Kaiser Health News Original Stories

Pharma-Funded FDA Gets Drugs Out Faster, But Some Work Only ‘Marginally’ and Most Are Pricey

Since pharmaceutical companies started funding their FDA drug applications 30 years ago, the agency’s reviews have gone much faster — perhaps too fast. (Arthur Allen, 10/2 )

Sports Programs in States in Northern Climes Face a New Opponent: Scorching Septembers

Montana and many other states in the northern U.S. have not updated their policies to keep young athletes safe from heatstroke amid rising temperatures. (Aaron Bolton, 10/2 )

Watch: Their Baby Died. The Medical Bills Haunted Them.

Sterling Raspe lived just eight months. In this KHN video, her father shows the 2-inch stack of medical bills generated by Sterling’s care. ( 10/2 )

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: On Government Spending, Congress Decides Not to Decide

Congress has once again decided not to decide how to fund the federal government in time for the start of the fiscal year, racing toward a midnight Sept. 30 deadline to pass a stopgap bill that would keep the lights on for two more months. However, it does appear the FDA’s program that gets drugmakers to help fund some of the agency’s review staff will be renewed in time to stop pink slips from being sent. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, and Victoria Knight of Axios join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these topics and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews filmmaker Cynthia Lowen, whose new documentary, “Battleground,” explores how anti-abortion forces played the long game to overturn Roe v. Wade. ( 10/2 )

Kaiser Health News provides a fresh take on health policy developments with "Political Cartoon: 'A Gavel?'" by Dave Coverly.

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Fat, salt, and sugar. A little is healthy but... Don't they mean "healthful"?

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FDA Authorizes Contentious ALS Drug That May Slow Disease Decline

The drug manufactured by Amylyx Pharmaceuticals has been shown in a small study to slow the progression of ALS, a fatal neurodegenerative condition also known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease." Patients and disease advocates have been lobbying the FDA to approve the therapy — the first new one 5 years — but some scientists question if enough study has been done.

The Washington Post: FDA Approves First ALS Drug In 5 Years After Pleas From Patients  The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday overcame doubts from agency scientists and approved a fiercely debated drug for ALS, a move that heartened patients and advocates who pushed for the medication but raised concerns among some experts about whether treatments for dire conditions receive sufficient scrutiny. “It’s a huge deal,” said Sunny Brous, 35, who was diagnosed with ALS seven years ago after she had trouble closing her left glove while playing softball. She plans to begin taking the drug as soon as she can. (McGinley, 9/29)

The Boston Globe: Cambridge Biotech Wins Approval For Much-Debated ALS Drug Since 1995, only two drugs have been approved to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ― also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease ― and neither works very well. “This approval provides another important treatment option for ALS, a rare, life-threatening disease that currently has no cure,” said Dr. Billy Dunn, director of the Office of Neuroscience in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. (Saltzman and Cross, 9/29)

AP: ALS Drug Wins FDA Approval Despite Questionable Data  The latest approval followed a remarkably turbulent path, including two negative reviews by the FDA’s internal scientists, who called the company’s results “borderline” and “not persuasive.” A panel of outside advisers backed that negative opinion in March, narrowly voting against the drug. But the FDA has faced intense pressure from ALS patients, advocates and members of Congress. In recent weeks the agency received more than 1,300 written comments from the ALS community supporting the treatment. (Perrone, 9/30)

NBC News: FDA Approves Controversial New Drug Designed To Slow The Progress Of ALS The FDA's decision was based on a single phase 2 clinical trial of 137 ALS patients that found people who took Amylyx’s drug, which will be sold under the name Relyvrio, lived about 10 months longer than those who didn’t. The drug also appeared to delay hospitalizations. (Lovelace Jr., 9/29)

Stat: FDA Approves Amylyx's ALS Drug, Giving Patients Needed Treatment Option Amylyx did not immediately disclose how much it will charge for Relyvrio. “Amylyx’s goal is that every person who is eligible for Relyvrio will have access as quickly and efficiently as possible,” the company’s co-CEOs said in a statement, “as we know people with ALS and their families have no time to wait.” (Garde, 9/29)

Suicide Rates Rise, Spotlighting Pandemic's Mental Health Toll

After two years of decline, U.S. suicide rates rose 4% in 2021 over the previous year. Among 15- to 24-year-olds, the increase was 8%. Experts say the numbers are part of an escalating national mental health crisis exacerbated by the covid pandemic.

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Suicide Rates Rose In 2021 After Two Years Of Decline The U.S. suicide rate rose in 2021 after two consecutive years of declines, federal data showed, underscoring concern about mental health in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic. The suicide rate last year increased 4% compared with the rate in 2020, provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed on Friday. The rise was driven largely by suicides among men. Males ages 15 to 24 experienced the sharpest increase at 8%, the report found. (Abbott, 9/30)

NBC News: After 2-Year Decline, Suicide Rates Rise Again It's a sign, experts say, that suicide rates are inching back up to levels seen before the pandemic. In 2021, 47,646 people in the United States died by suicide, up from 45,979 in 2020. That's an increase of nearly 4%. (Edwards, 9/30)

The Washington Post: Suicides Increased In 2021, Especially Among Younger People  “A four percent rise is certainly disappointing,” said Christine Yu Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “However, what had been predicted at the beginning of the pandemic was that there would be a major escalation.” (Bernstein, 9/29)

In other mental health news —

The Hill: House Passes Bill Addressing Mental Health Concerns Among Students, Families, Educators The House passed a bill on Thursday that seeks to address mental health concerns among students, families and educators aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which lawmakers say had a “severe impact” on those three groups. The bill, titled the Mental Health Matters Act, passed in a largely party-line 220-205 vote. One Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), joined all Democrats present in supporting it. (Schnell, 9/29)

Fox News: Anxiety Screenings Recommended By US Task Force Will Cause Overdiagnosis, Overprescription, Psychologist Warns "It’s the wrong solution at the wrong time," Dr. Jonathan Shedler, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, told Fox News. "You can’t just carve the world into disorders and think you’re doing an adequate job of determining someone’s mental health needs." (Sahakian, 9/29)

WGLT: Concerns Rise As Oversight Of Illinois Prison Mental Health Care Ends The Illinois Department of Corrections has long faced accusations of abuse and violence toward people with mental illness and has continually failed to fill positions for mental health care workers. Now for the first time in five years, its treatment of people with mental illness will no longer be under the oversight of an independent federal monitor. (Heffernan, 9/29)

Fla. Nursing Homes, Hospitals Evacuate Patients Amid Power, Water Outages

Mary Mayhew, CEO of the Florida Hospital Association, said 16 hospitals across the state had evacuated or were in the process of evacuating Thursday afternoon, NBC News reported. Kristen Knapp of the Florida Health Care Association told AP 43 nursing homes evacuated about 3,400 residents as of Thursday morning, mostly in southwest Florida.

AP: Florida Health Care Facilities Evacuate Patients After Ian Thousands of people were evacuated from nursing homes and hospitals across Florida on Thursday even as winds and water from Hurricane Ian began receding. Hundreds of those evacuations were taking place across the hard-hit Fort Myers region, where damage cut off potable water to at least nine hospitals. Kristen Knapp of the Florida Health Care Association says 43 nursing homes evacuated about 3,400 residents as of Thursday morning, mostly in southwest Florida. As many as 20 facilities had reported electricity outages, but Knapp says generators are powering those buildings. Water was shut off at some facilities, too. And one area hospital began assessing the full damage from ferocious winds that tore away parts of its roof and swamped its emergency room. (Calvan and Hartounian, 9/29)

NBC News: Florida Hospitals Report Evacuations, Lockdowns And Water Outages Hurricane Ian has forced several Florida hospitals to evacuate patients and place staff members on lockdown as facilities contend with power outages and critical disruptions to water supplies. Mary Mayhew, the CEO of the Florida Hospital Association, said 16 hospitals across the state had evacuated or were in the process of evacuating Thursday afternoon. (Bendix, Syal and Martin, 9/29)

NBC News: Florida Resident Secured Paralyzed Husband To Hospital Bed And Gave Him A Life Jacket A Florida woman used duct tape, tarpaulin, blankets, pillows and zip ties to secure her paralyzed husband to his hospital bed as Hurricane Ian battered their Punta Gorda home. She also gave him a life jacket in case water flooded their home, some 24 miles north of Fort Myers. ... He was scheduled to undergo radiation treatment on Wednesday but it was canceled due to the hurricane, which made landfall Wednesday afternoon and knocked out power to more than 2.6 million people across Florida. “It was terrifying," she said. (Lozano, 9/29)

Bloomberg: Raw Sewage Swirls Into Florida Floodwaters In Hurricane Ian’s Wake Untold gallons of raw and poorly treated sewage have flowed into streets and rivers as floodwaters inundate infrastructure, power failures knock pumps offline, and manholes overflow. (Natter, 9/29)

The New York Times: A Baby Boy Was Born As The Hurricane Arrived In Florida. No, He Won’t Be Named Ian. With the hurricane barreling toward their stretch of the Florida coast on Tuesday afternoon, Amanda Mahr and her husband, Matthew Mahr, got an urgent call from their doctor: They had to schedule an emergency C-section. The baby was four days past due, and the ultrasound that morning had showed fluid levels that were too low for them to wait until after the storm for delivery. Hurricane or not, the baby was going to have to come. (Kim, 9/30)

Covid Attacks The Heart, Study Finds; Monkeypox Blamed In Ohio Death

The small study showed that patients who died from covid sustained DNA damage to the heart. In separate news, the CDC has issued a new warning about monkeypox after a third U.S. death is recorded.

Brisbane Times: Unlike Flu, COVID-19 Attacks DNA In The Heart, New Research Shows Direct research on the hearts of COVID-19 patients who have died from the disease has revealed they sustained DNA damage in a way completely unlike how influenza affects the body. The finding gives researchers clues about exactly how severe COVID-19 is affecting the body, and also a potential way to detect who will be seriously affected by the disease in the future. (Layt, 9/29)

Becker's Hospital Review: Pulse Oximeter Flaws May Have Delayed COVID-19 Treatment For Black Patients: Study Black COVID-19 patients may have faced 4.5-hour treatment delays due to pulse oximeters' inability to accurately read their blood oxygen levels, according to researchers at Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health. For 30 years, medical literature has documented that pulse oximeters overestimate blood oxygenation in individuals with darker pigmented skin, according to a study shared with Becker's on Sept. 28. However, the clinical impacts of this discrepancy have not been heavily investigated, a Sutter Health spokesperson said Sept. 28 in a statement shared with Becker's. (Kayser, 9/29)

The Boston Globe: For Intranasal Vaccines, Big Talk Comes Cheap, But The Money Is Still Missing The vision is enticing: replacing the pain of a vaccine shot with a nasal spray that is powerful enough to prevent even mild infections and short-circuit the global spread of COVID-19. Even as Americans roll up their sleeves for updated fall boosters, new variants with the potential to evade immunity are spreading in parts of Europe and Asia, renewing calls among some experts for next-generation vaccines that can truly conquer the virus. (Cross, 9/30)

In updates on the spread of monkeypox —

CNN: CDC Warns Of Severe Illnesses From Monkeypox As Ohio Reports Death Of A Monkeypox Patient The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new warning to health care providers Thursday about severe illnesses in people with monkeypox. (Kounang and Dillinger, 9/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Monkeypox Cases Plunge 95%, Outbreak Isn’t Over Yet The number of people testing positive for monkeypox has plunged in California, with the seven-day average of new cases down about 95% since the peak of the outbreak in early August. Though health experts caution that the virus threat hasn’t disappeared, progress in fending it off so far constitutes a major public health success. (Vaziri, 9/29)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Experts Expect More Monkeypox Cases In Clark County Clark County can expect to see more cases of the once-rare monkeypox virus in the weeks ahead, even as the rate of new cases appears to be declining, officials said this week. (Hynes, 9/29)

Detroit Free Press: Black Michiganders Got 60% Of Monkeypox Cases, Only 17% Of Vaccines Even though 60% of the people who have gotten monkeypox in Michigan so far are Black, 70% of the doses of the vaccine that can prevent infection or limit symptoms after exposure have gone to white Michiganders. Black residents have gotten just 17% of the doses administered so far in Michigan, new state health department data shows. (Jordan Shamus, 9/29)

At Heart Of Spy Case, A Plot To Leak US Medical Records To Russia

A Maryland doctor and her spouse were arrested in a sting operation that claims to have caught them trying to give medical records on potentially influential U.S. figures to Russia, news outlets report. Also: a bill to reduce rabies shot costs and "vague" promises on health care in the temporary spending bill.

The New York Times: Army Doctor And Spouse Plotted To Give Russia Medical Records, U.S. Says A Maryland doctor and her spouse, a U.S. Army doctor, were arrested on Thursday and charged with plotting to give the Russian government medical records of members of the American military, believing that the information could be exploited by the Kremlin, federal prosecutors said. The couple, Dr. Anna Gabrielian, a Baltimore anesthesiologist, and Dr. Jamie Lee Henry, an Army major and staff internist at Fort Bragg, were indicted after they met several times with an undercover F.B.I. agent who they believed was working for the Russian Embassy, prosecutors said. (Levenson, 9/29)

The Baltimore Sun: Hopkins Doctor And Army Spouse Federally Charged With Trying To Pass Information To Russians  A Baltimore anesthesiologist and her U.S. Army major spouse were federally indicted Wednesday in an alleged conspiracy to disclose health information to the Russian government to assist its war in Ukraine. (Cohn, 9/29)

In news from Capitol Hill —

The Washington Post: Bitten By A Fox, Rep. Bera Introduces Bill To Reduce The Cost Of Rabies Vaccine  Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) has introduced legislation aimed at reducing the cost of the rabies vaccine for uninsured Americans months after a fox bit him as he was walking on Capitol Hill. “Despite being a fatal disease, rabies is preventable if treated quickly,” Bera said in a statement Wednesday, which is World Rabies Day. “After being bit by a rabid fox, I was fortunate to have access to readily available and low-cost vaccines. But for too many Americans, the costs of treatment would break their banks.” (Scott, 9/28)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: On Government Spending, Congress Decides Not To Decide  Congress is supposed to complete its annual appropriations bills before the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. But it rarely does, and this year is no different, as lawmakers scramble to pass a short-term funding bill so they can put off final decisions until at least December. Meanwhile, with an eye to the midterms, House Republicans put out a “Commitment to America,” which includes only the vaguest promises related to health care. It’s yet another demonstration that the only thing in health care that unifies Republicans is their opposition to Democrats’ health policies. It’s notable that this latest Republican plan does not suggest repealing the Affordable Care Act. (9/29)

Judge: HHS Must Restore Full 340B Drug Payments Until 2023

Modern Healthcare reports on a decision from District of Columbia Judge Rudolph Contreras, who found that a Health and Human Services Department lower reimbursement rate was "defective." Meanwhile, Michigan joins efforts to crimp costs from contract travel nurses.

Modern Healthcare: HHS Must Stop 340B Cuts Through 2022, Judge Rules The decision by Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is the latest blow to an HHS effort to limit spending on the 340B Drug Pricing Program and follows a Supreme Court ruling in June ordering the department to compensate providers for lower 340B payments they received in prior years. (Berryman, 9/29)

More on medical costs and debt —

Crain's Detroit Business: High-Cost Travel Nurse Contracts Targeted In New Michigan Bill Michigan is joining at least 15 other states in an attempt to tamp down the high costs of contract travel nurses, even as demand for healthcare workers continues to grow post-pandemic. (Walsh, 9/29)

Axios: America's Big Consumer Medical Debt Problem The number of Americans who have health insurance has never been higher — but more than 40% surveyed this year said they struggled to pay medical bills or were paying off medical debt, according to a biennial report from The Commonwealth Fund. (Reed, 9/29)

KHN: Watch: Their Baby Died. The Medical Bills Haunted Them Born with a congenital heart defect and other medical issues, Sterling Raspe lived just eight months. In that time, she needed dozens of medical procedures and often required round-the-clock care in the neonatal intensive care unit. At one point, her parents were told they owed $2.5 million for her care. “It’s an offensive amount of money,” said Sterling’s father, Kingsley Raspe, in this KHN video produced by Hannah Norman and reported by Lauren Weber. (9/30)

In other news about the health care industry —

San Diego Union-Tribune: Obama Tells San Diego Audience Precision Medicine Held Back By ‘Creaky’ Health Care System Former President Barack Obama lauded the advances that researchers are making in precision medicine but lamented the sluggish pace of adoption of these technologies in the U.S. health care system at an event in San Diego on Wednesday. ... Obama said the system has evolved so it is “more of a disease care system than a health care system. Until we reverse the incentive structure and the mindset inside that system, I suspect we are still going to have some problems.” (Freeman, 9/28)

Wyoming Public Radio: A New Clinic In Gillette Is Seeking To Change The Healthcare Scene In Campbell County And Beyond  Hoskinson Health and Wellness Clinic is a medical facility that’s set to partially open in Gillette next week. But it doesn’t necessarily follow a traditional model of patient care, the kind of services it provides, or the kind of care it seeks to offer patients. (Cook, 9/29)

Bay Area News Group: Senior-Care Chain Covering Up Third Bay Area Death From Liquid: Lawsuit A senior-care chain whose San Mateo facility saw two residents die after drinking caustic liquid tried to cover up a third similar death at its care home in Walnut Creek, a new lawsuit claims. (Turner and Baron, 9/29)

Oregon Receives $1 Billion To Expand Medicaid Coverage

The federal money will guarantee ongoing free health care for "tens of thousands" of young kids in lower-income homes and boost coverage for low-income young adults, the Oregonian reports. AP links the expanded coverage to health-related climate change expenses.

The Oregonian: Under Federal $1 Billion Agreement, Oregon Will Expand Medicaid Coverage  Under a new agreement, the federal government will give Oregon $1.1 billion to guarantee continued free health care coverage to tens of thousands of young children in households with low incomes and offer wider coverage to low-income young adults, especially those with special needs. The agreement, announced Wednesday in a conference call with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services officials and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, also includes expanding Medicaid coverage to include housing and food support. (9/29)

AP: Oregon To Cover Health-Related Climate Expenses Oregon is set to become the first state in the nation to cover climate change expenses for certain low-income patients under its Medicaid program as the normally temperate Pacific Northwest region sees longer heat waves and more intense wildfires. The new initiative, slated to take effect in 2024, will cover payment for devices such as air conditioners and air filters for Medicaid members with health conditions who live in an area where an emergency due to extreme weather has been declared by the federal government or the governor’s office, according to the Oregon Health Authority. (Rush, 9/29)

In other news from across the U.S. —

Los Angeles Times: Newsom Signs Bill Protecting Transgender Youths Fleeing Red-State Laws Senate Bill 107 by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) provides for a range of safeguards meant to block out-of-state attempts to penalize families that come to California seeking medical treatment for transgender children and teens or move to the state to avoid consequences for already seeking that treatment elsewhere. (Mays, 9/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Expects To Eventually Open Supervised Drug Consumption Sites Inside Some New ‘Wellness Hubs’ San Francisco officials said Thursday that they expect to eventually open supervised drug consumption sites inside new “wellness hubs” they’re planning that will serve people struggling with addiction. (Moench, 9/29)

North Carolina Health News: Launch Delayed For Medicaid Tailored Plans Back in August, Lucy Plyler was mailed a 19-page letter from the state health department. The letter said that the way Victoria, her 24-year-old daughter with multiple disabilities, received Medicaid was about to change. Instead of being in NC Medicaid Direct, Victoria would be put on a “tailored plan.” (Donnelly-DeRoven, 9/30)

The Boston Globe: Retired Clarinetist Donates $100 Million To Rename Boston University’s Medical School After His Friend Half of the donation money will be used to provide need-based financial aid and scholarships to future medical students, said Robert Brown, president of Boston University. A quarter will be used to support endowed professorships, which honor accomplished faculty and fund research. The final quarter will be used to “keep the school at the forefront of teaching and research,” according to a statement from the university. (Mogg, 9/29)

KHN: Sports Programs In States In Northern Climes Face A New Opponent: Scorching Septembers  On a recent afternoon, it was a crisp 70 degrees on the football field at the high school in this northwestern Montana community less than 200 miles south of the U.S.-Canada border. Vikings head coach Jim Benn was running his team through drills in the pristine fall weather, without much interruption. Just a couple of weeks earlier, though, players needed frequent water breaks as they sweated through temperatures in the low to mid-90s, about 15 degrees higher than average for the time of year. Although temperatures have started to drop now that autumn is underway, Montana and many other states in the northern U.S. are getting hotter — and staying hot for longer. (Bolton, 9/30)

Lawsuits Claim Acetaminophen During Pregnancy Harms Fetuses

Bloomberg reports "dozens" of lawsuits are aimed at Walmart, CVS, and other pharmacy chains with claims store-branded acetaminophen caused later child behavioral disorders.

Bloomberg: Walmart, CVS Face Suits Blaming Common Painkiller For Autism Dozens of lawsuits are challenging the long-standing belief that pregnant women can safely take acetaminophen, an over-the-counter drug used in Tylenol and generic pain medications. (Feeley, 9/29)

Fox News: Acetaminophen During Pregnancy May Be Linked To Attention And Sleep Problems In Young Children: New Study Taking the pain medication acetaminophen, also known under the brand name of Tylenol, during pregnancy may be associated with child behavioral issues at three years old. That's according to a new report published in the journal PLOS Medicine. (Sudhakar, 9/29)

In other pharmaceutical industry news —

Bloomberg: Illumina Delivers $200 Genome With New DNA Sequencing Machine Illumina Inc. says it can read a person’s entire genetic code for as little as $200 with its new sequencing machine, bringing the company within reach of its long-promised goal of the $100 genome. (Peebles, 9/29)

USA Today: Wonder Pill, Sold On Amazon, Walmart, Recalled For Tadalafil Certain lots of a daily dietary supplement called Wonder Pill sold by Walmart and Amazon are being recalled because lab tests detected the presence of tadalafil, a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction, according to an announcement on the Food and Drug Administration website this week. (Mayorquin, 9/29)

KHN: Pharma-Funded FDA Gets Drugs Out Faster, But Some Work Only ‘Marginally’ And Most Are Pricey  Dr. Steven-Huy Han, a UCLA liver specialist, has prescribed Ocaliva to a handful of patients, although he’s not sure it helps. As advertised, the drug is lowering levels of an enzyme called alkaline phosphatase in their blood, and that should be a sign of healing for their autoimmune disease, called primary biliary cholangitis. But “no one knows for sure,” Han said, whether less enzyme means they won’t get liver cancer or cirrhosis in the long run. “I have no idea if the drug will make them better,” he said. “It could take 10, 20, or 30 years to know.” (Allen, 9/30)

Stateline: Health Groups Urge States To Spend Juul Settlement Dollars On Tobacco Prevention Major medical groups are urging states that won a $438.5 million settlement earlier this month in a case against electronic cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. to use the money for tobacco prevention and cessation programs, particularly those aimed at young people. (Vestal, 9/28)

Kids With Head Lice Can Stay At School, AAP Says

The American Academy of Pediatrics says it's not a sign of poor hygiene and that sending children home can result in "significant stigma and psychological stress." In other news, studies show vaping is less risky than smoking, and coffee drinking is linked to longer life.

Fox News 4: Kids With Head Lice Shouldn’t Be Sent Home From School, New AAP Guidance Says A head lice diagnosis is neither a health hazard nor a sign of poor hygiene, and children should not miss school because of it, new guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics states. Instead, being sent home from school because of head lice "can result in significant stigma and psychological stress." (Hayes, 9/29)

KOMO: Kids Who Have Lice At School Should Not Be Sent Home, New Guidance Says Adding to this, children who are infected with lice should be allowed to return to school, the AAP says, even if they are not lice-free yet. The AAP even suggests that zero-tolerance policies on lice infections "may violate a child’s or adolescent’s civil liberties." The AAP says it discourages such policies and asks schools to address their legal counsels about them. (Rogers, 9/28)

In other health and wellness news —

Bloomberg: Vaping Is Far Less Risky Than Smoking And Helps People Quit, UK Study Shows Vaping poses significantly fewer risks than smoking and has a slightly better success rate than other methods of giving up cigarettes, according to a study commissioned by the UK government. (Lyu, 9/29)

USA Today: Coffee Linked To Living Longer, Lower Heart Disease Risk, Study Says In the study, published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, researchers found that mild to moderate intake of ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee were all linked to "significant reductions" in mortality and cardiovascular disease – including coronary heart disease, cardiac failure and ischaemic stroke. (Grantham-Philips, 9/29)

The Washington Post: How Exercising Now Could Benefit Your Future Grandchildren Exercising now is good for you. But could it also be good for your future children and grandchildren? A provocative new study says it might be. The findings, based on research in mice, suggest that the exercise we do today etches itself into our cells in ways that can be passed to later generations. (Reynolds, 9/28)

The Boston Globe: Annoying, Yes, But Will They Also Make You Sick? UMass Professor Calls For More Study Of Risk From Houseflies Here’s some disturbing food for thought when a housefly buzzes around your lunch. A University of Massachusetts Amherst professor is arguing that more attention needs to be paid to “synanthropic” flies — the non-biting flies that live alongside us — as potential disease carriers. (Finucane, 9/29)

Scientific Attention Focuses On Role Of Microbes, Fungi In Tumors

Scientists are examining whether microbial signatures may help locate cancerous tumors, and into how fungi get into tumors. A $49 million grant to boost Alzheimer's research, and diversity in medical research are also in research news.

The New York Times: A New Approach To Spotting Tumors: Look For Their Microbes  Scientists have long known that our bodies are home to microbes, but have tended to treat tumors as if they were sterile. In recent years, however, researchers have laid that notion to rest, demonstrating that tumors are rife with microbes. In 2020, several research teams showed that tumors are home to various blends of bacteria. And on Thursday, two studies published in the journal Cell found that tumors are also home to many species of fungi. This so-called tumor microbiome is proving so distinctive in each type of cancer that some scientists hope to find early signs of hidden tumors by measuring the microbial DNA they shed into the blood. (Zimmer, 9/29)

Stat: Fungi Find Their Way Into Cancer Tumors, But Why Is A Mystery  For a while, scientists thought the trillions of microbes on our bodies lived in landscapes connected to the outside world — our skin, hair, and gut — but research in the last few years has shown that’s not so. (Chen, 9/30)

Indianapolis Star: Alzheimer's Research: Indiana Medical School Receives $48.8M Grant Indiana University School of Medicine researchers have received a $48.8 million federal grant to help them build not a better mousetrap but a better mouse model for testing new therapies to treat Alzheimer’s disease. (Rudavsky, 9/29)

Noticias Telemundo for Axios: Study: Creating A Diversity Score Could Improve Medical Research Measuring racial and ethnic diversity within medical trials — and requiring a certain threshold to be met for researchers to publish in major journals — could be key to improving research into cancer and other diseases, a recent study found. (Franco, 9/29)

USA Today: Clinical Trials In Line For A Major Post-COVID Change: More Diversity Before the pandemic, trial organizers said they aimed for diversity. "We talked a good game about it, but we never really did that much," said Dr. Paul Evans, CEO and president of Velocity, which conducts later-phase trials for drug companies. "It's no longer lip service." (Weintraub, 9/30)

Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed

Each week, KHN finds longer stories for you to enjoy. This week's selections include stories on covid, abortion, psychotherapy, HIV, and more.

Politico: ‘Other Places In The Country Didn’t Do This’: How One California Town Survived Covid Better Than The Rest  Lots of universities and communities knew that the best way to control Covid was pre-symptomatic testing. But UC Davis is a world-class agricultural research institution, and so it had an advantage they didn’t: expertise in pandemic testing — for plants. While the leap between plant and human disease might sound like a stretch, it wasn’t to Richard Michelmore, a plant geneticist who directs the university’s Genome Center. Michelmore had spent decades doing cheap, mass-scale pandemic testing — for plant pathogens like wheat rusts and downy mildew on spinach.“SARS-CoV-2 is just a virus, right?” Michelmore said. “And there are plenty of viral diseases in plants that cause havoc.” (Colliver, 9/25)

Undark: A Rare Disease That Underscores The Importance Of Abortion Access It took a long time and numerous instances of nearly fainting for Renee Schmidt to figure out what was going on. Her symptoms became really noticeable as she headed to college at age 18, she recalled. About once a month, when she turned her head, she would feel herself start losing consciousness or experiencing momentary memory loss. On a few occasions, she fully passed out. Over time, the episodes occurred more frequently, sometimes 20 to 40 times per day. Schmidt had to drop out. “I couldn’t do school anymore. I was pretty much in bed all day for six months at least,” she said, “which was not ideal.” Three years after her symptoms emerged, Schmidt was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. EDS is a cluster of often rare, poorly understood, inherited diseases that impact connective tissues. (Johnson, 9/26)

Scientific American: Dementia In Prison Is Turning Into An Epidemic: The U.S. Penal System Is Badly Unprepared Terrell Carter remembers one prisoner in particular. They had both been seeking commutations of their life sentence so they could eventually apply for parole. But Carter says that in the midst of the process, his fellow inmate became so debilitated with dementia that the man could no longer function well enough to complete the paperwork. Within a few months, Carter says, this prisoner was incapacitated, lying in bed with arms outstretched over his head, calling for help. Carter, an inmate who volunteered in the hospice ward of State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Collegeville, Penn., says that his fellow prisoner languished and eventually perished in prison because he was too mentally impaired to file for forgiveness. “By the end, he didn’t know the crime he was charged with committing,” Carter says. (Novak, 9/27)

The Washington Post: More Psychotherapists Are Incorporating Religion Into Their Practices  “Americans’ mental health is at the lowest point in history,” said David H. Rosmarin, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. “People are feeling more isolated than ever. They are less connected to each other and also to something spiritual. It’s a big problem.” Rosmarin is one of a growing number of psychologists who believe that religion and spirituality have tools that can help in today’s mental health crisis. In recent years, there has been an increase in training opportunities to integrate faith and spirituality into psychotherapy as well as articles and research papers about it published in professional journals. But Rosmarin says that convincing others in a profession, who are statistically less religious than those they serve, is still a hard sell. (Schiffman, 9/23)

The New York Times: The Quest By Circadian Medicine To Make The Most Of Our Body Clocks The concept of having a “body clock” is a familiar one, but less widespread is the awareness that our body contains several biological clocks. Understanding their whims and functions may help us optimize our lives and lead to better overall health, according to scientists. Every physiological system is represented by a clock, from the liver to the lungs, and each one is synced “to the central clock in the brain like an orchestra section following its conductor,” writes Kim Tingley, a New York Times journalist who explored the effect this knowledge has on how conditions are treated, and spoke to scientists about how misalignment or deregulation of these clocks can have a profound effect on our health. (Tingley, 9/25)

The New York Times: A New Shot Guards Against H.I.V., But Access For Africans Is Uncertain For seven years, a daily pill has been available in South Africa to protect people from getting H.I.V. But when Victoria Makhandule, a community health worker, counsels the young women in her township about the medication, they tell her it doesn’t work for them. These young women are among the most vulnerable in the world to H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, but they say the daily pills, known as PrEP, bring their own challenges. The women may spend an unexpected night away from home and miss a dose, or forget for a day or two. Or their mothers or cousins snoop through their drawers, find the pills and know their business. Or their boyfriends see them taking the drug and get suspicious: Is that really for prevention, or do you have H.I.V.? Lots of young women here start PrEP (short for pre-exposure prophylaxis). Few stay on it. (Nolen, 9/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Unilever Goes Back To The Drawing Board With Accessible Deodorant Design  It has been more than 17 months since Unilever PLC-owned deodorant brand Degree said it had created a concept for what it called the “world’s first inclusive” deodorant for people with disabilities. The prototype, which was designed with customers who have limited sight and arm mobility in mind, and the campaign unveiling it won multiple advertising, design and innovation awards for Unilever and its marketing agency. But the deodorant never appeared on shelves. Further testing found that users wanted customizable solutions for their particular mobility and dexterity needs, not a single product that tried to accommodate a wider range of disabled people. (Deighton, 9/28)

The Washington Post: Yes, AirPods Can Double As Hearing Aids. Here’s How For people who already wear hearing aids, most contemporary aids come with Bluetooth compatibility, says Lindsay Creed, associate director of audiology practices at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. That means you can connect them to your audio source without any cords. Check with your audiologist or the manufacturer to find out whether your hearing aids are Bluetooth enabled and how to “pair” them with an audio source like a cellphone, computer or MP3 player. (Hunter, 9/23)

Viewpoints: Certificate-Of-Needs Laws Are A Health Care Disaster; How To Cope With Anosmia

Editorial writers delve into these public health topics.

The Tennessean: Certificate-Of-Need Laws Limit Health Care Choices For All Tennesseans Although certificate-of-need laws remain unfamiliar to many, they constitute needless government regulation that reduces health care access for all Tennesseans, from Memphis to Mountain City.  (Timothy Lee, 9/29)

Los Angeles Times: How I Cope After Losing My Sense Of Smell To COVID Two and a half years ago, my nose stopped working. That’s when I realized how often smell comes up in daily conversation: “That Uber smelled weird,” or “that woman was wearing way too much perfume,” or “someone’s definitely smoking weed nearby.” (Nicole Kagan, 9/29)

Los Angeles Times: Now That The CDC Has Dropped Masking, A Plea To Doctors And Hospitals With a one-two punch, the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have tossed tens of millions of Americans at high risk of death and disability from COVID into a sea of contagion without any clear guidance for infection prevention and control. After President Biden’s thoughtless remark that “the pandemic is over,” the CDC announced days later a quiet undermining of COVID protections in hospitals and nursing homes: the end of universal masking recommendations for healthcare settings. (Kathleen Quinn, 9/27)

Miami Herald: With Pandemic ‘Over’ CDC Ends Hospital Mask Requirements  With a one-two punch, the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have tossed tens of millions of Americans at high risk of death and disability from COVID-19 into a sea of contagion without any clear guidance for infection prevention and control. (Kathleen Quinn, 9/29)

Stat: Maternal-Fetal Surgery Is Not An Alternative To Abortion Care  Every day, pregnant people across the United States get the news that the futures they imagined for their babies are at risk due to a fetal condition. Some of these problems can be mediated by maternal-fetal surgery. But these procedures are not, as some have claimed, an alternative to abortion care. (Abigail Wilpers and Kristen Gosnell, 9/30)

USA Today: Americans Want Middle Ground On Abortion. These Voter Initiatives Are Anything But Opponents of abortion who were thrilled to see the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade in June may find their celebration short-lived. At least in some states. (Ingrid Jacques, 9/30)

Chicago Tribune: College Students' Mental Health Crisis Is A Call To Action I’ve taught college for almost 30 years. I’ve never had so many students tell me they’re depressed. I’ve never had so many students quit attending class or drop out so close to graduation. (Chris Lamb, 9/30)

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