Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
As Drug Cost Battle Is Waged, Patients Could Lose Access To Favored Medications
NPR: Fight To Lower Drug Prices Forces Some To Switch Medication
Express Scripts and its rivals including CVS/Caremark and OptumRX manage prescription drug coverage for insurers and employers. They're trying to spark price wars among drug makers by refusing to pay for some brand-name medications unless they get a big discount. The result is that average costs for many drugs are falling. At the same time, consumers are being forced to change medications, sometimes to brands that don't work as well for them. (Kodjak, 1/25)
The Washington Post: Drug Shortages In American ERs Have Increased More Than 400 Percent
Of the nearly 1,800 drug shortages reported between 2001 and 2014, nearly 34 percent were used in emergency rooms. More than half (52.6 percent) of all reported shortages were of lifesaving drugs, and 10 percent of shortages affected drugs with no substitute. The most common drugs on shortage are used to treat infectious diseases, relieve pain, and treat patients who have been poisoned. (Blakemore, 1/22)
The Wall Street Journal: To Fight Growing Threat From Germs, Scientists Try Old-Fashioned Killer
The liquid treatment [is] a cocktail of about one billion viruses called bacteriophages, which are the natural-born killers of bacteria. Little known among doctors in the West, phages have been part of the antibacteria arsenal in countries of the former Soviet Union for decades. Doctors in the U.S. and much of Europe stopped using phages to fight bacteria when penicillin and other antibiotics were introduced in the 1940s. Now, though, Western scientists are turning back to this Stalin-era cure to help curb the dramatic growth of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. (Naik, 1/22)
Bloomberg: A Scary New Superbug Gene Has Reached At Least 19 Countries
Just two months ago, researchers in China identified a gene that can make bacteria resistant to a last-resort antibiotic called colistin. It was a bombshell discovery for people who follow superbugs. Now that gene has been detected in at least 19 countries, and scientists are alarmed. Colistin is what doctors give you in the U.S. when nothing else works. Because it’s toxic, it can have some harmful side effects, but colistin can help defeat infections that shrug off every other antibiotic in their arsenal. If bacteria resist everything, including colistin, you're out of luck. (Tozzi, 1/23)
