First Edition: January 10, 2018

Kaiser Health News: HHS Nominee Vows To Tackle High Drug Costs, Despite His Ties To Industry
Azar countered that the nation’s pharmaceutical drug system is structured to encourage companies to raise prices, a problem he said he would work to fix as head of HHS. “I don’t know that there is any drug price of a brand-new product that has ever gone down from any company on any drug in the United States, because every incentive in this system is towards higher prices, and that is where we can do things together, working as the government to get at this,” he said. “No one company is going to fix that system.” (Huetteman, 1/9)

Kaiser Health News: A Poor Neighborhood In Chicago Looks To Cuba To Fight Infant Mortality
Over the past few months, medical professionals on Chicago’s South Side have been trying a new tactic to bring down the area’s infant mortality rate: find women of childbearing age and ask them about everything.Really, everything. “In the last 12 months, have you had any problems with any bug infestations, rodents or mold?” Dr. Kathy Tossas-Milligan, an epidemiologist, asked Yolanda Flowers during a recent visit to her home, in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. “Have you ever had teeth removed or crowned because of a cavity?” (Bryan, 1/10)

California Healthline: Listen: How A ‘Hippie Clinic’ In San Francisco Inspired A Medical Philosophy
Fifty-one years ago in San Francisco, a small community clinic opened its doors. Its mission: to treat many of the young people who flocked to the city — who were often homeless, hungry and sick. The Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, now part of a larger network, still operates out of a second-floor office overlooking Haight Street in San Francisco, and it still helps people on the fringes of society. Carrie Feibel of San Francisco’s KQED filed this radio story for NPR and KHN on the history of the clinic. (Feibel, 1/10)

The New York Times: Trump Likes Drug Price Negotiations; His Nominee For Health Secretary Doesn’t
Alex M. Azar II, President Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, said Tuesday that he was wary of proposals for the government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, an idea endorsed by Mr. Trump in the 2016 campaign. But Mr. Azar said that in some situations, he was willing to look at proposals to negotiate prices for a limited number of medicines. (Pear, 1/9)

The Associated Press: Trump Health Pick Wary Of Government Drug Price Negotiations
Alex Azar, a former pharmaceutical and government executive, acknowledged to the Senate Finance Committee that drug prices are too high and said he'd work to lower them if confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services. But he said allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices across the board would risk restricting choice for patients, since the government would have to establish an approved list of discounted medications. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 1/9)

Stat: HHS Nominee Azar Signals New Line Of Attack On Drug Prices
In that first hearing, Azar stuck to traditionally conservative policy ideas like encouraging the development of more generic drugs, including “a viable and robust biosimilar market,” and limiting abuses of the patent system. This time, however, he hinted that he is open to other policies that might go further to address the list prices that drug makers charge. “There’s no silver bullet here, though, I want to be very clear. There’s not one action that all of a sudden fixes this,” he said. (Mershon, 1/9)

Reuters: Health Secretary Nominee Indicates Support For Medicaid Overhaul
Azar appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, which will ultimately decide whether to move his nomination forward. Azar also vowed to uphold Obamacare as long as it remained the law but said that the program needed changes. "I believe I have a very important obligation to make the program work as well as possible," Azar said during the wide-ranging hearing that lasted more than two hours. "What we have now is not working for people." (Abutaleb, 1/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump HHS Nominee Defends Pharmaceutical-Industry Ties At Senate Hearing
Mr. Azar said in a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee that his past position as president of an Eli Lilly & Co. affiliate gives him a unique advantage in tackling drug costs. “From having worked for the last several years in that space—this is such a complex area, the learning curve for any other individual would be so high,” Mr. Azar said. Bringing down consumer prices would be a central goal, he said, adding, “There is no silver bullet here, I want to be very clear.” Democrats said they had concerns about Mr. Azar’s views on the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid spending, as well as his tenure in the pharmaceutical industry. (Armour, 1/9)

The Washington Post: Senate Finance Committee Evaluates Alex Azar To Be The Next HHS Secretary
The minority party’s efforts during the Senate Finance Committee hearing did not appear to halt his path toward joining the president’s Cabinet. Republicans bestowed superlatives on Azar and highlighted his senior roles at the Department of Health and Human Services for a half-dozen years in the early 2000s. And during nearly 2½ hours of questioning, the nominee delivered a polished, informed performance in the witness chair, assuring senators, who have at times felt slighted by administration officials, that he is eager to work with them. (Goldstein and Eilperin, 1/9)

Politico: Trump's HHS Pick Appears To Be On Track For Confirmation
The expected confirmation of Alex Azar, who appeared before a Senate panel Tuesday, would put the conservative policy expert in charge of rewriting the rules of the U.S. health care system with a broad mandate to use the powers to the fullest. And following a tumultuous year marked by failed Obamacare repeal efforts and the abrupt resignation of Trump’s first HHS secretary, Republicans think Azar can ably get the Trump administration’s health agenda on track. “Mr. Azar will be the administration’s primary policy driver,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said during Azar’s confirmation hearing. “I believe his record shows that he is more than capable of leading HHS through these next few consequential years.” (Cancryn and Karlin-Smith, 1/9)

The Washington Post: Trump Seeks To Reduce Suicide Among Recent Veterans With New Executive Order
President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at expanding mental-health care for transitioning veterans as they leave the military, in an effort to reduce suicides in a group that is considered particularly at risk. The order will take effect March 9 and is expected to provide all new veterans with mental-health care for at least a year after they leave the military. Trump gave the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Veterans Affairs 60 days to iron out details and develop a joint plan, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said in phone call with reporters. (Lamothe, 1/9)

USA Today: Trump Expands Mental Health Benefits To Decrease Veteran Suicide Rates
Veterans who have recently left the military are between two and three times more likely to commit suicide than active duty service members, and nearly 20% of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. The order directs the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs to submit a plan within 60 days to provide “seamless access to mental health treatment and suicide prevention resources.” "We want them to get the highest care and the care they so richly deserve," Trump said. (Slack, 1/9)

The Hill: Alexander, Trump Discussed ObamaCare Fix In Nashville 
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) says he spoke to President Trump on Monday about a bipartisan bill aimed at stabilizing ObamaCare markets and that Trump again expressed his support for the measure. Alexander told reporters Tuesday that Trump asked about the bill when the two appeared together at an event in Tennessee on Monday. Alexander said he told the president he would get back to him after meeting with Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) this week. (Sullivan, 1/9)

The Hill: ObamaCare Repeal Fades From GOP Priorities List In New Year
The chances of repealing ObamaCare this year are fading further, with top Republicans saying they hardly discussed repeal of the law during a Camp David retreat last weekend focused on their 2018 agenda. Meanwhile, Republicans say talk of welfare or entitlement reform this year is also narrowing down to an emphasis on things like job training, not the broad overhaul of Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements that Democrats have warned against. (Sullivan, 1/10)

The Hill: Maryland State Lawmakers Propose Replacement For Repealed ObamaCare Mandate 
State lawmakers in Maryland are looking to replace ObamaCare's individual mandate, which was repealed by Republicans in Congress last month. A proposal in Maryland would require people to pay a penalty for not having insurance. The money, though, could be used as a down payment for a health insurance plan. (Hellmann, 1/9)

The Hill: Trump Admin To Settle $3M In Legal Fees Over Obama-Era Contraception Mandate: Report 
The Trump administration has agreed to pay $3 million to settle lawsuits filed against the Affordable Care Act's mandate for contraception coverage, BuzzFeed News reported on Tuesday. The amount went to the law firm Jones Day, which represented dozens of groups that sued the Obama administration over the mandate, according to BuzzFeed. (Delk, 1/9)

Los Angeles Times: Parents Agonize Over Their Kids' Health As Funding For Children's Insurance Program Remains In Doubts
It was an anxious Christmas and New Year's for the Belt family. Tracy and B.J. Belt for years have lived paycheck to paycheck, as B.J.'s truck-driving job at a quarry in the hills around Morgantown hasn't left much for luxuries. But this holiday season, the Belts had a new worry. Their two boys, Bobby and Dylan, may soon be uninsured, leaving 11-year-old Bobby without the costly medicine and blood monitors he needs to control his Type 1 diabetes. (Levey, 1/9)

The New York Times: Trump’s First Full Physical Is Approaching. What He Discloses Is Up To Him.
President Trump is a commander in chief who fuels himself with a steady stream of Diet Cokes, scoops of vanilla ice cream and slabs of red meat. He gets as little as five hours of sleep a night. He is not known to exercise more than the brief strolls beyond his cart on the golf course. This, he and his aides have maintained, is the very picture of presidential stamina. On Friday, Mr. Trump, 71, will undergo his first comprehensive physical examination as president, and the first formal check on his former doctor’s Trumpian 2015 campaign claim that he’d be the “healthiest individual ever elected” to the office. (Rogers and Altman, 1/9)

The Associated Press: Trump Faces Presidential Fitness Test Amid Raised Concerns
Trump raised concern last month when he slurred some words on national TV. When asked about it, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said questions about Trump's health were "frankly, pretty ridiculous" and blamed his slurred speech on a dry throat, "nothing more than that." More questions have been raised in the weeks since, given the tone of some of his tweets and the reported comments of some of the people who deal with him day to day. (Superville, 1/9)

Los Angeles Times: One Of The Most Promising Drugs For Alzheimer's Disease Fails In Clinical Trials
To the roughly 400 clinical trials that have tested some experimental treatment for Alzheimer's disease and come up short, we can now add three more. An experimental drug called idalopirdine failed to help people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease in a trio of trials that involved 2,525 patients in 34 countries. Not only did the drug fail to bring about any meaningful change in cognitive tests that are widely used in diagnosing and tracking the progress of the disease, it also failed to cause significant improvements in general measures of daily function among those taking it at any of three tested doses. (Healy, 1/9)

Stat: A New Alzheimer's Drug, Once Worth Billions, Is Headed For The Trash
Axovant Sciences (AXON), 2017’s most talked-about biotech company, is abandoning the drug that made it famous after yet another clinical trial failure. The company, valued at more than $2.8 billion in September, will no longer study intepirdine after finding the drug to be useless against dementia with Lewy bodies, a memory-destroying disease that can affect mood and balance. Last year, intepirdine failed in a 1,300-patient Alzheimer’s disease trial, sending Axovant’s share price down more than 75 percent. (Garde, 1/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Despite Setbacks, Drugmakers Have Plans To Fight Alzheimer’s
During the fiscal year 2017, the National Institutes of Health will have poured an estimated $1.35 billion into Alzheimer’s disease, almost triple its investment for fiscal year 2013. And Pfizer said it had plans to establish a corporate venture fund focused on neuroscience projects. Sales of successful treatments for the disorder could amount to billions of dollars as demand for therapies increase due to an aging population. Analysts had predicted that annual sales for Axovant’s drug, known as intepirdine, could have topped $2 billion. (Hernandez, Whalen and Prang, 1/8)

The Associated Press: Judge Urges Action On ‘100 Percent Manmade’ Opioid Crisis
A federal judge on Tuesday set a goal of doing something about the nation’s opioid epidemic this year, while noting the drug crisis is “100 percent man-made.” Judge Dan Polster urged participants on all sides of lawsuits against drugmakers and distributors to work toward a common goal of reducing overdose deaths. He said the issue has come to courts because “other branches of government have punted” it. (Welsh-Huggins, 1/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Federal Judge Seeks Speedy Resolution Of Opioid Lawsuits
“I don’t think anyone in the country is interested in a whole lot of finger pointing at this point, and I’m not either,” U.S. District Judge Dan Polster said Tuesday at the first gathering, in a Cleveland courtroom that was packed, of lawyers involved in the sprawling opioid litigation. Judge Polster is overseeing the consolidation of more than 200 cases filed in federal court by local governments, hospitals and other parties, all seeking to recoup the costs of opioid addiction from the manufacturers and distributors of the painkillers. (Randazzo, 1/9)

The Hill: Senate Dems Seek $25B In Opioid Funding 
Senate Democrats are pushing for an extra $25 billion to be included in any final budget agreement to combat the opioid epidemic. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, a pair of New Hampshire Democrats who are leading the effort, said during a press conference Tuesday that the federal response to the crisis has been insufficient and negotiations over a long-term spending deal are an opportunity to change that. (Weixel, 1/9)

Stat: Senate Health Committee Hosts Opioid Hearing With One Witness: A Journalist
In its second hearing on the country’s raging drug crisis since President Trump directed the Department of Health and Human Services to declare the matter a public health emergency in October, the Senate health committee called a hearing with a single witness: a journalist. Such hearings conventionally spotlight high-profile government officials and career advocates with deep expertise in a subject. Every hearing this committee and a similarly health-focused House panel held to specifically address the opioid epidemic since 2016 has featured at least four witnesses. A committee press staffer did not answer questions about why Sam Quinones was the only witness at this full committee hearing. (Swetlitz, 1/9)

The Associated Press: 3 Native American Tribes Sue Opioid Industry Groups
Three Native American tribes in the Dakotas are suing opioid manufacturers and distributors, alleging they concealed and minimized the addiction risk of prescription drugs. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe and the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate sued 24 opioid industry groups in federal court on Monday. Defendants include drug manufacturers Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Allergan, and distributors McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Corp. (1/9)

NPR: Opioid Addiction Can Start With Expectations Of Pain-Free Hospital Stays
Doctors at some of the country's largest hospital chains admit they went overboard with opioids to make people as pain-free as possible. Now the doctors shoulder part of the blame for the country's opioid crisis. In an effort to be part of the cure, they've begun to issue an uncomfortable warning to patients: You're going to feel some pain. (Farmer, 1/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Jump In HIV Cases Among Drug Users Seen In Northern Kentucky
Public-health officials in northern Kentucky are investigating a jump in HIV cases among people who inject drugs, the region’s health department said Tuesday. The region, which includes four counties, recorded 37 new cases of HIV in 2017, up 48% from 25 cases in 2016, according to the Northern Kentucky Health Department. (Whalen and Campo-Flores, 1/9)

NPR: Opioid Crisis Leads Philadelphia To Consider 'Safe Injection' Sites
Top Philadelphia officials are advocating that the city become the first in the U.S. to open a supervised injection site, where people suffering from heroin or opioid addiction could use the drugs under medical supervision. But the controversial proposal aimed at addressing the city's deadly drug crisis must first overcome resistance from top city police officials, community residents and the federal government. (Allyn, 1/10)

The Hill: CDC Rejects Censorship Reports: 'There Are Absolutely No "Banned" Words' 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says it “has not banned, prohibited, or forbidden” the use of certain words in official documentation, the agency director says in response to concerns from Senate Democrats. Democrats had been concerned, they said last month, “that the Trump Administration is yet again prioritizing ideology over science” after reports claimed agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had banned employees from using words including “fetus,” “vulnerable” and “science-based.” (Weixel 1/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Tillerson Orders Review Of U.S. Response To Mysterious Illnesses In Cuba
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will order a special panel to investigate the U.S. response to mysterious illnesses that have stricken American diplomats and their relatives in Havana. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department have been probing the incidents in recent months after the administration said they resulted from attacks. Now, Mr. Tillerson will take the further step of establishing an independent board of the same type that was set up after the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a senior diplomat told lawmakers on Tuesday. (Schwartz, 1/9)

The New York Times: Facial Exercises May Make You Look 3 Years Younger
Facial exercises may significantly reduce some of the signs of aging, according to an interesting new study of the effects of repeating specific, expressive movements on people’s appearance. The study, published in JAMA Dermatology, found that middle-aged women looked about three years younger after a few months of exercising, perhaps providing a reasonable, new rationale for making faces behind our spouses’ backs. (Reynolds, 1/10)

NPR: City Women Differ From Rural Counterparts In Age At First Sex, Number Of Kids
Where you live — in a city versus a rural area — could make a difference in how old you tend to be when you first have sex, what type of birth control you use and how many children you have. These are the findings from federal data collected using the National Survey of Family Growth, which analyzed responses from in-person interviews with more than 10,000 U.S. women, ages 18 to 44, between 2011 and 2015. (Neighmond, 1/9)

The Washington Post: Astronaut Apologizes For ‘Fake News’ Claim He Grew 3½ Inches In Space
Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai told a tall tale. He said Monday on Twitter that he grew 3½ inches since arriving at the International Space Station on Dec. 19. Weightlessness has that effect ... But skepticism from a Russian colleague on board led Kanai to remeasure himself, and he found the more accurate spurt: two centimeters, or less than an inch. In his retraction later posted on Twitter, he called his inaccurate announcement “fake news,” The Japan Times reported. (Horton, 1/9)

The Associated Press: California Examines Prison Guards' High Suicide Rate
Correctional Officer Scott Jones kissed his wife goodbye on July 8, 2011, and headed off to a maximum-security prison in the remote high desert of northeastern California. He never came home. Jones' body was found a day later, along with a note explaining why the 36-year-old took his own life: "The job made me do it." (1/9)

Reuters: Florida Judge Blocks Abortion Delay Law, Rules It Unconstitutional
A Florida judge on Tuesday permanently blocked and declared unconstitutional a law requiring a woman to delay an abortion by at least 24 hours after making a visit to a doctor who would have to inform her of possible risks of the procedure."Florida law subjects no other medical procedure, including those that pose greater health risks than abortion, to a mandatory delay," Circuit Judge Terry Lewis wrote in his judgment. (Gonzales, 1/9)

The Associated Press: Group Home Administrator Pleads Guilty In Resident’s Death
The former administrator of an Ohio group home has pleaded guilty to charges of reckless homicide and patient abuse in connection with the death of an 85-year-old resident. Fifty-five-year-old Alice Ramsey entered the plea Monday after reaching an agreement with prosecutors to drop a charge of involuntary manslaughter. (1/9)

The Wall Street Journal: New York Plans New, $400 Million Public-Health Lab For Harlem Site
New York City will spend about $400 million to build a new, public-health laboratory, a larger facility expected to open in about seven years on the campus of Harlem Hospital Center, officials said. The move, which is to be announced in the coming weeks, is intended to give the city’s Department of Health & Mental Hygiene more flexibility for its lab equipment and help its staff work more easily in the event of a crisis such as Zika in 2016 and Ebola in 2014. (West, 1/9)

Los Angeles Times: California Flu Season Could Be One Of The Worst In A Decade, State Officials Say
California health officials said Tuesday that the state's flu season could turn out to be one of the nastiest the state has seen in a long time. "This appears to be one of the worst seasons we've had in the last 10 years," state epidemiologist Dr. Gil Chavez said in a call with reporters. "We're early, and we're trending up." (Karlamangla, 1/9)