First Edition: May 22, 2023
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
KFF Health News:
A Striking Gap Between Deaths Of Black And White Babies Plagues The South
Years before the Bamberg County Hospital closed in 2012, and the next-closest hospital in neighboring Barnwell shut its doors in 2016, those facilities had stopped delivering babies. These days, there’s not even an ultrasound machine in this rural county 60 miles south of Columbia, much less an obstetrician. Pregnant women here are left with few options for care. (Sausser, 5/22)
KFF Health News:
A More Aggressive FTC Is Starting To Target Drug Mergers And Industry Middlemen
Under the leadership of an aggressive opponent of anti-competitive business practices, the Federal Trade Commission is moving against drug companies and industry middlemen as part of the Biden administration’s push for lower drug prices at the pharmacy counter. On May 16, the FTC sued to block the merger of drugmakers Amgen and Horizon Therapeutics, saying the tangled web of drug industry deal-making would enable Amgen to leverage the monopoly power of two top Horizon drugs that have no rivals. (Allen, 5/22)
KFF Health News:
Young People Are Having Less Sex Than Their Parents Did At Their Age. Researchers Explore Why
Young adults aren’t behaving the way their parents did: They’re not drinking as much, they’re facing more mental health challenges, and they’re living with their parents longer. On top of that, computer games and social media have become a sort of stand-in for physical relationships. All that means young Californians aren’t having as much sex. (Reese, 5/22)
KFF Health News:
Journalists Unpack Facility School Closures And Federal Investment In Crisis Hotlines
KFF Health News Colorado correspondent Rae Ellen Bichell discussed Colorado facility schools on Rocky Mountain Community Radio on May 12. ... KFF Health News former senior editor Andy Miller discussed lead contamination in an affluent Atlanta neighborhood on WUGA’s “The Georgia Health Report” on May 12. (5/20)
KFF Health News:
Are US Prescription Drug Prices 10 Times Those Of Other Nations? Only Sometimes
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whether in Congress or as a presidential candidate, has always taken strong positions against the high cost of prescription drugs. Since becoming the chair of the influential Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee this year, he’s made lowering drug costs a top priority. It’s therefore not surprising that the senator would, during a recent Sunday morning TV interview, rail against high drug prices in the United States and compare what Americans pay with what people in other countries must fork over. (Andrews, 5/19)
The Hill:
Biden Says He Thinks He Has Authority To Use 14th Amendment On Debt Ceiling
President Biden on Sunday said he believes he has the authority to use the 14th Amendment to unilaterally address the debt ceiling, but he acknowledged potential legal challenges could still lead the nation to default if he went that route. “I’m looking at the 14th Amendment as to whether or not we have the authority — I think we have the authority,” Biden told reporters at a press conference in Hiroshima, Japan. (Samuels, 5/21)
The Hill:
McCarthy Says Biden Call On Debt Limit ‘Productive,’ Leaders To Meet Monday
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Sunday that a call he had with President Biden about the debt limit and looming default earlier in the day was “productive” and that the pair will meet in-person on Monday upon the president’s return from Japan. “I believe it was a productive phone call,” McCarthy told reporters, noting that Biden had spoken to him from Air Force One. (Mueller, 5/21)
The Hill:
Drug Price Caps In Inflation Reduction Act Exacerbating Shortages, Gottlieb Says
Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said on Sunday that drug price caps in the Inflation Reduction Act are exacerbating drug shortages. “The features under the Inflation Reduction Act will exacerbate this problem, because it’ll prevent these generic manufacturers from being able to take price increases,” Gottlieb, who now serves on the board of Pfizer, told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” (Shapero, 5/21)
AP:
8-Year-Old Girl Sought Medical Help 3 Times On Day She Died, US Immigration Officials Say
An 8-year-old girl who died last week in Border Patrol custody was seen at least three separate times by medical personnel on the day of her death — complaining of vomiting, a stomachache and later suffering what appeared to be a seizure — before she was taken to a hospital, U.S. immigration officials said Sunday. The girl’s mother had previously told The Associated Press that agents had repeatedly ignored her pleas to hospitalize her medically fragile daughter, who had a history of heart problems and sickle cell anemia. Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, whose parents are Honduran, was born in Panama with congenital heart disease. (5/22)
Politico:
North Carolina Governor Slams State GOP For Overturning His Veto Of Their 12-Week Abortion Ban
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper slammed Republicans in the general assembly for overturning his veto of their newly restrictive 12-week abortion law last week — and suggested the GOP could end up paying for it at the ballot box in 2024. “It’s amazing how they’ve ignored the will of the people here,” the Democratic governor told Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC’s “The Saturday Show.” “Most North Carolinians do not want right-wing politicians in the exam room with women and their doctors. But Republicans are controlled by their right wing.” (Svirnovskiy, 5/20)
NBC News:
North Carolina Abortion Law Makes It Hard To Travel For An Abortion In The South
As lawmakers in North and South Carolina work to impose new restrictions on abortion, options for women seeking to end a pregnancy in the South are diminishing quickly. In North Carolina, a ban on abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy goes into effect on July 1. Gov. Roy Cooper had vetoed the legislation, but the state's Republican-led Assembly voted Tuesday to override that veto. (Bendix, 5/20)
AP:
How One North Carolina Lawmaker's Defection From The Democratic Party Upended Abortion Protections
Mere weeks before North Carolina’s GOP-controlled legislature enacted a 12-week abortion limit over the Democratic governor’s opposition this week, state Republican lawmakers appeared just one vote shy of an override. But one House Democrat — formerly a strong advocate for women’s reproductive rights — unexpectedly switched to the GOP and then voted to squash Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the bill to limit abortion access. The switch by Charlotte-area Rep. Tricia Cotham gave Republicans veto-proof margins in both the House and Senate, upending the state’s fragile power balance and perhaps opening the floodgates to a new wave of conservative policies. (Schoenbaum, 5/19)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Senator Decries Move To Block Bill Loosening Wisconsin Abortion Law
The Republican author of a bill that would overhaul the state's abortion law says a Senate leader is "squashing debate" on a bill she and a group of GOP lawmakers introduced this spring that would allow doctors to provide abortions to victims of rape and incest — a policy change most Wisconsin residents support. (Beck, 5/19)
The Washington Post:
Antiabortion Groups Push 2024 GOP Candidates To Embrace National Ban
Leaders of the antiabortion movement gathered in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago office last week to head off what they viewed as a potential crisis. The former president’s reelection campaign had recently said that abortion restrictions “should be decided at the state level.” Days later, his rival, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, delivered a speech arguing against federal abortion limits that did not have enough votes to pass both chambers of Congress. (Scherer and Dawsey, 5/18)
USA Today:
Recalled Eye Drops Linked To Bacteria Tied To Four Deaths, CDC Says
Four people have now died in a multistate outbreak of a drug-resistant bacteria strain tied to recalled eye drops, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration in February warned patients and clinicians to stop using EzriCare or Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears products after one death from an infection and reactions in dozens of patients, some who experienced permanent eye loss. (Snider, 5/20)
Reuters:
Don't Delay Reforms To Prepare For Next Pandemic - WHO Chief
The head of the World Health Organization on Monday urged countries to carry out the reforms needed to prepare for the next pandemic and honor a previous commitment to boost financing for the U.N. health agency. Speaking at the WHO's annual health assembly weeks after ending the global emergency status for the COVID-19 pandemic, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was time to advance negotiations on preventing the next one. (5/22)
Bloomberg:
WHO Starts Global Network To Analyze Genetic Code Of Viruses
The World Health Organization is starting a global network to help protect people from the threats of infectious disease through pathogen genomics. The International Pathogen Surveillance Network, based on technology used to map out the genetic code of disease-causing organisms, will connect countries and regions, while improving systems for collecting and analyzing samples, the WHO said in a statement Saturday. (Maedler, 5/20)
Reuters:
Animal Health Body Backs Bird Flu Vaccination To Avoid Pandemic
Governments should consider vaccinating poultry against bird flu, which has killed hundreds of millions of birds and infected mammals worldwide, to prevent the virus from turning into a new pandemic, the head of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said. The severity of the current outbreak of avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, and the economic and personal damage it has caused, has led governments to reconsider vaccinating poultry. However, some, like the United States, remain reluctant mainly because of the trade curbs this would entail. (De La Hamaide, 5/21)
NBC News:
If Bird Flu Spreads To People, Existing Vaccines May Be Inadequate
Wild birds and poultry flocks alike continue to drop dead from the highly pathogenic bird flu that began spreading globally in 2020. Almost 59 million commercial birds have already been culled in the United States. It’s the broadest outbreak of this type of avian flu, known as H5N1, since it was first identified in China in 1996. (Bendix, 5/21)
The Wall Street Journal:
Face Mask Mandates Fall Away Among Many Hospitals, Doctors
Hospitals and clinics across the U.S.—some of the last bastions requiring masks and Covid-19 tests—are ending the mandates. ... The changes have sparked pushback from some doctors and infectious-disease specialists, who say keeping the precautions would protect elderly patients with chronic conditions, people with weakened immune systems and others who are vulnerable to infection, especially if new variants emerge. (Evans, 5/21)
CIDRAP:
Almost Two Thirds Of Recipients Of A COVID Vaccine Incentive Say It Didn't Sway Them
Among 136 US survey respondents who reported receiving an incentive to get vaccinated against COVID-19, 64% said they would have done so anyway, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open. (Van Beusekom, 5/19)
Reuters:
Obesity Drug Brings Heart Health Benefit Alongside Weight Loss, Study Says
Taking Novo Nordisk’s (NOVOb.CO) new obesity drug may help reduce the risk of heart disease as well as boosting weight loss, according to new research from the United States. After a year of taking semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy, patients’ risk of suffering from conditions like a heart attack or a stroke over the next ten years dropped to 6.3% from 7.6% when measured by a commonly used calculator, researchers at the Mayo Clinic found. (Rigby, 5/19)
NBC News:
Weight Loss Drugs Can Lead To Muscle Loss, Too. Is That A Bad Thing?
Weight loss drugs have soared in popularity in the past year, helping some lose dramatic amounts of weight — but not all that weight is fat. Some of that is actually lean mass, which is everything in the body that isn’t fat, including your bones, organs and, importantly, muscle. (Sullivan, 5/20)
The Atlantic:
Could Ozempic Also Be An Anti-Addiction Drug?
All her life, Victoria Rutledge thought of herself as someone with an addictive personality. Her first addiction was alcohol. After she got sober in her early 30s, she replaced drinking with food and shopping, which she thought about constantly. She would spend $500 on organic groceries, only to have them go bad in her fridge. “I couldn’t stop from going to that extreme,” she told me. When she ran errands at Target, she would impulsively throw extra things—candles, makeup, skin-care products—into her cart. (Zhang, 5/19)
Stat:
Novo Pauses Ads For Weight Loss Drug Wegovy Amid Demand
Novo Nordisk is pausing ads for its obesity drug Wegovy as it struggles to keep up with surging demand, the latest hurdle in its rollout of the weight loss drug. “To avoid stimulating further demand for this medicine, we’re pausing some key Wegovy promotional efforts,” the Danish drugmaker said in an emailed statement. (Chen, 5/19)
CIDRAP:
Tuberculosis Drug Shows Protective Effect Against Leprosy
The results of a randomized controlled trial in China suggest that an antibiotic used for tuberculosis treatment can protect household contacts from leprosy, researchers reported yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Dall, 5/19)
Stat:
FDA Approves First Therapy For Devastating Skin Condition
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the first treatment for a devastating condition that causes the skin to be so fragile that even a touch can cause it to splinter, bringing another gene therapy onto the market. The therapy, known as Vyjuvek and made by Krystal Biotech, will soon be available for patients with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a genetic disease that causes painful blisters and persistent wounds. (Joseph, 5/19)
Reuters:
Thermo Fisher's Test To Detect Pregnancy-Related Complication Gets FDA Nod
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc's test, the first of its kind in the country, to detect women with risk of severe preeclampsia, the company said on Friday. Preeclampsia is a leading cause of mortality in pregnant women globally, where they could experience high blood pressure after 20 weeks of pregnancy and during the postpartum period. (5/19)
Stat:
FDA Advisers Vote Against Approving Intercept’s NASH Drug
A panel of expert advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted Friday against approving Intercept Pharmaceuticals’ investigational treatment for NASH, a prevalent liver disease with no available medicines. (Garde, 5/19)
Stat:
Drug In Early Trial Appears To Reduce Harmful Protein Buildup In Heart
An early-stage drug for a heart disease called ATTR-CM showed potential to reverse disease progression, opening up a new way of attacking the condition as existing drugs have been designed to only slow or stall the disease. In a small Phase 1 trial, the drug, a monoclonal antibody named NI006, appeared to reduce harmful protein buildup in the heart based on imaging, according to the study, published Saturday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Chen, 5/20)
Modern Healthcare:
GPT-4 In Healthcare Grows With Cleveland Clinic, Baptist Health
Two longtime friends are spearheading the use of generative artificial intelligence at health systems nearly 900 miles apart. Cleveland Clinic’s chief information officer Matthew Kull and Jacksonville, Florida-based Baptist Health’s chief digital and information officer Aaron Miri are working with Microsoft to brainstorm administrative and clinical functions for GPT-4 at their organizations. Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI, which developed GPT-4 and ChatGPT, in January. (Perna, 5/19)
AP:
More States Are Requiring Patients To Give Consent For Medical Students Performing Pelvic Exams
A new batch of states are looking to legislate the level of informed consent when it comes to medical students performing pelvic exams for educational purposes on unconscious patients. At least 20 states already have consent laws for this practice. Montana’s governor signed a bill in April, Missouri has legislation that needs the governor’s signature to become law and Ohio lawmakers are also considering it. (Hendrickson and Bedayn, 5/20)
Fox News:
AI-Powered ‘Lifesaving Radio’ Helps Surgeons Operate With Greater Efficiency And Accuracy
Music has long been shown to enhance athletic performance, whether that performance is on an NFL field or a treadmill at the gym. And now, with the help of artificial intelligence, music is helping surgeons achieve better results in the operating room. Backed by scientific studies, NextMed Health — in collaboration with the data science company Klick Health — has created the world’s first AI-based health care radio station called Lifesaving Radio. (Rudy, 5/22)
USA Today:
Black Women Find Shortage When Looking For Black Sperm Donors
When Mardochée Julien-West and her wife decided to become moms through in vitro fertilization, they knew they definitely wanted Black babies. They just didn’t know how hard that would be. Julien-West remembers first looking donors at a cryobank in 2020. When she and her wife Yevette filtered the search for Black men, their options dwindled from hundreds of choices to only two. (Lee Myers and Triggs, 5/21)
CBS News:
First Powassan Virus Death Reported In Maine In 2023 Officials Confirm
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday they found the tick-borne illness in an adult resident from Sagadahoc County. Robert J. Weymouth, 58, of Portland, was identified as the person who died after complications with the virus, according to a local obituary. He developed neurological symptoms and died in the hospital after becoming infected, likely in the state, according to the Maine CDC. (Brito, 5/19)
AP:
Minnesota Bill Legalizing Recreational Pot Passes Senate, Heads To Governor's Desk
Senators in Minnesota passed a bill Saturday that would allow recreational marijuana use by people over the age of 21 and make it the 23rd state to legalize the substance for adults. The measure has already been approved by the House and now goes to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who has pledged to sign it into law. ... Under the measure it would become legal by Aug. 1 to possess, use and grow marijuana at home. Retail sales at dispensaries would probably be at least a year away. (Ahmed, 5/20)
Houston Chronicle:
Ken Paxton Launches Investigation Into Trans Care At TCH
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Friday that he will investigate Texas Children’s Hospital to find out whether they are “unlawfully” providing gender transition care. The announcement comes two weeks after Paxton said he would investigate Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin for the same reason. Doctors who treated transgender adolescents at Dell Children’s left the hospital the following week, and patients and their families began hearing that their appointments were canceled, according to media reports. (Gill, 5/19)
AP:
Many Transgender Health Bills Came From A Handful Of Far-Right Interest Groups, AP Finds
At least 17 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, though judges have temporarily blocked their enforcement in some, including Arkansas. An Associated Press analysis found that often those bills sprang not from grassroots or constituent demand, but from the pens of a handful of conservative interest groups. Many of the proposals, as introduced or passed, are identical or very similar to some model legislation, the AP found. Those ready-made bills have been used in statehouses for decades, often with criticisms of carpetbagging by out-of-state interests. In the case of restrictions on gender-affirming care for youths, they allow a handful of far-right groups to spread a false narrative based on distorted science, critics say. (McMillan, Harjai and Kruesi, 5/20)
AP:
Meet The Influential New Player On Transgender Health Bills
A nonprofit that describes itself as a collection of doctors and others uniting to “protect healthcare from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology” has become a significant presence in statehouses. Do No Harm got its start in early 2022 by focusing its criticisms of diversity initiatives in medicine before branching out to transgender health. And despite a nonprofit tax status that limited its involvement in legislation, it created an initiative to restrict gender-affirming care for youths, offered a model bill that an AP analysis found has been used in at least three states, and has sent people to testify in statehouses. (McMillan and Kruesi, 5/20)
The New York Times:
Moving Is A Monumental Task For Many Older Americans. These Organizers Can Help
Senior move managers may spend weeks or months helping seniors and their families sort through belongings, pack and move into a new home. (span, 5/20)
Military.com:
These Marines Drank Camp Lejeune’s Poison. The Road To Justice Is Long
Joan Palumbo wasn’t told the danger she was in when she stepped under the showerhead in her bathroom in Jacksonville, North Carolina. She wasn’t told about the toxins mixing into her daughter’s food every time she blended formula with water from the kitchen sink. Or that cooking her own food in that same water would eventually lead to her death. Palumbo didn’t know that beginning in 1953 toxic chemicals had begun seeping through the ground into two of the eight water treatment plants on Camp Lejeune, the Marine Corps base near Jacksonville where she and her husband, Fred, lived in the Tarawa Terrace neighborhood. (Bataglia, 5/21)
ABC News:
Large Areas Of US Experiencing Poor Air Quality Due To Canadian Wildfires
Several regions in the U.S. are suffering from poor air quality as the smoke from the wildfires burning in Canada make its way south. A large portion of the of the U.S. has been seeing smoky skies for days, presenting unhealthy conditions for residents with heart or lung conditions, officials said. (Jacobo, 5/21)
The Washington Post:
Why Climate Change Is Costing You Precious Hours Of Sleep
Humans are already losing shut-eye in warm environments, especially at the beginning of the night. Models predict a solid sleep will further decrease as temperatures rise, especially in lower-income and elderly communities. (Patel, 5/21)
The Washington Post:
Dengue Too High In Puerto Rico, Other U.S. Territories, CDC Says
Dengue, a virus transmitted by infected mosquitoes that causes illness in about 1 in 4 infected people, can lead to symptoms ranging from mild fever to shock or death. In an article this month in JAMA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers in Puerto Rico say the virus must be better controlled in U.S. territories. Outbreaks have occurred in some states in the past, with the most recent in Florida, Hawaii and Texas. People visiting areas where dengue is common — including some Pacific islands and Central and South America — can also pick up the illness. But the majority of cases in the United States are acquired in U.S. territories. (Blakemore, 5/21)