First Edition: Jan. 11, 2024

KFF Health News: Hoping To Clear The Air In Casinos, Workers Seek To Ban Tobacco Smoke 
The instant Tammy Brady felt the lump in her breast in February 2022, she knew it was cancer. With no known genetic predisposition for breast cancer, she suspects 38 years of working in smoky Atlantic City casinos played a role. “I was just trying to make a living,” said Brady, 56, a dealer and supervisor at Borgata in that New Jersey resort city. “You don’t think, you know, that you’re going to get sick at your job.” (West, 1/11)

KFF Health News: Delays In State Contracts Leave Montana Health Providers Strapped
Montana health organizations say a state government backlog in paying its contractors has hindered their ability to provide care, and they worry the bottleneck’s ripple effects will be felt long after the money comes through. Several organizations waiting for contracts to be approved and funding to arrive said that more than 200 private and public contractors across the state government were affected at one point. Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services officials acknowledged the delays but would not confirm the total number of contracts affected. (Houghton, 1/11)

KFF Health News: Delicate Labor-Industry Deal In Flux As Newsom Revisits $25 Minimum Health Wage 
Gov. Gavin Newsom is revisiting California’s phase-in of a nation-leading $25 minimum wage for health workers in the face of a projected $38 billion deficit, less than three months after he approved the measure. But renegotiating wages could threaten a delicate compromise between unions and the health industry. Newsom, whose administration initially opposed the wage deal as too costly, signed the bill, SB 525, into law without knowing the final price tag. His Democratic administration now projects the first-year cost to be $4 billion, though that number has been questioned by labor leaders. (Thompson, 1/11)

The New York Times: More Than 20 Million People Have Signed Up For Obamacare Plans, Blowing By Record 
More than 20 million people have signed up for plans on the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces during the annual open enrollment period, far surpassing last year’s record of more than 16 million enrollments, the Biden administration announced on Wednesday. The figures were a landmark moment for the 2010 health law, underscoring the significance of enhanced subsidies for Americans and the continuing reach of the marketplaces after years of Republican efforts to whittle them down. “The Affordable Care Act is more popular than ever,” President Biden said in a statement. (Weiland, 1/10)

The Hill: Obamacare Enrollment Breaks Record For Third Consecutive Year 
Health insurance enrollment through the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) insurance marketplace has reached a record for the third consecutive year, according to the latest update from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The CMS said in a statement Wednesday that enrollment for 2024 ACA plans had broken 20 million so far, with just less than a week left for people to sign up for plans. This exceeds 2023’s enrollment — 16.3 million — by roughly 4 million people. (Choi, 1/10)

The New York Times: WIC Food Assistance For Mothers And Children Faces Funding Shortfall 
For the first time in decades, many states could begin turning away eligible applicants from an assistance program that provides low-income women and their children critical access to food. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, a federally funded program known as WIC, has traditionally received bipartisan support from lawmakers. But the broader push for spending cuts among some House Republicans has threatened the program’s ability to provide benefits to every eligible person who applies. Lawmakers are running up against a Jan. 19 deadline to extend funding. (Ngo, 1/10)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Turns Down $350M In Summer Food Assistance For Children
Texas is passing up nearly $350 million in federal aid to help feed millions of low-income children during the summer months after a state agency said it lacked the time and resources to implement the program this year. Summer EBT, a new U.S. Department of Agriculture program approved by Congress in 2022, will provide families in participating states with funds to buy groceries to fill the void when their children are not receiving meals at school. ... Texas is among a minority of 16 states not participating. (Goldenstein, 1/10)

The Washington Post: Congress Nears Deal To Partially Restore Biden’s Expanded Child Tax Credit
Congressional lawmakers are closing in on a deal that would partially revive President Biden’s expanded tax credit for lower-income families in exchange for extending tax incentives favored by business interests, according to two people familiar with the matter. The higher child tax credit for lower-income families took effect in 2021 but expired that same year amid GOP opposition. Since then, Democrats have sought to bring back the higher credit, which they say pulled millions of lower-income families out of poverty. (Bogage and Stein, 1/10)

Stat: New Medicare Drug Pricing Powers Could Soon Be Upended In Court 
Pharmaceutical companies’ efforts to scuttle President Biden’s signature health care achievement, empowering Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, will soon face their first big tests. District court judges could soon weigh in on the litany of court cases that major companies filed against the government — shedding light on whether drugmakers have any hope of postponing the first parts of the negotiation process, scrapping it entirely, or sending the issue up to the Supreme Court. (Cohrs, 1/11)

Stat: Doctors On The Psychiatric Bible, The DSM-5, Got $14M From Industry
Amid ongoing concerns over conflicts of interest, a new study found that 60% of the physicians who served as panel and task force members for the American Psychiatric Association’s official manual of psychiatric disorders received payments from industry totaling more than $14 million. And the authors argue the findings raise questions about the editorial independence of the reference book. (Silverman, 1/10)

The New York Times: U.S. Diet Panel Adds Another Researcher With Alcohol Industry Ties
Shortly after dropping two Harvard scientists with financial conflicts of interest, the national organization assembling a committee to assess the evidence about drinking and health has chosen four new panelists, among them another Harvard professor who also has financial ties to the alcohol industry. The committee’s work, under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, will be used to update the federal government’s dietary guidelines, which advise Americans on nutrition and diet, including how much they should or should not drink. (Rabin, 1/10)

The New York Times: Lloyd Austin’s Hidden Diagnosis: Why Some People Keep Serious Illnesses Private 
There are many reasons people might opt to keep their illness to themselves in certain contexts, experts said, but some are more common than others. Privacy can be a coping strategy, said Dr. Itai Danovitch, chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, particularly in the early days following a diagnosis, when patients are deluged with new information. “There are different strategies we use to try and control things that are uncontrollable,” he explained. “One common mechanism that we use is to compartmentalize.” Though compartmentalization, or keeping certain thoughts and emotions separate, is often maligned, it is adaptive, Dr. Danovitch said. For instance, it can help people to stay focused professionally even when illness is causing significant stress. (Pearson, 1/10)

Roll Call: Pressure Mounting On Austin As GOP Senators Launch Inquiry 
As the ramifications of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s failure to disclose his cancer surgery and subsequent hospitalization continued to reverberate through Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Senate Republicans opened a new inquiry into the matter, but lawmakers largely fell short of calling for his removal. (Satter, 1/10)

AP: Nearly 10,000 Died From COVID-19 Last Month, WHO Says
The head of the U.N. health agency said Wednesday holiday gatherings and the spread of the most prominent variant globally led to increased transmission of COVID-19 last month. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly 10,000 deaths were reported in December, while hospital admissions during the month jumped 42% in nearly 50 countries — mostly in Europe and the Americas — that shared such trend information. “Although 10,000 deaths a month is far less than the peak of the pandemic, this level of preventable deaths is not acceptable,” the World Health Organization director-general told reporters from its headquarters in Geneva. (1/10)

Stat: Fauci’s Covid Grilling Leads GOP To Weigh Foreign Research Rules
House Republicans want to explore tighter inspection and safety requirements for infectious disease work done in foreign labs, following a two-day grilling of former top health official Anthony Fauci. (Owermohle, 1/10)

The Hill: DeSantis Promises To ‘Bring A Reckoning’ To Fauci
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday promised to “bring a reckoning” to former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci if DeSantis is elected to the White House. “We cannot allow Anthony Fauci to escape accountability,” DeSantis wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “I am the only candidate who will bring a reckoning for what tyrants like Fauci did to our country during COVID.” (Suter, 1/10)

WUSF: USF Is Studying How Coronavirus Spreads Between Humans And Animals
Scientists with the University of South Florida in Tampa want to learn more about how the coronavirus spreads between humans and wildlife. They’re involved in a national study funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (Colombini, 1/10)

Reuters: Oxford Starts Human Testing Of Nipah Virus Vaccine
The University of Oxford said on Thursday it had begun human testing of an experimental vaccine against the brain-swelling Nipah virus that led to outbreaks in India's Kerala state and other parts of Asia. There is no vaccine yet for the deadly virus. Nipah was first identified about 25 years ago in Malaysia and has led to outbreaks in Bangladesh, India and Singapore. The first participants in the Oxford trial received doses of the vaccine over the last week. (1/10)

Chicago Tribune: Illinois Abortions Surged The Year Roe Fell, State Says
More than 56,000 abortions were performed in Illinois the year the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, marking the most pregnancy terminations statewide since the mid-1990s, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health’s annual abortion statistics report. The rise in abortions that year was driven by a roughly 49% spike in out-of-state patients: Nearly 17,000 people came from other states to Illinois to terminate a pregnancy in 2022 compared with roughly 11,000 abortion seekers who traveled from other states in 2021, the data showed. (Lourgos, 1/10)

WLRN 91.3 FM and Reveal: How Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers In Florida Get Taxpayer Funds With Almost No Oversight
To understand the problems with Florida’s oversight of anti-abortion pregnancy centers, you don’t have to look much further than Mary’s Pregnancy Resource Center, north of Miami. The crisis pregnancy center in Broward County steered women away from abortion while providing free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds and parenting classes. (Morel and Daly, 1/10)

Houston Chronicle: Lawyers: Anti-Abortion Language Comes Up Again In 5th Circuit Ruling
When the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that Texas physicians are not required to perform life-saving abortions, the judges used an unusual legal interpretation of a federal emergency care law, according to scholars. The court’s opinion, authored by former President Donald Trump-appointed Judge Kurt Engelhardt, said the federal law obligates doctors to treat both a fetus and the pregnant patient because the law includes the term “unborn child.” ... But that reading strays from the federal law’s original purpose, lawyers say. (Gill, 1/10)

The Boston Globe: Majority Of Likely N.H. Voters Say Abortion Factors Into Vote
With just two weeks to go before the state’s presidential primary, a new poll of likely voters in New Hampshire suggests abortion will directly impact how they vote. Fifty-five percent of the 1,000 voters surveyed said their opposition to the Supreme Court overturning the federal right to an abortion is “the main” or “among” the factors motivating their vote, according to the poll by Suffolk University, The Boston Globe, and USA TODAY. (Villa de Petrzelka, 1/10)

North Carolina Health News: NC Pharmacists Step Up To Provide Contraception Services
At least 1,309 pharmacists in 91 counties across North Carolina have trained over the past two years to prescribe hormonal contraception to consumers who walk into their pharmacies. They also are confirmed as providers with the state’s Board of Pharmacy. (Crumpler, 1/11)

Politico: Ohio House Overrides Governor On Transgender Health Care Legislation
The Ohio House of Representatives voted Wednesday to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill targeting gender-affirming care for transgender youths and the participation of transgender girls in middle school and high school sports. The override of House Bill 68, titled the “Saving Adolescents From Experimentation Act,” passed 65-28, above the three-fifths threshold to overcome a gubernatorial veto. The vote was along party lines and closely mirrored the original vote to pass the measure. The bill now heads to the Ohio Senate, which will next convene on Jan. 24. (Zhu and Bazail-Eimil, 1/10)

Axios: Gender Dysphoria Diagnoses Are Rising Nationwide
Gender dysphoria diagnoses rose in nearly every U.S. state between 2018 and 2022, per a new Definitive Healthcare report. They fell only in South Dakota, which last year became the sixth state to restrict gender-affirming care for minors. The nearly nationwide increases suggest growing demand for gender-affirming care, even amid efforts in many states to restrict access. (Fitzpatrick and Beheraj, 1/11)

The New York Times: ‘Gas-Station Heroin’ Sold As Dietary Supplement Alarms Health Officials
Often sold as a dietary supplement and promoted by retailers as a mood booster and focus aid, tianeptine is among a growing, unregulated class of potentially addictive products available in gas stations, convenience stores and smoke shops and across the internet. They typically include synthetic pharmaceuticals and plant-derived substances. ome, like kratom and phenibut, can be addictive and, in rare cases, fatal. They often originate in other countries, including Indonesia and Russia, where they are commonly used, even prescribed, for mood management. But the Food and Drug Administration has not approved them as medicines in the United States. “Tianeptine is an emerging threat,” said Kaitlyn Brown, clinical managing director of America’s Poison Centers, which represents and collects data from 55 centers nationwide. (Hoffman, 1/10)

Stat: Risky Weight Loss Products Often Used By Teens Globally, Per Study
New weight loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy have garnered a lot of attention in the past year, but they aren’t always easy to get, especially for young people. Instead, teens surfing TikTok often see other options that don’t even require a doctor’s note. Berberine, for example, is a supplement that has been referred to online as “nature’s Ozempic.” Then there’s what some influencers call “budget Ozempic” — laxatives. (Gaffney, 1/10)

AP: More Adults Sought Help For ADHD During Pandemic, Contributing To Drug Shortages
Prescriptions for ADHD treatments surged among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to fuel lingering shortages that frustrate parents and doctors. New prescriptions for stimulants used to treat the condition jumped for young adults and women during a two-year window after the pandemic hit in March 2020, according to a study published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry. (Murphy and Hollingsworth, 1/10)

The Baltimore Sun: There Are No US Clinical Guidelines For Treating And Diagnosing Adult ADHD. That May Change Soon
Fiona Edwards is 50 years old, but to this day, some of her most traumatic memories are from her elementary school classroom in the Caribbean. As a child with an overactive imagination who struggled to stay organized and to wait her turn, Edwards had a hard time learning as her classmates did. And her principal didn’t waste any opportunity to remind her — and everyone else – that she was “an unteachable dunce,” said Edwards, who now lives in Baltimore. (Roberts, 1/10)

Reuters: Pakistan Seizes Poisonous Solvent Used In Cough Syrup 
Pakistan has seized a batch of contaminated propylene glycol solvent that was labelled as manufactured by Dow Chemical, Thailand, the nation's drug regulatory authority said on Thursday. Dow Chemical, Thailand did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The move comes as authorities have identified toxic propylene glycol used in cough syrups as a possible reason for the deaths of more than 300 children in Indonesia, Gambia and Uzbekistan since 2022. The World Health Organization has linked the deaths outside Indonesia to cough syrups made in India. (Shahzad, 1/11)

Modern Healthcare: DOJ Requirements For Medical Equipment Aim To Meet ADA Standards
The Justice Department soon will propose a regulation to advise publicly owned healthcare providers on meeting requirements they offer patients with disabilities accessible medical diagnostic equipment. The pending regulation will feature guidance for how providers including hospitals that are operated by state or local governments can meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards for items such as examination tables, scales, dental chairs, X-ray scanners and mammography equipment, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. (Bennett, 1/10)

Modern Healthcare: Low Home Treatment Rates Cost Safety Net Dialysis Centers
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is penalizing some dialysis facilities. ... An observational study of nearly 2,200 dialysis facilities participating in the agency’s End Stage Renal Disease Treatment Choices model found safety-net facilities serving mostly Black and Hispanic patients more frequently experienced CMS reimbursement cuts as high as 5% in the first year of the payment model for not moving more treatment to the home. The results of the study by researchers at five universities were published Tuesday in JAMA Network. (Eastabrook, 1/10)

Modern Healthcare: Are Hospital-At-Home Programs Overreliant On Family Caregivers?
As more care moves into the home, family caregivers are becoming an essential linchpin in the healthcare system. Approximately 53 million adults provide unpaid care to spouses, parents, children or other relatives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The amount of time such folks spent caring for family members increased from 9 hours a week in 2020 to 26 hours in 2023, according to a study released in mid-December by insurance and benefits company Guardian. (Eastabrook, 1/10)

Modern Healthcare: Elevance Health Providing Some Medicaid Patients With Smartphones
Elevance Health is launching a program across more than 20 states to provide smartphones to some eligible Medicaid enrollees in hopes of improving their healthcare access. The smartphones will come with unlimited data, talk and texting service at no cost to some members of select affiliated Medicaid plans who are eligible for the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program, according to a news release Wednesday. (Berryman, 1/10)

Reuters: US Judge Allows First Nitrogen-Gas Execution To Proceed
A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Alabama can proceed later this month with the first execution by nitrogen gas asphyxiation, saying that the condemned prisoner was unlikely to show the new method amounts to cruel or unusual punishment. Kenneth Smith, convicted for a murder-for-hire committed in 1988, is scheduled to be executed in Alabama on Jan. 25 using the method, in which execution officials will bind a mask to his face connected to a cylinder of nitrogen intended to deprive him of oxygen. (Allen, 1/10)

AP: In His 1st Interview, Friend Warned Officials About The Maine Shooter 
Sean Hodgson watched and worried as his best friend of nearly two decades unraveled. His former roommate and fellow U.S. Army reservist’s anger and paranoia were mounting, he had access to guns, and he refused to get help. So Hodgson did the hardest thing of his life: He sent a text about Robert Card to their Army supervisor. “I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting,” he wrote on Sept. 15. Six weeks later, Card fatally shot 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston before killing himself. ... “I did my job, and I went over and beyond it, and I literally spelled it out for them,” said Hodgson, 43, referred to by only his last name in documents related to the case. “I don’t know how clear I could have gotten.” (Ramer, Perry and Sharp, 1/11)

American Homefront Project: Pentagon Finds Troops' Suicides Are Often Preceded By Legal, Administrative Woes
In 2021, Seaman Michael Gregg was stationed on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in Norfolk. He had been in and out of the Naval Hospital at Portsmouth, after he was diagnosed with mental health issues and had thoughts of suicide. (Walsh, 1/10)

Fox News: Dementia Among Younger People Linked To 15 Factors, Major Study Reveals
Early-onset dementia has been on the rise in recent years — and a major new study has identified the likely reasons. Researchers from Maastricht University (UM) in the Netherlands and the University of Exeter in the U.K. have identified 15 factors linked to the development of dementia earlier in life. The study findings were published in JAMA Neurology on Dec. 26, 2023. "This study shows that there are a wide range of risk factors for young-onset dementia," Stevie Hendriks, PhD, the lead study author and a postdoctoral researcher at Maastricht University, told Fox News Digital. (Rudy, 1/10)

Fox News: Study: Screen Time For Kids Under 2 Linked To Sensory Differences In Toddlerhood
Allowing very young children to access televisions and other screens could lead to sensory challenges for them later in childhood, according to a new study from Drexel University in Pennsylvania. The study, "Early-Life Digital Media Experiences and Development of Atypical Sensory Processing," was published on Jan. 8 in JAMA Pediatrics. "This study finds an association between greater screen time in the first two years of life and ‘high’ sensory-related behaviors in areas," the study's lead author, Karen Heffler, M.D., an associate professor of psychiatry at Drexel University, told Fox News Digital. (Rudy, 1/9)

Fox News: California Could Ban Tackle Football For Kids Under 12 Over Health Concerns
California could soon outlaw tackle football for children under 12 amid concerns over health and safety. Lawmakers in the state will initiate debate on Wednesday on whether to ban tackle football in an effort advocates say would protect kids from brain damage or other medical issues. The bill’s critics include coaches who warn a ban on tackle football would cut off youths from an important source of physical activity. (Richard, 1/10)

USA Today: High Rent In The US: It's Harming Health And Shortening Lifespans
Paying high rent is stressful, and a recent study found it can actually shorten your lifespan. People who spent a vast portion of their income on rent were more likely to experience poor health and had a greater risk of premature death, the study found. The research published in November in the peer-reviewed journal Social Science & Medicine also found that evictions and even the threat of being evicted were linked to higher mortality rates. (Rodriguez, 1/10)

The Washington Post: Sexual Assaults On Cruise Ships Are Rising
Sex crimes on cruise ships sailing to and from the United States increased last year, according to numbers released by the Transportation Department. From January to September 2023, the FBI received 39 reports of sexual assault and 58 reports of rape from passengers. The incidents represent less than 1 percent of the tens of millions of passengers who take cruises each year. However, sexual assaults continue to be the most commonly reported crimes on cruise ships. According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, more than two out of three sexual assaults are not reported. (Hiatt, 1/10)

Axios: YouTube Tries To Make It Easier For You To Help In A Medical Emergency
First things first: If there's an emergency, call 911. But then, maybe check YouTube for quick advice on how to help, the tech giant says. YouTube is launching a new feature directing users to short, step-by-step first-aid tutorials on how to deliver potentially life-saving care — such as directions on performing CPR, recognizing a heart attack or administering overdose reversal drug Narcan — before first responders arrive. (Reed, 1/10)

The Washington Post: Ancient DNA Helps Trace Multiple Sclerosis Origins In European Descendants 
Five thousand years ago, sheep and cattle herders migrated westward from Asia to Europe, bringing with them their pastoral way of life — and higher genetic risk for multiple sclerosis, according to a new study of DNA from thousands of ancient and present-day people. The finding answers a long-standing conundrum in medical science: Why is this debilitating autoimmune disease most common in people from northern Europe? The research also recasts the modern-day illness, suggesting it is rooted in an evolutionary trade-off. (Johnson, 1/10)