Kaiser Health News Original Stories

Despite a First-Ever 'Right-to-Repair' Law, There’s No Easy Fix for Wheelchair Users

Colorado lawmakers approved a measure that will make it easier for people to fix their power wheelchairs when they wear out or break down, but arcane regulations and manufacturers create high hurdles for nationwide reform. (Markian Hawryluk, 6/6 )

Skirmishes Over Medication Abortion Renews Debate on State vs. Federal Powers

The Biden administration may have authority to allow the use of abortion pills even in states where the practice could be outlawed, say legal experts. (Victoria Knight, 6/6 )

Computer Glitches and Human Error Still Causing Insurance Headaches for Californians

Covered California and Medi-Cal share a computer system for eligibility and enrollment. Nearly a decade since the Affordable Care Act expanded coverage options in the state, enrollees can be diverted to the wrong program — or dropped altogether — if erroneous information gets into the system. (Bernard J. Wolfson, 6/6 )

Readers and Tweeters Go to the Mat on Abortion Rights and Perceived Wrongs

KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. ( 6/6 )

KHN is now on TikTok! Watch our videos and follow along here as we break down health care headlines and policy.

Medical Building Is Latest 'Catastrophic Scene' Of Mass Gun Deaths

Four people were shot and killed at a Tulsa medical building on St. Francis Health System's hospital campus. The gunman is also dead. This mass shooting — on the heels of two recent others — comes as lawmakers struggle with answers to the U.S. gun violence epidemic.

CNN: Tulsa, Oklahoma, Hospital Shooting: 'It Was Just Madness Inside' St. Francis Campus Four people were killed in Tulsa on Wednesday after a gunman -- who was later found dead -- opened fire on the second floor of a medical building, authorities in Oklahoma said. "It was just madness inside, with hundreds of rooms and hundreds of people trying to get out of the building," Tulsa Police Department Captain Richard Meulenberg told CNN. The mass shooting is the latest instance nationwide of first responders and civilians coming face-to-face with the threat of gun violence, as Tulsa joins several cities mourning recent tragic attacks at public places, places of worship and educational facilities. (Rose, Simonson and Caldwell, 6/2)

AP: 4 Killed In Shooting At Tulsa Medical Building, Shooter Dead  St. Francis Health System locked down its campus Wednesday afternoon because of the situation at the Natalie Medical Building. The Natalie building houses an outpatient surgery center and a breast health center. Dalgleish said an orthopedic clinic also is located on the second floor where officers discovered the shooter and several victims. ... Philip Tankersley, 27, was leaving his father’s room at nearby Saint Francis Hospital around 5 p.m., when hospital staff said there was an active shooter in the building across the street, locked the doors and warned them to stay away from the windows. Tankersley said he and his mother sheltered in his father’s hospital room for more than an hour, trying to learn scraps of information from the TV news and passing nurses. He said they heard “code silver” and “level 1 trauma” announced on the hospital speakers and wondered if they were safe in the room. (Murphy and Wallace, 6/2)

The New York Times: Medical Worker Rushed To Escape ‘Labyrinth’ Of Offices In Tulsa Gannon Gill was wrapping up an appointment with a new patient on Wednesday when a loud noise startled him. A few seconds later, he heard it again. Mr. Gill, a physician assistant and a hunter, recognized those sounds as gunfire. “There was an initial ‘What was that?’” said Mr. Gill, who runs an orthopedic urgent care clinic at the facility in Tulsa, Okla., that was the site of a deadly shooting on Wednesday. He turned to his patient and said: “Let’s go. I don’t think this is good.” (Traub, 6/2)

More on gun violence and mental health —

NPR: 'Red Flag' Laws Become Bipartisan Option As Senators Look For Compromise On Guns In what might be characterized as an exercise in the art of the possible, a bipartisan group of senators led by John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., have spent the past few days focused on a limited set of new policies targeting gun violence. They're still in the earliest phases of brainstorming, but three broad areas are showing promise: incentivizing states to pass red flag laws, updates to school safety protocols, and possibly some narrow changes to background checks. (Hopkins and Snell, 6/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Less Than 5% Of Violent Acts Are Linked To Mental Illness, Research Shows Mass shootings in the U.S. have revived discussion around the interplay between mental health and violent acts. Most violent acts are carried out by people with no diagnosed mental illness, say psychologists and epidemiologists. Mental illness can contribute to violence, research shows, but predicting who might act violently is all but impossible. The American Psychiatric Association on Wednesday said stigmatizing people with mental illness could dissuade them from seeking treatment. “The overwhelming majority of people with mental illness are not violent and are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators thereof,” the group said. (Wernau, 6/1)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Program For Troubled Students Hadn’t Reached Uvalde Before Shootings  By most accounts, the Uvalde school gunman was the type of person a fledgling $290 million Texas youth mental health program was designed to reach — before his apparent distress and instability could escalate to mass violence. But it hadn’t reached Salvador Ramos by the time the 18-year-old high school dropout — whose adolescent years were reportedly beset by truancy, cruelty to animals and violence at home and at school — walked into Robb Elementary with an assault rifle last week and killed 19 kids and two teachers, health officials said. (Harper, 6/2)

The Hill: Gun Groups Ready For Aggressive Effort Against ‘Red Flag’ Legislation No-compromise gun rights groups are preparing to mount an aggressive campaign against any “red flag” legislation in Congress as a response to the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas. ... Nine states currently have “red flag” laws, protection orders that allow a court to prevent an individual deemed a danger to themselves or others from possessing or obtaining firearms. Those include New York, where it did not stop a shooter from targeting black people at a grocery store in Buffalo last month. It is unclear if such a law would have stopped the shooter in Uvalde. (Brooks, 6/2)

The Atlantic: How News Of Mass Shootings Affects People Psychologically A horrific news event is a tragedy for those it directly affects, but simply reading and watching coverage of it is associated with an uptick in symptoms of acute stress, such as intrusive thoughts about the event and avoiding reminders of it. For instance, one study published in 2014 found that the more coverage people saw of the Boston Marathon bombings, the more such symptoms they experienced. (Pinsker, 6/1)

ABC News: Texas Man Makes Custom Caskets For Uvalde School Shooting Victims  A Texas man worked for days on end to customize caskets for the 19 children who were killed after a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last Tuesday. Trey Ganem, the owner of SoulShine Industries, a company that specializes in custom caskets and urns, said he was contacted by a trooper and funeral directors after the shootings to see if he could help. (Yu, 6/1)

Biden Says Impact Of Formula Plant Shutdown Took Him By Surprise

Following a meeting with infant formula makers at the White House, President Joe Biden acknowledged the slow response of his administration to the national shortage. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is airlifting in more supplies from other countries.

AP: Biden Says He Wasn't Informed Early On Of Baby Formula Woes  President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he was not briefed on the prospect of nationwide shortages of infant formula for about two months, and he acknowledged the strain on families as his administration struggles to address the situation. Yet company executives at a meeting Biden hosted from the White House told the president that they knew the substantial impact that the shutdown of a major production plant in February would have on the U.S. supply almost immediately. “They did, but I didn’t,” Biden told reporters later, saying he was not made aware of the severity until early April. (Miller, 6/1)

Politico: Biden Says He Didn't Know How Serious Infant Formula Shortage Was Until April  The Biden administration has reached a deal to transport 1.25 million cans of baby formula from an Australian company into the U.S. amid shortages that have sent parents scrambling for supplies. ... In addition to the Bubs flights, the U.S. will also import 3.7 million bottles worth of Kendamil infant formula from the UK via emergency flights, the White House announced Wednesday.

The New York Times: U.S. Will Airlift Baby Formula From Abroad As Shortages Grow Worse  The nationwide shortage of baby formula is getting worse, with an increasing number of retailers and online sellers posting out-of-stock notices even as President Biden met on Wednesday with executives of five baby food companies, and announced new shipments of formula from Europe to help restock American shelves. (Shear and Creswell, 6/1)

CNBC: Reckitt Baby Formula Plants Can Produce 21 Million Bottles For U.S. Baby formula manufacturer Reckitt has the capacity to produce at least 21 million 8-ounce bottles of infant formula at its plants in Asia and Latin America for the U.S. market if the Food and Drug Administration gives it the green light, a senior company executive said Wednesday. Parents have struggled to find food for their infants after Abbott, previously the largest formula manufacturer in the U.S., was forced to close its plant in Sturgis, Michigan, and recall several batches of formula in February due to bacterial contamination at the facility. (Kimball, 6/1)

Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Baby Formula Shortage: Mississippi WIC Program Adds More Products The Mississippi Women Infants and Children program has added additional infant formula products and package sizes to the program’s approved product list, the Mississippi State Department of Health announced in a press statement Wednesday morning. “The Mississippi WIC program remains concerned about the national infant formula shortage and is taking the following action to ensure that its participants continue to receive all supplemental WIC benefits,” the MSHD press release states. “WIC participants who are unable to find their prescribed medical formula in stores may contact their WIC clinic to quickly change to an alternate formula that is currently available.” (6/1)

Pfizer Asks FDA To Authorize Its Covid Shot For Kids Under 5

The Food and Drug Administration received Pfizer's application for emergency use authorization of its covid vaccine for children under 5. A request from Moderna is also under review and a decision for both may come this month.

NBC News: Pfizer Again Asks FDA To Authorize Covid Vaccine For Youngest Kids Pfizer-BioNTech said Wednesday that it asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize its Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 6 months to 4 years — the only group that remains ineligible for vaccination. The request will be now considered by the FDA, which will review the data and could grant emergency use authorization for the age group later this month. The FDA’s advisory group, called the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, is scheduled to convene on June 15 to offer guidance on the pediatric doses. (Lovelace Jr., 6/1)

ABC News: FDA Accepts Pfizer Application For COVID Vaccine In Kids Under 5, Clearing Way For June Timeline The FDA said in a statement that it received Pfizer's request for an EUA. "We recognize parents are anxious to have their young children vaccinated against COVID-19 and while the FDA cannot predict how long its evaluation of the data and information will take, we will review any EUA request we receive as quickly as possible using a science-based approach," the agency said. (Kekatos, 6/1)

In other news on the vaccine rollout —

CIDRAP: Chest CT Shows COVID-19 Vaccines Protect Against Pneumonia According to research published yesterday in the American Journal of Roentgenology, chest computed tomography (CT) scans of adults fully vaccinated against COVID-19 were less likely to show pneumonia frequency and severity during breakthrough infections, compared to unvaccinated patients. (6/1)

CIDRAP: 3 Doses Of Same, Different Vaccines Protect Against Mild, Severe COVID-19 Three COVID-19 vaccine doses offer good protection against infection and hospitalization, including those caused by variants of concern—regardless of brand, type, or combination, according to an ongoing meta-analysis published yesterday in BMJ. (6/1)

As Federal Covid Money Runs Low, Funding Bill Mired On Hill

AP reports that legislative efforts to authorize additional funds to combat covid remain stalled, as the White House request has been tied to the thorny immigration issue. Other stories on the state of the pandemic report focus on variants, at-capacity ERs, surging infections, and more.

AP: Gridlock Could Delay COVID Funds Until Fall — Or Longer  The U.S. is headed for “a lot of unnecessary loss of life,” the Biden administration says, if Congress fails to provide billions more dollars to brace for the pandemic’s next wave. Yet the quest for that money is in limbo, the latest victim of election-year gridlock that’s stalled or killed a host of Democratic priorities. President Joe Biden’s appeal for funds for vaccines, testing and treatments has hit opposition from Republicans, who’ve fused the fight with the precarious politics of immigration. Congress is in recess, and the next steps are uncertain, despite admonitions from White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha of damaging consequences from “every day we wait.” (Fram, 6/1)

And more on the spread of covid —

The Mercury News: Here's Why New COVID Variants Are Driving Surprise Surge In its evolutionary fight for survival, the COVID virus is switching strategies: It’s becoming a master at slipping past our immune systems. And that, say experts, is largely why we’re dealing with an unexpected surge. Powered by two mutations, new lineages of the omicron variant — called BA.2 and its more recent descendants BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 — are increasing rates of vaccine breakthrough and reinfection, according to an analysis published Saturday by Trevor Bedford, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who studies the evolution of viruses. These latest strains are succeeding “not because they’re more contagious, as much as they are more immune evasive,” Dr. Paul Offit, an FDA adviser and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said at a recent presentation at UC San Francisco. “This is something that surprises virologists.” (Krieger, 6/1)

The Boston Globe: ERs Reach Record Capacity As Hospitals Are Inundated With Patients Before the pandemic, South Shore Health typically would receive 80 to 90 ambulances a day as the region’s only Level II trauma center south of Boston, caring for critically injured patients from a number of communities. Yet 2½ years into the pandemic, with COVID numbers at the hospital trending much lower than in the January surge, the number of ambulances arriving every day is far exceeding its old pace. Dr. Jason Tracy, chief of emergency medicine at South Shore Health, said the emergency department is getting 105 ambulances a day on average. (Bartlett, 6/1)

St. Louis Public Radio: St. Louis Coronavirus Cases Highest Since Delta Surge  St. Louis is seeing rising numbers of coronavirus cases, and the city’s health director is again considering recommending public health measures, including mask requirements, to protect people from the virus. The number of new reported coronavirus cases is as high as it was during last summer’s Delta variant surge, Dr. Mati Hlatshwayo Davis said during a virtual town hall meeting Wednesday. An average of 212 cases per 100,000 people has been reported in the last week. However, the number of cases is difficult to tally as fewer people are getting tested. “We’ve been in the high transmission level for some time when we talk about cases and positivity rate,” Hlatshwayo Davis said. “We’re definitely in a surge right now.” (Fentem, 6/2)

Des Moines Register: COVID-19 In Iowa: Hospitalizations Up And Cases Steady In Data Update COVID-19 hospitalizations were on the rise again in Iowa during the past week even as the number of new cases held steady from the previous two weeks, according to data released Wednesday by the Iowa Department of Public Health and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. There were 180 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Iowa as of Wednesday's update, the health and human services department reported. That's nearly a 30% increase over last week and the most since the first week of March. (Webber, 6/1)

Los Angeles Times: California's Coronavirus Wave Is Disrupting Lives A new surge of coronavirus cases is taking shape, as California slogs into a third pandemic summer with far fewer hospitalizations and deaths but still significant disruptions. There are fewer cases of serious illness than occurred during other waves, underscoring the protection imparted by vaccinations, therapeutic drugs and, for some, partial natural immunity stemming from a previous infection. Still, officials are deciding how best to respond now that cases are rapidly rising after plunging in the spring. (Lin II and Money, 6/1)

Columbus Dispatch: Men Hit Harder By COVID Deaths. What Contributed Most To This Unclear COVID-19 has left over one million dead in the United States. But it didn't strike men and women equally, with 24% more men killed by the disease than women even though women outnumber men. In raw numbers across every age group but one, a total 107,615 more men have died than women from COVID as of May 18, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's despite the fact women make up 51% of the population, a disproportion that becomes more pronounced in older age groups, according to the Census. "Men were having more severe disease, ending up in the ICU more, and dying more frequently," said Dr. Emily Amin, medical director of the medical intensive care unit at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center. (Bush, 6/1)

AP: US Interior Secretary Haaland Tests Positive For COVID-19  U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has tested positive for COVID-19 and has mild symptoms, the agency said Wednesday. Haaland, 61, is isolating in Nevada where she took part in a roundtable discussion Tuesday in Las Vegas about clean energy production on public lands, the Interior Department said in a statement. (6/1)

NBC News: Postal Service Sued For Seizing Black Lives Matter Masks During 2020 Protests A California screen printer is suing the U.S. Postal Service for seizing shipments of Black Lives Matter masks intended to protect demonstrators from Covid-19 during protests following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd. The cloth masks, with slogans like "Stop killing Black people" and "Defund police," were purchased by the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and were meant to be shipped to D.C., St. Louis, New York City and Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed by a police officer. But four boxes containing about 500 masks each were marked as "Seized by law enforcement" and their shipment was delayed more than 24 hours. (Reilly, 6/2)

NC Senate Approves Health Bill That Includes Medicaid Expansion

State lawmakers in the House may not consider the legislation, though, until the fall or next year. And some doctors and hospitals warn that the health access measure includes other complicating policies.

AP: NC Health Bill With Medicaid Expansion Gets First Senate OK  A wide-ranging health care access bill penned by Republicans that includes covering hundreds of thousands of additional North Carolina adults through Medicaid received initial approval Wednesday from the state Senate. Support was nearly unanimous in the chamber for the measure, which also loosens practice restrictions on specialty nurses and eases government scrutiny of medical construction and equipment. (Robertson, 6/1)

The News & Observer: Other Big Health Care Changes Complicate NC’s Medicaid Expansion Push Doctors and hospitals have spent years pushing for Medicaid expansion in North Carolina. But now that Republican leaders have proposed a bill that would do just that, some are now either lukewarm on the bill or even actively opposed. In large part, that’s because the bill also contains a number of other health care policy changes that threaten to upend other parts of the medical industry. Chip Baggett is CEO of the North Carolina Medical Society, an influential lobbying group for doctors. He said they still support Medicaid expansion, but they oppose the way the legislature is currently proposing that it happen — namely, with so many unrelated policy changes tacked on. “It’s all muddied up,” he said. (Doran, 6/1)

Fayetteville Observer: NC Medicaid Expansion: 4 Things To Know About GOP Plan To Dramatically Change Healthcare Republicans in the North Carolina Senate are rushing this spring to do what was once an unthinkable heresy among most GOP lawmakers in this state: Allow an additional 500,000 to 600,000 lower-income residents to enroll in the Medicaid government healthcare program. In other words: GOP Senate leaders said they will accept Medicaid expansion. This is a portion of the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare,” that Republican lawmakers have nearly unanimously blocked in North Carolina since early 2013. They argued that the Medicaid expansion plan would be an expensive, unacceptable expansion of welfare. (Woolverton, 6/1)

In Medicaid news from Missouri and California —

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Enrollment Ticking Up In Missouri’s Expanded Medicaid Program, But Rollout Still Rocky  Missouri has enrolled nearly 65% of the people it projected would qualify for an expanded Medicaid program, potentially putting the state on track to meet a goal set when voters approved the expansion two years ago. According to the Department of Social Services, which oversees the MO HealthNet program, 178,000 people have signed up for the federally backed health insurance program for low-income Americans. When voters approved the expansion, it was estimated that 275,000 would be eligible for the coverage. But the rollout, which began in October, continues to be rocky. (Erickson, 6/1)

KHN: Computer Glitches And Human Error Still Causing Insurance Headaches For Californians Since California expanded health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, a large number of people have been mistakenly bounced between Covered California, the state’s marketplace for those who buy their own insurance, and Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program for low-income residents. Small income changes can cause people’s eligibility to shift, but when bad information is typed into a computer system shared by the two programs — or accurate information is deleted from it — enrollees can get big headaches. (Wolfson, 6/2)

In other news from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services —

Modern Healthcare: Rehab Providers Urge CMS Not To Cut Pay For Early Home Health Transfers Inpatient rehabilitation providers say regulators should not change Medicare reimbursement for early transfers to home health agencies, despite the policy's potential to save the federal government close to $1 billion. In letters to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services due Tuesday, providers said adding such a policy would lead to underpayments for inpatient rehabilitation care and hamper patient access to care. Home health is a continuation of inpatient rehabilitation facility care, not a replacement for it, providers argued. (Goldman, 6/1)

Feds Allege Rampant Lab Test Fraud In Texas

A rural hospital in Texas was the vehicle for a broad and deep lab testing fraud scheme, the Department of Justice Says. Meanwhile in cybercrime, the FBI reportedly blocked an attack on a children's hospital.

Stat: DOJ Says Sweeping Lab Test Fraud In Texas Involved Dozens Of Doctors A Justice Department lawsuit describes a sweeping fraud scheme in which dozens of Texas providers and front companies funneled millions in lab test bills through a small rural hospital that eventually shuttered in 2018. At the heart of the scandal is Little River Healthcare, a bankrupt health care management company that took over the operations of a critical access hospital in Rockdale, Texas in 2014 and allegedly used the hospital’s favorable government reimbursement rates to broker deals with unscrupulous partners and rake in millions in profit. (Bannow, 6/1)

AP: Wray: FBI Blocked Planned Cyberattack On Children's Hospital  The FBI thwarted a planned cyberattack on a children’s hospital in Boston that was to have been carried out by hackers sponsored by the Iranian government, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday. Wray told a Boston College cybersecurity conference that his agents learned of the planned digital attack from an unspecified intelligence partner and got Boston Children’s Hospital the information it needed last summer to block what would have been “one of the most despicable cyberattacks I’ve seen.” (Tucker and Suderman, 6/1)

Modern Healthcare: Ransomware Spurs Weeks, Months Of IT Downtime Hospitals have been hit by massive ransomware attacks in recent years, curtailing access to patient data systems and forcing staff onto so-called "downtime procedures." But many hospitals haven't adequately planned for system downtime, using incident response plans created for other disasters that don't capture the scope of ransomware, experts say. Ransomware encrypts a victim's computer files and only releases them in exchange for payment. At hospitals, that can mean information-technology systems like electronic health records, scheduling and even phone systems become unavailable. Doctors, nurses and other clinical staff have to move to paper charts, and may be out of practice or haven't been trained on that process. (Kim Cohen, 6/1)

On the health care staffing crisis —

Modern Healthcare: Understaffing Associated With Higher Sepsis Mortality Rates, Study Finds Hospitals with fewer nurses on staff saw a greater likelihood of elderly patients dying due to sepsis, according to a new study that shined a light on how understaffing affects care quality. About 26% of Medicare patients with sepsis die within 60 days of admission. Each additional hour of care that nurses provide to sepsis patients is linked to a 3% decrease in mortality within 60 days of admission, the study published in JAMA Network Open on May 27 found. (Devereaux, 6/1)

St. Louis Public Radio: St. Louis Hospitals See An Increase In Nurse Vacancies  The percentage of nursing positions that are vacant at St. Louis-area hospitals has risen sharply since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and presents significant concerns for staff and patient care, according to the Missouri Hospital Association. The association gathered data from 33 hospitals in the St. Louis area and the Metro East in 2021, and from 35 hospitals the year before. It found vacancies for registered nurses in the metro area increased from 11.2% in 2020 to 20.3% in 2021, when hospitals ended the year with 3,681 registered nurse vacancies. Hospitals also saw increased turnover. (Davis, 6/2)

Modern Healthcare: 1,300 California Doctors Authorize Union To Call A Strike  Members of a union representing 1,300 resident physicians and fellows at three Los Angeles County hospitals have voted to authorize a strike," the labor organization announced Tuesday. Doctors at Los Angeles County+University of Southern California Medical Center in Los Angeles, Harbor-University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center in West Carson and Martin Luther King, Jr. Outpatient Center in Los Angeles voted 99% in favor of allowing their bargaining committee to call a strike over what they deem to be unfair labor practices. Voting took place between May 16 and May 30. (Christ, 6/1)

Axios: Health Care Workers Organize, Unionize Health care workers nationwide are organizing and pushing for workplace changes like better pay or more favorable staffing ratios after waves of pandemic-fueled burnout and frustration. COVID-19 and its aftereffects triggered an exodus of health care workers. Those who stayed are demanding more from health systems that claim to be reaching their own breaking points. (Dreher, 6/2)

Lawsuit Mounted Against Florida's New Abortion Ban

News outlets cover legal efforts from Planned Parenthood chapters and abortion providers in the state to challenge the new 15-week anti-abortion law. Separately, a call for more medical personnel in Illinois is made in light of an expected surge in abortion requests from out-of-state patients.

Miami Herald: Florida’s 15-Week Abortion Ban Now Faces Legal Challenge  Several Florida Planned Parenthood chapters and individual abortion providers filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging Florida’s new 15-week abortion ban. The groups filed suit against the state of Florida, the Agency for Health Care Administration, the Department of Health and every judicial circuit’s state attorney. The suit says the legislation violates Florida’s constitutional privacy clause, which has been interpreted for the past several decades as protecting access to abortion. Abortion providers are seeking an injunction to keep the bill from going into effect on July 1. (Ellenbogen, 6/1)

The Washington Post: Florida Abortion Providers Seek To Block State’s New 15-Week Ban  Abortion providers in Florida filed a lawsuit Wednesday to try to block the state’s new law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which is slated to take effect July 1. The constitutional challenge in Florida comes as Republican-led states have moved to restrict abortion access and weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to issue a major abortion ruling that is expected to undermine if not overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. (Marimow, 6/1)

St. Louis Public Radio: Pritzker Says Illinois Needs More People To Perform Abortions  Illinois will need more doctors and nurses to provide abortions as an expected surge of patients from other states arrive for the procedure, Gov. J.B. Pritkzer said during a campaign stop in East St. Louis. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected in coming weeks to overturn Roe v. Wade, a 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. Illinois is one of the few states in the Midwest where officials have said they will preserve access to abortion. Thousands of patients are likely to come to clinics in the Metro East if the high court throws out Roe v. Wade and leaves states to determine whether abortion will be legal, Pritzker said. (Fentem, 6/1)

AP: With Roe In Doubt, States Weigh Letting Nurses Do Abortions The various proposals authorize advance practice clinicians to provide medication abortions, in-clinic abortions or both. Abortion rights advocates say these clinicians often perform more complicated procedures such as IUD insertions, early miscarriage management and endometrial biopsies, a procedure where a small piece of the lining of the uterus is removed to check for cancer or other issues. Supporters say randomized trials have shown that aspiration abortions — a common early term abortion that involves a suctioning procedure — can be safely performed by these clinicians. (Haigh, 6/2)

NPR: California Prepares To Welcome Patients From States That May Soon Ban Abortion While 26 states in the U.S. are likely to ban or restrict abortion care if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, California is positioning itself to be a sanctuary for abortion access, preparing to welcome and support people from around the country who are seeking that care. The state's Democratic-led legislature is considering a package of 13 bills designed to ease access to abortion and reduce the costs. It includes proposals to protect people from law enforcement action if they have an abortion or help provide one. Gov. Gavin Newsom has pledged $125 million in state funds to back these efforts. (Dembosky, 6/2)

AP: Limits On Early Abortion Drive More Women To Get Them Later An 18-year-old was undergoing treatment for an eating disorder when she learned she was pregnant, already in the second trimester. A mom of two found out at 20 weeks that her much-wanted baby had no kidneys or bladder. A young woman was raped and couldn’t fathom continuing a pregnancy. Abortions later in pregnancy are relatively rare, even more so now with the availability of medications to terminate early pregnancies. Across large parts of the United States, they are also increasingly difficult to obtain. (Ortutay, 6/2)

Axios: Blue Cities In Red States Say They Won't Help Enforce Abortion Bans Some local officials in liberal enclaves within red states say they won't help enforce bans on abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Cities have a "wide range of powers they can draw on to try to safeguard and expand access to reproductive health care, including abortion," said Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, an organization that supports abortion rights. José "Chito" Vela, a member of the city council in Austin, has proposed a resolution to decriminalize abortion locally, even as Texas has one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the country. (Gonzalez, 6/2)

KHN: Skirmishes Over Medication Abortions May Renew Debate On State Vs. Federal Powers  As the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that guarantees the constitutional right to an abortion, reproductive rights advocates are considering new ways to protect nationwide access to the procedure. One strategy involves preserving the availability of the medication used to initiate an abortion in states poised to restrict access otherwise. Such a move would require that federal law take precedence over a state’s — a concept known as preemption. (Knight, 6/2)

KHN: Readers And Tweeters Go To The Mat On Abortion Rights And Perceived Wrongs  KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. (Byrne, 6/2)

Pancreatic Cancer Therapy Experiment Saves Woman; Is It A Breakthrough?

Researchers point out that another pancreatic cancer patient who received the same therapy did not respond to the treatment and died. But the highly personalized immunotherapy is being called "an important step along the way” to devising treatments that might help lung, colon, and other cancers.

The New York Times: Reprogrammed Cells Attack And Tame Pancreatic Cancer In One Woman  Researchers have managed to tame pancreatic cancer in a woman whose cancer was far advanced and after other forms of treatment had failed. The experiment that helped her is complex and highly personalized and is not immediately applicable to most cancer patients. Another pancreatic cancer patient, who received the same treatment, did not respond and died of her disease. Nonetheless, a leading journal — The New England Journal of Medicine — published a report of the study on Wednesday. (Kolata, 6/1)

AP: Novel Genetic Experiment Shrinks Tough-To-Treat Cancer In a novel experiment, a woman with advanced pancreatic cancer saw her tumors dramatically shrink after researchers in Oregon turbocharged her own immune cells, highlighting a possible new way to someday treat a variety of cancers. Kathy Wilkes isn’t cured but said what’s left of her cancer has shown no sign of growth since the one-time treatment last June. “I knew that regular chemotherapy would not save my life and I was going for the save,” said Wilkes, of Ormond Beach, Florida, who tracked down a scientist thousands of miles away and asked that he attempt the experiment. (Neergaard, 6/1)

KGW8: Portland Doctors 'First In World' To Apply New Cancer Therapy Doctors at the Providence Cancer Institute (PCI) in Portland are celebrating the successful application of a new immunotherapy to drastically reduce a patient's tumor size. ... With this single-patient success story, Dr. Eric Tran, with Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, and Providence oncologist Dr. Rom Leidner plan to expand trials to treat 24 more patients over the next two to three years. They noted similar efforts have not always been successful. (Ettlin, 6/1)

Stat: How Companies Are Responding To Cancer Immunotherapy Shortage  The shortage of manufacturing slots for CAR-T cells, which has left myeloma patients dying on a wait list, came as a surprise to drugmakers and clinicians alike. When the Food and Drug Administration approved the first myeloma CAR-T product from Bristol Myers Squibb in spring of 2021, there were already four other lymphoma and leukemia CAR-T therapies on the market. Those weren’t facing severe supply constraints so people hadn’t expected there to be issues supplying ide-cel, Bristol’s myeloma CAR-T, said Yi Lin, the director of the cell therapy program at the Mayo Clinic. But after the approval, the demand quickly overwhelmed Bristol’s ability to create CAR-T for myeloma — and supply chain issues during the pandemic made it more difficult to ramp up production. (Chen, 6/2)

Stat: 'How Do You Decide?' Cancer Patients Die Waiting For CAR-T Therapy  Within two years of being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, Shawn Goltzene had blasted through nearly all his options. An initial stem cell transplant couldn’t hold off the cancer for more than half a year. With each new therapy his doctors tried, the cancer would surge out of remission within weeks — striking the bones in his back and legs. “We hit him with everything, the whole kitchen sink,” said Krina Patel, the director of the myeloma cell therapy program at MD Anderson Cancer Center and Goltzene’s clinician. She tried putting him on a clinical trial for an immunotherapy drug. “It blew right through him. He quickly got to fourth-line therapy.” (Chen, 6/2)

Austin American-Statesman: Dell Medical School Trying To End Desert In Austin Bladder Cancer Care Dorothy De La Garza had frequent urinary tract infections. Then she was told she had "an overactive bladder." "Everyone assumes a woman is leaking because she's old," the 78-year-old from Austin said. After years of being on antibiotics on and off, and going to both a urologist and her primary care doctor for the same symptoms, De La Garza was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2016. "Bladder cancer is sneaky," she said. (Villalpando, 5/31)

3D-Printed Human Cells Used In Ear Transplant Surgery

The astonishing advance, reported in The New York Times, represents a clinical trial of some breakthrough technology, in this case used to help a young woman born with a misshapen ear. In other news, drinking coffee may lower your risk of dying, advances in pregnancy test tech, and more.

The New York Times: Doctors Transplant 3-D Printed Ear Made Of Human Cells A 20-year-old woman who was born with a small and misshapen right ear has received a 3-D printed ear implant made from her own cells, the manufacturer announced on Thursday. Independent experts said that the transplant, part of the first clinical trial of a successful medical application of this technology, was a stunning advance in the field of tissue engineering. (Rabin, 6/2)

The New York Times: Coffee Drinking Linked To Lower Risk Of Dying, New Study Finds  That morning cup of coffee may be linked to a lower risk of dying, researchers from a study published Monday in The Annals of Internal Medicine concluded. Those who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups of coffee per day, even with a teaspoon of sugar, were up to 30 percent less likely to die during the study period than those who didn’t drink coffee. Those who drank unsweetened coffee were 16 to 21 percent less likely to die during the study period, with those drinking about three cups per day having the lowest risk of death when compared with noncoffee drinkers. (Blum, 6/1)

Stat: Scientists Win Kavli Prize For Discovering Genes Underlying Brain Disorders Four neuroscientists who discovered the genes involved in a host of serious brain disorders on Wednesday won this year’s $1 million Kavli Prize in neuroscience, honoring arduous work undertaken long before sequencing of the human genome accelerated investigations of what goes wrong in the brain. Together, research by the four winners — Jean-Louis Mandel of France, Harry Orr of the U.S., Christopher Walsh of the U.S., and Huda Zoghbi of Lebanon and the U.S. — revealed the genetic underpinnings of Fragile X syndrome, spinocerebellar ataxia, Rett syndrome, and rare forms of epilepsy and autism spectrum disorder. (Cooney, 6/1)

Stat: Can Wearables Turn Temperature Into A Pregnancy Test? Your smartwatch can ping you about an irregular heartbeat. Your phone can assess your fall risk. And now, research suggests temperature trends picked up by wearables can tell you if you’re pregnant before you even think to take a test. Looking at temperature data from 30 women who became pregnant while wearing an Oura ring, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, found that nightly maximum temperatures were noticeably higher two to nine days after sex that ultimately led to conception. Retrospectively, they showed how that temperature shift could have been used as a passive pregnancy notification — one that, for these users, would have popped up about nine days before they received a positive test. (Palmer, 6/2)

Fox News: Is Love At First Sight Really Determined Within The First Two Minutes? Finding true love may actually be due to how well your body synch’s up with your partner, according to researchers from Jerusalem. A recent study shows that mutual romantic interest and sexual attraction during a first date may not be left up to fate, but rather up to the couple’s bodies being in tune with each other, according to a recent study published in Scientific Reports. "We found that successful dates are characterized by increased electrodermal synchrony in the first two minutes," researchers stated in the published study. (McGorry, 6/1)

Monkeypox Reaches Georgia As New York's Case Count Hits 4

Axios reports that the center of the global monkeypox outbreak remains in Europe, with Portugal and Spain reporting over a hundred cases each. And the World Health Organization, Fox News reports, has warned that surprising outbreaks of endemic diseases will become more frequent.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: First Suspected Case Reported Of Monkeypox In Georgia The Georgia Department of Public Health on Wednesday announced the state’s first suspected case of monkeypox virus. DPH said a man who lives in metro Atlanta with a history of international travel has shown symptoms, but more testing is needed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to confirm the case. In the meantime, a DPH spokeswoman said the man is being monitored and the agency is doing contact tracing to find people he may have had contact with recently. The man was ordered into isolation and the length of time he must isolate depends on when his symptoms clear up. (Oliviero and Miller, 6/1)

Fox News: New York Monkeypox Cases Up To 4 New York has reported two more cases of what is presumed to be the monkeypox virus, bringing the total number of cases in the state up to 4. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a Wednesday update that two more people had tested positive for orthopoxvirus in the Big Apple. "We will be conducting contact tracing and monitoring and will refer people for care if necessary. Monkeypox is rare in New York City, but we can prevent the spread," the department wrote on Twitter. (Musto, 6/1)

Axios: Portugal, Spain At Center Of Monkeypox Outbreak As Cases Exceed 250 Spanish and Portuguese health authorities said Wednesday that the total confirmed cases of monkeypox across both nations have exceeded 250, Reuters reports. The Iberian Peninsula has served as the epicenter of the recent outbreak, which has swept across several European countries as well as the U.S. The emergence of the virus is notable as it is rarely found outside of Africa. Spain has documented 142 cases, up from 132 the previous day. Portugal reports a total of 119 cases, also an increase from 100 the previous day. (Chen, 6/1)

Fox News: Monkeypox And Endemic Diseases Becoming More Persistent, WHO Says The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Wednesday that outbreaks of endemic diseases are becoming more frequent. The United Nations health agency's emergencies director, Dr. Mike Ryan, said that climate change is contributing to this issue, with drought forcing animals and humans to alter food-seeking behavior. As a result of this change, he noted that diseases that typically circulate in animals are increasingly jumping into humans. (Musto, 6/1)

CIDRAP: Experts: Monkeypox Highlights Animal-Human Interface Threats As monkeypox cases continue to surge in countries once unfamiliar with the pox virus, Mike Ryan, MD, MPH, executive director for health emergencies at the World Health Organization (WHO) warned today that the ecological pressures of climate stress, drought stress, and animal food-seeking behavior will lead to more and more spillover events and new transmission chains of diseases that were once endemic in only small pockets of the world. (Soucheray, 6/1)

AP: Africans See Inequity In Monkeypox Response Elsewhere As health authorities in Europe and elsewhere roll out vaccines and drugs to stamp out the biggest monkeypox outbreak beyond Africa, some doctors acknowledge an ugly reality: The resources to slow the disease’s spread have long been available, just not to the Africans who have dealt with it for decades. Countries including Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, Israel and Australia have reported more than 500 monkeypox cases, many apparently tied to sexual activity at two recent raves in Europe. No deaths have been reported. (Cheng and Asadu, 6/1)

Stat: How Covid-19 Prepared The White House To Respond To Monkeypox The man at the center of the White House’s biodefense strategy is only four months into his job, but he’s already facing down a fresh crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic led President Biden to recreate a position at the White House’s National Security Council to oversee global health security — and none too soon, since the man in the position, Raj Panjabi, is now in charge of the White House’s response to monkeypox. When Panjabi, a physician with extensive public health experience in Liberia was named to TIME magazine’s list of most influential people in 2016 for his work during the Ebola epidemic, his entry was written by former President Bill Clinton. (Cohrs, 6/2)

Maine Chosen For Pfizer's Lyme Disease Vaccine Trial

Pfizer's experimental vaccine is designed to combat the tick-borne disease, and the third phase of its trials will last over 13 months with patients taking two shots. Meanwhile, West Virginia's Republican Gov. Jim Justice has confirmed he has tested positive for Lyme disease.

AP: Pfizer To Conduct Lyme Disease Vaccine Trial In Maine Pfizer has partnered with a Maine health care system to conduct the third phase of a Lyme disease clinical trial to test the efficacy of the company’s vaccine. The trial, held at Northern Light Health system in Brewer, will span over 13 months and require patients to take two shots two months apart. In March, the patients will need to take a booster shot before the next summer’s tick season , The Bangor Daily News reported last week. (6/1)

In related news about Lyme disease —

AP: West Virginia Governor Confirms Lyme Disease Diagnosis  West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said blood tests confirmed that he has Lyme disease. Justice announced the diagnosis Wednesday night, more than a week after he began feeling ill after events in Wheeling and Blacksville. The Republican governor said he will remain on antibiotics for several weeks to continue fighting the infection. (6/2)

AP: Pinkett Smith Talks Hair-Loss 'Shame,' Outcome Of Oscar Slap Jada Pinkett Smith turned her husband’s Oscar-night blowup into a teachable moment about alopecia areata, the hair-loss disorder affecting her and millions of others that, in some cases, can impact a person’s sense of identity. ... The actor said she chose to use “this moment to give our alopecia family an opportunity to talk about what it’s like to have this condition” and what it is. Her guests included the mother of a 12-year-old girl, Rio Allred, who was bullied over her hair loss and died by suicide, and a physician who explained the different types of the disorder. Before tackling the subject, Pinkett Smith addressed events at the March 27 Academy Awards. She and husband Will Smith, a best-actor nominee, were in the audience as presenter Chris Rock cracked a joke at Pinkett Smith’s expense. (Elber, 6/1)

AP: EXPLAINER: Alopecia Affects Millions, Including Kids Alopecia can come on quickly, is unpredictable and can be incredibly tough to deal with mentally, said Brett King, a hair loss expert at Yale Medicine, told The Associated Press in March. “Imagine if you woke up today missing half of an eyebrow,” he said. “That unpredictability is one of the things that’s so mentally treacherous and awful because you have no control of it ... it’s a disease that strips people of their identity.” (Whitehurst, 6/1)

Stateline: Wheelchair Users Say States Should Spend New Road Money On Safety On a Sunday afternoon in May 2021, Patsy Ellison left her Knoxville, Tennessee, apartment in her motorized wheelchair and started to cross a nearby street, as she often did. She never made it. Even though there was a stop sign, a Dodge Ram pickup truck turning into the intersection struck and killed Ellison, who was 62. The driver told police he didn’t see her in the roadway. “We were just devastated. She was such a good person. It’s still hard,” her great-niece Destiny Dozard said in an interview with Stateline. “I have a 5-year-old, and he talks about it every day. He’s still traumatized.” (Bergal, 6/1)

KHN: Despite A First-Ever ‘Right-To-Repair’ Law, There’s No Easy Fix For Wheelchair Users  Robin Bolduc isn’t the type of person who takes “no” for an answer — particularly when it comes to fixing her husband’s wheelchair. Her husband, Bruce Goguen, 69, is paralyzed from multiple sclerosis. And without his chair, he would be stuck in bed, at risk of developing pneumonia or pressure sores that could lead to sepsis and death. When components of the chair wear out or break down, the road to repair is littered with obstacles. Recently, the Broomfield, Colorado, residents had to replace a button that Goguen presses with his head to control his wheelchair. They considered going through his wheelchair supplier for the repairs. (Hawryluk, 6/2)

The Washington Post: ‘Body Doubling,’ An ADHD Productivity Tool, Is Flourishing Online One day in April of 2021, Lindsey Bee decided it was time to deal with the laundry “doom piles” that had formed around her house. So she did what many people do when faced with a boring task. She turned to TikTok. But she wasn’t there to procrastinate. For an hour, Bee, a teacher in her 30s, live-streamed herself sorting the clothes on her account dedicated to ADHD: brainsandspoons. As the live stream went on, viewers jumped in to do their own laundry “with” her. “Everybody was so encouraging,” said Bee, who learned she has ADHD as an adult. “It made it really feel like a group project, not just me by myself on camera. It definitely made the time go by faster.” The ADHD community calls the practice “body doubling.” (Ables, 6/1)

Roll Call: Proposed Menthol Ban Highlights Debate Over ‘Sin Tax’ Revenue  A proposed federal ban on menthol cigarettes has underscored the tension lawmakers face in using so-called “sin tax” revenue to fund critical social programs at the state and federal levels. For decades, states have used sin taxes — excise taxes placed on things like tobacco, alcohol and gambling — for health, education and other public programs. Revenue has fallen over the years along with smoking rates, and the Food and Drug Administration’s recent proposal to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars could trigger an even sharper decline. (Clason, 6/2)

Complex 'Coal Ash' Health Case In Tennessee Supreme Court

A company, Jacobs Engineering, is challenging allegations that workers were injured or ultimately died after cleaning up a coal ash spill over a decade ago and being exposed to silica. Also in the news, the California child abuse database, legal drug injection sites in California, and more.

AP: Coal Ash Workers' Case Heard By Tennessee Supreme Court Tennessee Supreme Court justices fired numerous questions Wednesday at a company that is challenging lawsuits alleging its workers were sickened or died after cleaning up the nation’s worst coal ash spill, which happened more than a decade ago. Oral arguments centered on Jacobs Engineering’s contention that the workers’ claims should fall under a Tennessee law that limits legal challenges involving exposure to silica, a component of coal ash. Workers who participated in the cleanup of the 2008 spill at Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant and their family members watched intently in court, many wearing “Remember Kingston” pins. (Mattise, 6/1)

AP: California Child Abuse Database Lacks Half Of County Reports More than half of substantiated California child abuse reports in recent years were not in the state’s database, which could result in child abusers being allowed to care for children, state auditors said Tuesday. The unreliability of the database “puts children at risk,” auditors said. The database is used by state and county social services and welfare departments, adoption agencies, medical workers treating possible victims of child abuse, agencies conducting background investigations of applicants for law enforcement jobs, and agencies conducting background investigations on those who want to work or volunteer in positions that would give them access to children, like day care centers or group homes. (Thompson, 5/31)

AP: California Bid To Create Legal Drug Injection Sites Advances California moved a step closer Wednesday to creating sites where people could legally use drugs under supervision designed to save them from dying if they overdose, over the objections of opponents who said the state would be enabling dangerous and illegal activity. The full Assembly will now consider allowing test programs in Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco, more than a year after the proposal narrowly passed the state Senate. (Thompson, 6/1)

San Francisco Chronicle: New Report Finds S.F.’s Biggest Development Project Ignores Huge Climate Change Risk: Rising Contamination Rising seas caused by climate change could ultimately expose thousands of people to hazardous chemicals at San Francisco’s biggest redevelopment project — and the city is unprepared for the risks, according to a new grand jury report. San Francisco plans to build housing units, commercial spaces and parks in low-lying areas of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, which hugs the bay in southeastern San Francisco. The project is the city’s biggest redevelopment effort since the 1906 earthquake. (Fagone and Dizikes, 6/1)

In news from Mississippi, North Carolina, and Wyoming —

Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi State Department Of Health Taking Marijuana Applications Mississippi's Medical Marijuana program officially began Wednesday as the Mississippi State Department of Health began accepting applications. Applications being accepted Wednesday were for cultivation, processing, transportation, disposal, research testing, patient ID cards, and physician certification. Businesses and people wanting to apply for work permits could also apply as of Wednesday. However, the Mississippi Department of Revenue will not begin accepting applications for dispensaries until July. (Reily, 6/1)

AP: Ex-Governor Seeks To Open Medical Marijuana Testing Facility  Former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove is teaming up with a health care executive to apply for a state license to open a medical marijuana testing facility. The Mississippi State Department of Health started taking applications Wednesday for the state’s new medical marijuana program for patients, medical practitioners, growers, processors, testers, and transportation and waste disposal providers. (Pettus, 6/1)

North Carolina Health News: Kody Kinsley Comes Before Senate Committee For HHS Confirmation  As Kody Kinsley, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, answered a lawmaker’s question about how to get more nurses trained in North Carolina’s community college system, he noticed a group of school children walking by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the North Carolina Legislative Building. He didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, there’s me in fourth grade,” Kinsley dropped in mid-sentence, before continuing his answer to lawmakers at the first part of his official confirmation hearing. (Hoban, 6/2)

Wyoming Public Radio: New Campaign Focuses On Mental Health Awareness At State Parks  As we head into summer, more people are going outside. And, studies show the outdoors can improve mental health. But Wyoming Governor Gordon's Communication Director Micheal Pearlman said that doesn't always help in regards to mental health, which is why the governor has partnered with Wyoming State Parks on a new mental health awareness campaign centered on the outdoors. "Mental health issues don't disappear when folks visit some of our more beautiful places in the state," said Pearlman. "So, we thought having that reminder of how to reach out for help is valuable, even in places that are not where you go every day." (Kudelska, 6/1)

In news about LGBTQ+ health —

Salt Lake Tribune: Utah Families Of 2 Teens Sue Over State Ban Of Transgender Athletes In School Sports The families of two transgender girls filed a civil rights lawsuit Tuesday, challenging a controversial Utah law set to ban young transgender athletes from competing in school sports that match their gender identities — a measure that “feels like an attack on our family,” a mother of one of the girls said. The ban goes into effect July 1 under HB11, a bill that Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed, calling it “fundamentally flawed,” but the Utah Legislature ultimately overrode in March. The lawsuit argues that the ban will cause the young athletes irreparable harm and isn’t supported by medical or scientific evidence. “This law bans transgender girls from competing with other girls in every sport, at every grade level, and regardless of each girl’s individual circumstances,” attorney Christine Durham, who is representing the families, said. “It cannot survive constitutional scrutiny and it endangers transgender children.” (Peterson and Pierce, 6/1)

Dallas Morning News: Prisons Agency Agrees To Pay For First Gender Surgery For Trans Inmate It was a different world for transgender people when Cristina Iglesias was first locked up. Back in the early-1990s, there were no mainstream trans celebrities. Even the word — “transgender” — was only beginning to enjoy more widespread use. Iglesias didn’t think she would be accepted as female in that world, especially not in small-town Florida where she grew up. So she kept acting out, kept breaking the law, she said, to stay in the one place where the men around her treated like a woman — behind bars. “I did stuff to stay in prison because I was afraid to come out,” Iglesias, a transgender woman, said. (McGaughy, 6/1)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio Transgender Athlete Bill Quietly Passes House For Second Time House Republicans passed a bill late Wednesday that would prohibit transgender girls from joining female sports teams in high school and college, shoving the proposal into an unrelated bill before taking off for summer break. Wednesday's vote, which came on the first day of Pride Month, marked the second time Republicans sought a back-door path for the controversial measure. The House initially added it to a bill to allow college students to profit off their name, image and likeness, a move criticized by Gov. Mike DeWine when it passed last year. (Bemiller, 6/1)

Water Insecurity Makes World 'Less Stable,' Harris Says

Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday that making drinking water scarcity a foreign policy priority was good, ultimately benefiting U.S. interests even if the issues are in other countries. Also: A puzzling series of attacks in night clubs in France; Italy lifts all pandemic entry rules; and more.

AP: Harris Calls Water Security A Foreign Policy Priority Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday the U.S. is safer if people in other countries have sufficient water to drink, grow food and safely dispose of sewage, emphasizing that water access is a foreign policy priority. Harris said making sure that every country has enough water will prevent conflicts, improve health outcomes and boost local economies. Working towards those goals will make the world more stable and secure, according to a newly released White House plan to address issues facing global water supplies and quality. (Naishadham and Phillis, 6/1)

AP: Nightclub Needle Attacks Puzzle European Authorities Across France, more than 300 people have reported being pricked out of the blue with needles at nightclubs or concerts in recent months. Doctors and multiple prosecutors are on the case, but no one knows who’s doing it or why, and whether the victims have been injected with drugs — or indeed any substance at all. Club owners and police are trying to raise awareness, and a rapper even interrupted his recent show to warn concert-goers about the risk of surprise needle attacks. (Deley, 6/2)

The Washington Post: Italy Lifts All Pandemic Entry Restrictions Italy lifted its remaining pandemic-era entry restrictions Wednesday, making it easier for foreign tourists to visit as the busy summer-travel season ramps up. “As of June 1, 2022 a Green Pass or equivalent certificate is no longer needed to enter Italy,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said in an announcement. Previously, travelers had to show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus, proof of recovery from the disease or a negative test result, to bypass a five-day quarantine. (Diller, 6/1)

Stat: Italian Authorities Fine Drugmaker For 'Excessive' Pricing Of Rare Disease Drug Antitrust regulators in Italy have fined a drugmaker nearly $3.8 million for years of “excessive” price hikes on a rare disease medicine, the latest instance in which European authorities have cracked down on the pharmaceutical industry for harming consumers and taxpayers. At issue is a medicine known as CDCA that is used to treat people with cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis, or CTX, a rare genetic metabolic disease. A version was available for decades at a low cost. But the drug was bought by Leadiant Biosciences which, by 2014, began raising the price in several countries before withdrawing the medicine from the market entirely the following year. (Silverman, 6/1)

Research Roundup: E. Coli; Monkeypox; Gonorrhea; Diabetes; MRSA; More

Each week, KHN compiles a selection of recently released health policy studies and briefs.

CIDRAP: Study Suggests Links Between Resistant E Coli In Chickens And People A study conducted on farms in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam suggests antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Escherichia coli from chickens and in-contact humans is driven by antimicrobial use and potential cross-species transmission, researchers reported in JAC-Antimicrobial Resistance. (5/27)

The Lancet: Clinical Features And Management Of Human Monkeypox: A Retrospective Observational Study In The UK  Cases of human monkeypox are rarely seen outside of west and central Africa. There are few data regarding viral kinetics or the duration of viral shedding and no licensed treatments. Two oral drugs, brincidofovir and tecovirimat, have been approved for treatment of smallpox and have demonstrated efficacy against monkeypox in animals. Our aim was to describe the longitudinal clinical course of monkeypox in a high-income setting, coupled with viral dynamics, and any adverse events related to novel antiviral therapies. (Alder, PhD, et al, 5/24)

CIDRAP: Study Suggests Meningococcal Vaccine May Protect Against Gonorrhea A matched cohort study published today in Clinical Infectious Diseases suggests that a meningococcal serogroup B vaccine may offer cross-protection against gonorrhea infection. ... Recent observational research from Norway and New Zealand has indicated that OMV-based meningococcal vaccines may be protective against Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which is becoming increasingly resistant to the last available oral antibiotic treatment options, and the researchers wanted to see if they could replicate those findings in a setting with distinct epidemiologic circumstances. (6/1)

ScienceDaily: Diabetes May Weaken Teeth And Promote Tooth Decay  People with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are prone to tooth decay, and a new study from Rutgers may explain why: reduced strength and durability of enamel and dentin, the hard substance under enamel that gives structure to teeth. (Rutgers University, 5/31)

The Lancet: Prevalence Of Respiratory Viruses In Community-Acquired Pneumonia In Children: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Respiratory viruses are increasingly detected in children with community-acquired pneumonia but prevalence estimates vary substantially. We aimed to systematically review and pool estimates for 22 viruses commonly associated with community-acquired pneumonia. (Pratt BSc, et al, 5/27)

Fortune: A Hug May Help Ward Off Work Stress, But Only For Women  Could something as simple as a hug be the answer to calming your nerves? New research published in the journal Plos One suggests that an embrace before a stressful event, like an important meeting or a big presentation, may have a calming effect—but only for women.  Hugging has long been associated with comfort and love, and its protective health benefits have been well documented. It can help lower blood pressure, reduce pain, improve immunity, and speed recovery from infection. (Fields, 5/28)

CIDRAP: Decolonization Strategy Reduces MRSA Colonization At Multiple Body Sites A new analysis of a randomized clinical trial shows that a repeated post-discharge decolonization regimen for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) carriers reduced MRSA colonization overall and at multiple body sites, researchers reported yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases. (6/1)

Viewpoints: Monkeypox Causing Confusion; FDA Must Act To Avoid Future Drug Shortages

Editorial writers tackle these public health topics.

The New York Times: How Worried Should You Be About Monkeypox?  On May 22, when President Biden described the global outbreak of monkeypox, a close but less lethal relative of smallpox, as a phenomenon that “everybody should be concerned about,” 109 cases had been confirmed in 14 countries outside those where the virus typically circulates, including the United States. By May 31, those numbers had grown to just over 600 confirmed cases in 26 countries. (Spencer Bokat-Lindell, 6/2)

Stat: Beyond Baby Formula: FDA Needs Best Practices To Prevent Shortages The firestorm over baby formula shortages offers an opportunity for the Food and Drug Administration to address a bigger and more fundamental issue: the potential for similar circumstances across the agency’s entire regulatory portfolio. More than a decade ago, the FDA was in the midst of addressing a similarly intense tempest over drug shortages, with clarion calls to fix the problem from Congress, the media, health care providers, and the broader regulatory ecosystem. In 2010, 77% of drugs in short supply were sterile injectable products, critical in the acute care setting. Media coverage highlighted the plight of patients and physicians faced with shortages for cancer drugs, anesthetic agents, and critical care medications. Drug back orders caused patients to receive substitute therapies that added expense to patient care. Not surprisingly, the reasons for these shortages were almost identical to the current baby formula imbroglio: manufacturing issues. (Peter J. Pitts, 6/2)

The Washington Post: I’ll Never Forget Performing An Autopsy On An Unvaccinated Baby  Several years ago, I stood at my stainless steel autopsy table staring at a tiny bundle swaddled in white cotton. I had never performed an autopsy on a baby before. Medical records indicated the 4-month-old died after 30 hours of fever and excruciating abdominal pain. She had vomited continuously, curled her knees up and screamed. Hers was not the impatient cry of hunger, discomfort, loneliness or fatigue. It was a howl of distress. (Thomas Gross, 6/1)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Time To Address The Mental Health Crisis Of Young Men It is time that we address the nefarious mental health crisis of young men in America. Gun violence is cataclysmic to the health and safety of all people in our nation. For most of us, our awareness has acutely shifted in wake of the two mass shootings in the U.S. during the month of May. (Nicholas Roades, 6/1)

The Boston Globe: Drug Overdoses Spiked During The Pandemic. Here’s What States Need To Do While the United States has spent the last two years dealing with a pandemic that has killed more than a million Americans, the drug overdose crisis has also continued at an unprecedented pace. The latest estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that more than 107,000 people died from overdoses in 2021, about a 15 percent increase from the prior year, in which 93,000 people died. (Abdullah Shihipar, Alexandria Macmadu and Alexandra Collins, 6/2)

Different Takes: Abortion Ban Could Hit Ectopic Pregnancy Treatment; When Will Covid Shots Become Annual?

Opinion writers weigh in on abortion and covid issues.

Columbus Dispatch: Could Abortion Ban Threaten Treatment For Ectopic Pregnancy? With Roe vs. Wade possibly on its way out, medical treatment of pregnancy is becoming political: whether an abortion is ever permitted under the proposed legislation in Ohio and other conservative states, whether an exception can be made for “saving the life of the mother,” whether even a spontaneous miscarriage would generate the potential for an arrest. Under legislation similar to that in Texas, which has been proposed in Ohio, both my father and the doctor could be sued for assisting in an illegal abortion. (Virginia Kolberg Duym, 6/2)

Bloomberg: Covid Boosters, Like Flu Shots, Need A Yearly Schedule  The world is waiting for a new generation of Covid-19 vaccines that last longer and can actually prevent infections. The existing shots have averted millions of deaths and hospitalizations, but the public’s willingness to get vaccinated seems to shrink with each new round of boosters. A new approach is needed to withstand the waves of variants. (Lisa Jarvis, 6/1)

Stat: Kids And Covid-19: The Urgency Of Equity Should Outweigh The Urgency Of Normal Across the United States, there’s a universal longing for the day when children no longer need to follow Covid-19 precautions, when they can go to school without wearing masks or social distancing or isolating — in short, when they can return to normal. And though this day hasn’t yet come for all children, a small group of physicians is gaining widespread media attention by declaring otherwise and promoting a vision of normalcy that disregards equity in health care for all children. The Urgency of Normal “advocacy toolkit” has made quite a splash, its ideas having seeped into the national discourse about the pandemic. But it fails to address an important truth: although Covid-19 affects everyone, it does not affect everyone equally. Children from minoritized groups are disproportionally suffering from the physical and emotional impacts of the pandemic. (Octavio N. Martinez, Jr., 6/1)

New York Times: Bottom Line: Masks Work. Mandates Don't COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are rising again in the U.S., and deaths are starting to rise, too. In response, many people are understandably asking what the country can do to minimize the virus's toll in the weeks ahead. So far, a lot of discussion has focused on mask mandates. Schools in Philadelphia; Providence, R.I.; Berkeley, Calif.; and Brookline, Mass., have reimposed theirs, as have several colleges. Elsewhere, some people are frustrated that officials, including New York City Mayor Eric Adams, have not done so. (David Leonhardt, 6/1)

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KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Washington’s Slow Churn

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