First Edition: April 24, 2023

KFF Health News and ESPN: Pain, Hope, And Science Collide As Athletes Turn To Magic Mushrooms 
The boxer felt broken. Every day, he was waking up in pain. Some days, it was debilitating headaches. Other times, it was his back. Or his fists. His ribs. His nose. On top of that, he had mood swings. Depression. Anxiety. Mike Lee didn’t regret his career. He had been one of the best professional fighters in the world in his weight class. He’d gone 21-1 professionally and fought in Madison Square Garden and in front of millions on TV. (Hawryluk and Van Valkenburg, 4/24)

KFF Health News: US Officials Want To End The HIV Epidemic By 2030. Many Stakeholders Think They Won’t
In 2018, Mike Ferraro was living on the street and sharing needles with other people who injected drugs when he found out he was HIV-positive. “I thought it was a death sentence, where you have sores and you deteriorate,” he said. Ferraro learned of his HIV status through a University of Miami Miller School of Medicine initiative called IDEA Exchange, which sent doctors and medical students to the corner where he panhandled. He got tested and enrolled in the program, which also provides clean syringes, overdose reversal medications, and HIV prevention and treatment drugs. (Chang and Whitehead, 4/24)

AP: Supreme Court Preserves Access To Abortion Pill Mifepristone 
The court’s action Friday almost certainly will leave access to mifepristone unchanged at least into next year, as appeals play out, including a potential appeal to the high court. The next stop for the case is at the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which has set arguments in the case for May 17. (Sherman, 4/21)

Reuters: Abortion Providers Relieved, Wary As High Court Preserves Pill Access
Abortion rights supporters expressed relief on Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court preserved access to a widely used abortion pill but warned of a long fight ahead as a legal challenge to the medication continues. The move by the court to halt new restrictions on the drug set by lower courts was welcome news less than a year after its conservative majority upended U.S. abortion access by overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide. (Bernstein, 4/24)

AP: What Supreme Court Action On Abortion Means For Patients
For patients, there’s been confusion “about whether or not they can access their appointments,” said Dr. Becca Simon, a family medicine doctor in Pennsylvania who provides abortions. “We’re trying to just calm people.” ... Doctors and clinic operators worry that the decision earlier this month by a federal judge in Texas blocking the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication — and media coverage about it — have led some people to question the drug’s safety. “The language in the opinion that was used is very, very disturbing,” said Texas OB-GYN Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi. (Ungar, 4/21)

The Washington Post: In Iowa, Pence Draws Direct Contrast With Trump On Abortion
Former vice president Mike Pence on Saturday sought to draw a direct contrast with former president Donald Trump over abortion, rejecting the idea that laws on the procedure should be left solely to each state as he spoke at an event featuring current and prospective presidential candidates. Pence, who has made moves toward entering the Republican primary against the president under whom he served, directly referenced Trump in comments about abortion to reporters. “I do think it’s more likely that this issue is resolved at the state level, but I don’t agree with the former president, who says this is a states-only issue,” said Pence. “We’ve been given a new beginning for life in this country. I think we have an opportunity to advance the sanctity of life, move it ever closer to the center of American law.” (Wells, 4/23)

Politico: Trump Defends His Efforts To Combat Abortion 
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday defended his efforts to limit abortion in a video address to the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. In his remarks, Trump cited his appointment of three justices (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett) to the U.S. Supreme Court. All three voted in the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationally. “Those justices delivered a landmark victory for protecting innocent life. Nobody thought it was going to happen,” the former president said. (Cohen, 4/23)

The New York Times: Republicans Try To Keep Abortion Rights Off The Ballot 
The biggest and most immediate fight is in Ohio, where a coalition of abortion rights groups is collecting signatures to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November. ... Republicans in the state legislature are advancing a ballot amendment of their own that would raise the percentage of votes required to pass future such measures to a 60 percent supermajority. The measure has passed the Ohio Senate and is expected to pass the House this week. The Republican measure — which would require support from only 50 percent of voters to pass — would go before voters in a special election this August. (Zernike and Wines, 4/23)

The Washington Post: Biden Is Running Out Of Time To Avoid Debt Ceiling Trouble
President Biden is running out of time and options to avert an unprecedented default on the federal debt, as House Republicans make increasingly clear that they are willing to court economic catastrophe unless they secure major policy concessions from the White House. (Stein, 4/22)

Reuters: U.S. Food Banks Warn Of Strain As Republicans Seek Food Aid Cuts 
Food banks across the United States are straining to meet spiking demand as high food costs and shrinking federal benefits drive scores of Americans to depend on free groceries, just as Republicans seek to narrow access to food assistance. President Joe Biden, who this week criticized Republicans' proposals to further cut benefits in order to shrink the country's deficit, pledged last year to end hunger in the U.S. by 2030. (Douglas, 4/21)

Reuters: Return To Pandemic Hunger Levels Could Signal Economic Fragility 
As economists and investors scour data on inflation, jobs, housing, banking and other bellwether indicators to determine whether the United States is headed for a recession, a visit to the nation’s largest food-bank warehouse offers some ominous clues. More than half of the shelves at the Atlanta Community Food Bank are bare, in part because of supply-chain issues, but mostly because demand for food assistance is as high as it was during the COVID-19 pandemic, the nonprofit’s executives said. They said two in five people seeking food assistance in the Atlanta region this year have not done so before. (Shiffman and Douglas, 4/23)

Axios: CDC Reorganization Continues With Staff Trainings, Website Upgrades
Six months into an overhaul of the Centers for Disease Control, director Rochelle Walensky said Thursday the agency has made strides releasing timely data and retraining staff to ensure a nimble response to future crises. (Dreher, 4/21)

The New York Times: Sacklers Gave Millions To Institution That Advises On Opioid Policy 
For the past decade, the White House and Congress have relied on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, a renowned advisory group, to help shape the federal response to the opioid crisis, whether by convening expert panels or delivering policy recommendations and reports. Yet officials with the National Academies have kept quiet about one thing: their decision to accept roughly $19 million in donations from members of the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, the maker of the drug OxyContin that is notorious for fueling the opioid epidemic. (Jewett, 4/23)

CIDRAP: WHO Elevates XBB.1.16 To Variant Of Interest As Levels Rise In US And Other Countries 
The World Health Organization (WHO) this week boosted the XBB.1.16 Omicron subvariant to a variant of interest (VOI) from a variant under monitoring (VUM), based on the latest assessments from its technical advisory group on virus evolution. (Schnirring, 4/21)

CIDRAP: Researchers Detect 2 New SARS-CoV-2 Strains On Polish Mink Farms 
On two farms, the researchers uncovered two novel SARS-CoV-2 variants most closely related to the B.1.1.307 strain that circulated in humans in late 2020 and early 2021. The new variants, however, had at least 40 polymorphisms, which the authors said suggests that they originated in an unknown or undetected animal reservoir. The mink did not show symptoms. (Van Beusekom, 4/21)

CIDRAP: New Data Show Safety Of Pfizer COVID Vaccine For Teens Ages 12 To 17
Today in Pediatrics researchers published the safety data of the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT-162b2) COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents ages 12 to 17 years. After 1 year, very few serious adverse events were reported, and instances of myocarditis (inflammation of heart muscle) were lower than initially reported. (Soucheray, 4/21)

NBC News: CDC Says Tinnitus Not Linked To Covid Vaccines
The CDC claims there is no evidence detailing a link between Covid-19 vaccines and tinnitus. The statement comes after more than 16,000 people who received the vaccine filed complaints with the organization. (Edwards, 4/21)

The Washington Post: Pinkeye Cases Rise In Allergy Season. It Might Be A Covid Symptom, Too
Pinkeye — an inflamed, itchy and painful eye — is common during allergy season. But now some doctors are concerned the ailment may also be associated with a new coronavirus subvariant. Health experts say they have not conclusively linked the condition, formally called conjunctivitis, to the subvariant Arcturus. But anecdotal reports suggest the subvariant may produce fever and conjunctivitis, mainly among children. “It’s occurring in the setting where they’ve documented community spread of this virus,” said William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. (Bever, 4/21)

The Washington Post: They Endured Covid. But Some Health-Care Workers Mistrust The Future.
More than any other single group, health-care workers bore the brunt of the covid-19 pandemic. In the early days and weeks of the crisis, doctors, nurses and emergency medical technicians were hailed as superheroes — immortalized in graffiti and balcony ovations from New York City to Paris and Madrid. But as the months and years passed, the astonishing casualties from covid-19 — more than 1 million lives lost in the United States and nearly 7 million globally — led to exhaustion, burnout and trauma, as well as infection and deaths among front-line workers. Workforce shortages and unrelenting stress added to their hardships, even as the public applause for their contributions faded. (Brooks and Stevenson, 4/22)

USA Today: Long COVID Crisis Exposes Disability Claims System In Disarray
Marie, who left a corporate job in Missouri after contracting COVID-19 in the first wave and then developing what came to be known as long COVID, received five months of short-term disability through her employer. It was “a life-saver,” she said. But in 2022, she caught COVID again, and this time it’s taken much longer to recover from the long COVID that followed. (Buhl, 4/21)

Stat: Chronicling The Failures Of The U.S. Response To Covid
A new book on the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic paints a picture of a country ill-prepared to cope with a dangerous biological foe, riven by partisan politics, and led by people who saw little political gain in taking ownership of managing the crisis. (Branswell, 4/24)

The New York Times: Chinese Censorship Is Quietly Rewriting The Covid-19 Story
Under government pressure, Chinese scientists have retracted studies and withheld or deleted data. The censorship has stymied efforts to understand the virus. (Hvistendahl and Mueller, 4/23)

The Boston Globe: Virtual Communication Left Seniors Feeling Anxious, Depressed During Pandemic, According To Brigham And Women’s Study
Older adults who frequently used technology to connect with friends, family, and health care providers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic reported feeling more anxious and depressed than those who sought in-person visits, according to a new study by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Among Americans over 65, virtual interactions — e-mail, phone, and video calls — were associated with increased mental health concerns, according to the study, which analyzed national survey data and was released earlier this month. (Kool, 4/21)

AP: Dying Patients Protest Looming Telehealth Crackdown
Online prescribing rules for controlled drugs were relaxed three years ago under emergency waivers to ensure critical medications remained available during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has proposed a rule that would reinstate most previously longstanding requirements that doctors see patients in person before prescribing narcotic drugs such as Oxycontin, amphetamines such as Adderall, and a host of other potentially dangerous drugs. (Aleccia, 4/24)

CIDRAP: Study: Single Dose Of HPV Vaccine Up To 98% Effective
A new study from researchers at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) showed a single dose of human papillomavirus virus (HPV) vaccine was highly efficacious in preventing HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer, in girls and women ages 15 to 20. (Soucheray, 4/21)

The Washington Post: Scientists Identify Thousands Of Unknown Viruses In Babies’ Diapers
Research involving Danish babies’ dirty diapers has provided a plethora of information on previously unknown viruses — and the best view yet of the makeup of the infant gut microbiome. Writing in the journal Nature Microbiology, an international team of researchers reports it has uncovered 10,000 new viruses in infant feces. (Blakemore, 4/23)

USA Today: Future Of IVF? Scientists Work To Create Babies Without Egg, Sperm
Scientists are getting closer to the possibility of making a new person from skin or blood cells, without the need for sex. This approach goes well beyond in vitro fertilization — which combines egg and sperm in a test tube — because it doesn't require natural eggs or sperm. (Weintraub, 4/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Weight-Loss Drugmakers Lobby For Medicare Coverage 
Weight-loss drugmakers are lobbying Congress to grant them access to a monster payday for their blockbuster treatments: Medicare coverage. New drugs to treat diabetes and obesity are helping people shed pounds and generating huge sales for Novo Nordisk AS and Eli Lilly & Co. But they cost hundreds of dollars a month or more and Medicare doesn’t cover them to treat obesity. The law governing Medicare’s prescription-drug benefit excludes weight drugs. If that changed, demand from the 65 million older and disabled people insured through Medicare could push sales even higher. (Whyte, 4/24)

The New York Times: An Extreme Risk Of Taking Ozempic: Malnutrition 
Almost immediately after starting Ozempic, a diabetes medication known for inducing weight loss, Renata Lavach-Savy, 37, a medical writer in North Bergen, N.J., was left without any semblance of appetite. She started setting alarms to remind herself to eat. She was so exhausted that even after 10 hours of sleep, she would collapse onto her couch after work, unable to move. She left purses and clothes strewn across her bedroom floor, because she was so queasy all the time and worried that bending down to pick them up would make her vomit. Four months later, Ms. Lavach-Savy’s dietitian told her that she might be malnourished. (Blum, 4/21)

Reuters: Exclusive: Lilly Expects US Medicare To Reverse Course, Fully Cover Alzheimer's Drugs
Eli Lilly and Co expects the U.S. Medicare health plan to back down from strict coverage limits on new Alzheimer's drugs as more evidence emerges in coming weeks showing that clearing amyloid brain plaques can help patients, a company executive told Reuters. Lilly plans to release results from a trial of its experimental amyloid-targeting drug donanemab before the end of June. More study data on Leqembi, a rival drug from partners Eisai Co Ltd and Biogen Inc, is also expected in the coming months. (Beasley and Steenhuysen, 4/21)

The New York Times: Black Smokers At Center Of New York Fight To Ban Menthol Cigarettes 
A push by Gov. Kathy Hochul to ban menthol-flavored cigarettes in New York has become the focal point of a fierce and expensive lobbying fight, pitting Big Tobacco against the medical community. Caught in the middle are Black smokers, who smoke menthol cigarettes at higher rates than white smokers, and are the main group the ban is meant to help. Decades of aggressive marketing by tobacco companies have caused Black smokers to consume menthol cigarettes, whose cooling sensation on the throat makes them more appealing and addictive. (Ferre-Sadurni, 4/23)

Modern Healthcare: DOJ Target 18 Providers In Massive Wrongful Billing, PPP Fraud Sweep
Dr. Anthony Hao Dinh allegedly bilked the federal government out of $150 million and lost most of it placing high-risk bets in the stock market. Dinh, an ear, nose and throat specialist who practices in Orange County, California, allegedly accumulated the $150 million after submitting $230 million in fraudulent claims to the Health Resources and Services Administration COVID-19 Uninsured Program, according to the Justice Department. (Kacik, 4/21)

Modern Healthcare: HCA Healthcare Buys Land In Las Vegas, Salt Lake City As Earnings Rise
The Nashville, Tennessee-based for-profit system has two hospitals under construction in San Antonio, Texas, and owns land for new facilities in Austin, Dallas and some Florida markets, CEO Sam Hazen said Friday during HCA's first-quarter earnings call. HCA purchased land for new hospitals in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City during the quarter, he said. The system also continues to add to its outpatient network, which has grown to roughly 2,500 of those facilities. (Hudson, 4/21)

Stat: How A Small Hospital In Nebraska Has Thrived Through The Pandemic
Great Plains Health is a small hospital system in a part of Nebraska surrounded by agriculture, railroads, and retail distribution. But that doesn’t mean it’s powerless — in fact, the system is a highly profitable, influential mainstay in the area. (Herman, 4/24)

NPR: Missouri Due To Be First State To Restrict Adult Gender-Affirming Care
Chelsea Freels has spent a good bit of time in 2023 trying to convince Missouri lawmakers to not vote for legislation barring what's known as gender-affirming care for transgender youth like her. Over and over, the 17-year-old from suburban St. Louis has heard GOP lawmakers talking about how they need to pass legislation to protect people like her. And over and over, she says she replies: "Protect me from what?" Freels says. " 'Oh no! The kid is getting better grades. Oh no! The scary transgender has friends! What are they going to do? Smile?' " (Rosenbaum, 4/24)

Politico: Health Care Access For Trans Youth Is Crumbling — And Not Just In Red States 
Even in states without bans, providers said death threats, harassment, fears of litigation and, in some cases, a lack of support from institutions have created a chilling effect that undermines their ability to provide care. “I got an email telling me that I’m evil, I’m foolish, my work is opposing God, that I harm children, that I’m going to hell, and that I should die,” said Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics who specializes in adolescent medicine at Yale University. “The threats, the harassment, the constant fear of, ‘Did I say that right? Is that OK? Should I have said that differently? Did I present my position in a public space as effectively as possible, and also did I say anything that is going to get my family targeted in some way?’” (Messerly, 4/23)

AP: For Transgender Kids, A Frantic Rush For Treatment Amid Bans 
The new laws have parents scrambling to secure the care their kids need. They worry what will happen if they can’t get the medications they’ve been prescribed, especially as their kids start puberty and their bodies change in ways that can’t be reversed. “My body’s basically this ticking time bomb, just sitting there waiting for it to go off,” said Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier, now 13. (Metz and Biraben, 4/22)

NPR: Gov. Newsom Sends National Guard, CHP To Tackle San Francisco's Fentanyl Crisis
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is directing the California Highway Patrol and National Guard to assist San Francisco authorities in combating the fentanyl crisis in the city. The two agencies will be partnering with the local police department and the district attorney's office to attempt to stem trafficking of the deadly synthetic opioid. (Kim, 4/22)

WHYY: Recreational Weed To Become Legal In Delaware On Sunday
Starting with the stroke of midnight Saturday, Delawareans over the age of 21 can light up a joint, bong, or bowl of marijuana in private, or eat a weed gummy, without any threat of penalty. That’s because Gov. John Carney said in a written statement at 3:45 p.m. Friday that he would not veto a bill to legalize the possession, use, or transportation of up to an ounce of weed. The governor, a staunch opponent of legalization, also said Friday he won’t veto the bill that created a regulated marijuana retail market. (Barrish, 4/21)

CNN: Kids Under 6 Ingesting Illicit Substances Rose After Covid-19 Outbreak, Study Shows
The outbreak of Covid-19 presented many dangers for children, and a new study suggests increased illicit substance ingestions were among them. In the first month of the pandemic in 2020, a 25% increase in overall ingestions occurred among children under 6 years old in the United States, according to the study published Friday in JAMA Network Open. (Holcombe, 4/21)

NBC News: Leg-Lengthening Surgery Gains Popularity Among Men Seeking To Be Taller
At 5'7", Alex considered himself short. The 26-year-old, who asked that his real name not be used to maintain his privacy, said he was sick of insults and jeering comments about his height. Shorter men “routinely get spoken down to just because of this trait that they can’t control,” Alex said. (Ede-Osifo, 4/23)

Politico: Gun Violence Is Actually Worse In Red States. It’s Not Even Close
Listen to the southern right talk about violence in America and you’d think New York City was as dangerous as Bakhmut on Ukraine’s eastern front. In October, ... In reality, the region the Big Apple comprises most of is far and away the safest part of the U.S. mainland when it comes to gun violence, while the regions Florida and Texas belong to have per capita firearm death rates (homicides and suicides) three to four times higher than New York’s. (Woodard, 4/23)