First Edition: July 10, 2023

KFF Health News: Meet The People Deciding How To Spend $50 Billion In Opioid Settlement Cash
As more than $50 billion makes its way to state and local governments to compensate for the opioid epidemic, people with high hopes for the money are already fighting over a little-known bureaucratic arm of the process: state councils that wield immense power over how the cash is spent. In 14 states, these councils have the ultimate say on the money, which comes from companies that made, distributed, or sold opioid painkillers, including Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and Walmart. In 24 other states, plus Washington, D.C., the councils establish budget priorities and make recommendations. Those will affect whether opioid settlement funds go, for example, to improve addiction treatment programs and recovery houses or for more narcotics detectives and prisons. (Pattani, 7/10)

KFF Health News: What You Need To Know About The Drug Price Fight In Those TV Ads 
In recent months ominous ads about prescription drugs have flooded the TV airwaves. Perhaps by design, it’s not always clear who’s sponsoring the ads or why. Or, for that matter, why now? The short answer is that Congress is paying attention. House and Senate members from both parties have launched at least nine bills, parts of which may be packaged together this fall, that take aim at pharmacy benefit managers, companies that channel prescription drugs to patients. Here’s a primer to help you decipher what’s happening. (Allen, 7/10)

KFF Health News: Proposed PFAS Rule Would Cost Companies Estimated $1B; Lacks Limits And Cleanup Requirement
A proposed federal rule calls for forcing companies to disclose whether their products contain toxic “forever” chemicals, the government’s first attempt at cataloging the pervasiveness of PFAS across the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency rule would require manufacturers to report many products that contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They’re a family of chemicals that don’t degrade in nature and have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and hormone irregularities. (Scaturro, 7/10)

Stat: Biden Targets Hefty Hospital 'Facility Fees' That Often Surprise Patients
As part of the Biden administration’s broader efforts to lower health care costs, the White House announced new guidelines on Friday targeting a few of the most common sources of sticker shock. The new policy initiatives target some of the usual suspects: surprise billing, which was restricted in 2020 yet persists as health care providers exploit loopholes; short-term insurance policies that often fail to cover essential treatment; and high-interest credit cards and payment plans especially marketed to help patients cover medical debt. (Merelli, 7/7)

Reuters: Biden's Junk Fee Crusade Turns To Short-Term Health Insurance Plans
"It's not necessarily about healthcare, it’s about being played for a sucker," Biden said at a White House event announcing the policies. "That's a scam and it has to end." The Obama administration in 2016 limited short-term insurance plans to three months to try to get more people on year-round plans, but regulations adopted by the Trump administration in 2018 allowed people to stay on such plans for 12 months and renew them for three years. (Bose, 7/7)

CBS News: Billions In NIH Grants Could Be Jeopardized By Appointments Snafu, Republicans Say
The Biden administration allegedly failed to correctly reappoint more than a dozen top-ranking National Institutes of Health leaders, House Republicans say, raising questions about the legality of billions in federal grants doled out by those officials over the last year. Their claim, detailed Friday in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, obtained by CBS News, follows a monthslong probe led by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, into vacancies at the agency. (Herridge and Tin, 7/9)

Modern Healthcare: Medical Credit Cards Under Scrutiny By HHS, CFPB
The Health and Human Services Department, Treasury Department and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau launched a joint inquiry Friday into these financial products, requesting information on how they work, the risks they pose and the impact they have on billing services, according to a news release. The agencies opened a 60-day public comment period to gain feedback from consumers, lenders and providers. (Hudson, 7/7)

Stat: Medicare Wants To Send $9 Billion To 340B Hospitals
Medicare is planning to send $9 billion in lump-sum payments to more than 1,600 hospitals that participate in a drug discount program after the Supreme Court found the program underpaid them for prescription drugs, the agency announced on Friday. To pay for the restitution, Medicare would slash all hospitals’ payments for other items and services by 0.5% for the next 16 years. (Cohrs, 7/7)

USA Today: Supreme Court Affirmative Action Ruling Detrimental To Latinos' Health
A study found Latinos are still underrepresented among certain health care professions and obstacles to advanced education may be to blame. The study, published Wednesday in Health Affairs, comes a week after the recent Supreme Court decision to strike down affirmative action policies that helped diversify medical schools across the country for decades. (Rodriguez, 7/7)

Stat: Biden’s NIH Nominee Is Languishing In Congress
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ rare move to delay President Biden’s health care nominees has put the drug pricing firebrand and the White House in a standoff — and public health advocates worry the feud could squeeze out an otherwise uncontroversial pick to lead the country’s top science agency. (Owermohle, 7/10)

Chicago Tribune: James Lewis, Sole Suspect In 1982 Tylenol Murders, Has Died
James Lewis, the lone suspect in the 1982 Tylenol murders, was found dead Sunday at his home in suburban Boston, multiple law-enforcement sources confirmed to the Tribune. His death comes after 40 years of intense scrutiny from law enforcement, in which Lewis played a cat-and-mouse game with investigators. Local authorities questioned him as recently as September as part of a renewed effort to bring charges in the case. With the investigation’s only suspect dead, it now seems unlikely that charges will ever be brought in poisonings that killed seven people and caused a worldwide panic. (Gutowski and St. Clair, 7/9)

AP: Wisconsin Judge: Lawsuit To Repeal Abortion Ban Can Continue
Wisconsin’s 173-year-old abortion ban outlaws killing fetuses but doesn’t apply to consensual medical abortions, a judge ruled Friday in allowing a lawsuit challenging the ban to continue in the perennial battleground state. Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper said the legal language in the ban doesn’t use the term “abortion” so the law only prohibits attacking a woman in an attempt to kill her unborn child. (Richmond, 7/7)

AP: Iowa Republicans Will Pursue A 6-Week Abortion Ban During A Special Session That Starts Tuesday
Iowa’s Republican-controlled Legislature will aim to enact a ban on abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy during a rare special session that starts Tuesday, a draft of the bill released Friday shows. The proposed measure is similar to a 2018 law that a deadlocked state Supreme Court declined to reinstate last month, prompting Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds to call for the extraordinary session. Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. (Fingerhut, 7/7)

Indianapolis Star: Out-Of-State Abortion Patients Tripled In Indiana In 2022, Report Says
The number of out-of-state patients who traveled to Indiana for abortions more than tripled in 2022. That's one finding in the Indiana Department of Health's newly released annual Terminated Pregnancy Report, which captured data on the state’s abortion landscape during a year that saw Roe v. Wade overturned and several neighboring states increase restrictions on abortion. (Basile, 7/10)

NBC News: New HIV Cases Linked To New Mexico Salon That Gave Vampire Facials
New Mexico health officials say new HIV infections have been linked to a salon that performed so-called vampire facials, almost five years after the business closed. The Albuquerque salon, called VIP Spa, was shut down in September 2018 after at least two clients tested positive for HIV following the facials. (Lenthang, 7/7)

CIDRAP: FDA Clears Rapid Diagnostic Test For Respiratory Ailments 
Australian diagnostics company Lumos Diagnostics announced this week that it has received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) marketing clearance for a rapid diagnostic test that helps clinicians determine when antibiotics are needed for respiratory infections. The FDA clearance means that FebriDX, a disposable point-of-care immunoassay designed to aid diagnosis of acute bacterial respiratory infections, can now be marketed in the United States for use by healthcare providers in urgent care and emergency care settings. Company officials say the test, which differentiates bacterial- from viral-associated host immune response and is intended to be used in conjunction with clinical signs and symptoms, could help improve antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory infections. (Dall, 7/7)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Washington University Researchers Develop Air Monitor That Detects COVID-19 Virus
A team of researchers at Washington University has developed an air monitor that can alert users to the presence of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus responsible for COVID-19 — in just five minutes. In an article published in Nature Communications on Monday, the researchers showed the monitor’s ability to detect as few as tens of viral particles in a cubic meter. They hope to commercialize the air monitor so it can be placed in public spaces like hospitals and schools, helping prevent the spread of COVID-19. (Vargo, 7/10)

CIDRAP: Increased Antibiotic Exposure Linked To Severe COVID-19 Outcomes
Repeated antibiotic exposure may be associated with severe COVID-19 outcomes, British researchers reported this week in eClinical Medicine. (Dall, 7/7)

Stat: House Panel To Mark Up Pandemic-Preparedness Bill Next Week
A House subcommittee will next week mark up a package of public health bills, including pandemic-preparedness legislation, according to five lobbyists. The House Energy & Commerce Committee hasn’t yet announced the markup, and the lobbyists didn’t know the exact date. But time is running out for reauthorizing a law that created several of the federal government’s biodefense and pandemic-preparedness programs. (Wilkerson, 7/7)

AP: Judge Holds Washington State In Contempt For Not Providing Services To Mentally Ill People In Jails
A federal judge has found Washington state in contempt and ordered it to pay more than $100 million in fines for failing to provide timely psychiatric services to mentally ill people who are forced to wait in jails for weeks or months. In her order released late Friday, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said the Washington Department of Social and Health Services has been violating the constitutional rights of these people since 2015 due to a “lack of foresight, creativity, planning and timely response to a crisis of its own making.” (Bellisle, 7/8)

AP: Tennessee Can Enforce Ban On Transgender Care For Minors, Court Says
Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth can go into effect — at least for now — after a federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily reversed a lower court ruling. Last month, a district court judge in Tennessee found that the state’s new law banning transgender therapies like hormone blockers and surgeries for transgender youth was unconstitutional because it discriminated on the basis of sex. The judge blocked large swaths of the law from taking effect. (Barakat, 7/8)

Health News Florida: Florida Is One Of Two States Declining Federal Waivers To Help With Medicaid Unwinding
Federal health officials are urging states like Florida to make it easier for people to renew their Medicaid coverage as a mass unwinding following the COVID-19 public health emergency continues. Thousands of Floridians have been disenrolled from Medicaid since the state began redetermining eligibility in May, after a federal directive that states suspend such efforts during the pandemic was lifted. Florida began its process earlier than some others, but committed to spreading out renewals over the course of a year. (Colombini, 7/7)

Houston Chronicle: Legionnaires’ Disease Sickens 4 At Fulshear 55-Plus Community
A Fulshear community clubhouse has been closed after confirmed cases of legionellosis, most commonly called “Legionnaires' disease,” sickened at least four members. The Fort Bend County Health and Human Services said one person who had legionellosis died, but the department did not confirm the cause of death. (Goodman, 7/7)

Houston Chronicle: What Is A Cyclospora Infection? Houston Area Sees Rise In New Cases
Harris and Fort Bend counties have received reports of an increased number of Cyclospora infections in the region, according statements from health officials sent Friday evening. Harris County Public Health and Fort Bend County Health and Human Services are urging residents to take proper precautions this summer while preparing food containing fresh vegetables and fruit, cooking and spending time outdoors. (Breen, 7/8)

Fox News: Wisconsin Woman Dead After Contracting Rare Fungus Found In Soil 
A Wisconsin woman's death from an unusual fungus left her loving family reeling. Now, the family of Sonya Cruz from Ketnosha, Wisconsin, is warning others about blastomyces- a rare fungus that when disturbed releases spores into the air that can cause severe illness and death. The fungus can be found in soil, especially in moist and wooded areas. (Rumpf-Whitten, 7/8)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Heat Led To Air Pollution From Oil And Gas Machinery Failures
The unrelenting heat that gripped Texas in June was responsible for the release of hundreds of tons of air pollutants, including an estimated 5,733 pounds of propane and propylene from a Pasadena plant, as facilities in the oil and gas industry struggled to keep their equipment running properly. (Ward, 7/7)

The New York Times: Substance Abuse Is Climbing Among Seniors
Until a few years ago, even as the opioid epidemic raged, health providers and researchers paid limited attention to drug use by older adults; concerns focused on the younger, working-age victims who were hardest hit. But as baby boomers have turned 65, the age at which they typically qualify for Medicare, substance use disorders among the older population have climbed steeply. “Cohorts have habits around drug and alcohol use that they carry through life,” said Keith Humphreys, a psychologist and addiction researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine. (Span, 7/9)

The Washington Post: When An Older Parent Won't Go To The Doctor, Here's What Experts Advise 
An article in the Journal of Applied Gerontology in 2020 reported that one-fourth of people 65 and older had avoided medical care, based on a sample of 2,155 participants from the 2008 Health Information National Trends Survey. (Neumann, 7/9)

Becker's Hospital Review: AI Tool Can Predict A Brain Tumor's Profile Instantly: Study
Identifying the genetic characteristics of a glioma tumor is a process that traditionally takes days or weeks, but a study published July 7 in the journal Med revealed an artificial intelligence tool can predict a tumor's profile almost instantly. The tool, the Cryosection Histopathology Assessment and Review Machine, or CHARM, is a machine-learning algorithm that was trained by researchers showing it sample photos collected during brain surgeries and comparing its work with each respective diagnosis, according to a July 7 report from Bloomberg. (7/7)

NBC News: Kidney Stones Are Rising Among Kids And Teens, Especially Girls
Experts aren’t sure why more children and teens are developing the condition, but they speculate that a combination of factors are to blame, including diets high in ultraprocessed foods, increased use of antibiotics early in life and climate change causing more cases of dehydration. Doctors who spoke to NBC News said they see more kids with kidney stones in the summer than any other season. (Camero, 7/8)

CNN: A Lack Of Sleep Blocks Brain-Boosting Benefits From Exercise, Study Says
One of the most important ways to keep your body healthy is by exercising — it has been shown to help prevent chronic disease, lengthen life, ward off dementia, slow cognitive decline and much more. However, the amount of sleep you get may be just as important — at least when it comes to the benefits of exercise and how well your brain functions as you age. In a new study, researchers discovered people with more frequent, higher-intensity physical activity who slept less than six hours a night on average had faster overall cognitive decline than short sleepers who exercised infrequently. (LaMotte, 7/6)

AP: The FDA Is Being Asked To Look Into PRIME, Logan Paul's Energy Drink, Which Has The Caffeine Of 6 Coke Cans 
An influencer-backed energy drink that has earned viral popularity among children is facing scrutiny from lawmakers and health experts over its potentially dangerous levels of caffeine. On Sunday, Sen. Charles Schumer called on the Food and Drug Administration to investigate PRIME, a beverage brand founded by the YouTube stars Logan Paul and KSI that has become something of an obsession among the influencers’ legions of young followers. (Offenhartz, 7/9)