First Edition: May 20, 2022

KHN: Watch: Going Beyond The Script Of ‘The G Word’ And How Government Responds To Disease (Or Not) 
KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal joined comedian Adam Conover to discuss his new Netflix series, “The G Word With Adam Conover,” created in partnership with Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground Productions. In the hybrid docu-comedy series, Conover pulls back the curtain on the surprising ways the federal government affects our everyday lives, from the mundane to the life-changing. In a roughly 25-minute conversation, Rosenthal and Conover take a deep dive into Episode 5, “Disease,” which examines the government’s approach to illness and other health threats. (5/20)

KHN: High-Tech’s Business Model Hasn’t Worked For The Cue Covid Test
“I’ve got this,” coos Gal Gadot in Cue Health’s Super Bowl TV commercial. Cue hired the “Wonder Woman” actress to be the voice of the company’s new high-tech covid-19 testing device. The ad pushes the notion that the at-home covid test produces results equal in accuracy to a lab-based PCR test and surpasses it in convenience. What it doesn’t mention is the price: $249 for the reusable device and $195 for a pack of three tests. (Taub, 5/20)

KHN: Bison Pastrami, Anyone? Preschool Assistant Makes Sure Kids Get To Know Indigenous Foods
Bison pastrami is not typical school lunch fare, but it’s a crowd favorite at a preschool in Minneapolis. Fawn Youngbear-Tibbetts — the seemingly always on-the-go coordinator of Indigenous foods at the Wicoie Nandagikendan Early Childhood Urban Immersion Project — is frequently found tweaking recipes in the kitchen or offering homemade goodies like flourless black-bean brownies. (Gans and Huggins, 5/20)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Waking Up To Baby Formula Shortage 
The federal government finally addressed the infant formula shortage, as a growing number of families found themselves without anything to feed their babies. But it will likely take weeks for any effects of the federal action to be felt, while infants must be fed daily. (5/19)

The Washington Post: Oklahoma Lawmakers Pass Bill Banning Abortion After Fertilization 
The bill defines “fertilization” as the moment a sperm meets the egg. It explicitly allows for the use of the Plan B pill, a widely used form of emergency contraception, but would prohibit medical abortions using pills. The bill exempts from its definition of abortion any procedure to “save the life or preserve the health of the unborn child,” to “remove a dead unborn child caused by spontaneous abortion” or to remove an ectopic pregnancy, in which the fetus grows outside the uterus. (Wang, Sonmez and Kitchener, 5/19)

The Hill: White House Condemns Restrictive Oklahoma Abortion Law 
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned a law passed by Oklahoma lawmakers on Thursday that would ban abortions with very limited exceptions. “Today’s action by the Oklahoma legislature is the most extreme effort to undo these fundamental rights we have seen to date. In addition, it adopts Texas’ absurd plan to allow private citizens to sue their neighbors for providing reproductive health care and helping women to exercise their constitutional rights,” Jean-Pierre said in a statement. (Vakil, 5/19)

AP: Federal Judge Again Extends Ban On Kentucky Abortion Law 
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings’ ruling means that Kentucky officials cannot enforce other disputed provisions until the state adopts and funds regulations under which abortion providers would have to comply. The judge had previously suspended enforcement of the measure passed by the Republican-dominated legislature last month over a veto by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. (Schreiner and Lovan, 5/19)

Axios: 'Operation Fly Formula' To Import First Batch Of Baby Formula Amid Shortage
The Department of Defense will be using its contracts with commercial air cargo to transport Nestlé S.A. formula from Switzerland to Indiana and to help speed up the import of infant formula amid a nationwide shortage, the White House said Thursday. The effort, dubbed Operation Fly Formula, is the latest in a series of steps taken by the Biden administration to address a shortage that is causing panic among millions of parents and caregivers in the U.S. (Martinez, 5/19)

Politico: FDA Refuses To Tell Congress Why Infant Formula Response Took Months 
FDA Commissioner Robert Califf refused to answer questions from lawmakers Thursday about why it took the agency months to respond to reports of infant illnesses and a whistleblower complaint regarding the infant formula plant at the heart of the current formula shortage. “We have an ongoing investigation about the details of exactly what happened, from point A to point B along the way, and since it is ongoing, I can’t give extensively more details on that part of it,” Califf said during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. (Evich and Lee, 5/19)

AP: Senate OKs Overhaul Of Baby Formula Rules In Aid Program 
The Senate approved a bill Thursday aimed at easing the baby formula shortage for families participating in a government assistance program that accounts for about half of all formula purchased in the United States. The House passed the bill the day before, so it now goes to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. Participants in a program known as WIC get vouchers that are redeemed for specific foods to supplement their diets. The vouchers usually can only be used to purchase one brand of infant formula, which encourages the manufacturer to offer big discounts to secure a state’s business. (Freking, 5/19)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Some Children Hospitalized In Georgia Due To Baby Formula Shortage
A few Georgia children with complex medical issues were recently hospitalized at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta because their families could not find the specific baby formula needed during a crippling nationwide shortage. A spokesperson for Children’s said Thursday all the children hospitalized had specific dietary needs and any changes to their formula needed to be carefully monitored to make they could be well tolerated. It can be a long, complicated process to find a substitution that meets the children’s nutritional needs, and then make sure the new formula won’t trigger any negative and potentially dangerous reactions, such as dehydration or diarrhea. The hospital declined to provide a specific number of children hospitalized, but said some were hospitalized back in February when a formula plant was closed, and others were hospitalized more recently as the formula shortage has worsened. (Oliviero, 5/19)

The Atlantic: Rich Parents Are Tapping Into A Baby-Formula Black Market
Access to what is the primary form of nutrition for many babies has long been unequal. The parents of about 1.5 million infants have to wade through the aggravating bureaucracy of the welfare state simply to get a necessity. In contrast, a sizable number of parents evade the law to import European formula in order to access ingredients and nutrition standards that differ from what the FDA allows. American formula already is quite expensive, but smuggling in the European stuff is on another price tier altogether, running about four times more than the cheapest U.S. formula, and that’s before factoring in shipping costs. But now, as more wealthy parents opt for European-made formula in light of the crisis at home, the inequality is compounding. While some parents struggle to get formula at all, others are bypassing the American market to get what they view as superior formula delivered straight to their doorstep. (Szalinski, 5/19)

The Hill: FDA Sparks Anger With Decision On ‘Phthalates’ — A Chemical In Fast-Food Packaging
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Thursday that it will not impose a total ban on a set of dangerous chemicals commonly found in fast-food packaging, angering scientists and environmental groups who have long pressed for their removal. The decision came in response to three separate petitions requesting that the FDA limit the use of compounds called phthalates, which are known to disrupt hormone function and have been linked to birth defects, infertility, learning disabilities and neurological disorders. (Udasin, 5/19)

The New York Times: Officials Report A Possible Monkeypox Case In New York 
Days after unusual clusters of the rare monkeypox virus emerged in Europe, New York City health authorities announced on Thursday that they were investigating a possible case of the rare disease. The authorities said little about the patient, who is currently in isolation at Bellevue Hospital, according to a statement from the city health department. The patient arrived to the hospital Thursday, according to one official. (Goldstein, 5/19)

Stat: 17 Suspected Monkeypox Cases Are Reported In Montreal
Health officials in Montreal on Thursday said they were investigating 17 suspected cases of monkeypox in the area, likely adding Canada to the list of countries in the Americas and Europe that are reporting recent infections. Most of the cases were in men in their 30s to 50s. The Montreal officials also said they had found links between some of their suspected cases and the first infection found in the United States, a Massachusetts man who had recently traveled to Canada by car. Separately, New York City health officials said later Thursday they were investigating a possible monkeypox case. No details were provided about the patient. (Joseph, 5/19)

Reuters: Italy Reports First Case Of Monkeypox Infection, Two More Suspected
Italy has diagnosed its first case of the monkeypox infection at the Spallanzani hospital in Rome, the hospital said on Thursday, adding that the person, who arrived from a stay on the Canary Islands, was being kept in isolation. (5/19)

The Straits Times: Sweden Confirms First Monkeypox Case, France Has Suspected Infection
Sweden has reported its first monkeypox case, after the UK, Spain, Portugal, the United States and Canada reported infections. A first suspected case of the virus on French territory has been detected in the Paris/Ile-de-France region as well, the French Health Ministry said on Thursday (May 19), amid signs of the virus spreading around the world. (5/20)

Reuters: Australia Reports First Monkeypox Case In Traveller From Britain
Australia on Friday reported its first monkeypox case in a traveler who recently returned from Britain, while a probable case of infection was identified with testing being carried out to confirm it. A man in his 30s who arrived in Melbourne on Monday has the virus, Victoria state's health department said, while the probable case was identified in Sydney in a man in his 40s who had recently travelled to Europe. (5/20)

ABC News: Monkeypox Cases Detected In US, Europe, But Experts Caution Against Comparing It To COVID-19
Health experts stress the risk to the public remains low and most people don't need to be immediately fearful of contracting the illness."​​It is a virus in a very different class from COVID-19," Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, told ABC News. "It predominantly lives in animal reservoirs so it sort of by accident gets to humans and it may cause sporadic illness or relatively small outbreaks." (Kekatos, 5/19)

Politico: CDC Recommends Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Booster For Kids 5-11
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday recommended a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11.The decision came hours after its independent vaccine advisory panel voted 11-1, with one abstention, to recommend the booster dose. ... Helen Talbot, an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University, was the only member of the committee to vote against the recommendation. “I have a feeling that … for the next years to come, we will need to vaccinate people in the fall,” she said. “So I’m a little hesitant now in May to say [that] in June we should start to give all 5- to 11-year-olds boosters,” and then ask them to get another in fall. (Gardner and Foley, 5/19)

The Washington Post: CDC Advisors Recommend Booster Shot For Children Ages 5 To 11 
CDC director Rochelle Walensky greenlit the recommendation Thursday evening, and she also encouraged parents of children in that age group who have not yet been vaccinated to get their first shot soon. “Vaccination with a primary series among this age group has lagged behind other age groups leaving them vulnerable to serious illness,” Walensky said. “With over 18 million doses administered in this age group, we know that these vaccines are safe, and we must continue to increase the number of children who are protected.” (Shepherd, 5/19)

Axios: CDC Internal Review Finds Deep Culture Problems: Report
An internal CDC review has found deep concerns about the agency's culture and responsiveness to public health threats, Bloomberg reports. The findings could usher in big changes at an agency that's caught flack from public health experts, Congress and local officials for its handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Individuals inside the CDC or from adjacent government agencies raised longstanding frustrations, according to Bloomberg, citing a rigid budget structure that prevents money from being reallocated to new priorities during emergencies. (Bettelheim, 5/19)

Newsweek: Woman Charged $303,709 For $1,337 Surgery Wins Court Battle Against Bill
A woman who was billed $303,709 for surgery that she was expecting to pay $1,337 for back in 2014 has taken a significant step towards having that debt wiped after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in her favor. According to the Denver Post, St. Anthony North Health Campus hospital had represented to French that a pair of back surgeries she needed would cost her $1,337 out of pocket, with her health insurer picking up the remainder of the bill. (Beresford, 5/19)

AP: Court Tosses $300,000 Hospital Bill For Promised $1,300 Tab
Justice Richard Gabriel, writing for the court, further asserted that internal hospital chargemaster rates “have become increasingly arbitrary and, over time, have lost any direct connection to hospitals’ actual costs, reflecting, instead, inflated rates set to produce a targeted amount of profit for the hospitals after factoring in discounts negotiated with private and governmental insurers.” The drawn-out case first went to a civil trial, which found French owed Centura Health only an extra $767. An appeals court later ruled for Centura, finding that hospitals can’t predict exact care costs in advance and that the term “all the charges” included in the contract obligated French to pay to full amount charged her. (5/19)

Colorado Sun: Colorado Hospitals Near Top For Prices For Privately Insured: Study
Colorado hospitals in 2020 on average charged privately insured patients nearly three times what Medicare paid for the same services, according to a new report released this week. The report, from researchers at Rand Corp., a nonpartisan think tank, ranked Colorado 12th in the nation for the gap between Medicare and the privately insured. Nationwide, hospitals charged privately insured patients an average of 224% of what Medicare pays for the same services. (Ingold, 5/19)

AP: 20 Years After Spate Of Hospital Deaths, Ex-Worker Accused
In the five months that Jennifer Anne Hall was a respiratory therapist at Hedrick Medical Center, the rural Missouri hospital experienced 18 “code blue” incidents — an alarming increase in sudden cardiac arrest events for a hospital that historically averaged one of them a year, according to a police investigator. Nine of those patients died, and nine recovered. Twenty years later, Hall was charged this month with first-degree murder in one of the deaths — that of 75-year-old Fern Franco. (Salter, 5/19)

Modern Healthcare: Virginia's Reinsurance Program Earns Federal Approval
Virginia is the latest state to earn approval for a reinsurance program, which will reimburse certain insurers for high-cost claims. With the decision on Virginia by federal regulators Wednesday, 16 states have been approved for reinsurance programs. Virginia expects the program to decrease premiums by an average of 15.6% across the state in 2023. Individual market enrollment is projected to be 2.9% higher next year as well. (Goldman, 5/19)

Politico: Why Louisiana’s Maternal Mortality Rates Are So High  
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said Louisiana’s maternal mortality rate — one of the worst in the nation — does not tell the whole story of maternal health in the state because of its large Black population and the uncommonly broad definition Louisiana uses. “About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear,” Sen. Bill Cassidy said in an interview with POLITICO for the Harvard Chan School of Public Health series Public Health on the Brink. “Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.” (Owermohle, 5/19)

The Washington Post: Audit: Maryland Medical Examiner Backlog Resolved 
The backlog of cases in the understaffed Maryland medical examiner’s office has been resolved, according to a state audit released last week. The office had amassed a backlog of 217 autopsies as of February, because of staffing shortages, which forced state officials to seek help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Within a month, the backlog was resolved, auditors found. (Portnoy, 5/19)

Houston Chronicle: Texas CPS To Resume Child Abuse Investigations Of Medical Care For Trans Kids
After the Texas Supreme Court last week gave the state's child welfare services agency clearance to continue investigations into parents of transgender children who seek gender-affirming care, it appears the agency is moving forward with the probes. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which oversees Child Protective Services, said in a statement Thursday that it “treats all reports of abuse, neglect, and exploitation seriously and will continue to investigate each to the full extent of the law.” (Goldenstein, 5/19)

USA Today: Black Cancer Death Rates Are Falling But Remain Higher Than Others
Epidemiologist and lead author Wayne Lawrence and his colleagues studied national death certificate data for Black people 20 and older between 1999 and 2019. The cancer death rate for Black Americans decreased about 2% a year. The decrease was larger among men – 2.6% – than among women, who saw a 1.5% decrease. The greatest decreases were found in deaths from lung cancer among men and stomach cancer among women. Among both, lung cancer deaths saw the largest decline per 100,000 people, which experts attribute to a decrease in smoking – from 24% in 1999 to roughly 15% in 2019. (Hassanein, 5/19)

The New York Times: Puberty Starts Earlier Than It Used To. No One Knows Why
Marcia Herman-Giddens first realized something was changing in young girls in the late 1980s, while she was serving as the director for the child abuse team at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. During evaluations of girls who had been abused, Dr. Herman-Giddens noticed that many of them had started developing breasts at ages as young as 6 or 7.“ That did not seem right,” said Dr. Herman-Giddens, who is now an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. She wondered whether girls with early breast development were more likely to be sexually abused, but she could not find any data keeping track of puberty onset in girls in the United States. So she decided to collect it herself. (Ghorayshi, 5/19)