Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: Oct. 28, 2022
KHN: Knoxville’s Black Community Endured Deeply Rooted Racism. Now There Is Medical Debt
When Dr. H.M. Green opened his new medical office building on East Vine Avenue in 1922, Black residents of this city on the Tennessee River could be seen only in the basement of Knoxville General Hospital. They were barred from the city’s other three medical centers. Green, one of America’s leading Black physicians, spent his life working to end health inequities like this. He installed an X-ray machine, an operating room, and a private infirmary in his building to serve Black patients. On the first floor was a pharmacy. (Levey, 10/28)
KHN: Despite Katie Couric’s Advice, Doctors Say Ultrasound Breast Exams May Not Be Needed
When Katie Couric shared the news of her breast cancer diagnosis, the former co-host of NBC’s “Today” show said she considered this new health challenge to be a teachable moment to encourage people to get needed cancer screenings. “Please get your annual mammogram,” she wrote on her website in September. “But just as importantly, please find out if you need additional screening.” (Andrews, 10/28)
KHN: When Monkeypox Reaches Rural Communities, It Collides With Strained Public Health Systems
When a case of monkeypox was reported in Nevada’s Humboldt County in August, it was the state’s first detected occurrence of the virus in a rural area. Soon, cases were found in other rural counties — Nye, Lyon, and Elko — posing another hurdle for public health systems that have been worn thin by the covid-19 pandemic. Experts say the response to the monkeypox virus in rural America may be affected by the patchy resources and bitter politics that are a legacy of the pandemic, challenges that some worry could allow sporadic infections to gain a foothold. (Rodriguez, 10/28)
KHN: Ambulance Company To Halt Some Rides In Southern California, Citing Low Medicaid Rates
For 23 years, the private ambulance industry in California had gone without an increase in the base rate the state pays it to transport Medicaid enrollees. At the start of the year, it asked the state legislature to more than triple the rate, from around $110 to $350 per ride. The request went unheeded. In September, American Medical Response, the largest U.S. provider of ambulance services, announced it had “made the difficult decision” to end nonemergency transports in Los Angeles County and blamed the state for having one of the lowest Medicaid reimbursement rates in the country. (Kwon, 10/28)
KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Voters Will Get Their Say On Multiple Health Issues
Voters in several states will be asked to vote on ballot questions related to abortion, but it’s not the only health issue that will be decided on Election Day. Other ballot proposals will ask voters whether they want to curb interest on medical debt (Arizona), expand Medicaid (South Dakota), or make health care a right under the state constitution (Oregon). (10/27)
Axios: Arizona Near-Total Abortion Ban Won't Be Enforced Until 2023
Arizona's near total ban on abortions won't be enforced until at least 2023 after the state's attorney general reached an agreement with Planned Parenthood, prompting the group to resume abortion services there Thursday, per Bloomberg Law. (Falconer, 10/28)
NBC News: Rep. Carolyn Maloney Aims To Expand Access To Abortion Resources With New Bill
House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., will introduce a bill Friday aimed at improving access to abortion services, as well as accurate information on the procedure, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, NBC News has learned. (Atkins, 10/27)
The New York Times: OB-GYN Residency Programs Face Tough Choice On Abortion Training
Many medical residency programs that are educating the next generation of obstetricians and gynecologists are facing a treacherous choice. If they continue to provide abortion training in states where the procedure is now outlawed, they could be prosecuted. If they don’t offer it, they risk losing their accreditation, which in turn would render their residents ineligible to receive specialty board certification and imperil recruitment of faculty and medical students. (Hoffman, 10/27)
AP: WHO: Tuberculosis Cases Rise For The First Time In Years
The number of people infected with tuberculosis, including the kind resistant to drugs, rose globally for the first time in years, according to a report Thursday by the World Health Organization. The U.N. health agency said more than 10 million people worldwide were sickened by tuberculosis in 2021, a 4.5% rise from the year before. About 1.6 million people died, it said. WHO said about 450,000 cases involved people infected with drug-resistant TB, 3% more than in 2020. Dr. Mel Spigelman, president of the non-profit TB Alliance, said more than a decade of progress was lost when COVID-19 emerged in 2020. (10/27)
ScienceAlert: The World's Biggest Infectious Killer Regains Its Deadly Lead
Mel Spigelman, president of the non-profit TB Alliance, hailed the swift and dramatic progress to rein in the COVID-19 pandemic, with a vast array of safe and effective vaccines, tests, and treatments developed in the space of two years. "But the juxtaposition with TB is pretty stark," he said in a recent interview.Tuberculosis, once called consumption, was the world's biggest infectious killer before the arrival of COVID-19, with 1.5 million people dying from the disease each year. (Larson, 10/24)
CBS News: White House Still Expects New COVID Boosters Will Offer Better Protection, But Two New Studies Cast Doubt
The White House's top COVID-19 official says he still expects the protection against the Omicron BA.5 variant offered by the new COVID vaccine boosters will be better than their predecessors, despite two studies that appear to question that assumption. In an interview with CBS News, Dr. Ashish Jha also said he does not think another imminent change to the COVID boosters will be needed. (Tin, 10/27)
San Francisco Chronicle: NIH Backs Study Of Paxlovid As A Long COVID Treatment
Duke University researchers will explore the effectiveness of the Pfizer antiviral drug Paxlovid against the complex medical condition known as long COVID. The details of the randomized trial, posted on clinicaltrials.gov, show a plan to test the treatment against a placebo control in 1,700 adult volunteers. (Vaziri, Buchmann and Ravani, 10/27)
San Francisco Chronicle: Black Patients 36% Less Likely To Receive Paxlovid, CDC Study Shows
The ongoing racial and ethnic disparities of the COVID-19 pandemic affected access to life-saving treatments through this summer, according to a study published Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Vaziri, Buchmann and Ravani, 10/27)
CIDRAP: Humans Transmit SARS-CoV-2 To Their Pets, Household Study Finds
Among a sample of 107 households with pets and at least one COVID-19–infected adult in Idaho and Washington state, 21% of dogs and 39% of cats had signs of infection, 40% of dogs and 43% of cats had SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, and 5% and 8%, respectively, tested positive on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, finds a new study in Emerging Infectious Diseases. (10/27)
Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Doctor Who Said Vaccines Cause Magnetism Under Investigation
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, a osteopathic doctor from Northeast Ohio who went viral for saying that vaccines cause magnetism, is under investigation by the Ohio State Medical Board. (Wu, 10/27)
Bloomberg: Covid ‘Lab Leak’ Theory Gets Boost From Senate Republican Report
Senate Republicans who investigated the origin of the virus that caused Covid-19 lay out how it could have started from a laboratory leak, although they underscore the findings lack indisputable evidence. (Ruoff and Baumann, 10/27)
CIDRAP: Those Who Buy Into COVID-19 Hoaxes May Be Prone To Other Conspiracies
A new study in PLoS One conducted by Ohio State and University of Kent researchers suggests that people who believe in COVID-19 conspiracy theories are at a greater risk of believing in other conspiracies. The authors of the study said believing COVID-19 was a "hoax" was a gateway to other conspiracies, including the belief that Donald Trump won the 2020 US presidential election. (10/27)
NPR: False Information Is Everywhere. 'Pre-Bunking' Tries To Head It Off Early
Twitter will soon roll out prompts in users' timelines reminding them final results may not come on Election Day. They're all examples of a strategy known as "prebunking" that's become an important pillar of how tech companies, nonprofits, and government agencies respond to misleading and false claims about elections, public health, and other hot-button issues. (Bond, 10/28)
Becker's Hospital Review: Amid Early RSV Surge, Treatment Options Remain Limited
Besides one preventive drug that can only be prescribed in some cases, there are no FDA-approved treatments for respiratory syncytial virus — which leaves healthcare workers with limited treatment options. (Twenter, 10/27)
ABC News: Family Reveals Ordeal Of 2-Year-Old Son In Hospital With 3 Viruses Simultaneously
An Ohio family is speaking out to share their son's battle with three different viruses as respiratory infections spike in children across the country, filling up hospital beds. It all started when the Jackson family, from Middletown -- about 35 miles north of Cincinnati -- returned from vacation to Walt Disney World the first week of September. (Pezenik, 10/27)
CIDRAP: CDC Emphasizes Testing, Treating Monkeypox In Pregnancy
Today during a Clinician Outreach and Communication Activity call, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and children who have been exposed to monkeypox be tested promptly if they show symptoms. The officials also said pregnant or breastfeeding women should be offered the Jynneos vaccine as post-exposure prophylaxis (prevention) if they have a known close exposure to the virus. (10/27)
USA Today: Cancer Death Rate Decline Suggests Progress In Treatment, Report Shows
Overall U.S. cancer death rates continue to drop among men, women, children, teens and young adults, according to a report released Thursday. The American Cancer Society’s Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer showed a decline in every major ethnic and racial group from 2015 to 2019. The findings are based on pre-COVID-19 pandemic data. (Williams, 10/27)
Newsweek: Octopus Venom Found To Slow The Growth Of Cancer
A potential new treatment for one of the most serious forms of skin cancer has been found in a rather unlikely place: octopus venom. A team of researchers from Spain and Australia studying the venom of the Australian southern sand octopus has identified a compound that may significantly slow cancer growth and help fight drug resistance in patients with BRAF-mutated melanoma, one of the most serious forms of skin cancer. The findings were published in the October issue of the British Journal of Pharmacology. (Dewan, 10/27)
USA Today: Blood Pressure Medicine Recalled Due To Potential Cancer Risk: FDA
Aurobindo Pharma USA is recalling two lots of quinapril and hydrochlorothiazide tablets due to levels of nitrosamine. The tablets are commonly prescribed for the treatment of hypertension to lower blood pressure. (Neysa Alund, 10/27)
Stat: Drugmaker Raises The Price Of An Old Chemo Medicine Tenfold Amid Persistent Shortages
Amid sporadic shortages of a drug that is essential in preparing patients for lifesaving, cancer-fighting treatments, one manufacturer has returned to the market — but is selling its medicine for 10 to 20 times the prices offered by the only other companies with available supplies. (Silverman, 10/27)
Stat: Death Of Patient In Alzheimer’s Trial Raises Question Of Possible Risks
The experimental Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab, hailed after it slowed patients’ cognitive decline in a clinical trial, may have contributed to the death in June of a patient in the study, STAT has learned. (Mast, 10/28)
NBC News: Walgreens Will Stop Judging Its Pharmacy Staff By How Fast They Work
Walgreens, the country’s second-largest pharmacy chain, announced Wednesday that it is eliminating “task-based metrics” from performance evaluations to allow its pharmacy staffers to “place even greater focus on patient care.” They will now be evaluated “solely on the behaviors that best support patient care and enhance the patient experience,” Walgreens said in a news release. (Kaplan, 10/27)
Becker's Hospital Review: Healthcare Operating Costs Rising Almost Everywhere, Report Says
Operating costs in healthcare centers and hospitals across the country are rising amid inflationary pressures, staffing shortages and supply chain disruption, and such locations are going to have to continue implementing measures to help mitigate the highly challenging situation, according to a report from the Medical Group Management Association. (Thomas, 10/27)
Axios: Most States Have Extended Medicaid Coverage After Birth To One Year
More than half of the states have now expanded their Medicaid postpartum coverage from the federally mandated 60 days to one year, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed to Axios. (Gonzalez, 10/27)
Axios: Hospitals Test The Goodwill Of Congress On Medicare Cuts
Hospitals are pleading with Congress to postpone looming Medicare pay cuts, citing what they say has been an extraordinarily difficult year. But that unified message belies the fact that hospitals' financial situations vary significantly, and experts say some facilities would be just fine without lawmakers' help. (Owens and Dreher, 10/28)
Modern Healthcare: YouTube Health's Validation Process For Health Information Expands
As it attempts to combat health disinformation, YouTube is allowing certain healthcare professionals to apply for verification. Starting Thursday, licensed healthcare providers such as doctors, nurses and mental health professionals can apply to make their channels eligible for YouTube’s health product features, which labels them as an authoritative source on a medical topic. It also will promote their videos at the top of someone’s search. (Perna, 10/27)
Stat: How Health Data Could Go Back 'In The Hands Of The Patient'
Two decades ago, the Bush administration threw a wrench in health data privacy, making it possible for many health care organizations to share medical information without patients’ consent so long as it was being used to improve treatment or streamline business operations. (Williamson-Lee, 10/28)
Reuters: McKinsey Reaches Deal With U.S. Local Governments Over Opioids
Leading consulting firm McKinsey & Co has agreed to settle claims by hundreds of U.S. local governments and school districts around the country that it fueled an epidemic of opioid addiction through its work for bankrupt OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and other drug companies. The deal was disclosed in a court filing Wednesday evening in San Francisco federal court. Its terms were not made public, and McKinsey and a lawyer for the settling plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (Pierson, 10/27)
AP: Parents Sue Over Son's Death After He Took Kratom Supplement
Dana and John Pope had never heard of kratom before their 23-year-old son, Ethan, was found dead on the kitchen floor in his apartment last December with his puppy by his side. Extracted from the leaves of a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia, kratom is used to make capsules, powders and liquids and is marketed as an aid for pain, anxiety and drug dependence. In Georgia and some other states, it’s often sold at gas stations and smoke shops. ... The lawsuit was originally filed in May and an expanded version was filed earlier this week. The lawyers who filed the suit said they want to send a message that kratom is unsafe for human consumption. (Brumback, 10/27)
AP: Oregon Could Be 1st State To Make Health Care A Human Right
Oregon voters are being asked to decide whether the state should be the first in the nation to amend its constitution to explicitly declare that affordable health care is a fundamental human right. State Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, a main sponsor of the legislation behind the ballot measure, said making health care a human right is a value statement and is not aimed at pushing Oregon to a single-payer health care system, a longtime goal of many progressives. (Selsky, 10/27)
Southern California News Group: It Helps To Be White If You’re Disabled In California, Study Finds
If you’re disabled and White, much more public money is often spent providing you services than if you’re disabled and Latino — and precisely where you live can make that gap yawn ever wider, a new study found. “California’s developmental disability service system is plagued with racial, ethnic and geographic disparities that can dramatically and dangerously impact the essential services received by adults with developmental disabilities,” concludes Disability Voices United, a statewide organization that advocates for people with disabilities and their families, in a report released Wednesday, Oct. 26. (Sforza, 10/27)
The Washington Post: He Helped After Hurricane Ian — And Was Killed By Flesh-Eating Bacteria
When James Hewitt got a call from his friend to help do repairs on his house in Florida following Hurricane Ian, Hewitt jumped at the opportunity. Almost immediately after getting off the phone, he started packing his bags. “He was very excited,” Leah Delano, Hewitt’s fiancee, told The Washington Post. From their home in Jenison, Mich., Hewitt left for Naples on Oct. 4, she said, about a week after Ian made landfall. He helped his friend with house and boat repairs — and also worked with others to clear debris in the city that had experienced intense flooding during the Category 4 storm, Delano told The Post. But that Saturday, Hewitt, 56, fell off his friend’s boat into a canal, somehow scraping his leg in the process. (Mark, 10/28)
NBC News: Stroke Survivors Speak Out About John Fetterman's Debate Struggles
For stroke survivors interviewed by NBC News, the test Fetterman faced was not just political, but deeply personal. In him, they saw an avatar of their own struggles following a stroke: to recuperate physically, to communicate fluently and to coax from others an empathetic understanding that while some of their faculties may have been compromised, their intellects often remain unscathed. (Ryan, 10/28)
The Washington Post: Head Of Republican Party Mocks Speaking Abilities Of Fetterman, Biden
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Thursday mocked the speaking abilities of Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate who is recovering from a stroke, and President Biden, who grew up with a stutter. (Wagner, 10/27)
