Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
KFF HEALTH NEWS ORIGINAL STORIES
KFF Health News: A Generation Of Kids Suffer As Trump Destabilizes Immigrant Families The little girl stared up at Norma Gómez from the doorway of her neighbor’s apartment, her sad, brown eyes suddenly flashing with hope. “Are you the person who’s going to bring my mom back?” she asked. Gómez struggled to find an answer. It was a December morning, and she’d brought food, diapers, baby wipes, and clothes — items she hoped would help the 6-year-old girl, her baby brother, and the neighbor who had stepped in to care for them. The children were left alone after federal immigration agents arrested their parents outside their apartment in Oxnard, a mostly Latino agricultural community on the Southern California coast. But Gómez had no power to bring the parents back. (Boyd-Barrett, 9/14)
KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘An Arm and a Leg’: The Meltdown In Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Employer-sponsored health insurance covers more than 165 million Americans. It can entice someone to work at one company over another, or be a set of golden handcuffs that keeps them locked into a job they may not enjoy. But rising costs are straining that system like never before. As premiums balloon, employers have started to pass on more costs to their workers, and the percentage of small businesses offering employees health insurance has dropped significantly. (Weissmann, 9/14)
KFF Health News: KFF Health News’ ‘On Air’: Journalists Detail Data On Suicide, Primary Care Shortages, And Gun Violence KFF Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed Louisiana sheriffs’ spending of opioid settlement payouts on Attitude With Arnie Arnesen on Sept. 1. Pattani also discussed addressing loneliness and isolation as part of suicide prevention on Good Faith Media’s Our Stigma on Aug. 31. (9/12)
CLIMATE AND HEALTH
The New York Times: E.P.A. Will Erase Limits On Climate Pollution From Power Plants The Trump administration plans to announce Monday that the United States will no longer limit the planet-warming pollution that power plants pump into the air while burning coal and gas, according to two people familiar with the proposal. The shift by the Environmental Protection Agency would complete the administration’s erasure of the most consequential climate policies of Presidents Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Barack Obama. If the move survives expected legal challenges, it could also prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. (Joselow, 9/13)
The New York Times: An Unusual Plume of Dust Heads to Florida A layer of Saharan dust half the size of the continental United States filled the atmosphere over much of the Caribbean on Saturday and was filtering into South Florida. The cloud is unusually large for this time of year. The particle-filled air makes skies hazy and can degrade air quality. (Graff, 9/12)
MORE ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
Healthcare Finance News: HHS Awards $383.4M For Behavioral Health Services The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded $383.4 million to strengthen behavioral health treatment, prevention and crisis-response services nationwide. The grants, distributed through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), include $252 million for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, suicide-prevention programs and mobile crisis services. An additional $81.4 million will support substance-use treatment and prevention, while $50 million will fund other mental-health initiatives. (Bender, 9/9)
FiercePharma: New FDA Oncology Chief Sets Priorities In First Interview In his first interview after taking the reins of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE), Angelo de Claro, M.D., is outlining a regulatory agenda that prioritizes organizational strength and continued regulatory modernization. Stepping into one of the most heavyweight leadership roles in U.S. drug evaluation, de Claro faces the tall order of succeeding an FDA legend, Richard Pazdur, M.D. In his first interview, the new oncology chief vowed to build on Pazdur’s foundation while pioneering frameworks to integrate artificial intelligence into regulatory reviews, streamline drug development, and boost U.S. trial participation. (Liu, 9/11)
Modern Healthcare: CMS Expands Medicare Coverage For TAVR The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is expanding Medicare coverage of transcatheter aortic valve replacement to more patients. The new national coverage determination broadens coverage for patients with severe aortic stenosis, a condition where the heart’s aortic valve narrows. During a TAVR procedure, a doctor threads a thin, flexible catheter through the leg or chest to the heart and delivers a replacement valve. (Dubinsky, 9/11)
The Duke Chronicle: Trump Administration Finds Duke School Of Medicine Racially Discriminated In Admissions The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights found Duke’s School of Medicine to have intentionally discriminated against white and Asian applicants in its admissions practices. (Halper, 9/10)
Stat: Trump’s Secretive Pharma Deals May Undermine ‘Most-Favored Nation’ Pricing, An Analysis Suggests The projected savings from a highly touted Trump administration plan to lower Medicare drug costs may be drastically reduced — by as much as 80% — thanks to secretive deals cut with more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies, according to a new analysis. (Silverman, 9/13)
The Washington Sun: Federal Judge Says DHS Acted ‘Capriciously’ When Halving FEMA’s Staff A federal judge in California sided with a labor union on Friday in its lawsuit against the Trump administration, saying the Department of Homeland Security “arbitrarily” moved to slash the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s staff by 50% earlier this year. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled that DHS acted “capriciously” when it revoked FEMA’s long-standing authority to renew contracts for its Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery, or CORE employees. CORE employees are on-the-ground contacts who are dispatched across the country and remain in communities years after a disaster. (Orellana Hernandez, 9/12)
ON CAPITOL HILL
The New York Times: As Midterms Rage, Gillibrand Wants Congress To Talk Menopause As the Democrat in charge of her party’s intensive effort to win the Senate majority, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has a challenging job. But on Thursday, Ms. Gillibrand plans to use her platform to spotlight an issue that has been absent from the campaign trail and little discussed in Washington, convening the first-ever congressional hearing on menopause. (Karni, 9/14)
MEASLES
NBC News: Pennsylvania Woman Dies From Measles Complications, State’s Third Death This Year A 40-year-old woman has died from measles complications in Pennsylvania, marking the state’s third measles-associated death this year as the U.S. experiences its worst resurgence of the highly contagious disease in 35 years. The woman, a Jefferson County resident, died Saturday, county Coroner Greg Furlong said on Facebook. (Weaver, 9/13)
CIDRAP: US Measles Cases Approach 3,300—Over 1,000 More Than All Of Last Year The number of confirmed US cases of measles has reached 3,294, fully 1,000 more than all of last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted in its weekly update today. The total includes 160 new cases, most of them in Pennsylvania, the nation’s measles hot spot. The country has now seen five straight weeks of triple-digit increases. (Wappes, 9/11)
The Hill: CDC Director Erica Schwartz Silent Amid Measles Epidemic, Virus Season Just a month into her tenure as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Erica Schwartz is missing in action. The country is heading into respiratory virus season, and public guidance on COVID-19, flu and RSV vaccines has been muddled, at best. The worst measles epidemic in more than 30 years continues unabated, while the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary is downplaying measles deaths and openly feuding with a sitting governor. (Weixel, 9/13)
USA Today: Dems Send RFK Jr. Letter, Say He's Focused On Cooking Show, Not Measles A group of Senate Democrats allege that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is using taxpayer dollars to focus on "vanity projects" – like his new podcast and cooking show – rather than addressing Americans' health concerns, in a new letter sent to Kennedy. "We are concerned that, instead of addressing the struggles that Americans face today in trying to keep their families safe and healthy, you are using taxpayer dollars to promote your personal brand," Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan – who led the charge – Chuck Schumer, Angela Alsobrooks, Ron Wyden, Mark Warner and Ben Ray Luján wrote in the Sept. 10 letter obtained by USA TODAY. (Condon, 9/11)
MORE OUTBREAKS AND HEALTH THREATS
Axios: Cyclospora Outbreak Over, CDC Says The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the cyclospora outbreak related to Taylor Farms lettuce over Friday, though the Food and Drug Administration says its investigation remains ongoing. (Lotz, 9/11)
The New York Times: Legionella Bacteria Found In Cooling Tower At Yankee Stadium Legionella bacteria have been detected in a cooling tower at Yankee Stadium in the South Bronx, New York City health officials said on Sunday afternoon. The neighborhood has been grappling with a recent outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that has killed one person and infected nine others. (Fitzsimmons, 9/13)
CIDRAP: Study Highlights Role Of Climate In Rising US Incidence Of Legionellosis In two neighborhoods in Manhattan this summer, 94 people were sickened, and 11 died, in an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. It was the second summer in a row that New York City had experienced a cluster of cases of the severe type of pneumonia, which can cause lung failure and death. Both outbreaks were linked to cooling towers in the city’s large apartment buildings and office towers that had been contaminated with Legionella bacteria. (Dall, 9/11)
WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS
Fox News: Ozempic And Wegovy May Cause Rare Brain Disorder, New Study Warns Researchers are warning about a rare but potentially life-threatening brain condition that may be linked to popular GLP-1 weight-loss medications. A new study, published in Clinical Nutrition, identified 15 reported cases of Wernicke encephalopathy, a neurological disorder caused by severe vitamin B1 deficiency, in people taking GLP-1 receptor agonists. Most of the reported cases involved semaglutide, sold under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy, or tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound. (McGreal, 9/13)
The Hill: Weight Regain After GLP-1 Use Tied To Higher Rates Of Suicidal Thoughts, Study Shows People who used prescription weight loss medication and later regained the weight reported suicidal thoughts at more than four times the rate of people who never took the drugs, a new study found. Researchers led by Dr. Son Ki-young, a family medicine professor at Asan Medical Center, analyzed data from 27,741 adults — 10,908 men and 16,833 women — who took part in a national health survey between 2013 and 2022. (Menezes, 9/11)
HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Chicago Tribune: Judge To Appoint Receiver To Take Control Of West Suburban, Weiss A Cook County judge said Friday he plans to appoint a receiver over West Suburban and Weiss Memorial hospitals to get them “under control,” after months of battles in court over their future. Though the hospitals’ current owners and many community members have said they want to see the safety net hospitals reopened, the receiver’s immediate job won’t be to reopen the facilities, but rather to stabilize the situation, Cook County Circuit Judge Patrick Stanton said at a hearing Friday afternoon. (Schencker, 9/11)
Rogue Valley Times: Fired NICU Doctors Push For Changes Inside Asante Leadership Families of recent patients of the Medford, Oregon, region’s only NICU — which provides care for critically ill and premature infants born as early as 22 weeks and weighing less than 1 pound — voiced concerns about quality and consistency of care under a host of recent changes, including replacement of an established team of NICU doctors with temporary providers. (Pollock, 8/24)
Stat: Hospitals See Shortcomings In Rural Health Transformation Fund Last summer, Republican lawmakers were worried. They were planning to cut $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade, and they knew hospitals in their districts and states would suffer. Before passing their tax-cut law, they added in $50 billion over the next five years. This rural health fund was intended to help health care providers prepare for the new challenges ahead. (Payne, 9/14)
Modern Healthcare: Why Quest Diagnostics, Labcorp Are Eyeing Health System Deals Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics see solid growth on the horizon for laboratory companies as health systems try to blunt financial headwinds and patients seek more on-demand services. After acquiring lab assets from systems such as Minneapolis-based Allina Health, Columbus, Ohio-based OhioHealth, Franklin, Tennessee-based Community Health Systems and Fort Wayne, Indiana-based Parkview Health, the two dominant national commercial laboratory companies have set their focus on broadening test menus and direct-to-patient offerings. (DeSilva, 9/11)
PHARMA AND TECH
Stat: Scholar Rock Therapy Drug To Treat SMA Wins Approval By FDA Scholar Rock on Friday received Food and Drug Administration approval for the first-ever therapy that targets the loss of muscle in spinal muscle atrophy, raising hopes that patients with the rare neurological disorder might have a better chance of moving and walking independently. (Wosen, 9/11)
Stat: Breast Cancer Pill From AstraZeneca Misses Mark In Pivotal Study AstraZeneca said Friday that a breast cancer pill failed in a pivotal trial testing it as a first-line therapy in advanced tumors, a result that could limit the use of the medicine. (Joseph, 9/12)
Modern Healthcare: Johnson & Johnson Demands 340B Claims Data From Providers Johnson & Johnson will require claims-level data from 340B Drug Pricing Program participants starting next Tuesday, the drugmaker announced in a notice to providers. Safety-net providers that qualify for 340B, which offers price reductions up to 50%, must submit these data to receive upfront discounts, Johnson & Johnson wrote in a memo dated Sept. 4. Noncompliance will risk providers’ access to lower costs for the company’s medicines. HIV/AIDS programs are exempt. (Early, 9/11)
Stat: Novo Nordisk Rebrands As 'Novo,' Part Of A Culture Shift It’ll be the company formerly known as Novo Nordisk. The Danish firm, whose diabetes and obesity drugs have become household names, said Monday it would embrace “Novo” as its new brand, part of a culture shifts that aims to signal the company will “move ahead with greater focus, speed, and impact.” (Joseph, 9/14)
STATE WATCH
Florida Trident: Cancer Advocates Join Physician Groups To Defend Vax Mandates Advocates for cancer patients and cancer survivors have joined Florida medical associations in objecting to a revived state Department of Health plan to strike four longstanding vaccine mandates that the advocates say are safe and lifesaving. (Cassels, 9/14)
Wyoming Public Radio: In Wyoming, A First-Ever Maternal Health Summit Hopes To Fill Gaps Wyoming’s first-ever maternal health summit drew more than 150 caregivers, public officials and advocates from across the Mountain West to discuss solutions to fill gaps in rural healthcare. (Merzbach, 9/11)
The New York Times: A Gender War Explodes In Utah Over The Courts, Abortion And Representation When Republicans tried to repeal a law that voters passed banning gerrymandering, they found an opposition that flew in the face of Utah women’s “tradwives” imagery. (Zernike, 9/13)
The Baltimore Sun: Baltimore Considers New Agency To Divert Thousands Of 911 Calls From Police Baltimore is creating a new $16.8 million agency to send clinicians, social workers, and other responders to thousands of 911 calls now handled by police, an effort officials say will give the city a 24/7 alternative for nonviolent emergencies. (Pryce, 9/14)
North Carolina Health News: A Drug Conviction Can Mean A Lifetime Without SNAP In NC Jennifer McCord, who became disabled in 2021 after a drunk driver crashed into her car, relies on $994 in Social Security disability income each month. Nearly $700 goes toward rent for a studio apartment in Asheboro. Then she pays her phone, internet and car bills. Typically, she said, she has $30 to $50 left for food each month. Sometimes, there’s nothing. (Crumpler, 9/14)
The New York Times: Dr. Anthony Robbins, Who Expanded Health Care For The Poor, Dies At 85 The milk truck would pull up to the house, and out would come the groceries — not just milk, but also eggs, cheese, juice, cereal and baby formula. It might have stopped at a rich family’s house, or a poor one. No one could tell the difference, which was precisely the point. Vermont’s supplemental food program for low-income women, infants and children, the first in the nation to be implemented statewide, began in 1974. It was the brainchild in part of Dr. Anthony Robbins, then one of the country’s youngest state health commissioners, at 33; he had secured a federal grant to made the program possible. (Longman, 9/13)
LIFESTYLE AND HEALTH
MedPage Today: Parasite Infestation Common In Eyelash Extensions, Study Suggests A study of young women with eyelash extensions showed that almost all had some degree of infestation with Demodex folliculorum, spider-like parasites that feed on dead skin cells. Microscopic examination of samples from 25 women who regularly used the extensions identified D. folliculorum in samples from all but one patient. Additionally, 18 of the women had demodicosis, a type of skin irritation typical of exposure to the mites. (Bankhead, 9/11)
MedPage Today: 'Emergency' Medical Kits Touted By Dr. Drew And Others Draw Criticism Clinicians are raising concerns about "medical emergency kits" containing antibiotics that are being sold for at-home use and promoted by media celebrities like Drew Pinsky, MD, better known as "Dr. Drew." One such kit, sold by the Wellness Company, retails for $299 and claims to treat more than 30 illnesses. (Frieden, 9/11)
NPR: NPR Looked For ChatGPT’s New Crisis Feature. It’s Hard To Find More than a million weekly users of the chatbot ChatGPT discuss suicide and self-harm, according to NPR estimates of data released by OpenAI last fall. But suicide prevention experts say human connection is critical to preventing suicide. So, back in May, the company started an optional feature called Trusted Contact to connect those struggling with thoughts of suicide and self harm to someone they can turn to in times of emotional crises. (Chatterjee, 9/14)
NBC News: Why Are Americans So Tired? CDC Report Highlights Who’s Feeling The Most Fatigue The cost of healthcare. Economic uncertainties. Fears of AI-associated end times. It’s enough to exhaust anyone. About 71.5% of adults in the United States say they experienced fatigue on multiple days over the past three months, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Women and younger adults are more likely to report frequent fatigue, meaning most days or every day, than men are. (Vivinetto, 9/13)
San Francisco Chronicle: Smart Beds Cost Thousands, Promise Better Sleep. Do They Really Work? Millions of Americans are chronically sleep-deprived, and many are increasingly turning to sleep-tracking wearables and sleep-friendly light and alarm systems that claim to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer and wake up more refreshed. An even more luxurious investment is gaining traction among consumers: smart beds, which promise to improve sleep through customizable temperature, incline and firmness. (Ho, 9/13)
GLOBAL WATCH
CIDRAP: DR Congo’s Ebola Outbreak Spreads To 7th Province As Cases, Deaths Mount The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has spread to a seventh province as cases rise to 6,843, including 3,310 deaths, according to media reports today. The newly affected province, Sud-Ubangi, is in the northwestern DRC, on the border with the Central African Republic and Congo-Brazzaville. A male Ebola patient who became ill in Tshopo province died in Sud-Ubangi after traveling through Rwanda and Uganda and across several provinces, some of them which have not reported cases, Acting Sud-Ubangi Governor Jean-Rene Galekwa Vundawe told reporters yesterday. (Van Beusekom, 9/11)
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