First Edition: July 17, 2024

KFF Health News: Her Hearing Implant Was Preapproved. Nonetheless, She Got $139,000 Bills For Months
Caitlyn Mai woke up one morning in middle school so dizzy she couldn’t stand and deaf in one ear, the result of an infection that affected one of her cranial nerves. Though her balance recovered, the hearing never came back. Growing up, she learned to cope — but it wasn’t easy. With only one functioning ear, she couldn’t tell where sounds were coming from. She couldn’t follow along with groups of people in conversation — at social gatherings or at work — so she learned to lip-read. (Rosenthal, 7/17)

KFF Health News: The Nation’s 911 System Is On The Brink Of Its Own Emergency
Just after lunchtime on June 18, Massachusetts’ leaders discovered that the statewide 911 system was down. A scramble to handle the crisis was on. Police texted out administrative numbers that callers could use, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu gave outage updates at a press conference outlining plans for the Celtics’ championship parade, and local officials urged people to summon help by pulling red fire alarm boxes. (Armour, 7/17)

KFF Health News: The Woman Who Beat An $8,000 Hospital Fee
In this episode of “An Arm and a Leg,” host Dan Weissmann speaks with Georgann Boatright, a patient in Mississippi who was willing to drive to another state to avoid paying a steep fee to her local hospital. (Weissmann, 7/17)

KFF Health News: HealthSherpa And Insurers Team Up To Curb Unauthorized ACA Enrollment Schemes
The largest private company that brokers use to enroll people in Affordable Care Act health plans said it’s joining with insurers to thwart unauthorized Obamacare sign-ups and plan switches. HealthSherpa, which has its own sales team, announced the new initiative — called “Member Defense Network” — July 16. It will cut off commissions for unscrupulous insurance brokers believed to be signing up thousands of Americans for health plans they don’t need or switching their coverage without express consent. (Appleby, 7/16)

KFF Health News: J.D. Vance, Trump's VP Pick, Says Media Twisted His Remarks On Abortion And Domestic Violence 
During the Republican National Convention’s opening night, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) spoke to Fox News for his first interview as former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee. Sitting in the Fiserv Forum, the convention’s Milwaukee venue, Vance took questions from host Sean Hannity and addressed criticism about his previous comments on domestic violence, abortion, and his 2016 disapproval of Trump. A couple of times, Vance accused the media of twisting controversial comments about violent marriages and abortion exemptions. We took a closer look at four of his claims. (Ramirez Uribe, 7/16)

Newsweek: US Health Care Now Unaffordable For Nearly Half Of Americans
This is the warning of the latest report from the Healthcare Affordability Index, which tracks how many in the U.S. have been forced to avoid medical care or haven't been able to fill their prescriptions in the last three months—and how many would struggle to pay for care if it was needed. Affordability has fallen six points since 2022, down to a record low of 55 percent since the index was launched back in 2021. (Randall, 7/17)

Modern Healthcare: UnitedHealth Reports High Medicaid, Change Healthcare Expenses
Fallout from the Change Healthcare cyberattack continues to affect UnitedHealthGroup, with the healthcare giant nearly doubling its estimates of how much the incident will financially disrupt business operations this year. High Medicaid and Medicare Advantage medical expenses contributed to high costs in the second quarter, executives said during a Tuesday earnings call. (Tepper, 7/16)

The Hill: Gen Z Uses TikTok For Health Advice, Survey Reveals
Most of Generation Z is turning to TikTok to seek health advice, citing quick responses and free advice, a recent survey found. The poll, conducted by Zing Coach, found 56 percent of Gen Z respondents use TikTok for wellness, diet and fitness advice and that a large share of them use the platform as their main form of health advice. Among those surveyed, 34 percent said they use TikTok to get most of their health advice, making it more than twice as popular as the other options listed. (Sforza, 7/16)

CIDRAP: Officials Probe Heat-Wave Factors In H5N1 Spread To Colorado Poultry Cullers
As the investigation continues into recent avian flu infections in as many as five workers who culled Colorado poultry, officials today said that industrial fans in poultry barns where temperatures exceeded 104°F could have spread the virus through windblown feathers and through the air, potentially reducing the effectiveness of personal protective equipment (PPE). Also, early genetic analysis suggests that the virus that infected the poultry and the workers is the same H5N1 genotype infecting dairy cattle, a useful clue for officials who are examining connections between the farms. (Schnirring, 7/16)

The Baltimore Sun: ER Doctors Urge Caution Amid Uptick In Heat-Related Illnesses
A blessed reprieve may be on the horizon after days of oppressive heat, but emergency room doctors in Baltimore say the latest heat wave has been a reminder that hot weather isn’t just uncomfortable – it can be dangerous. (Roberts, 7/17)

The Washington Post: D.C. Hits Record 104 Amid Most Intense Heat Stretch Since Dust Bowl
The ongoing heat wave in Washington keeps making history. The District tied a record high of 104 degrees Tuesday while surpassing the century mark for the third straight day, matching the longest such streak on record set in 1930 at the beginning of the Dust Bowl. (Livingston and Samenow, 7/16)

The New York Times: Air-Conditioning Is A Perk Many New York Homeless Shelters Don’t Allow
The sun was about to set Monday evening and the temperature was still 90 degrees. The air was thick and oppressive. Shaasia Wood and her 4-year-old son were hanging out on the sidewalk, hoping for a breeze, near the homeless shelter where they live in Upper Manhattan. ... The city allows air-conditioners in units in the shelters that are not in hotels, but only if residents obtain a note from a health care provider saying that air-conditioning is medically necessary. At least that is how the process is supposed to work. (Newman and Roberts-Grmela, 7/16)

The New York Times: New York City Tenants Are Entitled To Heat. What About Air-Conditioning?
As New York City endures its third heat wave of the year, a city councilman plans to introduce a bill this week that would require landlords to buy, install and maintain air-conditioning units or cooling systems for tenants during the summer, with fines of up to $1,250 per day for noncompliance. (Howard, 7/17)

AP: An Order Blocking A Rule To Help LGBTQ+ Kids Applies To Hundreds Of Schools. Some Want To Block More
A federal judge’s order blocking a Biden administration rule for protecting LGBTQ+ students from discrimination applies to hundreds of schools and colleges across the U.S., and a group challenging it hopes to extend it further to many major American cities. U.S. District Judge John Broomes’ decision touched off a new legal dispute between the Biden administration and critics of the rule, over how broadly the order should apply. (Hanna, 7/16)

Reuters: Trump Will Protect Gun Rights Despite Assassination Attempt, Adviser Says
Donald Trump will safeguard gun rights by appointing federal judges who oppose new firearm limits if he is elected in November, despite narrowly surviving an assassination attempt, a senior adviser to his presidential campaign said on Tuesday. "We'll see a continuation of supporting and defending the Second Amendment, and really where that comes into play is, you know, the judiciary," Chris LaCivita said at an event hosted by the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, a gun rights group, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. (Reid, Coster and Layne, 7/16)

AP: FACT FOCUS: Trump Falsely Claims Babies Can Be Seen To Change 'Radically' After Vaccination
In an excerpt of a recent conversation between former President Donald Trump and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted online, Trump suggested vaccines given to children to protect them from disease are harmful. He also exaggerated the number of vaccines given to children and he falsely claimed they lead to sudden, visible changes. Neither campaign has responded to requests for comment. (7/16)

Reuters: Fact Check: Project 2025 Did Not Propose A ‘Period Passport’ For Women
Online posts suggesting that the conservative Project 2025 plan would make it mandatory for women to keep track of their menstrual cycles originated from a satirical social media account. Posts online said: “The Project 2025 group says women should be mandated to carry ‘period passports’ that track their menstrual cycles and must be kept up to date, and women must present these to police officers during random ID checks to monitor pregnancies.” (7/16)

AP: Judge Refuses To Extend Timeframe For Georgia's New Medicaid Plan, Only One With Work Requirement
A federal judge ruled that the Biden administration complied with the law when it declined to grant an extension to Georgia’s year-old Medicaid plan, which is the only one in the country that has a work requirement for recipients of the publicly funded health coverage for low-income people. The state didn’t comply with federal rules for an extension, so the Biden administration legally rejected its request to extend the Georgia Pathways to Coverage program’s expiration date from September 2025 to 2028, U.S. Judge Lisa Godbey Wood ruled Monday. (Thanawala, 7/16)

Reuters: US FDA Declines To Approve Orexo's Opioid Overdose Drug
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declined to approve Orexo AB's (ORX.ST) high-dose prescription drug for opioid overdose, the company said on Tuesday. The health regulator, in a so-called complete response letter, has sought an additional Human Factors (HF) study and additional technical data on the final commercial product, the company said. Orexo said the FDA's request for additional technical data was unexpected, and added that it will work with the agency to enable a resubmission of the drug's marketing application. (7/16)

Reuters: Exclusive: Health Advocates Target Philip Morris' US Launch Of Heated Tobacco
Health campaigners have written to U.S. regulators accusing Philip Morris International (PM.N) of misrepresenting past regulatory decisions, seeking to disrupt the launch of its flagship heated tobacco device IQOS in the United States. The world's biggest tobacco company by market value has spent billions of dollars developing the product, which investors see as key to driving future growth. But it needs permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell it in the world's second largest tobacco market by revenue. (Rumney, 7/16)

Reuters: US House Panel To Hold Hearing With Pharmacy Benefit Managers On Healthcare Costs
The U.S. House of Representatives oversight panel said on Tuesday it will hold a hearing with executives from U.S. pharmacy benefit managers on the role of the firms in rising healthcare costs. The hearing will include Adam Kautzner, president of Evernorth Care Management and Express Scripts; David Joyner, executive vice president of CVS Health and president of CVS Caremark; and Patrick Conway, CEO of OptumRx, the panel's chair, Representative James Comer, a Republican, said in a statement. (7/16)

Reuters: Ozempic May Gift US A $3 Trln Benefit
The United States spends 17% of its gross domestic product on healthcare, about twice as much as the average OECD country, according to the Commonwealth Fund. Can weight loss drugs like Ozempic help shrink that? According to a recent study, the answer is probably no. But other medical breakthroughs have temporarily changed the course of U.S. spending. There’s hope that the fattest developed country in the world can stall growth for good. (Robert Cyran, 7/16)

The New York Times: Crisis Hotline Has Answered 10 Million Calls, Texts And Chats
More than 10 million calls, texts and chat messages have been answered by counselors working for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s three-digit hotline in the two years since it debuted, federal officials said on Tuesday. The three-digit number, 988, was introduced in 2022 as a way to simplify emergency calls and help a metastasizing mental health crisis in the United States, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the social environments of younger Americans. The hotline previously used a traditional 10-digit number. (Weiland, 7/16)

Newsweek: Weed Recall Sparks Warning About Dozens Of Products
The New York State's Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) issued a recall for 25 cannabis products sold at licensed dispensaries throughout the state after discovering the products were manufactured by an unlicensed cannabinoid hemp processor. The OCM issued the recall for Eat Sky High LLC's "Sky High" brand on Friday. (Skinner, 7/16)

The Washington Post: What Is ‘Teflon Flu’? It’s Linked To A Coating On Some Nonstick Pans
Over the last two decades, poison centers in the United States have received more than 3,600 reports of suspected cases of “polymer fume fever,” a flu-like illness linked to a chemical coating found on some nonstick pans. ... Last year, there were 267 suspected cases of the little-known illness, which is believed to be one of the highest reported totals since 2000, according to America’s Poison Centers, a nonprofit organization that oversees 55 U.S. poison centers. (Amenabar, 7/16)

Fortune Well: Track Star And Entrepreneur Allyson Felix Will Launch The Olympic Village’s First Nursery: ‘The Systems Aren't In Place For Mothers Whatsoever’
Olympic track star Allyson Felix is headed to Paris this week—but not to compete on the track as she did for the last two decades. Felix, the most decorated Olympian in track and field with 11 medals, will instead be traveling with her family of four to launch the Olympic Village’s inaugural nursery to support parent athletes in partnership with Pampers. “The systems aren’t in place for mothers whatsoever,” Felix, who retired from competing professionally in 2022, tells Fortune. (Mikhail, 7/17)

Newsweek: Cancer Breakthrough As Yale Radiologists Develop 'Trojan Horse' Therapy
Yale scientists have discovered a "Trojan horse" method for killing cancer, showing promise against a range of tumor types. By sneaking past the cancer's defenses, the mechanism is able to deliver anticancer therapy without damaging healthy tissue. ... Efforts are now underway to advance this treatment for testing in a clinical trial setting. (Dewan, 7/16)

CIDRAP: COVID Tied To Faster Progression From Preclinical To Clinical Type 1 Diabetes In Kids
A study of German youth with presymptomatic type 1 diabetes links COVID-19 infection to accelerated progression to clinical diabetes. For the study, published yesterday in JAMA, researchers in Munich and Dresden followed up with 509 children aged 1 to 16 years with presymptomatic type 1 diabetes participating in a screening program from February 2015 to October 2023. (Van Beusekom, 7/16)

Stat: Long Covid Reported At A Higher Rate Among Disabled Americans
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just released a trove of data on Americans with disabilities that found that more than a quarter of U.S. adults have a disability — over 70 million people, a bump from prior years. This slice of the population was also much more likely to report long Covid symptoms such as chronic fatigue and brain fog. This comorbidity looms large for many disabled communities as another surge in Covid cases sweeps the country. (Broderick, 7/16)

CIDRAP: Paxlovid Led To Better Outcomes In Hospitalized COVID Cohort Than Veklury Or Both Drugs
Hospitalized COVID-19 patients treated with the antiviral drug nirmatrelvir–ritonavir (Paxlovid) are at lower risk for death, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, and need for ventilation than those given a combination of Paxlovid and the antiviral drug remdesivir (Veklury) or Veklury alone, a University of Hong Kong target trial emulation study suggests. For the study, published yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the researchers analyzed the electronic health records of a weighted sample of adults hospitalized for COVID-19. (Van Beusekom, 7/16)

CIDRAP: Backyard Chicken Flocks Have Higher Rate Of Campylobacter Than Those On Farms, Study Finds
A new prevalence study of the common foodborne bacterium Campylobacter in North Carolina chickens shows it is almost twice as common in backyard flocks than on commercial farms, and isolates are often resistant to antibiotics. The authors say the findings are significant because chicken is the top consumed meat worldwide, and backyard poultry production is increasing in the United States. The results were published in JAC - Antimicrobial Resistance. (Wappes, 7/16)

Reuters: Roche Touts Early Trial Success Of Second Obesity Drug Candidate
Roche (ROG.S) said on Wednesday a second drug candidate from its purchase of Carmot Therapeutics yielded positive results in an early-stage trial, as the Swiss drugmaker asserted itself as a late contender in the race to develop obesity drugs. Roche's experimental once-daily pill CT-996 resulted in a placebo-adjusted average weight loss of 6.1% within four weeks in obese patients without diabetes in a Phase I trial, Roche said in a statement. (Laudani and Burger, 7/17)

Reuters: Bayer Eyes Wider Nubeqa Use On New Prostate Cancer Trial Data
Bayer (BAYGn.DE) said on Wednesday its Nubeqa drug was shown to slow the progression of a certain type of prostate cancer in a late-stage trial, underpinning growth prospects for one of the German drugmaker's key pharmaceutical products. Bayer is developing Nubeqa, also known as darolutamide, jointly with Finland's Orion (ORNBV.HE). The drug is already approved in other prostate cancer treatment settings. (Burger, 7/17)

Stat: Freshpaint Raises $30 Million To Help Providers With Data Privacy
Federal guidance restricting hospital websites’ use of third-party trackers along with the proliferation of direct-to-consumer health services is spawning a new crop of health tech startups promising to help beleaguered providers stay on the right side of the law. (Ravindranath, 7/17)

Stat: Digital Therapeutics Clinical Trials Get A New Dose Of Rigor
Faced with widespread skepticism about the value of digital therapies, Swing Therapeutics in early 2022 set out to make the strongest case possible for its app-based treatment for fibromyalgia. (Aguilar, 7/17)

Stat: Cardiovascular Startup Raises $260 M Led By Ex-Moderna Execs’ New VC Fund
Cardurion Pharmaceuticals, a startup that launched seven years ago with shelved cardiovascular drug candidates from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, has raised $260 million for a Series B round. (DeAngelis, 7/16)

The New York Times: James R. Tallon Jr., Who Steered Health Care Reforms, Dies At 82
James R. Tallon Jr., a health care policy expert who as a New York State legislator spurred efforts to expand coverage for the poor, particularly children, died on July 9 in Endicott, N.Y. He was 82. His son Michael said he died, in a hospice not far from his hometown, Binghamton, from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a scarring or inflammation of the lungs that is more common in smokers, although Mr. Tallon never smoked. (Roberts, 7/16)

The Hill: 'Very High' COVID Levels Detected In California's Wastewater, First Since Last Winter
Coronavirus levels in California’s wastewater have reached a “very high” level for the first time since last winter. According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the trend matches what’s being reported in several other states. (Palm, 7/16)

AP: Southern California School District Sues Gov. Newsom Over New Gender-Identity Law
A Southern California school district involved in an ongoing legal battle with the state over the district’s gender-identity policy sued Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom Tuesday over a new law banning districts from requiring that parents be notified of their child’s gender identification change. The Chino Valley Unified School District and a handful of parents argued the law violates the rights of parents protected under the U.S. Constitution. (Austin, 7/17)

Politico: Florida Abortion Rights Brawl Transforms Normally Boring Budget Committee Into A Battleground
A normally prosaic budgeting process for proposed constitutional amendments in Florida ended in frustration — and legal threats — after Gov. Ron DeSantis and another state Republican leader tapped anti-abortion advocates to sit on a panel overseeing the state’s abortion-rights ballot measure that will be in front of voters in the fall. The fighting around obscure language related to the measure — which is Amendment 4 on November’s ballot — is just the latest battlefield in an incredibly contentious brawl over the procedure. (Sarkissian, 7/16)

AP: Arkansas Is Sued For Rejecting Petitions On An Abortion-Rights Ballot Measure
Arkansas is being sued for rejecting petitions in favor of a proposed ballot measure to scale back the state’s abortion ban, with supporters asking the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to order officials to start counting more than 100,000 signatures from people who back amending the constitution. The ballot measure wouldn’t make abortion a constitutionally protected right, but it would limit when abortion can be banned. (DeMillo, 7/16)