Kaiser Health News Original Stories

Downsized City Sees Its Health Care Downsized as Hospital Awaits Demolition

A 124-year-old hospital in a midsize Rust Belt city in Indiana will soon be torn down, despite protests from residents and city officials decrying the loss of local health services. The Catholic hospital system said it is downsizing the 226-bed hospital because of a lack of demand for inpatient care, as the organization has been building new hospitals in wealthier suburbs. (Giles Bruce, 5/13 )

California Opens Medicaid to Older Unauthorized Immigrants

Starting May 1, low-income unauthorized immigrants over age 49 became eligible for full Medicaid health coverage, a significant milestone in California’s effort to expand coverage. (Bernard J. Wolfson, 5/13 )

Political Cartoon: 'High on Acid?'

Kaiser Health News provides a fresh take on health policy developments with "Political Cartoon: 'High on Acid?'" by Mike Twohy.

Here's today's health policy haiku:

That’s right … McKinsey surely knew opioids were highly addictive

If you have a health policy haiku to share, please Contact Us and let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the format of 5-7-5 syllables. We give extra brownie points if you link back to a KHN original story.

Opinions expressed in haikus and cartoons are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions of KHN or KFF.

Paxlovid Only Treats, Doesn't Prevent Covid Infection: Pfizer Trials

Some experts told Stat that they were disappointed, but not surprised by the results of the 3,000 person clinical trial studying Pfizer's antiviral drug's ability to prevent infection. In other Paxlovid news, U.S. government researchers are looking into reports of relapses.

Stat: Paxlovid’s Failure As A Preventative Measure Raises Questions, But Doctors Still Back It As A Therapeutic Pfizer released news late Friday that Paxlovid, the antiviral currently subject to a big push from the U.S. government, failed to prevent people living with Covid patients from catching the infection. The news is one of several bad headlines for the new Covid pill, but one experts say doesn’t affect the medicine’s primary use: treating people who are already sick. Paul Sax, clinical director of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said he would “absolutely” prescribe Paxlovid to people at high risk of severe disease who have Covid. “Without hesitation,” he said. “Because the net benefit in the high risk study was extremely high.” (Herper, 3/2)

Reuters: Pfizer Says COVID Treatment Paxlovid Fails To Prevent Infection Of Household Members Pfizer Inc on Friday said a large trial found that its COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment Paxlovid was not effective at preventing coronavirus infection in people living with someone infected with the virus. The trial enrolled 3,000 adults who were household contacts exposed to an individual who was experiencing symptoms and had recently tested positive for COVID-19. They were either given Paxlovid for five or 10 days or a placebo. (Beasley, 4/29)

Bloomberg: U.S. Seeks ‘Urgent’ Data On Covid Relapses After Using Pfizer’s Paxlovid Drug U.S. government researchers are planning studies of how often and why coronavirus levels rebound in some Covid patients who have completed a five-day course of treatment with Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid. “It is a priority,” said Clifford Lane, deputy director for clinical research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, calling the issue “a pretty urgent thing for us to get a handle on.” The agency is discussing a variety of possible epidemiological and clinical studies to examine post-Paxlovid rebound with scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he said. (Langreth and Muller, 4/29)

In other news from Pfizer —

Stat: Pfizer Vaccine Chief Kathrin Jansen, Who Led Covid Effort, To Retire Kathrin Jansen, the vaccine researcher who led Pfizer’s collaboration with BioNTech to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, will retire later this year, the company said. “Throughout my lifetime I’ve had the pleasure of knowing remarkable scientists, yet there are few who have made as deep and wide a contribution to human health as Kathrin,” said Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer and research chief, in a post on LinkedIn announcing Jansen’s retirement. “Through her commitment to excellence and tenacity, and the vaccines that she has helped develop over her illustrious career, Kathrin has touched the lives of billions of people across all ages.” (Herper, 4/29)

Moderna's Omicron-Tailored Booster To Be Largely Available This Fall

Moderna's chief medical officer said the drugmaker will have "large amounts" of its bivalent covid booster shot by then, and that its vaccine for the youngest kids would be ready for FDA review in June. Meanwhile, pressure grows on the agency to move quickly toward approval.

The Hill: Moderna Expects ‘Large Amounts’ Of Omicron Booster Available By Fall Moderna’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Burton said on Sunday that his company was preparing to provide large amounts of its vaccine booster against omicron and other COVID-19 variants this fall. “We’re confident by the fall of this year we should have large amounts of that new booster vaccine that will protect against Omicron and other variants,” Burton said in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Last month, Moderna announced that its new bivalent COVID-19 booster shot was more effective against all variants than the company’s currently available coronavirus vaccine. (Beals, 5/1)

Reuters: Moderna Says Its Vaccine For Ages Under 6 Will Be Ready For U.S. Review In June Moderna Inc's chief medical officer said on Sunday the company's vaccine for children under 6 years old will be ready for review by a Food and Drug Administration panel when it meets in June. Moderna sought emergency use authorization from the FDA on Thursday. An advisory panel of experts to the U.S. drug regulator will meet in June to review the request. (Chiacu, 5/2)

Pressure rises for a June rollout —

Axios: Pressure Builds For COVID Vaccines Approval For Littlest Kids Moderna's request for authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine in children under six years is amping up pressure on the Food and Drug Administration to act quickly on the shots. Thursday's request from the vaccine maker threw another wrinkle in the delicate regulatory dance over when kids under 5 can be vaccinated at a time when plenty of parents are expressing growing frustration with the wait. The FDA would prefer to evaluate data and simultaneously make decisions about how Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccines work on small children, to give parents more of a comparison, the New York Times writes. That could take as long as June. (Reed, 5/2)

The Washington Post: Vaccines For Young Kids Could Be Available As Soon As June, A Top FDA Official Says A top Food and Drug Administration official pledged Friday not to delay the rollout of coronavirus vaccines for the youngest children and said at least one of the two shots under review could become available in June. The remarks by Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, came in an interview about the agency’s new, but tentative, timeline for handling vaccine issues during the next two months. The FDA announced plans to convene meetings with its outside advisers on June 8, 21 and 22 to consider emergency use authorizations for pediatric coronavirus shots and to hold additional sessions for other pressing vaccine matters. (McGinley and Johnson, 4/29)

Omicron's Variants Elude Antibodies From Previous Infection: Study

In South Africa — where the BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages of the covid omicron variant are taking hold — researchers find that those subvariants can evade antibodies from an earlier infection. But they're less successful at dodging vaccine protection. Meanwhile, a former U.S. official warns of the likelihood of a summer surge.

Bloomberg: Omicron Sublineages Evade Antibodies From Earlier Infections New omicron sublineages show an ability to evade antibodies from earlier infection and vaccination, a South African laboratory study has found. The findings could signal a fresh wave of infections by the BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages of the omicron variant that were discovered this month in South Africa. Blood samples from people who had been infected with the original omicron variant saw an almost eightfold drop in neutralizing antibody production when tested against the BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages, the study, led by the Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa, showed. (Sguazzin, 4/30)

Reuters: COVID's New Omicron Sub-Lineages Can Dodge Immunity From Past Infection, Study Says Two new sublineages of the Omicron coronavirus variant can dodge antibodies from earlier infection well enough to trigger a new wave, but are far less able to thrive in the blood of people vaccinated against COVID-19, South African scientists have found. The scientists from multiple institutions were examining Omicron's BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages - which the World Health Organization last month added to its monitoring list. They took blood samples from 39 participants previously infected by Omicron when it first showed up at the end of last year. (Cocks, 5/1)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Mutations Aren't Slowing Down “This virus has probably got tricks we haven’t seen yet,” virologist Robert F. Garry of Tulane University said. “We know it’s probably not quite as infectious as measles yet, but it’s creeping up there, for sure.” The latest member of the rogue’s gallery of variants and subvariants is the ungainly named BA.2.12.1, part of the omicron gang. Preliminary research suggests it is about 25 percent more transmissible than the BA.2 subvariant that is currently dominant nationally, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC said the subvariant has rapidly spread in the Northeast in particular, where it accounts for the majority of new infections. “We have a very, very contagious variant out there. It is going to be hard to ensure that no one gets covid in America. That’s not even a policy goal,” President Biden’s new covid-19 coordinator, Ashish Jha, said in his inaugural news briefing Tuesday. (Achenbach, 5/1)

Deaths from covid shift from the unvaxxed —

The Washington Post: Covid Deaths No Longer Overwhelmingly Among The Unvaccinated The pandemic’s toll is no longer falling almost exclusively on those who chose not to or could not get shots, with vaccine protection waning over time and the elderly and immunocompromised — who are at greatest risk of succumbing to covid-19, even if vaccinated — having a harder time dodging increasingly contagious strains. The vaccinated made up 42 percent of fatalities in January and February during the highly contagious omicron variant’s surge, compared with 23 percent of the dead in September, the peak of the delta wave, according to nationwide data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by The Post. The data is based on the date of infection and limited to a sampling of cases in which vaccination status was known. (Nirappil and Keating, 4/29)

On rising cases and warnings of a further rise in covid —

The Hill: Birx Says US Must Prepare For Summer COVID Surge As Immunity Wanes Deborah Birx, a leading member of the Trump administration’s White House coronavirus task force, said on Sunday the U.S. should be prepared for another potential COVID-19 surge after a recent uptick in infections in South Africa. “They’re on an upslope again,” Birx said of South Africa’s infections on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Each of these surges are about four to six months apart. That tells me that natural immunity wanes enough in the general population after four to six months that a significant surge is going to occur again. And this is what we have to be prepared for in this country,” she added. (Beals, 5/1)

Axios: Birx: U.S. Should Prepare For COVID Surge In The South Southern states should be prepared for a possible surge of COVID-19 cases this summer, former White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx said Sunday. Birx told CBS' "Face the Nation" she expects to see a wave of COVID-19 cases across the South this summer similar to ones during 2020 and 2021. "What has happened each time is we've had a summer surge across the South and a winter surge that starts in our Northern Plains and moves down, accelerated by Thanksgiving and the holidays," Birx said. (Shapero, 5/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19 Cases Rise In The U.S., With Limited Impact As new Omicron variants further infiltrate the U.S., a jumble of signals suggest the latest increase in Covid-19 infections hasn’t sparked a commensurate surge in severe illness even as risks remain. Covid-19 virus levels detected in wastewater in the Northeast, the first region to see significant concentrations of the easily transmitted Omicron BA.2 variant, appear to have flattened out in the past two weeks. Covid-19 hospital admissions have risen in the region, but they remain far below levels during earlier surges that indicated widespread severe illness and taxed healthcare facilities. (Abbott and Kamp, 5/1)

AP: CDC: Half Of Vermont’s 14 Counties Have High COVID-19 Levels  Half of Vermont’s 14 counties have been rated as having high community levels of COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rankings are based on a handful of factors including new hospital admissions for COVID-19, recent case counts, and the community’s overall hospital capacity. Washington County reported the highest number of cases per 100,000 individuals, followed by Chittenden County and Bennington County. The other counties with high community levels of the virus are Addison, Franklin, Grand Isle and Orleans. (5/1)

NPR: Ozzy Osbourne Has Been Diagnosed With COVID-19 Ozzy Osbourne has been diagnosed with COVID-19, his wife Sharon Osbourne said on The Talk UK. "I am very worried about Ozzy right now," Sharon Osbourne said tearfully on the talk show she began hosting just three days before sharing the news of her husband's diagnosis. "We've gone two years without him catching COVID and it's just Ozzy's luck he would get it now." She said she is taking off time from the show to care for her 73-year-old husband, an original member of Black Sabbath and star of The Osbournes, a reality show with his family. (Torchinsky, 4/30)

Georgia Plan To Bypass ACA Insurance Marketplace Blocked

Georgia had received approval from the Trump administration to have residents shop for insurance only through private brokers, instead of the federal healthcare.gov website. But the Biden administration said Friday that move could break federal rules and cause too many people to be dropped from coverage.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Biden Administration Suspends Georgia Plan To Block Access To ACA Website The Biden administration has officially suspended Gov. Brian Kemp’s plan to block Georgians from shopping for health insurance coverage on the Affordable Care Act marketplace later this year. Open enrollment for ACA plans typically begins Nov. 1. More than 400,000 Georgians use the marketplace to sign up for their insurance. Currently, 700,000 Georgians are covered by ACA plans and the majority buy them on the website healthcare.gov. Under the Kemp plan, when shoppers went to the website to shop for plans, it would have instead directed them to buy their plans from individual insurance companies or private brokers. President Trump’s administration approved the plan, called a “waiver,” shortly before he left office. (Hart, 4/29)

AP: Feds Block Georgia's Plan To Have Private Sector Handle ACA The letter from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gives Georgia until July 28 to formulate a “corrective action plan ... ensuring that the waiver will provide coverage to a comparable number of residents, that the coverage will be at least as comprehensive and affordable as coverage provided without the waiver, and that the waiver will not increase the federal deficit.” (5/1)

Politico: Oregon, Kentucky Dust Off An Obama-Era Policy To Expand Health Insurance Two states are dusting off a little-used provision of the Affordable Care Act hoping to make health care more affordable for tens of thousands of low-income residents. Oregon and Kentucky, despite their wildly different politics, are pursuing an Obama-era policy that uses federal dollars to establish a health insurance plan for people who make too much money to qualify for their state’s Medicaid programs. The goal is to provide residents who find Obamacare plans too expensive a less costly option, while smoothing insurance gaps for people teetering on the edge of Medicaid eligibility. (Messerly, 4/30)

In news about other health insurance programs —

KHN: California Opens Medicaid To Older Unauthorized Immigrants On May 1, California opened Medi-Cal to older immigrants residing in the state without legal permission. Unauthorized immigrants over age 49 who fall below certain income thresholds are now eligible for full coverage by Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid, the federal-state partnership that provides health insurance to low-income people. (Wolfson, 5/2)

CNBC: A Possible Reduction For Medicare Part B Premiums Is Still In Play For Medicare beneficiaries wondering whether their Part B premiums could be reduced, the waiting continues. More than three months after Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra ordered a reassessment of this year’s $170.10 standard monthly premium — a bigger-than-expected jump from $148.50 in 2021 — it remains uncertain when a determination will come and whether it would affect what beneficiaries pay this year. “A mid-course reduction in premiums would be unprecedented,” said Tricia Neuman, executive director of the Medicare policy program at the Kaiser Family Foundation. (O'Brien, 5/1)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Report Details Health Disparities Among Medicare Advantage Enrollees Black, Indigenous and Alaska Native patients experienced the most significant disparities in clinical care among Medicare Advantage enrollees last year, according to a report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the RAND Corp. The CMS Office of Minority Health and the consulting company analyzed information from the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) and the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) for the study, which compares clinical data and patient satisfaction surveys across demographics. (Hartnett, 4/29)

Despite Covid Threat, Biden And Thousands Attend Journalist Dinner

President Joe Biden toasted the reporters at the packed White House Correspondents' Association Dinner and received his share of roasting, too. In other Washington news, emails released by a House select committee show Trump administration official did not take public health officials' advice on guidance for religious services, and limits on health savings contributions are rising.

Bloomberg: Biden Attends Correspondents’ Dinner As Virus Stalks Washington President Joe Biden attended the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner for the first time as commander-in-chief, even as the coronavirus continues to infect those around him. “We’re here to show the country we’re getting through this pandemic,” Biden told the crowd of some 2,600 people at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night, adding all attendees had to be fully vaccinated and boosted. “We have to stay vigilant.” Biden told the room that Vice President Kamala Harris, who spent this week working from her residence after receiving a positive diagnosis, was doing well although she couldn’t attend. White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield announced on Friday via Twitter that she too had tested positive as the virus advanced further into the president’s inner circle. (Cook, 5/1)

AP: Sen. Rand Paul Wants To Investigate Origins Of COVID-19 U.S. Sen. Rand Paul promised Saturday to wage a vigorous review into the origins of the coronavirus if Republicans retake the Senate and he lands a committee chairmanship. Speaking to supporters at a campaign rally, the libertarian-leaning Kentucky Republican denounced what he sees as government overreach in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He applauded a recent judge’s order that voided the federal mask mandate on planes and trains and in travel hubs. (Schreiner, 5/1)

The Hill: Sen. Bennet Tests Positive For COVID-19 Sen. Michael Bennet (D- Colo.) on Sunday announced that he has tested positive for COVID-19, after cases among his colleagues delayed some Senate business last week. “I am vaccinated and boosted and thankfully experiencing only minor, cold-like symptoms,” Bennet said in a statement announcing his diagnosis.  “I will work virtually while quarantining in Denver according to the guidance set forth by the Senate Attending Physician,” he added. (Beals, 5/1)

On news about the previous administration —

Washington Post: Trump Officials Muzzled CDC On Church COVID Guidance, E-Mails Show Trump White House officials in May 2020 removed public health advice urging churches to consider virtual religious services as the coronavirus spread, delivering a messaging change sought by the president’s supporters, according to emails from former top officials released by a House panel on Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent its planned public health guidance for religious communities to the White House on May 21, 2020, seeking approval to publish it. The agency had days earlier released reports saying that the virus had killed three and infected dozens at church events in Arkansas and infected 87 percent of attendees at a choir practice in Washington state, and health experts had warned that houses of worship had become hot spots for virus transmission. (Diamond, 4/29)

The Hill: House Panel Documents Reveal Trump Officials Overrode CDC On COVID-19 Church Guidance The House select subcommittee investigating the U.S. coronavirus response released new evidence on Friday detailing how Trump administration officials involved themselves in COVID-19 guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) related to faith-based communities. The CDC had sent guidance for faith-based communities to the White House in May 2020. In an email exchange shared by the subcommittee, administration officials, including then-White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, discussed the proposal and offered edits. (Vakil, 4/29)

CNBC: Amid Inflation, IRS Boosts Health Savings Account Contribution Limits If you’re eligible for health savings account contributions, you can deposit more money starting in 2023, thanks to an inflation adjustment from the IRS. In 2023, you can save up to $3,850 with an individual health insurance plan, up from $3,650 in 2022, the IRS announced Friday. And you can soon contribute up to $7,750 with a family plan, boosted from $7,300.To qualify, you’ll need eligible high-deductible health insurance, with an annual deductible of at least $1,500 for self-only coverage or $3,000 for family plans. (Dore, 4/29)

Conn. Bill Would Shield Residents From Out-Of-State Abortion Penalties

The bill, which has been approved by the state legislature and awaits the governor's signature, would protect health care providers who perform abortions that are legal in Connecticut by barring police there from cooperating with authorities from other states investigating abortions and help keep citizens from facing legal action in those other states.

NPR: Connecticut Looks To Expand Abortion Rights In Response To Restrictions Lawmakers in Connecticut have approved a bill that would expand the types of medical professionals who can provide abortion services in the state and shield residents from facing penalties under other states' anti-abortion laws. The legislation is partly a response to the wave of new measures in conservative states restricting abortion access and in some cases levying civil and criminal penalties on people who perform them. (Hernandez, 5/1)

Axios: Connecticut Passes Bill To Make State Safe Haven For Abortion Providers The Connecticut state Senate passed a bill late Friday night to protect abortion providers from bans in other states that are enforced via civil lawsuits. The unique legislation is a direct response to laws in Texas, Idaho and Oklahoma that ban abortions either entirely or as soon as six weeks into pregnancy and allow private parties to sue anyone who they suspect has helped a person obtain an abortion. (Gonzalez, 4/30)

New York Times: Connecticut Moves To Blunt Impact Of Other States’ Antiabortion Laws The law would protect a provider in Connecticut who administers an abortion that is legal in the state to a resident of a different state where the procedure is illegal, by prohibiting Connecticut authorities from cooperating with investigative requests or extradition orders from the patient’s home state. The law would also allow people who are sued over their role in providing an abortion to countersue in Connecticut court, and to recoup legal fees and other costs if they win. As states across the country prepare for the possibility of a post-Roe world, many are tightening restrictions on abortion. Twenty-six states — a swath stretching from Florida to Idaho — would ban or severely restrict the procedure if the court overturns Roe. (Maslin Nir and Zernike, 4/30)

AP: SC House Approves Bill Over Unproven Abortion Pill Reversal The South Carolina House has approved a bill that [would] require doctors to tell women who seek medication to have an abortion that there is an unproven way to reverse the procedure. The 71-29 vote Wednesday sent the bill to the Senate, where its ultimate fate is unclear. There is just six legislative days left in the 2022 General Assembly’s regular session. Chemical abortions require two drugs and the bill would have doctors attach a statement to the prescription or other medical papers that research has shown a pregnancy can be saved after the first pill is taken. (4/30)

Axios: Study: Abortion Training In Peril If Supreme Court Overturns Roe V. Wade Almost half of OB-GYN medical students will not receive any abortion training if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer, according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco. The court is currently considering a challenge to a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi. A ruling in the case could jeopardize Roe's survival, or at least narrow its precedent. Red states across the U.S. are passing and enacting restrictive abortion laws in anticipation of the court's ruling, even with federal abortion protections still in place. (Gonzalez, 4/29)

Reuters: As US Abortion Access Wanes, This Doctor Travels To Fill A Void Inside Planned Parenthood's Birmingham, Alabama, clinic, a quiet space with few windows and stock photos of the city lining the walls, a woman tapped her hand against her stomach as Dr. Shelly Tien performed a surgical abortion. Tien, 40, had flown to Birmingham the day before, and she would return home to Jacksonville, Florida, that night. A week earlier, she performed abortions at a clinic in Oklahoma. She's among an estimated 50 doctors who travel across state lines, according to the National Abortion Federation, to provide abortions in places with limited abortion access. (5/1)

Trans Youth 'Hounded' By State Anti-Trans Laws: Assistant Health Secretary

While speaking in Texas, Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine poured scorn on anti-trans sports and health care laws being passed in Republican-led states. The bills, Levine said, are driving transgender youths to "depths of despair" as medicine and science is distorted for political gain. Levine is the highest ranking transgender official in U.S. history.

NPR: Rachel Levine Calls State Bills Dangerous To Transgender Youth The highest ranking transgender official in U.S. history will give a speech in Texas Saturday, urging physicians-in-training to fight political attacks against young trans people and their families. Adm. Rachel Levine, the U.S. assistant secretary for health, will make a speech in Fort Worth at the Out For Health Conference at Texas Christian University. In prepared remarks shared exclusively with NPR, she writes: "Trans youth in particular are being hounded in public and driven to deaths of despair at an alarming rate. Fifty-two percent of all transgender and nonbinary young people in the U.S. seriously contemplated killing themselves in 2020. Think about how many of them thought it was better to die than to put up with any more harassment, scapegoating and intentional abuse." (Simmons-Duffin, 4/29)

The Hill: Top Biden Health Official Says Trans Youth Being ‘Driven To Depths Of Despair’ Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine said trans youth are being “driven to depths of despair” and committing suicide at alarming rates, during a speech on Saturday about the dangers of anti-trans laws being passed in red states across the country. Levine, the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, said in a speech at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth that LGBTQ youth are being “attacked” and have “few places to turn” for help. (Dress, 5/1)

Dallas Morning News: In Texas, Transgender Official Says Science Is Being ‘Politically Perverted’ To Attack LGBT People The nation’s top transgender official came to Texas this weekend to call out what she called the political perversion of medicine and science and urge doctors to stand up against attacks on LGBT Americans’ access to health care. “The truth we need to confront now is that medicine and science are being politically perverted around the country in ways that destroy human lives,” Dr. Rachel Levine, the U.S. assistant health secretary, said Saturday at a conference on LGBTQ health care hosted by students at Texas Christian University School of Medicine in Fort Worth. (McGaughy, 5/1)

Axios: DOJ Challenges Alabama Law That Bans Gender-Affirming Care For Trans Youth The Justice Department filed a complaint Friday challenging a recently enacted Alabama law that criminalizes certain types of gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. The DOJ alleges that the law, one of dozens targeting trans youth across the country, "discriminates both on the basis of sex and on the basis of transgender status, each in violation of the Equal Protection Clause." (Chen, 4/29)

In news on other LGBTQ+ matters —

Bloomberg: Transgender Youth Care Specialist Gordon Quits As Texas Hospital Chief The chief pediatrician at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, who specialized in care for transgender youth, has resigned about six months after being named to the job. Catherine M. Gordon recently wrote an article in support of providing care for transgender adolescents, a practice Texas Governor Greg Abbott is trying to criminalize. A spokesperson for Texas Children’s, one of the largest pediatric hospitals in the country, said the resignation was unrelated to the journal publication, which the organization “fully supports.” (Xu, 4/29)

Axios: Survey: LGBTQ Youth With Autism 50% More Likely To Attempt Suicide LGBTQ youth who have been diagnosed with autism were over 50% more likely to attempt suicide in the past year compared to LGBTQ youth who have never had an autism diagnosis, according to a research brief published Friday by the Trevor Project, an organization that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth under 25. Previous studies have shown that people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder have an increased risk for suicide attempts and deaths, but research on the condition has historically focused on cisgender boys. (Chen, 4/29)

Details Released In CDC Probe Of Mystery Hepatitis Cases In Kids

With its investigation ongoing, the CDC provided early findings into the 9 Alabama pediatric hepatitis cases. Several of the kids tested positive for adenovirus, which has been the leading suspect.

Bloomberg: CDC Casts Doubt On Covid Causing Kids’ Mysterious Liver Disease U.S. health officials cast doubt on Covid-19 as a potential cause of severe hepatitis that’s been seen in dozens of previously healthy children around the world, while adding weight to the possibility it’s caused by a more common virus linked to stomach ailments. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday released its most detailed report yet on nine cases of pediatric hepatitis in Alabama that have captured national attention. All the patients tested negative for Covid-19 at the hospital and had no documented history of infection with SARS-CoV-2, the report said. (Muller, 4/29)

CNN: CDC Releases New Clinical Details In Cases Of Unusual Hepatitis In Children The US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention continues to investigate cases of acute hepatitis with unknown causes among children and released new clinical details about some of the cases on Friday. So far, there have been at least 18 cases reported in at least four states -- and dozens more in Europe. The latest clinical details shared by the CDC on Friday come from Alabama, where the first cases were found. Clinical records were analyzed for nine total patients admitted to a children's hospital after October 1, 2021. (McPhillips, 4/29)

CIDRAP: Scientists Detail Clinical Picture In Alabama Hepatitis Cases Today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) authors describe the clinical findings of nine children in Alabama who developed acute hepatitis. The children also had adenovirus upon hospital admission. The Alabama cluster was the first hepatitis cluster identified in the United States, after similar patterns of illness have been detected across the United Kingdom, Europe, and Israel. All children were identified after Oct 1, 2021. The children had no geographical or epidemiological links, and all were age 5 and under. (4/29)

AP: Mysterious Pediatric Liver Disease Found In Minnesota The Minnesota Department of Health said it’s investigating several severe cases of hepatitis among children and has reported the cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC continues to investigate cases of the sudden liver disease in nearly 200 children that has health authorities in several countries racing to find answers. The illness is being called hepatitis of unknown origin. The cases have no known connection, although a link with a virus that can cause colds is being investigated. (4/30)

On hepatitis cases elsewhere around the world —

Bloomberg: Singapore Confirms Case Of Acute Hepatitis In 10-Month Old Baby Singapore confirmed a case of acute hepatitis in a 10-month old baby and is investigating to see if it has a similar presentation to other cases of the liver inflammation illness reported around the world. Laboratory testing has determined the case to be negative for the common viruses that cause hepatitis -- type A, B, C and E viruses -- the city state’s Ministry of Health said in an emailed statement. The baby has a previous history of Covid-19 in December, although there’s no current evidence that the acute hepatitis is related to coronavirus. (De Wei and Keatinge, 4/30)

AP: US Pediatricians' Group Moves To Abandon Race-Based Guidance For years, pediatricians have followed flawed guidelines linking race to risks for urinary infections and newborn jaundice. In a new policy announced Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics said it is putting all its guidance under the microscope to eliminate “race-based” medicine and resulting health disparities. A re-examination of AAP treatment recommendations that began before George Floyd’s 2020 death and intensified after it has doctors concerned that Black youngsters have been undertreated and overlooked, said Dr. Joseph Wright, lead author of the new policy and chief health equity officer at the University of Maryland’s medical system. (Tanner, 5/2)

Texas Updates Sex Ed Programs But Advocates Say Details Are Missing

The Texas State Board of Education has updated the health curriculum, including sexual health, for elementary and middle school students, NPR reports. The curriculum includes detailed information about birth control and STIs for the first time, but still avoids subjects like consent, gender or LGBTQ+ topics.

NPR: Texas Got A Sex Ed Update, But Students And Educators Say There's Still A Lot Missing Cali Byrd is a junior at Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas. She remembers when a group came to talk to her class about sexually transmitted infections in eighth grade. The talk involved a bunch of tennis balls with the names of STIs written on them. "They had a couple of kids come up, put on gloves, and said, 'If he throws the ball to her and she has a glove on, then she's protected. But if she doesn't have a glove on, then she'll get the disease or something,' " Byrd said. "It was really weird." (Rivera, 4/30)

Axios: Families Struggle To Find Baby Formula As Shortage Intensifies Families nationwide are struggling with an increasingly dire baby formula shortage. The shortage, exacerbated by pandemic-induced supply chain issues and recent product recalls, has sent the price of formula skyrocketing in certain communities. The shortage started in 2021 largely from production problems or distribution issues, and by mid-March, 29% of formula inventory was out of stock nationally, Axios' Nathan Bomey reports. It increased to 31% in April, according to Datasembly, a consumer product data analytics firm. (Knutson, 4/29)

Axios: More People Of Color Gave Birth Outside Hospitals In 2020, Report Finds More people are choosing to give birth at home or in birth centers, with the sharpest increases among Black and Native American communities, according to a new report released by the nonprofit advocacy organization National Partnership for Women and Families (NPWF). The U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, and it disproportionately impacts Black and Native women, who are three times and two times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications respectively. The move to give birth outside the hospital could serve as a cost-effective solution that tears down barriers to safe and individualized care, the report says. (Chen, 4/29)

Meanwhile, in other public health news —

USA Today: Drug And Alcohol Abuse May Be Contributing To US Labor Shortage The U.S. workforce has yet to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, and researchers are shedding light on one factor that may be contributing to the labor shortage in the U.S.: substance abuse. A rise in drug abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic could account for between 9% to 26% of the decline in labor force participation among people aged 25 to 54 between February 2020 and June 2021, according to a new working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research. (Pérez Pintado, 5/1)

Miami Herald: Salmonella Recall Of Elite Kosher Chocolates, Candies, Cakes  Strauss Israel recalled over 80 kosher chocolates, cakes, candies, wafers, rice cakes and gum sold under the Elite brand after finding a salmonella problem, the company announced this week. “The products are being recalled as they were manufactured in a facility in which salmonella was detected in the production line and in the liquid chocolate that is used for the production of the finished products,” the Strauss-written, FDA-posted recall notice said. The recall notice includes a full list of products, some of which are pictured below. The products went mainly to stores in Florida, California, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and were sold online by Amazon, Passover.com, Fresh Direct and other retailers. (Neal, 5/1)

The New York Times: Philip J. Hilts, 74, Dies; Reporter Exposed A Big-Tobacco Cover-Up Philip J. Hilts, who as a science reporter for The New York Times in 1994 exposed a tobacco company’s decades-long cover-up of its own research showing that tobacco was harmful and nicotine was addictive, died on April 23 in Lebanon, N.H. He was 74. The cause was complications of liver disease, his son Ben said. Mr. Hilts was a longtime journalist, writing for The Times, The Washington Post and other publications, and was the author of six nonfiction books on scientific, medical and social topics. (Seelye, 4/29)

The New York Times: Fuad El-Hibri, Who Led A Troubled Vaccine Maker, Dies At 64 Fuad El-Hibri, whose biotech company won billions of dollars in government contracts to manufacture a vaccine against anthrax but stumbled in 2021 when, having been hired to produce Covid vaccines, it had to throw out the equivalent of 75 million contaminated doses, died on April 23 at his home in Potomac, Md. He was 64. His death was announced in a statement by his family. A representative for the family said the cause was pancreatic cancer. Mr. El-Hibri’s Maryland-based company, Emergent BioSolutions, was an obscure player in the world of government contracting, but an influential one: It deployed extensive lobbying efforts and campaign contributions to secure a near-monopoly on the production of an anthrax vaccine in the early 2000s. The contract accounted for nearly half the budget for the Strategic National Stockpile, a medical reserve held in case of crises like a bioweapons attack or a pandemic. (Risen, 4/30)

AP: Mower, Co-Inventor Of Implantable Defibrillator, Dies At 89 Dr. Morton Mower, a former Maryland-based cardiologist who helped invent an automatic implantable defibrillator that has helped countless heart patients live longer and healthier, has died at age 89. Funeral services were held Wednesday for Mower, who died two days earlier of cancer at Porter Adventist Hospital in Denver, The Baltimore Sun reported. The Maryland native had moved to Colorado about a decade ago. Mower and Dr. Michel Mirowski, both colleagues at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, began working in 1969 on developing a miniature defibrillator that could be implanted into a patient. The device would correct a patient’s over-rapid or inefficient heartbeat with an electric shock to resume its regular rhythm. (5/1)

NBC News: Naomi Judd Struggled With Severe Depression. It Led Her To Advocate For Others With Mental Health Issues In recent years, Naomi Judd had been candid about her battle with suicidal ideation, panic attacks and the ups and downs of her mental health struggles. The fight eventually led her to advocate for others, offering words of solace and solidarity to those who also struggled with suicidal thoughts. Judd died Saturday at 76. Daughters Wynonna and Ashley Judd said they had lost their mother to "the disease of mental illness." (Rosenblatt, 5/1)

Stanford Nurses Strike May End Soon; Cedars-Sinai Workers Set To Walk Out

Modern Healthcare reports on two strike-related developments: 5,000 nurses from Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health may stop striking tomorrow; while a union representing 2,000 workers at Cedars-Sinai plans a strike on May 9. Racism in health care, the loss of pandemic aid for hospitals, and more industry news are also covered by media outlets.

Modern Healthcare: Stanford Health, Nurses Reach Tentative Agreement To End Strike Five thousand striking nurses at Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health in California could return to work by Tuesday, if members of the nurses' union approve a tentative agreement reached late Friday with the hospitals. The tentative three-year contract negotiated by the Committee for the Recognition of Nursing Achievement union and Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health would end a strike that started Monday. Nurses will vote on the agreement Sunday, and results will be announced Monday, the union said. (Christ, 4/30)

Modern Healthcare: Cedars-Sinai Workers Set Strike Date Members of a union representing 2,000 workers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are set to go on strike May 9. Service Employees Union International-United Healthcare Workers West members are protesting unfair labor practices, safety concerns, short staffing and low wages, the union said Friday. The union's contract with the not-for-profit hospital ended March 31. Contract bargaining began March 21, according to the union. Earlier this month, the union announced workers planned to go on strike in May if no progress was made in negotiations. (Christ, 4/29)

On racism in health care —

AP: Black Doctors Say They Face Discrimination Based On Race Dr. Dare Adewumi was thrilled when he was hired to lead the neurosurgery practice at an Atlanta-area hospital near where he grew up. But he says he quickly faced racial discrimination that ultimately led to his firing and has prevented him from getting permanent work elsewhere. His lawyers and other advocates say he’s not alone, that Black doctors across the country commonly experience discrimination, ranging from microaggressions to career-threatening disciplinary actions. Biases, conscious or not, can become magnified in the fiercely competitive hospital environment, they say, and the underrepresentation of Black doctors can discourage them from speaking up. (Brumback, 5/1)

The New York Times: Loss Of Pandemic Aid Stresses Hospitals That Treat The Uninsured The infusion of aid is ending at a time when hospitalizations from Covid are receding, but as safety-net providers are facing tremendous unmet needs from patients who have delayed care for chronic conditions and other health problems even more than usual during the pandemic. “Their margins are slim to begin with,” Beth Feldpush, the senior vice president for policy and advocacy at America’s Essential Hospitals, which represents safety-net hospitals, said of the institutions. She added that some were already having a “more difficult time bouncing back operationally and financially.” Nashville General has seen an average of just one Covid patient a week recently. But its doctors and nurses say that a wide range of health problems that worsened during the pandemic are now overwhelming the hospital. (Weiland, 5/1)

Reuters: Law Firm Files Class Action Against Pharma Company Natera Law firm Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP on Sunday said it had filed a securities class action lawsuit against pharmaceutical company Natera Inc (NTRA.O) on behalf of shareholders, according to a statement. The law firm said the main justification for the lawsuit filed in the U.S. district court of the Western district of Texas was that Natera, which specializes in genetic testing and diagnostics, provided information about the efficacy of its tests that have not proved accurate. (5/1)

Crain's Detroit Business: Michigan State University, Henry Ford Health Partnership Will Continue Without Lassiter The departure of Henry Ford Health CEO Wright Lassiter III is hardly surprising — he's been a rising star in healthcare nationally for years — but it comes in the middle of several projects that are career- and legacy-defining. The most prominent of the projects is a partnership with Michigan State University with plans for a new research center located south of the health system's Detroit campus on West Grand Boulevard. It will house researchers and physicians on translational research — specifically looking at cancer, neuroscience, women's health, imaging and public health. (Walsh, 4/29)

Stat: Meet The Policy Makers Who Want To Bring Health Tech Into The Home  Years into the pandemic’s almost overnight transition to virtual care, providers and health plans are now scrambling to build sustainable systems that can more permanently treat patients in their homes via telehealth or other means, a trend they say could cut costs and make health care more convenient for patients. There’s widespread interest. Health systems are piloting their own “hospital at home” programs, some of which use biometric sensors to passively monitor patients before their conditions worsen, minimizing unnecessary in-person visits. Industry giants like UnitedHealth Group are poised to spend billions of dollars on home health providers; Amazon’s clinic chain Amazon Care threw its weight behind home health when it joined the Moving Health Home policy coalition last year. (Ravindranath, 5/2)

Modern Healthcare: UCM Digital Health Forms Partnership To Launch Mobile Integrated Healthcare Nationwide Telehealth and emergency medicine triage provider UCM Digital Health is partnering with another emergency medicine group to expand patient-centered, mobile resources outside of hospitals. UCM and Empress Emergency Medical Services expect their collaboration will allow patients to access virtual and hands-on medical care at home, work, or wherever they are without visiting the emergency department or urgent care. (Devereaux, 4/29)

The Wall Street Journal: OrbiMed Seeks $4.75 Billion For Fresh Slate Of Healthcare-Focused Funds Healthcare-focused investment firm OrbiMed Advisors is seeking $4.75 billion across three new funds a little more than a year after raising $3.5 billion for a trio of predecessor vehicles, regulatory filings indicate. The New York-based firm is pitching its latest funds following a record year of private investment in the healthcare sector. Private-equity firms signed a total of some $151 billion worth of healthcare deals globally in 2021, driven by a glut of large transactions, WSJ Pro Private Equity previously reported. Venture investment in the sector also hit a record, surpassing $86 billion in 2021, according to a report by Silicon Valley Bank that cites data from PitchBook Data Inc. (Kreutzer, 4/29)

Study Shows AI Can Spot Ventricular Condition From Apple Watch Data

Modern Healthcare and Stat cover an innovation from Mayo Clinic, where ECG data from an Apple Watch is run through a smart algorithm that can then identify left ventricular dysfunction. Separately, a study shows the amount of covid virus shed by asymptomatic people varies widely.

Modern Healthcare: Mayo Study: AI Can Detect Heart Condition From Apple Watch ECGs An artificial-intelligence algorithm developed at Mayo Clinic could identify left ventricular dysfunction—or a weak heart pump—in most patients based on Apple Watch data, researchers shared at a conference Sunday. The proof-of-concept study was funded by Rochester, Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic without technical or financial support from Apple. Left ventricular dysfunction, which affects 2-3% of people globally, might be accompanied by symptoms like shortness of breath, legs swelling or an irregular heartbeat, but it sometimes has no symptoms at all, said Dr. Paul Friedman, chair of Mayo Clinic's cardiovascular medicine department in Rochester and a researcher on the study. (Kim Cohen, 5/1)

Stat: Pulling From Apple Watch Data, Cardiac Algorithm Shows Early Promise Mayo Clinic is developing an algorithm capable of detecting a weak heart pump from electrocardiograms recorded on wearable devices like Apple Watches, potentially enabling early detection of the life-threatening condition outside medical settings. The algorithm accurately flagged a small number of patients with a weak heart pump in a study presented Sunday at the annual Heart Rhythm Society conference in San Francisco. It was tested in a decentralized study that collected more than 125,000 Apple Watch EKGs from participants in 46 states and 11 countries. (Ross, 5/1)

CIDRAP: Clinical Trial Will Examine Antibiotic Use In Treatment Of Gum Disease The National Institutes of Health this week announced a $2.4 million grant for a clinical trial to study responsible use of antibiotics in the treatment of severe gum disease. The trial, which will be run by the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in collaboration with American Dental Association Science & Research Institute, will enroll 1,050 periodontal patients. Clinicians will share clinical and patient-experience data about the efficacy of adjunctive antibiotics, which are commonly used for treatment of periodontitis in conjunction with deep cleaning. To date, data on the benefit of adjunctive antibiotics for periodontitis has been unclear. (4/29)

Stat: This Kidney Researcher Hopes To Break A Lethal Chain Of Inheritance  Autumn Steen roiled in the pew of the chapel, Bowditch Union Free Will Baptist Church — the one she could see from home, the house of God she knew so well she could get in with a spare key. If I just pray hard enough, none of this will happen, she thought. At just 17, she was unable to grasp that this had already happened. Her dad, Tommy Bruce Carroll, was dead. Minutes earlier, she had arrived home from summer Bible school to find an ambulance in the gravel driveway, her mother sobbing uncontrollably on the back porch. Steen had known her father was sick with the same kidney disease he shared with more than half of his 13 siblings, and he’d slowed down a bit since starting dialysis. But he had been OK when they spoke that morning. He was only 50 years old. How could his heart just stop? (Cueto, 5/2)

CIDRAP: Study: SARS-CoV-2 Virus Shedding Varied Widely In The Mildly Ill Daily infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus shedding varied substantially among 60 newly diagnosed asymptomatic or mildly ill COVID-19 patients early in the pandemic, suggesting that individual differences in viral dynamics may account for "superspreading," according to a first-of-its-kind modeling study published yesterday in Nature Microbiology. A superspreader transmits the virus to an exceptionally large number of other people. "Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by both presymptomatic and asymptomatic individuals has been a major contributor to the explosive spread of this virus," the researchers wrote. (Van Beusekom, 4/29)

CIDRAP: Sensitivity Of Home COVID Rapid Antigen Tests Peaks 4 Days After Illness Onset The sensitivity of home rapid antigen COVID-19 tests peaks 4 days after symptom onset, suggesting that a negative antigen test should be followed by a second test in 1 or 2 days, according to a prospective study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. The study, led by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 Response Team, studied test sensitivity in 225 adults and children from 107 households who tested positive for COVID-19 in San Diego County, California, and metropolitan Denver from January to May 2021. (4/29)

Challenge Mounted To Ohio Law Allowing Doctors To Deny Services

The Columbus Dispatch covers a case against Ohio's law that allows health providers to deny services that violate their beliefs — because of the way the law was snuck into a budget bill. Tennessee's "acquired immunity" covid law, the Lone Star tick in D.C., and other matters are also in the news.

Columbus Dispatch: ACLU, Equitas Health Challenge Ohio Law Letting Doctors Deny Care A law that lets Ohio health providers refuse services that violate their religious or moral beliefs is being challenged in court not on its merits but on the way it was passed. The "medical conscience clause" wasn't a freestanding piece of legislation. Instead, Republicans folded the language into Ohio's 2,400-page budget during final negotiations. “The Healthcare Denial Law was snuck into an unrelated appropriations bill in the eleventh hour behind closed doors,"  ACLU of Ohio attorney Amy Gilbert said in a statement. "Our constitution’s single-subject rule serves an essential democratic purpose in placing concrete limits on the power of the General Assembly." (Staver, 4/29)

AP: Tennessee Gets 'Acquired Immunity' COVID Law; Gov Won't Sign Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee declined to sign off on a new law requiring governments and businesses to treat immunity from a previous COVID-19 infection as equal to getting vaccinated in their policies. The legislation became law Friday without the Republican’s signature, taking effect immediately. The bill requires a letter from a licensed physician or certain lab test results as proof of “acquired immunity.” (4/30)

The Washington Post: Lone Star Tick That Makes People Allergic To Red Meat Is In D.C. Our recent warm weather has reawakened ticks, and one type in particular is becoming more common in the D.C. area: the lone star tick. One bite from this tick, which is easily identified by the white spot on its back if it’s a female, can cause a life-long adverse reaction to eating red meat. The lone star tick originated in the southern states but has spread north and west to cover much of the eastern half of the country. With a warming climate, more ticks survive the winter months, and their range is expanding. Unlike the black-legged (deer) tick, the lone star tick doesn’t transmit Lyme disease, but it can produce a severe food allergy in people known as alpha-gal syndrome, which is an allergy to red meat. (Ambrose, 5/1)

AP: Autopsy Backlog Plagues Mississippi, With Worst Delays In US After Truitt Pace admitted to law enforcement that he beat and shot his wife, her family expected a swift conviction. The 34-year-old mother of three’s tiny frame was so bruised and traumatized that the funeral home suggested a closed casket. But as months went by, state prosecutors told Marsha Harbour’s family they were waiting on a key piece of evidence: the medical examiner’s autopsy report. National standards recommend most autopsy reports be completed within 60 days. Prosecutors in Harbour’s case waited for a year. (Willingham, 4/30)

Los Angeles Times: An Old Toxic Dump Brings New Worries For Lincoln Heights In the summer of 1984, investigators peered into a cave dug beneath the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles and found dozens of rusted 55-gallon barrels filled with toxic chemicals. Some of the barrels lay nearly empty after their contents had leaked through corroded metal and escaped into the soil. “I saw the hole and I said, ‘I can’t believe it — who would do something like this?’,’' recalled Barry Groveman, the head of the now-defunct Los Angeles Hazardous Waste Task Force. At the time, he described the dump as “a violent crime against the community.” (Valdez, 4/30)

USA Today: Tuberculosis Cases Washington: State's Largest Outbreak In 20 Years Health officials warn that Washington is experiencing the state's largest tuberculosis outbreak in 20 years. And it's part of a concerning surge in TB cases worldwide. A Washington State Department of Health release from Thursday shared that state and local health officials are on "heightened alert" due to the current rise in TB cases. While TB cases in Washington appeared to trend downward during the first year of the pandemic (potentially due to decreased reporting), cases notably rose in 2021 – which saw a total of 199 reported cases statewide, a 22% increase from 2020, according to the state department of health. (Grantham-Philips, 4/30)

Colorado Sun: Colorado Is About To (Maybe) Adopt Permanent Daylight Saving Time Colorado is on the verge of adopting a law that would make daylight saving time permanent year-round — but that doesn’t necessarily make clock-switching a thing of the past in the state, at least not yet. Last week, the state Senate passed House Bill 1297, meaning it is now headed to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk. A spokesman for the governor said this week that Polis will sign the bill. The bill wouldn’t automatically keep Colorado’s clocks locked into “coordinated universal time minus six hours,” as the bill describes it. Instead, two conditions must be met first: Congress must pass a law allowing states to switch to permanent daylight time and at least four other states in the Mountain time zone must also adopt permanent DST. (Ingold, 4/29)

Politico: Florida Lost 70,000 People To Covid. It’s Still Not Prepared For The Next Wave As Covid infections begin creeping up again across the country, current and former health officials in Florida are warning that the state remains woefully underprepared to handle the next wave of the pandemic. Florida’s 250-plus hospitals are still facing staffing shortages that continue to worsen as the Covid-19 pandemic drags on. The state Legislature budgeted more than $100 million for community colleges and universities to expand medical training programs to boost the number of qualified nurses in the state and injected $10 million to build medical training centers. (Sarkissian, 5/1)

WLRN 91.3 FM: HCA Is Donating $1.5 Million To Boost Florida International's Nurse Educator Program  There's another staffing shortage impacting the nursing profession: nurse educators to teach the next generation. U.S. nursing schools turned away more than 80,000 qualified baccalaureate and graduate nursing applicants because of an insufficient number of faculty to teach them, according to a 2019 study by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Florida International University in Miami is trying to tackle this issue with help from a partnership with HCA Healthcare. On Tuesday, the health system announced it will donate $1.5 million to FIU’s Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing and Health Sciences to expand faculty and offer scholarships to increase enrollment. (Ovalle and Munoz, 4/29)

In news from across other states —

The CT Mirror: ‘Safe Milk More Accessible For Everyone:’ Connecticut Gets First Outpatient Breast Milk Dispensary Susan Parker walked through the offices at ProHealth Physician’s Glastonbury Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine carrying a large white box. She set it down on a table next to a couple of small medical freezers. “This is literally the first one,” she said before grabbing a pair of scissors and tearing open the box. Inside were more than two dozen tiny bottles filled with frozen, pasteurized breast milk – milk donated from people across the Northeast and then screened, tested and processed at a facility in Massachusetts. Parker, a nurse practitioner and lactation counselor, said this milk will soon go to Connecticut parents who struggle to produce enough breast milk on their own. (Leonard, 5/1)

AP: Masks Back By Popular Demand On San Francisco BART Trains A mask mandate for commuter rail passengers is back by popular demand in the San Francisco Bay Area, the region that two years ago imposed the nation’s first coronavirus stay-at-home order and now is bucking the national trend away from required face coverings. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system, known as BART, had decided last week to drop its rule in line with a federal court ruling but that decision prompted an outcry, spokeswoman Alicia Trost said Friday. (5/1)

Fox News: Charlie Crist Says He's 'Open' To Mask Mandate, Setting Up COVID As Key Issue In Race Against DeSantis A recent statement from a Democratic candidate eyeing the Florida governor's seat has opened the door for COVID-19 to remain a central issue in the race against sitting Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. A video obtained by Fox News Digital shows former Florida governor and current Congressman Charlie Crist, D-Fla., telling attendees at a campaign event in Wilton Manors, Florida, that if he were elected, he would be open to a statewide mask mandate. An event attendee asked, "Congressman, thank you for coming. You mentioned the pandemic. Hopefully it is behind us. But as Florida’s governor, would you be open to mandating or regulating masks?" (Laco, 4/29)

Los Angeles Times: After Cops Remove Activists, L.A. Mayor Candidates Take On Homelessness — And One Another Sunday’s mayoral debate began with a leader of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles being forcibly removed from the auditorium by multiple campus police officers just before cameras started rolling and ended with the candidates sharing their favorite locations to visit in the city. During the intervening 90 minutes, five of the leading candidates for Los Angeles mayor traded arguments and accusations over how to address crime, homelessness, climate change and other issues. At times, they appeared almost as frustrated as the voters of Los Angeles. (Wick, Park and Zahniser, 5/1)

KHN: Downsized City Sees Its Health Care Downsized As Hospital Awaits Demolition In 1898, three nuns took a train to this city along the south shore of Lake Michigan to start a hospital. They converted an old farmhouse into a seven-bed medical center. They treated their first patient for a broken leg amid carpenters hammering nails. Surgeons laid their patients on a kitchen table for operations. The hospital — then named after St. Margaret, known for her service to the poor — eventually became one of the largest in the area. Hundreds of thousands of Indiana and Illinois residents took their first, or last, breaths there. (Bruce, 5/2)

Beijing Tightens Covid Rules; New Zealand, Italy, Greece Relax Them

Chinese authorities aiming to control an ongoing covid outbreak and are trying a new range of restrictions that stop shy of a full lockdown. Meanwhile, in New Zealand the government is opening the borders to tourists — and Italy, Greece are relaxing their rules to boost tourism.

The New York Times: Beijing Escalates Restrictions After Covid Outbreak, But No Full Lockdown With new cases of the coronavirus continuing to accumulate in Beijing, officials over the weekend introduced sweeping new restrictions while stopping short of a full lockdown, a sign of the political and economic challenges that controlling an outbreak in China’s capital poses. As the five-day May Day holiday began on Saturday, local officials announced a ban on dining in restaurants until Wednesday. They also said that as of Thursday, proof of a negative test within the last week would be required to enter public spaces, including public transportation. And they ordered the closure of Universal Beijing Resort, one of the city’s major tourist attractions. (Wang, 5/1)

AP: New Zealand Welcomes Back Tourists As Pandemic Rules Eased  New Zealand welcomed tourists from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Japan and more than 50 other countries for the first time in more than two years Monday after dropping most of its remaining pandemic border restrictions. The country has long been renowned for its breathtaking scenery and adventure tourism offerings such as bungy jumping and skiing. Before the spread of COVID-19, more than 3 million tourists visited each year, accounting for 20% of New Zealand’s foreign income and more than 5% of the overall economy. But international tourism stopped altogether in early 2020 after New Zealand imposed some of the world’s toughest border restrictions. (Perry, 5/2)

AP: Tourists, Rejoice! Italy, Greece Relax COVID-19 Restrictions For travelers heading to Europe, summer vacations just got a whole lot easier. Italy and Greece relaxed some COVID-19 restrictions on Sunday before Europe’s peak summer tourist season, in a sign that life was increasingly returning to normal. Greece’s civil aviation authority announced that it was lifting all COVID-19 rules for international and domestic flights except for the wearing of face masks during flights and at airports. Previously, air travelers were required to show proof of vaccination, a negative test or a recent recovery from the disease. (Winfield and Nellas, 5/1)

Reuters: South Africa's Aspen COVID-19 Vaccine Plant Risks Closure After No Orders, Executive Says Africa's first COVID-19 vaccination plant, touted last year as a trailblazer for an under-vaccinated continent frustrated by sluggish Western handouts, risks shutting down after receiving not a single order, a company executive said on Saturday. South Africa's Aspen Pharmacare negotiated a licensing deal in November to package and sell Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine and distribute it across Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) called the deal a "transformative moment" in the drive towards leveling stark inequalities in access to COVID vaccines. (Cocks, 5/2)

Bloomberg: The EU Wants A Central, Cross-Border Digital Health Space The European Union wants to make it easier for people to access their prescriptions and health records online no matter where they are in the EU, under new plans to be unveiled next week. The European Commission’s proposal for a European Health Data Space would create a central online system where all EU citizens can access their health data, according to internal draft documents seen by Bloomberg. The proposal could also improve researchers’ and policymakers’ access to data for developing medicines and health policies. (Deutsch, 4/29)

Viewpoints: Health Care Sorely Lacking In Autism Training; Street Medicine Funding Needed For Homeless Patients

Editorial writers tackle these public health topics.

Stat: The Medical System Needs To Deeply Reform Its Care Of People With Autism I walked into the hospital room of a patient I had been assigned that morning. Noah, an adorable boy with dark, coiled hair, had severe autism. His mom was sitting on the hospital bed with Noah sleeping soundly on her lap. He’d been admitted for only a few hours, but a lot had already happened. During the morning handoff, I had learned that my colleague, who admitted Noah, had refused to give him oral sedation before placing an IV, which he needed for antibiotics, despite his mother’s insistence that needles frightened her son and that, because he could not verbally communicate, he would lash out. When the medical team tried to insert the IV, Noah became extremely upset, hitting several staff members. The team finally listened to his mother, gave him the oral sedation she had requested, and quietly and safely placed the IV. (Amanda Joy Calhoun, 5/1)

Newsweek: Homeless Americans Are Costing Us Millions Each Year. Street Medicine Would Help  Results from the nationwide 2022 Point-in-Time count will soon be released and reveal the state of homelessness in the United States two years into the COVID-19 pandemic. We need our legislators and hospitals to take action regardless of these findings. We cannot keep waiting for homeless numbers to skyrocket before we increase funding for homeless health care—homeless Americans already cost our health care system millions each year. (Anna Thorndike, 4/29)

The New York Times: What American Mothers Really Need  I’ve been watching anti-abortion bills sweep the red states this season, and it occurs to me that the week of Mother’s Day might be a good time for a red-state mother like me to weigh in. I fervently support a woman’s right to choose, but I still spend a lot of time thinking about how Republican legislators could achieve their real goal without also trying to undo settled legal precedent. (Margaret Renkl, 5/2)

Los Angeles Times: Is That Pain You Feel All In Your Head?  When I prolapsed a disc in my spine in the middle of a bench press back in medical school, pain became a persistent presence in my life, and I feared that my injury would end my nascent career as a physician. I completely forgot what it was like to be pain-free. I often considered the only way to end my suffering would be by ending my life. Yet because I had no wounds or scars, friends and colleagues questioned whether my pain was all in my head. That phrase felt like an erasure of my person, but I know now that there is more truth in it than any of my questioners could have imagined. (Haider Warraich, 5/2)

Colorado Sun: Colorado’s Cold Shoulder To International Medical Graduates Recently, tens of thousands of medical school graduates got career-defining, life-altering news. Every March on “Match Day,” medical school graduates learn about their U.S. residency placements, in-depth postgraduate training programs, where they’ll hone clinical skills and focus on a medical specialty. It’s a celebratory time for many, but for others, including me, it’s a heartbreaking reminder that training, skills, monetary investments, and dedication to the medical field don’t always lead to a triumphant Match Day, let alone to careers contributing to our full potential in a workforce that sorely needs us. (Wafa El-ejmi, 5/1)

The Boston Globe: The 2,000-Year-Old Practice That Saved Me  I became a physician to tend to the broken. Little did I expect to become broken myself. With each wave of the virus, I fell apart. In the relative calm that followed, and before the next surge, I gathered the pieces, rebuilding myself with just enough resolve to get by. There were moments — beyond bearing witness to the pain and suffering of my patients and colleagues — that made the process of rebounding more difficult, like the sudden loss of a close family member and the end of a loving but fraught relationship. I looked for help in those who were kind enough to offer it. But confiding in close friends and family, even speaking to a wonderfully attentive therapist with industrial-strength empathy, did little to excise the sadness that was spreading through my soul. (Arjun V.K. Sharma, 4/30)

The CT Mirror: Connecticut Should Lead On Primary Health Care Cost Reform In March, the Insurance and Real Estate Committee advanced HB 5042: An Act Concerning Health Care Cost Growth with unanimous and bipartisan support. This bill is an important step to address the growing cost of healthcare delivered in Connecticut while improving healthcare quality. As the legislative session draws to a close, we call for action on this progressive and important measure. One component of this legislation is establishment of benchmark spending for primary care, ensuring necessary funding for efforts to deliver high-value comprehensive, preventive, and coordinated care to patients. The American College of Physicians (ACP) strongly supports this increase for primary care commensurate with its value in achieving better outcomes while limiting growth of exponentially increasing costs. (Drs. Anthony Yoder and Ruth Weissberger, 5/1)

Different Takes: Can We Build Covid Immunity With Infection?; It's Past Time For An Under-5s Vaccine

Opinion writers weigh in on covid as well as race in health care.

Bloomberg: How Often Do I Need To Get Covid To Be Immune?  In October 2020, a few weeks before the experimental trial results for the BioNTech-Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines were released, German virologist Christian Drosten cautioned that the shots would be of limited effectiveness in preventing the spread of the disease. (Justin Fox, 4/30)

Dallas Morning News: Will The FDA Stop Infantilizing Parents About COVID-19 Vaccines For Youngest Children? Parenting little children is a study in patience, and federal officials are stretching some parents to the breaking point. More than a year after the COVID-19 vaccine began rolling out to the general public, we still don’t have shots for children younger than age 5. Parents were led to believe that the vaccines would become available shortly after the 2021 holiday season, but that did not happen. (5/1)

Stat: Substituting Genetic Ancestry For Race In Research? Not So Fast  Race, widely used as a variable across biomedical research and medicine, is an appropriate proxy for racism — but not for anything biological. Proposals to use genetic ancestry instead of race are at risk of perpetuating the same problems. Dozens of algorithms widely used in clinical care contain an adjustment factor for a patient’s race. When estimating kidney function, for example, different results are returned depending on whether the patient’s race is entered as “Black” or “non-Black,” though at least for kidney function the use of race is being challenged. Some medications have been approved only for those of certain self-identified racial groups. Meanwhile in research, the race of participants is routinely considered at almost every step of the research process — from recruitment to analysis to the interpretation of findings. (Anna C. F. Lewis, 5/2)

We want to hear from you: Contact Us

Is Paxlovid, the Covid Pill, Reaching Those Who Most Need It? The Government Won’t Say

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: The Invisible Pandemic

Census Undercount Threatens Federal Food and Health Programs on Reservations

Why Won’t More Older Americans Get Their Covid Booster?

© 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Thank you for your interest in supporting Kaiser Health News (KHN), the nation’s leading nonprofit newsroom focused on health and health policy. We distribute our journalism for free and without advertising through media partners of all sizes and in communities large and small. We appreciate all forms of engagement from our readers and listeners, and welcome your support.

KHN is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). You can support KHN by making a contribution to KFF, a non-profit charitable organization that is not associated with Kaiser Permanente.

Click the button below to go to KFF’s donation page which will provide more information and FAQs. Thank you!