First Edition: March 21, 2023

KHN and WBUR: Some Roadblocks To Lifesaving Addiction Treatment Are Gone. Now What? 
For two decades — as opioid overdose deaths rose steadily — the federal government limited access to buprenorphine, a medication that addiction experts consider the gold standard for treating patients with opioid use disorder. Study after study shows it helps people continue addiction treatment while reducing the risk of overdose and death. Clinicians who wanted to prescribe the medicine had to complete an eight-hour training. They could treat only a limited number of patients and had to keep special records. They were given a Drug Enforcement Administration registration number starting with X, a designation many doctors say made them a target for drug-enforcement audits. (Bebinger, 3/21)

KHN: Mental Health Care By Video Fills Gaps In Rural Nursing Homes 
Bette Helm was glad to have someone to talk with about her insomnia. Helm lives in a nursing home in this central Iowa town of about 7,500 people, where mental health services are sparse. On a recent morning, she had an appointment with a psychiatric nurse practitioner about 800 miles away in Austin, Texas. They spoke via video, with Helm using an iPad she held on her lap while sitting in her bed. (Leys, 3/21)

The Washington Post: Biden Signs Bill To Declassify Intelligence About Coronavirus Origins 
President Biden on Monday signed a bill into law that directs the federal government to declassify certain information about the origin of the coronavirus, three years after the virus caused a global pandemic that has killed millions of people worldwide. “I share the Congress’s goal of releasing as much information as possible about the origin” of the coronavirus, Biden said in a statement after the signing, adding, “We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics.” (Wang and Johnson, 3/20)

Politico: Biden Will Release Covid-19 Origin Intelligence 
The legislation, called the Covid-19 Origin Act of 2023, which passed the Senate and House with unanimous support earlier this month, orders the Director of National Intelligence to declassify within 90 days of enactment all information relating to potential links between China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology and Covid-19. The director is then to submit the information in a report to Congress. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sponsored the bill. (Paun, 3/20)

AP: Minnesota Moving To Fortify State Status As Abortion Refuge
Like Planned Parenthood and other providers, Whole Woman’s Health of Minnesota in Bloomington has also seen a sharp increase in patients from out-of-state, more than doubling from 2019 to 26% in 2022. “The most remarkable change has come from Texas, where we only saw 2 patients from that state in 2019 to 96 from February 2022 to March of 2023,” Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, said in an email. (Karnowski, 3/20)

AP: Tennessee House OKs Narrow Abortion Exemption Bill 
Tennessee’s GOP-dominant House on Monday advanced legislation that would add a narrow exemption to the state’s strict abortion ban, despite concerns raised by Democrats and medical experts that the bill does not go far enough to protect doctors and pregnant patients. The legislation was drastically reworked from its original version that was introduced just last month after Tennessee’s influential anti-abortion lobbying group came out in opposition. Tennessee Right to Life warned that could face political retribution for voting on a bill that would have allowed doctors to provide abortions based on their “good-faith judgment.” (Kruesi and Mattise, 3/21)

Columbus Dispatch: Lawsuit: Ohio Abortion Amendment Should Be Split Into Multiple Issues
Abortion opponents say the Ohio Ballot Board should have divided the proposed abortion amendment into multiple ballot issues, according to a lawsuit filed at the Ohio Supreme Court Monday. The lawsuit, filed by former Cincinnati Right to Life executive director Meg DeBlase and member John Giroux, asks the Ohio Supreme Court to order the five-member Ohio Ballot Board to reconvene and split the proposed abortion amendment into multiple issues. (Balmert, 3/20)

The Hill: Jackson Pens Solo Dissent As Supreme Court Vacates Abortion Ruling
The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a federal court ruling upholding the right for a minor to go to court to get permission to undergo an abortion, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson penning a solo dissent in the case. The ruling from the court on Monday vacated a lower court ruling that a state court clerk could be sued for telling a pregnant teenager that the court must notify her parents of her attempt to get a court order to allow her to obtain an abortion without the consent of her parents. (Neukam, 3/20)

AP: Biden's Appeals Court Nominee Faces Rare Democratic Scrutiny 
One of President Joe Biden’s nominees to a federal appeals court has generated rare concern from some Democrats and outside groups over his signature on a legal brief defending a parental notification law in New Hampshire, injecting the issue of abortion into his confirmation fight from an unexpected flank. Michael Delaney, nominated for the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston, said in written testimony to senators that he did not write the 2005 brief and otherwise had “extremely limited involvement” in the case that was brought while he was deputy attorney general in New Hampshire. (Kim, 3/20)

American Homefront Project: A New Pentagon Policy Helps Troops Who Travel To Receive Abortions. Republicans Want To Block It. 
Even before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, service members struggled to get abortions. Navigating different state laws, trying to obtain leave, and figuring out travel arrangements wasn’t easy. “Having it be so difficult, the barriers I had to overcome and jump over, it reset where I thought I fit into the military,” said Air Force Major Sharon Arana. (Frame, 3/20)

CNN: Candida Auris, An Emerging Fungal Threat, Spread At An Alarming Rate In US Health Care Facilities, CDC Says
Clinical cases of Candida auris, an emerging fungus considered an urgent threat, nearly doubled in 2021, according to new data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There was also a tripling of the number of cases resistant to echinocandins, the first-line treatment for Candida auris infections. (Chavez, 3/20)

Bloomberg: Candida Auris: All You Need To Know About The Symptoms, Spread Of Deadly Fungus
Candida auris (C. auris) was first described in Japan in 2009, with the earliest known infections in the US dating back to 2013. Cases grew exponentially through the end of 2021, according to a paper published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which says it poses a serious global health threat — noted that a further 2,377 clinical diagnoses and 5,754 cases identified through screening were reported last year. (De Wei, 3/21)

Reuters: Moderna Expects To Price Its COVID Vaccine At About $130 In The US 
Moderna Inc expects to price its COVID-19 vaccine at around $130 per dose in the U.S. going forward as purchases move to the private sector from the government, the company’s president Stephen Hoge said in an interview on Monday. ... Moderna previously said it was considering pricing its COVID vaccine in a range of $110 to $130 per dose in the United States, similar to the range Pfizer Inc said in October it was considering for its rival COVID shots sold in partnership with BioNTech. (Wingrove, 3/20)

Stat: 8 Burning Questions Senators Should Ask Moderna's Bancel
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel has some explaining to do. Bancel will appear alone before Sen. Bernie Sanders’ health committee on Wednesday, where he’ll have to defend his company’s suggestion it will likely quadruple the price of its Covid vaccines once sales transition from bulk federal purchases to the open market. The Senate hearing will be a watershed moment for Bancel, a biotech superstar forged during the pandemic. (Branswell, Cohrs and Garde, 3/21)

Bloomberg: New York School Vaccination Rules Left Intact By Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court refused to consider forcing New York to give more children medical exemptions from the state’s school vaccine requirements. The justices, without comment, turned away an appeal by parents who claimed the state violated their constitutional rights when it put in place stricter rules for medical exemptions in 2019. (Stohr, 3/20)

CIDRAP: 5,000 US COVID Deaths May Have Been Averted In Winter 2022 Under Higher Paxlovid Use 
About 4,800 US lives could have been saved during the winter 2021-22 SARS-CoV-2 Omicron wave if 5% of COVID-19 patients had taken the antiviral drug Paxlovid, estimates a modeling study published late last week in JAMA Health Forum. (Van Beusekom, 3/20)

CIDRAP: Survey: Most Teens Lacked Sleep, Struggled With Schoolwork In 2021 During COVID 
Three quarters of US high school students didn't get enough sleep, and two-thirds had difficulty completing schoolwork, in 2021 amid the pandemic, according to a survey study published late last week in Preventing Chronic Disease. ... Most respondents (76.5%) reported sleeping for an average of less than 8 hours per school night, and 66.6% said they struggled more with schoolwork than they did before the pandemic. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that adolescents aged 13 to 18 sleep 8 to 10 hours a night. "Short sleep duration among adolescents is linked to higher risk of injury, worse metabolic and mental health, and difficulty focusing," the researchers wrote. (Van Beusekom, 3/20)

CNN: Pandemic Lowered US Step Count And We Haven't Bounced Back, Study Says
Americans took fewer steps during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and they still haven’t gotten their mojo back, a new study found. “On average, people are taking about 600 fewer steps per day than before the pandemic began,” said study author Dr. Evan Brittain, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “To me, the main message is really a public health message — raising awareness that Covid-19 appears to have had a lasting impact on people’s behavioral choices when it comes to activity,” he said. (LaMotte, 3/20)

AP: Anthony Fauci Documentary On PBS Covers A Career Of Crises 
There’s a moment in the new PBS documentary about Dr. Anthony Fauci when a protester holds up a handmade sign reading, “Dr. Fauci, You Are Killing Us.” It says something about Fauci that it’s not initially clear when that sign was waved in anger — in the 1980s as AIDS made its deadly rise or in the 2020s with COVID-19 vaccine opponents. “American Masters: Dr. Tony Fauci,” offers a portrait of an unlikely lightning rod: A government infectious disease scientist who advised seven presidents. Fauci hopes it can inspire more public servants like him. (Kennedy, 3/21)

WGCU: Four Florida Hospitals Are Named Among The Nation’s Top 50 For Heart Care
Four Florida health systems have been named to the PINC AI 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals, awarded for providing top-tier heart care. The list includes St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Lee Health’s HealthPark Medical Center in Fort Myers, Mayo Clinic Jacksonville and Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital Pensacola. (3/20)

The Colorado Sun: Medical Exams For Crime Victims Have Increased So Dramatically That A Colorado Springs Hospital Is Building A New Unit
UCHealth’s team of forensic nurses cared for 2,515 children and adults in this city last year who were sexually assaulted, choked or beaten and in need of a medical exam that could become evidence in a criminal case. These exams — more than six per day on average — took place mostly in Memorial Hospital’s emergency department, a Level I trauma center punctuated by the sounds of beeping machines, shouting amongst doctors treating gunshot victims, and law officers standing guard outside of patient rooms. (Brown, 3/20)

AP: Beshear Signs Bill To Bolster Kentucky's Rural Hospitals 
Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday signed into law a bipartisan measure that’s meant to bolster access to health care across Kentucky by injecting additional revenue into hospitals. The infusion will help shore up financially ailing hospitals in rural Kentucky, supporters said. One hospital administrator called it “a lifesaving action” to preserve hospital services and jobs. (Schreiner, 3/20)

The Boston Globe: Hospitals Plead For Flexibility On Spending Amid Soaring Costs Of Temporary Nurses
Hospitals in Massachusetts are asking the state for financial wiggle room as they contend with staffing challenges, including the $1.5 billion spent last year hiring temporary labor – mostly nurses – to fill in during the pandemic. These “travelers,” who come from all over the country, command wages two or three times higher than staff nurses, and their pay increased as demand grew during the pandemic. In some cases, nurses quit staff jobs to take better-paying traveler positions at their own hospital or one nearby. (Freyer and Lazar, 3/20)

Crain's Cleveland Business: Cleveland Clinic Unveils IBM Quantum System One
Through their 10-year Discovery Accelerator partnership, Cleveland Clinic and IBM have unveiled the IBM-managed quantum computer, billed as the first of its kind in the world dedicated to healthcare research. Installed on the Clinic's main campus, the IBM Quantum System One aims to help accelerate biomedical discoveries and is the first deployment of an onsite private sector IBM-managed quantum computer in the United States, according to a news release. (Coutré, 3/20)

Modern Healthcare: Microsoft's Nuance Adds ChatGPT Successor GPT-4 To EHR
Nuance Communications, a clinical documentation software company owned by Microsoft, is adding OpenAI’s ChatGPT successor GPT-4 to its latest application. Nuance introduced its new application on Monday morning called Dragon Ambient eXperience Express. The company said this version of Dragon can summarize and enter conversations between clinicians and patients directly into electronic health record systems using OpenAI's GPT-4 generative AI capabilities. (Turner, 3/20)

Stat: Top FDA Official Backs Accelerated Approval For Gene Therapies
A top Food and Drug Administration official said Monday that the agency needs to start using accelerated approval, a much-debated path commonly used for advancing cancer drugs, to advance gene therapies for rare disease. (Mast, 3/20)

CNBC: FDA Staff Says Biogen's ALS Drug May Have A 'Clinical Benefit' On A Rare Form Of The Disease
U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff on Monday said Biogen’s investigational ALS drug may have a “clinical benefit” on a rare and aggressive form of the disease, despite failing a broader late-stage clinical trial last year. (Constantino, 3/20)

The Baltimore Sun: Johns Hopkins Study Highlights Promise Of IV Mistletoe Extract For Cancer Therapy 
Ivelisse Page already had 15 inches of her colon and 28 lymph nodes removed to treat her colon cancer, but in the winter of 2008 she received more devastating news. The cancer had spread to her liver. Page’s doctor, Dr. Luis Diaz – an oncologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine — gave her an 8% chance of living for more than two years. Since chemotherapy and radiation wouldn’t increase her chances of survival, Page decided not to undergo either of the intensive treatments. Instead, she and her husband considered another treatment suggested by an integrative practitioner at Baltimore’s Ruscombe Mansion Community Health Center: mistletoe therapy. (Roberts, 3/21)

Stat: Senator Calls For Probe Of Panel Overseeing Dietary Guidelines
A U.S. lawmaker wants the federal government to probe potential conflicts of interest held by members of a panel created to set dietary guidelines after learning one panelist was a paid consultant to a drug company that sells weight loss treatments. (Silverman, 3/20)

AP: 'Ted Lasso' Visits White House, Promotes Mental Health Care 
Fictional soccer coach Ted Lasso used a White House visit Monday to encourage people, even in politically divided Washington, to make it a point to check in often with friends, family and co-workers to “ask how they’re doing, and listen, sincerely,” Comedian Jason Sudeikis, who plays the title character — an American coaching a soccer team in London — and other cast members were meeting with President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden to talk about how mental health contributes to overall well-being. (Superville and Miller, 3/20)

Houston Chronicle: COVID Underscores Latino Migrants’ ‘Urgent’ Mental Health Needs: Study
Pandemic hardships such as poverty, poor living and working conditions and limited health care access made evident an urgent need to address undocumented Latino immigrants’ mental health needs, according to a new Rice University study. (Romero, 3/20)

Reuters: Law Schools Try Texting To Monitor Students' Mental Health 
As evidence mounts that law students suffer through outsized mental health challenges, some law schools are experimenting with a new tactic to identify struggling students and get them help. At least five U.S. law schools have adopted a service first developed for medical schools, called Early Alert, that sends one text message a week to students asking them to rate how they feel about a specific topic. (Sloan, 3/20)

Bloomberg: Not Just TikTok, All Social Media Platforms Pose Risks: Transparency Group
The national-security and mental-health risks posed by TikTok are shared by other social media platforms, according to an advocacy group that’s urging Congress to also hold US companies accountable ahead of high-profile testimony from TikTok’s chief executive officer. (Edgerton, 3/20)

Kansas City Star: Missouri AG Bailey Announces Rules Targeting Transgender Care
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey on Monday said his office plans to file a set of emergency rules aimed at restricting how doctors provide gender-affirming care to minors. The rules include strict psychological therapy requirements for doctors providing care as well as banning care until all of a patient’s other mental health issues have been treated and resolved. (Bayless, 3/20)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Bill Blocking Trans Kids’ Access To Puberty Blockers Heads To Senate
The Texas Senate will likely soon consider a bill that would bar physicians from providing transition-related treatments — like puberty blockers and hormone therapies — to transgender Texas kids. The Senate State Affairs Committee on Monday advanced Senate Bill 14 in a 7-3 party-line vote, with all Republican members supporting the measure. (Nguyen, 3/20)

AP: New Mexico Gov To Abusive Caregivers: 'We're Coming For You'
Any caregivers who mistreat and abuse developmentally disabled or otherwise vulnerable people will be held accountable, New Mexico’s governor and top health officials warned Monday. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, members of her cabinet and law enforcement officials gathered at the state Capitol to provide an update on ongoing investigations into an alleged abuse and neglect case involving a developmentally disabled person that was brought to the state’s attention March 1. (Bryan, 3/21)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Inspectors Uncover Dangers At Georgia Facilities For Vulnerable Adults
Federal inspectors found unsafe conditions at places in Georgia that care for adults who are elderly or disabled, according to a newly released audit. Risks at these facilities ranged from potential exposure to toxic chemicals to facilities failing to give criminal background checks to their staff who care for vulnerable adults. The findings were unearthed as part of a review done by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over the summer. (Landergan, 3/20)

The Washington Post: Video Shows Va. Deputies Pile On Top Of Irvo Otieno Before His Death
As many as 10 sheriff’s deputies and medical staff at Virginia’s Central State Hospital can be seen piling on top of a shackled Irvo N. Otieno for approximately 11 minutes until he stops moving, according to new video showing the encounter that led to the 28-year-old Black man’s death. The hospital surveillance video, which has no sound, shows Otieno’s final moments on March 6, from the time Henrico County sheriff’s deputies drag him into a hospital admissions room in handcuffs and leg irons, to the 11 minutes in which they restrain Otieno on the ground, to the moment when they release Otieno’s limp body around 4:40 p.m. (Rizzo, Vozzella and Oakford, 3/20)

Stat: Arizona Plans To Dramatically Increase Hep C Treatment In Prisons
The Arizona Department of Corrections is promising a federal judge that it will dramatically increase the number of incarcerated people it tests and treats for hepatitis C. In a court filing Friday, the department outlined a plan to clear its backlog of incarcerated people waiting to be treated for the virus. Under the plan, Arizona promises to treat at least 110 people each month who have been awaiting treatment, as well as at least 70% of all people who newly tested positive for the virus in the last month. (Florko, 3/20)

AP: With Overdoses Up, States Look At Harsher Fentanyl Penalties
But the strategy is alarming recovery advocates who say focusing on the criminal angle of drugs has historically backfired, including when lawmakers elevated crack cocaine penalties in the 1980s. “Every time we treat drugs as a law enforcement problem and push stricter laws, we find that we punish people in ways that destroy their lives and make it harder for them to recover later on,” said Adam Wandt, an assistant professor of public policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He said people behind bars often continue getting drugs — often without receiving quality addiction treatment — then emerge to find it’s harder to get work. (Stern, Pollard and Mulvihill, 3/20)

Stat: Methadone Doses Haven’t Kept Up In The Age Of Fentanyl
Patients beginning treatment for opioid addiction often face excruciating withdrawal symptoms. But for people struggling to transition from ultra-potent illicit fentanyl to comparatively weaker addiction medications, help may be on the way. A new federal regulation would make it easier for some patients to begin treatment on significantly higher doses of methadone, a key medicine used to treat opioid use disorder. (Facher, 3/21)

CNN: Child Growth And Development Hampered By PFAS In Blood, Study Says
Potentially toxic chemicals found in everyday products, including fast-food wrappers, makeup and carpeting, are altering hormonal and metabolic pathways needed for human growth and development, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed study samples from young children, teens and young adults, all of whom had a mixture of different synthetic compounds called perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances — or PFAS — in their blood, including PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, PFNA, PFHpS and PFDA. (LaMotte, 3/20)

The Washington Post: World Is On Brink Of Catastrophic Warming, U.N. Climate Change Report Says
The world is likely to pass a dangerous temperature threshold within the next 10 years, pushing the planet past the point of catastrophic warming — unless nations drastically transform their economies and immediately transition away from fossil fuels, according to one of the most definitive reports ever published about climate change. ... Beyond that threshold, scientists have found, climate disasters will become so extreme that people will not be able to adapt. Basic components of the Earth system will be fundamentally, irrevocably altered. Heat waves, famines and infectious diseases could claim millions of additional lives by century’s end. (Kaplan, 3/20)