First Edition: June 25, 2024

KFF Health News: US Surgeon General Declares Gun Violence ‘A Public Health Crisis’
Murthy, a physician, told KFF Health News he hoped to convey the broader toll of gun violence on the nation and the need for an urgent public health response. He cited soaring gun deaths among children and teens and noted that “the mental health toll of firearm violence is far more profound and pervasive than many of us recognize.” “Every day that passes we lose more kids to gun violence,” Murthy said, “the more children who are witnessing episodes of gun violence, the more children who are shot and survive that are dealing with a lifetime of physical and mental health impacts.” (Pradhan and Clasen-Kelly, 6/25)

KFF Health News: Therapists Learn How To Help Farmers Cope With Stress Before It’s Too Late
The farmers’ co-op here is a center of hope every spring. It’s where farmers buy seed and fertilizer for the summer’s crops, and where they seek tips to maximize their harvest of corn and soybeans. But on a recent morning, a dozen mental health professionals gathered at the Key Cooperative Agronomy Center to discuss why so many farmers quietly struggle with untreated anxiety and depression. (Leys, 6/25)

KFF Health News: KFF Health News' 'An Arm And A Leg': Meet The Middleman’s Middleman
Why are patients facing bigger bills than they expect for out-of-network care? In this episode of “An Arm and a Leg,” the show explains the hidden mechanics of MultiPlan, a data firm that helps health insurers set these rates and make bigger returns. (Weissmann, 6/25)

The Hill: Supreme Court Sets Stage For Transgender Rights Showdown
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear a challenge to Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban for minors sets the stage for a potentially blockbuster case implicating transgender protections. It marks the first time the justices will weigh in on the issue, which could impact laws passed by 24 Republican-led states since 2021 that ban medications like puberty blockers and hormones for transgender children and teens. Legal challenges mounted by transgender youths, their families and medical providers have been met with mixed results. (Migdon and Schonfeld, 6/24)

Reuters: US Supreme Court To Decide If Retirees Can Sue For Disability Bias
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether retired workers retain the ability to sue their former employers for disability discrimination after they leave their jobs, a question that has divided federal appeals courts. The justices granted a petition by Karyn Stanley, a retired firefighter for the Orlando suburb of Sanford, Florida, who is appealing a lower court ruling that said she could not sue the city for allegedly curbing benefits for disabled retirees because it no longer employed her. (Wiessner, 6/24)

Reuters: US Supreme Court Gives Pharma Companies A Chance To Thwart Terrorism-Funding Lawsuit 
Hundreds of American service members and civilians, and their families, sued the defendant companies, part of five corporate families: AstraZeneca, Pfizer, GE Healthcare USA, Johnson & Johnson and F. Hoffmann-La Roche. The plaintiffs accused major U.S. and European pharmaceutical and device makers of providing corrupt payments to the Hezbollah-sponsored militia group Jaysh al-Mahdi in order to obtain medical supply contracts from Iraq's health ministry. (Scarcella, 6/24)

Military.com: Paralyzed During Surgery At Walter Reed, Guardsman Asks Supreme Court To Consider Feres Doctrine Challenge
Since April 6, 2018, Air National Guard Staff Sgt. Ryan Carter has been unable to dress himself, eat alone or walk from one room to another. On that day, Carter was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, for back surgery to address chronic pain; he left 19 days later, a paraplegic and victim, he says, of medical malpractice. At the time of the surgery, Carter was not on active-duty orders or medical orders -- an inactive status his attorneys argue made him eligible to file a malpractice claim against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act. (Kime, 6/24)

NBC News: Supreme Court Rejects Appeals Brought By RFK Jr.-Founded Anti-Vaccine Group Over Covid Shots
The Supreme Court on Monday turned away two Covid-related appeals brought by Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The decision by the justices not to hear the cases leaves in place lower court rulings against the group. (Hurley, 6/24)

The CT Mirror: CT Religious Vaccine Exemption Ban Will Hold; SCOTUS Rejects Case
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case Monday challenging Connecticut legislation that repealed religious exemptions for school vaccine requirements in 2021. (Harkay, 6/24)

The Guardian: Over Half Of US Women On Probation Or Parole Need Permission To Travel For Abortion – Study 
The number of women on probation or parole who must seek permission to travel for an abortion more than doubled to 635,000 in two years since the supreme court overturned the federal right to abortion, a new report finds. Fourteen states have near-total abortion bans and 21 restrict the procedure. Together with near ubiquitous travel restrictions imposed by probation and parole, more than half of women on probation or parole in the US must seek permission to travel before obtaining an abortion. (Glenza, 6/24)

Bloomberg: After Dobbs, Republican Anti-Abortion Ballot Measures Falter
Two years after the Supreme Court delivered the religious right their long-sought goal of repealing nationwide abortion rights, state-level initiatives to curb access are faltering. Deadlines are rapidly approaching ahead of November’s general election, but in state after state, Republican activists are falling short of the signatures necessary to put anti-abortion initiatives in front of voters. (Lowenkron, 6/24)

Axios: Which States Don't Allow Abortion Ballot Measures
Voters in half of U.S. states aren't able to support abortion access in direct-democracy ballot measures because their states lack the process for citizen-led initiatives. (Rubin, 6/24)

Modern Healthcare: EHR Information Blocking Rule Finalized By HHS
Healthcare providers that prevent authorized users from accessing electronic health records data face new consequences under a final rule the Health and Human Services Department published Monday. The regulation to discourage so-called information blocking emerged from the 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 and applies to providers including hospitals, physicians and accountable care organizations. (Early, 6/24)

Modern Healthcare: Oracle Launches Generative AI-Powered Clinical Documentation Tool
Oracle Health is rolling out an artificial intelligence clinical documentation tool for its ambulatory customers, the electronic health record company said Monday. Oracle said the tool will transcribe patient-clinician conversations and create draft notes within the EHR. The company had 13 of its ambulatory clinic customers test the tool beginning in October 2023, a month after it was first announced at its user conference. It is available for primary care, internal medicine and family medicine clinics. (Turner, 6/24)

Stat: AliveCor Gets FDA Nod For 12-Lead, AI-Powered ECG Machine
AliveCor has spent years battling with Apple over the market for consumer heart monitoring technology. Now it’s hoping to make its imprint on professional health care with its new device, which recently received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration. (Aguilar, 6/25)

Bloomberg: Massachusetts Is Trying To Prevent REITs From Owning Hospitals 
The collapse of Steward Health Care System has Massachusetts lawmakers pointing fingers at the hospital operator’s landlord and other companies like it. Real estate experts say their proposed fixes miss the mark. A sweeping health-care oversight bill that passed the state House of Representatives with almost unanimous support includes a provision that would ban hospitals from leasing their main campuses from real estate investment trusts, known as REITs. Other types of landlords would still be allowed to own hospitals and existing leases with REITs can continue. The crackdown would be among the first of its kind in the US. (Taylor and Sutherland, 6/24)

The CT Mirror: Hartford HealthCare Sued For Alleged Monopolization, Price Fixing
Two health plans filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Hartford HealthCare and several of its subsidiaries earlier this month for alleged unlawful monopolization, restraint of trade and price fixing. (Golvala, 6/25)

Modern Healthcare: Oscar, Centene, Highmark See Opportunity In Exchange-Based ICHRAs
Health insurance companies hungry for a piece of the large and lucrative employer health plan market see a recently created exchanges-based product as their way in. Although only a small — albeit growing — share of businesses offer individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements, or ICHRAs, to their workers, insurers such as Oscar Health, Centene and Highmark are gambling they are the wave of the future as employers strive to contain healthcare spending. (Berryman, 6/24)

CBS News: Surgeons Perform Kidney Transplant With Patient Awake During Procedure
Surgeons at Northwestern Medicine performed a kidney transplant on an awake patient, marking a first for the Chicago-based healthcare system. The patient, 28-year-old John Nicholas of Chicago, felt no pain during the May 24 procedure and was discharged the next day. Typically a patient is hospitalized for 2-3 days following a kidney transplant at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. (Moniuszko, 6/24)

Modern Healthcare: Travel Nursing Demand Declines, Staffing Agencies Pivot
Healthcare employment agencies are reevaluating their strategies as interest in travel nurses wanes among both hospitals and workers. It's another sign of the shifting needs of the industry since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Testing firms have laid off workers or folded. Telehealth companies have been challenged. (DeSilva, 6/24)

The New York Times: In San Francisco, Doctors Feud Over ‘Do No Harm’ When It Comes To War Protests 
It looked like any other pro-Palestinian encampment at a college campus in the United States. The tents, the flags, the banners calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. But this was at the University of California, San Francisco, one of the nation’s pre-eminent medical schools and teaching hospitals. The protesters were medical students and doctors. And the chants of “intifada, intifada, long live intifada!” could be heard by patients in their hospital rooms at the U.C.S.F. Medical Center. (Knight, 6/24)

Bloomberg: Ozempic Maker Novo Plans Another $4.1 Billion US Factory
Novo Nordisk A/S plans to invest $4.1 billion in another US factory, plowing more money into its biggest market amid rising discontent over the cost of its obesity and diabetes drugs. The project in Clayton, North Carolina, will double the company’s production footprint in the US, adding 1.4 million square feet of space for the final stages of manufacturing in which Novo’s medicines are filled into injector pens and prepared for consumers. The facility will add 1,000 jobs, the Danish drugmaker said Monday. (Kresge, 6/24)

Reuters: Teva Launches Generic Version Of Novo Nordisk's Diabetes Drug Victoza
Teva Pharmaceuticals said on Monday it had launched a generic version of Novo Nordisk's Victoza to treat patients with type 2 diabetes, making it the first generic GLP-1 drug in the United States where the drug class has seen overwhelming demand. (6/24)

Stat: Will Lilly’s Zepbound Make CPAP Machines Obsolete? Experts Split
Continuous positive airway pressure “is here to stay,” sleep medicine doctor Atul Malhotra declared in a May 2024 editorial published in the Lancet. But after Eli Lilly reported the full results of its obesity drug in sleep apnea patients last week, industry watchers are now debating the lasting power of CPAP machines. The trial, run by Malhotra himself, demonstrated that Zepbound reduced the number of sleep apnea episodes in patients both who were using the machines and those who were not. (Lawrence and Chen, 6/25)

Stat: Former Moderna Executive Launches Genome Editing Company
As chief medical officer of Moderna, Tal Zaks used to be skeptical of genome editing. Why repair a patient’s broken gene, he would ask, with all the havoc CRISPR can wreak on DNA, when a company like Moderna can just replace that gene with regular, transient doses of mRNA? (One reason: Moderna was having immense difficulty doing just that.) (Mast, 6/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Merck Shares Drop 10% As Pharma Giant Scraps Trial Of Promising Cancer Drug 
The New Jersey company said late on Monday that it had discontinued its Phase III TrilynX trial of Xevinapant in patients with head and neck cancer after an analysis by an independent panel concluded the drug would be unlikely to meet its primary goal of extending event-free survival in participants. (Goss, 6/25)

Bloomberg: Rite Aid Wins $200 Million Dispute Over Elixir Sale To MedImpact
Rite Aid Corp. isn’t responsible for more than $200 million in extra costs tied to the recent acquisition of its pharmacy benefit manager Elixir by MedImpact Healthcare Systems Inc., a judge ruled MondayJudge Michael Kaplan said during a hearing in New Jersey bankruptcy court that the underlying Elixir sale agreement makes MedImpact responsible for the disputed liabilities, which include millions of dollars in unpaid reimbursements owed to CVS Health Corp., Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and Walmart Inc. (Randles, 6/24)

CNN: A Ketamine Pill May Help Hard-To-Treat Depression With Fewer Side Effects, Early Research Suggests 
A new ketamine pill may help hard-to-treat depression with fewer side effects than other forms of the treatment, early research suggests. Technically, no form of ketamine has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat any psychiatric disorder, including depression. A derivative of ketamine, called esketamine, was approved in 2019 to treat depression. (Goodman, 6/24)

CIDRAP: Paper Strip Test Can Identify Flu Subtypes, May Have Other Applications, Scientists Say 
A newly developed paper test strip can detect different influenza types and may be able to be identify avian and swine flu strains, potentially guiding both clinical care and disease surveillance efforts, according to a study published in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. (Van Beusekom, 6/24)

NBC News: The Covid Summer Wave Is Here
Cases are most likely increasing in 39 states and aren’t declining anywhere in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — evidence that an anticipated summer wave is underway. The CDC no longer tracks Covid cases, but it estimates transmission based on emergency department visits. Both Covid deaths and ED visits have risen in the last week. Hospitalizations also climbed 25% from May 26 to June 1, the latest data available. (Bendix, 6/24)

The Guardian: Clothes, Cookware, Floss: Colorado Law To Ban Everyday Products With PFAS 
A new law coming into effect in Colorado in July is banning everyday products that intentionally contain toxic “forever chemicals”, including clothes, cookware, menstruation products, dental floss and ski wax – unless they can be made safer. Under the legislation, which takes effect on July 1, many products using per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances – or PFAS chemicals linked to cancer risk, lower fertility and developmental delays – will be prohibited starting in 2026. (Helmore, 6/24)

Minnesota Public Radio: As Legionnaires’ Cases Rise, Grand Rapids Begins Permanently Chlorinating Water Supply
The northeast Minnesota city of Grand Rapids took a major step this week to combat an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease traced to the city’s water supply. On Monday, Grand Rapids began permanently chlorinating its water. City officials hope the action will curb the perplexing outbreak, which started more than a year ago and has sickened nearly two dozen people. (Marohn, 6/25)

Axios: 7 States Show Promising Recovery From Youth Mental Health Crisis
Youth mental health has begun to improve after major pandemic dips, new data shows. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare students' struggles as well as a fractured system to help them navigate recovery. Some of the recovery, though, trails pre-pandemic mental health metrics. (Rubin, 6/25)