First Edition: May 4, 2023

KFF Health News: Biden Administration Issues New Warning About Medical Credit Cards
The Biden administration on Thursday cautioned Americans about the growing risks of medical credit cards and other loans for medical bills, warning in a new report that high interest rates can deepen patients’ debts and threaten their financial security. In its report, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimated that people in the U.S. paid $1 billion in deferred interest on medical credit cards and other medical financing in just three years, from 2018 to 2020. (Levey, 5/4)

KFF Health News: Colorado Becomes The First State To Ban So-Called Abortion Pill Reversals
In Glenwood Springs, Colorado, registered nurse Katie Laven answers calls from people who’ve started the two-pill medication abortion regimen and want to stop the process. “They are just in turmoil,” said Laven, who works at the Abortion Pill Rescue Network and answers some of the roughly 150 calls it says come in each month. “They feel like, ‘Well, maybe an abortion would make it better.’ And then they take the abortion pill and they’re like, ‘I don’t feel better. In fact, I feel much worse that I did that.’” (Cleveland, 5/4)

The New York Times: RSV Vaccine Approved For Older Adults
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved GSK’s vaccine for the respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V., for adults who are 60 and older, the company said. The vaccine, to be sold as Arexvy, appears to be the first in the world approved for sale to protect older adults from R.S.V., a potentially fatal respiratory illness. (Jewett, 5/3)

AP: US Approves 1st Vaccine For RSV After Decades Of Attempts
“This is a great first step ... to protect older persons from serious RSV disease,” said Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, who wasn’t involved with its development. Next, “we’re going to be working our way down the age ladder” for what’s expected to be a string of new protections. (Neergaard, 5/3)

The New York Times: Eli Lilly Trial Finds Alzheimer’s Drug Can Slow Progress Of Disease
The drug manufacturer Eli Lilly announced on Wednesday that a clinical trial of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug showed it can slow progress of the feared disease and allow patients to have more time when they can still live independently, performing tasks like cooking meals, going to the store and driving a car. (Kolata, 5/3)

The Washington Post: Lilly To Seek FDA Approval For Alzheimer’s Drug That Firm Says Slows Decline 
The trial results provided upbeat news for anti-amyloid treatments, a drug class that at times has been dogged by controversy and confusing data. But the study also showed why safety concerns continue to swirl around the drugs. Two participants in the trial died, with trial investigators attributing those deaths to complications from the drug. Those complications, called ARIA, typically involve brain swelling and bleeding. A third participant died after experiencing a serious incident of ARIA, but the investigator did not link the death to ARIA. Lilly said it could neither attribute the death to ARIA nor rule it out. (McGinley, 5/3)

AP: North Carolina House OKs Bill Tightening Abortion Limits
The North Carolina House on Wednesday approved a Republican package of abortion restrictions that would tighten the state’s ban on the procedure from after 20 weeks to after 12 weeks, while creating new exceptions but also more requirements for pregnant women and physicians. (Robertson and Schoenbaum, 5/4)

AP: Wisconsin Judge To Hear First Arguments In Abortion Lawsuit
A Wisconsin judge was set to hear arguments Thursday in a lawsuit challenging the state’s 174-year-old abortion ban, a statute held in abeyance for nearly five decades until the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last year. (Richmond, 5/4)

AP: Illinois City Backs Abortion Pills Ban, Defying Legal Risks
An Illinois city on Tuesday banned the mailing or shipping of abortion pills, defying the state’s Democratic attorney general and the American Civil Liberties Union, who have repeatedly warned that the move violates Illinois law’s protection of abortion as a fundamental right. The ordinance passed the City Council in Danville, near Illinois’ eastern border with Indiana, by one vote, a tiebreaker cast by Mayor Rickey Williams. (Foody, 5/3)

AP: Wyoming Mayor: Sorry For Fiery Abortion Clinic Facebook Post
A new abortion clinic in deeply conservative Wyoming is stirring strong emotions, with the mayor of the state’s second-biggest city apologizing for a Facebook post some said evoked an arson attack that delayed the clinic’s opening by almost a year. The post was intended to suggest hellfire, not violence, Casper Mayor Bruce Knell said in a long and at times tearful statement in which he apologized to the city’s residents. (Gruver, 5/3)

AP: Michigan Democrats Act To Protect Abortion Rights Of Workers
Michigan Democrats continued efforts to protect abortion rights Wednesday as the state Legislature advanced a bill that would outlaw companies from retaliating against employees for receiving abortions. The bill passed along party lines in the Michigan House after previously having been approved by the Senate in March. It would amend the state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights act to prohibit employers from treating a worker differently for terminating a pregnancy. (Cappelletti, 5/3)

AP: California Launches Hotline To Provide Abortion Legal Help
California has joined with law firms and advocacy groups to create a hotline that provides access to information and pro bono services for people who need legal help related to abortion, as the state seeks to become a safe haven for reproductive rights since Roe vs. Wade was overturned. (Weber, 5/3)

AP: Gov. Moore Signs Abortion Protections, Transgender Equity
At a time when Republican-led states are restricting or banning abortion and limiting gender-affirming care, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed measures into law on Wednesday to protect abortion rights and expand Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming treatment in the heavily Democratic state. (Witte, 5/3)

The Hill: Florida Passes Transgender Bathroom Bill 
The Florida legislature passed a bill Wednesday making it a crime for transgender people to use public restrooms that align with their gender identity. Under the bill, known as the “Safety in Private Spaces Act,” individuals who use public restrooms or changing facilities that do not correspond with their sex assigned at birth could be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor. (Shapero, 5/3)

AP: Suit Targets Kentucky Ban On Gender-Affirming Care For Youth
Several families on Wednesday challenged Kentucky’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youths, claiming the prohibition interferes with parental rights to seek established medical treatment for their children. (Schreiner, 5/3)

NPR: Kansas, Montana And Tennessee Are Defining 'Sex' In State Code
Lawmakers in Montana, Tennessee and Kansas have voted in the past few weeks to narrowly define who is "female" and who is "male" in state law using such terms as "gametes," "ova," "sex chromosomes," "genitalia" and "immutable biological sex." The bills in Montana and Tennessee have passed the legislature and are headed to governors' desks. The Kansas bill, called the "women's bill of rights," was vetoed by Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, but the Republican legislature was able to override her. (Ragar, Gainey and Conlon, 5/3)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Covid-19 Deaths And Hospitalizations Near New Lows
U.S. Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths are hovering near new lows, providing fresh evidence that even as the virus endures it has become less damaging in a population with strengthened immune defenses. New subvariants are on the rise, and cutbacks in data reporting have clouded the view of recent trends. But the U.S. has broadly recorded declining numbers this year following a winter of less intense Covid-19 spread. (Kamp, 5/3)

Stat: Are Covid And Mpox Still Global Health Emergencies?
Over the next week or so, the World Health Organization may declare a formal end to two long-running global health emergencies, Covid-19 and the mpox outbreak, after independent expert panels meet to assess whether these health events still merit being called Public Health Emergencies of International Concern. (Branswell, 5/4)

Reuters: WHO Experts Weigh Up Whether World Ready To End COVID Emergency
A panel of global health experts will meet on Thursday to decide if COVID-19 is still an emergency under the World Health Organization's rules, a status that helps maintain international focus on the pandemic. The WHO first gave COVID its highest level of alert on January 30 2020, and the panel has continued to apply the label ever since, at meetings held every three months. (Rigby and Farge, 5/4)

Reuters: WHO Dismisses Lead COVID Origins Investigator For Sexual Misconduct 
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that it has dismissed a senior scientist, known for his role as the head of an international mission to China to probe the origins of COVID-19, for sexual misconduct. (Farge, 5/3)

AP: Mexico Develops Own COVID-19 Vaccine, 2 Years Late
Mexican officials celebrated Wednesday the announcement that the country finally developed its own COVID-19 vaccine, more than two years after inoculations from the U.S., Europe and China were rolled out. It was unclear what use would be made of the vaccine, named “Patria” or “Motherland,” developed in a joint effort between the government and a Mexican company, Avimex, which previously did work on animal vaccines. (Sánchez, 5/4)

Politico: Senate Democrats Slam Medicare Advantage ‘Ghost Networks’
Medicare Advantage plans faced renewed scrutiny from senators on Wednesday who complained of woefully inaccurate mental health provider directories, which some lawmakers said amounted to fraud. Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee bashed so-called ghost networks run by Medicare Advantage plans, saying inaccurate directories amounted to false advertising to seniors who may pick a Medicare Advantage plan based on the robustness of the network. (King, 5/3)

Politico: DEA Backs Off Plan To End Telehealth Access To Common Medications, For Now
The Drug Enforcement Administration will continue to allow doctors to prescribe controlled substances by telehealth while the agency finalizes rules on prescribing now that the Covid public health emergency is ending, the agency said in a statement Wednesday. The agency’s announcement may signal it’s rethinking regulations it proposed in February that would have restricted telehealth access once the Biden administration ends the emergency on May 11. (Leonard, 5/3)

Stat: Juul Execs Shower House Oversight Chair With Campaign Cash
Juul executives wrote personal checks to the head of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), right as he launched a critical probe of the FDA’s regulation of e-cigarettes. On March 28, Comer sent a sharply worded letter to FDA commissioner Robert Califf questioning whether the agency’s decisions on authorizing certain vapes “have been influenced by political concerns rather than scientific evidence.” He also requested a slew of documents detailing the FDA’s regulatory decisions. (Florko, 5/4)

Crain's Chicago Business: Gov. Pritzker, Illinois Aims To Build Own ACA Obamacare Marketplace
Gov. J.B. Pritzker is supporting new state legislation that would establish an Illinois health care insurance exchange, an effort to protect an important Affordable Care Act provision in Illinois in the event future federal leaders ever look to roll back parts of the landmark law. (Davis, 5/3)

The New York Times: More U.S. Women Are Avoiding Unwanted Or Mistimed Pregnancies
Births and pregnancies in the United States have been on a long-term decline. A new data analysis provides one reason: It’s becoming less common for women to get pregnant when they don’t want to be. The analysis, released Thursday in the journal Demography by researchers at the Guttmacher Institute, estimates the number of pregnancies in the United States — there is no single official count — and examines women’s feelings about the timing of their pregnancies. (Cain Miller, 5/3)

The New York Times: PUMP Act: What To Know About The New Breast Pumping Law
Last week, expanded protections for nursing mothers, officially known as the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act, or PUMP Act, went into full effect, giving more workers the right to break time and a private space to pump. Congress passed the new legislation in December with large bipartisan support, but it was rolled out in phases to give employers time to adjust to the new requirements. (Haridasani Gupta and Pearson, 5/3)

AP: Ban Social Media For Kids? Fed-Up Parents In Senate Say Yes
Sen. Katie Britt says she hears about it constantly when she is at home in Alabama — at school track meets, basketball tournaments and on her regular morning walks with friends. And when she was running for the Senate last year, Britt says, “parent after parent” came up to her wanting to discuss the way social media was harming their kids. Britt also navigates the issue in her own home, as the mother of a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old. (Clare Jalonick, 5/3)

The New York Times: Common Consumer Products Contain Toxic Chemicals, Study Shows 
More than 100 types of common consumer products contain at least one, and often multiple, chemicals linked to cancer or reproductive and developmental problems, according to research published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. (Smith, 5/3)

Politico: Study: Air Toxic Exposure Risks Tied To Everyday Products
Shampoos, paint strippers and other common wares expose the public to thousands of tons of toxic air pollution annually, according to a first-of-its-kind study that provides a uniquely detailed look at the potential effects on indoor air quality in one state. (Reilly, 5/3)

CIDRAP: US COVID-19 Hospitalization Disparities Lessened But Persisted In Vaccine Era
An analysis by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientists of more than 350,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients reveals that racial and ethnic disparities declined but persisted in the era of vaccination. The researchers assessed data from the COVID-19-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network (COVID-NET) from 353,807 patients who had hospital stays at any point from March 2020 through August 2022. Vaccines were rolled out in December 2020. The group published its findings today in Clinical Infectious Diseases. (Wappes, 5/3)

CIDRAP: Global Avian Flu Outbreaks Ebb Slightly But Spread To New Areas
In the last 3 weeks of April, the pace of highly pathogenic avian flu outbreaks declined slightly, but, with the first detection in Gambia, the virus continues to spread to new areas, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) said in its latest global update. In US developments, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its most recent updates reported another outbreak in poultry, more H5N1 detections in wild birds, and more H5N1 identifications in mammals. (Schnirring, 5/3)

CIDRAP: USPSTF Issues Updated Latent TB Screening, Treatment Guidelines
The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has published updated tuberculosis (TB) screening and treatment guidelines, including recommendations on testing at-risk adults for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). The recommendations were published yesterday in JAMA. The USPSTF updated its 2016 guidelines by commissioning a systematic review on LTBI screening and treatment in asymptomatic adults at primary care visits and on the accuracy of screening tests. (Van Beusekom, 5/3)

Reuters: Novo Nordisk Cuts Wegovy Starter Dose Supply In U.S. To Cope With Demand 
Danish drug developer Novo Nordisk (NOVOb.CO) on Thursday said it would reduce supply of some dose strengths of its popular Wegovy obesity drug in the United States due to high demand after the firm reported forecast-beating first-quarter results. (5/4)

Reuters: Rebound In Travel Helps Vaccine Maker Valneva Post Smaller-Than-Expected Loss
French vaccine maker Valneva (VLS.PA) reported on Thursday a smaller-than-expected first-quarter loss as sales of travel vaccines Dukoral and Ixiaro improved, propelling its shares 16% up. Valneva also confirmed its sales outlook for 2023, with revenue expected between 220 million euros and 260 million euros. (5/4)

The Boston Globe: Cambridge Biotech Raises $90 Million For Drug That Uses Radioactive Atoms To Fight Prostate Cancer
Radiation therapy has been used to treat cancer for more than a century, and about half of all cancer patients still undergo it at some point, according to the National Cancer Institute. Typically, patients receive beams of radiation from a machine that kills cancer cells inside their bodies but can also damage healthy tissue. (Saltzman, 5/3)

The Hill: Expansion Of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Passes Florida Senate, Heads To DeSantis’s Desk
An expansion of the Florida law critics dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” passed the state Senate Wednesday and is on its way to the desk of GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to sign it. In a 27-12 vote, the Florida Senate passed an expansion of the law that was put into effect last year in the state. (Lonas, 5/3)

AP: Detroit School Closes For Cleaning Amid Spike In Illnesses
A Detroit elementary school has closed for the rest of the week for a deep cleaning amid a spike in flu-like illnesses, officials said Wednesday. One of the students who fell sick, a kindergartner, died last week, according to school and health officials, though no cause had yet been determined for the death or the illnesses. (5/4)

Politico: California AG Warns Tobacco Companies Their New Cigarettes Are Banned In The State
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has warned tobacco companies that new cigarettes on California shelves are running afoul of the state’s flavored tobacco ban. Five letters obtained by POLITICO, sent April 25, inform the tobacco companies ITG Brands LLC and R.J. Reynolds that products like “Kool Non-Menthol,” “Camel Crisp” and “ Newport Non-Menthol Green” have all been determined to be in violation of the ban that’s been in effect since December 2022. (Bluth, 5/3)