Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Utah's Rush To Embrace Malaria Drug Offers Case Study Of Pitfalls When Hope Outpaces Science
Stat: Utah Embraced An Unproven Covid-19 Drug, Then Raced To Course-Correct
Even before President Trump started plugging chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as Covid-19 treatments, enthusiasm for the old malaria drugs was swelling in the state of Utah... Propelled by that hype, as well as mounting fears of the oncoming pandemic, the state pursued a sweeping — and eyebrow-raising — policy that would have let pharmacies dispense the unproven medications to patients with Covid-19 without a prescription. Utah, which took perhaps the most aggressive strategy with the drugs of any state, also put in an order for $800,000 worth of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to build a stockpile, and considered buying millions of dollars more. (Joseph, 5/18)
ProPublica: Substitute Pharmacists Warn Their Co-Workers: We’ll Probably Bring The Virus To You
He joined Walgreens around a decade ago, fresh out of pharmacy school and eager to learn. Like many new grads, he started as a floater — a substitute for employees who call out sick or take vacation — and he was floated as far as he was willing to go. Sometimes he would drive hours east of the Dallas area, where he lived, to pick up shifts in rural Texas, sleeping in hotels for days at a time. The pharmacist, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, eventually worked his way up to become a full-time manager at a store in Dallas. But recently he’s returned to floating, this time at CVS, preferring its flexible hours. In the past three months, he’s traveled between 10 stores. (Kofman, 5/18)
The Washington Post: 'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli's Request For Prison Release To Fight Coronavirus Denied By Judge
A judge this weekend denied convicted pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli’s request to leave prison so he could research a treatment for the novel coronavirus, after officials dismissed his rationale as the type of “delusional self-aggrandizing behavior” that got him locked up. Shkreli, who gained notoriety as the “Pharma Bro” executive who raised the price of an AIDS drug by 5,000 percent, has been serving a seven-year sentence at a low-security prison in Allenwood, Pa., since his 2017 conviction for defrauding investors. (Mettler and Knowles, 5/17)
NPR: 'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli Denied Release From Prison To Research Coronavirus Cure
In her ruling Saturday, U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto sided with probation officials who described Shkreli's stated aim of developing a coronavirus cure as the type of "delusional self-aggrandizing behavior" that got him his sentence in the first place. "The court does not find that releasing Mr. Shkreli will protect the public, even though Mr. Shkreli seeks to leverage his experience with pharmaceuticals to help develop a cure for COVID-19 that he would purportedly provide at no cost," Matsumoto wrote in the nine-page ruling. (Slotkin, 5/17)
