First Edition: Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024

KFF Health News: A Boy’s Bicycling Death Haunts A Black Neighborhood. 35 Years Later, There’s Still No Sidewalk
It’s been 35 years since John Parker died after a pickup collided with the bike he was riding on Cheek Road in east Durham before school. He was 6. His mother, Deborah Melvin-Muse, doesn’t display photos of him, the second-youngest of six children. His brother’s birthday was the day after the crash — and he hasn’t celebrated it since. ... And Cheek Road, in a predominantly Black neighborhood, still lacks sidewalks for children to safely make their way to the local elementary school. (Rayasam and Clasen-Kelly, 10/8)

KFF Health News: What’s New And What To Watch For In The Upcoming ACA Open Enrollment Period
It’s that time of year again: In most states, the Affordable Care Act’s annual open enrollment season for health plans begins Nov. 1 and lasts through Jan. 15. Current enrollees who do not update their information or select an alternative will be automatically reenrolled in their current plan or, if that plan is no longer available, into a plan with similar coverage. Last year marked a record enrollment of about 21 million people. This time around, consumers will find a few things have changed. (Appleby, 10/8)

KFF Health News: 'Silence In Sikeston' Podcast: Is There A Cure For Racism?
In the finale of “Silence in Sikeston,” Black residents organize a Juneteenth barbecue. The Department of Public Safety chief encourages officers to attend to build trust. But improving relations between Sikeston’s Black community and the police won’t be easy. Host Cara Anthony discusses the possibility of institutional change in Sikeston. (Anthony, 10/8)

The Washington Post: Georgia Supreme Court Reinstates 6-Week Abortion Ban As It Considers Appeal 
The Georgia Supreme Court moved to restore the state’s six-week abortion ban Monday, once again severely restricting the procedure as it considers an appeal in a long-running legal challenge to the law. The ruling stays a lower court decision last week that had overturned Georgia’s abortion ban, allowing the procedure to be performed until the 22nd week of pregnancy. The latest decision, from the state’s highest court, takes effect Monday at 5 p.m., making abortions illegal after six weeks of pregnancy, the earliest that fetal cardiac electrical activity can be detected and before many people know they are expecting. (Somasundaram, 10/7)

AP: Supreme Court Rejects Appeal Of Alabama IVFs Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review an Alabama ruling that triggered concerns about in vitro fertilization availability by allowing couples to pursue wrongful death lawsuits over the the accidental destruction of frozen embryos. A fertility clinic and hospital had asked the court to review the Alabama Supreme Court decision that a couple, who had a frozen embryo destroyed in an accident, could pursue a lawsuit against them for the wrongful death of their “minor child.” Justices turned down the petition without comment. (10/7)

ABC News: Florida Hospitals, Health Care Centers Close Ahead Of Hurricane Milton Landfall
Dozens of health care facilities in Florida are suspending services and/or preparing to evacuate as Hurricane Milton approaches. On Sunday, Pinellas County – located on the west central Florida coast and including Clearwater and St. Petersburg – issued mandatory evacuation orders for long-term care facilities, assisted living facilities and hospitals in three evacuation zones. The order affects six hospitals, 25 nursing homes and 44 assisted living facilities, totaling about 6,600 patients, according to the order. (Kekatos, 10/7)

Fierce Healthcare: Florida Hospitals Again Evacuating Patients Ahead Of Second Hurricane In 2 Weeks
Tampa General Hospital, the region’s only Level I Trauma Center, wrote in an 11:30 a.m. Monday update that it has activated its emergency response plan. ... Much like during Helene, those preparations include a central energy plant built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, supply stores and an “AquaFence” barrier able to withstand up to 15-foot storm surges. (Muoio, 10/7)

Politico: US Disaster Programs Are Teetering. Milton Could Topple Them. 
The federal government could be nearing a collapse of its ability to help with major disasters as the second catastrophic hurricane in less than two weeks bears down on Florida. Hurricane Milton, a Category 5 storm whose winds reached 180 mph late Monday, is whirling toward a possible landfall in Tampa Bay just as the main federal disaster programs are facing financial instability amid a series of recent calamities, including Hurricane Helene’s flooding of communities throughout the Southeast. (Frank, 10/7)

Modern Healthcare: IV Fluid Shortage Needs Federal Assistance, AHA Says
The American Hospital Association is calling on the White House to help increase the supply of IV solutions after a massive Baxter International plant was taken offline by Hurricane Helene. Baxter's Marion, N.C., facility — which produces 60% of the IV solutions used daily — was closed due to flooding caused by the hurricane late last month and it is uncertain when the plant will reopen. (DeSilva, 10/7)

The Washington Post: EPA Requires Water Utilities To Replace All Lead Pipes Within A Decade 
The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Tuesday requiring water utilities to replace all lead pipes within a decade, a move aimed at eliminating a toxic threat that continues to affect tens of thousands of American children each year. The move, which also tightens the amount of lead allowed in the nation’s drinking water, comes nearly 40 years after Congress determined that lead pipes posed a serious risk to public health and banned them in new construction. (Ajasa and Foster-Frau, 10/8)

AP: American Water, The Largest Water Utility In US, Is Targeted By A Cyberattack
The largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States announced Monday that it was the victim of a cyberattack, prompting the firm to pause billing to customers. New Jersey-based American Water — which provides services to more than 14 million people in 14 states and on 18 military installations — said it became aware of the unauthorized activity on Thursday and immediately took protective steps, including shutting down certain systems. The company does not believe its facilities or operations were impacted by the attack and said staffers were working “around the clock” to investigate the nature and scope of the attack. (Shipkowski, 10/7)

The Hill: Harris To Announce Plan For Medicare Home Care Benefit
Vice President Harris will announce a plan Tuesday to offer a new Medicare benefit for home care for seniors in an effort to focus on the challenges of caregivers, according to a senior campaign official. She will announce her proposal for the first-ever expansion of Medicare to include at-home care on ABC’s “The View,” where the senior campaign official says she can reach the “sandwich generation” audience. The so-called “sandwich generation” is thought to be made up of Americans who are both raising children and caring for their own aging parents. (Gangitano, 10/8)

The New York Times: Harris Has A Glock, She Says On ’60 Minutes’ 
Vice President Kamala Harris has a Glock. And she has taken it to the shooting range. In a wide-ranging interview that ran on Monday night during a “60 Minutes” election special on CBS News, Ms. Harris revealed more details about her firearm, which she had teased last month in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. “I have a Glock, and I’ve had it for quite some time,” she told her “60 Minutes” interviewer, Bill Whitaker. “Look, Bill, my background is in law enforcement, so there you go.” When he asked if she had fired it, Ms. Harris laughed. “Of course I have,” she said. “At a shooting range. Yes, of course I have.” (Levien, 10/7)

PolitiFact: Fact Check: Trump Said Harris 'Wants To Legalize Fentanyl'
The claim: Former President Donald Trump vowed to stop fentanyl from pouring into the United States and said Vice President Kamala Harris has the opposite approach. "Kamala is so radical she even wants to legalize fentanyl," Trump said Sept. 29 in Erie, Pennsylvania. ... PolitiFact ruling: False. Trump spoke in the present tense as if it is on her presidential to-do list. She hasn’t said that. Trump was referring to a 2019 ACLU questionnaire that asked presidential primary candidates whether they supported decriminalization "of all drug possession for personal use." (Sherman, 10/7)

NBC News: CDC To Begin Testing Travelers From Rwanda For Deadly Marburg Virus
U.S. health officials are preparing to screen passengers flying in from Rwanda for symptoms of Marburg virus, a severe infection similar to Ebola. “Starting mid-October, airline passengers who have been in Rwanda in the last 21 days will have their travel to the United States rerouted” to one of three airports: Chicago O’Hare, JFK in New York and Washington Dulles in suburban Virginia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement Monday. (Edwards, 10/7)

NBC News: Chicago Concertgoers Possibly Exposed To Potentially Rabid Bats, Health Officials Say
The Chicago Department of Public Health issued a warning that attendees of a recent outdoor concert at the popular Salt Shed music venue may have been exposed to rabies-carrying bats. According to the CDPH, the “possible” exposure took place between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. Sept. 12 during the outdoor Goose concert at the venue, located at 1357 N. Elston Ave. The CDPH noted in a release that bats in and around the Chicago area have been found to carry rabies, though not all of them do. (10/7)

CIDRAP: Study Shows Fatigue Prominent Feature Of Long COVID 
Results from an online survey in Denmark describe fatigue and post-exertional malaise as prominent features 2 to 18 months after COVID-19 infections for both mild and severe cases. The study appeared today JAMA Network Open. (Soucheray, 10/7)

The Boston Globe: CVS To Cut More Than 630 Jobs Based At Rhode Island Headquarters
CVS Health is expected to cut more than 630 employees who report to the company’s headquarters in Woonsocket, according to a letter the company sent to state officials on Monday. Of the 632 terminations, only 153 work at the Woonsocket headquarters or surrounding facilities. The remaining 479 affected employees are “outstationed,” which means they work remotely and report to leaders at the Woonsocket headquarters, according to the company’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notice. (Gagosz, 10/7)

Modern Healthcare: How Private Equity, Stipends Are Impacting Physician Compensation
Physician compensation continues to rise across most specialties as the talent pool shrinks, furthering a need for employers to get creative to stay ahead of the competition. Hiring organizations are shifting to offer more than just higher salaries to attract clinicians, according to respondents to Modern Healthcare’s 2024 Physician Compensation Survey. (DeSilva, 10/7)

Reuters: Pfizer Wins Bid To Invalidate GSK's Patents Over RSV Vaccine
Pfizer on Monday won a bid in a London court to invalidate two of GSK's patents relating to a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine. The two pharmaceutical giants are among a number of companies in competition for a vaccine for RSV, which typically causes cold-like symptoms but is also a leading cause of pneumonia in toddlers and older adults. (10/7)

Reuters: Compounding Group Sues FDA For Removing Lilly's Weight Loss Drug From Shortage List
A drug compounding industry group on Monday sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over its decision to take Eli Lilly’s blockbuster weight loss and diabetes drugs off its list of medicines in short supply last week. The Outsourcing Facilities Association claims the FDA removed Lilly's tirzepatide from the list even though it remains in short supply. (Pierson, 10/7)

AP: Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli 
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Martin Shkreli, who was once dubbed “Pharma Bro” after jacking up the price of a lifesaving drug. Shkreli appealed an order to return $64.6 million in profits he and his former company reaped after monopolizing the market for the medication and drastically increasing its price. His lawyers argued that the money went to his company rather than him personally. The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is typical, and there were no noted dissents. (Whitehurst, 10/7)

Stat: Janet Woodcock, Former FDA Official, Joins Board Of Patient Group Focused On ‘Rediscovering’ Old Drugs
An organization scouring thousands of existing drugs to see if any can cure hard-to-treat diseases has a powerful new ally: Janet Woodcock, who for decades was one of the most influential figures at the Food and Drug Administration. The group, Every Cure, is led by physician David Fajgenbaum, who has told his own story again and again: When he was a young medical student, he came down with a rare disease that turned his athletic, football-honed body bloated and weak and nearly killed him not once, but five times. He was read last rites until his own research led his doctors to try an existing drug, the transplant medicine sirolimus, which sent his disease into remission. (Herper, 10/7)

AP: Life Expectancy Is Hitting A Limit, Researchers Say 
Humanity is hitting the upper limit of life expectancy, according to a new study. Advances in medical technology and genetic research — not to mention larger numbers of people making it to age 100 — are not translating into marked jumps in lifespan overall, according to researchers who found shrinking longevity increases in countries with the longest-living populations. “We have to recognize there’s a limit” and perhaps reassess assumptions about when people should retire and how much money they’ll need to live out their lives, said S. Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois-Chicago researcher who was lead author of the study published Monday by the journal Nature Aging. (Stobbe, 10/7)

AP: A Peek Inside Human Brain Shows A Way It Cleans Out Waste 
A unique peek inside the human brain may help explain how it clears away waste like the kind that can build up and lead to Alzheimer’s disease. Brain cells use a lot of nutrients which means they make a lot of waste. Scientists have long thought the brain has special plumbing to flush out cellular trash, especially during sleep – they could see it happening in mice. But there was only circumstantial evidence of a similar system in people. Now researchers have finally spotted that network of tiny waste-clearing channels in the brains of living people, thanks to a special kind of imaging. (Neergaard, 10/7)

NBC News: Arm Position During Blood Pressure Check May Result In Wrong Hypertension Diagnosis, Study Finds
Blood pressure readings may not be accurate unless a person’s arm is positioned correctly, a new study suggests. A comparison of blood pressure readings taken while people held their arms three different ways  — leaning on a surface, resting on the lap or hanging by the side of the body — showed certain positions could lead to a significant increase in systolic pressure, the upper number in a blood pressure reading, according to the study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. (Carroll, 10/7)

The Washington Post: 2 Hours Outside Daily May Reduce Vision Problem In Kids, Study Says 
Children should spend up to two hours a day outside to reduce their risk of myopia, or nearsightedness, according to a new consensus report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. At least one of those hours should take place during the school day, the report says. Myopia is a condition in which distant objects are blurry but close-up objects look clear. The National Academies report cites research indicating a significant rise in myopia worldwide. (McMahan, 10/7)

Bloomberg: Cancer Risk In Acne Creams Like Proactiv, Clearasil, Study Finds
A new analysis of acne creams and cleansers found dozens, including popular products like Proactiv and Clearasil, contain high levels of a chemical linked to cancer. The findings confirm some of an earlier study that received criticism for its methods, putting more pressure on the US Food and Drug Administration to take action on products widely used by American teenagers. Researchers tested more than 100 benzoyl peroxide acne products available at major retailers in six states. They found about a third were contaminated with high levels of benzene, a chemical that can cause cancer. (Edney, 10/7)

NBC News: Panera Settles With First Plaintiff In Charged Lemonade Wrongful Death Suits
Panera Bread has settled with the family of an Ivy League student with a heart condition who died after drinking the chain’s highly caffeinated Charged Lemonade drink. Sarah Katz, 21, was a University of Pennsylvania student with a heart condition called long QT syndrome type 1 who avoided energy drinks per her doctors’ recommendations, according to a lawsuit filed last year in Philadelphia. (Chuck, 10/7)