First Edition: March 11, 2024
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
KFF Health News:
Why Covid Patients Who Could Most Benefit From Paxlovid Still Aren’t Getting It
Evangelical minister Eddie Hyatt believes in the healing power of prayer but “also the medical approach.” So on a February evening a week before scheduled prostate surgery, he had his sore throat checked out at an emergency room near his home in Grapevine, Texas. A doctor confirmed that Hyatt had covid-19 and sent him to CVS with a prescription for the antiviral drug Paxlovid, the generally recommended medicine to fight covid. Hyatt handed the pharmacist the script, but then, he said, “She kept avoiding me.” (Allen, 3/11)
KFF Health News:
California Attorney General Boosts Bill Banning Medical Debt From Credit Reports
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Monday that he is throwing his weight behind legislation to bar medical debt from showing up on consumer credit reports, a Democratic-led effort to offer protection to patients squeezed by health care bills. Bonta is a sponsor of Sen. Monique Limón’s bill, which seeks to block health care providers, as well as any contracted collection agency, from sharing a patient’s medical debt with credit reporting agencies. (Castle Work, 3/11)
KFF Health News:
The Medicare Episode
On this episode of “An Arm and a Leg,” host Dan Weissmann breaks down the complicated and expensive world of Medicare with practical tips to pick the right plan and avoid penalties. (3/11)
KFF Health News:
Biden Said State Of The Union Is Strong And Made Clear His Campaign Is Off And Running
President Joe Biden touted his administration’s accomplishments in health care in a wide-ranging State of the Union address on Thursday evening that touched on subjects such as immigration, the economy, crime, job growth, infrastructure, and the Israel-Hamas war. With Biden and former President Donald Trump now the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees, Biden used the roughly 68-minute speech to counter his lackluster public approval ratings and draw clear contrasts between his administration’s policies and those of Trump and some congressional Republicans. (3/8)
AP:
FDA Will Take A Deeper Look Into The Safety And Effectiveness Of Lilly Experimental Alzheimer's Drug
Federal regulators put off a decision on whether to approve an Eli Lilly Alzheimer’s drug by making an unusual request to have outside advisers look at the treatment. Lilly had expected the Food and Drug Administration to decide on donanemab’s approval by the end of the month. But the drugmaker said Friday that the agency now wants more information about its safety and effectiveness. No date has been set for the advisory committee meeting. (Murphy and Perrone, 3/8)
The New York Times:
A.L.S. Drug Relyvrio Fails Clinical Trial And May Be Withdrawn From The Market
One of the few treatments the Food and Drug Administration has approved for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has failed a large clinical trial, and its manufacturer said Friday that it was considering whether to withdraw it from the market. The medication, called Relyvrio, was approved less than two years ago, despite questions about its effectiveness in treating the severe neurological disorder. (Belluck, 3/8)
Politico:
HHS Wants UnitedHealth To Take Responsibility After Cyberattack
HHS told health care leaders Sunday that the agency is urging UnitedHealth Group to take responsibility for the impact of a massive cyberattack that has delayed provider payments. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote to the health care industry Sunday after lawmakers called on federal officials to do more to quickly get payments to impacted providers. In his response, Becerra defended HHS’ actions following the attack and said officials are now “asking private sector leaders across the health care industry — especially other payers — to meet the moment.” (Cirruzzo, 3/10)
Stat:
Medicare Announces Loan Program To Aid Providers Affected By Change Cyberattack
Medicare announced on Saturday that it will make advance payments available to physician groups, hospitals, and other health care facilities as part of its response to the February 21 Change Healthcare cyberattack. (Trang, 3/10)
Axios:
Health Care Providers Losing Up To $1B A Day From Cyberattack
Disruptions from the Change Healthcare cyberattack are costing health providers as much as $1 billion a day and creating enough of a drag to depress first-quarter earnings, analysts and industry officials say. (Reed, 3/11)
The New York Times:
With Cyberattack Fix Weeks Away, Health Providers Slam United
More than two weeks after a cyberattack, financially strapped doctors, hospitals and medical providers on Friday sharply criticized UnitedHealth Group’s latest estimate that it would take weeks longer to fully restore a digital network that funnels hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance payments every day. UnitedHealth said that it would be at least two weeks more to test and establish a steady flow of payments for bills that have mounted since hackers effectively shut down Change Healthcare. (Abelson and Creswell, 3/8)
AP:
GOP Lawmakers Resist Calls To Tweak Abortion Bans. Some Say They'll Clarify The Laws' Few Exceptions
In Republican-led states across the U.S., conservative legislators are refusing to reevaluate abortion bans — even as doctors and patients insist the laws’ exceptions are dangerously unclear, resulting in denied treatment to some pregnant women in need. Instead, GOP leaders accuse abortion rights advocates of deliberately spreading misinformation and doctors of intentionally denying services in an effort to undercut the bans and make a political point. (Kruesi, 3/11)
The Hill:
Hogan Cleans Up IVF Remarks, Says He Would Sponsor Legislation To Protect Access
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who is running for Senate, said Friday that he would sponsor legislation to protect access to in vitro fertilization (IVF), a day after he dodged questions on it. “Access to IVF is vital to millions of families and must be protected. I will sponsor legislation in the Senate to do just that,” Hogan wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. (Weixel, 3/8)
The Wall Street Journal:
Biden Push To Ease Marijuana Restrictions Sparks Tensions
Federal officials are at odds over President Biden’s push to loosen restrictions on marijuana, a move some in the White House hope to see ahead of an election in which he needs the support of younger voters. The president’s latest advocacy came during Thursday’s State of the Union address, in which he touted his efforts to expunge marijuana-possession convictions and soften how the drug is categorized under federal law. (Gurman, 3/9)
The Hill:
Trump’s Vaccine Rhetoric Sends Chills Through Public Health Circles
Public health advocates are watching in growing alarm as former President Trump increasingly embraces the anti-vaccine movement. “I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate,” Trump said in a recent campaign rally in Richmond, Va. It’s a line Trump has repeated, and his campaign said he is only referring to school COVID-19 vaccine mandates — but that hasn’t eased fears that the GOP leader could accelerate already worrying trends of declining child vaccination. (Weixel, 3/9)
The Hill:
Measles Outbreak Threatens US Status Of ‘Eliminating’ Virus
The rash of measles outbreaks around the country has sparked concerns that the U.S. risks losing its status as a country where the disease has been eliminated, a distinction held since 2000. As of last week, 41 measles cases have been confirmed across 15 states and New York City, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That puts the nation already on track to surpass the 58 total cases that were detected in 2023. (Choi, 3/8)
The New York Times:
Overdose Or Poisoning? A New Debate Over What To Call A Drug Death
As millions of fentanyl-tainted pills inundate the United States masquerading as common medications, grief-scarred families have been pressing for a change in the language used to describe drug deaths. They want public health leaders, prosecutors and politicians to use “poisoning” instead of “overdose.” In their view, “overdose” suggests that their loved ones were addicted and responsible for their own deaths, whereas “poisoning” shows they were victims. (Hoffman, 3/11)
Newsweek:
Sausage Recall After Pieces Of Rubber Found In Products
A Denmark, Wisconsin-based cooked sausages producer is recalling about 35,430 pounds of turkey sausage over concerns they may be contaminated with pieces of rubber, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has said. In an alert issued on Thursday, the federal agency announced that Salm Partners, which describes itself as the "market leader in cook-in-package sausage and hot dogs," was recalling batches of 12-ounce Johnsonville Polish Kielbasa turkey sausage. (3/8)
The New York Times:
Jool Baby Infant Swings Recalled Over Suffocation Hazard
Jool Baby, a brand of children’s products, has recalled about 63,000 infant swings that were sold at Walmart stores and online because they posed a suffocation risk, federal safety regulators said. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday that the Jool Baby Nova Baby Infant Swing that was marketed, intended or designed for infant sleep posed a suffocation risk because it had an incline angle greater than 10 degrees. (Diaz, 3/10)
The Wall Street Journal:
To Get Ahead Of Diseases, It May Help To Find Your Organ Age
How old is your pancreas? What about your brain or heart? Scientists have come up with a way to estimate the age of organs, separate from the body’s age as a whole. They found in a recent study that many of us are walking around with at least one organ aging much more quickly than the others, and that older organs can indicate a greater chance of developing diseases. (Janin, 3/9)
CIDRAP:
SARS-CoV-2 RNA Can Persist In Blood, Tissue, May Play Role In Long COVID, Research Suggests
SARS-CoV-2 viral fragments can remain in blood and tissue for more than a year after infection, which researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) say could contribute to long COVID. In two studies, the researchers found SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the blood for up to 14 months post-infection and for more than 2 years in connective-tissue samples from 171 COVID-19 survivors without evidence of reinfection. (Van Beusekom, 3/8)
CNBC:
Pfizer Is Betting Big On Cancer Drugs After Covid Decline
Pfizer is ready to move on from Covid. Now, the company is betting on cancer drugs to help it regain its footing after a rocky year marked by the rapid decline of its Covid business. It just might take a while before that bet pays off. (Constantino, 3/10)
Reuters:
Serum Institute Of India Looks Beyond COVID With New Vaccines For Malaria, Dengue
The CEO of the world's biggest vaccine maker, Serum Institute of India, said the company has bolstered its manufacturing ahead of launches over the next few years of shots against diseases like malaria and dengue by repurposing facilities used to make COVID-19 immunizations. With COVID manufacturing scaled back as demand ebbs, the company is using those facilities to instead manufacture its newer shots, which it estimates will boost total production by two and a half billion doses, CEO Adar Poonawalla said in an interview. (Mishra, 3/10)
Stat:
UnitedHealth Quietly Bought Dozens Of Outpatient Centers
UnitedHealth Group quietly acquired dozens of outpatient facilities in 2023, with a particular focus on surgery centers, according to a STAT review of company financial filings. Those acquisitions — nearly all of which the company never announced — build on the network of some 90,000 physicians UnitedHealth Group has amassed in recent years. (Herman, 3/11)
Fortune:
Mark Cuban Says CEOs Don’t Understand Their Health Care Costs. Here’s What The Cost Plus Drugs Cofounder’s Mistakes Have Taught Him
When a CEO fails to grasp the nuances of their company’s health care costs, it’s not just the bottom line that suffers. Employee efficiency and productivity could plummet, too, not to mention the corrosion of company culture. For these reasons, billionaire entrepreneur and Cost Plus Drugs cofounder Mark Cuban urges business leaders to take a hard look at how their health dollars are spent. (Leake, 3/8)
Modern Healthcare:
HIMSS 2024: What To Expect In Orlando
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s annual conference is set to commence in Orlando, Florida on Monday. It will be the first HIMSS gathering since the nonprofit health IT advocacy organization sold the industry conference to London-based events company Informa in August. Informa took over operations, sales and marketing of the annual event while HIMSS has continued to shape the show’s content. (Turner, 3/8)
AP:
West Virginia Lawmakers OK Bill Drawing Back One Of The Country's Strictest Child Vaccination Laws
West Virginia’s GOP-controlled state Legislature voted Saturday to allow some students who don’t attend traditional public schools to be exempt from state vaccination requirements that have long been held up as among the most strict in the country. The bill was approved despite the objections of Republican Senate Health and Human Resources Chair Mike Maroney, a trained doctor, who called the bill “an embarrassment” and said he believed lawmakers were harming the state. “I took an oath to do no harm. There’s zero chance I can vote for this bill,” Maroney said before the bill passed the Senate 18-12. (Willingham, 3/10)
The New York Times:
Wyoming Banned Abortion. She Opened An Abortion Clinic Anyway
It was not such an implausible idea, back in 2020, when a philanthropist emailed Julie Burkhart to ask if she would consider opening an abortion clinic in Wyoming, one of the nation’s most conservative states and the one that had twice given Donald Trump his biggest margin of victory. In fact, Ms. Burkhart had the same idea more than a decade earlier, after an anti-abortion extremist killed her boss and mentor, George Tiller, in Wichita, Kan., where he ran one of the nation’s few clinics that provided abortion late in pregnancy. (Zernike, 3/10)
The Colorado Sun:
Why Colorado's Health Department Wants To Help With Your Taxes
With tax time upon us, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has an unusual offer: It wants to help. But why would an agency better known for vaccination campaigns and pollution regulations be interested in providing tax support? The answer lies in a 4-year-old CDPHE program intended to improve families’ economic mobility as a way of improving community health. (Ingold, 3/11)
Reuters:
Oregon Governor To Sign Bill Recriminalizing Drug Use
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek on Friday vowed to sign into law a bill that recriminalizes drug use, more than three years after voters approved the most liberal drug law in the country, one that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs. "I intend to sign House Bill 4002 and the related prevention and treatment investments within the next 30 days," Kotek, a Democrat, said in a statement. (Trotta, 3/9)