First Edition: Feb. 2, 2024

KFF Health News: Possibility Of Wildlife-To-Human Crossover Heightens Concern About Chronic Wasting Disease 
Each fall, millions of hunters across North America make their way into forests and grasslands to kill deer. Over the winter, people chow down on the venison steaks, sausage, and burgers made from the animals. These hunters, however, are not just on the front lines of an American tradition. Infectious disease researchers say they are also on the front lines of what could be a serious threat to public health: chronic wasting disease. (Robbins, 2/2)

KFF Health News: Colorado Legal Settlement Would Up Care And Housing Standards For Trans Women Inmates 
Taliyah Murphy received a letter in early 2018 about a soon-to-be-filed class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of transgender women like her who were housed in men’s prisons in Colorado. It gave her hope. Murphy and other trans women in Colorado had faced years of sexual harassment and often violence from staff members and fellow incarcerated people. They were denied requests for safer housing options and medical treatment, including surgery, for gender dysphoria, the psychological distress that some trans people experience because of the incongruence between their sex assigned at birth and their gender identity, according to the lawsuit. (Clark, 2/2)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': The Struggle Over Who Gets The Last Word 
The Supreme Court in March will hear oral arguments in two very different cases that boil down to the same question: How much power do “experts” in health and science deserve? At stake is the future accessibility of the abortion pill mifepristone, and the ability of government officials to advise social media companies about misinformation. Meanwhile, abortion opponents are preparing action plans in case Donald Trump retakes the White House. While it’s unlikely Congress will have enough votes to pass a national abortion ban, a president can take steps to make abortion far less available, even in states where it remains legal. (2/1)

Axios: U.S. Permanently Eases Some Opioid Treatment Restrictions
Pandemic-era policies that made it easier for patients to receive opioid addiction treatment will continue permanently, the Biden administration announced this week. The changes mark the first time in 20 years the federal government has updated rules governing clinics that provide medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder. (Goldman, 2/2)

CNN: An OxyContin Advertiser Will Pay $350 Million In The First-Ever Opioid Marketing Settlement
For the first time, an advertising company that worked on Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin account has settled a lawsuit that accused it of falsely marketing opioids as safe. Publicis, a French marketing company, agreed to pay $350 million within the next two months and will not take on any more opioid clients, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James. She and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser led the settlement negotiations, which included a consortium of eight other states. (Goldman, 2/1)

The Washington Post: New National Opioid Settlement Adds To D.C. Funds As Overdoses Mount 
The District stands to gain about $600,000 in a national settlement agreement with Publicis Health, D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb said Thursday. Attorneys general from multiple states alleged that the company developed “unfair and deceptive” marketing campaigns aimed at persuading doctors to prescribe the addictive opioid OxyContin for longer periods of time and at higher doses. The funds are part of an estimated $80 million officials expect to flow to the District from multistate settlements. The opioid crisis has killed more than 400 Washingtonians annually for four consecutive years, outpacing the city’s homicide toll. (Portnoy, 2/1)

Military.com: Access To Abortion Drug Is A National Security Issue, Former Top Military Officials Claim In Legal Filing 
Former secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force as well as former high-ranking military service members say that restricting access to mifepristone, the medication used in more than half of all medical abortions in the U.S., would hurt recruitment, military readiness and cause undue harm to national security. In a brief filed to the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of oral arguments March 26 in a case challenging the availability of the drug, former secretaries Louis Caldera of the Army, Ray Mabus of the Navy and Deborah James of the Air Force urged the court to reject any move to limit its access. The three secretaries all served under Democratic administrations. (Kime, 2/1)

Stat: Texas Medical Board Asked To Define Abortion Emergency Exception 
Amid ongoing uncertainty about when abortions are permissible in Texas, the state’s medical board is under growing pressure to issue guidance on what type of emergency qualifies for an exemption from the state’s abortion ban. (Goldhill, 2/2)

The Hill: For First OTC Birth Control Pill, Price A Major Question Mark
The first over-the-counter birth control pill in the U.S. will hit the market soon, and the Biden administration is facing pressure from Democrats and reproductive health groups to make sure it’s affordable.  The manufacturer of Opill says it’s on track to make the drug available sometime during the first quarter of this year, meaning it could be on shelves by March.  (Meyn, 2/2)

Military.com: Pentagon Would Have To Study Difficulties Of Troops And Spouses Getting Maternity Care Under New Bill 
The Defense Department would have to undertake a detailed study of service members' and spouses' access to maternity care within the military health care system under bills being introduced Thursday by a bipartisan group of lawmakers from both chambers of Congress. Lawmakers hope the bills will ultimately improve access to prenatal, birthing and postpartum care for those covered by Tricare amid reports in recent years of women struggling to be seen by an obstetrician. (Kheel, 2/1)

NPR: The EPA Is Proposing That 'Forever Chemicals' Be Considered Hazardous Substances
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing that nine PFAS, also known as "forever chemicals," be categorized as hazardous to human health. The EPA signed a proposal Wednesday that would deem the chemicals "hazardous constituents" under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. For the agency to consider a substance a hazardous constituent, it has to be toxic or cause cancer, genetic mutation or the malformations of an embryo. (Archie, 2/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: CDC Offers Doctors Guidance On Testing For PFAS, ‘Forever Chemicals’
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released new guidance for doctors on how to manage and test patients who may have been exposed to “forever chemicals” — potentially harmful substances found in drinking water, food wrappers, cookware and assorted everyday items that have been linked to high cholesterol, organ damage and other health problems. The new guidance, issued Jan. 18 by the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, marks an expansion of the agency’s previous thinking on how health care providers should address patients’ concerns about exposure to ... PFAS. (Ho, 2/1)

Reuters: Sen. Warren Urges DOJ To Stop 'Abusive' Prison Health Bankruptcy 
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts on Thursday called for the U.S. Department of Justice to do more to stop what she called Corizon Health's "abusive tactics" in bankruptcy. Corizon, a prison healthcare contractor, placed a newly created affiliate, Tehum Care, into bankruptcy in Houston in February 2023 in order to avoid accountability for its "alarming record of patient neglect and malpractice" in prisons across the U.S., Warren said in her letter to DOJ's bankruptcy watchdog, the Office of the U.S. Trustee. (Knauth, 2/1)

The Hill: Durbin Compares Zuckerberg To Tobacco Execs After ‘Outrageous’ Statement 
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Thursday compared Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to the nation’s largest tobacco companies’ executives, who testified before Congress in 1994 that they did not believe tobacco was addictive. In an interview on “CNN This Morning,” Durbin said Zuckerberg made an “outrageous statement” during the Wednesday hearing when he suggested there was no causal link between social media use and negative mental health effects. (Fortinsky, 2/1)

The Washington Post: Online Safety Legislation Is Opposed By Many It Claims To Protect
Lawmakers who grilled the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Discord and X on Wednesday all seemed to agree that protecting children’s safety online was a priority. Many of those children were less accepting of the idea, and they let their opinions flow as they listened to the hearing through a Discord server. “These senators don’t actually care about protecting kids, they just want to control information,” one teenager posted. “If congress wants to protect children, they should pass a ... privacy law,” another teenager said. Others in the server accused the lawmakers of “trying to demonize the CEOs to push their ... bills,” which were often described with profanity. They’re not alone in their opposition to the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill introduced in Congress by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D‑Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R‑Tenn.), and similar efforts by state legislatures. (Lorenz, 2/1)

Axios: Study Points To An Easy Way To Reduce Hospital Infections
A simple switch in disinfectants used on patients' skin before surgery can prevent thousands of in-hospital infections each year, a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests. Hospital-acquired infections kill tens of thousands annually, sicken many more and cost billions — and they're often preventable through measures like disinfecting surgical sites. (Reed, 2/2)

Stat: Updated Covid Vaccine Has 54% Effectiveness, New Study Suggests
New data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that the most recent Covid-19 booster offers about 54% percent protection against infection with the virus. (Branswell, 2/1)

CIDRAP: Among SARS-CoV-2 Variants, Beta Had Highest Death Rate, Meta-Analysis Suggests
A global meta-analysis published yesterday in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases estimates that the deadliest SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern (VOC) was Beta, followed by Gamma, Alpha, Delta, and Omicron, with variant-specific case-fatality rates (CFRs) ranging from 0.7% to 4.2%.While the CFR for Omicron was lowest, a French study late last year revealed that it was still four time higher than for seasonal flu. (Van Beusekom, 2/1)

Roll Call: Vaccine Skepticism, Equity Issues Hinder Cervical Cancer Fight
Cervical cancer is the only cancer that is vaccine-preventable and curable, but the United States is lagging in its efforts to meet the World Health Organization’s 2030 targets to effectively eliminate the disease. A mix of low vaccination uptake — just 61.7 percent of U.S. teenage girls were up to date on their HPV vaccine doses in 2022, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey — combined with health equity issues have hobbled U.S. efforts to end the disease. (Cohen, 2/1)

Axios: FDA Revisits Pulse Oximeters Debate Over Accuracy In Dark Skin
A Food and Drug Administration expert panel on Friday is set to resume the pandemic-driven debate over how to make pulse oximeters more accurate for people with darker skin. There's growing evidence that the devices don't reliably detect low oxygen levels in Black patients, resulting in delayed care, missed diagnoses of hypoxemia and possibly worse outcomes. (Bettelheim and Reed, 2/2)

NBC News: Black Women Under 35 With High Blood Pressure May Have Triple The Risk Of Stroke, Study Says
Black women who develop high blood pressure before age 35 may have triple the risk of having a stroke by middle age, new data suggests. The findings come as the medical community has noted with concern that the rates of stroke are increasing among middle-aged adults, while stroke rates in older individuals have been steadily decreasing over decades, according to lead study author Dr. Hugo Aparicio, an associate professor of neurology at Boston University. The study will be presented next week at the American Stroke Association’s international conference in Phoenix. (Bellamy, 2/1)

San Francisco Chronicle: Why Do More Women Get Autoimmune Diseases? Stanford Study Finds A Clue
Women have long been far more vulnerable to autoimmune diseases than men, accounting for about 80% of the more than 24 million Americans afflicted with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and other debilitating disorders. A new Stanford study, published Thursday in the journal Cell, offers one potential explanation: a gene on the second X chromosome, which only women have, can “leak” out of its rightful place in the cell and get spotted by the body’s antibodies, which see it as a threat and attack it. This type of interaction in the body — when your antibodies attack your own tissue — is a symptom of autoimmune diseases. (Ho, 2/1)

Modern Healthcare: Tenet Healthcare To Sell 4 Hospitals To UCI Health
Tenet Healthcare plans to sell four of its hospitals in Southern California and related outpatient locations to University of California Irvine's health system for $975 million. Under the definitive agreement announced Thursday, Lakewood Regional Medical Center, Los Alamitos Medical Center, Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center and Placentia Linda Hospital, along with their adjoining outpatient facilities, would join UCI Health. The facilities would use Dallas-based Tenet subsidiary Conifer Health Solutions as their revenue cycle management service. (DeSilva, 2/1)

Modern Healthcare: Tenet Healthcare, Novant Health Close $2.4B Deal
Tenet Healthcare closed a $2.4 billion deal to sell Novant Health three hospitals, 27 physician clinics, an outpatient center and a free-standing emergency department in South Carolina. East Cooper Medical Center in Mount Pleasant, Coastal Carolina Hospital in Hardeeville and Hilton Head Hospital on Hilton Head Island, along with their connecting clinics and facilities, were part of the transaction, nonprofit Novant Health said Thursday. (DeSilva, 2/1)

Modern Healthcare: Rising Medicare Advantage Costs Pinch Humana, Aetna, Cano Health  
Runaway medical expenses are hurting Medicare Advantage plan, risk-bearing provider and digital health company finances, leading investors and insurers to question their positions in the market. Large insurers UnitedHealthcare, Humana and Aetna have begun to warn investors and regulators that higher-than-anticipated utilization in Medicare Advantage mean they may miss their financial targets for 2023 and that profitability may be squeezed this year. (Tepper, 2/1)

AP: After Washington State Lawsuit, Providence Health System Erases Or Refunds $158M In Medical Bills 
Providence health care system is refunding nearly $21 million in medical bills paid by low-income residents of Washington — and it’s erasing $137 million more in outstanding debt for tens of thousands of others — to settle the state’s allegations that it overcharged those patients and then used aggressive collection tactics when they failed to pay. The announcement Thursday came just weeks before Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s case was set for trial against Providence Health and Services, which operates 14 hospitals in Washington under the Providence, Swedish and Kadlec names. (Johnson, 2/1)

Minnesota Public Radio: Report: MinnesotaCare Expansion Could Cost Up To $364 Million Annually, Enroll 151,000 More People
State-subsidized MinnesotaCare insurance is currently available only to people under a certain income limit, but some state legislators want to open the program up to anyone. The Minnesota Department of Commerce released a report Thursday laying out the costs for a potential expansion of the state’s public health insurance program. The report says an expansion could cost the state up to $364 million annually and enroll up to 151,000 more people in the program. (Timar-Wilcox, 2/1)

Iowa Public Radio: Bill Would Require Additional Oversight And Regulation Of Temporary Medical Staffing Agencies
As Iowa's nursing homes and hospitals struggle with chronic staffing shortages, lawmakers have advanced a bill that would put additional regulations and oversight on health care agencies that supply temporary medical staff. The bill, which passed a House Health and Human Services subcommittee on Thursday, would require staffing agencies to register with the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, which would oversee new requirements such as a wage cap that limits the amount temporary workers can make. (Krebs, 2/1)

Fox News: Tennessee Dem Introduces Bill For 'Thoughts And Prayers Tax' On Firearm Sales
"Tongue-in-cheek, I made it AR-15 percent," Mitchell told WKRN. "I call it the ‘Thoughts and Prayers Tax.’ If we’re going to do nothing else in this state, we’re going to put this taxation into a fund to fund K through 12 mental health counselors for our children." "If we don’t solve this problem, we’re going to need a lot more mental health counselors in our schools, either for the school shooting or for the children who go home, and the guns are unsecured at home, and they either shoot themselves or their neighbors’ children. It’s either we act and do something, or we’re going to have to start taxing to pay for the other problem it’s causing," he added. (Hagstrom, 2/1)

Los Angeles Times: This Social Service Hotline You've Never Heard Of Could Help Pinpoint California's Next Big Crisis 
Months before the 2022 baby formula shortage drew congressional attention, operators at the nation’s 211 social service hotlines noticed an uptick in low-income parents pleading for help feeding their infants. A decade earlier, before the mortgage crisis crippled the country’s largest banks, 211 hotlines were jammed with people unable to make house payments. Anyone monitoring the hotlines in more recent months would have seen California’s homeless crisis was spreading to other states, as callers were riven with anxiety over eviction notices. (Bierman and LeMee, 2/1)

Military.com: Army Eyes Privatized Barracks As It Struggles To Find A Solution To Poor Living Conditions For Soldiers 
The Army is hoping privatization can fix the myriad quality-of-life issues facing its barracks, at least partly because it has few other ideas. In December, key service leaders had a barracks summit to draw up plans to get soldier housing back up to standards following months of media reports on rampant mold and other problems, as well as a damning federal watchdog report detailing squalid conditions in military rank-and-file base housing. (Beynon, 2/1)

AP: Getting A Dental X-Ray? A New Recommendation Says You Don't Need A Lead Apron
Those heavy lead aprons may be on their way out at the dentist office, depending on where you live. The nation’s largest dental association said Thursday it will no longer recommend the use of lead aprons and thyroid collars on patients who are getting dental X-rays. There are two main reasons for the change. X-ray beams are now more focused, so there is less concern about radiation hitting other parts of the body. Also, the aprons and collars can sometimes block dentists from getting the images they need. (Shastri, 2/1)

Fox News: Marijuana Use Linked To Increased Asthma Risk In Youth, Says Study: ‘Worrisome' Health Implications 
Where there’s smoke, there’s … asthma? That’s the concern among some experts, as a recent study from the City University of New York (CUNY) identified a link between cannabis legalization and asthma among kids and teens. The research, published in the journal Preventive Medicine in its Feb. 2024 issue, found that in states where marijuana is legal, the share of teens with asthma is slightly higher than in states where it remains illegal. The recreational use of cannabis is now legalized in 24 states. (Rudy, 2/1)

Fox News: NIH Awards $200K For Researchers To Create Transgender Voice Training App
The National Institute of Health (NIH) has awarded over $200,000 to researchers to create a "transgender voice training" app that aims, in part, to help trans women sound more feminine. ... "Transgender and gender diverse people exhibit a significantly lower quality of life than the general public," according to an abstract of the study first reported by The College Fix. "One reason for this is voice dysphoria: distress because a person’s voice does not match their gender identity (e.g., trans women with deep voices)." (Tietz, 2/1)

Reuters: Judge Certifies Class Action Challenging ChapStick 'All Natural' Labels 
A lawsuit accusing a former GlaxoSmithKline unit and Pfizer of misleading consumers by marketing some ChapStick products as “all natural” and "naturally sourced" even though they allegedly contain synthetic or highly processed ingredients can move ahead as a class action, a California federal judge has ruled. (Mindock, 2/1)

Stat: Adopting New Red Light Myopia Treatments May Be Short-Sighted
Myopia, or near-sightedness, is on the rise: Nearly half of the world’s population will be nearsighted by 2050, according to the World Health Organization. The condition is increasingly common among children in particular, which ophthalmologists attribute to a combination of less time spent outdoors and more time spent with iPads and iPhones. (Merelli, 2/2)

The Hill: 123 Passengers Sickened Aboard Cruise Ship: CDC 
More than 100 passengers and crew aboard a Queen Victoria cruise ship have fallen sick with a gastrointestinal illness, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported. The Cunard Cruise Line ship departed on Jan. 22 and is set to return on Feb. 12, the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) said. According to ABC News, the cruise departed Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and is scheduled to go to San Francisco before ending in Honolulu. (Irwin, 2/1)