First Edition: July 6, 2023

KFF Health News: Why The Next Big Hope For Alzheimer’s Might Not Help Most Black Patients 
This week the FDA is expected to approve what many scientists and doctors believe is the first drug to show promise of slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. But while patient advocates are celebrating, critics see it as the unfortunate triumph of a flawed theory of the disease’s cause and predict the rollout of the drug will aggravate racial disparities in elder care. (Allen, 7/6)

KFF Health News: How Health Care May Be Affected By The High Court’s Affirmative Action Ruling 
Doctors are concerned that a Supreme Court ruling issued June 29 will have far-reaching effects not only on the diversity of doctors and other care providers in training but ultimately also on patient care. The decision found it is unconstitutional for colleges and universities to use race as a factor in student admissions, which will affect enrollment decisions at public and private educational institutions, including medical schools. (Andrews, 7/6)

KFF Health News: Montana Adds Protections For Kids In Private Residential Treatment Programs
As a teenager attending Chrysalis Therapeutic Boarding School for Girls, a private, alternative therapeutic program in Eureka, Montana, from 2001 to 2004, Meg Applegate was subjected to emotional abuse and not given medical care for injuries from physical labor such as baling hay, chopping wood, and moving rocks, she said. Yet she couldn’t communicate what she was going through to her parents because she was not allowed unmonitored phone calls with them for over a year. Applegate, along with her parents, and other students who attended similar alternative, for-profit behavior modification programs in Montana testified about their experiences to help pass a new law that aims to bolster protections for teens in programs that are part of what is commonly referred to as the “troubled teen industry.” (Evans, 7/6)

KFF Health News: CDC To Reduce Funding For States’ Child Vaccination Programs 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reducing funding to states for child vaccination programs, according to an agency email obtained by KFF Health News. The funding cut “is a significant change to your budget,” said the email to immunization managers, dated June 27 and signed by two CDC officials. (Miller, 7/5)

KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest ‘KFF Health News Minute’ 
This week on the KFF Health News Minute: Regulators struggle to keep candy-flavored e-cigarettes away from children and a KFF Health News investigation finds racial inequities in a federal program to help rural moms. (7/5)

AP: Ohio Abortion Rights Backers Submit Nearly Double Needed Signatures For Fall Ballot Measure
Groups hoping to enshrine abortion rights in Ohio’s constitution delivered nearly double the number of signatures needed to place an amendment on the statewide ballot this fall, aiming to signal sweeping widespread support for an issue that still faces the threat of needing a significantly increased victory margin. Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights said they dropped off more than 700,000 petition signatures on Wednesday to Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office in downtown Columbus. LaRose now will work with local election boards to determine that at least 413,446 signatures are valid, which would get the proposal onto the Nov. 7 ballot. (Smyth, 7/5)

AP: Man Gets Life Sentence For Raping 9-Year-Old Ohio Girl Who Traveled To Indiana For Legal Abortion
A man who confessed to raping and impregnating a 9-year-old Ohio girl has been sentenced to life in prison in a case that became a national flashpoint on abortion rights because the girl had to travel out of state to end the pregnancy. Gerson Fuentes, 28, was sentenced to life in prison, but his plea deal stipulates that he can seek parole after serving 25 to 30 years. He would then have to register as a sex offender. (7/5)

AP: Indiana Abortions Drop Sharply Ahead Of State Ban Possibly Taking Effect, State Reports Show
The number of abortions being performed in Indiana has dropped steeply even before a court ruling that has a Republican-backed abortion ban set to potentially take effect in the coming weeks. New reports from the Indiana Department of Health show the state’s abortion total during 2022 jumped by 13% — an increase caused by out-of-state patients coming to Indiana for the procedure as tighter laws took effect in Kentucky and Ohio. (Davies, 7/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Don’t Sell Edibles That Look Like Doritos, Federal Officials Tell Companies 
Federal officials warned six companies to stop selling cannabis products in packaging that is “almost identical” to that of popular children’s snacks like Doritos, gummy bears and Nerds candy. The copycat packaging being used to sell Delta-8 THC, a psychoactive substance sourced from hemp, can make it easier for children to accidentally ingest the product, according to the Federal Trade Commission. (Bhattacharya, 7/5)

CNN: Overuse Of Marijuana Linked To Surgery Complications And Death, Study Says
Clinical overuse of marijuana is linked to a variety of complications after major elective surgery, including blood clots, stroke, breathing difficulties, kidney issues and even death, a new study found. “Our findings complement previous studies that have identified significant associations between cannabis use disorders and perioperative complications,” the study’s authors wrote in the report. The research team is from the department of anesthesiology, critical care and pain medicine at McGovern Medical School, part of the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. (LaMotte, 7/5)

Politico: Matt Gaetz Proposes End To Cannabis Testing For Military 
A proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) would end cannabis testing for members of the military — both when they’re enlisting and accepting a commission. If the amendment is included in the NDAA, H.R. 2670 (118), it would address a growing issue in the U.S. military: the increasing number of recruits who test positive for marijuana use, particularly in states where it is legal. Nearly 33 percent more recruits tested positive in 2022 than in 2020, according to the New York Times. (Fertig, 7/5)

The New York Times: Federal Officials Hatch A Three-Pronged Defense Against Another ‘Tripledemic’ 
To prevent a repeat of last winter’s “tripledemic” of respiratory illnesses, Americans will be encouraged to roll up their sleeves not just for flu shots but for two other vaccines, one of them entirely new. Federal health officials have already asked manufacturers to produce reformulated Covid vaccines to be distributed later this year. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took an additional step, endorsing two new vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus for older Americans. (Mandavilli, 7/5)

Reuters: Moderna Starts Application Process For RSV Vaccine For Older Adults 
Moderna Inc. said on Wednesday it had started the application process to get an approval for its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine in older adults with regulators in the United States, Australia and Europe. The company said it had started rolling submission of data for the shot with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It is aiming to be the third vaccine maker to get an approval in the country after GSK (GSK.L) and Pfizer Inc. (7/5)

CIDRAP: COVID-19 Inflammatory Response Not Tied To Long COVID
A post-infection inflammatory response has been a popular hypothesis used to explain long COVID, a condition defined as significant lingering COVID-19 symptoms present weeks and months following the initial infection. A new UK study, however, suggests that those suffering from severe long COVID symptoms did not have signs of higher cellular immune activation or pro-inflammatory cytokines after adjusting for age, sex, and disease severity. The results are published in the journal eLife. (Soucheray, 7/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF’s Bob Wachter Hosts Final COVID Forum, Taking Stock Of Pandemic
It’s the end of an era for Dr. Bob Wachter. Or, more accurately, a turning point. Wachter bid farewell to his COVID-specific Grand Rounds forum after a three-year run, leaving a lasting impact. Having amassed over 4 million YouTube views and 274,000 followers on Twitter with his diligent pandemic updates, the chair of medicine at UCSF said last week that he plans to revisit the subject as needed in the next academic year. However, he anticipates delving into other pressing medical topics as more Americans strive to resume their normal lives. (Vaziri, 7/3)

Reuters: Pfizer, AstraZeneca And Others Ask US Supreme Court To Bar Iraq Terrorism Funding Claims
More than 20 U.S. and European pharmaceutical and medical-device makers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to bar claims that the companies helped to fund terrorism that killed or injured hundreds of American service members during the war in Iraq. The companies, part of five corporate families — AstraZeneca, Pfizer, GE Healthcare USA, Johnson & Johnson and F. Hoffmann-La Roche — are challenging a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. (Scarcella, 7/5)

Stat: Neutralizing Antibodies Against HIV Shows Promise In Children
When children living with HIV are injected with neutralizing antibodies, the treatment can suppress cells that contain the virus and are capable of reactivating, an early-stage trial found. Details of the trial, documented in a study published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, show that broadly neutralizing antibodies can boost the protective effects of antiretroviral drugs. This suggests that antibody drugs can be used as supplements or even as alternative treatments for HIV in children. (Tsanni, 7/5)

Roll Call: Expected Alzheimer’s Drug Approval Signals New Era In Treatment
The Food and Drug Administration’s expected approval of Biogen and Eisai’s Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi, or lecanemab, is set to broaden access and accelerate a new class of treatments for the degenerative disease. A number of patient advocacy groups are eagerly awaiting the decision, which would trigger broader access under Medicare. But the drug still faces coverage restrictions, along with critics who don’t believe it should be on the market at all. (Clason, 7/6)

CNN: Fluctuating Cholesterol Linked With Alzheimer’s, Study Finds
The fact that having high cholesterol can cause health problems is well known. But a total cholesterol level that fluctuates a lot — either up or down within a five-year period — might also be problematic by raising the risk of later dementia, a new study found. (Rogers, 7/5)

Fox News: Surprising Brain Boost: Brushing Your Teeth May Reduce The Risk Of Dementia, New Study Suggests
New research published in the journal Neurology suggests that brushing your teeth boosts the brain — helping to reduce the risk of dementia. People with good dental hygiene had more neurons in the hippocampus, the study found; the hippocampus plays a role in memory. Gum disease and tooth loss were linked with less gray matter and declining mental health. (Mackey, 7/5)

NBC News: High BMI Is Not Associated With Higher Risk Of Death, Study Finds
A body mass index in the range considered overweight, or even obese, is not necessarily associated with a higher risk of death, a new study has found. The research is the latest addition to a growing body of evidence that suggests BMI alone is not an accurate indicator of a person's health. (Pandey, 7/6)

The New York Times: People With Private Medicare Plans Can’t Find Psychiatrists, Study Shows
People with private Medicare coverage may not be getting the mental health services they need because they cannot find a psychiatrist within their plan’s network, according to a new study. More than half of the counties the researchers studied did not have a single psychiatrist participating in a Medicare Advantage plan, the private-sector counterpart to traditional Medicare. Some 30 million people, just over half of all participants in the federal program, are enrolled in these private plans. (Abelson, 7/5)

Modern Healthcare: New Nurses Have More Options, But Are More Prone To Burnout
Nurses entering the workforce have access to more job opportunities than prior generations, putting many in a position to seek more specialized roles and higher pay. At the same time, nurses who received the bulk of their training during the COVID-19 pandemic have less hands-on experience, which can make them more prone to burning out. As experienced nurses retire and new ones come aboard, employers are offering competitive pay, career development opportunities and individualized support to recruit and retain clinicians. (Devereaux, 7/5)

Stat: Why Hospitals Are Withdrawing From US News Rankings
Mercy Philadelphia Hospital was planning on shutting down. Losing Mercy, a safety-net hospital serving a predominantly low-income and Black community, would have created a health care desert in West Philadelphia. “It would have been easy for us to just absorb it into our existing hospital beds,” said Kevin Mahoney, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. “But we thought it was wrong that patients in a poor part of town would have to travel two bus routes, 20 city blocks.” (Bajaj, 7/6)

Bloomberg: Eli Lilly Surpasses UnitedHealth As World’s Biggest Health-Care Firm
Eli Lilly & Co. became the world’s biggest health-care company by market value, surging ahead of health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. The drugmaker gained 0.9% on Wednesday, extending its advance after four straight months of gains while adding more than $94 billion to its value this year. Lilly ended June at a record high. (Adegbesan, 7/5)

Axios: Researchers At Nationwide Children's Hospital Achieve Medical Breakthrough 
Breakthrough research at Nationwide Children's Hospital has produced a long-awaited treatment for a rare genetic disorder seen in young kids. The FDA recently approved Elevidys, the first gene therapy meant to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in 4- and 5-year-old patients. (Buchanan, 7/5)

Detroit Free Press: Henry Ford Jackson Hospital Opens An Accredited Human Donor Milk Bank
A new entree is on the menu for premature and fragile infants in Henry Ford Jackson Hospital: donated breast milk, made available through the health center’s freshly opened milk bank. The bank is only the second one in Michigan to be accredited by the Human Milk Banking Association of North America — and only the 32nd on the continent. (Brookland, 7/5)

Reuters: Mark Cuban's Online Pharmacy Set To Launch Humira Biosimilar
Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs, an online pharmacy launched by the billionaire to sell drugs directly to customers at low prices, should soon begin selling Coherus BioSciences's biosimilar version of AbbVie Inc's blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira, Cuban said on Wednesday. "We should be getting it today or tomorrow," Cuban said in an email. (Erman, 7/5)

Stat: What To Know About A Major Upcoming Wegovy Heart Health Study
At some point this summer, the drugmaker Novo Nordisk will release results from a closely watched study that, if successful, could further uncork demand for new obesity medications, streamline insurance coverage for the therapies, and demonstrate long-lasting health benefits. The Select trial, as the study is called, is the first large, randomized trial to test whether long-term treatment with a weight loss drug can meaningfully improve patients’ cardiovascular health. Novo is testing Wegovy, a weekly injection also sold under the brand name Ozempic for type 2 diabetes, against placebo in the five-year study. (Garde, Joseph and Chen, 7/6)

AP: Nevada Secures $285M Opioid Settlement With Walgreens, Bringing Total Settlements To $1 Billion
The state of Nevada has reached a $285 million settlement with Walgreens regarding the pharmacy chain’s role in the opioid epidemic, the state’s top lawyer announced Wednesday. The last in a series of multiyear settlements with pharmaceutical companies, retailers and others, it pushes Nevada’s total anticipated payments stemming from opioid claims to $1.1 billion, state Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office said in a news release. Nevada is among numerous states that have reached settlements now totaling more than $50 billion nationwide. (7/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: Gavin Newsom Revising California's Opioids Plan To Tackle Tranq
Newsom first became concerned about tranq about six months ago, he said, when he met with other governors for a conference and his East Coast counterparts warned that xylazine was responsible for a growing number of fatalities in their states. Increasingly, it’s being found in California, too. “We were asking our Border Patrol folks, and they, a number of months ago, said we started to see it on the Texas border, and now we’re seeing it in California,” Newsom said. “It’s moved very quickly.” (Bollag, 7/5)

The Boston Globe: Drug Overdose Deaths In N.H. Rose 11 Percent In 2022, Nearing Decade High
New Hampshire had begun to see progress in its efforts to reduce the number of people dying from opioids and other drugs. The state’s overdose death tally decreased two years in a row. But that was before the pandemic. Now the trendline has reversed. (Porter, 7/5)

AP: North Carolina Governor Vetoes Trio Of LGBTQ+ Restrictions In Ongoing Fight With GOP Supermajority 
North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed Wednesday a trio of bills aimed at LGBTQ+ youth that would ban gender-affirming health care for minors, restrict transgender participation in school sports and limit classroom instruction about gender identity and sexuality. (Schoenbaum, 7/5)

NBC News: Barriers To Transgender Health Care Lead Some To Embrace A Do-It-Yourself Approach
Max Adomat considers themself fortunate. Adomat, 26, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, has been on a steady regimen of feminizing hormones for the last six years. They also began their gender transition in New Jersey, a progressive state where clinics offering transition-related medical care are commonplace, and name changes are confidential, they said. (Rosenthal, 7/5)

The Baltimore Sun: Maryland Medicaid Expands Benefits To Include Community Violence Prevention, Pregnancy Care For Non-U.S. Citizens
Maryland Medicaid will start paying for some community violence prevention services, peer recovery support services in certain settings, and pregnancy and postpartum care for people whether or not they’re a U.S. citizen under benefits expansions announced earlier this week. (Roberts, 7/5)

CNN: Nearly Half Of The Tap Water In The US Is Contaminated With ‘Forever Chemicals,’ Government Study Finds
Almost half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with chemicals known as “forever chemicals,” according to a new study from the US Geological Survey. The number of people drinking contaminated water may be even higher than what the study found, however, because the researchers weren’t able to test for all of these per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, chemicals that are considered dangerous to human health. (Christensen, 7/5)

Stat: Environmental Racism May Speed Black Americans' Aging: Study
Black Americans who live in neighborhoods with lower levels of income and education may age faster than their white neighbors, according to a new study. This can be true even when an individual Black person has a higher income or education level — underscoring the extent to which a person’s surroundings can impact their health. (Castillo, 7/5)

Axios: Utah's Skin Cancer Rate Highest In Nation, Per CDC 
Utah once again has the nation's highest melanoma rate, according to updated data from the CDC. 38.4 per 100,000 Utahns were diagnosed with the cancer in 2020. That's a drop from 43.6 in 2019 — likely due to fewer diagnoses amid reductions in doctor visits during COVID. (Alberty, 7/5)

NBC News: Depression After TBI Is A Distinct Condition, Study Finds. That Could Change How It's Treated
Depression after a traumatic brain injury, such as a concussion, may be a distinct condition, different from other types of depression, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The findings are a step forward in understanding how depression can be treated differently in people with traumatic brain injury, or TBI, who often do not respond to psychotherapy and medication. The researchers are even proposing a separate name for the condition: TBI affective syndrome. (Sullivan, 7/5)

NBC News: BelVita Breakfast Sandwiches Recalled For Possible Peanut Contamination
BelVita breakfast sandwiches were recalled because of possible peanut contamination, the company said, noting that there have been reports of allergic reactions to the biscuits. (Burke, 7/5)