Pharma and Tech: Oct. 26, 2023

Epidemic: What Good Is a Vaccine When There Is No Rice?
What good is a vaccine when there is no rice? Episode 7 of “Eradicating Smallpox” explores the barriers public health workers face in communities where people’s basic needs aren’t being met.

Using Opioid Settlement Cash for Police Gear Like Squad Cars and Scanners Sparks Debate
By Aneri Pattani State and local governments will receive a windfall of more than $50 billion over 18 years from settlements with companies that made, sold, or distributed opioid painkillers. Using the funds for law enforcement has triggered important questions about what the money was meant for.

Feds Rein In Use of Predictive Software That Limits Care for Medicare Advantage Patients
By Susan Jaffe Software sifts through millions of medical records to match patients with similar diagnoses and characteristics and then predicts what kind of care an individual will need and for how long. New federal rules will ensure human experts are part of the process.

Thousands Got Exactech Knee or Hip Replacements. Then, Patients Say, the Parts Began to Fail.
By Fred Schulte In a torrent of lawsuits, patients accuse Florida device maker Exactech of hiding knee and hip implant defects for years. The company denies the allegations.

Narcan, Now Available Without a Prescription, Can Still Be Hard to Get
By Jackie Fortiér, LAist and Nicole Leonard, WHYY Narcan is available without a prescription. Addiction treatment experts hope this move will increase access to the medication, which can reverse opioid overdoses. But hurdles remain: cost and stigma.

PrEP, a Key HIV Prevention Tool, Isn’t Reaching Black Women
By Sam Whitehead New HIV infections occur disproportionately among Black women, but exclusionary marketing, fewer treatment options, and provider wariness have limited uptake of preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, drugs, which reduce the risk of contracting the virus.

The New Vaccines and You: Americans Better Armed Than Ever Against the Winter Blechs
By Amy Maxmen Flu, covid, and respiratory viruses kill thousands of Americans each year, but the latest batch of vaccines could save lives.

Pregnant and Addicted: Homeless Women See Hope in Street Medicine
By Angela Hart As homelessness explodes across California, so does the number of expectant mothers on the streets. Street medicine doctors are getting paid more by Medicaid and offering some of those mothers-to-be a chance to overcome addiction and reverse chronic diseases so they can have healthy babies — and perhaps keep them.

Suzanne Somers’ Legacy Tainted by Celebrity Medical Misinformation
By Liz Szabo The popular actress and author, who died this week, also can be remembered as a progenitor of selling dubious medical information to a trusting public.

Feds Try to Head Off Growing Problem of Overdoses Among Expectant Mothers
By Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez and Katheryn Houghton Homicides, suicides, and drug overdoses have driven rising rates of pregnancy-related death in the U.S. This fall, six states received federal funding for substance use treatment interventions to prevent at least some of those deaths.

California Moves Ahead of the FDA in Banning Common Candy Additives
By Annie Sciacca The legislation bans the use of four additives that are already prohibited in many other countries but remain in popular U.S. foods. Advocates say states need to act because the FDA has done little.

Why Is Finding Covid Shots for Young Children Still So Hard?
By Jackie Fortiér, LAist In Los Angeles and elsewhere, some parents are having trouble finding the new pediatric covid shot, especially for young children. Not all pediatricians or pharmacies have it and can administer it, even if vaccines.gov says they can.

Quick Genetic Test Offers Hope for Sick, Undiagnosed Kids. But Few Insurers Offer to Pay.
By Phil Galewitz A new, rapid genetic test shows promise in increasing diagnoses and improving treatment for some children with rare genetic conditions. Many insurers won’t cover it, but Florida's Medicaid program is among those that see benefits — and, potentially, savings.

Millions of Rural Americans Rely on Private Wells. Few Regularly Test Their Water.
By Tony Leys More than 43 million Americans drink, bathe, and cook with water from private wells, which can be tainted by farm or industrial runoff, leaky septic systems, or naturally occurring minerals.

Doubts Abound About a New Alzheimer’s Blood Test
By Judith Graham Quest Diagnostics is selling a blood test online to consumers. But results may not be reliable or easy to interpret. And it isn’t covered by insurance.

Biden Pick to Lead NIH Finally Has Her Day, but Still Gets Caught Up in Drug Price Debate
By Colleen DeGuzman Monica Bertagnolli, the president’s choice to head the National Institutes of Health, appeared before a Senate committee this week. Her confirmation has been held up by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has demanded President Joe Biden work more aggressively to lower prescription drug prices.

Trump Misplaced Blame When He Said Drug Shortages Were Biden’s Fault
By Michelle Andrews Former President Donald Trump, who’s running for another term in the White House, recently blamed drug shortages on his successor, President Joe Biden. Our findings don’t align with Trump’s claims; by some measures, drug shortages increased more on Trump’s watch than on Biden’s.

Florida Foster Kids Are Given Powerful Medications, but Feds Find State Oversight Lacking
By Christopher O’Donnell, Tampa Bay Times Illustration by Oona Zenda A report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services raises troubling questions about the use of powerful medications within Florida’s child welfare system and the risk of overdoses or dangerous side effects if children are given the wrong combination of drugs.

What the Health? From KFF Health News: Health Funding in Question in a Speaker-Less Congress
A bitterly divided Congress managed to keep the federal government running for several more weeks, while House Republicans struggle — again — to choose a leader. Meanwhile, many people removed from state Medicaid rolls are not finding their way to Affordable Care Act insurance, and a major investigation by The Washington Post attributes the decline in U.S. life expectancy to more than covid-19 and opioids. Lauren Weber of The Washington Post, Victoria Knight of Axios, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews physician-author-playwright Samuel Shem about “Our Hospital,” his new novel about the health workforce in the age of covid.

An Arm and a Leg: John Green vs. Johnson & Johnson (Part 1)
By Dan Weissmann Pharmaceutical patents can drive up the costs of lifesaving medications. Hear what author and YouTube star John Green is doing to make tuberculosis drugs more accessible to the people who need them most.

What the Health? From KFF Health News: The Open Enrollment Mixing Bowl
Open enrollment for Medicare beneficiaries with private health plans began Oct. 15, to be followed Nov. 1 by open enrollment for Affordable Care Act plans. The selection for both is large — often too large to be navigated easily alone. And people who choose incorrectly can end up with unaffordable medical bills. Meanwhile, those on both sides of the abortion issue are looking to Ohio’s November ballot measure on abortion to see whether anti-abortion forces can break their losing streak in statewide ballot questions since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022.