First Edition: Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024

KFF Health News: Vance Rewrites History About Trump And Obamacare
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) on Sept. 15 told viewers of NBC’s “Meet the Press” that former President Donald Trump built up the Affordable Care Act, even though Trump could have chosen to do the opposite. “Donald Trump had two choices,” Vance, Trump’s running mate, said. “He could have destroyed the program, or he could actually build upon it and make it better so that Americans didn’t lose a lot of health care. He chose to build upon a plan, even though it came from his Democratic predecessor.” (Appleby, 9/24)

AP: Severe Obesity Is On The Rise In The US 
Obesity is high and holding steady in the U.S., but the proportion of those with severe obesity — especially women — has climbed since a decade ago, according to new government research. The U.S. obesity rate is about 40%, according to a 2021-2023 survey of about 6,000 people. Nearly 1 in 10 of those surveyed reported severe obesity, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Women were nearly twice as likely as men to report severe obesity. (Aleccia, 9/24)

Reuters: Novo Says Ozempic To Be Eligible For US Price Negotiations In Less Than A Year
Novo Nordisk's blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic will be eligible for U.S. government's price negotiations in less than a year based on current criteria, the Danish drugmaker's CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen said in his written testimony on Monday. Jorgensen is set to testify before a Senate committee on Tuesday in a hearing focused on U.S. prices for its widely popular Ozempic and weight-loss drug Wegovy. (9/23)

Axios: Scoop: Senate Democrats To Dare GOP To Block Emergency Abortion Care Measure
Top Senate Democrats will force Republicans to vote on access to emergency abortion care this week, in one of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)'s final pre-election messaging pushes, Axios has learned. ... Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), will seek unanimous consent Tuesday to pass a resolution she introduced last week affirming that every person has a right to emergency health care, including abortion care. (Neukam, 9/23)

The Hill: Sen. Ron Wyden Presses Hospitals About Delayed, Denied Emergency Abortion Care
A top Senate Democrat is pressing hospitals in states with abortion bans about how they are complying with a federal emergency care law, following reports about women who need emergency reproductive care being turned away. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent letters Monday to eight hospitals in Georgia, Texas, Missouri, Florida, Louisiana and North Carolina asking about specific policies and procedures to enforce the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). (Weixel, 9/23)

News Service of Florida: Judge Will Hear A Request To Block AHCA's Website On Florida's Abortion Amendment
A Leon County circuit judge is slated Wednesday to hear arguments in a political committee’s request for a temporary injunction to block the state Agency for Health Care Administration from disseminating what the committee calls “misinformation” about a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion rights through a website and ads. (Saunders, 9/23)

Stat: Lawmakers Move To Preserve Telehealth Addiction Treatment Options 
Two Democratic lawmakers are working to preserve health providers’ right to prescribe controlled substances via telehealth, including stimulants for ADHD and buprenorphine for opioid addiction. A new bill being drafted by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) comes months before the expiration of temporary waivers first enacted by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s during the Covid-19 pandemic. Though the DEA is currently contemplating new regulations that would roll back many of the pandemic-era flexibilities, the lawmakers’ new bill would likely extend the current rules through 2026, according to two lobbyists familiar with the effort. (Facher and Aguilar, 9/23)

The Hill: Brett Favre To Testify At House Hearing Amid Mississippi Scandal
Brett Favre is set to testify Tuesday at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee examining welfare reform, the panel confirmed to The Hill, an appearance that comes after the former NFL star faced allegations of using Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) state funds for corporate gains. Favre was accused of encouraging local officials to use welfare money to build an athletic facility and support the manufacture of a concussion drug. A Mississippi state audit found that some $5 million in TANF resources was reallocated to pay for the construction of a volleyball facility at Favre’s alma mater — the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter was then playing volleyball — and that $1.7 million was directed toward a company named Prevacus, which is working to develop the concussion medication and where he is an investor. (Fields, 9/23)

The New York Times: New York Resident Dies Of Eastern Equine Encephalitis Infection 
The first person to be diagnosed with Eastern equine encephalitis in New York in nearly a decade has died, prompting Gov. Kathy Hochul to declare the rare, mosquito-borne viral illness an imminent public health threat on Monday. Ms. Hochul announced the death, in Ulster County, in a news release outlining the steps that state officials are taking to reduce New Yorkers’ risk of exposure to the disease, also known as E.E.E. The death in New York appears to be the second linked to E.E.E. this year in the United States. The first involved a 41-year-old New Hampshire man who died in August. (Shanahan, 9/23)

VTDigger: Testing Shows EEE-Positive Mosquitoes On The Decline In Vermont, But Officials Still Advise Caution
The number of mosquitoes testing positive for eastern equine encephalitis dropped to zero in the latest testing data released by the Vermont Department of Health. But the health department plans to keep its guidance for high-risk communities in place “until the first local hard frost, as there are likely still mosquitoes that are carrying the EEE virus,” said State Epidemiologist Patsy Kelso. (Petenko, 9/23)

WUSF: The Effort To Contain Mosquitoes And Mosquito-Borne Illnesses In Florida
This year, the Florida Department of Health has issued mosquito-borne illness advisories in several counties for diseases like West Nile virus and dengue. With mosquitoes abundant in Florida, some counties have been practicing mitigation strategies against the bugs. (Pinos, 9/23)

The New York Times: Was It Really A Hot Zone Summer? 
Bird flu. Mpox, formerly monkeypox. Eastern equine encephalitis. West Nile. Listeria. Dengue. Oropouche. And, of course, Covid. Have the past few months felt like an unending parade of infectious disease? A plethora of pathogens dominated headlines all summer, and some of that attention may have been warranted: Oropouche, a tropical infection, and dengue devastated South America; mpox is ravaging parts of Africa; and bird flu holds the potential to flare into a dangerous pandemic. But in the United States, the threat to public health was much less alarming than it may have seemed. (Mandavilli, 9/23)

Reuters: India Reports First Case Of Mpox From Fast-Spreading Clade 1b Variety
India said on Monday that an mpox case involving a man in the southern state of Kerala was from the fast-spreading clade 1b variety, marking South Asia's first recorded case from the new strain. The patient is a 38-year-old man who had traveled from the United Arab Emirates and had been admitted to the government medical college hospital in the district, Kerala authorities said last week. (Arif, 9/23)

Reuters: Countries With Confirmed Cases Of New Mpox Strain 
Here are the countries with confirmed cases of clade Ib mpox. (9/23)

Reuters: Almost 30,000 Suspected Mpox Cases In Africa This Year, WHO Says 
Nearly 30,000 suspected mpox cases have been reported in Africa so far this year, most of them in Democratic Republic of Congo where tests have run out, the World Health Organization said on Monday. (9/23)

Fierce Healthcare: HRSA Unveils Organ Transplant Network Overhaul Contracts
As promised, the Biden administration is moving on from the national organ transplant system’s nearly 40-year “contract monopoly” by awarding new modernization contracts to multiple vendors. The awards follow last year’s congressional mandate to shift the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) away from nonprofit contractor the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) amid allegations of inefficiencies and, as of recently, misconduct. ... Though lawmakers criticized the administrator for slow progress, the Department for Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) on Thursday announced five new organizations it tapped to work on the overhaul. (Muoio, 9/23)

Becker's Hospital Review: 2 Hospitals Abruptly Close
Over the last 10 days, one acute-care hospital in Alabama suspended operations indefinitely, with another physician-owned hospital in California following suit. (Condon, 9/23)

Texas Community Health News: Edinburg Finally Gets A Children’s Hospital, But Access Issues Remain 
Before the opening of Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Edinburg last May, if you lived in Starr County and had a child who needed to see a pediatric specialist, the visit would involve a 160-mile drive to the nearest pediatric hospital in Corpus Christi. That drive isn’t uncommon. According to researchers at Texas State University, before the new hospital opened more than 75% of Texas children lived at least an hour from the nearest facility offering emergency services or specialized care to children. (Kalinina, 9/24)

Modern Healthcare: Hospital Readmission Penalties Stabilized In Fiscal 2025: CMS
Fewer hospitals will face high readmissions penalties in 2025 as rates of reimbursement cuts stabilize for providers. It is the third consecutive year in which the percentage of hospitals assessed penalties of 1% or more moderated, according to preliminary data released Friday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Penalties reduce the Medicare fee-for-service payments CMS makes to hospitals. (Devereaux, 9/23)

Stat: As Medicare Spending On Remote Patient Monitoring Jumps, HHS Watchdog Warns Of Fraud, Misuse
The federal watchdog at the Department of Health and Human Services issued a report on Tuesday calling for more oversight of remote patient monitoring in Medicare. The Office of Inspector General’s report called out the potential for fraud and misuse of tools like at-home blood pressure cuffs, connected scales, and continuous glucose monitors that can feed data directly to a patient’s doctor. (Palmer, 9/24)

Los Angeles Times: Pharmacy Workers At CVS In Redlands To Hold Union Election
Dozens of employees at a CVS specialty pharmacy in Redlands filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board seeking to hold a union election. The decision last week to organize by 135 workers at the pharmacy that provides medications to patients with complex and chronic conditions is the largest such move in a broader campaign to unionize pharmacy workers across the U.S. by the Pharmacy Guild, a labor group that was launched in March. The Redlands CVS is also the first workplace in California to join the campaign. (Hussain, 9/23)

Houston Chronicle: Baylor College Of Medicine Receives $51 Million For Cullen Tower
Ever since Baylor College of Medicine unveiled plans for the Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower in 2023, multimillion dollar gifts from pillars of Houston's philanthropic community have poured in. Now, the private medical school is just $1 million short of its $150 million goal for the project. Baylor announced a trio of charitable contributions on Monday including $25 million the Brown Foundation, $16 million from the DeBakey Medical Foundation and $10 million from the Sarofim Foundation. (Elliott, 9/23)

Reuters: Amneal Asks Court To Block Colorado's Free Allergy Pen Program 
Amneal Pharmaceuticals has sued Colorado in an effort to block a state law requiring it to provide free generic EpiPens to pharmacies In a complaint filed on Friday in federal court in Denver, Colorado, New Jersey-based Amneal said that the law, which was passed last year and took effect in January, was an illegal taking of its property under the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. (Pierson, 9/23)

Stat and Tradeoffs: Generic Drugs Face Three Challenges: Quality, Shortages, Biosimilars
Lisa Ann Trainor struggled to stay on top of schoolwork, hold a job or even perform basic tasks like laundry for six exhausting years. Then, in 2018, she finally found a drug that kept her ADHD in check. “It was life-changing,” Trainor recalled. “I was happy. I was functional. I had a solution to a problem I thought was never going to go away.” But just 24 months later, Trainor’s husband changed jobs. Under his new health insurance plan, she’d have to pay roughly $1,000 a month out-of-pocket for Vyvanse, a medication with no generic alternative. (Walker and Gorenstein, 9/24)

Reuters: J&J Talc Opponents Decry Bankruptcy As "Deja Vu All Over Again" 
David Molton, who represents law firms opposed to the deal, said at Monday's hearing that the third bankruptcy attempt was "doomed to fail," despite the company's efforts to present the settlement as a done deal. "J&J's bankruptcy scheme buys delay, but not peace," Molton told Lopez. "It's deja vu all over again for many of us." (Knauth, 9/23)

Bloomberg: Purdue Settlement Talks With Sacklers Extended To November
Purdue Pharma LP said its making progress in settlement talks with members of the Sackler family who own the company and won another extension of a breathing spell that’s shielded the family from civil lawsuits for years. Judge Sean Lane said Monday he’d extend through Nov. 1 an injunction that has paused suits against the Sacklers in order to continue facilitating talks with states, opioid victims and other creditors. (Randles, 9/23)

Becker's Hospital Review: Smiths Medical Recalls Ventilators After Reported Death
Smiths Medical is recalling its paraPAC Plus ventilators because of the possibility that the patient outlet connector could loosen or detach, affecting active ventilation. There has been one reported death and injury with respect to recalled ventilators, the release said. (Murphy, 9/23)

AP: Colorado Supermarket Shooter Found Guilty, Sentenced To Life In Prison 
A mentally ill man who killed 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in 2021 was sentenced Monday to life in prison for murder after a jury rejected his attempt to avoid prison time by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. ... Defense attorneys did not dispute that Alissa, who has schizophrenia, fatally shot 10 people including a police officer. But they argued he was insane at the time of the attack and couldn’t tell right from wrong. He became the latest person to fail in an attempt to be acquitted by reason of insanity. (Slevin, 9/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: New HIV Infections Fall Sharply In SF After Years Of Slowing Progress
The number of people newly diagnosed with HIV in San Francisco dropped by 20% in 2023 to 133 — the lowest in decades and a significant decline compared to an adjusted total of 167 in 2022, according to an annual HIV epidemiology report released Monday from the Department of Public Health. It marks an improvement from recent years, when new infections were flat or declined less than they had in previous years, signaling a slowdown in progress. (Ho, 9/23)

Reuters: Hottest US City Phoenix Smashes Heat Streak Record 
The desert city of Phoenix, Arizona, suffered a record 113 straight days with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) this year, leading to hundreds of heat-related deaths and more acres burned by wildfire across the state, officials said. Heat has killed 256 people so far this year in Phoenix's Maricopa County and is the suspected cause of 393 other deaths, according to official data. The county had a record 645 heat deaths last year. (Salgado, 9/23)

Stat: HHS' Rachel Levine On Climate Change And Health
This summer, the American Red Cross declared an emergency blood shortage in the U.S. There’s a seasonal pattern to blood donations, which often dip over the summer and during the winter holidays. But experts also say that climate change disrupts the national blood supply, with extreme heat and worsening storms in certain regions keeping people away from blood banks. (Gaffney, 9/24)

The Washington Post: Nearly 40 Percent Of Gen Z Men Don’t Have A Primary Care Provider 
About 37 percent of Gen Z men in the United States do not have an established primary care provider, according to a recent survey from the Cleveland Clinic. The survey, conducted this summer, involved 1,000 American men 18 or older living in the continental United States. ... Nearly all the respondents said living a healthy lifestyle was a top priority, and 87 percent were concerned about how their current health habits would affect their future health. Millennials and adult Gen Zers were more likely to take care of their mental health (59 percent) than Gen X and boomers (53 percent), according to the survey. (Docter-Loeb, 9/23)

Military.com: Military Medical Commands Developing Plans To Put Freeze-Dried Plasma In Hands Of Medics, Corpsmen 
Combat medics and corpsmen may soon carry a lifesaving blood product that their counterparts in the special operations community have had for more than a decade. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization in late August for a freeze-dried plasma powder made by Octapharma USA that can sustain injured personnel who are internally hemorrhaging or bleeding out from a wound. (Kime, 9/23)