First Edition: Jan. 8, 2024

KFF Health News: There’s A New Covid-19 Variant And Cases Are Ticking Up. What Do You Need To Know? 
It’s winter, that cozy season that brings crackling fireplaces, indoor gatherings — and a wave of respiratory illness. Nearly four years since the pandemic emerged, people are growing weary of dealing with it, but the virus is not done with us. Nationally, a sharp uptick in emergency room visits and hospitalizations for covid-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, began in mid-December and appears to be gaining momentum. (Appleby, 1/8)

KFF Health News: Journalists Track Medical Device Malfunctions, Opioid Settlement Payments, And Abortion Bans
KFF Health News correspondent Daniel Chang discussed malfunctions of the LVAD Heart Mate 3, an FDA-approved mechanical heart pump, on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Ideas Network on Jan. 3. ... KFF Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani joined a roundtable panel to discuss the drug crisis and opioid settlement funds on NPR on Dec. 28. Pattani also discussed opioid settlement funds on CBS News’ “Eye on Health” on Dec. 15. ... KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed how abortion bans fared in courts in Texas and New Orleans on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Jan. 3. (1/6)

USA Today: Lloyd Austin Takes Blame For Hospitalization, Kept White House In Dark
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged ''concerns'' over his secret hospitalization but revealed no new details of his condition in a statement released by the Pentagon Saturday. It wasn't until late Friday that the Pentagon disclosed that Austin had been hospitalized after complications from an elective procedure. In the statement, Austin said he "could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better." (Vanden Brook, and Collins, 1/6)

NPR: Pentagon's 2nd In Command Was Not Informed Of Lloyd Austin's Hospitalization
Kathleen Hicks, the deputy secretary of defense, assumed the top role on Jan. 2, a not unusual transfer of power that sometimes occurs purely for operational reasons. She did not learn of Austin's hospitalization until Jan. 4, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Hicks was on vacation in Puerto Rico at the time. ... The defense secretary resumed his full duties on Friday. In the intervening days, Hicks "was prepared to act for and exercise the powers of the Secretary, if required," Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement on Friday. (Doubek and Bowman, 1/7)

Politico: ‘He’s A Cipher’: How Austin’s Need For Privacy Just Backfired 
“My sense is his desire to be private about a routine medical procedure kind of backfired when it didn’t go as planned,” said one senior U.S. official. ... Concerns over Austin’s absence are bipartisan. Though most members of Biden’s party have either defended Austin or declined to comment on it, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee teamed up with his GOP counterpart to urge the Pentagon chief to provide more information. (Seligman, Ward and O'Brien, 1/7)

The Washington Post: Congress Has A Deal To Fund The Government And Not Much Time To Pass It
Congressional leaders reached a $1.66 trillion agreement Sunday to finance the federal government in 2024, preserving funding for key domestic and social safety net programs despite GOP demands to cut the budget. Now lawmakers are up against a stiff deadline to pass legislation to codify the deal and avert a partial government shutdown in less than two weeks. Funding runs out for roughly 20 percent of the government — including for essential programs such as some veterans assistance, and food and drug safety services — on Jan. 19, and money for the rest of the government runs out shortly after that, on Feb. 2. (Bogage, 1/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Congressional Negotiators Reach Agreement On $1.6 Trillion Government Spending Level For 2024
Speaker Mike Johnson said the deal contains “hard fought concessions” from Democrats, including on the cancellation of unspent pandemic aid. Still, the overall number is above the levels that some conservatives had demanded. “These final spending levels will not satisfy everyone, and they do not cut as much spending as many of us would like,” Johnson said. (Ferek and Hughes, 1/7)

CBS News: Supreme Court Lets Idaho Enforce Abortion Ban For Now And Agrees To Hear Case
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to let Idaho enforce its near-total ban on abortion in certain emergency medical situations while legal proceedings continue and said it will take up the dispute involving whether the Biden administration can require under federal law hospitals in states that ban abortion to perform the procedure on pregnant patients whose lives are at risk. (Quinn, 1/5)

Reuters: Florida Abortion Rights Measure Gets Enough Signatures To Go Before Voters 
A state constitutional amendment that would protect abortion access in Florida has received enough signatures of support to appear on ballots in the November election, but a challenge by the state's attorney general could still block it. The measure would ban laws that "prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's health, as determined by the patient's healthcare provider." Abortions are currently illegal after 15 weeks in Florida. (1/8)

News Service of Florida: Appeals Court Panel Rejects Minor's Request For Abortion Without Parental Consent
For the second time in less than three weeks, an appeals court rejected a minor’s attempt to have an abortion without notifying and getting consent from a parent or guardian. (Saunders, 1/5)

AP: Flu And COVID Infections Got Worse Over The Holidays, With More Misery Expected, CDC Says
The flu season in the U.S. is getting worse but it’s too soon to tell how much holiday gatherings contributed to a likely spike in illnesses. New government data posted Friday for last week — the holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s — show 38 states with high or very high levels for respiratory illnesses with fever, cough and other symptoms. That’s up from 31 states the week before. The measure likely includes people with COVID-19, RSV and other winter viruses, and not just flu. But flu seems to be increasing most dramatically, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Stobbe, 1/5)

Reuters: CDC Says JN.1 Variant Accounts For About 62% Of COVID Cases In US 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday that COVID subvariant JN.1 accounts for about 62% of cases in the U.S. as of Jan. 5, according to the agency's projections. The agency said JN.1, which is an offspring of BA.2.86, is now the most widely circulated variant in the U.S. and globally. It is also the dominant variant in Europe and is rising sharply in Asia, the CDC said. (1/5)

Los Angeles Times: COVID-19 Intensifies Across California, With Worst Probably Still To Come
New data show pronounced recent jumps in the rate at which coronavirus and flu tests are coming back positive, as well as the number of hospital-admitted patients testing positive for the viruses. Workplaces are also seeing higher numbers of employees call in sick due to infections. National wastewater data suggest this winter could see the highest number of coronavirus infections occurring during any given week since the first Omicron wave began in fall 2021. (Lin II, 1/6)

Axios: Hospitals Reinstate Mask Mandates As COVID, Respiratory Viruses Surge
Hospitals are beginning to revive mask mandates as the highly contagious COVID-19 variant known as JN.1 overspreads the United States and health systems grapple with a spike in other seasonal respiratory viruses. (Bettelheim and Millman, 1/5)

St. Louis Public Radio: St. Louis Recommends Masks For City Workers And Residents 
St. Louis health officials are again recommending that residents wear masks indoors or in crowded spaces where social distancing isn’t possible as cases of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses rise throughout the region. The city also is recommending that city employees wear masks indoors starting Friday, said a spokesman for Mayor Tishaura Jones. (Fentem, 1/5)

CBS News: Catch The Flu For Money? University Of Maryland School Of Medicine Studies How Virus Is Transmitted
The University of Maryland School of Medicine is conducting a "flu transmission" study. The study is designed to examine the person-to-person transmission of community-acquired influenza in healthy adults aged 18 to 59. ... "Viruses can be transmitted in different ways," Dr. Wilbur Chen, the study co-investigator at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which is partnering with the university's School of Public Health, told our media partner at The Baltimore Banner. "Some might be more airborne than others." (Thompson, 1/5)

CBS News: Philadelphia Health Department Gives Update On Measles Outbreak; 5 Confirmed 3 Probable Cases
The measles outbreak in Philadelphia is growing. The Philadelphia Health Department said there are now five confirmed and three probable cases and there could be more. Dr. Cheryl Bettigole of the Philadelphia Health Department said this is a serious outbreak that has three children still hospitalized. It started because a quarantine order was violated. "This is a major event," she said. (Stahl, 1/5)

Modern Healthcare: CVS Raises Aetna Medicare Advantage Enrollment Expectations
CVS Health predicts its Aetna subsidiary will enroll one-third more Medicare Advantage beneficiaries than previously projected this year. Aetna signed up more people than anticipated for individual and Dual Eligible Special Needs plans during the open enrollment period that ended Dec. 7, CVS Health disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday. The company now expects 800,000 new enrollees in 2024. (Tepper, 1/5)

Modern Healthcare: Methodist Le Bonheur To Settle West Clinic Kickback Allegations 
Memphis, Tennessee-based Methodist allegedly paid West Clinic, a physician group of oncologists and other specialists based in Memphis, for Medicare beneficiary referrals. The allegations stem from a federal whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2017 by Jeffrey Liebman, former president of Methodist University Hospital, and David Stern, former dean of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. The federal government intervened in the whistleblower lawsuit in 2022. (Kacik, 1/5)

Stat: Nonprofit, Backed By Microsoft, To Certify AI Tools In Health Care
A group of academic hospitals and technology companies will form a new nonprofit venture to oversee a nationwide network of laboratories to test artificial intelligence tools designed for use in health care. (Ross, 1/8)

Modern Healthcare: Inside Predictive AI’s Use In Hospital Patient Safety, Quality
Clinicians at some health systems are turning to artificial intelligence-driven tools to predict and avert negative patient outcomes, though stakeholders say caution remains warranted. The provider organizations are using technology to flag patients who may need extra preventive or follow-up attention. Many major electronic health record vendors, including Epic Systems, Allscripts and Oracle's Cerner, have also integrated AI tools into their platforms to help providers forecast risk based on medical history. (Devereaux, 1/5)

The Washington Post: The Medical Field Is A Tough One For Prospective Parents, Study Finds
Medical professionals face barriers to building and sustaining families, research published late last month in JAMA Network Open suggests. The study points to a variety of factors that make it hard for those with medical careers to have children, especially those with infertility or who decide on surrogacy, foster care or adoption. Researchers drew on data from a 2021 survey of 2,025 medical students, residents, fellows and practicing physicians. Ninety-two percent of the respondents were women, and 85 percent identified as heterosexual. The survey asked respondents to answer three open-ended questions about how their careers affected their family planning. (Blakemore, 1/6)

Stat: Allogene Pivoting To New Strategy On Off-The-Shelf CAR-T Therapy 
Allogene Therapeutics is making unexpected changes to development plans for its off-the-shelf cell therapy for a type of blood cancer — a concession that competition from personalized CAR-T treatments, already entrenched in the market, has become more challenging. (Feuerstein, 1/4)

Bloomberg: Bayer’s Menopause Drug Elinzanetant Succeeds In Two Final-Stage Studies
An experimental Bayer AG drug successfully alleviated hot flashes and other disturbances associated with menopause in two studies, clearing a path for a medicine that Bayer says could become a blockbuster. The drug, elinzanetant, lowered the frequency and severity of hot flashes and met all the research goals in studies that included about 800 post-menopausal women, the German company said Monday. Bayer was testing the therapy, which is administered orally once a day, against a placebo. (Loh, 1/8)

AP: A Push To Expand Medicaid Has Kansas Governor Embracing Politics And Cutting Against Her Brand
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is more aggressive and openly political in pushing to expand Medicaid in Kansas as the Republican-controlled Legislature prepares to open its annual session Monday following five years of failed efforts to provide state health coverage to another 150,000 people. Kelly faces leaders of GOP supermajorities whose priorities are to cut income taxes and rein in local property taxes, not to expand Medicaid. (Hanna, 1/6)

Stat: DeSantis Can Now Import Cheaper Drugs. But Will Biden Get Credit?
The Biden administration has approved Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plan to import a limited set of brand drugs from Canada, paving the way for other states to follow suit and setting up a fight to take credit for the drug-price-lowering measure in the race for president. (Wilkerson, 1/5)

NPR: Sales Of Sugary Drinks Fell In Cities With Soda Taxes, Study Finds
Sales of sugary drinks fell dramatically across five U.S. cities, after they implemented taxes targeting those drinks – and those changes were sustained over time. That's according to a study published Friday in the journal JAMA Health Forum. Researchers say the findings provide more evidence that these controversial taxes really do work. A claim the beverage industry disputes. ... Kaplan and his colleagues found that, on average, prices for sugar-sweetened drinks went up by 33.1% and purchases went down by basically the same amount – 33%. (Godoy, 1/6)

CNN: California Law Banning Carrying Concealed Firearms In Many Public Places Is Once Again Blocked
A new California gun law banning the concealed carry of firearms in “sensitive places” – including places of worship, public libraries, amusement parks, zoos and sporting events – is once again blocked after a decision Saturday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The law signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom – Senate Bill 2 – was temporarily halted last month after District Judge Cormac Carney issued an injunction deeming the gun control measure unconstitutional and “repugnant to the Second Amendment.” (Campbell, 1/7)

CBS News: Proposal Would Lower Gun Buying Age For Rifles, Long Guns In Florida
A House Republican on Thursday renewed an attempt to lower the minimum age from 21 to 18 for people to buy rifles and other long guns in Florida, potentially reversing part of a law that passed in the aftermath of the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. ... The state law drew a legal challenge from the National Rifle Association, which contends that it violates Second Amendment rights. A federal district judge upheld the age restriction, but the case remains pending at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (1/5)

Military.com: Sailor Who Died By Suicide On Roosevelt Carrier Faced Lack Of Resources, Poor Leadership By Enlisted Supervisors
A Navy investigation of a suicide aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier last year has revealed deadly shortcomings in the service's peer-based method of addressing mental health, which depends on fellow sailors and deckplate leadership to provide support. The command-directed probe of the death aboard the Roosevelt as it was undergoing a long maintenance period in Washington state details failures by friends on the ship to report warning signs and poor leadership by enlisted supervisors that may have contributed to the death. It also suggests a separate recent suicide cluster aboard another carrier, the USS George Washington, was not an isolated issue. (Toropin, 1/5)

NBC News: Online Racism Is Linked To PTSD Symptoms In Black Youth, Study Finds
Mounting evidence shows the devastating toll online racism takes on Black youth. According to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, Black children and teens who experience racial discrimination online may develop symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder. Those PTSD symptoms, the researchers found, were also potentially linked to suicidal thoughts. (Bellamy 1/5)

The Washington Post: Woman Who Gave Birth Alone In Virginia Jail Cell Sues Over Baby’s Death
A woman who gave birth alone in her cell while detained at the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Virginia is alleging in federal court that correctional staff members ignored her cries for help as she went into labor in August 2021 and that her infant son died of a treatable infection. Attorneys for Jemika Johnson, 24, said she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was not receiving her prescribed anti-anxiety medications while on pretrial detention at the facility in Stafford. Jail officials have denied Johnson’s claims, arguing in court filings that she was not deprived of her constitutional rights and that the lawsuit should be dismissed because it was filed too late under the statute of limitations. (Rizzo, 1/6)

AP: Why It's Gotten Harder To Use WIC, A Food Assistance Program
Bianca Williams was tired of trying to find a store that either accepted federal food benefits for low-income mothers and their children or a store that had quality produce. So the Milwaukee resident — who has seven kids, including two currently being breastfed — decided in November that she’d rather turn to frozen Thanksgiving leftovers and food from family and friends. More than 6 million people in the U.S. get benefits from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women and Children, commonly known as WIC. But it’s not always easy to get the fresh produce, baby formula and other nutritious WIC-approved items. (Hunter, 1/5)

The Washington Post: FDA Finds Chromium, A Second Metal Contaminant, In Applesauce Pouches
Federal investigators have discovered a second contaminant in recalled applesauce pouches — the naturally-occurring metal chromium, which in a certain form can cause a number of adverse health effects. The finding is the latest development in the Food and Drug Administration’s international investigation of high levels of lead found in cinnamon applesauce pouches marketed to children. The pouches of fruit puree that have been recalled were manufactured in Ecuador and sold under the brand names WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking at least 287 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of lead exposure in 37 states linked to the applesauce recall. (Amenabar, 1/5)

CIDRAP: Fatal TB Outbreak Shows Importance Of Screening Tissue Transplants 
Today a new study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describes an outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) linked to contaminated bone allografts (tissue transplant) from the same donor. On July 7, 2023, a patient who had spinal fusion surgery that incorporated a bone allograft product containing live cells experienced symptoms of meningitis 5 weeks after surgery. Mycobacterium tuberculosis was identified in the cerebrospinal fluid of the patient, and state health authorities contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Soucheray, 1/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Elon Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders At Tesla And SpaceX
Elon Musk and his supporters offer several explanations for his contrarian views, unfiltered speech and provocative antics. They’re an expression of his creativity. Or the result of his mental-health challenges. Or fallout from his stress, or sleep deprivation. In recent years, some executives and board members at his companies and others close to the billionaire have developed a persistent concern that there is another component driving his behavior: his use of drugs. ... The world’s wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it. Musk has previously smoked marijuana in public and has said he has a prescription for the psychedelic-like ketamine. (Glazer and Grind, 1/6)

MarketWatch: Elon Musk On WSJ Story: If Drugs Helped My Productivity, I Would Take Them
That was businessman and inventor Elon Musk responding on his X platform, to an article by The Wall Street Journal that discussed alleged illegal drug use by the Tesla CEO. Citing sources, the article that published on Saturday said Musk had used cocaine, ketamine, psychedelic mushrooms and other substances, and that some board members were worried about potential problems for his health and the empire he watches over. ... “If drugs actually helped improve my net productivity over time, I would definitely take them!” Musk responded. (Kollmeyer, 1/8)

Reuters: India Orders New Drug-Making Standards After Overseas Deaths 
Indian pharmaceutical companies must meet new manufacturing standards this year, according to a government notification released on Saturday, although small companies have asked for a delay, citing their debt load. Jolted by a string of overseas deaths linked to Indian-made drugs since 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has stepped up scrutiny of pharmaceutical factories to clean up the image of the $50 billion industry. "The manufacturer must assume responsibility for the quality of the pharmaceutical products to ensure that they are fit for their intended use, comply with the requirements of the licence and do not place patients at risk due to inadequate safety, quality or efficacy," said the notification, dated Dec. 28. Companies must market a finished product only after getting "satisfactory results" on tests of the ingredients and retain a sufficient quantity of the samples of intermediate and final products to allow repeated testing or verification of a batch, it says. (1/6)