First Edition: April 26, 2022

KHN: Shopping For Space, Health Systems Make Over Malls
The hulking Hickory Hollow Mall — a full 1.1 million square feet of retail space in southeastern Nashville — was once the largest shopping center in Tennessee. But like many malls, it’s been in a downward death spiral for more than a decade. Now the mammoth complex surrounded by acres of parking is on track to join the ranks of malls making a transition into a booming economic sector: medicine. Vanderbilt University Medical Center has had such success reviving a different mall that its health system, Vanderbilt Health, plans to add medical clinics at the former Hickory Hollow Mall, rebranded a decade ago as the Global Mall at the Crossings. (Farmer, 4/26)

KHN: Tech Titans Want The Richest Californians To Pay For Pandemic Preparedness 
Gabe Bankman-Fried, a former Wall Street trader, has raised $12 million from a cryptocurrency trading firm founded by his brother, Sam Bankman-Fried. Dustin Moskovitz, a billionaire who roomed with Mark Zuckerberg in college and helped found Facebook in 2004, funds a nonprofit with his wife that has ponied up $6.5 million. And Max Henderson, a startup investor and former Google executive, is using that money to spearhead a campaign for a statewide ballot initiative that would tax California’s wealthiest residents and fund public health initiatives, with the ambitious goal of preventing another pandemic from ripping across the country. (Hart, 4/26)

The New York Times: Judge Says Migrants Must Still Be Denied Entry For Health Reasons 
A federal judge on Monday said he would block the Biden administration from exempting migrants from expulsion under a Trump-era public health order until the policy is officially lifted next month. The federal government has announced plans to lift the order, known as Title 42, on May 23 — a move that is expected to create a considerable surge of migration from Mexico. Several states have challenged the plan, saying it will create chaos on the border and lead to significant impacts on states forced to handle the newly arriving migrants. (Jordan and Sullivan, 4/25)

CNN: Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Biden Administration From Ending Title 42 Covid Border Restrictions For Migrants
Monday's order from Judge Robert Summerhays is unlikely to change the situation on the ground, given that the public health authority remains in place, but it may throw a wrench in the administration's plans moving forward. More than 20 states had asked the court to block the administration from ending Title 42 and last week asked the court to immediately intervene. The Justice Department, which opposed the request, declined to comment Monday. (Alvarez, 4/25)

NPR: Biden Will Make Paxlovid, A Highly Effective COVID Drug, Available To More Pharmacies
The rollout of the medication has been slow since it was authorized for use in December, failing to reach many Americans eligible for treatment. "It's pretty clear from the uptake of Paxlovid, and the rate of hospitalizations and deaths over the months that Paxlovid has been available, that there are still some folks who could have benefitted from these medications," a senior administration official acknowledged on a call with reporters on Monday ahead of today's announcement. (Keith and McDaniel, 4/26)

The Hill: White House Unveils New Push To Increase Availability Of COVID-19 Treatment Pills 
The White House on Tuesday unveiled new steps aimed at making highly effective COVID-19 treatment pills from Pfizer more widely available, saying more lives could be saved if use of the pills increases.  ... To boost availability, the administration announced Tuesday morning that the number of sites where the pills are available would soon increase from 20,000 to 30,000, and that it will work with pharmacies to increase that number to 40,000 “over the coming weeks.” (Sullivan, 4/26)

AP: White House: Without Funding US Will Lose COVID Treatments 
For much of the past two years, America has been first in line for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. Now, as drugmakers develop the next generation of therapies, the White House is warning that if Congress doesn’t act urgently the U.S. will have to take a number. Already the congressional stalemate over virus funding has forced the federal government to curtail free treatment for the uninsured and to ration monoclonal antibody supplies. And Biden administration officials are expressing increasing alarm that the U.S. is also losing out on critical opportunities to secure booster doses and new antiviral pills that could help the country maintain its reemerging sense of normalcy, even in the face of potential new variants and case spikes. (Miller, 4/25)

The Hill: FDA Grants Full Approval For COVID-19 Treatment Remdesivir In Young Kids 
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday gave its first full approval for a COVID-19 treatment for children under 12.  The agency granted approval to the treatment remdesivir, also known as Veklury, made by Gilead Sciences, which has already been approved as a treatment for adults.  (Sullivan, 4/25)

ABC News: Exclusive: Dr. Birx Speaks To Trump Disinfectant Moment, Says Colleagues Had Resignation Pact
The coronavirus response coordinator for President Donald Trump's COVID task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, told ABC News in an exclusive interview that she became "paralyzed" when Trump raised the possibility of injecting disinfectant into people to treat the virus – and revealed how she thinks data meant to keep New York City playgrounds open led the president to make that ill-advised jump. Birx, who spoke with Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News' chief medical correspondent, before the Tuesday release of her new book, also said she had a pact with other doctors on Trump's team – including Anthony Fauci – that if one of them was fired, then they would all resign. (Gittleson, 4/25)

Stars And Stripes: VA Adds 9 Respiratory Cancers To List Of Illnesses Caused By Burn Pits
The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Monday that it created a fast-track to disability compensation for veterans who developed one of nine rare respiratory cancers because of their exposure to toxic burn pits during overseas deployments. The cancers were added to the department’s presumptive list, which lowers the amount of evidence that veterans must provide to receive VA benefits. The cancers to be added to the list are squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx, squamous cell carcinoma of the trachea, adenocarcinoma of the trachea, adenosquamous carcinoma of the lung, large cell carcinoma of the lung, salivary gland-type tumors of the lung, sarcomatoid carcinoma of the lung, and typical and atypical carcinoid of the lung. (Wentling, 4/25)

Military Times: Nine Respiratory Cancers Added To List Of Illnesses Presumed Caused By Burn Pit Smoke
In a statement, VA Secretary Denis McDonough called the move overdue. “Veterans who suffer from rare respiratory cancers associated with their service deserve the very best America has to offer, but they’ve had to wait for the care and benefits they deserve for far too long,” he said. “That ends now. “With these new presumptives, veterans who suffer from these rare respiratory cancers will finally get the world-class care and benefits they deserve, without having to prove causality between their service and their condition.” (Shane III, 4/25)

NBC News: Teen Suicides Increased In Many States During Pandemic
Adolescents accounted for a larger share of suicides across 14 states in 2020 than they did over the previous five years, according to research published Monday. The findings were described in a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics, as medical groups and health experts increasingly sound the alarm about the soaring mental health challenges of young people. In October, three prominent children's health organizations declared that child and adolescent mental health had become a national emergency. (Bendix, 4/25)

CNN: Adolescent Suicides Increased In 5 US States During The Pandemic. Why Parents Should Be Concerned
The mental health of Americans has suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic, and new research shows the damage wasn't limited to adults. The number of suicides among adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 increased in five states during the pandemic, according to research looking at 14 states published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday. Data from Georgia, Indiana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Virginia and California also showed an increase in the proportion of adolescent deaths by suicide relative to suicides by people of all ages, the authors found. Conversely, Montana had a decrease in adolescent suicides and the proportion of adolescent deaths by suicide during the pandemic, while Alaska had a decrease in proportion only, the research found. (Rogers, 4/25)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Nears One Million Covid-19 Deaths
Slightly more than two years after recording its first Covid-19 death, the U.S. is about to cross a once-unthinkable threshold: one million deaths attributed to the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Covid-19 mortality count—over 990,000 and still rising—is reflected in death certificates recorded by the CDC. Of these certificates, at least 90% list Covid-19 as the underlying cause of death, the CDC said. The remainder list the disease as a contributing cause. (Kamp, Stamm and Bentley, 4/25)

Yahoo News: The Children Left Behind By 1 Million U.S. COVID Deaths
Just 10 years old at the time, it was as if Eva Torres’s world fell in when COVID claimed the life of her grandmother in April 2020. Abuela, as the girl called her, had lived just a block from the Bronx apartment she shared with her parents and two older brothers. Grandma was the one who would pick her up from school each day and “hear her 10,000 stories,” said Eva’s mother Angela Torres, “even if she was repeating it for the 20th time.” After Eva’s grandmother passed, the elder Torres watched her daughter’s grades slip. Her once-bubbly girl seemed withdrawn, weighed down by anxiety. “[That kind of loss,] it’s something that you carry with you,” the mother told The 74. “It permeates into your very soul.” (Lehrer-Small, 4/24)

CNN: Family Members Of Covid-19 ICU Patients May Emerge With A Different Condition, Study Says
In addition to the survey, the study also used narrative interviews to get more details on what made a difference for families. Some were able to experience staff going the extra mile to make them feel connected and involved even when they couldn’t be there. “What made it easier is the video visits, video calls and daily updates. I called and talked with the nurses every day, talked to the physician,” one family member said, according to the study. But other survey participants felt the communication they got was limited and reported feeling powerless and afraid. “They called us and said, ‘Do you want us to pull the plug?’ … I said how did it go from coming home to pulling the plug? … They say that her mouth was moving and her eyes was moving but they said she was dead … so, they went on and pulled the plug anyway,” another family member said. (Holcombe, 4/25)

Stat: Majority Of Family Members Of Covid Patients Treated In The ICU Report PTSD Symptoms
A majority of family members of Covid-19 patients treated in ICUs reported significant symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in the following months, according to a study published Monday that sheds new light on the impact of hospital visitation restrictions during the pandemic. The prevalence of PTSD symptoms was roughly twice the rate typically seen after a family member’s ICU stay before the pandemic, which the authors said was likely explained by the lack of access to loved ones during their ICU stay. “Those with higher scores reported more distrust of practitioners,” according to the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, and PTSD symptoms were especially prevalent among women and Hispanic family members. (Mulundika, 4/25)

Bangor Daily News: Latest ‘Stealth Variant’ Offshoot Begins Driving COVID-19 Cases In Maine
An even more transmissible version of the highly contagious omicron subvariant is gaining a foothold in Maine, making up 12 percent of cases in April, according to the state’s latest COVID-19 variants report. The emergence of the BA.2.12.1 strain, an offshoot of the so-called BA.2 “stealth variant,” in Maine comes as wastewater levels have shown a sharp rise in COVID-19 concentration in recent weeks, signaling greater transmission of the virus here. Hospitalizations have also ticked up, with 130 patients hospitalized with the virus as of Monday, up from just 93 a week ago. (Piper, 4/25)

CBS News: Ruby Princess Cruise Ship Docked In San Francisco With 143 Cases Of COVID-19
For the third time this year, the same Princess Cruise Lines ship has docked in California with passengers who tested positive for COVID-19. The Ruby Princess arrived in San Francisco on April 11 after a trip to Hawaii in which 143 passengers on board testing positive with the virus, the city's health department told CBS MoneyWatch. (Brooks, 4/25)

Houston Chronicle: Beto O’Rourke, Candidate For Texas Governor, Tests Positive For COVID-19
Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday. The former congressman from El Paso is experiencing mild symptoms and “will be following public health guidelines,” he said in a statement. O’Rourke has been roadtripping across the state for more than a dozen town halls in recent weeks, as his campaign targets the young voters who propelled his 2018 campaign for U.S. Senate. (Harris, 4/25)

AP: Ducey Signs Bills Limiting School Mask, Vaccination Rules 
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday signed legislation that prohibits government agencies from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations and bars schools from mandating masks for students under age 18 unless their parents approve. The bills approved by the Republican governor are the latest measures backed only by GOP members of the Legislature responding to what they believe are overly-aggressive government actions during the coronavirus pandemic. (4/25)

Fox News: Long COVID-19 May Be Caused By Abnormally Suppressed Immune System In Some People: UCLA-Led Study
A possible contributor of Long COVID -19 may actually be an abnormally suppressed immune system, and not a hyperactive one, according to a UCLA- led research group. The study, recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. It contradicts what scientists previously believed, which was that an overactive immune response to SARS-CoV-2, often referred to as a "cytokine storm," was the root cause of the perplexing syndrome. Health experts told Fox News this "cytokine storm" is an over-reactive inflammatory response in the infected person that can potentially cause damage to lungs and other organs, possibly creating severe illness or even death. (McGorry, 4/25)

Bloomberg: U.S. Hospitals Struggle To Absorb Covid Pandemic-Era Rising Costs
U.S. hospitals are struggling to absorb rising costs for labor, drugs and supplies as the pandemic drags on, the American Hospital Association said Monday in a report. Labor costs per patient jumped by 19% in 2021 from 2019, and supplies rose by over 20% per patient during that period, according to the report. Nursing expenses shifted heavily toward travel nurses. The travelers’ share of nursing budgets rose to 39% in 2022 from 5% in 2019. (Goldberg, 4/25)

Bay Area News Group: Thousands Of Stanford, Packard Children's Nurses Begin Strike To Demand For Better Staffing, Mental Health Support
After treating patients without a contract since the end of March, 5,000 nurses lined streets near Stanford Hospital raucously picketing and urging medical center officials to deliver an agreement ahead of negotiations scheduled for Tuesday morning. Holding signs that read “Stanford hates caregivers” and shouting slogans like “shame on Stanford” as drivers blared their car horns in support, nurses appeared more than ready to pressure Stanford indefinitely until a “reasonable” contract is reached. (Lin and Toledo, 4/25)

The Boston Globe: McLean Nurses, Clinicians Vote In Union Following Fiercely Contested Campaign
Following a contentious union campaign that generated staunch resistance from management at McLean Hospital, nurses and other clinicians at the world-renowned psychiatric hospital in Belmont have voted to join AFSCME Council 93. The results of two elections, announced Friday, were close. Registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and clinical coordinators voted 113-100 in favor of the union, and mental health specialists and community residence counselors approved the union 121-91. About 60 ballots have been contested, but Council 93 expects the victories — representing more than 700 workers in all — to stand. (Johnston, 4/25)

AP: North Dakota-Based Healthcare Billing Services Group Hacked
Federal investigators say a cyber attack on a North Dakota-based company that provides software and billing services for doctors and healthcare professionals affected more than a half-million customers. Adaptive Health Integrations of Williston was the target of a hacking incident that happened in mid-October, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The data breach was reported to the government earlier this month. (4/25)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Leader Overseeing State Psychiatric Hospitals Resigns In Lieu Of Being Fired
The associate commissioner in charge of operations and planning for Texas’ 10 publicly funded psychiatric hospitals resigned to avoid being fired last month, state records show. Tim Bray oversaw state mental hospital operations between September 2016 and this month. During that time, the waitlist for beds grew more than 550 percent, from 354 in September 2016 to 2,309 in March, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of state data. (Stuckey, 4/25)

Detroit Free Press: Common Ground To Open Online Behavioral Health Urgent Care
Metro Detroiters who need urgent mental and behavioral health care can now get it without going to a hospital emergency room. Common Ground is opening the region's first virtual Behavioral Health Urgent Care with an aim of filling a huge gap in services. "The time is really good because there is such a high need out there in our in our community right now," said Heather Rae, president and CEO of Common Ground, a 24-hour crisis services nonprofit agency that is expanding the care it already provides to more than 88,000 people at sites in Pontiac and Royal Oak. (Jordan Shamus, 4/25)

AP: New Maine Law Aims To Stop Harassment At Abortion Clinics
A new law in Maine is designed to prevent harassment and blockades outside abortion providers in the state. Supporters said the new law gives health service facilities the ability to establish and mark a “medical safety zone” that extends 8 feet (2 1/2 meters) from the center of an entryway. The zone would prohibit people from intentionally blocking entrances or harassing and threatening patients, said supporters. Violations could be charged as a misdemeanor. (Whittle, 4/25)

Politico: Abortion Advocates’ Strategy Depends On Pills. An Information Gap Threatens Their Efforts.
Mail-order abortion pills could help millions of people discreetly terminate their pregnancies should the Supreme Court strike down Roe v. Wade in the coming months, providing a way to circumvent mounting state-imposed restrictions. But the majority of patients and many doctors remain in the dark or misinformed about the pills, how to obtain them, where to seek follow-up care and how to avoid landing in legal jeopardy, according to medical groups, abortion-rights advocates and national polls. (Ollstein and Messerly, 4/24)

The Washington Post: Catholic Priest Buried Fetuses From Abortion Clinic In A Private Cemetery 
The first time the Rev. William Kuchinsky performed a funeral Mass outside a parish, it was in the basement kitchen of a Capitol Hill rowhouse. He prayed over dozens of tiny blue circular, plastic containers. They held more than 100 human fetuses, and the service was a secret. Kuchinsky, a West Virginia priest well known for his antiabortion activism, had been called to the apartment on March 28 by other antiabortion activists who said they had gotten the remains from the driver of a medical waste disposal truck in D.C. — an account the waste company denied. Lauren Handy, who rented the apartment, and Terrisa Bukovinac, another activist, had asked Kuchinsky to come, and he celebrated a funeral Mass. (Boorstein, 4/25)

CBS News: Minnesota State Senate Candidate Delivered Convention Speech While In Labor And Having Contractions 
A Minnesota State Senate candidate was in labor while giving a speech at a convention to secure her party's nomination and had to leave early to give birth. Erin Maye Quade went into labor at about 2 a.m. on Saturday, the morning of Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party convention. She still showed up in labor and gave her speech, her campaign manager Mitchell Walstad told CBS News.  Video taken at the convention shows her holding her stomach and pausing, apparently having a contraction, after finishing a sentence of her speech. (O'Kane, 4/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco Wants To Hold The Prescription Drug Industry Responsible For The Opioid Crisis. Here Are 3 Ways The Trial Underway Is Unique
With billions of dollars at stake, San Francisco opened a federal court trial Monday against Walgreens pharmacy and three companies that manufacture or distribute opioids. The companies regularly “overstated the benefits and trivialized the risks of the long-term use of opioids” to their customers, City Attorney David Chiu’s office said in a filing with U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco, who is presiding over the non-jury trial. (Egelko, 4/25)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Advocates For The Elderly Want State Regulators To Take A Harder Look At Nursing Home Sales
In the most complete revision of its nursing home rules in at least 25 years, the Pennsylvania Department of Health last month proposed new regulations that would require more scrutiny of homes’ prospective owners. For the first time, regulators would analyze the financial strength and past performance of owners — including individuals, not just legal entities — and related companies that seek to take over nursing homes in the state. Historically, officials have effectively rubber-stamped license applications, critics said. (Brubaker, 4/26)

AP: Hearing Set In Effort To Block Alabama Transgender Law
A federal judge will hear arguments next month on whether to block enforcement of an Alabama law outlawing the use of gender-affirming medications to treat transgender people under age 19.The May 5 hearing is scheduled just days before the law is set to take effect on May 8. U.S. District Judge Liles Burke set the evidentiary hearing, scheduled to last up to two days, on a request for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to stop Alabama officials from enforcing the law while a court challenge goes forward. (4/25)

Detroit Free Press: Michigan Schools Missing Students' Signs Of Dyslexia
In first grade, Lynn Gaskell's daughter was behind in reading. When Rileigh, now 13, tried to read aloud, she added extra syllables to words and stumbled through pages. Rileigh’s school evaluated her and came back to her parents with a recommendation: Evaluate Rileigh for ADHD, which Rileigh did have. Her reading problems persisted all through elementary school, landing her extra time with reading teachers with little progress. Gaskell brought up dyslexia, but she said school officials brushed her off. "Not one single person approached me about dyslexia, not one time," Gaskell said. (Altavena, 4/25)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Former Wisconsin First Lady Elaine Schreiber Dies From Alzheimer's
Elaine Ruth Schreiber, who became Wisconsin's first lady when her husband, Marty, entered the governor's mansion in July 1977, then later went on to advocate for the millions of patients like herself, battling Alzheimer's Disease, died in her sleep early Monday morning. She was 82 and died at the Elaine's Hope Memory Care Assisted Living center at the Lutheran Home in Milwaukee, named in her honor in 2020. Named after her also is the child care facility at the Silver Spring Neighborhood Center, where she spent roughly a decade teaching children ages 3 to 5. In accordance with her wishes, Elaine's brain is being donated to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Brain Donor program to be used in Alzheimer's research. (Johnson, 4/25)

USA Today: 'A New Era Of Diagnosis For Alzheimer's Disease': Scientists Study Blood Tests For Dementia
As pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of millions on a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, other researchers are focusing on a more elemental question. How can you tell whether a family member or loved one has Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia? These researchers say a new generation of blood tests could offer an easier and accurate way to detect signs of Alzheimer’s, a disease that afflicts an estimated 6.5 million Americans. New research found one blood test can detect hallmarks of the disease in older adults with memory problems. It is among more than a half-dozen blood tests being developed and tested to detect early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. (Alltucker, 4/26)

CNN: Dietitians Are Using TikTok To Urge You To Stop Dieting 
Many dietitians are making a plea you might have always wanted but never thought you would hear: Stop dieting. Now, you can find some of them on social media platforms such as TikTok, using the latest dances, trends and science-backed information to reach younger generations. These anti-diet dieticians want to steer people away from what they call "diet culture," which they say prioritizes smaller sizes over health and drastic restriction over lifestyle changes. (Holcombe, 4/24)

Bloomberg: Covid Pandemic Links To Children’s Liver Ailment Eyed In U.K. Probe
Health authorities are investigating potential links between the pandemic and an outbreak of mysterious, acute hepatitis that’s sickened children in the U.K., the U.S. and other countries. The U.K. has detected adenovirus, a family of pathogens that cause a range of illnesses including the common cold, in three-quarters of the cases of the liver-inflaming disease, officials said Monday. Now they’re studying whether a lack of prior exposure to adenoviruses during pandemic restrictions or a previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 or another virus may be related. (Paton, 4/25)

AP: UK: More Links Between Common Virus, Hepatitis In Children 
While it isn’t clear what’s causing the illnesses, a leading suspect is adenovirus, which was detected in 75% of the confirmed cases tested, the U.K. agency said in statement Monday. Adenovirus, a common group of viruses, is now circulating in children at higher than average levels after dropping to unusually low levels during the pandemic. One avenue of inquiry being explored is that the outbreak may be linked to a surge in common viral infections after COVID-19 restrictions were phased out. Children who weren’t exposed to adenovirus over the last two years may now be getting hit harder when they are exposed to the viruses. (Kirka, 4/25)

The Wall Street Journal: South Korea Downgrades Covid-19 From Riskiest-Disease Category 
South Korea has downgraded Covid-19 from the country’s riskiest category of infectious disease, a first step toward treating the virus more like the seasonal flu. The country is one of the first to make such a move. The downgrade, approved Monday by health officials, will take effect after a four-week transition period. (Yoon, 4/25)

AP: Most Of Beijing To Be Tested For COVID Amid Lockdown Worry
Beijing will conduct mass testing of most of its 21 million people, authorities announced Monday, as a new COVID-19 outbreak sparked stockpiling of food by residents worried about the possibility of a Shanghai-style lockdown. The Chinese capital began mass testing people in one of its 16 districts where most of the new cases have been found. The city also imposed lockdowns on individual residential buildings and one section of the city. Late in the day, health officials said the testing would be expanded Tuesday to all but five outlying districts. (Wang and Moritsugu, 4/26)