First Edition: July 12, 2021
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
KHN:
Government Oversight Of Covid Air Cleaners Leaves Gaping Holes
The sting is a rare example of enforcement in an arena where money is gushing like a geyser but oversight is nearly nonexistent. Electronic air cleaners, heavily marketed to gyms, doctors’ offices and hospitals, companies and schools awash in federal covid relief funds, tend to use high-voltage charges to alter molecules in the air. The companies selling the devices say they can destroy pathogens and clean the air. But academic air quality experts say the technology can be ineffective or potentially create harmful byproducts. Companies that make the devices are subject to virtually no standardized testing or evaluation of their marketing claims. A KHN investigation this spring found that over 2,000 schools across the country have bought such technology. (Weber and Jewett, 7/12)
KHN:
Biden Is Caught In The Middle Of Polarizing Abortion Politics
It took five months for the Biden administration to make a substantive policy change to advance abortion rights. And even that change was buried in a 61-page regulation setting rules for 2022’s Affordable Care Act enrollment. ... But the new administration’s effort also highlights the frustrations abortion-rights advocates have with the slow pace of change from a president they strongly supported — and who courted their votes. “Biden will work to codify Roe v. Wade, and his Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate Roe v. Wade,” said his campaign platform. (Rovner, 7/12)
AP:
White House Calling Out Critics Of Door-To-Door Vaccine Push
“A disservice to the country.” “Inaccurate disinformation.” “Literally killing people.” For months, the Biden White House refrained from criticizing Republican officials who played down the importance of coronavirus vaccinations or sought to make political hay of the federal government’s all-out effort to drive shots into arms. Not any longer. With the COVID-19 vaccination rate plateauing across the country, the White House is returning fire at those they see as spreading harmful misinformation or fear about the shots. (Miller, 7/10)
Politico:
Biden’s Vaccine Charge Hits A Wall
The Biden administration is running out of ideas for jumpstarting the pace of coronavirus vaccinations, raising the prospect that more than a quarter of American adults could still be vulnerable to the virus into the fall. The federal immunization campaign has slammed into rising partisanship and deep resistance among the 91 million adults who remain unvaccinated, turning what was once an all-out sprint into a marathon with no clear end in sight. (Cancryn, 7/12)
The Washington Post:
Pfizer Expected To Brief U.S. Officials In Coming Days On The Need For A Booster Shot
Pfizer is expected to brief top U.S. government health officials in the coming days about the need for a coronavirus vaccine booster shot after an unusually public spat between the pharmaceutical giant and federal officials over whether a third shot will be necessary, according to the company and six people familiar with the plans. Pfizer and the German firm BioNTech announced on Thursday that they planned to seek regulatory approval for a booster within weeks because they anticipated that people would need a third dose six to 12 months after receiving the companies’ two-shot regimen. (Abutaleb, Pager, McGinley and
Sun, 7/10)
Politico:
Vaccines Will Get Full FDA Approval, Fauci Predicts
Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that the FDA giving Covid vaccines full approval is “only a technical issue” and that the hundreds of millions of people across the world who have been vaccinated serve as evidence that “the effectiveness and the safety of the vaccines are very high.” As of July 4, about 157 million Americans were fully vaccinated, almost half of the population. Many people are hesitant or have decided to wait to be vaccinated until the vaccines shift from being labeled “emergency use authorization” to “fully approved.” Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” President Joe Biden's top medical adviser told host George Stephanopoulos, “There are certainly some people who when you use the terminology ‘emergency use authorization,’ they kind of think it's a tenuous data showing that it works so that it's safe. That's not the case.” (Greene, 7/11)
Stat:
Experts: Full FDA Approval Of Covid Vaccines Is Not A Quick Fix
The Food and Drug Administration issuing full approval for two Covid-19 vaccines might not be the game-changer it’s chalked up to be, according to a number of leading public health experts. Increasingly, some leading academics and physicians have pushed back on the popular narrative that the FDA is needlessly delaying full approvals for the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus shots — and spurring vaccine hesitancy by doing so. While full approvals might encourage a handful of Americans to finally get vaccinated, they argue, it’s more important for the agency to make clear that the eventual approvals are motivated by science and not by public pressure. (Facher, 7/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
Young Americans Aren’t Getting Vaccinated, Jeopardizing Covid-19 Fight
Millions of Americans have rolled up their sleeves to get vaccinated against Covid-19, but one group is well behind: young adults. Their reluctance is a significant part of why the U.S. missed the Biden administration’s goal of getting 70% of the adult population a first dose by July 4, and it is impeding efforts to develop the communitywide immunity sought to move past the pandemic and fend off Delta and other variants. Now government health authorities are dialing up efforts encouraging 18- to 29-year-olds to get vaccinated. (Cooper and Siddiqui, 7/11)
NPR:
Virus Cases Start To Rise Again, Especially Where Vaccination Rates Lag
As the weather warmed up this year, coronavirus case numbers plummeted, and life in the U.S. started to feel almost normal. But in recent weeks, that progress has stalled. The vaccination campaign has slowed, and the delta variant is spreading rapidly. And new infections, which had started to plateau about a month ago, are going up slightly nationally. New, localized hot spots are emerging, especially in stretches of the South, the Midwest and the West. And, according to an analysis NPR conducted with Johns Hopkins University, those surges are likely driven by pockets of dangerously low vaccination rates. (Stein, Wroth and Fast, 7/9)
Politico:
Fauci: ‘There Should Be More’ Local Vaccine Mandates
Anthony Fauci on Sunday advocated for more mandates at the local level for businesses and schools to require Covid-19 vaccinations. “I have been of this opinion, and I remain of that opinion, that I do believe at the local level, Jake, there should be more mandates," Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” "There really should be. We're talking about life-and-death situation. We have lost 600,000 Americans already.” (Hooper, 7/11)
Politico:
POLITICO-Harvard Poll: Americans Sharply Divided Over Vaccine Mandates
Americans are almost evenly divided over whether schools or most private employers should require Covid-19 vaccinations as part of reopening, according to a POLITICO-Harvard survey that shows how politically fraught any kind of mandate would be. Most Democrats support forcing employees and students to be vaccinated before they return to work or the classroom, and approve of government-issued documents certifying their status. Republicans oppose the government or most employers infringing on their individual choice. (Goldberg, 7/11)
The Wall Street Journal:
Biden Competition Order Targets Hospital Mergers, Surprise Medical Bills
The White House call for revised enforcement guidelines to promote hospital competition will likely amplify federal scrutiny of hospital mergers, which health economists say have raised prices. The Biden administration order, released Friday, encouraged the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to review and possibly revise their merger guidelines. It highlighted hospital consolidation, which the order said has harmed consumers. (Evans, 7/10)
Roll Call:
Biden Orders Agencies To Look At Drug Costs, Hospital Consolidation
“What we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back. We see it in big agriculture and big tech and big pharma and the list goes on,” Biden said before signing the executive order at the White House Friday. “Take prescription drugs: just a handful of companies control the market for many vital medicines, giving them leverage over everyone else to charge whatever they want,” the president said. (Clason and Lesniewski, 7/9)
The Wall Street Journal:
Drug Prices Are One Focus Of Biden’s Push To Boost Competition
President Biden’s executive order to promote business competition lays out a series of steps to lower prices for prescription drugs, including taking legal action against companies that cooperate to keep generic medicines off the market and allowing states and Indian tribes to import drugs from Canada. The administration also is calling for measures to increase the use of generic drugs and other medicines known as biosimilars, which are essentially generic versions of expensive biological drugs already on the market. (Burton, 7/9)
The New York Times:
Hidden Costs And Flawed Training Plague The V.A.’s Huge Software Upgrade
The Department of Veterans Affairs is in the process of overhauling the country’s oldest electronic health record system at the country’s largest hospital network. Even if it goes smoothly, planners have repeatedly warned, it will be an extremely complicated task that will take 10 years and cost more than $16 billion. And so far, it is going anything but smoothly. The new health record software is supposed to increase efficiency and speed up care in the beleaguered veterans’ health system, which serves more than nine million veterans. But when the department put it into use for the first time in October at a V.A. medical center in Washington State, it did the opposite. (Philipps, 7/9)
AP:
FDA Head Calls For Inquiry Into Alzheimer's Drug Review
The acting head of the Food and Drug Administration on Friday called for a government investigation into highly unusual contacts between her agency’s drug reviewers and the maker of a controversial new Alzheimer’s drug. Dr. Janet Woodcock announced the extraordinary step via Twitter. It’s the latest fallout over last month’s approval of Aduhelm, an expensive and unproven therapy that the agency OK’d against the advice of its own outside experts. (Perrone, 7/9)
The Wall Street Journal:
FDA Seeks To Probe Talks Between Staff And Biogen On Alzheimer’s Drug
The drug’s approval has been highly controversial, partly because of its annual price pegged at $56,000, and partly because evidence of the drug’s effectiveness was inconclusive. During the time when the agency was considering the drug, called Aduhelm, FDA reviewers met with the company, Biogen Inc., that makes the drug. They collaborated with the company to prepare a joint review document presented to an FDA panel of outside advisers at a public meeting in 2020. The watchdog group Public Citizen called in December for an inspector general investigation “to scrutinize the unprecedented close collaboration.” (Burton, 7/9)
The Wall Street Journal:
Biogen Alzheimer’s Drug Will Exceed The $56,000 List Price For Many, Analysis Says
Biogen Inc.’s new $56,000-a-year Alzheimer’s drug could wind up costing thousands of dollars more per patient than the company has said because of quirks in the way the therapy and others like it are packaged and paid for. Medicare and other insurers could wind up paying $61,000 to $62,000 a patient on average depending on the dosages each needs, according to an analysis published online Friday by the journal Health Affairs. (Walker, 7/9)
The Washington Post:
The Controversial Approval Of An Alzheimer’s Drug Reignites The Battle Over The Underlying Cause Of The Disease
Neurologist Matthew S. Schrag was surprised when he heard the Food and Drug Administration had approved a controversial Alzheimer’s drug. There was scant evidence the treatment worked, in his view. Even more concerning to Schrag: the FDA’s apparent embrace of a long-debated theory about Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicts more than 6 million Americans. The amyloid hypothesis, which has dominated the field for decades, holds that toxic clumps in the brain, called amyloid beta, are the main driver of the disease and that removing them will slow cognitive decline. (McGinley, 7/10)
AP:
Georgia Pushes Back On Reevaluation Of Health Plan
The Biden administration’s decision to reevaluate Georgia’s plan to overhaul how state residents buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act came as a “surprise” and suggests it wants to revisit the plan’s approval, which is not allowed, Gov. Brian Kemp’s office said. Georgia’s plan — dubbed “Georgia Access” — would improve the experience of shopping for insurance and encourage the private sector to enroll uninsured Georgia residents, the director of Kemp’s Office of Health Strategy and Coordination said in a letter to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Thanawala, 7/10)
NPR:
States' Abortion Restrictions Reach A Record In 2021
More abortion restrictions have been enacted across the U.S. this year than in any previous year, according to an analysis by a group that supports abortion rights. State legislatures have passed at least 90 laws restricting the procedure in 2021 so far, finds a report released this month from the Guttmacher Institute. "We're really trying to bring attention to the fact that state legislatures are moving very quickly on abortion bans and restrictions," Elizabeth Nash, a co-author of the report and principal policy associate at the institute, told NPR. "Abortion rights are at stake." (Bowman, 7/9)
The New York Times:
Citizens, Not The State, Will Enforce New Abortion Law In Texas
The provision passed the State Legislature this spring as part of a bill that bans abortion after a doctor detects a fetal heartbeat, usually at about six weeks of pregnancy. Many states have passed such bans, but the law in Texas is different. Ordinarily, enforcement would be up to government officials, and if clinics wanted to challenge the law’s constitutionality, they would sue those officials in making their case. But the law in Texas prohibits officials from enforcing it. Instead, it takes the opposite approach, effectively deputizing ordinary citizens — including from outside Texas — to sue clinics and others who violate the law. It awards them at least $10,000 per illegal abortion if they are successful. (Tavernise, 7/9)
AP:
Appeals Court Upholds Rationing Of Hepatitis C Treatment
The Kentucky Department of Corrections can deny a life-saving but expensive hepatitis C medication to inmates, a federal appeals court ruled in a split decision. The dissenting judge in last week’s 2-1 ruling at the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the majority’s opinion will condemn hundreds of prisoners to long-term organ damage and suffering, The Courier-Journal reported. (7/10)
AP:
Bonus Pay For Essential Workers Varied Widely Across States
Over the past year, about one-third of U.S. states have used federal COVID-19 relief aid to reward workers considered essential who dutifully reported to jobs during the pandemic. But who qualified for those bonuses -- and how much they received — varied widely, according to an Associated Press review. While some were paid thousands of dollars, others with similar jobs elsewhere received nothing. (Lieb, 7/10)
NPR:
How We'll Know When The COVID-19 Crisis Is Over
In the U.S., we're now averaging 154 deaths a day from COVID-19 — a tiny fraction compared to the pandemic's peak -- and there are still some safety measures and restrictions in place. Late pandemic American life hasn't quite returned to the status quo, but it feels much closer to normal than it did six months ago. But while we may long for authorities to give an all-clear and say the pandemic is history, the crisis isn't over, in the U.S. or abroad. The question of when the crisis will actually be over is a layered one — with different answers from a local, national and global perspective. (Wamsley, 7/10)
AP:
Vaccinated Teachers And Students Don't Need Masks, CDC Says
The changes come amid a national vaccination campaign in which children as young as 12 are eligible to get shots, as well as a general decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. “We’re at a new point in the pandemic that we’re all really excited about,” and so it’s time to update the guidance, said Erin Sauber-Schatz, who leads the CDC task force that prepares recommendations designed to keep Americans safe from COVID-19. (Stobbe and Binkley, 7/9)
The New York Times:
The C.D.C. Issues New School Guidance, With Emphasis On Full Reopening
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged schools on Friday to fully reopen in the fall, even if they cannot take all of the steps the agency recommends to curb the spread of the coronavirus — a major turn in a public health crisis in which childhood education has long been a political flash point. The agency also said school districts should use local health data to guide decisions about when to tighten or relax prevention measures like masking and physical distancing. With the highly contagious Delta variant spreading and children under 12 still ineligible for vaccination, it recommended that unvaccinated students and staff members keep wearing masks. (Stolberg, Anthes, Mervosh and Taylor, 7/9)
The Wall Street Journal:
Schools Push To Get Students Vaccinated Before The Start Of Academic Year
With the start of school only weeks away in some parts of the country, schools, school districts and some teachers unions are pushing to get students vaccinated to ensure they are inoculated against the spread of Covid-19 when classes fully reopen in the fall. Sixty-three percent of public schools were open full-time, in-person for all students by May, while 2% offered remote learning exclusively, according to data released Thursday from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. (Campa, 7/12)
Los Angeles Times:
California To Require Masks At School As CDC Issues New Guidance
The new school year in California will start with students and teachers wearing masks, state officials announced Friday, staking out a cautious position on a day when new federal guidelines stressed the importance of fully reopening schools and recommended masks only for those who are not vaccinated. As part of a multilayered approach to limit the spread of COVID-19, those who are not vaccinated should wear masks indoors — and schools, health departments or states may continue to require masks on campus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. (Shalby and Blume, 7/10)
The New York Times:
E.P.A. Approved Toxic Chemicals For Fracking A Decade Ago, New Files Show
For much of the past decade, oil companies engaged in drilling and fracking have been allowed to pump into the ground chemicals that, over time, can break down into toxic substances known as PFAS — a class of long-lasting compounds known to pose a threat to people and wildlife — according to internal documents from the Environmental Protection Agency. The E.P.A. in 2011 approved the use of these chemicals, used to ease the flow of oil from the ground, despite the agency’s own grave concerns about their toxicity, according to the documents, which were reviewed by The New York Times. The E.P.A.’s approval of the three chemicals wasn’t previously publicly known. (Tabuchi, 7/12)
The New York Times:
Scientists Press Case Against The Covid Lab Leak Theory
In the latest volley of the debate over the origins of the coronavirus, a group of scientists this week presented a review of scientific findings that they argue shows a natural spillover from animal to human is a far more likely cause of the pandemic than a laboratory incident. Among other things, the scientists point to a recent report showing that markets in Wuhan, China, had sold live animals susceptible to the virus, including palm civets and raccoon dogs, in the two years before the pandemic began. They observed the striking similarity that Covid-19’s emergence had to other viral diseases that arose through natural spillovers, and pointed to a variety of newly discovered viruses in animals that are closely related to the one that caused the new pandemic. (Zimmer and Gorman, 7/9)
The Wall Street Journal:
Bat Scientists Warn That The World May Never Know Covid-19 Origins
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, scientists all over the world have been struggling to pin down the origin of the coronavirus that caused it. Linfa Wang knows they may never succeed. Dr. Wang, a professor in the emerging infectious diseases program at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, is an expert in bat viruses. He has joined the hunt for the origin of Covid-19 even though he and fellow scientists are still searching for the precise source of a different coronavirus: the one that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. That virus emerged in 2002 and killed nearly 800 people world-wide. (Dockser Marcus, 7/11)
The New York Times:
A Breathalyzer To Detect Covid-19? Scientists Are On It.
The SpiroNose, made by the Dutch company Breathomix, is just one of many breath-based Covid-19 tests under development across the world. In May, Singapore’s health agency granted provisional authorization to two such tests, made by the domestic companies Breathonix and Silver Factory Technology. And researchers at Ohio State University say they have applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an emergency authorization of their Covid-19 breathalyzer. (Anthes, 7/11)
The New York Times:
The Rationing Of A Last-Resort Covid Treatment
Throughout the pandemic, such scenes have played out across the country as American doctors found themselves in the unfamiliar position of overtly rationing a treatment. But it was not ventilators, as initially feared: Concerted action largely headed off those shortages. Instead, it was the limited availability of ECMO — which requires expensive equipment similar in concept to a heart-lung machine and specially trained staff who can provide constant monitoring and one-on-one nursing — that forced stark choices among patients. Doctors tried to select individuals most likely to benefit. But dozens of interviews with medical staff and patients across the country, and reporting inside five hospitals that provide ECMO, revealed that in the absence of regional sharing systems to ensure fairness and match resources to needs, hospitals and clinicians were left to apply differing criteria, with insurance coverage, geography and even personal appeals having an influence. (Fink, 7/12)
Los Angeles Times:
Hospitals And Newsom Seek Delay For Earthquake Upgrades
One hour after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Northern California on Thursday, the California Hospital Assn. tweeted that it’s “time to update seismic standards — to focus on all the services people need after a disaster of any kind.” But the association’s tweet omitted that its proposal circulating in the state Capitol would actually weaken existing standards, giving hospitals another seven years — until 2037 — to ensure that their buildings remain operable after the Big One and limiting the required upgrades to buildings that support emergency services. (Luna and Gutierrez, 7/10)
AP:
Testimony Nears End In WVa Suit Against Opioid Distributors
A landmark civil trial could be winding down in West Virginia against three large opioid distributors accused of fueling a local opioid crisis, as attorneys for the defendants indicated they expect to wrap up their case one month ahead of schedule. While the federal bench trial in the lawsuit filed by Cabell County and the city of Huntington against distributors AmerisourceBergen Drug Co., Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp. had been scheduled to last through mid-August, company attorneys said Thursday they expect to finish questioning witnesses next week, The Herald-Dispatch reported. (7/9)
The New York Times:
Alcohol Abuse Is On The Rise. Here's Why Doctors Fail To Treat It.
Last month, a nationwide study by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that about 80 percent of people who met the criteria for alcohol use disorder had visited a doctor, hospital or medical clinic for a variety of reasons in the previous year. Roughly 70 percent of those people were asked about their alcohol intake. Yet just one in 10 were encouraged to cut back on their drinking by a health professional, and only 6 percent received any form of treatment. (O'Connor, 7/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
Philip Morris Buys Inhaled-Medicine Company For $1.2 Billion Amid Health Push
Philip Morris International Inc. agreed to buy Vectura Group, a U.K. pharmaceuticals business specializing in inhaled medicines, for $1.24 billion in cash, bolstering its push to expand beyond tobacco and nicotine. Philip Morris International, which is listed in New York but sells the Marlboro brand outside the U.S., on Friday said that Vectura will be the backbone of a business built around inhaled therapeutics. Inhalers used by asthma sufferers, for instance, are common for the treatment of respiratory illness, but have shown promise in the delivery of other medicines. (Calatayud, 7/9)
The New York Times:
How Much Longer Can Martin Shkreli Control A Pharma Firm From Prison?
For years, Kevin Mulleady was an ally of Martin Shkreli. He worked for one of the pharmaceutical executive’s hedge funds and later served as an executive at the company where Mr. Shkreli infamously raised a lifesaving drug’s price 5,000 percent. Now, Mr. Mulleady is teaming up with activist investors to persuade his fellow shareholders to give them control of that drugmaker’s parent company, Phoenixus. (Phoenixus’ operating subsidiary, once known as Turing Pharmaceuticals, is now called Vyera.) There, he says, Mr. Shkreli still maintains control despite being in prison for securities fraud and not up for release until late 2023. (de la Merced, 7/9)
The New York Times:
How Black Women Can Interpret Those Scary Health Statistics
Over the last 18 months, Americans received regular reminders of their own mortality, thanks to daily reporting of Covid-19 numbers. But for Black women, the dull roar of alarming health data was relentless even before Covid-19 and only grew during the pandemic. As a Black woman myself, I found health data to be frightening, especially this past year as I became pregnant and gave birth. While the data and reporting is important for policymaking, it can be detrimental to your mental health when it becomes a stream of terrifying headlines about your community or people who look like you. (Kerubo, 7/12)
AP:
Grief Counselors In Short Supply With Gun Violence Rising
Crime has been spiking nationwide after it plummeted in the early months of the pandemic, with many cities seeing the type of double-digit increase in gun violence that is plaguing Philadelphia. The Biden administration has sent strike forces to Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., to help take down gun networks. Biden has encouraged states to use COVID-19 relief money to hire police or additional counselors. Philadelphia is one of 15 cities nationwide joining a federal effort to expand and enhance community violence interruption programs. (Lauer, 7/11)
Los Angeles Times:
Illegal Pot Farms Have Invaded The California Desert
Before his corpse was dumped in a shallow grave 50 miles north of Los Angeles, Mauricio Ismael Gonzalez-Ramirez was held prisoner at one of the hundreds of black-market pot farms that have exploded across California’s high desert in the last several years, authorities say. He worked in what has become California’s newest illegal marijuana haven: the Mojave Desert. A world away from the lush forest groves of the “Emerald Triangle” of Northern California, this hot, dry, unforgiving climate has attracted more than a thousand marijuana plantations that fill the arid expanse between the Antelope Valley and the Colorado River. (Cosgrove and Shagun, 7/11)