First Edition: Jan. 29, 2024

KFF Health News and Tampa Bay Times: Records Show Publix Opioid Sales Grew Even As Addiction Crisis Prompted Other Chains’ Pullback
An executive at Teva Pharmaceuticals flagged Publix Super Markets in October 2015 after detecting what he called in an email “serious red flags” with the grocery chain’s orders of powerful opioids. The share of high-strength oxycodone orders was well above normal for a chain of grocery store pharmacies, and the total number of pills sent to Publix stores was “significantly above their peers,” Teva’s head of federal compliance wrote in the email to his supervisors, according to court records in a federal lawsuit pending in Ohio against Publix and other companies. (Hodgson and O'Donnell, 1/29)

KFF Health News: How Fringe Anti-Science Views Infiltrated Mainstream Politics — And What It Means In 2024 
Rates of routine childhood vaccination hit a 10-year low in 2023. That, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, puts about 250,000 kindergartners at risk for measles, which often leads to hospitalization and can cause death. In recent weeks, an infant and two young children have been hospitalized amid an ongoing measles outbreak in Philadelphia that spread to a day care center. It’s a dangerous shift driven by a critical mass of people who now reject decades of science backing the safety and effectiveness of childhood vaccines. State by state, they’ve persuaded legislators and courts to more easily allow children to enter kindergarten without vaccines, citing religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs. (Maxmen, 1/29)

KFF Health News: Readers Weigh Downsides Of Medicare Advantage And Stick Up For Mary Lou Retton 
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. (1/29)

The Washington Post: U.S., China Officials To Meet On Curbing Fentanyl Supply
United States and Chinese officials will meet in Beijing on Tuesday, convening a working group designed to crack down on the flow of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs targeting U.S. users. It is the first such high-level meeting of U.S. and Chinese officials since a breakthrough agreement between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco in November when the two leaders pledged to restart counternarcotics cooperation. (Cadell, 1/28)

The Guardian: ‘I Don’t See How It Ends’: Expert Sounds Alarm On New Wave Of US Opioids Crisis 
When Dr. Art Van Zee finally understood the scale of the disaster looming over his corner of rural Virginia, he naively imagined the drug industry would be just as alarmed. So the longest serving doctor in the struggling former mining town of St Charles set out in the early 2000s to tell pharmaceutical executives, federal regulators, Congress and anyone else who would listen that the arrival of a powerful new opioid painkiller was destroying lives and families. ... The drug industry was alarmed by Van Zee’s warnings, but not in the way he expected. It saw the doctor as a threat to profits and so from the very beginning, big pharma responded by working to discredit Van Zee and others like him who rang the alarm on high strength opioids creating mass addiction. (McGreal, 1/28)

AP: Bill Decriminalizing Drug Test Strips In Opioid-Devastated West Virginia Heads To Governor 
A bill that would decriminalize all strips used to test drugs for deadly substances in West Virginia, the state with the nation’s highest overdose rate, is headed to the desk of Republican Gov. Jim Justice. Justice hasn’t said publicly whether he supports the bill, which has received bipartisan support. The proposal follows a law signed by Justice in 2022 that decriminalized fentanyl testing strips. (Willingham, 1/26)

Reuters: White House AI Council Meets Monday As Legislative Action Stalls
The White House artificial intelligence council is meeting Monday, three months after President Joe Biden signed an executive order that aims to reduce the risks AI poses. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed, who will convene the council meeting Monday, said in a statement the federal government had made significant progress in the prior 90 days on AI, saying Biden's "directive to us is move fast and fix things." (Shepardson, 1/29)

AP: Pentagon Chief Austin's Cancer Prognosis Is 'Excellent,' No Further Treatments Needed, Doctors Say 
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center say his prostate cancer prognosis is excellent and no further treatments will be needed after seeing him for a follow-up appointment Friday. Austin, 70, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in December and spent two weeks in the hospital following complications from a prostatectomy. Despite the complications, “his cancer was treated early and effectively, and his prognosis is excellent,” his doctors said Friday. (Copp and Baldor, 1/26)

The Washington Post: Austin’s Prostate Cancer Case Spotlights Broader Silence Around Disease
Daniel R. Eagle, a retired Air Force general, is open about his prostate cancer. At least, he is now. Had he been in the military still, he said, he may have handled it differently. “I certainly would have been a lot more circumspect,” said Eagle, who spent nearly 40 years in uniform, retiring in 2010. “I think I would have had more embarrassment about it, and been more hesitant to share with other folks. Because there is absolutely a stigma.” (Lamothe, 1/28)

Stat: Merck, Johnson & Johnson CEOs Will Testify On High Drug Prices
Merck CEO Robert Davis and Johnson & Johnson CEO Joaquin Duato have agreed to voluntarily testify before the Senate health committee, avoiding a threatened subpoena, the committee announced Friday. (Cohrs, 1/26)

USA Today: Levemir Insulin Will Be Discontinued
Diabetes patients who depend on insulin recently got a financial break when the three major insulin manufacturers enacted dramatic price cuts. Novo Nordisk announced last March it would slash the list price of Levemir by 65%. But the good news was short-lived. The drugmaker will stop selling the injectable FlexPen version of Levemir in April and will halt sales of Levemir vials by the end of December. The company has not announced plans to discontinue the drug in other countries. In a statement to USA TODAY last week, Novo Nordisk said it would discontinue U.S. sales of Levemir because of a combination of factors, including global manufacturing constraints and the availability of other forms of insulin. The company also cited pharmacy managers and insurers who limited access to Levemir on drug formularies, the list of drugs insurers cover for patients. (Alltucker, 1/28)

Bloomberg: Weight-Loss Drugs Dropped In North Carolina As Costs Soar
North Carolina is cutting off coverage of anti-obesity medications for state employees, citing soaring costs and a lack of agreement on pricing from drugmakers. The decision affects a class of drugs known as GLP-1s, which are used to treat diabetes along with helping with weight loss. The medications, like Novo Nordisk A/S’s Wegovy and Ozempic and Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound, have soared in popularity, but are expensive and require long-term use. (Foxman and Muller, 1/27)

CIDRAP: Updated WHO COVID Prevention Guidance May Endanger Rather Than Protect, Some Experts Say 
The World Health Organization's (WHO's) newly updated COVID-19 prevention and control guidelines purport to protect healthcare workers, patients, and the community, but some experts say they may encourage risky behavior by propagating long-disproven ideas about how viruses spread. "I think they put healthcare workers and patients and the community at significant risk," said Lisa Brosseau, ScD, CIH, an expert on respiratory protection and infectious diseases and a CIDRAP research consultant. One of the main problems, said Raina Macintyre, MBBS, PhD, professor and head of the biosecurity program at the Kirby Institute in Sydney, Australia, is that the document doesn't incorporate many of the lessons learned during the pandemic—such as the major role of COVID-19 spread among people with no symptoms. (Van Beusekom, 1/26)

CIDRAP: US Respiratory Virus Activity Still High But Continues To Ebb
Markers for all three of the main respiratory viruses that are making Americans sick declined this week, and new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that the current flu season has been moderate so far and that people with chronic conditions continue to make up the bulk of flu hospitalizations. In its respiratory virus snapshot, the CDC said activity is still elevated but decreasing across most of the country. More specifically, flu and COVID-19 activity are stabilizing or decreasing, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections continue to decline. (Schnirring, 1/26)

CIDRAP: COVID Drugs More Often Given To Medicare Patients Who Least Need Them, Study Suggests
A greater proportion of nonhospitalized Medicare enrollees infected with COVID-19 but at low risk for severe disease received drugs to combat the disease than those at higher risk in 2022, weakening their public health benefit, finds an observational study published today in JAMA Health Forum. (Van Beusekom, 1/26)

Boston Globe: Investment In Vaccine Development Is Lagging, Report Finds
Covid vaccines saved nearly 20 million lives worldwide, by one estimate, and generated billions of dollars for several drugmakers. But investment in experimental vaccines for dozens of other diseases remains modest and should be much higher, according to a new biotechnology industry report. (Saltzman, 1/26)

Axios: Health Care Workers Kept Leaving The Industry After Pandemic: Study
There's been a "substantial and persistent" increase in health care workers leaving the industry since the pandemic, as staff who stayed on during the worst of COVID-19 leave for new opportunities in a robust jobs market, according to a new study in JAMA Health Forum. While exit rates have been matched by an uptick in hiring, the constant churn can disrupt the continuity of care and result in poorer patient outcomes, researchers wrote. (Reed, 1/29)

Crain's Chicago Business: Chicago's IMX Becomes First Healthcare Futures Exchange 
The Chicago-based Intelligent Medicine Exchange (IMX) has been designated a contract market by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), making it the first healthcare futures and options exchange. Trading is expected to begin in the first half of 2024, with IMX launching its first healthcare indexes. IMX has partnered with Minneapolis Grain Exchange for clearing services. (Asplund, 1/26)

The Washington Post: Bayer Ordered To Pay $2.25 Billion After Jury Links Roundup To Cancer 
A jury handed down a $2.25 billion verdict, including $2 billion in punitive damages, against agrochemical giant Monsanto, according to the lawyers of a man who said he developed cancer from using the company’s weed killer, Roundup. John McKivison, 49, filed a lawsuit in Philadelphia against the company after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which he said was due to using Roundup on his property for 20 years. (Vinall, 1/27)

Modern Healthcare: Penn Medicine-Tower Health Deal Falls Through
Penn Medicine has abandoned its plan to purchase Tower Health's Brandywine Hospital. Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine signed a non-binding letter of intent to aquire the facility in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, in June. The hospital closed in early 2022. "The Brandywine property has previously received significant interest from a variety of organizations," a spokesperson for Tower Health said in a statement. "We will reengage in discussions with these companies, along with others, to secure a new owner for the property." (DeSilva, 1/26)

Reuters: US FDA Approves Dupixent To Treat Younger Kids With Esophageal Condition 
The U.S. health regulator has approved the use of Regeneron and Sanofi's Dupixent to treat an allergic inflammation of the esophagus in children aged one to 11 years old and weighing at least 15 kg, the companies said on Thursday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2022 approved the blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug for treating eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) in patients aged 12 years and older, making it the first for the immune condition in the country. (Leo and Singh, 1/26)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Asks Georgia Clinic For Transgender Youths’ Records
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is requesting medical records of Texas youth who have received gender-affirming care from a Georgia telehealth clinic, marking at least the second time he’s sought such records from providers in another state. (Rubin, 1/26)

American Homefront Project: A New Lawsuit Says The VA Has Failed To Live Up To Its Promises About Gender-Affirming Care
Natalie Kastner has wanted gender-affirming surgery since she was 16 years old. “I fell into the trap where I thought like a lot of people do, that this is a phase,” the former Army engineer said about the gender dysphoria that’s she's experienced for years. “I fell into that trap, and, boy, did that hit me after I left the Army.” Now a disabled veteran living in Texas, Kastner said the Department of Veterans Affairs won’t perform the operation, and she would have to leave the state to get it privately. Two years ago, she said, she severed an artery when she attempted to cut off her genitals in her own bathroom. (D'lorio, 1/26)

NBC News: Millions Of LGBTQ Americans Have Religious Trauma. Psychiatrists Want To Help
One in 3 adults in the United States who have suffered from religious trauma at some point in their life, according to a 2023 study. ... Religious trauma occurs when an individual’s religious upbringing has lasting adverse effects on their physical, mental or emotional well-being, according to the Religious Trauma Institute. Symptoms can include guilt, shame, loss of trust and loss of meaning in life. While religious trauma hasn’t officially been classified as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), there is debate among psychiatrists about whether that should change. (Macnaughton, 1/28)

News Service of Florida: Hialeah Clinic Will Pay $10,000 Fine For Violating Abortion Waiting Period Law
A Miami-Dade County clinic will pay a $10,000 fine as part of a settlement with the state over allegations that the clinic did not properly comply with a law requiring information to be provided to women at least 24 hours before abortions. The settlement between A Hialeah Women Center and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration was posted Wednesday on the state Division of Administrative Hearings website. (1/28)

The Hill: ‘Rage’ Abortion Donations Dry Up, Leaving Funds Struggling To Meet Demand
Abortion funds that help people cover the costs of getting the procedure are struggling with money as the waves of donations that followed the end of Roe v. Wade have begun to dry up. It’s led some of the independent organizations — which help cover expenses for abortions and associated costs, such as transportation, child care, and lodging — to scale back or even pause operations. (Weixel, 1/28)

AP: Abortion: GOP Legislatures In Some States Trying To Keep Issue Off The Ballot
Legislative efforts in Missouri and Mississippi are attempting to prevent voters from having a say over abortion rights, building on anti-abortion strategies seen in other states, including last year in Ohio. Democrats and abortion rights advocates say the efforts are evidence that Republican lawmakers and abortion opponents are trying to undercut democratic processes meant to give voters a direct role in forming state laws. (Fernando, 1/29)

WMFE: Florida Gets 'F' In Protecting Residents From Tobacco Dangers
Florida is failing its citizens in reducing the harms of tobacco products, according to the American Lung Association's 22nd annual State of Tobacco report. Overall, it’s Black Floridians who ultimately are among the most hurt by the use of flavored products, the association found. Research shows that 81% of Black Americans smoke menthol cigarettes. On average, 45,000 Black Americans die each year due to tobacco-related illnesses. (Pedersen, 1/26)

The Washington Post: Va. Lawmakers Begin To Tackle Weed Sales Three Years After Legalization
Three years after Virginia lawmakers voted to legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults, the General Assembly is finally moving ahead with efforts to create a marketplace for the manufacture and sale of recreational cannabis. There’s a long way to go. And even supporters don’t agree on an approach — or know whether Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) will go along. (Vozzella and Schneider, 1/28)

CBS News: Minnesota Newborns Will Now Be Screened For Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
The Minnesota Department of Health on Friday announced that it will add Duchenne muscular dystrophy to the list of conditions for which Minnesota newborns are typically screened. DMD is the most common form of muscular dystrophy. The condition is usually not diagnosed until age 5, at which point skeletal muscles are already damaged and there are limited options for treatments, MDH says.It is typically found in boys, though females can be genetic carriers. The life expectancy for men with DMD is around 20 years of age. (1/26)

CBS News: Delaware Dentist Uses Artificial Intelligence To Accurately Assess Patients' Pain
A growing number of dentists are using artificial intelligence to enhance their treatments. A dentist in Delaware is even calling it a game changer. Dr. Kye Williams explained to his patient, Patrick Kipp, how artificial intelligence helped figure out what was causing his pain. ... "It's just an amazing diagnostic tool as a second opinion," Dr. Williams said. Artificial intelligence is a computer system that's a collection of millions of dental images that show different conditions. The AI software can in seconds compare and analyze new images. (Stahl and Fox, 1/27)

Stateline: More States Offer Health Care Coverage For Certain Immigrants, Noncitizens
Gabriel Henao fled Colombia to escape a guerrilla group who, he said, twice threatened to kill him. After some time in Mexico, he arrived in Colorado in July 2022, settling in Fort Collins. ... Colorado did not offer Medicaid coverage to residents living in the country without legal status such as Henao ... that changed at the beginning of this month, when Henao received care through Colorado’s OmniSalud program, which provides health care coverage to low-income immigrants in the country without documentation. (Hassanein, 1/26)

AP: Millions Of Americans Are Increasingly Turning To Community Health Centers For Care, And Even Food
Elisa Reyes has come to Plaza del Sol Family Health Center for doctor’s appointments for more than a decade. Though she moved away a while ago, the 33-year-old keeps returning, even if it means a two-hour roundtrip bus ride. That’s because her two children see the same doctor she does. Because when she’s sick, she can walk in without an appointment. Because the staff at the Queens clinic helped her apply for health insurance and food stamps. (Shastri, 1/27)

Stat: Pricey Sickle Cell Treatments Raise Daunting New Challenges For Medicaid Programs
Living with sickle cell disease has not been easy on Kourtney Cunningham. The genetic blood disorder typically causes her to experience three episodes of extreme pain each month and she can end up in the hospital at least twice a year due to these crises. Then there are blood transfusions every four weeks. So when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved the first two curative gene therapies for sickle cell, she allowed herself to become hopeful, even though treatment requires chemotherapy that might cause various side effects. These include lowered immunity, hair loss, and infertility. (Silverman, 1/29)

The Washington Post: Children Of Color Face Delays In Treating Infantile Spasms, Study Finds
Prompt diagnosis and treatment of infantile epileptic spasms syndrome, a severe seizure disorder beginning in infancy, can prevent developmental delays. But non-Hispanic Black children are less likely than their White counterparts to get timely treatment for infantile spasms, a recent analysis suggests. The study, published in Epilepsia, looked at a group of 100 children with infantile spasms who were diagnosed at Boston Children’s Hospital between January 2019 and May 2022. (Blakemore, 1/28)

NBC News: Shipyard Veterans May Have Been Exposed To Cancer-Causing Radioactive Materials. The Navy Has Not Told Them
The Navy has known about multiple environmental contaminations at the base for more than 20 years. In 2008 it conducted a study that found radiation, then publicly documented for the first time in 2023 the detection of radiation involving levels of radium-226 and strontium-90. ... A spokesperson said there is no mechanism in place to notify veterans of possible exposures after a base is no longer operational. Wyand holds a photo of himself at the shipyard. That means tens of thousands of veterans who worked at the shipyard may have been exposed to cancer-causing radioactive materials and still do not know. (Chan, 1/27)

The New York Times: Since The East Palestine, Ohio, Train Derailment, Accidents Have Risen 
After a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed a year ago in East Palestine, Ohio, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents and upending life in the town for months, the rail industry pledged to work to become safer, and members of Congress vowed to pass legislation to prevent similar disasters. No bill was passed. And accidents went up. Derailments rose at the top five freight railroads in 2023, according to regulatory reports for the first 10 months of the year, the most recent period for which data exists for all five companies. And there was a steep increase in the mechanical problem — an overheated wheel bearing — that regulators think caused the derailment of the 1.75-mile-long train in East Palestine. (Eavis, 1/28)

The New York Times: Pet Dragons Linked To Salmonella Cases That Sickened Dozens Of Children
The outbreak of a rare strain of salmonella that sickened scores of people, including several infants, across the United States and Canada, has been linked to pet bearded dragons, some most likely obtained from the same breeder in Southeast Asia, according to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak covered in the study occurred in 2021 and 2022, but salmonella infections associated with bearded dragons have become increasingly common in recent years, mirroring the rising popularity of the goofy, scaly lizards as household pets. (Jacobs, 1/26)

NBC News: Writing By Hand May Increase Brain Connectivity More Than Typing
Typing may be faster than writing by hand, but it’s less stimulating for the brain, according to research published Friday in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. After recording the brain activity of 36 university students, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology determined that handwriting might improve learning and memory. ... In particular, the study found that writing by hand required communication between the brain’s visual, sensory and motor cortices. (Bendix, 1/27)