The Hill: Judge Rejects Attempt To Enshrine Abortion Rights On Nevada Ballot
A judge in Nevada rejected a proposed 2024 ballot initiative that sought to enshrine reproductive rights, including abortion, in the state’s constitution. Siding with a newly established PAC — the Coalition for Parents and Children PAC — which filed a lawsuit last month to block the petition, District Judge James T. Russell deemed the proposed ballot initiative to be too broad, embracing a “multitude of subjects that amount to logrolling.” (Shepherd, 11/23)

The Hill: 5 States Where The Abortion Fight Is Likely To Play Out Next
Ohioans passed a proposed constitutional amendment earlier this month that enshrines abortion rights protections — seen as a major feat in a state that has trended increasingly red in recent years.  Abortion rights advocates are now looking to amend state constitutions in states such as Nevada, Arizona and Florida in an effort to establish or strengthen existing abortion protections — an effort that could energize Democrats’ base of voters in a critical presidential election year. (Vakil, 11/25)

Ohio Capital Journal: Ohio Catholic Bishops Spent Big On Failed Effort To Defeat Abortion-Rights Amendment 
Ohio’s Catholic bishops spent $1.7 million in an attempt to defeat an abortion-rights measure that passed easily on Nov. 7, according to an analysis by a group of Catholics that urges the church to change its stance on the issue. The expenditure mostly comes from donations by a laity most of whom disagree with the bishops’ stance that abortion is wrong in just about every circumstance. (Schladen, 11/27)

KFF Health News: Progressive And Anti-Abortion? New Group Plays Fast And Loose To Make Points
This summer pedestrians, drivers, and passengers in Washington, D.C., saw a new type of graffiti among the usual urban scrawls: anti-abortion advocacy designed to troll this ultra-blue city. On sidewalks, on bridge overpasses, and near Metro stations some people had stenciled or spray-painted missives like “Be Gay: Ban Abortion” and, in stylized lettering, “Abortion Is Murder.” The messaging was likely a shock in Washington. The graffiti reflects part of a surprising segment of the ideological spectrum: anti-abortion using the language of the radical left. (Tahir, 11/27)

In other reproductive health news —

KFF Health News: Backlash To Affirmative Action Hits Pioneering Maternal Health Program For Black Women
For Briana Jones, a young Black mother in San Francisco, a city program called the Abundant Birth Project has been a godsend. Designed to counter the “obstetric racism” that researchers say leads a disproportionate number of African American mothers to die from childbirth, the project has provided 150 pregnant Black and Pacific Islander San Franciscans a $1,000 monthly stipend. (Cohen, 11/24)

Florida Today: What's New In Florida Department Of Health COVID Reports After The Lawsuit? What's Missing?
After settling a public records lawsuit for COVID data, the Florida Department of Health has launched a new COVID database with years worth of data. What information has been added? Is anything missing? Here's a look at the new data. (Bridges, 11/27)

Tallahassee Democrat: Florida COVID Numbers: How The State Has Changed Reports Over The Years
In October 2023, the Florida Department of Health changed how it reports COVID cases & deaths. Again. Here's how they've changed during the pandemic. (Bridges, 11/27)

Also —

Los Angeles Times: California Vs. Florida: Surprising Which Handled COVID Better 
Amid controversies over stay-at-home and masking orders, a lasting difference between Govs. Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis' approach may end up being rhetoric on vaccine safety. (Lin II, Money and Greene, 11/27)

Los Angeles Times: San Francisco's COVID Death Rate Among Lowest In Nation
The San Francisco Bay Area fared better during the COVID-19 pandemic than many other largely populated areas, with a cumulative COVID-19 death rate among the lowest of the nation’s most populous counties, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis. Of the nation’s 88 counties with a population greater than 750,000 people, San Francisco and neighboring Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Mateo counties had COVID death rates among the lowest in the country. (Lin II, Money and Greene, 11/27)

More on the spread of covid —

The Wall Street Journal: Why You Are More Likely To Get Sick This Winter, In Charts
Get ready for more sickness. Covid-19 is settling in as a wintertime fixture, and infections are expected to rise again as the weather cools and holiday gatherings pile up. The virus is on a collision course with the seasonal scourges of flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which are circulating again after the pandemic disrupted their spread. (Abbott and Kamp, 11/25)

Euronews: 'It’s Not Gone. It’s Changing. It’s Killing': The COVID Variants The WHO Is Watching Closely
While the height of the pandemic may be over, the virus that causes COVID-19 continues to mutate with multiple variants circulating in every country. Yet despite this, testing and surveillance have decreased, with experts urging people to keep taking the threat of this disease seriously. "The world has moved on from COVID, and in many respects, that's good because people are able to stay protected and keep themselves safe, but this virus has not gone anywhere. It's circulating. It's changing, it's killing, and we have to keep up," Maria Van Kerkhove, the COVID-19 technical lead at the World Health Organization (WHO), told Euronews Next. (Chdwick, 11/24)

CIDRAP: Half Of COVID Survivors Still Had Symptoms At 3 Years, More Reinfections Amid Omicron
Three years after COVID-19 infection, 54% of adults in a Chinese cohort still had at least one symptom, most of them mild to moderate in severity, with higher rates of reinfection and pneumonia after the emergence of the Omicron variant, shows a study published yesterday in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. (Van Beusekom, 11/22)

CIDRAP: MRI Study Spotlights Impact Of Long COVID On The Brain
A new study comparing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images of patients with long COVID, fully recovered COVID-19 survivors, and healthy controls shows microstructural changes in different brain regions in the long-COVID patients. The findings will be presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. The research is the first to use diffusion microstructure imaging (DMI), a novel MRI technique, which looks at the movement of water molecules in tissues. DFI can detect smaller brain changes than traditional MRI. (Soucheray, 11/22)

CIDRAP: Kids Largely Left Out Of US Trials Of COVID-19 Treatments
Less than 10% of US interventional COVID-19 trials in the first 3 years of the pandemic included children, and only 1.6% enrolled them exclusively, despite this age-group accounting for 18% of infections, Harvard and Boston Children's Hospital researchers report today in JAMA Health Forum. The team identified all COVID-19 trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov from January 2020 to December 2022. They noted that children have been underrepresented in clinical research owing to ethical, logistical, and financial reasons. (Van Beusekom, 11/22)

Stat: WHO: Fears About Respiratory Infections In China Appear Overblown
Reports this week that China is experiencing a surge in respiratory infections in young children triggered flashbacks of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic among infectious disease watchers. But a rapidly organized meeting Thursday between the World Health Organization and health officials in China assuaged much of that concern. (Branswell, 11/24)

Axios: Respiratory Virus In China Not Thought To Be Novel Pathogen, Officials Say
China's government has provided evidence that a cluster of respiratory infections that has sent scores of kids to hospitals in northern China is not from a "novel pathogen," according to World Health Organization officials. Earlier this week, WHO released a statement saying it made an official request to China for detailed information — including laboratory results — about an increase in reported clusters of respiratory illness in children. (Reed, 11/24)

Reuters: China's Respiratory Illness Surge Not As High As Pre-Pandemic - WHO Official
Maria Van Kerkhove, acting director of the WHO's department of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, said the increase appeared to be driven by a rise in the number of children contracting pathogens that two years of COVID restrictions have kept them away from. "We asked about comparisons prior to the pandemic. And the waves that they’re seeing now, the peak is not as high as what they saw in 2018-2019," Van Kerkhove told health news outlet STAT in an interview on Friday. (Silver, 11/27)

In related news about flu and other outbreaks—

WMFE: Florida Kids Aren't Getting Their Flu Vaccines, CDC Data Shows
As families gather for the Thanksgiving holiday, North America is seeing the beginnings of increased flu activity. However, in Florida, children’s vaccine levels are lagging behind the rest of the nation. The Sunshine State's pediatric vaccine levels (ages 6 months to 17 years) are about 22%, lagging behind the national average of 56% for children overall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Pedersen, 11/24)

CIDRAP: Mucinex Launches Campaign To Raise Awareness About Antibiotic Misuse
The maker of a popular over-the-counter cold and flu medicine this week launched a new campaign to help counter inappropriate antibiotic use. The "Flip the Scrip" campaign from Reckitt, maker of Mucinex, aims to educate consumers about antibiotic misuse and the role it plays in promoting antibiotic resistance. The company will provide posters, educational materials, educational videos, and audio public service announcements to urgent care clinics and primary care centers that explain why products like Mucinex, rather than antibiotics, are the best option for treating cold and flu symptoms. (Dall, 11/22)

The New York Times: Unvaccinated And Vulnerable: Children Drive Surge In Deadly Outbreaks
Large outbreaks of diseases that primarily kill children are spreading around the world, a grim legacy of disruptions to health systems during the Covid-19 pandemic that have left more than 60 million children without a single dose of standard childhood vaccines. By midway through this year, 47 countries were reporting serious measles outbreaks, compared with 16 countries in June 2020. Nigeria is currently facing the largest diphtheria outbreak in its history, with more than 17,000 suspected cases and nearly 600 deaths so far. Twelve countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, are reporting circulating polio virus. (Nolen, 11/25)

Axios: Two Deaths Tied To Recalled Cantaloupe, CDC Says
Two people have died in Minnesota and 45 people have been hospitalized due to an outbreak of salmonella tied to cantaloupe and cut fruit, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. In total, at least 99 people across 32 states have been sickened in this outbreak, the CDC said. (Reed, 11/24)

AP: FDA Expands Cantaloupe Recall After Salmonella Infections Double In A Week
U.S. health officials recalled three more brands of whole and pre-cut cantaloupes Friday as the number of people sickened by salmonella more than doubled this week. Nearly 100 people in 32 states have gotten sick from the contaminated fruits. Arizona, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ohio have the highest number of cases. Two people have died of the infections in Minnesota, and 45 people are hospitalized nationwide. (Shastri, 11/24)

In other health alerts —

The Washington Post: How One Rabid Kitten Triggered Massive Effort To Contain Deadly Disease
At first, Madeline Wahl thought her new kitten was having a bad reaction to medication for ringworm. After each dose, he would shake his head and flail his legs. She and her husband, Rich, had brought the kitten to their house in a historic neighborhood in Omaha after a friend found the stray meowing in her driveway. About 5 weeks old and barely two pounds, the cuddly black-and-white animal looked like he was wearing a tuxedo. The Wahls named him Stanley. (Sun, 11/26)

CBS News: Norovirus Outbreak Linked To Burrito Special For Northwestern Students
A deal for $1 burritos at a downtown Evanston restaurant turned out to be bad news for Northwestern students and Evanston residents. The Evanston Health and Human Services Department warned Wednesday that it was tracking a norovirus outbreak linked to the burrito special. The department is investigating the outbreak along with Northwestern University. (Gonzalez and Harrington, 11/23)

CBS News: FDA Warns About Neptune's Fix Tianeptine Supplements After Reports Of Seizures, Hospitalizations
The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use or purchase any products from the supplement brand called Neptune's Fix after receiving multiple reports of severe reactions, including seizures and hospitalizations. The FDA says it is testing samples for illegal and harmful ingredients. Neptune's Fix supplements purport to contain tianeptine, an opioid alternative prescribed as an antidepressant in some Latin American, Asian and European countries. Tianeptine is not approved for use in the U.S. (Tin, 11/22)

CNN: Recalled Applesauce Pouches Still On Some Store Shelves, FDA Says, As More Illnesses Reported
Cinnamon applesauce pouches that have been recalled after reports of high blood lead levels in children are still on the shelves at some Dollar Tree stores, the US Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. (Dillinger, 11/22)

Politico: No One’s Promising You Can Keep Your Doctor Anymore 
President Barack Obama famously told Americans they could keep their doctors. At the rate things are going, it won’t be long before many Americans don’t have one in the first place — at least not the way they’re used to. The math is simple: Medical schools just aren’t churning out doctors fast enough to keep pace with the population. (Payne and Schumaker, 11/26)

Axios: Trump Says He's "Seriously Looking" At Obamacare Alternatives
Former President Trump revealed that he's "seriously looking at alternatives" to the Affordable Care Act, calling the failure to repeal and replace Obamacare during his administration "a low point for the Republican Party." Ahead of last year's midterms, Republicans effectively gave up on campaigning to kill the ACA — acknowledging that the program was popular and fully embedded in the U.S. health care system. (Basu, 11/26)

KFF Health News: Health Care Is Front And Center As DeSantis And Newsom Go Mano A Mano
Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — political rivals from opposite coasts and proxies for red and blue America — are set to square off for a first-of-its-kind debate Nov. 30 in Georgia. Newsom, a liberal firebrand in his second term as governor of California, isn’t running for president in 2024. But he goaded DeSantis, in his second term as governor of Florida, to go mano a mano. “I’ll bring my hair gel. You bring your hairspray,” he taunted on social media. (Chang and Hart, 11/27)

ProPublica: Health Insurers Are Denying Claims Despite Breaking State Laws
Over the last four decades, states have enacted hundreds of laws dictating precisely what insurers must cover so that consumers aren’t driven into debt or forced to go without medicines or procedures. But health plans have violated these mandates at least dozens of times in the last five years, ProPublica found. ... On Wednesday, a ProPublica investigation traced how a Michigan company would not pay for an FDA-approved cancer medication for a patient, Forrest VanPatten, even though a state law requires insurers to cover cancer drugs. (Miller and Fields, 11/24)

USA Today: Cigna Denies Vanderbilt Lung Transplant For Cancer Patient
A large health insurance company said it made an error when it denied coverage this week to a 47-year-old woman as she prepared to undergo a double-lung transplant to treat her lung cancer. The woman, Carole Taylor, was summoned to Vanderbilt University Medical Center Tuesday when the hospital found a donor match for a double lung transplant. As the transplant team prepared her for the procedure, she was informed the insurance company, Cigna Healthcare, had denied the transplant. Instead of getting a pair of donor lungs, Taylor was sent home and deactivated from the transplant waitlist. (Alltucker, 11/24)

On Medicare Advantage —

Politico: 'It Was Stunning': Bipartisan Anger Aimed At Medicare Advantage Care Denials
Enrollment in Medicare’s private-sector alternative is surging — and so are the complaints to Congress. More than 30 million older Americans are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, wooed by lower premiums and more benefits than traditional Medicare offers. But a bipartisan group of lawmakers is increasingly concerned that insurance companies are preying on seniors, and, in some cases, denying care that would otherwise be approved by traditional Medicare. (King, 11/24)

Modern Healthcare: Medicare Advantage Marketing Limits Could Shake Up Markets
Stricter rules governing Medicare Advantage marketing may offer smaller health insurance companies an opportunity to snatch market share from dominant players such as Humana and UnitedHealthcare. Large health insurance companies have employed generous and creative broker and agent compensation strategies to gain and hold members. Some smaller rivals that may lack the resources to match that approach believe limits the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wants to establish on those practices could benefit them. (Tepper, 11/22)

In other health care industry news —

The Wall Street Journal: Hot Healthcare Hiring Bolsters Cooling U.S. Labor Market
A healthcare hiring boom is helping offset weaker job growth in other areas of the softening U.S. economy, boosting its chances of skirting a recession. The industry could serve as a strong job generator for years to come as an aging population and Covid-19 fuel widespread worker shortages and greater needs for healthcare services. (Guilford and Rubin, 11/26)

Bloomberg: Amazon Bets On One Medical After Past Health-Care Initiatives Sputter
Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime membership program began with speedy shipping, then video streaming. The latest perk—discounted access to a virtual doctor—is being pitched as another win for customers: medical care delivered as seamlessly as tube socks and television shows. But it’s a capitulation of sorts. Having spent almost a decade and billions of dollars trying to re-invent American health care, Amazon has settled on a decidedly traditional approach. (Day and Bennett, 11/27)

Reuters: Sanofi Looks To Widen Dupixent Use To Treat 'Smoker's Lung' After Second Trial Win
Sanofi plans to seek U.S. approval for it best-selling anti-inflammatory drug Dupixent to be used in the treatment of "smoker's lung", also known as COPD, after a second large trial showed significant benefits. Sanofi, which is collaborating on the drug with Regeneron, said in a statement on Monday that a second Dupixent phase 3 trial for COPD, short for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, showed the drug reduced exacerbations of the disease by 34%. (Burger, 11/27)

In other pharmaceutical news —

Reuters: GSK's Blood Cancer Drug Meets Primary Goal In Late-Stage Trial
GSK said on Monday that its blood cancer drug Blenrep had reached a key goal in a late-stage trial, potentially providing a boost to the British drugmaker's cancer unit after a series of setbacks. The drug, when combined with existing drug bortezomib plus steroid dexamethasone, significantly extended the time before the disease progressed, or the patients died, in those suffering from relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma - the third most common type of blood cancer which is considered difficult to treat. (11/27)

CIDRAP: Chlorine-Based Cleaner Ineffective Against C Diff, Study Finds
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Plymouth and published in the journal Microbiology, examined the effect of clinical concentrations of sodium hypochlorite disinfectant (NaOCL) on C difficile spores, which can survive on hospital surfaces for months. C difficile is the leading cause of healthcare-associated diarrhea, and causes an estimated 29,000 deaths in the United States and 8,382 in Europe each year. While chlorine-releasing agents are used in the disinfection of fluid spills, blood, and feces in UK hospitals, recent studies have found signs of emerging sporicidal resistance. (Dall, 11/22)

CBS News: Roseville Biopharmaceutical Company Offers Money For Stool Donations
You've heard about donating blood, plasma, or even organs. But there's a bio-pharmaceutical company in Roseville that's offering money for people to donate their stool. Ignacio Cabrera helps lead Rebiotix's donor program, in which people drop by to drop off a donation; people poop in one of their bathrooms and then get paid for it. "We're really embracing the awkwardness of this. It's uncomfortable to speak about poop - just saying poop sometimes is awkward, it's funny, but it's helpful here," he said. (Wagner, 11/22)

Bloomberg: How Much Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk Spend On Advertising Mounjaro, Ozempic, Wegovy
Weight-loss drugs are everywhere these days. At the Oscars earlier this year, host Jimmy Kimmel worked Ozempic into his opening monologue. Ads for Wegovy have become a regular feature of the New York City subway system. And Zepbound, a new weight-loss drug making its US debut any day now, is entering a market where it’s all but guaranteed to become an overnight success. But the typical TV ads and catchy jingles aren’t what’s behind the frenzy over appetite-suppressing drugs from Novo Nordisk A/S and Eli Lilly & Co. Big Pharma, in fact, has hardly had to lift a finger. (Muller and Li,. 11/27)

Axios: The Big Question About Obesity Drugs: Can People Ever Stop Taking Them?
There's an emerging debate around a popular class of anti-obesity drugs: whether patients who go on them can ever expect to stop taking them. The drugs represent an important shift in treating obesity as a chronic disease, but that has costly implications. Much of the tension around the drugs' long-term use is being driven by the insurers paying for them and clinicians who prescribe them. (Reed, 11/27)

Also —

CNBC: Why The American Red Cross Makes Money From Donated Blood
The American Red Cross has long been recognized as the universal symbol of humanitarian services —and it’s an expensive operation. In 2022, the American Red Cross generated more than $3.2 billion in operating revenue and spent just over $3 billion in expenses the same year, according to its financial statements. Contributions only make up about a third of the organization’s revenue. (Lee, 11/26)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Injects Billions To Close Mental Health Care Gaps In Rural Areas
Three times a week, Potter County Judge Nancy Tanner holds hearings for people to determine whether they should be placed in a mental health hospital. Since she was elected in 2014, she has seen many of the same people cycle in and out of her courtroom — a long-running marathon of familiar faces who either don’t want help or get it, and still end up back in Tanner’s presence. When she doesn’t see them again, she quietly hopes they find help on their own. Unfortunately, Tanner is acutely aware of what can happen if they don’t. (Carver, 11/22)

Houston Chronicle: New Sugar Land Nursing Program To Welcome First Students In January
The University of St. Thomas opened its third Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program site in Sugar Land. “As Texas and the nation continue to experience a nursing shortage, we recognize the need to grow enrollment in our undergraduate nursing program in a way that provides accessibility for anyone in the Houston area interested in our program,” Dr. Claudine Dufrene, the university’s executive dean and associate professor, said in a statement. (Varma, 11/24)

In other health news from across the U.S. —

The Tennessean: Tennessee Nursing Homes: After COVID, Standard Care Has Only Worsened
Tennessee has seen an alarming jump in nursing homes with serious deficiencies, and advocates worry the quality of long-term care has plummeted. (Puente, 11/26)

The Boston Globe: New Mass. Health Standards Promise Equity In Local Health
During the worst of the pandemic, Shin-Yi Lao, then Newton’s only public health nurse, at times fell into despair as she juggled testing, contact tracing, and data analysis amid a daily flood of new COVID-19 cases. Almost four years later, the pandemic’s extraordinary demands have faded, yet Newton’s health department still struggles to keep up with some basic functions. Those include conducting inspections for pools, housing, and restaurants, said Lao, now the city’s director of public health services. (Laughlin, 11/26)

CBS News: Rochester Substance Abuse Center's Licenses Revoked Over Safety Concerns
A southern Minnesota substance abuse treatment center's license has been revoked Wednesday due to safety concerns. Olmsted County revoked public lodging, food and beverage licenses from Oakridge Treatment Center in Haverhill Township near Rochester after the Public Health Services Advisory Board declared the facility a public health nuisance earlier in the month. Concerns regarding the treatment center include a "disproportionate number of reported overdoses and calls for service" as well as other pending investigations. (Moser, 11/22)

New Haven Independent: New Haven Area Will Receive $10M Grant To Combat Opioid Epidemic
Roughly $10 million in federal aid will flow to the New Haven area over the next five years to help municipal health departments take a regional approach in combating the opioid epidemic through the hiring of 10 case-management ​“navigators” and the cross-town sharing of overdose data. This aid comes as the number of overdose deaths in 2022 reached 490 in New Haven county, including 128 in the city itself. (Breen, 11/25)

Politico: ‘This Guy Is A Charlatan’: University Of Florida Turns Against Joe Ladapo
Professors at the University of Florida had high hopes for Joseph Ladapo. But they quickly lost faith in him. In 2021, the university was fast-tracking him into a tenured professorship as part of his appointment as Florida’s surgeon general. Ladapo, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pick for the state’s top medical official, dazzled them with his Harvard degree and work as a research professor at New York University and UCLA. (Sarkissian, 11/26)

Chicago Tribune: How One Chicagoan Helps Migrant Children With Disabilities
Keinymar Avila, a tiny 7-year-old with microcephaly who has never been separated from her mother, curled up in the arms of a woman she’d recently met. Her mother, Yamile Perez, glanced over at her daughter to make sure all was well as she attended a virtual meeting with Chicago Public Schools officials who were evaluating Keinymar’s needs. It is not easy to let someone else hold your child, especially if your child requires special medical care. No one knows this better than the person cradling the girl, Mary Otts-Rubenstein, a Lakeview resident who has her own child with disabilities. (Salzman, 11/26)

Axios: What Causes Itch? Study Finds Skin Bacteria Linked To Eczema Triggers Itchiness
Scientists researching what causes an itch in skin conditions such as eczema and dermatitis have made a major breakthrough. The research that has for the first time shown that bacteria can cause itch by activating nerve cells in the skin could help with treating itches that occur in inflammatory skin conditions, per Harvard Medical School scientists whose study was published in the journal Cell on Wednesday. (Falconer, 11/23)

NPR: What Can Trigger An Itch? Scientists Have Found A New Culprit
If you've got itchy skin, it could be that a microbe making its home on your body has produced a little chemical that's directly acting on your skin's nerve cells and triggering the urge to scratch. That's the implication of some new research that shows how a certain bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus, can release an enzyme that generates an itchy feeling. What's more, a drug that interferes with this effect can stop the itch in laboratory mice, according to a new report in the journal Cell. (Greenfieldboyce, 11/22)

In other health research —

CNN: Air Pollution From Coal-Fired Plants Is Much More Deadly Than Originally Thought, Study Finds
No pollution is good for anyone’s health, but a new study found that scientists may have significantly underestimated just how deadly pollution from coal-fired plants can be. It also shows how tighter regulations can work. The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that exposure to fine particulate air pollution from coal-fired plants is associated with a mortality risk that is 2.1 times greater than that of particle pollution from other sources. (Christensen, 11/23)

Stat: Liver Injury In Black Americans May Be Connected To Lead Exposure
Nearly a decade on, the Flint water crisis still looms large in the minds of environmental toxin researchers. It was — and continues to be — evidence that not all communities in the United States are equally affected by environmental pollutants. (Cueto, 11/27)

The Washington Post: Nearly 1 in 5 adolescents now using melatonin to sleep, researchers say
Regular use of melatonin to help kids sleep has become “exceedingly common,” with nearly 1 in 5 adolescents (19 percent) using it, according to research published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. (Searing, 11/27)

The Washington Post: Small Study Tracks Physiological Effects Of ‘Zoom Fatigue’
Does a session on Zoom, FaceTime or Microsoft Teams leave you drained and listless? You’re not the only one: Since videoconferencing skyrocketed in popularity with the early days of the pandemic, use of such technology has soared. So have anecdotal accounts of a phenomenon some call “Zoom fatigue” — a unique state of exhaustion reported by those who feel wrung out after video calls. A recent brain-monitoring study supports the phenomenon, finding a connection between videoconferencing in educational settings and physical symptoms linked to fatigue. (Blakemore, 11/25)

The New York Times: U.S. Troops Still Train On Weapons With Known Risk Of Brain Injury
A blast shattered the stillness of a meadow in the Ozark Mountains on an autumn afternoon. Then another, and another, and another, until the whole meadow was in flames. Special Operations troops were training with rocket launchers again. Each operator held a launch tube on his shoulder, a few inches from his head, then took aim and sent a rocket flying at 500 miles an hour. And each launch sent a shock wave whipping through every cell in the operator’s brain. (Philipps, 11/26)

USA Today: Whole Grains Might Help With Dementia, Alzheimer's, New Study Suggests
Older Black adults who ate more whole grains appeared to have decreased memory loss as they aged, according to a study released Wednesday. Researchers at RUSH University Medical Center, in Chicago, found an association among elderly Black residents who consumed more daily servings of whole grains – such as a slice of dark bread for one serving – with lower levels of memory decline. This equated to being more than eight years younger than those who ate smaller amounts of whole grain. (Cuevas, 11/22)

USA Today: Medical Treatment Designed For One Patient May Be The Future For Many
Imagine you or your child gets a diagnosis so rare no one else on Earth is known to have it. Doctors can do nothing but predict a terrible downward spiral followed by death. That's the situation Luke Rosen and Sally Jackson found themselves in when their daughter Susannah was diagnosed in 2016 with an ultra-rare genetic condition. They were told their daughter, who has a mutation in a gene called KIF1A, had about five years before her condition would begin affecting her beyond repair. At year six, they met a man named Stanley Crooke who promised to develop a medication just for Susannah. (Weintraub, 11/26)

The Boston Globe: ‘It’s A Very Human Condition’: Researchers Seek Answers To Mystery Of Autism, In Blood
Dr. Jacob Hooker was stunned: There were only 45. Among the 145,000 people who had agreed to provide blood for research at Mass General Brigham since it began collecting samples in 2010, only 45 had autism. Hooker, scientific director of the Lurie Center for Autism at Massachusetts General Hospital, wants to identify subtypes of autism to better target research and treatment, but he couldn’t do much with so few samples. He fears that other scientists will also be discouraged. (Freyer, 11/22)

KFF Health News: Many Autoimmune Disease Patients Struggle With Diagnosis, Costs, Inattentive Care 
After years of debilitating bouts of fatigue, Beth VanOrden finally thought she had an answer to her problems in 2016 when she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disorder. For her and millions of other Americans, that’s the most common cause of hypothyroidism, a condition in which the thyroid, a butterfly-shaped gland in the neck, doesn’t produce enough of the hormones needed for the body to regulate metabolism. (Miller, 11/27)

KFF Health News: How The Thyroid Gland Mystifies Doctors And Patients
About 25 years ago, Andy Miller learned he had hypothyroidism, a condition that afflicts millions of other Americans. Curious about how this condition was affecting others, the KFF Health News journalist interviewed endocrinologists who treat hypothyroidism and several patients who live with it. Their stories revealed how mystifying thyroid and autoimmune conditions can be. (Tempest and Miller, 11/27)

The Washington Post: Wegovy, Zepbound And Other Weight-Loss Drugs Should Be Available To All 
The medical sensation of the decade is a set of drugs that help people slim down. With weekly injections, people can drop 15 percent to more than 22 percent of their body weight on average, often 40, 50 pounds — or more. No safe medicine or any other weight-loss strategy except surgery has been so effective. (11/26)

USA Today: Will AI And ChatGPT Replace Doctors Like Me On The Other End Of The Stethoscope?
As a hospital-based physician, almost every day, I have to break the terrible news to patients that they have cancer. It’s never an easy conversation, and there’s no set script to do so gently and empathically. A doctor with a good bedside manner may deliver the diagnosis similarly to the voice in the introduction; however, that compassion was not spoken by an actual human, but instead generated by ChatGPT-4, an “artificial intelligence.” (Dr. Thomas K. Lew, 11/27)

Bloomberg: Covid Public Health Mistakes Fueled Mistrust In Scientists 
During the pandemic years, Americans’ trust in scientists fell, according to a Pew poll released this month. In 2019, only 13% of Americans were distrustful enough to say they weren’t confident in scientists to act in the public’s best interest. Now that figure is 27% — despite recent triumphs in astronomy, cancer research, genetics and other fields. (F.D. Flam, 11/26)

The New York Times: ‘My Patient Did Not Have To Die The Way She Did’
In the fall of 2021, a soft-spoken woman in her 60s came to the emergency room where I worked, complaining of pain in her foot. When I examined her, I could see that I would need to amputate the infected leg immediately, or she risked sepsis and death. I amputated her leg that night. She died 14 months later. (Anahita Dua, 11/27)

Stat: Poor Hospice Wound Care Hurts Patients And Families
A few years ago, I worked with a patient close to 100 years old. She had diabetes for most of her adult life, which affected circulation in her foot. Without circulation to her foot, it turned black, and then her calf turned black. In this stage of deterioration, no one is talking about treating metabolic disease; often, patients even stop checking their blood sugar. But, the impact of metabolic disease on the body complicates end-of-life care, with wounds as a factor. (Julie Roskamp, 11/24)

Stat: The Next Census Could Radically Undercount Disabled Americans 
About 20 million disabled people will be erased if the U.S. Census Bureau moves forward with changes to disability data collection methods. That is because many disabled people will no longer be counted as disabled by the new questions the Census is proposing to use starting in 2025 with the annual American Community Survey (ACS). (Bonnielin Swenor and Scott Landes, 11/27)

Scientific American: 'A Shot In The Arm' Documentary Treats Vaccine Denialism With A Dose Of Empathy 
Global vaccination trends are telling us both good news and bad news stories, nearly four years after the start of a global pandemic. On the plus side, some childhood immunizations have begun recovering to pre-COVID rates. Against that, almost half of the 73 countries that reported pandemic-related declines in vaccine rates have either flatlined or continue to drop. Also on the downside, UNICEF reported earlier this year that public trust in vaccinations had eroded worldwide. (Keith Kloor, 11/22)