First Edition: March 20, 2023

KHN: Judge Signals He Could Rule To Halt Sales Of Common Abortion Pill 
During a four-hour hearing last week that could eliminate nationwide access to a common and widely used abortion pill, federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, of the Northern District of Texas, signaled his conservative Christian beliefs early and often. Speaking from the bench in a courtroom in Amarillo, Texas, Kacsmaryk repeatedly used language that mimicked the vocabulary of anti-abortion activists. It also reflected the wording of the lawyers seeking to overturn the FDA’s two-decade-old approval of mifepristone, one of the drugs in the two-pill regimen approved for early pregnancy termination. (Varney, 3/20)

KHN: Mobile Clinics Really Got Rolling In The Pandemic. A New Law Will Help Them Cast A Wider Safety Net
Nearly 12 years ago, a nonprofit centered on substance abuse prevention in Lyon County, Nevada, broadened its services to dental care. Leaders with the Healthy Communities Coalition were shocked into action after two of their food pantry volunteers used pliers to pull each other’s abscessed teeth. The volunteers saw no other option to relieve their overwhelming pain in the small town where they lived, 40 miles southeast of Reno, because of a dearth of dental care providers. (Rodriguez, 3/20)

California Healthline: California Picks Generic Drug Company Civica To Produce Low-Cost Insulin
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday announced the selection of Utah-based generic drug manufacturer Civica to produce low-cost insulin for California, an unprecedented move that makes good on his promise to put state government in direct competition with the brand-name drug companies that dominate the market. “People should not be forced to go into debt to get lifesaving prescriptions,” Newsom said. “Californians will have access to some of the most inexpensive insulin available, helping them save thousands of dollars each year.” (Hart, 3/18)

KHN: Journalists Discuss Medicaid Unwinding And Clawbacks 
KHN correspondent Rachana Pradhan untangled Medicaid unwinding on PBS’ “PBS News Weekend” on March 11. ... KHN senior editor Andy Miller discussed virtual visits on WUGA’s “The Georgia Health Report” on March 10. ... KHN rural editor and correspondent Tony Leys discussed how Medicaid clawbacks drain patients’ estates after they die on NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday” on March 5. (3/18)

AP: Wyoming Governor Signs Measure Prohibiting Abortion Pills 
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has signed into law the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills since they became the predominant choice for abortion in the U.S. in recent years. Gordon, a Republican, signed the bill Friday night while allowing a separate measure restricting abortion to become law without his signature. (Gruver, 3/18)

AP: New Mexico Passes Bill To Safeguard Abortion Providers 
New Mexico legislators raced against the clock Friday to advance hard-fought proposals aimed at safeguarding abortion access, delivering tax relief and reducing gun violence in the final hours of a 60-day legislative session. Republicans in the legislative minority raised a series of objections during a House floor debate to a bill that aims to protect abortion providers and patients from out-of-state interference, prosecution or extradition attempts. (Lee, 3/18)

AP: Vermont Senate Passes Bill To Protect Abortion Providers 
The Vermont Senate on Friday passed a bill that aims to protect health care workers from disciplinary action for providing abortions and gender-affirming health care, and change insurance premium charges related to such care. The legislation defines reproductive and gender-affirming health care as legally protected “health care activities.” (3/17)

The Texas Tribune: Comstock Act Revived In FDA Abortion Drug Case
In an Amarillo courthouse last week, lawyers seeking to move abortion medication off the market focused less on the existential question of when life begins — and more on the procedural question of when a law dies. The lawsuit focuses on the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug. But lawyers for the Alliance Defending Freedom took the opportunity to appeal to a higher power — U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — to resurrect a long-dormant law that would upend abortion access in the United States. (Klibanoff, 3/20)

Politico: Abortion On The Ballot? Not If These Republican Lawmakers Can Help It
After watching the pro-abortion rights side win all six ballot initiative fights related to abortion in 2022 — including in conservative states such as Kansas and Kentucky — conservatives fear, and are mobilizing to avoid, a repeat. “It was a wake-up call that taught us we have a ton of work to do,” said Kelsey Pritchard, the state public affairs director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which plans to spend tens of millions of dollars on ballot initiative fights on abortion over the next two years. “We’re going to be really engaged on these ballot measures that are often very radical and go far beyond what Roe ever did.” (Ollstein and Messerly, 3/19)

AP: Trump Silent On Abortion As '24 Campaign Pushes Forward 
No elected Republican has done more to restrict abortion rights in the U.S. than Donald Trump. But in the early days of the 2024 presidential contest, no Republican has worked harder to avoid the issue than the former president. Far more than his GOP rivals, Trump is sidestepping the issue just nine months after he and his party celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to strip away women’s constitutional right to abortion. Look no further than Trump’s trip to Iowa last week for evidence of his delicate balancing act. (Peoples, 3/20)

ABC News: Texas Abortion Law Means Woman Has To Continue Pregnancy Despite Fatal Anomaly
Kylie Beaton was looking forward to having her second child later this year. Now, she's faced with carrying an unviable pregnancy to its end due to Texas' highly restrictive abortion ban. According to a report from her doctor, Beaton's baby has a rare, severe condition impacting the development of its brain, but she is unable to access abortion care in her home state. (El-Bawab, 3/20)

Fox News: COVID-19 Pandemic Expected To End This Year 'As A Public Health Emergency,' Says World Health Organization 
Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the comments to reporters at a media briefing in Geneva. "We are certainly in a much better position now than we have been at any time during the pandemic," Dr. Ghebreyesus said. (Rudy, 3/19)

Reuters: WHO, Advisors Urge China To Release All COVID-Related Data After New Research
Advisors to the World Health Organization have urged China to release all information related to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic after new findings were briefly shared on an international database used to track pathogens. New sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as well as additional genomic data based on samples taken from a live animal market in Wuhan, China in 2020 were briefly uploaded to the open access GISAID database by Chinese scientists earlier this year, allowing them to be viewed by researchers in other countries, according to a Saturday statement from the WHO's Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO). (3/18)

The New York Times: Lab Leak Or Not? How Politics Shaped The Battle Over Covid’s Origin
The story of the hunt for Covid’s origin is partly about the stonewalling by China that has left scientists with incomplete evidence, all of it about a virus that is constantly changing. For all the data suggesting that the virus may have jumped into people from wild animals at a Chinese market, conclusive proof remains out of reach, as it does for the competing hypothesis that the virus leaked from a lab. But the story is also about politics and how both Democrats and Republicans have filtered the available evidence through their partisan lenses. (Stolberg and Mueller, 3/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID-19 Deaths Hit 3-Year Low As U.S. Cases And Hospitalizations Fall
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly coronavirus report released on Friday — the fourth-to-last before the report is discontinued — the number of reported cases in the U.S. decreased by 19.7% to 21,422 a day, compared with 26,685 in the previous week. The seven-day average for new hospital admissions was down 9.5% — 2,757 a day versus 3,046 last week. That compares with a peak of 22,000 per day during the omicron surge in early 2022. (Vaziri, 3/17)

The New York Times: Covid Politics Leave A Florida Public Hospital Shaken
The turmoil at Sarasota Memorial, one of Florida’s largest public hospitals, began last year after three candidates running on a platform of “health freedom” won seats on the nine-member board that oversees the hospital. Board meetings, once sleepy, started drawing hundreds of angry people who, like the new members, denounced the hospital’s treatment protocols for Covid-19.An internal review last month found that Sarasota Memorial did far better than some of its competitors in saving Covid patients’ lives. But that did little to quell detractors, whose campaign against the hospital has not relented. By then, the hospital had become the latest public institution under siege by an increasingly large and vocal right-wing contingent in one of Florida’s most affluent counties, where a backlash to pandemic policies has started reshaping local government. (Mazzei, 3/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: If You Still Haven’t Had COVID, Are You Immune — Or Just Lucky?
The estimated percentage of people who have contracted the coronavirus ranges from 70% to 90% of the U.S. population, but it’s unclear how many have truly not been infected, as asymptomatic infections and at-home testing have muddied the waters. (Hwang, 3/19)

Reuters: Veterans, Carpenters And Vaccines: What's At Stake If US COVID Aid Is Canceled
A Republican proposal to cancel unspent COVID-19 relief money could undercut healthcare for military veterans and pensions for blue-collar workers while doing little to improve the U.S. fiscal picture, a Reuters review of federal spending figures found. The flood of COVID-relief aid -- $5.2 trillion in all -- that Congress approved in 2020 and 2021 under Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic successor Joe Biden has emerged as an early target for House of Representatives Republicans as they search for ways to rein in federal spending. (Sullivan, 3/17)

AP: Judge Won't Toss Lawsuit Over Ivermectin In Arkansas Jail 
A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit that says detainees at an Arkansas jail were given the drug ivermectin to fight COVID-19 without their knowledge. The lawsuit contends detainees at the Washington County Jail in Fayetteville were given ivermectin as early as November 2020 but were unaware until July 2021. Ivermectin is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to address parasitic infestations such as intestinal worms and head lice and some skin conditions, such as rosacea. It is not, and was not at the time, approved to treat COVID-19. (3/18)

Stat: Moderna CEO Made $398 Million In 2022
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel is starting to reap gargantuan gains from the stock he first got when he started with the company a decade ago, although nearly all of this chunk of his fortune remains earmarked for unknown charities. Bancel made $398 million in 2022 based on the actual realized gains of stock that was exercised and sold, according to STAT’s calculations from Moderna’s annual compensation disclosure filed this week. (Herman and Garde, 3/17)

Reuters: Two New Vaccines Against Bird Flu Effective In Dutch Lab -Govt 
Two vaccines tested by a Dutch veterinary research centre have proved effective against highly infectious bird flu in a first experiment conducted under a controlled environment, the Dutch government said on Friday. "Not only did the vaccines give poultry used in the lab protection against disease symptoms but they also countered the spreading of the bird flu," the government said in a statement. (3/17)

The Washington Post: Working In The ER Used To Be A Cool Job. Now Medical Students Shun It.
Daryl Traylor dreamed of becoming an emergency room doctor ever since working as an ER technician in the mid-90s helping physicians care for children who broke their arms or nearly drowned. But now he’s a first-year medical student, and those same doctors are urging Traylor not to follow in their footsteps. They warn of burnout after covid and patients’ increasing suspicion of doctors. The pay is not as good, they say, especially as hospitals rely more on nurse practitioners and physician assistants to staff emergency departments. And job prospects may be grim, they caution, as emergency medicine residency programs aggressively expanded in recent years. (Nirappil, 3/17)

Axios: Future Doctors Match Into Residencies
More medical school graduates are steering away from emergency medicine and opting for specialties like orthopedics and plastic surgery, raising concern about a field that bore the brunt of COVID-19 and remains beset by the overdose epidemic and other health crises. (Dreher and Reed, 3/20)

Modern Healthcare: HHS Owes Millions In Adjusted Medicare DHS Payments To Hospitals: Lawsuit
The federal government owes tens of millions of dollars to dozens of safety-net hospitals for alleged delays in correcting  Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments, hospitals alleged in a new lawsuit. (Kacik, 3/17)

Stat: Hospitals Are Not Crumbling, Medicare Experts Say
Hospitals’ financial situations are not nearly as dire as industry groups are making them out to be, Medicare policy experts are telling Congress. Profit margins hit all-time highs in 2021, and almost $200 billion of taxpayer subsidies provided hospitals with ample cushion to get through the worst of the pandemic, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission said in its newest report. (Herman, 3/20)

The Washington Post: Americans Are Knee-Deep In Medical Debt. Most Owe Hospitals. 
For millions of Americans, a trip to the doctor’s office or hospital can be a prescription for debt. But who do the estimated 100 million people with medical debt owe? A new analysis suggests bills for hospital care make up most medical debt in the United States — and that low-income people and people of color are disproportionately affected by overdue medical debt. The report from the Urban Institute drew on data from a June survey of a nationally representative sample of 9,494 adults ages 18 to 64. (Blakemore, 3/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Hospital ‘Black Boxes’ Put Surgical Practices Under The Microscope
Black boxes on airplanes record detailed information about flights. Now, a technology that goes by the same name and captures just about everything that goes on in an operating room during a surgery is making its way into hospitals. The OR Black Box, a system of sensors and software, is being used in operating rooms in 24 hospitals in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe. Video, audio, patient vital signs and data from surgical devices are among the information being captured. (Sadick, 3/19)

Oklahoman: OU Health Says Data For About 3,000 Patients Exposed By Laptop Theft
OU Health is notifying approximately 3,000 patients their protected health information may have been compromised after an employee's laptop was stolen on Dec. 26. (Money, 3/18)

AP: Elizabeth Holmes Returns To Court In Bid To Avoid Prison 
Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes on Friday made what might be her final court appearance before beginning a 11-year prison sentence, unless a judge grants her request to remain free while her lawyers appeal her conviction for masterminding a blood-testing hoax. ... The proceedings ended without a determination whether Holmes, 39, will be able to stay out of prison while her appeal unfolds or have surrender to authorities on April 27, as currently scheduled. Davila said he hopes to issue his ruling in early April. (Liedtke, 3/17)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Will Make Its Own Insulin. Next Up: Naloxone
Newsom said his administration is already in discussions about also manufacturing both injectable and nasal spray versions of naloxone to bolster the state’s efforts to combat fentanyl overdoses. (Bollag, 3/18)

AP: California To Seek Beds For Mental Health, Drug Treatment
California voters would decide whether to fund a major expansion of housing and treatment for residents suffering from mental illness and addiction, under the latest proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom to address the state’s homelessness crisis. Newsom announced Sunday that he will ask allies in the Democratic-controlled Legislature for a measure on the 2024 ballot to authorize funding to build residential facilities where up to 12,000 people a year could live and be treated. The plan is the latest by the governor who took office in 2019 vowing to own the issue of homelessness in a state where an estimated 171,000 were unhoused last year. (3/20)

Indianapolis Star: Indiana State Senator Sued In Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Sen. Tyler Johnson, R-Leo, which is just outside Fort Wayne, is being sued for malpractice in a wrongful death lawsuit after a woman reportedly died less than an hour after his treatment. Johnson works as an ER physician. A lawsuit filed in May 2022 alleges his treatment caused 20-year old Esperanza Umana of Fort Wayne to have a heart attack resulting in her death, according to court documents. (Charron, 3/16)

AP: Lawmaker Pauses Filibuster On Agreement To Debate Trans Bill
A lawmaker who has been holding up the work of the Nebraska Legislature for weeks to protest a bill that would ban gender-affirming therapies for minors has paused her persistent filibuster in a deal that will see lawmakers debate the bill next week. Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh, of Omaha, had been staging a filibuster of every single bill before the legislative body — even ones she supported — since late February to protest the bill. (Beck, 3/17)

AP: Higher Cancer Rates Found In Military Pilots, Ground Crews 
A Pentagon study has found high rates of cancer among military pilots and for the first time has shown that ground crews who fuel, maintain and launch those aircraft are also getting sick. The data had long been sought by retired military aviators who have raised alarms for years about the number of air and ground crew members they knew who had cancer. They were told that earlier military studies had found they were not at greater risk than the general U.S. population. (Copp, 3/19)

The Washington Post: Schools Sue Social Media Companies Over Youth Mental Health Crisis 
School districts across the country are increasingly taking on social media, filing lawsuits that argue that Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube have helped create the nation’s surging youth mental health crisis and should be held accountable. The legal action started in January, with a suit by Seattle Public Schools, and picked up momentum in recent weeks as school districts in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida have followed. Lawyers involved say many more are planned. (St. George, 3/19)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Philly High School Students Now Have Access To Kooth, An Online Mental-Health Platform
Jayme Banks worried last summer — at the end of a school year that was tough for nearly everyone, with students coming off a year of pandemic-forced virtual classes, in a city traumatized by gun violence — that kids’ mental health was fragile. “I was just thinking: ‘How do I know the kids are OK? How do I know that they have resources?’” said Banks, the Philadelphia School District’s deputy chief of prevention, intervention, and trauma. (Graham, 3/20)

Axios: Company Recalls Frozen Fruit Sold Nationwide Due To Hepatitis A Risk
A company in Oregon is recalling frozen fruit distributed to major food retailers such as Costco and Trader Joe's following an outbreak of Hepatitis A illnesses. The recalled products are frozen organic strawberries sold at grocery stores in certain states and a frozen organic tropical fruit blend sold at Trader Joe’s nationwide. (Habeshian, 3/17)

CIDRAP: Report Describes Locally Acquired Dengue Cases In Arizona 
Local scientists and their colleagues from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) detail two cases of locally acquired dengue virus (DENV) infection in November 2022 in Maricopa County, Arizona, according to a report today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). (Wappes, 3/17)

CNBC: Harvard Diet May Be The Standard For Living A Long And Healthy Life
You’ve definitely heard of the Mediterranean diet and the MyPlate method, but what about Harvard University’s Healthy Eating Plate? Back in 2011, nutrition experts at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health worked alongside researchers at Harvard Health Publications to compile an eating plan for optimal health. “In terms of major chronic diseases like prevention of cardiovascular disease, different types of cancers [and] Type 2 diabetes, this way of eating is going to be helpful to prevent those diseases that are common in America, and the world,” says Lilian Cheung, lecturer of nutrition at Harvard’s school of public health. (Onque, 3/19)

Fox News: 'Dad Jokes' Help Kids Develop Into Healthy Adults: Study
A recent study says that despite the embarrassment that "dad jokes" can cause, it might do some kids good in the future. Humor researcher Marc Hye-Knudsen published a study in British Psychological Society‘s journal this week arguing that "dad jokes" actually have a positive effect on development. (Vacchiano, 3/18)

AP: US Warns About Fake, Dangerous Pills Being Sold In Mexico 
The U.S. State Department has issued a travel warning about dangerous counterfeit pills being sold at pharmacies in Mexico that often contain fentanyl. The travel alert posted Friday says Americans should “exercise caution when purchasing medication in Mexico.” ... A study led by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles found that 68% of the 40 Mexican pharmacies visited in four northern Mexico cities sold Oxycodone, Xanax or Adderall, and that 27% of those pharmacies were selling fake pills. (3/18)

AP: Lack Of Hugs Caused US Fentanyl Crisis, Mexico's Leader Says 
Mexico’s president said Friday that U.S. families were to blame for the fentanyl overdose crisis because they don’t hug their kids enough. The comment by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador caps a week of provocative statements from him about the crisis caused by the fentanyl, a synthetic opioid trafficked by Mexican cartels that has been blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States. ... “There is a lot of disintegration of families, there is a lot of individualism, there is a lack of love, of brotherhood, of hugs and embraces,” López Obrador said of the U.S. crisis. “That is why they (U.S. officials) should be dedicating funds to address the causes.” (3/17)