First Edition: Jan. 30, 2023

KHN: When Gun Violence Ends Young Lives, These Men Prepare The Graves
It was a late Friday afternoon when a team of men approached a tiny pink casket. One wiped his brow. Another stepped away to smoke a cigarette. Then, with calloused hands, they gently lowered the child’s body into the ground. Earlier that day, the groundskeepers at Sunset Gardens of Memory had dug the small grave up on a hill in a special section of this cemetery in a southern Illinois community across the river from St. Louis. It was for a 3-year-old girl killed by a stray bullet. (Anthony, 1/30)

KHN: A Baby Spent 36 Days In An In-Network NICU. Why Did The Hospital Next Door Send A Bill? 
Brenna Kearney was seven months pregnant in December 2019 when she experienced what she thought were bad flu symptoms. Her husband, Casey Trumble, drove her from their Chicago home to her OB-GYN’s office at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital downtown. With suddenly elevated blood pressure and protein in her urine, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia, a potentially fatal but treatable pregnancy complication. Doctors admitted her to the hospital, saying she could expect to stay up to six weeks and have an induced delivery. (Meyer, 1/30)

KHN: Part II: The State Of The Abortion Debate 50 Years After ‘Roe’ 
The abortion debate has changed dramatically in the seven months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and its nationwide right to abortion. Nearly half the states have banned or restricted the procedure, even though the public, at the ballot box, continues to show support for abortion rights. (1/27)

The New York Times: Video Of Tyre Nichols Beating Raises Questions About Medical Response 
Tyre Nichols writhed in pain on the pavement after being beaten by Memphis police officers. His back was against a police car, his hands were cuffed and his face was bloody. He was groaning, and he kept falling over. A few feet away, two emergency medical workers looked on. They helped Mr. Nichols sit up a few times after he had slumped to his side, but then, for nearly seven minutes, they did not touch him. At one point, they walked away. (Bogel-Burroughs, Kolata and Walker, 1/29)

The Washington Post: Black Memphis Police Spark Dialogue On Systemic Racism In The U.S.
Though some studies have shown that police officers of color use force less frequently against Black civilians than their White counterparts, analysts say the improvement is marginal. “Diversifying law enforcement is certainly not going to solve this problem,” said Samuel Sinyangwe, president of Mapping Police Violence. He pointed to many factors in the policing system that lead to a disproportionate response against people of color: directives to work in neighborhoods where more people of color live and a system that relies on the discretion of the officer to enforce things like traffic stops, opening the door for internal biases to play a role. (Klemko, Foster-Frau and Davies, 1/29)

The New York Times: 71 Commands In 13 Minutes: Officers Gave Tyre Nichols Impossible Orders
Police officers unleashed a barrage of commands that were confusing, conflicting and sometimes even impossible to obey, a Times analysis of footage from Tyre Nichols’s fatal traffic stop found. When Mr. Nichols could not comply — and even when he managed to — the officers responded with escalating force. The review of the available footage found that officers shouted at least 71 commands during the approximately 13-minute period before they reported over the radio that Mr. Nichols was officially in custody. (Stein and Cardia and Reneau, 1/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Half Moon Bay Massacre: Leaders Call For Mental Health Access For Chinese Farmworkers, Gun Control
Four days after a farmworker fatally shot seven people at two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms, local lawmakers and Asian American community leaders called for stricter gun laws and better working conditions for farmworkers, and urged Asian Americans to reject the longheld cultural stigma of seeking mental health services. (Ho, 1/27)

The New York Times: California Has More Than 100 Gun Laws. Why Don’t They Stop More Mass Shootings?
California bans guns for domestic violence offenders. It bans them for people deemed a danger to others or themselves. There is a ban on large-capacity magazines, and a ban on noise-muffling silencers. Semiautomatic guns of the sort colloquially known as “assault weapons” are, famously, banned. More than 100 gun laws — the most of any state — are on the books in California. They have saved lives, policymakers say: Californians have among the lowest rates of gun death in the United States. (Hubler and Harmon, 1/29)

The Washington Post: $100 Repair Bill Put Half Moon Bay Gunman Over The Edge, Prosecutor Says
More details have emerged about the workplace dispute that led Zhao Chunli, 66, to allegedly kill seven people and attempt to kill another at two mushroom farms in Northern California a week ago. Zhao told investigators that his Half Moon Bay shooting was sparked after his boss asked him to pay a $100 repair bill for damage that had been done to heavy construction equipment, according to local news reports confirmed by San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. (Bonos and Lau, 1/30)

Fierce Healthcare: Kaiser Permanente Earmarks $25M For Gun Violence Prevention
Kaiser Permanente has unveiled a five-year, $25 million commitment and new partnership that will scale up its research and community-based work into gun violence prevention. The investment—announced during a gathering of healthcare leaders, gun safety advocates and researchers—will support the Center for Gun Violence Research and Education that was established by the organization last summer. It was initially funded with $1.3 million to explore and collaborate on possible gun violence prevention strategies in collaboration with other nonprofit partners. (Muoio, 1/27)

The Hill: White House Blasts McCarthy For Comments On Strengthening Social Security, Medicare
The White House hit back after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he wants to “strengthen” Medicare and Social Security, arguing on Sunday that the House GOP leader and his conference actually want to slash spending on the entitlement programs. McCarthy said in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” earlier Sunday that he wants to take cuts to Medicare and Social Security off the table in talks with Democrats over the debt ceiling, even though Republicans do want commitments on spending cuts generally. Instead, McCarthy said Republicans were committed to strengthening the programs. (Neukam, 1/29)

NBC News: Medicare Negotiating Drug Prices Will Likely Save The U.S. Billions, Study Says
Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School estimated how much money the new policy would have saved the U.S. had it been in effect from 2018 to 2020 — the most recent years for which data is available on Medicare spending. They identified 40 drugs that would have been selected by Medicare for drug pricing negotiation under the Inflation Reduction Act's provision. (Lovelace Jr., 1/27)

Stat: Lengthy Battle Over Medicare Advantage Audits Comes To A Head
The federal government and health insurance companies have been clashing for more than a decade over how Medicare Advantage plans should be audited and how the well-documented overpayments to those plans should be clawed back. That fight is about to hit an inflection point this week, when Medicare makes a final determination about how aggressively it will probe the industry. (Herman, 1/30)

Axios: SNAP Benefits Returning To Pre-COVID Amounts In February
The extra food assistance benefits put into place during the COVID-19 pandemic will end nationwide in February, per the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. The emergency allotments allowed SNAP households to receive an additional $95 or more in monthly benefits. (Habeshian, 1/28)

Fox News: WHO Updates List Of Medicines Governments Should Stockpile In Case Of A Nuclear Emergency
The World Health Organization released an updated report on Friday detailing medications that governments should have on hand in the event of a radiological or nuclear emergency. Governments should have a national stockpile of personal protective equipment, but also a range of pharmaceuticals, including potassium iodide tablets, antiemetics, anti-diarrhoeal agents, decorporating agents, alkylating agents, and other medications, WHO said. (Best, 1/29)

Reuters: WHO Maintains Highest Alert Over COVID, But Sees Hope Ahead
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that COVID-19 continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern, its highest form of alert. The pandemic was likely in a "transition point" that continues to need careful management to "mitigate the potential negative consequences", the agency added in a statement. (1/30)

Stat: U.S. Panel Approves Plans To Safeguard Lab-Made Virus Research
A panel of federal advisers voted unanimously Friday to advance a set of proposals to bolster government oversight of pathogen research that could make viruses more transmissible. (Owermohle, 1/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: Over 96% Of American Children Estimated To Have Virus Antibodies
The latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that an estimated 96.3% of the U.S. pediatric population — ages 6 months to 17 years — have detectable antibodies from vaccination or infection against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in their blood. Based on the data published Friday, the agency estimates that nearly 65.7 million American children have been infected. (Vaziri, 1/27)

USA Today: CDC Offers Advice To Those With Weakened Immune Systems Avoid COVID
Now, though, more than 90% of circulating variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 are resistant to the drug. On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration officially announced that Evusheld is no longer authorized to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection in the U.S. People who are immunocompromised, perhaps because of blood cancer treatment or an organ transplant, are unlikely to mount a strong response to a COVID-19 vaccine. (Weintraub, 1/28)

CIDRAP: Rate Of Americans Reporting Long-COVID Symptoms Declining 
The share of Americans reporting symptoms of long COVID appears to be declining, according to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), and a second study reports that vaccination may contribute to lower levels of long COVID. The KFF analysis of the Household Pulse Survey, on online survey administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that the percentage of respondents who have had COVID-19 and currently report long COVID symptoms declined from 19% in June 2022 to 11% in January, and the share of people who have ever reported long COVID fell from 35% to 28% over the same period. (Dall, 1/27)

Bloomberg: China Finds No New Variants Despite Massive New Year Migration
No new Covid-19 variants were detected in China during the Lunar New Year holiday when millions of people returned to their hometowns, a mass migration that potentially helped the virus spread in the world’s most populous country. (1/30)

Stat: Pfizer Is Scolded By A U.K. Trade Group For Remarks Its CEO Made About Vaccination 
After weeks of deliberation, Pfizer was scolded by a U.K. pharmaceutical industry trade group after its chief executive officer made misleading statements in a media interview about the need to vaccinate young children against Covid-19. (Silverman, 1/27)

Politico: Trump Hits DeSantis: He's A Covid Skeptic Phony
On Saturday, Donald Trump took his sharpest swings at [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis to date, accusing the governor of “trying to rewrite history” over his response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Trump said DeSantis, who has been openly skeptical about government efforts to vaccinate people against the virus, “promoted the vaccine as much as anyone.” He praised governors who did not close down their states, noting that DeSantis ordered the closure of beaches and business in some parts of the state. (McGraw, 1/28)

Fierce Healthcare: How COVID-19 May Have Enhanced The Status Of Preprint Studies
COVID-19 changed the way public policy experts, the healthcare industry and journalists covering the pandemic weighed the value of clinical studies that had not yet been peer-reviewed, a new analysis found. The peer-review process used by major publications like the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association takes “a median time of 186 days from preprint to publication,” according to a study published today in JAMA Network that examines the reliability of preprint studies. (Diamond, 1/27)

CIDRAP: Flu Continues Hasty Retreat In US; COVID, RSV Markers Fall 
After an early and brisk surge, US flu activity last week declined to near-baseline levels, with trends for other respiratory viruses also dropping, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its latest updates. The fall in COVID-19 cases is occurring despite steady increases in the proportions of the more transmissible Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant, the agency said. (Schnirring, 1/27)

Stateline: GOP Leaders In Some States Want To Add Abortion Ban Exceptions
With Tennessee’s so-called trigger law already on the books, the state enacted its abortion ban almost immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June. Yet even as anti-abortion legislators and advocates celebrated, they considered how much further they could go — perhaps by barring Tennesseans from seeking abortions in other states, or by restricting contraception. (Elliot, 1/27)

Stat: 'A Classic Case': A Legal Expert On Why Lawsuits Challenging Abortion Pill Restrictions May Succeed 
A pair of lawsuits was filed last week challenging restrictions on access to abortion pills in two states, a development that opens a new front in the highly politicized battle over the medicine. (Silverman, 1/30)

AP: Ohio City Rewrites Abortion Ban, Advocacy Groups End Lawsuit
Groups advocating for professional social workers and abortion rights said they have succeeded in forcing a small Ohio city to significantly narrow its ban on conducting or recommending abortions and so have ended their legal challenge. The lawsuit by the National Association of Social Workers and the Abortion Fund of Ohio argued that the law, passed in May 2021, represented an “extraordinarily broad” infringement on the constitutional rights of due process and free speech. The groups’ lawyers at the ACLU of Ohio and Democracy Forward further alleged the ban violated Ohio’s home-rule provisions. The city of Lebanon, in southwest Ohio, opted to revise the law rather than defend it in court. Enforcement had been placed on hold while that work took place. (Smyth, 1/27)

AP: Baby Girl Found Abandoned In Florida An Hour After Birth
Florida authorities found a newborn girl wrapped in a blanket and still attached to a placenta on a hill outside a trailer park early Saturday morning. Polk County deputies responding to a call about a baby crying outside near Mulberry, east of Tampa, found the girl about an hour after she was born, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. The temperature was in the low 50s (about 11 degrees Celsius). (1/29)

The Boston Globe: It’s Hard To Be A New Mom. For Some, A Lonely Struggle Can Spiral Into Mental Illness
When Melissa Anne DuBois gave birth to her first child 10 years ago, she was thrilled to finally take a baby into her arms after three miscarriages. But soon disturbing thoughts invaded her mind, as a parent’s ordinary fears morphed into nightmare visions. A worry about accidentally drowning the baby in the bathtub became a vision of holding him under the water and watching him die. The normal fear of dropping the baby turned into a vivid image of herself hurling her son down the stairs to his death. (Freyer and Lazar, 1/28)

Axios: CVS And Walmart To Cut Pharmacy Hours Because Of Labor Shortage
Pharmacy hours at Walmart and CVS will be reduced starting in March as the major retailers continue to deal with a nationwide shortage of pharmacy staff. (Tyko, 1/27)

USA Today: CRISPR Gene Editing Turns 10. How's It Transforming Medicine And More?
"It's a revolution in progress," said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist who founded the Scripps Research Translational Institute, where he serves as director. The rise of CRISPR is "unmatched and unparalleled" in science, added Brad Ringeisen, the executive director of the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. "It's changed the way we do biology." (Weintraub, 1/30)

The Boston Globe: Gene Therapy Can Transform Life For People With Hemophilia. But Some Patients Don’t Want It
Given everything he’s been through, Bobby Wiseman says he should have been dead instead of celebrating the birth of his first grandchild several days ago. Wiseman, 51, who lives near Sacramento, was diagnosed as an infant with hemophilia, the rare genetic disease that prevents blood from clotting. (Saltzman, 1/29)

The New York Times: How A Drug Company Made $114 Billion By Gaming The U.S. Patent System
In 2016, a blockbuster drug called Humira was poised to become a lot less valuable. The key patent on the best-selling anti-inflammatory medication, used to treat conditions like arthritis, was expiring at the end of the year. Regulators had blessed a rival version of the drug, and more copycats were close behind. The onset of competition seemed likely to push down the medication’s $50,000-a-year list price. Instead, the opposite happened. (Robbins, 1/28)

CBS News: Utah Becomes First State To Ban Gender-Affirming Care For Trans Youth In 2023
Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed a bill Saturday that bans hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgery for transgender youth, making Utah the first state in 2023 to ban such care. (Mandler, 1/29)

WMFE: Florida Gets An F On The American Lung Association's Tobacco Control Report Card
Florida’s lack of tobacco control and efforts to prevent smoking has earned the state failing grades in an annual report from the American Lung Association. "With the 2023 state of tobacco control report, Florida, unfortunately, was listed as one of the states with the worst policies to prevent and reduce tobacco use," said Janelle Hom, director of the Central Florida Lung Association office. (Pedersen, 1/27)

AP: Nuclear Strike Chief Seeks Cancer Review Of Missile Crews 
The top Air Force general in charge of the nation’s air- and ground-launched nuclear missiles has requested an official investigation into the number of airmen who are reporting blood cancer diagnoses after serving at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. (Copp, 1/28)

The Washington Post: Two Women Die In Fire At Assisted-Living Facility
A fire that left two women dead in Prince George’s County ripped through a home that authorities said had been converted into an assisted-living facility, leaving loved ones to grieve as investigators determine what caused the blaze. ... It is not clear whether those who escaped that night were residents or employees at the five-bed facility, which was licensed in 2018 by the state and had no pending complaints at the time of the fire, said Chase Cook, acting director of communications for the Maryland Department of Health. (Beachum and Hilton, 1/28)

The Marshall Project: Texas Prisons Detail Plan To Improve Food 
The Texas prison system has a new goal: Serving slightly more edible food. As part of a long-term strategic plan, the corrections agency aims to do away with the worst of prison fare — the meager and sometimes moldy brown-bag meals served during lockdowns, which occur regularly and can last for weeks. Though lockdown meals have generated complaints for years, the public didn’t get a look at how awful they really were until 2020, when The Marshall Project and Hearst Newspapers published images of them captured with contraband phones. Afterward, the food improved in some prisons — but only for a short time, prisoners reported. (Blakinger, 1/20)

Houston Chronicle: Charcuterie Meats Recalled Due To Possible Listeria Contamination
Daniele International is warning consumers not to eat several of its meat products after discovering a possible outbreak of listeria. Listeria is a bacteria that can cause listeriosis, an infection that can cause fever and flu-like symptoms, and can lead to miscarriages or stillbirths in pregnant people, who are significantly more likely to get infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control. (Munce, 1/29)

USA Today: Diabetes In American Children, Teens To Surge By 2060: CDC Study
The statistics are concerning and should stir urgency in addressing the health of American young people, such as prioritizing efforts to bring down rates of obesity, a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes, experts say. Despite a known link between obesity and Type 2 diabetes, "it’s very unsettling that we have not made any progress to really decrease this risk of Type 2 diabetes in children," said Dr. Colleen Buggs-Saxton, a pediatric endocrinologist at Wayne State University. (Hassanein, 1/30)

CNN: Weight Loss Surgery Extends Lives, Study Finds
Weight loss surgery reduces the risk of premature death, especially from such obesity-related conditions as cancer, diabetes and heart disease, according to a new 40-year study of nearly 22,000 people who had bariatric surgery in Utah. (LaMotte, 1/28)