First Edition: May 10, 2023

KFF Health News: An Outdated Tracking System Is A Key Factor In Texas’ Foster Care Shortcomings 
The decades-old system Texas foster care officials use to track and monitor the health records of the nearly 20,000 children in their custody is both outdated and unreliable — so much so, advocates say, that children have been harmed or put at risk. And those deficiencies persist despite a 2015 order by a federal judge that state leaders fix the system’s deficiencies. “The frustration with IMPACT is well known,” said Texas state Rep. Gene Wu, a Democrat from Houston, referring to the aging software. (DeGuzman, 5/10)

KFF Health News: California Confronts Overdose Epidemic Among Former Prison Inmates 
Michael Vera walked into a bedroom of a residential drug treatment program in Los Angeles in March to find its occupant slumped over on his bed and struggling to breathe, a homemade straw on the floor beside him and tinfoil with what appeared to be drug residue under his body. The 35-year-old overdose victim had been out of custody less than 48 hours, in the midst of a frequently fatal danger zone: Individuals newly released from prison are 40 times as likely to die of opioid overdoses as members of the general population, researchers say. (Thompson, 5/10)

KFF Health News: Republicans Vow Not To Cut Veterans’ Benefits. But The Legislation Suggests Otherwise
House Republicans have set themselves a tough, if not impossible, task in attempting to use a standoff over the nation’s debt limit to cut federal spending to what it was in 2022. Retrenching to those budget levels would require cutting 8% or 9% from the discretionary program side of the ledger, which excludes entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Spending on those programs is required by law. Other spending is dictated by congressional appropriations annually. The latter is up for debate here. (McAuliff, 5/9)

KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest ‘KFF Health News Minute’ 
This week on the KFF Health Minute: air pollution’s effects on mental health, and how the end of the public health emergency could leave Americans at high risk for covid-19 without information they need to stay safe. (5/9)

The New York Times: When Should Women Get Regular Mammograms? At 40, U.S. Panel Now Says. 
Alarmed by an increase in breast cancer diagnoses among younger women and persistently high death rates among Black women in particular, health experts on Tuesday offered a stark revision to the standard medical advice on mammograms. Women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds who are at average risk for breast cancer should start getting regular mammograms at age 40, instead of treating it as an individual decision until they are 50, as previously recommended, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said. (Rabin, 5/9)

The New York Times: New Mammogram Advice: What To Know
The advice applies to all “cisgender women and other people assigned female at birth” who are at average risk for breast cancer and do not have any troubling symptoms that might indicate breast cancer. This group includes women with dense breast tissue and a family history of breast cancer. (Rabin, 5/9)

The Hill: Biden Says Rescinding Unspent COVID-19 Relief Funds ‘On The Table’ 
President Biden on Tuesday said rescinding unspent COVID-19 relief funds is “on the table” when it comes to an area where he and lawmakers can agree to make some spending cuts — but he was vague on whether that could also be part of debt ceiling talks. When asked if he would consider clawing back the unspent funds “even if it’s independent on these debt limit discussions,” Biden appeared to leave that option open. (Gangitano, 5/9)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Advisers Weigh Allowing First U.S. Over-The-Counter Birth Control Pill 
It was like a tale of two birth control pills. At a hearing Tuesday to consider whether the Food and Drug Administration should authorize the country’s first over-the-counter birth control pill, a panel of independent medical experts advising the agency was left to reckon with two contradictory analyses of the medication called Opill. (Belluck, 5/9)

AP: South Carolina Republicans Advance New Abortion Restrictions 
South Carolina Republicans are pushing new abortion restrictions in a late attempt to curtail access after a near-total ban failed last month. A Senate bill that would ban abortion except in the earliest weeks of pregnancy is moving quickly through the South Carolina House in the first sign that Republican leaders may be close to restoring limits passed in 2021 but overturned by the state Supreme Court. The effort cleared two hurdles Tuesday. (Pollard, 5/10)

Military.com: Mifepristone Probably Won't Work As A Treatment For Combat PTSD, New Study Finds
More than a decade ago, the now controversial medication mifepristone showed promise for alleviating symptoms of service-related post-traumatic stress disorder in men. A new study published Tuesday, however, counters previous research, determining that, in most cases, the drug used in medication abortions currently facing judicial review in the U.S. court system is no more effective for treating military PTSD than a placebo. (Kime, 5/9)

The Texas Tribune: Raise-The-Age Gun Misses Key Deadline In Texas House
The unexpected elation felt this week by gun control advocates and families of Uvalde shooting victims dissolved to despair Tuesday, when a bill that would raise the age to legally purchase semi-automatic rifles lost its newfound momentum and was left off the Texas House’s agenda ahead of a key deadline. Barring an unexpected development, the delay likely ends the bill's chances of becoming law. (Serrano, 5/9)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Firearm Fatalities Reach Near Three-Decade High 
Deaths from firearms in Texas — the vast majority of them suicides or homicides — have continued rising in Texas, reaching levels not seen in almost three decades. At the same time, Texas relaxed its gun laws in a decadeslong push to expand Second Amendment rights in the state, most recently in 2021 when Gov. Greg Abbott signed what Republicans called a “constitutional carry” bill into law, allowing Texans to carry handguns without a license or training. (Douglas and Ford, 5/10)

Reuters: Biden Revokes COVID Travel, Federal Employee Vaccine Requirements 
President Joe Biden on Tuesday revoked requirements that most international visitors to the United States be vaccinated against COVID-19 as well as similar rules for federal employees and contractors. Biden's orders take effect at 12:01 a.m. ET May 12 with the expiration of the U.S. COVID public health emergency. The Biden administration's rules imposed in September 2021 requiring about 3.5 million federal employees and contractors to be vaccinated or face firing or disciplinary action have not been enforced for over a year after a series of court rulings. (Shepardson, 5/9)

Stat: Who’s In Charge Of The Covid Response After The Emergency Ends?
The White House isn’t quite ready to launch its new pandemic response office for a neat handoff at the end of the Covid-19 public health emergency, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha told reporters Tuesday. Jha said White House officials are in the middle of setting up an Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy that Congress mandated them to create in December, but it won’t be ready in time for a clean transfer at the end of the public health emergency on May 11. (Cohrs, 5/9)

Reuters: Calif. Top Court Reluctant To Hold Employers Liable For COVID Infections 
Judges on California's top state court on Tuesday said they were concerned that allowing employers to be sued when workers who contracted COVID-19 spread it to members of their households would unleash "an avalanche of litigation" against businesses. The seven-member California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in San Francisco over whether woodworking company Victory Woodworks Inc could be held liable for negligence by Corby Kuciemba, an employee's wife who says she became seriously ill when her husband contracted COVID at work in the early days of the pandemic in 2020 and passed it to her. Even with the COVID global health emergency officially over, the court's ruling in the case could have major implications for California businesses. (Wiessner, 5/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: SFO Is First US Airport To Screen Airplane Wastewater For COVID
San Francisco International Airport has become the first in the United States to begin a government program to monitor airplane wastewater samples for new coronavirus variants. The initiative, created in partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will regularly collect combined wastewater flows from international arriving flights using an automatic sampling device and send them off to a laboratory for testing for emergent strains of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. (Vaziri, 5/9)

CIDRAP: Antibodies Spiked Then Waned After Pfizer, Moderna COVID Vaccines, But J&J Response Was Opposite 
In a head-to-head comparison today in Scientific Reports, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) researchers describe very different antibody responses to the monovalent (single-strain) Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccines up to 6 months after receipt. (Van Beusekom, 5/9)

CIDRAP: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Reduces Severe Fatigue In Long-COVID Patients 
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) lessens fatigue and improves concentration among long-COVID patients, finds a Dutch randomized controlled trial published yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases. (Van Beusekom, 5/9)

CIDRAP: Experts Warn Widespread Use Of Antibacterial Products Could Promote Antibiotic Resistance, Other Health Threats
More than two dozen scientists warn that the accelerated use of antibacterial products during the COVID-19 pandemic could pose health risks, such as antimicrobial resistance, and that a comprehensive research and policy agenda is needed to understand and limit these potential impacts.(Dall, 5/9)

USA Today: DEA Extends Telehealth Prescriptions For Controlled Substances
Two federal agencies will extend a pandemic-era policy until Nov. 11 that allows telemedicine doctors to prescribe controlled substances such as buprenorphine and Adderall without an in-person medical appointment. (Alltucker, 5/9)

CIDRAP: USDA Green-Lights Lyme Disease Vaccine That Targets Mice Hosts
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has conditionally licensed an oral vaccine designed to limit the spread of Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. The vaccine is sprayed onto pellets and distributed in natural settings to be consumed by mice. (Schnirring, 5/9)

Becker's Hospital Review: AI Can Detect Pancreatic Cancer 3 Years Before Diagnosis
Early detection for some cancers can come up to three years before a traditional diagnosis with the aid of artificial intelligence, researchers have found according to a May 8 news release from Harvard Medical School. An AI tool was successful at detecting pancreatic cancers up to three years before diagnosis by examining high-risk patients' medical records and comparing them with data on disease trajectories. (Hollowell, 5/9)

Stat: Weight Loss Drug May Boost Immune Cells That Fight Cancer: Study
Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have become immensely popular for their ability to help people with obesity lose weight. A new small study suggests they may also be useful in fighting cancer. (Chen, 5/10)

Becker's Hospital Review: Smart Toilet Seat That Detects Heart Rate, Oxygen Levels Gets FDA Clearance
A smart toilet seat that measures people's vital signs has received FDA clearance. The Heart Seat from Casana got approved to detect heart rate and oxygen levels. The company says it plans to launch its first product by the end of 2023 and pursue systolic and diastolic blood pressure monitoring in future filings. (Bruce, 5/9)

Modern Healthcare: Oscar Health To Exit California Health Insurance Market
Oscar Health plans to halt sales on the Covered California health insurance exchange at the end of year as new CEO Mark Bertolini reevaluates the company's position, executives told investors Tuesday. (Tepper, 5/9)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Atlanta-Based NextGen Sued For Healthcare Data Breach Of 1M Customers
NextGen Healthcare, which makes and sells software for medical and other healthcare providers, is the target of a federal lawsuit charging that it was negligent in defending itself against a cyberattack that permitted hackers access to information about more than a million consumers. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, claims the Atlanta-based company did not follow federal and industry guidelines for protecting data. (Kanell, 5/9)

AP: Former Nurse Sentenced For Dosing Error Seeks License Return
A former Tennessee nurse who was convicted of homicide last year after a medication error killed a patient argued Tuesday that the state Board of Nursing acted improperly when it revoked her license. Nurses around the country rallied for RaDonda Vaught during her criminal trial, saying the risk of going to prison for a mistake made nursing intolerable. Vaught was ultimately sentenced to three years of probation. (Loller, 5/9)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Penn Medicine Residents Voted To Unionize, Creating The Biggest New Union In Philadelphia In More Than 50 Years
Residents and fellows in the University of Pennsylvania Health System have voted to unionize, becoming the first group of training doctors in Pennsylvania to do so. In an election administered by the National Labor Relations Board, just over 1,000 people voted, and 89% approved unionization for house staff — the industry term for these physicians in training. About 1,400 total workers would be represented by the union, Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR). (McLellan Ravitch, 5/9)

Wyoming Public Radio: Cody Hospital Launches The First Hospital-Owned Medical Flight Program In Wyoming
Cody’s hospital recently launched the first hospital-owned medical transport program in the state. First Flight of Wyoming will serve the Greater Basin Region with medical flights out of state. Cody Regional Health operates the largest EMS network in the state. CEO Doug McMillan said that’s why the flight program is needed. (Kudelska, 5/9)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Nevada Doctor Shortage Would Worsen With Malpractice Bill, Physicians Say
Proposed legislation that would dramatically increase the cap on awards for pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases would intensify a doctor shortage in Nevada, opponents say. Voters nearly 20 years ago approved the cap on noneconomic damages when medical malpractice insurance rates skyrocketed in the state, threatening retention and recruitment of physicians. (Hynes, 5/9)

AP: Trans Minors Protected From Parents Under Washington Law 
Minors seeking gender-affirming care in Washington will be protected from the intervention of estranged parents under a measure Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law Tuesday. The new law is part of a wave of legislation this year in Democratic-led states intended to give refuge amid a conservative movement in which lawmakers in other states have attacked transgender rights and limited or banned gender-affirming care for minors. (Komenda, 5/9)

AP: Kansas City Considers Becoming LGBTQ Sanctuary City
A Kansas City Council committee will consider a resolution on Wednesday that would designate the city as a sanctuary for people seeking or providing gender-affirming care, even as the state’s attorney general is proposing a new restrictions on the procedures for adults and children. The resolution, which was proposed by LGTBQ advocates in Kansas City, says the city will not prosecute or fine any person or organization that seeks, provides, receives or helps someone receive gender-affirming care such as as puberty blockers, hormones and surgery. (Stafford, 5/10)

AP: Transgender Youth Sue Over Montana Gender-Affirming Care Ban
Two transgender children, their parents and two health care providers filed a lawsuit Tuesday arguing that a Montana law that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth is unconstitutional. The ban on puberty blockers, hormone treatment and surgical procedures applies only to transgender youth being treated for gender dysphoria, but that same care can be provided to cisgender adolescents for any other purpose, according to the complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Montana and Lambda Legal. (Hanson, 5/9)

AP: Youngkin Seeks Plan For Wastewater Surveillance Of Fentanyl 
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order Tuesday that directs state agencies to take 10 steps intended to bolster the fight against the fentanyl crisis, including setting up a plan to use wastewater surveillance to keep tabs on use of the drug. Fentanyl overdose deaths in Virginia have grown more than 20-fold since 2013, according to Youngkin’s executive order, which also states that since 2020, more Virginians have died from fatal drug overdoses than motor vehicle and gun-related deaths combined. (5/9)

Bay Area News Group: Santa Clara University Unveils Narcan Vending Machine
As lawmakers in Sacramento debate solutions to the fentanyl crisis, public health students at Santa Clara University unveiled their own unique approach on Tuesday: a free on-campus vending machine that dispenses canisters of the opioid-overdose reversing medication Narcan to anyone who wants it. It’s the first of its type on a Bay Area campus, with Stanford University expected to introduce one in a few weeks. (Nickerson, 5/9)

USA Today: Maine Reports First Case Of Measles Since 2019; Child Tests Positive
Maine health officials say they received a report of a child testing positive for measles, the first such case in the state since 2019. The Maine Department of Health and Human Services announced in a Friday news release it was notified of a positive measles test result, adding it was awaiting confirmation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Guzman, 5/9)

Detroit Free Press: Marcus Garvey Academy Reopened; Haemophilus Influenzae Confirmed In 4
The Detroit Health Department has confirmed four cases of a bacterial infection at a Detroit school that closed temporarily last week because of an increase in illnesses among an undisclosed number of children. The Detroit Health Department identified the illness as Haemophilus influenzae disease found in the four people from Marcus Garvey Academy, with the cases limited to a single classroom. (Hall, 5/9)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Leads US In Babies Born With Syphilis, Numbers Increasing
The number of babies born with syphilis in the U.S. continued its upward climb in 2021, new data shows, worrying doctors and public health investigators in Texas who have been trying to draw attention to what they say is a largely hidden crisis. (Gill, 5/9)

AP: Minnesota Prepares For Near-Total Ban On 'Forever Chemicals'
Minnesota is on the verge of banning non-essential uses of “forever chemicals.” And lawmakers say they are naming the legislation after a woman who spent the last months of her life campaigning for restrictions that will be some of the toughest in the country. Legislators, environmentalists and family members paid tribute Tuesday to Amara Strande. She died two days shy of her 21st birthday last month from a rare form of liver cancer. She grew up in a St. Paul suburb where the groundwater is contaminated by PFAS and believed the chemicals were part of what caused her cancer, which was diagnosed when she was 15. (Karnowski, 5/9)

Houston Chronicle: Could Avocados Lower Your Risk For Developing Type 2 Diabetes?
Good news, avocado lovers: Eating the “superfood” may also be helping to prevent Type 2 diabetes, according to a study from Baylor College of Medicine researchers. The study, published last month in the Journal of Diabetes Mellitus, found that eating avocados was associated with a 20 percent reduction in the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes over a six-year period. (MacDonald, 5/9)

USA Today: Autism Diagnosis In Adulthood: 'Takes A Mental Crisis'
It wasn't until Ashley Marchuck started experiencing frequent anxiety attacks at work — almost every day — that she started to suspect she might be autistic. Working at Starbucks, she was bombarded with loud noises such as the whirr of the coffee machines, the music playing, and the conversations among customers. The sensory overload was too much. The anxiety attacks, leaving her sweaty and panicked, wouldn't stop. (Altavena, 5/10)