First Edition: Dec. 19, 2022

KHN: After Tuition, Books, And Room And Board, Colleges’ Rising Health Fees Hit A Nerve
You’ve compared tuition. Reviewed on-campus housing costs. Even digested student meal plan prices. But have you thought about how much your son’s or daughter’s dream school will charge for health coverage? You might be in for a shock. (Galewitz, 12/19)

KHN: HIV Outbreak Persists As Officials Push Back Against Containment Efforts
Brooke Parker has spent the past two years combing riverside homeless encampments, abandoned houses, and less traveled roads to help contain a lingering HIV outbreak that has disproportionately affected those who live on society’s margins. She shows up to build trust with those she encounters and offers water, condoms, referrals to services, and opportunities to be tested for HIV — anything she can muster that might be useful to someone in need. (Sisk, 12/19)

KHN: A Montana Addiction Clinic Wants To Motivate People With Rewards. Then Came A Medicaid Fraud Probe
A Montana addiction clinic’s plan to give people with substance use disorders as much as $1,966.50 in gift cards and vouchers to follow its treatment program is raising questions about the use of financial incentives with patients. The tug of war over the effective but largely unregulated tool is playing out in the northwestern Montana town of Kalispell, where a local government grant is financing rewards for people who stick with treatment provided by the outpatient clinic Oxytocin. (Houghton, 12/19)

CNBC: Up To 254,000 Medicare Beneficiaries Are Getting New ID Cards Due To Data Breach At Subcontractor. What They Need To Know
Up to 254,000 Medicare beneficiaries’ personal information may have been compromised in an online ransomware attack at a government subcontractor, officials warned this week. Letters are being sent to the beneficiaries who were impacted by the potential data breach, said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (O'Brien, 12/16)

CNBC: White House's Covid Coordinator Urges People To Get Vaccinated Ahead Of Holidays
As Covid and flu hospitalizations have climbed in the weeks since Thanksgiving, White House’s Covid-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said families will be safer at upcoming holiday gatherings if they get their updated vaccines. (Capoot, 12/18)

Politico: White House Covid Doctor: Safe To Gather, But ... 
“We’re at a point where it’s safe to gather, but you still have things to do,” Jha said — insisting, as officials in the Biden administration have before, that the proper tools exist to manage the virus. “If you don’t do those things, obviously things can get much worse.” Those measures include testing, treatment and taking the updated booster; people who haven’t gotten a Covid-19 shot in the last six months should get the newest booster, Jha said. (Olander, 12/18)

The Washington Post: Can Politics Kill You? Research Says The Answer Increasingly Is Yes
As the coronavirus pandemic approaches its third full winter, two studies reveal an uncomfortable truth: The toxicity of partisan politics is fueling an overall increase in mortality rates for working-age Americans. In one study, researchers concluded that people living in more conservative parts of the United States disproportionately bore the burden of illness and death linked to covid-19. The other, which looked at health outcomes more broadly, found that the more conservative a state’s policies, the shorter the lives of working-age people. (Johnson, 12/16)

Stat: Early Flu Season In U.S. May Be Peaking Early, Too
This year’s abnormally early flu season is showing signs it may be peaking in parts of the country, data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Friday suggested. (Branswell, 12/16)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Hospital Beds Drop To Lowest Availability Of Pandemic
The number of available Los Angeles County hospital beds has fallen to its lowest level of the pandemic, the result not only of the enduring threat of COVID-19 and the reemergence of flu and RSV, but also the needs of a populace that put off nonemergency care. (Money, Lin II and Alpert Reyes, 12/16)

CIDRAP: CDC Issues Guidance On Use Of Flu Antiviral Oseltamivir Amid Limited Supply
This week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued interim guidance to physicians to prioritize treatment of the flu in high-risk patients after receiving numerous anecdotal reports of shortages of the generic antiviral drug oseltamivir in some areas of the country amid a surge of respiratory illnesses. (Van Beusekom, 12/16)

The New York Times: Can A Federally Funded ‘Netflix Model’ Fix The Broken Market For Antibiotics? 
Recent shortages of amoxicillin, an effective antibiotic that pediatricians have long relied upon to treat strep throat and ear infections in children, have put a spotlight on an urgent global threat: the world’s shrinking arsenal of potent antibiotics and the lack of incentives to develop them. The broken marketplace for new antimicrobial drugs has stirred debate over a bill, languishing in Congress, that would dramatically reconfigure the way antibiotics are discovered and sold in the United States. (Jacobs, 12/16)

NPR: Updated COVID Booster Shots Reduce The Risk Of Hospitalization, CDC Reports
Two small studies from Columbia University and Harvard University in October suggested the new shots did not produce better antibody response against the omicron BA.5 variant than boosters of the original vaccines. But the CDC came out with two studies Friday detailing the bivalent vaccine's effectiveness against COVID-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations and effectiveness against hospitalization specifically among older people. (Ahn, 12/18)

Stat: Updated Covid Boosters Reduce Need For Medical Care: Studies
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data Friday indicating that the newer two-strain Covid booster shots provide substantial protection against illness and hospitalization, even in the previously vaccinated. (Herper and Mast, 12/16)

CIDRAP: Lack Of Rural US Healthcare Access Led To COVID Vaccine Disparities, Data Show 
A study in The Lancet Regional Health finds that wide disparities in healthcare capacity in the United States, particularly in rural areas, hampered COVID-19 vaccination efforts during the pandemic. ... The average number of medical doctors per 1,000 in low-vaccinated counties was 0.19 compared to 0.81 in high-vaccinated ones. While most research has focused on vaccine hesitancy as being a lead cause of regional vaccine disparities in the United States, this study showed lack of healthcare coverage also contributed to gaps between urban and rural Americans. (Soucheray, 12/16)

The Hill: GOP Governor Challenges DeSantis On Vaccines: ‘We Shouldn’t Undermine Science’ 
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) on Sunday challenged a call from Florida’s GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis to investigate COVID-19 vaccines, arguing Republicans should not “undermine science” and medical experts. ... “We shouldn’t undermine science. We shouldn’t undermine the medical community that’s very important to our public health,” he said. “We are not good as a society, it’s not the right direction, if we diminish the facts, we diminish all the best information that we have from science at the time.” (Dress, 12/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: Should Everyone Get Paxlovid As Soon As They Test Positive For COVID?
California health officials are sounding a different tune on what people sick with COVID should do when they test positive. But their new guidance contradicts current federal recommendations — suggesting California is going its own way as coronavirus cases soar in the state. (Vainshtein, 12/16)

The Washington Post: New Models Predict At Least 1 Million Deaths In China Amid Covid Surge
A fast-spreading covid-19 outbreak in China has researchers predicting a surge in virus-related deaths next year, with several analyses forecasting more than 1 million fatalities in a country that until now has largely kept the coronavirus in check. (Westfall, 12/18)

CIDRAP: Liver Drug Unproven For COVID Prevention In High Demand In China
In anticipation of COVID-19 surges in China after last week's easing of public health restrictions, the demand for the generic liver drug ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) has risen dramatically, but manufacturers say they can't keep up, and experts warn about the limited nature of the study fueling the demand, Scrip reports. UDCA is used for the treatment of gallstones and for liver diseases involving a slowing or blockage of bile from the liver (eg, primary biliary cirrhosis). (Van Beusekom, 12/16)

The New York Times: Vatican Removes Anti-Abortion Activist From The Priesthood
A well-known Catholic priest and incendiary leader of the anti-abortion movement was removed from the priesthood by the Vatican, according to a letter from Pope Francis’ representative to the United States that was obtained by The New York Times. Frank Pavone, who leads the advocacy organization Priests for Life, and was once a religious adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, was dismissed from the clergy on Nov. 9 with no possibility of appeal, the letter states. The letter included a statement about the removal, called laicization, that it said was approved by the Dicastery for the Clergy, a Vatican office. (Dias and Graham, 12/18)

The Washington Post: Vatican Removes Antiabortion Activist Frank Pavone From The Priesthood 
Pavone, the national director of the group Priests for Life, has addressed the crowds at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., and sits on the board of directors for the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL). He also is a religious adviser to former president Donald Trump and has publicly questioned the results of the 2020 election. (Kitchener, 12/18)

The New York Times: ‘I’m Not Ready’: A Mother Denied An Abortion In Texas Faces An Uncertain Future 
Last year Tamara Nelson was a pregnant mother of three, denied an abortion under Texas’ restrictive laws. More recently, she told fund-raising gala attendees how Blue Haven Ranch, a faith-based, anti-abortion nonprofit, supported her when no one else would. ... Cason is now nearly 6 months old and Ms. Nelson has some freelance work as a bookkeeper, but she worries about how she will make it on her own. “I’m not ready for that,” she said. (Williamson, 12/18)

Bloomberg: Online Pharmacy Truepill Wrongly Filled Prescriptions For ADHD, DEA Says
US drug enforcement officials are considering prohibiting online pharmacy Truepill from dispensing controlled substances after alleging that the company wrongly filled thousands of prescriptions for ADHD medicines such as Adderall. (Swetlitz, 12/16)

Stat: Eli Lilly Diabetes Drug Mounjaro In Short Supply, FDA Says 
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has declared a shortage of Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, the latest diabetes drug to be in short supply. Due to increased demand for the medication, pharmacies may experience delays in receiving full shipments of the 5-milligram dose through January, according to a posting this week on the regulator’s website. (Chen, 12/17)

Stat: Drugmakers Race To Find New Sickle Cell Drugs 
Next year, two curative gene therapies could be approved for sickle cell disease. Yet drugmakers are pouring billions into developing new and more conventional drugs for the disease, even if they are likely to be far less transformative for individual patients. (Mast, 12/19)

Stat: Why Are So Few Patients Taking The New Sickle Cell Drugs? 
At first, Lena Harvey didn’t realize anything had changed. She just started doing strange, unexpected things: Cleaning her living room, for example, or playing with her puppy, a black schnauzer named Apollo. It hit her as she walked in from the patio one day. She looked at her husband, Anthony, and asked, “Honey, I haven’t been complaining about pain, have I?” (Mast, 12/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Fentanyl Awareness Campaign Urges Parents To ‘Drop The F-Bomb’ With Their Kids 
A new campaign from the Ad Council and Meta Platforms Inc. is encouraging parents of teen and young-adult children to speak to them about the dangers of fentanyl. ... The campaign, which is set to roll out Wednesday, includes videos of parents having conversations with children about the risks of fentanyl. In one, a father says he is “about to go drop the F-bomb” with his daughter. The videos will initially appear on Meta social-media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. The Ad Council also aims to expand the campaign beyond Meta platforms, including with digital display ads on other websites. (Graham, 12/13)

NPR: People Dying Of Opioid Overdoses May Get Better Access To Life-Saving Meds
"If somebody has access to these life-saving medications, it cuts their mortality risk by 50 percent," says Dr. Linda Wang, a researcher who treats patients with addiction at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. "It has a huge impact preventing death." But as fatal opioid overdoses surge in the U.S., topping 80,000 deaths last year, access to these medications remains severely limited. (Mann, 12/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Drug Companies Join Medical Psychedelic Movement—But Without The High
Drug developers are designing new psychedelic compounds to treat depression and other mental-health conditions but skip the trip. Mind-bending psychedelics including MDMA (aka “ecstasy”), “magic mushrooms” and LSD are being studied as potential treatments for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction. Dozens of companies and academic laboratories are also making changes to the structure of those drugs, or designing similar compounds, to take advantage of their therapeutic properties without the high. (Hernandez and Abbott, 12/18)

The Boston Globe: ‘It’s An Ugly Year In Health Care’: Hospitals Report Record Losses In 2022
Hospital executives in Massachusetts had hoped 2022 would mark the beginning of their recovery from the financial losses of the past two years. Instead, many experienced their worst financial performance since their modern hospital systems were formed. (Bartlett, 12/16)

Modern Healthcare: Mass General Brigham Eyes Cost Cuts After Annual Loss Of $2B+
Mass General Brigham is the latest health system to have its financial performance take a hit from inflation and workforce issues. As a result, it is looking to cut expenses. (Hudson, 12/16)

NBC News: New York Attorney General Letitia James Sues Owners Of Long Island Nursing Home
New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing the owners of a Long Island nursing home who also have stakes of dozens of other facilities nationwide. It is the third suit she has filed in six weeks alleging financial fraud and abuse of nursing home residents. (Strickler, 12/16)

Stat: Sports Medicine Is Racing To Improve How Injuries Are Treated
Whether they’re in a World Cup match or an Olympic race, injuries can be devastating for elite athletes — particularly when they prove difficult to treat quickly. (Williamson-Lee, 12/17)

The Washington Post: Cyberbullying Affects Almost Half Of American Teens. Parents May Be Unaware.
A new survey about teens and social media shows that nearly half of teens say they have been cyberbullied. In a separate survey administered to a parent of each teen, the adults ranked cyberbullying as sixth out of eight concerns about social media. Their top concern was their child being exposed to explicit content. The survey results, released by Pew this week, aren’t surprising, says to Devorah Heitner, author of “Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World.” “There’s just so much online aggression — aggression because of online disinhibition and the ways that we forget there’s another human being on the other end of the screen.” (Chang, 12/16)

The Wall Street Journal: The Failed Promise Of Online Mental-Health Treatment 
Remote treatment of mental-health problems surged in the pandemic, as in-person treatment became difficult while pandemic-driven isolation increased anxiety and depression. Digital mental-health companies plunged in, promising to provide millions with access to high-quality care by video, phone, and messaging. Many of the businesses, however, put a premium on growth. Investor-backed, they deployed classic Silicon Valley tactics such as spending heavily on advertising and expansion while often using contractors instead of employees to control costs. A strategy designed for mundane businesses such as food delivery, the formula can be badly suited to the sensitive activity of treating mental-health problems. (Winkler, 12/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Problem Gambling Is On The Rise Among Young Men 
Jonathan Jones traces his gambling struggles back to a videogame he played in the fifth grade. Using lunch money or stealing small amounts from his parents, he would buy gaming gift cards and redeem them to spin a virtual wheel of fortune to collect prizes, such as weapons or armor, that could help him win the game, Zu Online, which is now discontinued. He would keep paying to spin again and again, a behavior that he says became compulsive and continued into other games. (Ansberry, 12/18)

Fox News: CDC Investigating Multistate Outbreak Of Norovirus Stemming From Raw Texas Oysters
Eight states are among those impacted by an outbreak of norovirus linked to raw oysters from Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Along with the Lone Star state, others include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee. (Salvatore, 12/18)

NPR: Should You Worry About Lead In Your Dark Chocolate Bar?
Dark chocolate has long been touted as having health benefits. We've been told it can improve our moods, decrease inflammation and even increase blood flow. But some researchers are now warning of heavy metals in some of our favorite dark chocolate bars. (Ahn, 12/17)

The New York Times: Why Many Older Women Are Getting Pap Tests They Don’t Need
“Stopping at 65 is not OK for every woman,” said Sarah Feldman, a gynecologic oncologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the co-author of an editorial accompanying Dr. Qin’s study. Some women are deemed high-risk because of a history of cervical cancer or precancerous lesions, or because of compromised immune systems. These women should continue screening, sometimes for as long as 25 years after a positive test result, Dr. Feldman said. (Span, 12/18)

Axios: What The Health Headlines Told Us About 2022
The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and the baby formula shortage overshadowed the COVID pandemic in generating interest among registered voters this year, per a Morning Consult analysis shared first with Axios. (Reed, 12/19)