First Edition: Dec. 9, 2022

KHN: Hospital Financial Decisions Play A Role In The Critical Shortage Of Pediatric Beds For RSV Patients
The dire shortage of pediatric hospital beds plaguing the nation this fall is a byproduct of financial decisions made by hospitals over the past decade, as they shuttered children’s wards, which often operate in the red, and expanded the number of beds available for more profitable endeavors like joint replacements and cancer care. To cope with the flood of young patients sickened by a sweeping convergence of nasty bugs — especially respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, and coronavirus — medical centers nationwide have deployed triage tents, delayed elective surgeries, and transferred critically ill children out of state. (Szabo, 12/9)

KHN: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: He Made A Video About Health Insurance Terminology That Went Viral 
A 30-minute video about health insurance terminology has racked up more than a million views. Host Dan Weissmann spoke with Brian David Gilbert, the person behind the video. (Weissmann, 12/9)

KHN: To Attract In-Home Caregivers, California Offers Paid Training — And Self-Care
One November afternoon, Chris Espedal asked a group of caregivers — all of whom work with people who have cognitive impairments, behavioral health issues, or complex physical needs — to describe what happens when their work becomes too much to bear. The participants, 13 caregivers from all over California, who had gathered in a Zoom room, said they experienced nausea, anxiety, shortness of breath, elevated heart rates, and other telltale signs of stress. “I want to scream!” one called out. “I feel exhausted,” said another. (Udesky, 12/9)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Congress Races The Clock 
The lame-duck Congress is making slow progress on its long to-do-before-the-end-of-the-year list. Democrats agreed to lift the covid-19 vaccine mandate for the military as part of the big defense authorization bill, but efforts to ease federal restrictions on marijuana didn’t succeed. Meanwhile, the fight against high drug prices has spread to employers, which are trying a variety of strategies to spend less on prescription drugs while still giving workers access to needed medications. (12/8)

The New York Times: House Passes $858 Billion Defense Bill Repealing Vaccine Mandate For Troops
The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed an $858 billion defense policy bill that would rescind the Pentagon’s mandate that troops receive the coronavirus vaccine, pushing past the objections of the Biden administration as lawmakers in both parties united behind another huge increase in military spending. The legislation, negotiated by Republicans and Democrats in both chambers of Congress, would grant a 4.6 percent raise to military personnel and increase the Pentagon’s budget by $45 billion over President Biden’s request, providing $800 million in new security aid to Ukraine and billions to Taiwan. It also includes changes sought by lawmakers to the military’s policy for handling sexual assault cases, a major victory that had long eluded its proponents. (Edmondson, 12/8)

Houston Chronicle: House Sends Same-Sex Marriage Bill To Biden Over Texas GOP Opposition
Democrats and LGBTQ advocates say the legislation is especially important in Texas, where laws banning same-sex marriage and sodomy remain on the books, where the state GOP has written opposition to same-sex relationships into its party platform, and where Republican lawmakers are expected to push against LGBTQ rights in a significant way in the upcoming legislative session. (Wermund, 12/8)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Judge Tosses First Lawsuit Of 'Bounty Hunter' Abortion Law
In the first test of the Texas law that empowers private citizens to sue for a minimum of $10,000 in damages over any illegal abortion they discover, a state judge Thursday dismissed a case against a San Antonio abortion provider, finding that the state constitution requires proof of injury as grounds to file a suit. (Goldenstein, 12/8)

AP: Indiana Doctor Drops Lawsuit Against Attorney General 
An Indiana doctor has dropped a lawsuit that aimed to halt the state’s attorney general from investigating her after she provided an abortion to a 10-year-old Ohio child who was raped. Lawyers for Dr. Caitlin Bernard of Indianapolis voluntarily nixed the lawsuit filed last month against Indiana Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita, according to court filings Thursday. The lawsuit argued Rokita’s office was wrongly justifying the investigation with “frivolous” consumer complaints submitted by people with no personal knowledge about the girl’s treatment. (Rodgers, 12/8)

Reuters: FDA Rule Mandating Graphic Warnings On Cigarettes Blocked By Judge
A federal judge has blocked a U.S. Food and Drug Administration rule requiring graphic health warnings on cigarette packages and in cigarette advertisements that had been challenged by cigarette companies. U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in Tyler, Texas, on Wednesday found that the rule, which was to take effect next October, violated the companies' rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by compelling speech. (Pierson, 12/8)

The Washington Post: FDA Approves Updated Coronavirus Shots For Young Children 
Federal regulators Thursday authorized an updated booster shot of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine for young children, saying the inoculation would offer increased protection amid a wave of respiratory illnesses that is increasing peril for youngsters. This means the youngest Americans will have access to variant-targeting boosters already available to older children and adults. The Food and Drug Administration, in a statement, said children 6 months through 5 years old would be eligible for the booster — known as a “bivalent” shot targeting the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 and the original version of the virus — two months after they had completed Moderna’s two-dose primary series. (McGinley, 12/8)

ABC News: New COVID Booster Authorization Will Sway Parents To Get Young Kids Vaccinated, FDA Vaccine Chief Hopes
Dr. Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine chief, said he is well aware that COVID-19 booster uptake might be low for the latest shot, authorized by the government on Thursday morning for young children over 6 months old, but he told ABC News that he's hopeful increased access may also lead to some kids getting greater protection against the virus ahead of the winter, when infections can be more likely. (Haslett, 12/9)

Politico: FDA Greenlights Bivalent Vaccines For Children As Young As 6 Months Old 
The agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was slated to meet Friday, however the meeting — which did not have an agenda disclosed — has been postponed, according to the committee’s website. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is expected to endorse the FDA emergency use authorization. (Lim and Gardner, 12/8)

CIDRAP: Antivirals—Not Monoclonal Antibodies—Neutralize Omicron BQ.1.1, XBB 
The Omicron BQ.1.1 and XBB SARS-CoV-2 subvariants evade the monoclonal antibodies imdevimab, casirivimab, tixagevimab, cilgavimab, bebtelovimab, and S309—but not the antiviral drugs remdesivir, molnupiravir, and nirmatrelvir (Paxlovid), according to a research letter published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Van Beusekom, 12/8)

The New York Times: The Covid Pandemic’s Hidden Casualties: Pregnant Women 
Of all the groups still threatened by Covid-19 — including the elderly and the immunocompromised — it is pregnant women who seem the most unaware of the risks. Covid can kill pregnant women and can result in miscarriage, preterm births and stillbirths even when the women have asymptomatic or mild illness. The infection may also affect the baby’s brain development. (Mandavilli, 12/8)

Stat: Walensky: CDC Needs Congress To Help It Collect Public Health Data
The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention needs Congress to help it collect more data from state, local, and tribal public health departments, Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday evening. (Cohrs, 12/8)

CNN: Hospitals In The US Are The Fullest They've Been Throughout The Pandemic -- But It's Not Just Covid
Hospitals are more full than they’ve been throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a CNN analysis of data from the US Department of Health and Human Services. But as respiratory virus season surges across the US, it’s much more than Covid that’s filling beds this year. More than 80% of hospital beds are in use nationwide, jumping 8 percentage points in the past two weeks. (McPhillips, 12/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID In California: L.A. Braces For New Mask Mandate Amid ‘High’ Virus Levels
Los Angeles County is one step closer to reinstating a universal indoor mask mandate as the region has slipped back into the “high” COVID-19 community level, according to metrics used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer has indicated that the county will bring back the requirement if the region’s coronavirus-positive hospitalization rates continue to rise in that tier. (Vaziri, 12/8)

Stat: Mpox Vaccine Provided Strong Protection, CDC Data Show
People who received one or two doses of mpox vaccine contracted the infection at substantially lower rates than unvaccinated people, a study published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested. (Branswell, 12/8)

CIDRAP: Studies Show Efficacy, Safety Of Jynneos Vaccine Against Mpox 
In the first study, researcher show mpox cases were 9.6 times higher among unvaccinated men compared to those who had received two vaccine doses, and 7.4 times higher than in those who had received only the first dose. ... In the second study, safety monitoring of the Jynneos vaccine was gathered after 1 million doses in the United States, administered from May 22 to Oct 21. Only 14 reports were classified as serious. (Soucheray, 12/8)

AP: Pausing Breast Cancer Treatment For Pregnancy Appears Safe 
Young women diagnosed with breast cancer often must delay pregnancy for years while they take hormone-blocking pills. A reassuring new study finds they can take a two-year break from these drugs to get pregnant without raising their short-term risk of cancer coming back. “This is really good news for young women and their doctors and their families,” said Dr. Ann Partridge of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, who led the study. Results were being discussed Thursday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. (Johnson, 12/8)

Reuters: Bacteria Behind Certain Bloodstream Infections Grew Highly Drug-Resistant In 2020 - WHO 
High levels of drug resistance in bacteria that often cause bloodstream infections in hospitals emerged in the first year of the pandemic, a World Health Organization report based on data from 87 countries in 2020 has found. (Grover, 12/9)

Stat: Medicare Chief: ‘Door Is Really Open’ On Alzheimer’s Drugs Coverage
Medicare is willing to reevaluate its coverage of Alzheimer’s drugs in light of a new therapy, called lecanemab, that has shown potentially more promising patient data than its controversial predecessor, Aduhelm, according to the official who oversees the program. (Herman, 12/8)

Reuters: FDA Approves First Oral Treatment For Cats With A Type Of Diabetes
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday approved Elanco Animal Health Inc's drug for cats with a type of diabetes, making it the first oral drug to be approved for the disease in animals. Bexacat helps improve glycemic control in otherwise healthy cats with diabetes mellitus not previously treated with insulin. (Roy, 12/8)

Modern Healthcare: Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug, Employer-Backed Company Ink Partnership
The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. and the Purchaser Business Group on Health's EmansaRx are partnering to provide discounted prescription drugs to self-insured employers. (Kacik, 12/8)

Crain's Detroit Business: University Of Michigan Michigan Medicine To Buy Sparrow Health
University of Michigan's Michigan Medicine is expected to approve on Thursday a deal that will allow the university hospital to acquire the state's seventh largest health system, Lansing-based Sparrow Health, Crain's learned from a UM official close to the deal. Terms of the transaction were not immediately known, but it's expected to be a member-swap agreement. (Walsh and Eggert, 12/8)

Crain's Cleveland Business: Canon Healthcare USA In Ohio Will Draw $300M Investment
Tech giant Canon Inc. is gearing up to make Cleveland the home of a U.S.-based medical imaging unit that would significantly expand the company's research and development efforts in the country. (Suttell, 12/8)

The Boston Globe: Cardiologist Sues Cape Cod Hospital, Alleging He Was Dismissed For Raising Ethical, Safety Concerns
A former Cape Cod Hospital cardiologist says he was dismissed and defamed after raising concerns about botched surgeries and poor ethical practices at the hospital. In a lawsuit filed in Barnstable Superior Court on Tuesday against the hospital and its CEO, Dr. Richard Zelman alleged that the hospital prioritized profits over patient safety and public health. (Bartlett, 12/8)

USA Today: How Fentanyl Drugmaker Insys Bribed Doctors To Prescribe Potent Subsys
With two weeks to go in the year, Alec Burlakoff dashed off an urgent email to sales representative Daniel Tondre. Tondre was assigned to a pain specialist in Sarasota, Florida, who was one of the most prolific prescribers of the potent fentanyl spray called Subsys. And Insys Therapeutics sales executive Burlakoff wanted the doctor, Steven Chun, to prescribe more of the addictive and potentially deadly drug to meet his company’s goal. (Alltucker, 12/8)

The Colorado Sun: Colorado Maternity Wards Are Giving Out Take-Home Naloxone
A Colorado doctor and a pharmacist set off on a mission about a year ago to change hospital policy statewide, a monumental effort to save people from dying in the escalating opioid crisis that took 1,258 lives in 2021. It took some educating, and a few changes in state law, but every single hospital emergency department in Colorado — all 108 of them — agreed to offer take-home doses of naloxone to any patient treated for an overdose. Now, in its second year, the Colorado Naloxone Project is focusing its efforts on distributing the life-saving opioid antidote to another part of the hospital: labor and delivery units. (Brown, 12/8)

AP: Kentucky Hospital To Pay $4M For Opioid Recordkeeping Claims 
A Kentucky hospital system will pay a $4.4 million civil penalty for faulty recordkeeping that enabled a pharmacy technician to divert 60,000 doses of opioids, federal prosecutors announced. ... Prosecutors said a failure to maintain accurate and complete inventories and dispensing records enabled Kayla Nicole White Perry, then a pharmacy technician at the hospital, to divert more than 60,000 doses of oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone from the hospital system’s narcotics vault and Pyxis MedStations from January 2016 through early September 2018. (12/8)

Newsweek: Lethal Injections Are To Blame For Over 100 Botched Executions In America
A total of 1,377 inmates have been put to death with a lethal injection in the past 40 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). In those four decades, experts told Newsweek that at least 100 inmates have endured botched procedures. (Rahman, 12/8)

The Boston Globe: After Dozens Of Children At Local Hospital Test Positive For Bacteria, Tap Water Found To Be The Source
Franciscan Children’s hospital is restricting the use of tap water after discovering another occurrence of a potentially harmful bacteria that it first detected in 2019. Since Nov. 22, the Brighton hospital has not allowed anyone located in two areas of the pediatric rehab facility to consume tap water, after detecting the presence of the bacteria in two water sources. On Monday, it allowed staff to resume using water from now-filtered taps to bathe children. (Bartlett, 12/8)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Issues Oyster Recall, Orders Galveston Bay Fishery To Close Following Illness Reports
Texas health officials on Thursday ordered a recall of oysters harvested from a fishery in Galveston Bay after linking those oysters to dozens of illnesses across the area in recent weeks. Public health officials closed the TX 1 harvest area on Wednesday amid reports the oysters may have caused consumers stomach issues. (González Kelly, 12/8)

CNN: Why This Predominantly Republican County In Southern California Is Declaring Racism A Public Health Crisis 
Andrew Do was afraid to play sports his last two years of high school. “I didn’t want to walk home alone after practices and be harassed, and beat up, and strangled,” he said in an interview with CNN. After law school, while out running for exercise, he said motorists would throw bottles and batteries at him. His constant fear: violent racism, “extreme hostility,” and physical assault. (Campbell, 12/8)

NBC News: Just A Couple Minutes Of Vigorous Activity Several Times A Day Might Lower One's Risk Of Death
Just one to two minutes of such activity three to four times daily, the results showed, was associated with an up to 40% lower risk of death over the course of seven years, relative to the people who did not engage in any vigorous activity. The risk of dying from heart disease was reduced even further: up to 49%. (Bendix, 12/8)

The Washington Post: Heart Attacks And Fatty Foods: Pity The Sports Fan Whose Team Loses
It’s not easy being a sports fan. Major sporting events often are linked with heart attacks, high stress, over-drinking and unhealthy eating habits. ... During the 2006 World Cup in Germany, researchers studied the relationships between emotional stress and cardiovascular events. ... They found that, overall, viewing a stressful soccer match more than doubles the risk of an acute cardiovascular event. The risk was greater for men, who were 3.3 times as likely to have a heart event on a match day than at other times. For women’s sports fans, the risk was 1.82 times higher. (Parker-Pope, 12/8)

The Colorado Sun: How Bad Are Public Toilets? Terrifying, CU Boulder Researchers Say
Intrepid and iron-stomached researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder are using laser light and green dye to show the cloud of aerosols that erupts when you flush a high-powered public toilet. It’s almost beautiful. But it’s definitely not pretty. Toilet plumes emit a cloud at once putrid and pathogenic. (Booth, 12/9)