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Medicine moves faster than government, thank goodness, but every now and again government tries to catch up. After years of thoughtful bipartisan work, Congress is now poised to pass the 21st Century Cures Act, a bill designed to accelerate the development of new medicines and modernize a malfunctioning corner of the regulatory state. (12/6)

I now fail to understand several of the FDA’s decisions in the very recent past. In addition to a profound lack of scientific proof, these decisions seem to lack basic common sense. For example, flibanserin worked in only 8 percent to 13 percent of the women in which it was tested. On top of this pathetically poor efficacy, flibanserin can have life-threatening interactions with recreational alcohol consumption and some of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics and antifungals on the market. ... As a former FDA medical officer and erstwhile FDA observer, I offer seven of my many suggestions for fixing the agency. (David Gortler, 12/6)

As more seniors choose private Medicare Advantage plans, the clout of the insurance industry has grown and could become even more powerful if Republicans led by Paul Ryan further privatize health benefits for the elderly. A key issue in this week's antitrust trial pitting the U.S. Justice Department against health insurers Aetna and Humana is whether the combined company and the Medicare Advantage plans they sell would have too much power over seniors in 70 counties. The government says the two would create a monopoly and is trying to block the $37 billion deal amid rampant consolidation that also includes the proposed merger of Anthem and Cigna. (Bruce Japsen, 12/6)

We primary care practitioners want to do what’s best for our patients, including those with chronic pain, who are often some of the most challenging patients to manage. We do not want to overprescribe a potentially addictive and lethal opioid medication. In the primary care setting, all of this decision-making is happening at once and the patient is waiting for your decision. (Kathryn Takayoshi, 12/6)

Within a few hours on a late summer day this year, 27 people in the West Virginia town of Huntington were rushed to the emergency room because of heroin, fentanyl, and other opioid overdoses. The problem is a growing one: In 2014 more than 47,000 Americans died from opioid and other drug overdoses and 2.6 million Americans suffer opioid addiction. This costs the nation about $78.5 billion in health care costs, and drug overdoses have claimed eight times as many U.S. lives between 2000 and 2014 as in the Vietnam War—a half million. Last month, the Surgeon General issued a landmark report on “Facing Addiction in America,“ noting that only 1 in 10 of the 20.8 million Americans with a substance-abuse disorder gets treatment. (Andrew Yarrow, 12/6)

States’ efforts to contain their retiree health-care liabilities, along with the slowdown in overall health-care cost growth, pushed down costs by 10 percent from 2010 to 2013. Since 2013, though, these state liabilities have started to climb again. Chicago’s have not. On the contrary, from 2013 to 2015, the cost of the city’s post-retirement health benefits fell by more than 20 percent.A big reason for this is that the city has been phasing out subsidies for employees who retired in August 1989 or later. While those who retired earlier will continue to receive subsidies for more than half the cost of their insurance premiums, the later retirees are being shifted into nonsubsidized Medicare and other plans. In addition, recent police and fire collective bargaining agreements include more premiums for retiree health care, to offset some of the city’s costs. (Peter R. Orszag, 12/6)

Mice sometimes get blamed for disappointments in cancer research, such as when treatments that were promising in mouse studies do poorly in clinical trials. However, as we learn more about the complex interactions between cancer and the immune system, the need has grown for simple models that allow research into a limited set of factors in a controlled environment. Studies in mice can be a valuable predictor of clinical success as long as mouse models evolve with the science. (Aidan Synnott, 12/6)

More than 30 years ago, as the AIDS epidemic exploded, the nation’s blood banks banned donations from men who had sex with other men. The logic was sound at the time. Tests of the era couldn’t adequately detect HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. As a result, thousands of people unwittingly contracted HIV from tainted blood during transfusions. (12/7)