First Edition: July 12, 2022

KHN: Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia Is Killing Patients. Yet There Is A Simple Way To Stop It
Four years ago, when Karen Giuliano went to a Boston hospital for hip replacement surgery, she was given a pale-pink bucket of toiletries issued to patients in many hospitals. Inside were tissues, bar soap, deodorant, toothpaste, and, without a doubt, the worst toothbrush she’d ever seen. “I couldn’t believe it. I got a toothbrush with no bristles,” she said. “It must have not gone through the bristle machine. It was just a stick.” To most patients, a useless hospital toothbrush would be a mild inconvenience. But to Giuliano, a nursing professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, it was a reminder of a pervasive “blind spot” in U.S. hospitals: the stunning consequences of unbrushed teeth. (Kelman, 7/12)

KHN: As California Welcomes Ukrainian Refugees, Counties Fall Short On Interpreters 
After the Russian invasion, Katie Nelha and her husband couldn’t safely return to their home in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, so they took their chances as refugees. Flying from Poland, where they were working, to Mexico in early April, they crossed into the U.S. at Tijuana, where they were granted a temporary visa for humanitarian reasons. Once in Sacramento, Nelha, 24, relied on a county translator to help her enroll in Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, to cover the cost of visiting an optometrist. “I need glasses to pass my eye test and get a driver’s license so we can start looking for work,” Nelha said through an interpreter. She plans to find a job in one of the city’s dozens of Ukrainian and Russian restaurants. (Kreidler, 7/12)

KHN: Self-Managed Abortions Gain Attention, But Helpers Risk Legal Trouble 
At a recent rally in Nashville, Tennessee, Planned Parenthood organizer Julie Edwards looked out at some of the “back-alley abortion” imagery on signs, including bloody coat hangers. Edwards reminded the crowd, driven into the streets by the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 decision on abortion rights, that it’s not like the old days before Roe v. Wade. Nearly a decade ago, Edwards was a teenager and got medication from older friends to end an unintended pregnancy. (Farmer, 7/12)

KHN: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: One ER Doctor Grapples With The Inequities Of American Health Care
Dr. Thomas Fisher, an emergency room physician at a hospital on Chicago’s South Side, has written “The Emergency,” an up-close chronicle of the covid-19 pandemic’s first year. It also tells the story of his journey as a doctor: how his upbringing on the South Side fueled his career choice, and how the realities and inequities of American health care limited his ability to help his community. Fisher details how the failures of the American health care system — and the racial inequities it perpetuates — leave health care workers with a profound sense of moral injury. (Weissmann, 7/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals Must Provide Abortions In Emergency Situations, Biden Administration Says
Federal health officials said doctors and hospitals must provide an abortion under federal law when a pregnant woman in emergency medical condition needs the procedure to be stabilized. The Health and Human Services Department said Monday a federal law protecting access to emergency treatment mandates performing an abortion if a doctor deems it necessary in a medical emergency even if the procedure isn’t legal under state law. (Evans, 7/11)

AP: Biden Admin: Docs Must Offer Abortion If Mom's Life At Risk 
The Department of Health and Human Services cited requirements on medical facilities in the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA. The law requires medical facilities to determine whether a person seeking treatment may be in labor or whether they face an emergency health situation — or one that could develop into an emergency — and to provide treatment. ... The department said emergency conditions include “ectopic pregnancy, complications of pregnancy loss, or emergent hypertensive disorders, such as preeclampsia with severe features.” Currently, even the states with the most stringent bans on abortion do allow exceptions when the health of a mother is at risk, though the threat of prosecution has created confusion for some doctors. (Miller, 7/12)

Politico: Biden’s Abortion Response Curbed By Fears Of Another Supreme Court Showdown
As President Joe Biden faces calls for more drastic action on abortion, the legal team vetting his options has found itself preoccupied by a single pressing concern: That any action they could take would simply be struck down by the very court that put them in this place. Those fears have complicated and slowed the White House’s post-Roe actions, with officials worried a more aggressive response from Biden could backfire, further entrench anti-abortion restrictions and open the door to even more severe limits on his executive power. (Cancryn, 7/11)

AP: Judge Strikes Down Most Of Minnesota's Abortion Restrictions
A judge declared most of Minnesota’s restrictions on abortion unconstitutional on Monday, including the state’s mandatory 24-hour waiting period and a requirement that both parents be notified before a minor can get an abortion. Ramsey County District Judge Thomas Gilligan also struck down Minnesota’s requirements that only physicians can perform abortions and that abortions after the first trimester must be performed in hospitals. His order took effect immediately, meaning the limits can’t be enforced. (Karnowski, 7/11)

AP: Judges Rule On State Abortion Restrictions, Shape Roe Impact
A Utah judge on Monday granted a request from Planned Parenthood to delay implementing the state’s trigger law banning most abortions, as implications of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade reverberate nationwide. With the decision, abortion remains legal up to 18 weeks in Utah, which is among a group of states where abortion rights have been thrown into limbo amid the legal and political challenges shaping the post-Roe landscape with states now holding the power to restrict abortion. (Metz, McDermott and Karnowski, 7/12)

AP: Federal Judge Blocks Arizona's 'Personhood' Abortion Law 
A federal judge in Phoenix on Monday blocked a 2021 state “personhood” law that gives all legal rights to unborn children and that abortion rights groups said put providers at risk of prosecution for a variety of crimes. U.S. District Judge Douglas Rayes said in his written ruling that the groups that sued to block the law are right — it is “anyone’s guess,” as the state acknowledged, what criminal laws abortion providers may be breaking if they perform otherwise-legal abortions. (Christie, 7/12)

Columbus Dispatch: Lawmaker Introduces Bill To Ban Abortion From Conception
Ohio lawmakers introduced a bill Monday that would effectively ban all abortions, except to save the life of a mother. State Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, introduced House Bill 704 which states that Ohio must "recognize the personhood, and protect the constitutional rights, of all unborn human individuals from the moment of conception." (Wu, 7/11)

AP: Abortion Rights Poised To Go Before Michigan Voters In Fall 
Abortion rights are poised to come before Michigan voters in November after an abortion rights campaign turned in a record-breaking number of signatures Monday for a ballot initiative to the secretary of state’s office. (Cappelletti, 7/11)

AP: Missouri Dems Seek Contraception, Ectopic Pregnancy Session 
Two leading Democratic Missouri lawmakers on Monday asked the state’s Republican governor to call a special session to pass legislation that would safeguard contraception and medical treatment for ectopic pregnancies after a near total ban on abortion was instituted. (Hollingsworth, 7/11)

USA Today: Senate Democrats Would Vote Against Biden's Anti-Abortion Judge Pick
Several Senate Democrats said they would vote against the confirmation of a conservative, anti-abortion federal judge nominee if President Joe Biden follows through with a purported deal with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. (Garrison, Wells, Sonka and Wolfson, 7/11)

Roll Call: Roe Reversal Spurs Worries About Miscarriage Care 
Eighteen states have enacted laws that would punish doctors who perform abortions with jail time in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling overturning the federal right to an abortion — and doctors worry that helping to medically treat a miscarriage, too, will put them at risk of prosecution. (Cohen, 7/12)

NBC News: State Abortion Bans Could Affect Over Half Of Female Veterans And Women With Disabilities, Analysis Finds
The study published Friday by the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group found that abortion bans in the 26 states that are certain or likely to ban abortion could affect up to 2.8 million women with disabilities (53 percent of all such women in the U.S.) and 389,600 female veterans of reproductive age (also 53% of the U.S. total). (McShane, 7/11)

Los Angeles Times: Post-Roe, Autoimmune Patients Lose Access To A Crucial Drug
Six days after the Supreme Court struck down the right to abortion, lupus patient Becky Schwarz got an unexpected message from her rheumatologist. “This is a notice to let you know that we are pausing all prescriptions and subsequent refills of methotrexate,” the message read. “This decision has been made in response to the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.” (Sharp, 7/11)

Politico: Biden Administration Discussing Covid Boosters For Everyone 
Top Biden administration officials are weighing a plan to let all adults get a second round of coronavirus booster shots, two people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO. The deliberations stem from growing concerns over the potential for a summer Covid surge driven by the more transmissible Omicron subvariant BA.5, as hospitalizations rise nationwide. ... Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only recommends that people over 50 and those who are immunocompromised get additional boosters. So far, fewer than 28 percent of Americans in that age group have received their second booster. (Cancryn, 7/11)

The New York Times: Biden Administration May Offer Second Coronavirus Boosters To All Adults 
Expanding eligibility for a fourth dose of vaccine to younger adults would require regulatory approval; more discussions with officials from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are expected in the coming days, according to people familiar with the situation. (LaFraniere, 7/12)

CIDRAP: US Buys 3.2 Million Doses Of Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine
The Biden administration announced this morning that it would buy 3.2 million doses of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, which is expected to soon receive authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) news release. The protein-based vaccine would be offered as a primary series of two shots. If approved, it will be the fourth COVID-19 vaccine available to US adults. (7/11)

Bloomberg: Biden Administration To Again Extend The Covid Public-Health Emergency 
The Department of Health and Human Services has repeatedly renewed the emergency since it was originally declared in January 2020, with the most recent extension set to expire July 15. The next extension is expected to take effect Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the details aren’t public. (Griffin, 7/11)

Reuters: U.S. CDC Plans To Improve International Air Contact Tracing Data Collection 
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will take steps to improve collection of international air passenger contact information to better monitor public health risks after a report found the current data system "needs substantial improvement." ... The report said the CDC's current data management system developed in the mid-2000s "was not designed for rapid assessment or aggregation of public health data" and the CDC "is unable to quickly and accurately identify the number of passengers exposed to a specific infected passenger on a flight." (Shepardson, 7/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID In California: First Case Of BA.2.75 Subvariant Detected In The State
Seven cases of the BA.2.75 subvariant of omicron were detected in the United States in June, according to data from GISAID, a global genomic sequencing database. COVID-19 cases tied to the subvariant have been identified in at least 12 countries, including India, where it is driving a new surge. Nationally, two cases were found in California and one each in Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Washington. The California cases were picked up in Bay Area wastewater samples from mid-June. (Vaziri, 7/11)

Bloomberg: Future Covid Variants Can Be Predicted By AI, Startup Claims
As pharmaceutical companies struggle to keep up with the rapidly mutating coronavirus, a startup in Cambridge, Mass., says it can help them by using artificial intelligence to predict future variants. Apriori Bio models the ways a virus might change and predicts how it will behave. The company says it’s harnessing that information to design “variant-proof” vaccines and treatments that can fight current and future strains—and provide an early warning to governments, sort of like a hurricane alert, to guide the public-health response. (Griffin, 7/11)

San Antonio Express News: COVID Shot Deadline Passes, 2,700 Texas Guard Troops Refuse Order
Enough soldiers in the Texas Army National Guard to almost fill a brigade have been put on notice: Get your coronavirus shots or get out of uniform. And more than a few appear headed toward the exits. The deadline for National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers to comply with the Pentagon’s coronavirus order passed June 30, with 86 percent of the Texas Army National Guard and 92 percent of the Air National Guard vaccinated. (Christenson, 7/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Long Covid May Be Long Tail Of Risk For Insurers
Already, Covid-19’s impact on life, disability and other insurers has extended beyond deaths. That includes things such as workers’ compensation claims. In the past, getting sick with a contagious illness such as the flu you may have caught at work might have been unusual to claim. But 20 U.S. states adopted some form of so-called coverage presumption measures during the pandemic generally for people such as front-line workers and others who needed to work in-person, according to the National Council on Compensation Insurance. Brian Schneider, senior director for insurance at Fitch Ratings, estimates that in 2020 about 10% of all workers’ comp claims were related to Covid-19. (Demos, 7/11)

Politico: 'You Have To Do More': Parkland Father Interrupts Biden’s Gun Control Speech 
Manuel Oliver, the father of a victim of a mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., interrupted President Joe Biden on Monday during a White House speech marking the passage of the first major gun legislation in more than a decade. “You have to do more,” Oliver could be heard shouting from the audience during Biden’s remarks celebrating the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which provides funding for crisis intervention and mandates due process procedures for states with red flag laws. (Hawkins, 7/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Their Son Is Talking About School Shootings. Should They Call The Police? 
For parents faced with troubling behavior, reporting their child to police for an act they might commit is a wrenching decision. These parents fear the consequences—emotional, social and legal. Even after making the decision, they often question whether police can steer their children to the help they need. (Hobbs and Randazzo, 7/11)

Modern Healthcare: Supreme Court To Decide If Medicaid Providers, Patients Can Sue States
A federal court's ruling that a Chicago hospital can sue the state Medicaid agency for allegedly failing to ensure proper payment from private insurers sets the stage for a deluge of similar suits from providers—if the nation's highest court preserves Medicaid participants' right to sue. (Tepper, 7/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Medical Debt Is Being Wiped Off Credit Reports. What That Means For You 
Millions of Americans will now see a cleaner bill of health on their credit reports, making it easier for many to get an apartment or apply for a loan. Effective July 1, the three major credit reporting bureaus have removed medical debts that went into collection but were subsequently paid. In the past, these types of debts would remain on reports for as long as seven years. More changes are coming, too. (Kelce, 7/11)

The Boston Globe: Mass General Brigham Plans Massive Expansion Of Hospital-At-Home Program
Gregg Meyer, president of MGB’s community division and executive vice president of value-based care at the system, said the expansion marks the culmination of decades of developments that have helped providers better care for patients remotely. At the same time, the health system is increasingly under pressure from state regulators to reduce spending. (Bartlett, 7/11)

The Wall Street Journal: One In Six Calls To National Suicide Prevention Lifeline End Without Reaching A Counselor
Health officials preparing to broaden the reach of a national mental-health crisis line are working to strengthen an overstretched network of call centers that didn’t connect with about one in six callers in recent years, a Wall Street Journal data review showed. (Abbott, Martinez and Tracy, 7/11)

NPR: Many States Aren't Ready For Calls To Their Mental Health Crisis Lines
Across the state, Illinois-based call centers answered just 1 in 5 in-state calls to the lifeline in the first three months of 2022. The other 80% were redirected to other states. Illinois has the lowest in-state answer rate in the nation, lagging far behind others. The state with the second-lowest rate, Texas, answered 40% of its calls during that same time period. (Barrett, 7/11)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Cause Of Homelessness? Not Drugs Or Mental Illness, Study Says
Ask just about anyone for their thoughts on what causes homelessness, and you will likely hear drug addiction, mental illness, alcoholism and poverty. A pair of researchers, however, looked at those issues across the country and found they occur everywhere. What does vary greatly around the country, they found, was the availability of affordable housing. (Warth, 7/11)

AP: Wolf, Nursing Homes Come To Agreement To Boost Staff 
Nursing home trade associations in Pennsylvania said Monday they have agreed to boost staffing levels as part of a deal with Gov. Tom Wolf to increase aid to an industry struggling with high turnover. With Pennsylvania awash in surplus tax collections, Wolf on Monday signed legislation authorizing nearly $300 million a year, almost 20% more annually, in additional Medicaid payments to nursing homes, which were wracked by the COVID-19 pandemic. (Levy, 7/11)

ABC News: Long Island School District Found To Have Higher Rates Of Cancer Cases: Study
A new report found a "statistically significant" excess of cancer cases among people of all ages living within a Long Island school district compared to similar areas of the state. The report, from the New York State Department of Health, looked at cancer cases over 20 years within the Northport-East Northport School District in Suffolk County -- about 45 miles from Manhattan. (Kekatos, 7/11)

CBS News: Weed-Killing Chemical Found In Majority Of U.S. Urine Samples
A widely used but controversial herbicide linked to cancer is showing up in people, with a government study finding glyphosate in more than 80% of urine samples from U.S. kids and adults. Part of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention program, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found glyphosate in 1,885 of 2,310 urine samples representative of the population at large. Nearly a third of the samples came from kids, ranging in age from six to 18. (Gibson, 7/11)

NBC News: Judge Rules Subway Can Be Sued Over Claims That Its Tuna Sandwiches Contain Other Fish Species Or Animal Products
The sandwich chain Subway can be sued over claims that it is misleading customers when it says its tuna products are "100% tuna," a federal judge in California said Monday. The suit, originally brought in January 2021 by Oakland-area resident Nilima Amin, claims Subway's tuna products “partially or wholly lack tuna as an ingredient” and “contain other fish species, animal products, or miscellaneous products aside from tuna.” (Wile, 7/11)

The Washington Post: Keeping Germs Away From Your Kids At The ‘Spraygrounds’ This Summer
Some splash pads use recirculated water that’s disinfected before it’s pumped upward again. But their mechanisms can make appropriate disinfection difficult, especially in an environment frequented by children in diapers. Sitting or standing on the jets — a favorite pastime of children of all ages — can wash feces, dirt and microorganisms into the water and spray them into the air … or people’s mouths. (Blakemore, 7/11)

NBC News: Big Olaf Creamery Recalls Ice Cream Products After Multistate Listeria Outbreak
The Florida Health Department said Big Olaf Creamery is recalling its products amid an investigation into a multistate listeria outbreak that has killed at least one person. On Friday, the department shared a news article saying Big Olaf, based in Sarasota, had agreed to recall its products. A department representative said Big Olaf agreed Friday to stop production and conduct a recall. (Wile, 7/11)

AP: UN Projects World Population Will Reach 8 Billion On Nov. 15
The United Nations estimated Monday that the world’s population will reach 8 billion on Nov. 15 and that India will replace China as the world’s most populous nation next year. In a report released on World Population Day, the U.N. also said global population growth fell below 1% in 2020 for the first time since 1950. (Lederer, 7/12)