First Edition: July 15, 2022

KHN: Nurse Midwives Step Up To Provide Prenatal Care After Two Rural Hospitals Shutter Birthing Centers 
Bailee Tordai, who was 33 weeks into her pregnancy, barely made it to the prenatal checkup. Her clunky old Jeep couldn’t complete the 2-mile trip from her house to the University of Iowa’s outreach clinic in her southeastern Iowa hometown. It was a hot June day, and a wiring problem made the Jeep conk out in the street. A passerby helped Tordai, 22, push her stricken vehicle off the road and into a parking lot. Then she called her stepdad for a ride to the clinic. (Leys, 7/15)

KHN: As Big Pharma Loses Interest In New Antibiotics, Infections Are Only Growing Stronger 
Forget covid-19, monkeypox, and other viruses for the moment and consider another threat troubling infectious disease specialists: common urinary tract infections, or UTIs, that lead to emergency room visits and even hospitalizations because of the failure of oral antibiotics. There’s no Operation Warp Speed charging to rescue us from the germs that cause these infections, which expanded their range during the first year of the pandemic, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. In the past year, the FDA declined to approve two promising oral drugs — sulopenem and tebipenem — to treat drug-resistant UTIs, saying it needed more evidence they work as well as current drugs. (Allen, 7/15)

KHN: California’s Public Health Tax Is Dead For The Year 
A ballot initiative that would have raised taxes on California millionaires and billionaires to fund public health programs and pandemic prevention is dead — at least for this year. The Silicon Valley tech executives who bankrolled the measure, which had been targeted for the November ballot, said they aren’t giving up on their goal of creating the strongest state public health system in the country. But they acknowledge covid-19 is no longer top of mind for most Americans. (Hart, 7/15)

KHN: Listen: Why Medical Debt Touches Every Corner Of America 
KHN’s Noam N. Levey talks with Sasha-Ann Simons of WBEZ about America’s sprawling medical debt crisis. Levey explains that the problem is only partially addressed with recent moves by the three major credit reporting bureaus to remove some medical debt from consumer records. A lot of this debt never reaches the credit bureaus, he says, because it is tucked away on credit cards or paid with personal loans from friends or family. (7/15)

KHN: A Free-For-All From Readers And Tweeters, From Medical Debt To Homelessness
KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. (7/15)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Life After ‘Roe’ Is … Confusing 
The Supreme Court’s decision overturning the federal constitutional right to abortion has left confusion in its wake. State abortion laws are in constant flux, patients and providers are unsure what services are legal where, and employers struggling to accommodate workers face privacy and, potentially, legal obstacles. (7/14)

The Washington Post: White House Debates Declaring Abortion Access A 'Health Emergency' 
White House officials are actively debating whether to formally declare abortion access a public health emergency, pitting the belief of many Biden advisers that such a move would be counterproductive against the overwhelming political pressure to show they are fighting hard for abortion rights. Several top Biden aides have expressed internal reservations about declaring an emergency, saying it would give the administration little money and few new powers, according to a White House official and two people familiar with the conversations. (Abutaleb and Parker, 7/14)

AP: House Making 1st Attempt To Protect Abortion In Post-Roe Era
The House on Friday is expected to vote on two bills that would restore and guarantee abortion access nationwide as Democrats make their first attempt at responding legislatively to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision overturning Roe v. Wade.The legislation stands almost no chance of becoming law, with the necessary support lacking in the 50-50 Senate. (Amiri, 7/15)

The Hill: GOP Senator Blocks Bill To Protect Interstate Travel For Abortion 
GOP Sen. James Lankford (Okla.) on Thursday blocked a Democratic request to unanimously pass a bill seeking to protect interstate travel for abortion. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), joined by a string of Democratic senators, had sought consent to pass a bill that would prevent states from punishing women who travel to other states where abortion is legal to get the procedure. (Sullivan, 7/14)

Modern Healthcare: Texas Sues Feds Over Emergency Abortions Guidance
The White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre slammed the lawsuit. "This is yet another example of an extreme and radical Republican elected official. It is unthinkable that this public official would sue to block women from receiving life-saving care in emergency rooms, a right protected under U.S. law," Jean-Pierre said in a news release. (Goldman, 7/14)

NBC News: Republicans Shocked A 10-Year-Old Can Get Pregnant After Ohio Rape Victim Abortion Story Proves True
Confronted with the reality of the case, GOP lawmakers interviewed Thursday appeared to be grappling with how to respond — from confusion to blaming the media. Many expressed shock that it was even biologically possible for the 10-year-old child to become pregnant. Some said they were torn “morally” about whether abortions should be allowed in cases of incest or rape, as in the Ohio case. And others tried to turn the conversation to the undocumented immigrant who prosecutors allege raped the girl. (Wong, 7/14)

The Washington Post: What Ohio Abortion Law Says About A Pregnant 10-Year-Old Rape Victim 
[Yost] appeared to be arguing that Ohio’s law — which bans almost all abortions after a heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks — isn’t actually so stringent that it would actually force a 10-year-old rape victim to carry a child to term. ... Yost’s meaning wasn’t entirely clear. Some took his comment as claiming Ohio has a rape exception in its abortion ban; it clearly and unambiguously does not. ... Yost didn’t say there was a rape exception. He was apparently arguing that a 10-year old would qualify under one of the actual exceptions — probably the latter, given that it’s the one that’s “broader than just the life of the mother.” (Blake, 7/14)

Politico: Indiana AG Eyes Criminal Prosecution Of 10-Year-Old Rape Victim's Abortion Doc 
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is threatening criminal charges against the doctor who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape survivor from Ohio — a major escalation in the ongoing saga that has put the midwestern state on the frontlines of the post-Roe war. A new letter from Rokita to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb dated Wednesday but released on Thursday asks for records from the Indiana Department of Health and the Department of Child Services to determine whether the physician — Caitlin Bernard with Indiana University — filed the legally required reports within the three-day window of performing the abortion. (Ollstein, 7/14)

AP: Doctor's Lawyer Defends Steps In 10-Year-Old Girl's Abortion
The lawyer for an Indiana doctor at the center of a political firestorm after speaking out about a 10-year-old child abuse victim who traveled from Ohio for an abortion said Thursday that her client provided proper treatment and did not violate any patient privacy laws in discussing the unidentified girl’s case. (Davies and Smyth, 7/15)

Politico: National Right To Life Official: 10-Year-Old Should Have Had Baby 
The 10-year-old Ohio girl who crossed state lines to receive an abortion in Indiana should have carried her pregnancy to term and would be required to do so under a model law written for state legislatures considering more restrictive abortion measures, according to the general counsel for the National Right to Life. (Messerly and Wren, 7/14)

USA Today: How Many Young Girls Get Pregnant By Rape Isn't Known, Experts Say. But The Health Risks Are Clear
“Until the Roe ruling, I had never had a colleague tell me about a pregnancy that was being forced to continue because of rape,” said Dr. Erika Werner, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Tufts Medical Center. “In last three weeks, I’ve heard of three.” (Rodriguez, 7/14)

The Hill: Indiana Asks Supreme Court To Let It Enforce Parental-Notice Abortion Law 
Indiana asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to let it enforce a law that would stiffen parental notice requirements in cases where a minor seeks an abortion. The law at issue has been blocked since 2017 by lower courts that relied on Roe v. Wade and related precedents. With Roe’s overruling last month, however, Indiana is now asking the justices to fast-track an order to lower courts to clear the way for the law to become effective immediately. (Kruzel, 7/14)

AP: Southern New Mexico County Says Abortion Clinics Not Welcome 
A local government board in southern New Mexico approved a message Thursday saying that abortion clinics are not welcome in politically conservative Otero County — even though state law allows most abortion procedures. The nonbinding anti-abortion resolution, approved in a 3-0 vote, said the commission “stands firmly against the presence in the county of Planned Parenthood clinics or any other clinics where abortion is practiced at will and on demand.” (Lee, 7/15)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Planned Parenthood Of Illinois Seeing 10 Times More Wisconsin Patients
Planned Parenthood of Illinois officials announced Thursday their clinics have seen roughly a tenfold increase in the number of Wisconsin patients seeking abortion services since the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. (Shastri, 7/14)

CalMatters: Abortion Pills Will Be Offered On California Campuses
As California’s efforts to enshrine abortion access continue, the University of California and California State University are working to provide medication abortions on all campuses by Jan. 1. So far, none of the Cal State campuses offer medication abortions, and access within the UC system varies from campus to campus. Both university systems, however, say they are on track to implement a law passed in 2019 requiring their student health centers to provide access to the pills. (Seshadri, 7/13)

Fox News: US Monkeypox Cases Top 1K
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are now 1,053 cases in 41 states and Puerto Rico. Three states have more than 150 confirmed monkeypox cases including California, New York and Illinois. (Musto, 7/14)

CIDRAP: Monkeypox Viral DNA Detected In Saliva, Semen 
A study published today in Eurosurveillance used 140 samples taken from 12 infected monkeypox patients in Barcelona, Spain, and found DNA of the poxvirus in semen, saliva, urine, and feces. Though the primary mode of transmission for the smallpox-related virus is through skin-to-skin contact with infected lesions, this study suggests a possibility of transmission through sexual fluids or saliva. The authors emphasize, however, that viral DNA does not necessarily mean infectious virus. (Soucheray, 7/14)

Roll Call: Doctors Warn US Monkeypox Response Is Lagging 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified more than 1,000 cases of monkeypox in the United States, but even though the federal government has ample treatments and vaccinations on hand, physicians say bureaucratic red tape is hindering their ability to respond to and contain the outbreak. (Cohen, 7/14)

Bay Area News Group: Experts Lament 'Race Against Time' As Monkeypox Vaccine Supplies Dwindle
Tyler Bowman opened his phone on Monday and called San Francisco’s public health department over and over — five times in all — while desperate for a vaccine that could help him avoid becoming the latest patient in a burgeoning monkeypox outbreak. And for days, he confronted a widespread problem: There just weren’t enough shots to go around. (Rodgers and Greschler, 7/14)

NPR: The Omicron Subvariant Dominating U.S. COVID-19 Cases Is More Vaccine-Resistant
The BA.5 omicron subvariant, which is now the most prevalent coronavirus strain in the United States, is four times more resistant to COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new study. The strain, which is considered "hypercontagious," according to the Mayo Clinic, is more defiant against messenger RNA vaccines, which include Pfizer and Moderna. (Archie, 7/15)

The Atlantic: The BA.5 Wave Is What COVID Normal Looks Like
Coronavirus test-positivity trends, for instance, look quite bad. A rate below 5 percent might have once indicated a not-too-bad level of infection, but “I wake up every morning and look … and it’s 20 percent again,” says Pavitra Roychoudhury, a viral genomicist at the University of Washington who’s tracking SARS-CoV-2 cases in her community. “The last time we were below 10 percent was the first week of April.” It’s not clear, Roychoudhury told me, when the next downturn might be. (Wu, 7/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID Variants Mean Ventilation Is More Important Than Ever. So What Does ‘Good’ Air Flow Look Like?
As coronavirus variants like BA.5 and BA.2.75 become more prevalent and more transmissible, experts are repeatedly pointing to a transmission reduction strategy that’s worked since the beginning of the pandemic — air ventilation, especially indoors. “We don’t know what variants we’re dealing with in the future,” said Stanford University infectious disease specialist Dr. Abraar Karan, “but transmission is always the same.” (Echeverria, 7/14)

Newsweek: Cancer Cells Thrive In Body's Sweet Spots: Study
Cancer researchers have discovered how mutated cells can sense the Goldilocks sweet spots in a human body. Led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, an international group of researchers has shed new light on how cancer thrives. Previous studies have shown how cancer cells can sense the stiffness of the environment they are in, from hard bone and tough muscle to soft, fatty tissue. They found that cancer cells have a "sweet spot" of stiffness, neither too hard nor too soft, where they can move faster. (Bullen, 7/14)

CIDRAP: Adenovirus Common In Kids With Unexplained Acute Hepatitis, Studies Show 
In two new studies, researchers isolated human adenovirus from the vast majority of children diagnosed as having acute hepatitis but couldn't determine whether the ubiquitous virus typically associated with transient respiratory, gastrointestinal, and conjunctival illnesses was the cause. The studies, one from Alabama and one from the United Kingdom, were published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the latest efforts to pinpoint the cause of pediatric acute hepatitis outbreaks that began on multiple continents in late 2021 and 2022. (Van Beusekom, 7/14)

NBC News: Virus That Can Cause Severe Illness In Babies Seen In Multiple States, CDC Cautions
Health care providers in multiple states have reported a virus that can cause seizures, meningitis and other severe illnesses in infants under 3 months old, federal officials said Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an alert notifying doctors and public health departments that cases of parechovirus have been seen in newborns and young infants since May. (Stelloh, 7/15)

The Washington Post: The National Suicide Hotline Is Changing To 988 Starting Saturday 
The nationwide hotline for mental health emergencies switches to a simple 988 number on Saturday, a transition that is expected to bring millions more calls, chats and texts into a system where readiness to handle the surge varies from place to place. At the same time, advocates hope the renewed focus on emergency assistance, and the spending that has accompanied it, will prompt expansion of other mental health services that are in desperately short supply in many communities. (Bernstein, 7/14)

Modern Healthcare: States Prep For 988 Mental Health Hotline's National Debut
"What's different and ambitious about the 988 project is that over time there are goals to have every call to the lifeline answered within local communities as opposed to as part of a national network, and also to couple the availability of call response in communities with a continuum of care to respond to and provide follow up for individuals who contact the lifeline," said Dr. Rebecca Brendel, president of the American Psychiatric Association. (Devereaux, 7/14)

KQED: A New Mental Health Crisis Line Launches On Saturday. Is California Ready To Operate It?
911 intervention will be still be rare, says Michelle Doty Cabrera, executive director of the County Behavioral Health Directors Association of California. “When a person calls 911, they are expecting help to come to them,” she says. “If a person's calling a national suicide prevention hotline for emotional support, they may not want anyone to know who they are, let alone where they're at in that moment.” (Dembosky, 7/14)

The Colorado Sun: Colorado Mental Health Providers Say They Were “Blindsided” Again
Colorado mental health counselors in private practice say they’ve been surprised once again with new rules that will make it harder to treat the state’s most vulnerable patients: those with Medicaid insurance. (Brown, 7/14)

Crain's Cleveland Business: UH Discontinues Inpatient, Surgical And Emergency Services At UH Bedford, UH Richmond
University Hospitals is discontinuing inpatient, surgical and emergency department services at its Bedford and Richmond medical centers to optimize limited resources amid a local and national healthcare staffing shortage. (Coutré, 7/14)

AP: Kentucky Woman Sues Fertility Doctor Under New State Law 
A woman is accusing a Kentucky doctor in a lawsuit of using his own sperm during her fertility treatment decades ago without her knowledge. The woman, Susan Crowder, is filing the suit under a new Kentucky law that sets criminal and civil penalties for fertility fraud. Crowder’s attorney, Amy Wheatley, said this is the first such suit under the law, which Crowder lobbied for. (7/14)

The Washington Post: Woman Says Walmart Fired Her For ‘Problematic’ Breast Milk Pumping
A Florida mother is accusing Walmart of discrimination after she said her managers harassed her and then fired her because her need to pump breast milk was “problematic,” according to a lawsuit filed in federal court. (Bever, 7/14)

CIDRAP: Salmonella Tied To Backyard Poultry Climbs Now At 572 Cases In 48 States
In an update on multistate Salmonella outbreaks tied to backyard poultry, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday reported 353 more cases, including 1 more death, and 10 more affected states. The developments push the overall total to 572 cases, 2 of them fatal, from 48 states. The latest illness onset is Jun 22, and of cases with known information, 92 were hospitalized. The two deaths were reported from Tennessee and Wyoming. (7/14)

AP: Long Lines Are Back At US Food Banks As Inflation Hits High
Long lines are back at food banks around the U.S. as working Americans overwhelmed by inflation turn to handouts to help feed their families. With gas prices soaring along with grocery costs, many people are seeking charitable food for the first time, and more are arriving on foot. (Snow and Garcia, 7/14)

AP: 25 Million Kids Missed Routine Vaccinations Because Of COVID 
About 25 million children worldwide have missed out on routine immunizations against common diseases like diptheria, largely because the coronavirus pandemic disrupted regular health services or triggered misinformation about vaccines, according to the U.N. In a new report published Friday, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said their figures show 25 million children last year failed to get vaccinated against diptheria, tetanus and pertussis, a marker for childhood immunization coverage, continuing a downward trend that began in 2019. (7/15)

ABC News: US Men Sicker Than Those Abroad, Study Says
American men are sicker and die earlier than men living in other developed nations, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund, a non-profit organization focusing on public health issues. (Grant, 7/15)

Reuters: Griner's Lawyers Tell Russian Court She Was Prescribed Medical Cannabis
Lawyers defending U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner told a Russian court on Friday she was prescribed medical cannabis in the United States for a chronic injury, a Reuters journalist at the courtroom reported. (7/15)