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Latest Morning Briefing Stories

At Risk of Extinction, Black-Footed Ferrets Get Experimental COVID Vaccine

KFF Health News Original

Months before federal officials authorized experimental vaccines to ward off the coronavirus in humans, scientists tried a veterinary vaccine in endangered ferrets. Drugmakers are researching similar efforts for other animals proving vulnerable to the virus, such as farmed minks, in part to guard against virus mutations that could pose new risks to people.

Farmworkers, Firefighters and Flight Attendants Jockey for Vaccine Priority

KFF Health News Original

Everyone — from toilet paper manufacturers to patient advocates — is lobbying state advisory boards, arguing their members are essential, vulnerable or both — and, thus, most deserving of an early vaccine.

Feds Look to Pharmacists to Boost Childhood Immunization Rates

KFF Health News Original

Fears over COVID-19 have contributed to a slump in inoculations among children. Now the federal government is looking to pharmacists for help, but many of them do not participate in a program that offers free shots to half the kids in the U.S.

How COVID-19 Highlights the Uncertainty of Medical Testing

KFF Health News Original

Widespread COVID testing has revealed uncomfortable truths about medical tests: A test result is rarely a definitive answer, but instead a single clue. A result may be falsely positive or negative, or it may show an abnormality that doesn’t matter. And as COVID testing has made too clear, even an accurate, meaningful result is useless unless it’s acted on appropriately.

New Legal Push Aims to Speed Magic Mushrooms to Dying Patients

KFF Health News Original

A proposal in Washington state would use right-to-try laws to allow terminally ill patients access to psilocybin — the famed magic mushrooms of America’s psychedelic ’60s — to ease depression and anxiety.

Surprise Federal Drug Rule Directs Insurers to Reveal What They Pay for Prescription Drugs

KFF Health News Original

A provision the Trump administration tucked into its final rule on health plan price transparency requires telling consumers what they will pay out-of-pocket for drugs and showing them what the plan paid.

Search for a Snakebite Drug Might Lead to a COVID Treatment, Too

KFF Health News Original

Human clinical trials are scheduled for a drug that could prevent some of the 100,000-plus deaths from snakebites worldwide each year. The same drug may also help people suffering from COVID-related acute respiratory distress.