more than just billing. “There just aren’t enough workers entering or staying in the home care field, and that’s driven by poor job quality, low wages, and the lack of respect and recognition for the work they do,” says Katrina Kazda, vice president of home care innovations for the ICA Group, which provides home care cooperatives with technical assistance, coaching, and training. (Seegert, 10/16)

The Washington Post: Amid Backlash, FDA Changes Course Over Shortage Of Weight-Loss Drugs
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, after intense public pressure and a lawsuit, is reconsidering its declaration barely two weeks ago that a shortage of the appetite-suppressing drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound is over, a temporary about-face that will allow pharmacies to keep selling unbranded copies. The extraordinary turn of events has caused confusion for patients who rely on the cheaper, off-brand versions and for the compounding pharmacies that have been allowed to make them as long as the official shortage continued. (Gilbert, 10/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Activist Starboard Value Takes Stake In Tylenol-Maker Kenvue 
Activist investor Starboard Value has a sizable stake in Kenvue, the consumer-products giant that makes Tylenol and Listerine, according to people familiar with the matter. Starboard wants Kenvue, which was spun out of Johnson & Johnson last year and has a market value of over $40 billion, to make changes to boost its share price, the people said. (Thomas, 10/20)

The New York Times: The Powerful Companies Driving Local Drugstores Out Of Business 
The small-town drugstore closed for the last time on a clear and chilly afternoon in February. Jon Jacobs, who owned Yough Valley Pharmacy, hugged his employees goodbye. He cleared the shelves and packed pill bottles into plastic bins. Mr. Jacobs, a 70-year-old pharmacist, had spent more than half his life building his drugstore into a bedrock of Confluence, Pa., a rural community of roughly 1,000 people. Now the town was losing its only health care provider. Obscure but powerful health care middlemen — companies known as pharmacy benefit managers, or P.B.M.s — had destroyed his business. (Abelson and Robbins, 10/19)

Los Angeles Times: CVS Workers Strike At 7 SoCal Stores For Better Pay, Healthcare
Workers at seven CVS pharmacies in Southern California have gone on strike for better pay and healthcare and to protest what they say is bad-faith contract bargaining by the company. The walkout, which affected four stores in Los Angeles and three in Orange County, began Friday morning and continued into the weekend. On Saturday outside one of the L.A. stores, strikers urged customers not to cross the picket lines. (Ding, 10/20)

Modern Healthcare: CVS Replacing Karen Lynch With David Joyner Surprises Analysts
With Karen Lynch out and David Joyner up at CVS Health, Wall Street analysts expressed mixed sentiments about the company’s decision to promote internally but haven’t changed their long-term outlook on the healthcare giant. Lynch, whom Joyner replaced as president and CEO on Thursday, faced a deluge of challenges during her three-year tenure leading CVS Health. (Berryman, 10/18)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Avoid These Fake Online Pharmacies, DEA Says
Online pharmacies have risen in popularity over the years, especially for some Americans who feel their pharmaceutical needs have not been met by traditional methods. These pharmacies, however, can have hidden dangers. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration released a public safety alert at the beginning of the month, warning of an increase seen in pills laced with fentanyl and methamphetamine being sold by online pharmacies as legitimate medications. (Ogunbayo, 10/20)

Stat and The Examination: FDA Lawyers Leave To Work For Tobacco, Vaping Firms
Perham Gorji was a career government lawyer, helping to lead the Food and Drug Administration’s battle against tobacco and e-cigarettes. He was there as the agency contemplated a ban on menthol cigarettes, and as vapes of all shapes and sizes flooded the market, hooking a new generation on nicotine. (Kranhold, 10/21)

Stat: Shingles Treatment Study Led By Surgeon Who Lost Career To Disease
It began with a burning pain in her right eye. At first, Elisabeth Cohen thought she’d gotten something in it. But the next day, as she was pushing her hair back on that side of her head, she noticed a blister near the hairline. She knew immediately what it was: shingles. (Molteni, 10/21)

Stat: Pfizer Results Raise Questions About Gene Therapies For Duchenne
Confounding data from a Pfizer clinical trial has rattled the field of gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, raising more questions about the regulatory standard used to approve a treatment from Sarepta Therapeutics, and complicating plans for other companies hoping to develop next-generation products. (Mast and Feuerstein, 10/21)

Reuters: FDA Approves Astellas' Gastric Cancer Therapy
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Astellas' therapy to treat a type of gastric cancer, the health regulator's website showed on Friday. The therapy, branded as Vyloy, was approved to be used in combination with a type of chemotherapy for patients with a type of cancer which begins in the gastroesophageal junction, where the esophagus and stomach meet. (Roy, 10/18)

ABC News: Some NC Nursing Homes Still Without Water, 3 Weeks After Hurricane Helene
More than three weeks ago, Hurricane Helene knocked out the power and running water at James Greene's nursing home in Asheville, North Carolina. Today, Greene, 84, and his fellow residents at Brooks-Howell Home still do not have regular access to safe, running water for their daily activities. "For two weeks we've been unable to shower or wash hands," Greene wrote in a letter to family and friends, which was shared with ABC News. "Maintaining hygiene with hand sanitizers is a constant must." (Parekh, 10/19)

The Hill: How Hurricane Helene Is Threatening Dialysis Patients
Baxter’s North Cove manufacturing plant supplied roughly 60 percent of IV fluids used by U.S. hospitals, including half of all peritoneal dialysis (PD) fluids for the country. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared PD fluids in shortage last week. ... Options are available for PD patients if they’re unable to access solutions. They can switch to hemodialysis, or they can use less of their supply of PD solution, but both courses of action have drawbacks. Nancy Colobong Smith, national president of the American Nephrology Nurses Association, told The Hill that PD patients using less fluid will have to be more careful about their diet, behaving more like hemodialysis patients who typically only get filtered three times a week. PD patients often say they prefer the at-home option as it affords them more flexibility in their diet. (Choi, 10/20)

AP: NYC's Closed Vessel Reopens With Safety Features To Curb Suicides
The Vessel, a towering, honeycomb-like sculpture in Manhattan that was popular with tourists before a series of suicides forced its closure in 2021, will reopen Monday with new safety features. ... Related Companies, which owns Hudson Yards, confirmed Sunday that the Vessel will reopen Monday with floor-to-ceiling steel mesh barriers installed on parts of it. Only the upper level sections that have been fitted with mesh will reopen and the top level will remain closed. Tickets are required. (10/20)

Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles Investigating Lead-Tainted Drinking Water
Days after the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency visited a Los Angeles public housing project with lead-contaminated water, the agency ordered drinking water systems nationwide to replace every lead pipe within 10 years. ... But in Los Angeles — where the discovery of contaminated water in public housing in Watts has shocked officials — the EPA mandate is unlikely to result in immediate change. (Briscoe, James and Plevin, 10/19)

The New York Times: In L.A., Street Psychiatrists Offer The Homeless A Radical Step Forward
In a downtown Los Angeles parking lot, a stretch of asphalt tucked between gleaming hotels and the 110 freeway, a psychiatrist named Shayan Rab was seeing his third patient of the day, a man he knew only as Yoh. Yoh lived in the underpass, his back pressed against the wall, a few feet from the rush of cars exiting the freeway. He made little effort to fend for himself, even to find food or water. When outreach workers dropped off supplies, he often let people walk away with them. He could barely converse, absorbed by an inner world that he described in fragments: a journey to Eden, a supersonic train, a slab of concrete hanging in space. (Barry, 10/20)

The Washington Post: Fatal Overdoses Often Happen When Users Are Alone. Hotlines, Sensors Can Save Lives.
They die alone in bedrooms, bathroom stalls and cars. Each year in the United States, tens of thousands of fatal overdoses unfold as tragedies of solitude — with no one close enough to call 911 or deliver a lifesaving antidote. Technology new and old might save some of those lives. Motion detectors blare alarms when someone collapses inside a bathroom at a shelter or clinic. Biosensors detect slowed breathing triggered by an overdose and one day may be capable of automatically injecting overdose reversal medication. Simpler approaches — chat apps and hotlines — keep users connected to help if drugs prove too potent. (Ovalle and Gordon, 10/19)

CIDRAP: CDC Reports Rising Levels Of Mycoplasma Pneumonia And RSV In Young Kids 
Though the nation’s respiratory disease levels remain low overall, with COVID levels declining and little sign of a flu uptick, illnesses caused by Mycobacterium pneumoniae are increasing, especially in children, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) levels are also on the rise, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in it weekly respiratory virus update. (Schnirring, 10/18)

CBS News: Mosquitoes That Transmit Yellow Fever, Zika Found In Contra Costa County
Yellow fever, dengue Fever, Zika, those are serious diseases that usually occur in far-away tropical environments, but Contra Costa County officials sounded the alarm that the mosquitoes that transmit these viruses have been found in the area. Now, they're preparing a major offensive to try to kill them before they begin hibernating for the winter. "We have found invasive mosquitoes in Antioch, and it's the species aedes aegypti, which is the yellow fever mosquito," said Contra Costa Vector Control District G.M. Paula Macedo. "This is not a mosquito that we've had here before." (Ramos, 10/20)

NPR: TreeHouse Foods Recalls Frozen Waffles Over Listeria Risk
Treehouse Foods, an Illinois-based manufacturer, is recalling a flurry of its frozen waffles that were sold at major supermarket chains due to listeria contamination concerns. ... On Friday, TreeHouse Foods said it was voluntarily recalling some of its frozen waffle products after routine testing at one of its manufacturing facilities identified a potential listeria contamination. There have been no confirmed reports of illness linked to the frozen waffle items so far, the company added. (Kim, 10/19)

Reuters: WHO Says It Has Certified Egypt As Malaria Free
The World Health Organization said on Sunday it had certified Egypt as malaria free, marking the elimination of a disease that had been present in the country since ancient times. The WHO grants certification to countries that have proven beyond reasonable doubt that the chain of indigenous malaria transmission by Anopheles mosquitoes has been interrupted for at least the previous three consecutive years. (10/20)

AP: 9 Monkeys Who Died In Hong Kong's Zoo In 2 Days Had Been Infected With Melioidosis, Officials Say
Nine monkeys who died in Hong Kong’s oldest zoo in two days this week had been infected with an endemic disease, possibly after some digging work near their cages, officials said on Friday. Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Kevin Yeung said in a press briefing that the animals in the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens contracted melioidosis and the disease later caused them to develop sepsis. Yeung stressed that such infections typically occur through contact with contaminated soil and water and that there is generally no danger to humans from contact with infected animals or people. (Leung, 10/18)

The Washington Post: Serious Infections Linked To Dementia Risk, Study Shows
Getting sick feels bad in the moment and may affect your brain in the longer term. A new study published in Nature Aging adds to growing evidence that severe infections, including flu, herpes and respiratory tract infections, are linked to accelerated brain atrophy and increased risk of dementia years later. It also hints at the biological drivers that may contribute to neurodegenerative disease. (Sima, 10/18)

Fox News: New Alzheimer’s Research Reveals ‘Quiet’ Phase Of The Disease
New details have emerged about how Alzheimer’s disease affects the brain. Researchers led by the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle and University of Washington Medicine have identified cellular changes in the brains of people with the disease — and a timeline of when they occur. "Instead of looking at AD just through the usual lens of plaques and tangles, we focused on how specific cell types were changed in each phase," study author Dr. Kyle Travaglini, Ph.D., a scientist at Allen Institute, told Fox News Digital via email. (Rudy, 10/18)

NBC News: Younger Asian American Women Had The Second-Lowest Breast Cancer Rate. Why They're Now Tied For No. 1
Chien-Chi Huang was 40 when she requested her first mammogram at the hospital, shortly after her aunt died from breast cancer. The radiologist didn’t detect a tumor because she had dense breast tissue that can hide cancer on a mammogram. Soon after the mammogram, Huang said she felt a lump under her armpit and began experiencing flu-like symptoms. Four months later, she was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, one of the most aggressive forms of the disease. (Wang, 10/20)

AP: With Brain Injuries A Growing Problem, The US Military Tests How To Protect Troops From Blasts
Brain injuries are a growing problem for the U.S. military. And now, Special Operations Command is testing new ways to protect warfighters from blasts and to evaluate health risks, particularly during training. (Baldor, 10/19)