The New York Times: North Carolina Legislature Reapproves Abortion Ban, Overriding Governor’s Veto
North Carolina’s Republican-dominated legislature upheld a bill Tuesday night that will ban most abortions after 12 weeks, overriding the Democratic governor’s recent veto of the new restrictions. The success of the override was a victory for Republicans and a critical test of their new, but slim, supermajority. The vote, taken in both chambers in back-to-back sessions, means a dramatic change for abortion access in North Carolina, where abortion is currently legal up to 20 weeks. The vote also restricts access for women across the South, some of whom have traveled to North Carolina for abortions from states where the procedure is largely banned. The new law is set to take effect July 1. (Kelly, 5/16)

Billings Gazette: Gianforte Signs More Abortion Bills, Vetoes Another
Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte on Tuesday signed into law more bills to limit access to abortions in Montana, including one policy opponents renewed a previously filed lawsuit against. The governor also vetoed a bill that sits squarely in the middle of a decade-long legal battle over parental involvement in a minor child’s abortion decision, saying he thought it improperly limited parental rights. (Michels, 5/16)

AP: Montana Abortion Clinics Ask Judge To Block Law That Bans Second-Trimester Abortion Method 
Planned Parenthood of Montana on Tuesday asked a state judge to temporarily block a law that bans the abortion method most commonly used after 15 weeks of gestation, arguing it is unconstitutional. The organization filed the complaint over the law to ban dilation and evacuation abortions just hours after Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s office announced he had signed the bill. (Hanson, 5/16)

Roll Call: Republicans Weigh Changes To Law Meant To Protect Abortion Access
The chairman of a House Judiciary subcommittee said Tuesday that Republicans could pursue changes to a 1994 law meant to protect access to reproductive health care clinics. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., made the comments at the outset of a hearing on the so-called FACE Act, where the parties clashed over the issue of abortion and heard about clinic access, firebombings, FBI oversight and food stamps. (Macagnone, 5/16)

On the abortion pill case —

The New York Times: Supreme Court Decision On Abortion Pills: What To Know And What Comes Next
A federal appeals court in New Orleans is expected to weigh in on whether a commonly used pill, mifepristone, should remain widely available. Here is what’s at stake. (VanSickle and Belluck, 5/17)

The New York Times: How a 150-Year-Old Law Against Lewdness Became a Key to the Abortion Fight
The resurrection of the Comstock Act is part of a larger legal effort by abortion opponents to force abortion pills off the market. The central battle currently is a lawsuit, brought by a consortium of anti-abortion organizations and doctors in Texas, which has already made a brief stop at the Supreme Court and is now scheduled for argument on Wednesday before a federal appeals court. (Bazelon, 5/16)

In other reproductive health news —

The Washington Post: Abortion Laws Triggered Dozens Of Health Complications, New Report Says
A new report has identified dozens of examples in which medical providers say pregnant patients received care in the past year that deviated from care they would have received before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — a sign, researchers said, of a pattern of serious health complications triggered by abortion bans. While no nationwide data has yet emerged to show the extent of these complications, the report, being released Tuesday by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco and shared with The Washington Post, offers a first-of-its-kind summary of anonymized examples from medical providers across the country. (Kitchener, 5/16)

The New York Times: Many Women Have An Intense Fear Of Childbirth, Survey Suggests 
An online survey of nearly 1,800 American women found that in the early days of the pandemic, tokophobia may have affected the majority of American women: 62 percent of pregnant respondents reported high levels of fear and worry about childbirth. The results were published last month in the journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health. (Rabin, 5/16)

KFF Health News: Listen To The Latest ‘KFF Health News Minute’ 
On the KFF Health News Minute this week: Artificial intelligence is coming to dinner, and why maternity wards are closing in states with anti-abortion laws. (5/16)

NBC News: Tougher Work Requirements For Federal Aid Programs Pose Obstacle In Debt Limit Talks
As House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden seek an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, Republican demands to impose tougher work requirements for federal aid programs have emerged as an obstacle to finding consensus. The debt ceiling bill House Republicans passed last month, which was negotiated between GOP members and approved along party lines, would expand work requirements for some federal aid programs, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, a program that provides grocery aid. The proposal has drawn a backlash from many Democrats who oppose such provisions. (Kapur and Doyle, 5/16)

Military.Com: Republicans Vow To Boost Veteran Spending Amid Debt Ceiling Fight 
The Department of Veterans Affairs would get an $18 billion budget bump next year under a plan released by House Republicans on Tuesday amid a knockdown, drag-out political fight over raising the U.S. debt ceiling. The GOP bill would give the VA about $153 billion in discretionary funding in 2024, up from $135 billion that the department got this year -- and slightly above the $143 billion the Biden administration requested for next year. (Kheel, 5/16)

The Washington Post: Negotiators See Progress On Debt Ceiling, As Biden’s Liberal Allies Worry
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sounded confident that an agreement could be reached ahead of a June 1 deadline to raise the nation’s borrowing limit or risk a global economic catastrophe. Biden gave a similar assessment, though major differences remain between the two sides before a deal can be struck. (Stein, Siegel, Sotomayor and Goodwin, 5/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Democrats To Launch Discharge Petition, Aiming To Force Debt-Ceiling Vote
House Democrats plan to begin collecting signatures Wednesday for a discharge petition to raise the debt ceiling, a long-shot parliamentary maneuver designed to circumvent House Republican leadership and force a vote. (Wise, 5/17)

AP: Job Cuts, No Social Security Checks: How Consumers Could Be Pinched By A US Government Default 
All the hand-wringing in Washington over raising the debt limit can seem far removed from the lives of everyday Americans, but they could end up facing huge consequences. Millions of people in the U.S. rely on benefits that could go unpaid and services that could be disrupted, or halted altogether, if the government can’t pay its bills for an extended period. If the economy tanked due to default, more than 8 million people could lose their jobs, government officials estimate. The economy could nosedive into a recession. (Superville, 5/16)

Reuters: White House Wants To Improve Access To Opioid Overdose Reversal Medication
President Joe Biden's administration is seeking to meet with the makers of the life-saving medication naloxone used to reverse opioid overdoses, in an effort to increase access and reduce cost, a spokesperson for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said. (5/17)

The Guardian: Oxford University Cuts Ties With Sackler Family Over Links With Opioids 
The University of Oxford will cut its ties with the Sackler family, whose wealth came from addictive opioid drugs, removing the family’s name from buildings, galleries and positions funded through their donations. ... The move follows sustained criticism of Oxford’s retention of the names, as major institutions such as the British Museum and the V&A removed Sackler titles after recognition that the funding was connected with the family’s ownership of the now bankrupt Purdue Pharma, manufacturers of the addictive OxyContin painkiller. (Adams, 5/16)

AP: Nevada Secures $152 Million Opioid Settlement With Pharmacy Chain CVS
Nevada and pharmacy chain CVS have reached a nearly $152 million settlement to be paid over the next decade to end a lawsuit over opioid claims, state Attorney General Aaron Ford announced Tuesday. “CVS negotiated in good faith,” Ford said at a news conference in Carson City. “Their work with the state of Nevada ... will help our state tackle the opioid problem.” (Stern, 5/16)

AP: Vending Machines Are The Latest Tool For Fighting Opioid Overdoses 
Vending machines that have long been stocked with snacks are getting repurposed to distribute life-saving supplies to help fight the opioid epidemic. A growing number of cities and local governments are making so-called “harm reduction” items, including the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, available for free via machines. (Perrone, 5/15)

Also —

AP: New Washington Law Keeps Drugs Illegal, Boosts Resources For Housing And Treatment
Washington lawmakers approved and Gov. Jay Inslee quickly signed a major new drug policy Tuesday that keeps controlled substances illegal while boosting resources to help those struggling with addiction. A compromise reached a day earlier by Democratic and Republican leaders sought to bridge a gap between liberals who believe drugs should be decriminalized and conservatives who insist the threat of jail is necessary to force people into treatment. (Komeda and Johnson, 5/17)

Billings Gazette: Mandatory Minimums For Fentanyl Dealers Signed Into Law
Gov. Greg Gianforte this week signed a bill into law establishing mandatory minimums and higher criminal penalties for drug dealers trafficking specifically in fentanyl. State law enforcement officials who testified in support of House Bill 791 during the legislative session described fentanyl's proliferation since 2019 as "meteoric" and approaching methamphetamine's place as the state's most vexing substance. Rep. Courtenay Sprunger, a freshman Republican from Kalispell, carried the bill. (Larson, 5/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Drug Crisis: New Ads Slam City's Response To Fentanyl Epidemic
A provocative new advertising campaign that seeks to lambaste City Hall’s response to San Francisco’s fentanyl epidemic has arrived in some of the neighborhoods most affected by public drug markets. (Morris, 5/16)

NPR: Cops Say They're Being Poisoned By Fentanyl. Experts Say The Risk Is 'Extremely Low'
Last December, Officer Courtney Bannick was on the job for the Tavares, Fla., police department when she came into contact with a powder she believed was street fentanyl. The footage from another officer's body camera shows Bannick appearing to lose consciousness before being lowered to the ground by other cops. (Mann, 5/16)

CNN: Pfizer's Maternal RSV Vaccine Effective At Preventing Severe Infections In Newborns, FDA Says, But Flags Potential Risk Of Preterm Birth
Pfizer’s vaccine to protect newborns from respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, by vaccinating their moms late in pregnancy cuts the risk that infants will need to see a doctor or be admitted to the hospital with a moderate to severe infection before 6 months of age, according to a new analysis by government regulators. Many parents have been eagerly anticipating this news, particularly after last year’s long and severe RSV season. (Goodman, 5/16)

Axios: Race For RSV Shots Heats Up With Maternal Vaccine
After decades of research and multiple failed attempts, Americans could find themselves with several respiratory syncytial virus vaccines to choose from by next winter. Driving the news: FDA advisers tomorrow will weigh whether it's safe to protect infants against the respiratory virus by giving pregnant people an experimental Pfizer shot. (Gonzalez, 5/17)

CIDRAP: COVID Public Health Measures May Have Led To RSV Resurgence 
A lack of exposure to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic may have led to the global resurgence of the virus in 2022 and 2023, finds a study published yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics. (Van Beusekom, 5/16)

Fox News: New Report Suggests 'Panic Buying' Of Medications By Patients And Providers Caused Drug Shortages
As the "triple threat" of COVID-19, influenza and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) caused a spike in patients seeking medication in the winter of 2022, drug shortages were the highest they had been in five years, according to a March 2023 Senate report. In terms of what caused the shortages, a new report from the Milken Center for Public Health in Washington, D.C., suggested those shortages stemmed from individuals and providers "panic-buying" more medications than they needed amid fear and confusion. (Rudy, 5/16)

Also —

San Francisco Chronicle: Why It Could Be Harder To Avoid Getting COVID In The Future
The end of the national COVID-19 public health emergency has substantially shifted how coronavirus data is gathered and reported. The familiar, colorful community-level reports, graphs illustrating fluctuating case counts and jarring smartphone notifications that helped guide people through the first three years of the pandemic have largely disappeared. (Vaziri, 5/16)

CNN: Trust In Childhood Vaccines Holds Steady, Despite Skepticism Of Covid-19 Vaccines, Survey Finds
Divisive views on the Covid-19 vaccines haven’t shaken the broadly favorable views of routine childhood vaccines, a new survey suggests. Nearly nine out of 10 adults in the US say that the benefits of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines outweigh the risks – a share that’s remained unchanged since before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data published Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. (McPhillips, 5/16)

Stat: Depression Hits New High Among Americans, Per Survey
More than a quarter of American adults are depressed, a 10% surge from nearly a decade ago, according to the latest Gallup survey. The data come as the Biden administration tries to overhaul mental health care costs and boost the number of health care workers licensed to practice behavioral health care. Congress in this year’s budget also allotted hundreds of millions of dollars to mental health care grants and programs, many of them trained on children or substance misuse. (Owermohle, 5/17)

CNN: Chronic Pain Is Substantially More Common In The US Than Diabetes, Depression And High Blood Pressure, Study Finds
There are more new cases of chronic pain among US adults than other common long-term conditions like diabetes, depression and high blood pressure, according to a new study. The researchers say their findings “emphasize the high disease burden of chronic pain in the US adult population and the need for early management of pain.” (Dillinger, 5/16)

In other health and wellness news —

KFF Health News: Study Reveals Staggering Toll Of Being Black In America: 1.6M Excess Deaths Over 22 Years
Research has long shown that Black people live sicker lives and die younger than white people. Now a new study, published Tuesday in JAMA, casts the nation’s racial inequities in stark relief, finding that the higher mortality rate among Black Americans resulted in 1.63 million excess deaths relative to white Americans over more than two decades. (Szabo, 5/16)

The Hill: Soft Contact Lenses May Contain Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals,’ Research Finds
Many types of soft contact lenses available in the U.S. could contain toxic “forever chemicals,” new research has found. All 18 sets of soft contacts evaluated in a recent consumer study came back with various levels of organic fluorine — an indicator for the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). (Udasin, 5/16)

Axios: NIH Seeks To Unlock Secrets Of How Our Bodies Respond To Food
Federal researchers are launching a major study of how genes, lifestyle and other factors influence how the body responds to diet, to come up with better interventions when it comes to what we eat. Why it matters: Poor nutrition is a key driver of chronic disease in the United States. Yet, there remains little understanding of precisely how it impacts us on an individual level. (Reed, 5/16)

AP: YouTube’s Recommendations Send Violent And Graphic Gun Videos To 9-Year-Olds, Study Finds 
When researchers at a nonprofit that studies social media wanted to understand the connection between YouTube videos and gun violence, they set up accounts on the platform that mimicked the behavior of typical boys living in the U.S. They simulated two nine-year-olds who both liked video games. The accounts were identical, except that one clicked on the videos recommended by YouTube, and the other ignored the platform’s suggestions. The account that clicked on YouTube’s suggestions was soon flooded with graphic videos about school shootings, tactical gun training videos and how-to instructions on making firearms fully automatic. (Klepper, 5/16)

KFF Health News: Lawyer Fees Draw Scrutiny As Camp Lejeune Claims Stack Up 
David and Adair Keller started their married life together in 1977 at Camp Lejeune, a military training base on the Atlantic Coast in Jacksonville, North Carolina. David was a Marine Corps field artillery officer then, and they lived together on the base for about six months. But that sojourn had an outsize impact on their lives. Forty years later, in January 2018, Adair was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She died six months later at age 68. There’s a chance her illness was caused by toxic chemicals that seeped into the water military families at the base drank, cooked with, and washed with for decades. (Andrews, 5/17)

Modern Healthcare: Insurers, PBMs Restrict Access To Weight Loss Drugs As Demand Soars
When Tim Norfleet heard the Ohio Department of Education would pay for its workers to use anti-obesity drugs, he knew he wanted to sign up. Norfleet, 61, a federal programs specialist, said he had been mulling undergoing weight loss surgery after gaining 50 pounds since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and using a drug, combined with exercise and diet changes, seemed preferable to surgery. (Tepper, 5/16)

The Wall Street Journal: How To Get Your Health Insurance To Cover Ozempic And Other Drugs Used For Weight Loss 
If you want to take one of the buzzy drugs like Ozempic or Wegovy to lose weight, the toughest part may be finding a way to pay for it. Insurers and employers, fearing the cost of medications that list for $900 or more a month, often put up hurdles when patients seek access to one of the drugs to slim down. Yet there are ways to get your health plan to pay for your prescription, if you qualify—and some alternatives if you don’t. (Mathews and Loftus, 5/15)

The New York Times: Some Pharmacies Are Offering Unauthorized Ozempic Alternatives 
When Carrie Davis found out that her health insurance wouldn’t cover Ozempic, she sought an alternate route to getting the diabetes drug, which is increasingly being used off-label for weight loss. Ms. Davis, 55, did not have diabetes, but had gained 50 pounds during menopause and developed hypothyroidism, she said, and was eager to lose weight. After seeing someone claiming to be a doctor on TikTok saying he could help patients obtain a generic version of the medication, she reached out. After a few days and a brief video consultation with someone who introduced herself as a nurse practitioner, Ms. Davis had a prescription in hand. “It was really fast,” Ms. Davis said. (Blum, 5/16)

In other pharmaceutical news —

The New York Times: Drug Shortages Near An All-Time High, Leading To Rationing 
Thousands of patients are facing delays in getting treatments for cancer and other life-threatening diseases, with drug shortages in the United States approaching record levels. Hospitals are scouring shelves for supplies of a drug that reverses lead poisoning and for a sterile fluid needed to stop the heart for bypass surgery. Some antibiotics are still scarce following the winter flu season when doctors and patients frantically chased medicines for ailments like strep throat. Even children’s Tylenol was hard to find. (Jewett, 5/17)

NPR: Families Scramble To Find Growth Hormone Drug As Shortage Drags On
Eddie held up Bryan the Lion, a stuffed animal with its very own tiny plush injector pen and little blue stars stitched onto its fuzzy body." The stars are where we do the shots," his dad said, prompting his 4-year-old son to chime in. "Yeah! Um, this is the pen," Eddie said, as he gave the lion a few faux shots. The toy was a gift from Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company that makes Norditropin, an injectable human growth hormone drug for kids like Eddie whose bodies don't make enough of the hormone they need to grow. (Lupkin, 5/15)

CNN: Concern Grows Around US Health-Care Workforce Shortage: 'We Don't Have Enough Doctors'
There is mounting concern among some US lawmakers about the nation’s ongoing shortage of health-care workers, and the leaders of historically Black medical schools are calling for more funding to train a more diverse workforce. As of Monday, in areas where a health workforce shortage has been identified, the United States needs more than 17,000 additional primary care practitioners, 12,000 dental health practitioners and 8,200 mental health practitioners, according to data from the Health Resources & Services Administration. Those numbers are based on data that HRSA receives from state offices and health departments. (Howard, 5/16)

The CT Mirror: CT Legislators Won't Create Mandated Nurse Staff Ratios For Hospitals
Mandatory nurse staffing ratios in Connecticut’s hospitals, a lauded concept that proponents said is sorely needed as facilities face staffing shortages, will not move forward this legislative session. Instead, lawmakers are shifting their focus to bolstering hospital staffing committees, which were formed to give workers a voice in staffing plans, and creating a statewide oversight panel that will act as a mediator if problems arise. (Carlesso, 5/17)

In other health care industry news —

The New York Times: Why Undocumented Immigrants Struggle To Receive Organ Transplants
At a dialysis center in Brooklyn, Nardel Joseph used to try making friends with the other patients, until they began dying one by one. As her kidneys failed from an autoimmune disease, Ms. Joseph, 34, realized she might be next. A new kidney would offer Ms. Joseph the best hope for regaining her health, but as an undocumented immigrant who lacked health insurance, her odds of getting a kidney transplant had been close to zero. “It’s unfair,” Ms. Joseph said. (Goldstein, 5/16)

The Washington Post: 9 Tips To Help You Negotiate A Medical Bill
Each situation — and each medical bill — is different and requires its own approach to solve, said Susan Null, co-owner of Systemedic, a medical billing and patient advocacy organization. Patient advocates and attorneys who specialize in medical debt offered these tips to save on medical costs. (Bever, 5/15)

KFF Health News: An AI Chatbot May Be Your Next Therapist. Will It Actually Help Your Mental Health?
In the past few years, 10,000 to 20,000 apps have stampeded into the mental health space, offering to “disrupt” traditional therapy. With the frenzy around AI innovations like ChatGPT, the claim that chatbots can provide mental health care is on the horizon. The numbers explain why: Pandemic stresses led to millions more Americans seeking treatment. At the same time, there has long been a shortage of mental health professionals in the United States; more than half of all counties lack psychiatrists. Given the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that insurers offer parity between mental and physical health coverage, there is a gaping chasm between demand and supply. (Rosenthal, 5/17)

Modern Healthcare: Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst Fund Hippocratic AI
Hippocratic AI is the latest entrant in the generative artificial intelligence market as the new company launched Tuesday morning with $50 million in seed funding. Venture capital firms General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz are backing Hippocratic AI, which will build an industry-specific large language generative AI model for healthcare. Generative AI large language models like OpenAI's ChatGPT can converse with humans, summarize articles and write copy. (Turner, 5/16)

AP: Elizabeth Holmes Loses Latest Bid To Avoid Prison And Gets Hit With $452 Million Restitution Bill 
Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes appears to be soon bound for prison after an appeals court Tuesday rejected her bid to remain free while she tries to overturn her conviction in a blood-testing hoax that brought her fleeting fame and fortune. In another ruling issued late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila ordered Holmes to pay $452 million in restitution to the victims of her crimes. Holmes is being held jointly liable for that amount with her former lover and top Theranos lieutenant, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who is already in prison after being convicted on a broader range of felonies in a separate trial. (Liedtke, 5/16)

AP: Arizona's Governor And Attorney General Announce Crackdown On Medicaid Fraud 
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and other top state officials announced a crackdown Tuesday on Medicaid fraud, particularly honing in on illegitimate group homes. The Hobbs administration said many of those homes target tribal community members and have defrauded the state out of hundreds of millions of dollars. (5/17)

On transgender health care —

AP: Missouri Terminates Emergency Rule To Limit Trans Care For Minors, Some Adults 
Missouri officials on Tuesday abruptly terminated an unusual emergency rule proposed by the Republican attorney general that would have placed limits on transgender care for minors and some adults. The move was announced without explanation on the Missouri Secretary of State’s website, which said: “This emergency rule terminated effective May 16, 2023.” (Stafford, 5/16)

AP: Louisiana House Passes Bill To Ban Gender-Affirming Care For Minors 
Following suit with other Republican-controlled statehouses in the country, lawmakers in the Louisiana House passed a bill Tuesday that would ban gender-affirming medical care to minors, advancing the legislation to the Senate for further debate. The bill would prohibit doctors from performing “gender transition procedures” — such as hormone treatments, gender reassignment surgery or puberty-blocking drugs — on anyone under the age of 18 who is seeking treatment to “alter” their sex assigned at birth. The measure, which also establishes penalties for health professionals who provide such care, passed 71-24 mainly along party lines. (Cline, 5/16)

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

The Baltimore Sun: Study: Baltimore Children Moved From High-Poverty To Low-Poverty Areas Saw Their Asthma Improve
Children with asthma whose families participated in a Baltimore program that helped move them from high-poverty neighborhoods to low-poverty ones saw their disease get significantly better, according to a study published Tuesday. The children experienced fewer asthma attacks after moving and struggled with symptoms on fewer days — improvements on par with medication used to treat the chronic condition, said Dr. Craig Pollack, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Hopkins School of Nursing and one of the study’s lead authors. (Roberts, 5/16)

The Star Tribune: Minnesota Lawmakers Finish Marijuana Legalization Bill; Final Votes Up Next
Minnesota is poised to legalize recreational marijuana as early as this week after legislative negotiators finalized the bill and readied it for last votes in the House and Senate. A conference committee tasked with merging the House and Senate marijuana bills into one finished its work on Tuesday. Among many changes, the committee set the tax rate for cannabis products at 10%, capped home possession of marijuana flower at 2 pounds and gave cities the option of limiting the number of cannabis retailers within their limits. (Faircloth and Johnson, 5/16)

Indianapolis Star: IN Lawmakers Pledged To Lower Health Care Costs. Results Are Mixed
After threatening to take steps to curb Indiana's health care costs, considered among the highest in the nation, state legislators ended the 2023 session with mixed results. House and Senate leaders promised in a 2021 letter to Indiana's largest hospitals and insurers that if they didn't come up with a plan to bring down prices to national averages, lawmakers would have "no choice but to pursue legislation to statutorily reduce prices." (Dwyer and Rudavsky, 5/16)

KFF Health News: State Lawmakers Eye Forced Treatment To Address Overlap In Homelessness And Mental Illness
Many of the unhoused people in Portland, Oregon, live in tents pitched on sidewalks or in aging campers parked in small convoys behind grocery stores. Mental illness can be part of the story of how a person ends up homeless — or part of the price of survival on the streets, where sleep and safety are scarce. Homeless people in Multnomah County, which includes Portland, die about 30 years earlier than the average American. These grim realities have ratcheted up the pressure on politicians to do something. (Dembosky, Templeton and Feibel, 5/17)

FiercePharma: CDC Says J&J's COVID Shot No Longer Available In US
While Johnson & Johnson's adenovirus vaccine against COVID-19 never caught on like the mRNA shots from Pfizer and Moderna did, the prophylactic once carried high hopes. But now, the shot’s fate is officially sealed in the U.S. (Kansteiner, 5/16)

CIDRAP: Report Highlights G7 Progress, Gaps In Efforts To Boost Antibiotic Development 
A joint report from the World Health Organization and the Global AMR R&D Hub urges G7 countries to push harder for innovative financing mechanisms and other incentives to ensure a "robust and sustainable" supply of new antibiotics. (Dall, 5/16)

Reuters: Abbott Labs Is Sued Over PediaSure Height Claims
A New York City woman sued Abbott Laboratories on Monday, accusing the healthcare company of misleading consumers into believing its PediaSure nutrition drinks were "clinically proven" to increase children's height. (Stempel, 5/15)

ScienceDaily: A Better Route To Benzocyclobutenes, Sought-After Buildingblocks For Drugs
Scripps Research chemists have solved a long-standing problem in the field of pharmaceutical chemistry with a relatively simple and controllable method for making benzocyclobutenes (BCBs) -- a class of reactive compounds that are highly valued as building blocks for drug molecules, but have been relatively hard to access. (Scripps Research Institute, 5/11)

ScienceDaily: FDA-Approved Alzheimer's Drug Lecanemab Could Prevent Free-Floating Amyloid Beta Fibrils From Damaging The Brain 
Researchers described the structure of a special type of amyloid beta plaque protein associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) progression. Scientists showed the small aggregates of the amyloid beta protein could float through the brain tissue fluid, reaching many brain regions and disrupting local neuron functioning. The research also provided evidence that a newly approved AD treatment could neutralize these small, diffusible aggregates. (Cell Press, 5/10)

FiercePharma: ImmunityBio Gets FDA Snub On Cancer Drug, Shares Crash
ImmunityBio was hit with a complete response letter from the FDA for its bladder cancer prospect, sending the California-based company’s stock into a steep slide Thursday. (Keenan, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Make Birth Control Available Over The Counter Already 
Reproductive health advocates have long fought to make oral contraceptives available without a prescription. Their perseverance might finally be paying off: Last week, advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously in favor of granting over-the-counter status to one such medicine, Opill. (Leana S. Wen, 5/15)

Stat: Indian Drug Manufacturing Regulation Is Dangerous 
On Feb. 2, the Food & Drug Administration issued an alert warning about “Made in India” artificial eye drops that were potentially contaminated with rare drug-resistant bacteria suspected to be the cause of 55 adverse events, including three deaths and several other cases of vision loss from eye infections. (Dinesh S. Thakur and Prashant Reddy Thikkavarapu, 5/16)

Dallas Morning News: Mifepristone Plaintiffs Lack Standing
On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit hears arguments in the challenge to the FDA’s approval of mifepristone for medication abortions. But before the court reaches the controversial merits of that case, it must confirm that the plaintiffs have standing — the legal right to sue about the FDA’s approval process. (David Coale, 5/17)

USA Today: Yes, Antibiotics Can Treat STDs. But Best Prevention Is Sex Education
An already available medicine that can be taken days after a sexual encounter to help prevent infection is obviously a good thing. We definitely want less STIs circulating in the general population. (Dr. Marcos Del Rosario Santiago, 5/17)

The New York Times: Big Pharma Is Avoiding Taxes, And Trump’s Tax Reforms Made It Worse 
The U.S. health care system, unlike health systems in other countries, isn’t set up to bargain with drug companies for lower prices. In fact, until the Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, even Medicare was specifically prohibited from negotiating over drug prices. As a result, the U.S. market has long been pharma’s cash cow: On average, prescription drugs cost 2.56 times — 2.56 times — as much here as they do in other countries. (Paul Krugman, 5/12)

Bloomberg: Pancreatic Cancer MRNA Vaccine Moves Closer To Reality 
Results from a small study of a pancreatic vaccine are promising enough to merit cautious optimism. Researchers are figuring out how to train immune cells to see and destroy cancers — even devastating ones like pancreatic cancer. (Lisa Jarvis, 5/16)

The Washington Post: CDC Guidance Opens Path To Better Indoor Air Quality 
The coronavirus pandemic taught Americans to wear good masks, avoid big crowds and test often to stop the spread of viral illness. Also crucial, but not fully understood early in the crisis, is that indoor air quality is key to reducing viral transmission. (5/15)

Los Angeles Times: Ozempic For Weight Loss Is All The Rage, But So Is Fighting Fatphobia 
On Tuesday morning, I sat down at my desk to fill out a couple of online questionnaires that would determine whether I harbor negative feelings about fat people and obesity in general. (Robin Abcarian, 5/17)

The New York Times: Two Decades Of Prison Did Not Prepare Me For The Horrors Of County Jail
Reports from jails across the country, from Rikers in New York to Santa Clara County’s Main Jail complex, in San Jose, Calif., have shown that mentally ill people are frequently mistreated. Families have filed lawsuits alleging that corrections officers have severely beaten mentally ill people, or let them starve or freeze to death. A 2014 internal investigation at Rikers found that almost 80 percent of the more than 100 prisoners who sustained serious injuries during altercations with corrections officers in 11 months were mentally ill. (Christopher Blackwell, 5/16)

Also —

The Washington Post: St. Jude Isn't The Only Children's Cancer Charity Worth Supporting
I was refueling my car at a gas station near my D.C. office recently when a prompt appeared on the pump: It urged me to donate to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, one of the nation’s largest and wealthiest pediatric cancer charities, based in Memphis. (Laurie Strongin, 5/16)

The Star Tribune: Disabled, Vulnerable, Abandoned. Enough Is Enough
The scenes playing out inside emergency departments and other hospital units throughout Minnesota are some of the most horrifying we have seen in our combined 60-plus years of working in health care. (Lewis Zeidner and Mary Beth Lardizabal, 5/16)

Chicago Tribune: US Health Care System Benefits Insurers, Not Patients
Could this be the year when America starts to shift away from the employer-sponsored health insurance model? (Sheldon Jacobson, 5/16)

Modern Healthcare: How Will Healthcare Evolve In The Post-Pandemic Era? 
Last week’s ending of the public health emergency, like the World Health Organization’s recent decree that COVID-19 was no longer a global health emergency, wasn’t marked by high-fives or tossing personal protective equipment in the air like mortarboards at a school graduation. (Mary Ellen Podmolik, 5/15)