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Congress began leaving Washington on Thursday for the long holiday weekend without a plan for how to prevent a government shutdown next week, as a revolt over spending brewed among hard-right House Republicans. Funding for 20 percent of the government is set to expire on Jan. 19, and the rest expires on Feb. 2. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) have agreed on an overall $1.66 trillion spending deal for the 2024 fiscal year, but lawmakers won’t have time to enact it before the deadlines. So the Senate on Thursday took procedural steps to be able to pass a stopgap funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, to keep the government open while members work on long-term spending legislation. Members left town after that and are due to return on Tuesday. (Bogage and Sotomayor, 1/11)

�鶹Ů�� Health News' 'What The Health?' Podcast: All About The (Government) Funding 

As this election year begins in earnest, making it harder for Congress to pass bills, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are still struggling to fund the government for the fiscal year that began last October. And many health priorities hang in the balance. (1/11)

The U.S. Congress must raise spending on a food assistance program for low-income women and children or 2 million could be turned away this year, Biden administration officials said on Thursday. A bitterly divided Congress has for months failed to reach agreement on 2024 government spending levels and is racing to avert a partial shutdown on Jan. 19. An eventual deal should include $1 billion more for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and White House Domestic Policy Council Director Neera Tanden on a call with reporters. (Douglas, 1/11)

The Defense Department inspector general said Thursday it will investigate the mishandling of Lloyd Austin’s recent hospitalization, which the Pentagon chief and others close to him kept secret from the White House and Congress for days in an apparent breach of protocol after he developed serious complications from prostate cancer surgery. In a memo addressed to Austin, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and other officials, Inspector General Robert Storch said his staff would begin its work this month. He indicated that while the inquiry will be focused on the Office of the Secretary of Defense, its scope could broaden. (Lamothe and Alfaro, 1/11)

There is no evidence popular weight-loss drugs cause suicidal thoughts, federal officials said. The Food and Drug Administration’s preliminary analysis Thursday showed no clear relationship between adverse-event reports of suicidal thoughts or actions and the drugs for weight-loss and diabetes, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1s. Millions of people have started taking drugs that can help some users shed a fifth of their body weight or more.  (Whyte, 1/11)

But the agency also said officials cannot definitively rule out that “a small risk may exist” and that they’ll continue to look into reports regarding more than a dozen drugs, including Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro. (Aleccia, 1/11)

CVS Health said on Thursday it will close some pharmacies that operate inside Target stores during the first several months of the year. The closures will begin in February and be completed by the end of April, a company spokesperson said. Prescriptions will be transferred to a nearby CVS Pharmacy prior to closing, the spokesperson added. (1/11)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday classified the recall of certain respiratory masks made by ResMed (RMD.N) as most serious as their use could cause major injuries or death. ResMed was recalling some models of its continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) masks, AirFit and AirTouch, due to possible magnetic interference with certain medical devices and implants which might disrupt their function or position and cause serious harm or death, the FDA said. (1/12)

New York-based biotech company Regeneron has sued rival Amgen in federal court in Los Angeles, alleging that Amgen's proposed biosimilar of Regeneron's blockbuster eye drug Eylea violates its patent rights. Regeneron said in its lawsuit filed on Wednesday that Amgen infringed dozens of its patents. It asked the court to block Amgen's version of Eylea, which earned Regeneron $6.26 billion in U.S. sales in 2022. (Brittain, 1/11)

Women who experience depression during pregnancy or in the year after giving birth have a greater risk of suicide and attempted suicide — risks that persist for years, two new studies report. A research team analyzed records of nearly a million women in Sweden’s national medical registries from 2001 through 2017, comparing 86,551 women who had perinatal depression with 865,510 women who did not. The groups were matched by age and year they gave birth. (Belluck, 1/10)

The first pill for postpartum depression approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is now available, but experts worry that minority and low-income women, who are disproportionately affected by the condition, won’t have easy access to the new medication. About 1 in 8 women experience symptoms of postpartum depression, federal data shows. Suicide and drug overdoses are among the leading causes of pregnancy-related death, defined as death during pregnancy, labor or within the first year of childbirth. (Hassanein, 1/11)

Barry Greene, chief executive of Sage Therapeutics, one of two Cambridge drug companies behind the new pill, called Zurzuvae, said he won’t have the number of prescriptions written until his company’s quarterly earnings report in mid-February. ... “I believe that Zurzuvae is the key that unlocks the blockbuster potential of postpartum depression,” Greene said in an interview at the 42nd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, the largest business meeting for the biotechnology industry of the year. (Saltzman, 1/11)

During the peak of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, Kendra Berger delivered her second child in the hospital. The experience was traumatic for Berger, a 35-year-old former nurse who lives in Holland, New York. She pushed when she wasn’t ready and her baby got stuck in the birthing canal. In the recovery room after birth, Berger started hemorrhaging and wound up needing a blood transfusion. And two weeks after birth, during her visit to the pediatrician with her newborn, she learned her baby’s clavicle had been broken during the delivery. (Nayak, 1/12)

Health care workers are taking a stand against the closure of midwifery services at a hospital in Inwood, Manhattan. ... "We're vital. We're vital to the community," said Yvonne Torres, who has been a midwife at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital for 35 years. "I can walk along Broadway and see women that I delivered and also taken care of the children that I've delivered." It came as a shock when the Allen Hospital announced the closure of its midwifery program with no explanation. (Duddridge, 1/11)

First Lady Jill Biden was in Chicago on Thursday to talk about the importance of women's health research. She made a stop at the University of Illinois Chicago to highlight the importance of more research on menopause and women's health. It's part of a White House initiative on women's health research that launched back in November. Biden said the initiative, "will make sure that women are not just an afterthought, but a first thought." (Bizzle and Gray, 1/11)

Heba Usrof, a young woman in Gaza, is running out of options to deal with her menstrual cycle. Pads have disappeared from pharmacies and stores. It's been this way since the war that began in October, and it's a situation that mirrors how nearly every basic requirement — from food to medical aid — has become harder to find in Gaza over the past three months. "We go around and around, searching in all the pharmacies for pads, but we can't find any," Usrof says. (Batrawy and Bakr Bashir, 1/11)

A grand jury in Ohio on Thursday declined to indict a woman who had miscarried a nonviable fetus at home on a felony charge of abuse of a corpse, ending a case that had drawn international scrutiny from lawyers and reproductive health advocates who had argued the charge was baseless and could endanger other patients. The woman, Brittany Watts, 34, of Warren, Ohio, was arrested in October after passing a fetus in her bathroom and trying to flush the remains down the toilet. The police in Trumbull County had charged Ms. Watts using an extremely rare interpretation of a state law. The grand jury returned what is known as a no bill, meaning it chose not to indict. The case had been before a Trumbull County grand jury since November. Ms. Watts had pleaded not guilty. (Tumin, 1/11)

Pennsylvania saw the number of Ohioans seeking an abortion more than double in 2022, newly released data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health shows. After serving 557 individuals in Ohio in 2021, the Keystone State performed 1,378 abortions for Ohioans in 2022, including six on girls under the age of 15. ... Ohio Republican lawmakers had passed a six-week abortion ban in 2019, which had no rape or incest exceptions. This law was blocked by a federal judge a few months later but was reinstated mere hours after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. This past November, voters passed Issue 1 by 13 points, enshrining reproductive rights into the state constitution. (LePard, 1/11)

A growing number of West Texas cities and counties are banning travel on their roads by people assisting anyone seeking an abortion. Anti-abortion activists see the move as the next frontier in curbing the procedure, but some legal experts say the measures are unlikely to pass constitutional muster. The ordinances prohibit anyone from knowingly transporting another person for an abortion, even if the procedure is legal where it is performed. They have passed in Lubbock County, Odessa and at least four other localities near the border with New Mexico, the only neighboring state to allow abortion. (Goldenstein, 1/11)

There would seem to be no place friendlier to abortion rights than Beverly Hills, where the City Council voted unanimously on a resolution supporting access to the procedure after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Which is why billboards going up Thursday in the famously wealthy city are such a surprise. “Los Angeles should be safe for abortion seekers,” the brightly colored signs read. “Fight back against attempts to shut down DuPont Clinic.” What’s going on? (Bluth, 1/11)

As some Missouri lawmakers seek to tighten abortion restrictions even further and confusion lingers about the legality of contraception, a bipartisan group of legislators wants to ease access to birth control. The proposal would allow pharmacies or clinics in Missouri to dispense an annual supply of contraception at one time, instead of just one or three months’ worth. (Pfeil, 1/11)

As of Monday, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, 29 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing pharmacists to prescribe or provide contraception without a doctor’s prescription. Those states are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia. (Howard, 1/12)

The Biden administration must update requirements for insurer contraceptive coverage to help states better prepare for the first daily over-the-counter oral birth control pill expected to soon hit US retail shelves, reproductive health groups and policy analysts say. (Castronuovo, 1/12)

Republican presidential candidates these days are barely discussing abortion in Iowa just days away from the state's caucuses. (Price and Peoples, 1/12)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: What Would A Nikki Haley Presidency Look Like For Health Care? 

Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley will learn how her campaign is resonating with voters after the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses, the first presidential nominating contest of this election year. Already, the former South Carolina governor — who became well known as one of the Affordable Care Act’s loudest critics during her tenure in office from 2011 to 2017 — has raised questions about what her presidency could mean for the nation’s health care policy. (Sausser, 1/12)

�鶹Ů�� Health News and PolitiFact: In A Fractious Rerun, GOP Rivals Haley And DeSantis Debate Health Care. Trump Sits It Out

The race to win the quickly approaching Iowa caucuses was the theme running through Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate hosted by CNN at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Front-runner Donald Trump was again absent and only two other candidates made the cut: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. DeSantis and Haley fired a frenzy of attacks at each other’s records and positions. The faceoff was moderated by CNN “State of the Union” co-anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. (1/11)

A record number of high school teens died of drug overdoses in 2022 in an alarming trend driven primarily by fentanyl poisonings from counterfeit pills, according to a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Boston researchers found that an average of 22 adolescents ages 14 to 18 years old died each week in the U.S. from drug overdoses in 2022. (Llenas, 1/11)

Jelly Roll brought up his past demons in front of Congress Thursday, when he gave a powerful speech against the deadly use of fentanyl in America. The rapper and country music star, whom won the new artist of the year award at the 2023 CMA Awards, addressed the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and urged legislators to establish a bill to combat the supply and distribution of the synthetic opioid in the U.S. at a hearing on “stopping the flow of fentanyl.” Jelly Roll, 39, whose real name is Jason DeFord, was candid about his past run-ins with the law, multiple arrests and serving jail time for drug charges and aggravated robbery. “I brought my community down. I hurt people,” he continued. “I believed when I sold drugs genuinely that selling drugs was a victimless crime. I truly believed that.” (Daniel, 1/11)

Fairfax County Public Schools officials are warning parents and students about the threat of opioids, particularly fentanyl, which has fueled youth overdoses around the D.C. region. More than 200 parents, students and community members gathered at Thomas A. Edison High School in Alexandria on Wednesday to hear from Superintendent Michelle Reid, Fairfax Chief of Police Kevin Davis and high school principals from across the county about the challenges they’re seeing with the drug. (Elwood, 1/11)

A study conducted by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control has found that prescribing medical-grade opioids dramatically reduced the rates of deaths and overdoses for drug users living in B.C. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, is described as "the first known instance of a North American province or state providing clinical guidance to physicians and nurse practitioners for prescribing pharmaceutical alternatives to patients at risk of death from the toxic drug supply." (Ghoussoub, 1/11)

People can live healthier lives if they wean themselves off drugs, a new study shows. The study published Wednesday in the academic journal Addiction builds on growing evidence that addiction is a chronic disease, akin to diabetes or high blood pressure. People addicted to cocaine and methamphetamine saw improved health and recovery even with reduced use of the drug, researchers found. The study contrasts hardline approaches focused on complete abstinence, moving instead toward modern ideas on risk reduction to tamp down addiction. (Cuevas, 1/11)

Thousands of teenagers and young adults have developed delusions and paranoia after using cannabis. Legalization efforts have made cannabis more readily available in much of the country. More frequent use of marijuana that is many times as potent as strains common three decades ago is leading to more psychotic episodes, according to doctors and recent research. “This isn’t the cannabis of 20, 30 years ago,” said Dr. Deepali Gershan, an addiction psychiatrist at Compass Health Center in Northbrook, Ill. Up to 20% of her caseload is patients for whom she suspects cannabis use triggered a psychotic episode. (Wernau, 1/10)

The local American Civil Liberties Union says at least five Rhode Island communities are considering, or have already approved, ordinances that ban marijuana use in public places that exceed what state law allows. The 2022 state law that legalized recreational marijuana gave communities authority to only ban “the smoking or vaporizing of cannabis in public places,” the ACLU says. But ordinances in at least Providence, Westerly, Cranston, Narragansett and Burrillville include such phrases as “any and all” cannabis use, which would also include the common practices of ingesting cannabis-laced gummies and drinks. (Mooney, 1/12)

Cannabis users are often stereotyped as lazy couch potatoes satisfying their munchies with junk food. But a new study from the University of Colorado pushes back against that generalization, highlighting how marijuana plays an important role in fitness for some and how the substance even can be used as a motivational tool for exercise.The study, published last month in Sports Medicine, evaluated 42 runners and compared data points from their experiences exercising both sober and after smoking a joint. (Ricciardi, 1/11)

By contributing to the development of chronic disease and death, a group of hormone-disruptive plastic chemicals is costing the US health care system billions — over $249 billion in 2018 alone, a new study found. (LaMotte, 1/11)

A study today in the American Journal of Infection Control illustrates the challenges hospitals face in trying to control the type of microbial contamination that can contribute to the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). The study found that several high-touch surfaces in the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, including bed rails and nurse's station keyboards, harbored multiple colonies of bacteria despite the hospital's adherence to routine disinfection strategies. Of the 60 different types of pathogens isolated, 7 were classified as important in healthcare settings because of their potential to cause HAIs. (Dall, 1/11)

More providers are billing patients for electronic messages exchanged through patient portals, according to a new study. The practice of e-visits, as it is known, took off at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Claims for the services peaked in April 2020 before falling to a low in June 2021, according to a wide-ranging study of claims data. However, those claims began rising again in 2022. (DeSilva, 1/11)

Health insurance companies are having some success persuading states to boost Medicaid capitation rates amid risk pools that have worsened during the ongoing redeterminations process. Insurers such as Centene and Molina Healthcare have securing additional financing over the past year as more than 14 million people lost Medicaid coverage while states carry out unwinding the continuous coverage policy implemented early in the COVID-19 pandemic, which expired last year. (Tepper, 1/11)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Rural Hospitals Are Caught In An Aging-Infrastructure Conundrum 

Kevin Stansbury, the CEO of Lincoln Community Hospital in the 800-person town of Hugo, Colorado, is facing a classic Catch-22: He could boost his rural hospital’s revenues by offering hip replacements and shoulder surgeries, but the 64-year-old hospital needs more money to be able to expand its operating room to do those procedures. “I’ve got a surgeon that’s willing to do it. My facility isn’t big enough,” Stansbury said. “And urgent services like obstetrics I can’t do in my hospital, because my facility won’t meet code.” (Hawryluk, 1/12)

Researchers at Mass General Brigham have found that finely tuned generative artificial intelligence models can extract social determinants of health data from doctors’ notes and the electronic health record system. The peer-reviewed study from researchers at the Boston-based system highlight a potentially important use case for generative AI as providers work toward a more well-rounded understanding of the factors that affect a patient's health. (Perna, 1/11)

At least eight people have been diagnosed with measles in an outbreak that started last month in the Philadelphia area. The most recent two cases were confirmed on Monday. The outbreak began after a child who'd recently spent time in another country was admitted to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) with an infection, which was subsequently identified as measles. The disease then spread to three other people at CHOP, two of whom were already hospitalized there for other reasons. Two of those infected at the hospital were a parent and child. The child had not been vaccinated and the parent was offered medication usually given to unvaccinated people that can prevent infection after exposure to measles, but refused it, the Philadelphia Inquirer first reported. Despite quarantine instructions, the child was sent to day care on Dec. 20 and 21, the health department said. (Bendix, 1/10)

Montgomery County health officials are warning residents about possible measles exposures related to the outbreak in Philadelphia. Health officials said Thursday there are currently no confirmed cases in Montgomery County, but people may have come into contact ... last week with someone who has tested positive. The potential exposure happened at two places last Wednesday, Jan. 3, according to an email from the county. (Dougherty, 1/11)

About 20 to 30 people were potentially exposed to measles in late December at Nemours Children's Hospital in Wilmington, the Delaware Department of Health said on Thursday. The Department of Health said the potential exposure happened on Dec. 29, 2023, when 20 to 30 people were potentially exposed to a person who was "not symptomatic but was infectious at the time of their visit to the facility." The DPH identified people who were potentially exposed and issued quarantine orders when necessary. (Ignudo, 1/11)

The Gloucester County Department of Health confirmed a case of hepatitis A in a food handler at an Olive Garden in Deptford Thursday afternoon. Officials said the positive case from the food handler was around Dec. 26 through Dec. 30 at the Olive Garden at 1500 Almonesson Road. The health department is working to give vaccinations to coworkers who could've been exposed and are unvaccinated, according to the release. (Newbill, 1/11)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared Cape Verde free of malaria, hailing it as a significant milestone in the fight against the disease. Cape Verde, an archipelago of 10 islands in the central Atlantic Ocean, has faced severe epidemics in densely populated areas before it implemented targeted interventions. (1/12)

The winter surge of respiratory viruses is underway. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to record rising levels of hospitalizations associated with Covid-19 as well as increasing hospitalizations for influenza and the respiratory syncytial virus, also known as RSV. (Hetter, 1/11)

A new analysis of blood samples from people with the vexing set of conditions known as long COVID lends fresh evidence to the idea that bits of the coronavirus can remain in the body wreaking havoc for years after infection, say researchers at UCSF and Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. Scientists around the world are in a race to figure out why millions of people suffer from persistent, debilitating symptoms after recovering from an acute COVID infection. (Asimov, 1/11)

Adult COVID-19 survivors are at higher risk for digestive diseases, including gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunction, peptic ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gallbladder disease, nonalcoholic liver disease, and pancreatic disease—even among patients with mild infections, according to a study published yesterday in BMC Medicine. (Van Beusekom, 1/11)

Data on how well and how long mRNA COVID vaccines protect adolescents from severe COVID-19 infections are scarce, but newly published findings from a large, matched cohort study from young people in four Nordic countries found high efficacy that lasted as long as a year. (Schnirring, 1/11)

For years now, health experts have been warning that COVID-era politics and the spread of anti-vaxxer lies have brought us to the brink of public-health catastrophe—that a Great Collapse of Vaccination Rates is nigh. This hasn’t come to pass. In spite of deep concerns about a generation of young parents who might soon give up on immunizations altogether—not simply for COVID, but perhaps for all disease—many of the stats we have are looking good. (Engber, 1/11)

Gov. Kathy Hochul is doubling down on her pledge to address mental health in the state. ... "We're also going to be increasing our in-patient capacity as well by 1,000 more beds and helping our kids, helping them with eating disorders and more school-based mental health clinics, because parents can't take time of their jobs and take the kids to an appointment that might be at 11 o'clock in the morning. That doesn't work. You do it in school, where the kids are. That's where they're showing up every day," Hochul said. (1/11)

The Florida Senate is poised to pass a wide-ranging health care plan that includes trying to boost the number of doctors in the state, shift patients away from emergency rooms and seed innovation efforts. (Saunders, 1/11)

On a grassy bank of the Brazos River, Don Green’s children repeat the same numbers over and over in hushed tones: Core body temperature of 110 degrees. Eighty-six years old. One hour. His stepson points out the shore where he fished. His daughter clutches a box of his ashes. About three dozen friends, family members and neighbors quietly shuffle into a loose circle and wait for his celebration of life to begin. (Douglas and Martinez, 1/12)

The Pashai family of Dallas on Thursday got some good news, but not exactly the news they had spent the last month praying for. The Texas Medicaid program, after denying coverage for an initial consult to begin experimental gene therapy that could save the life of their infant son, Sufyan, now says it will cover the costs for him to be assessed in person by doctors there. (Molteni, 1/11)

A veteran with a known history of suicidal thoughts showed up at a St. Louis hospital before dawn one morning and was left unmonitored in an exam room for hours. Another was deemed at risk of suicide by a hospital psychiatrist in Washington, D.C., then forcibly discharged, even as he tried to stay, by the same hospital’s emergency department. Another still in Pittsburgh was assigned a behavioral health nurse who failed to complete thorough suicide screenings or review his suicide safety plan, and didn’t follow up when he said he wished he was dead. In all three cases, independent inspectors documented serious failures by the Department of Veterans Affairs. And in all three cases, the veterans involved went on to kill themselves or other people. (McGrory and Bedi, 1/9)

Whenever Alex Lee mentions Clown Cardio, he is met with some confusion. “People will say, ‘What is that? People dressed like clowns chasing after you?’” Mr. Lee, a 42-year-old technical writer who lives in Los Angeles, said after a recent class. No one’s wearing face paint or red noses — nor are they necessarily chasing anyone (more on that later) — but this hourlong session, which costs $20, incorporated a bicycle horn, mini circus tents from Ikea and carnival-style popcorn boxes. Jaymie Parkkinen, who founded the class at Pieter Performance Space in Los Angeles, compiles theater games usually reserved for improv warm-ups and turns them into aerobic exercises with clown-themed props: a game similar to blob tag, wherein the tagged link arms and chase everyone; a more chaotic version of musical chairs; a circus tent version of Capture the Flag; disorderly dance competitions. (Benson, 1/11)

Invented in Acapulco in 1969 by the Mexican industrialist Enrique Corcuera, padel (technically pronounced with a Spanish inflection, “PAH-del”; many Americans simply say “paddle”) is a game of doubles, played with a low-pressure tennis ball, a paddle, and a glass back wall and corners on a shrunken tennis court. A blend of racket games with elements of tennis, racquetball and squash, the sport is enjoying a meteoric rise in popularity in the United States, rivaled only by the overnight, mass-consciousness epiphany that was pickleball. At the moment there are still fewer than 300 padel courts in the country, according to the U.S. Padel Association (USPA). But if you move in the right circles, in the right places, or at least follow the right accounts, padel is everywhere. (Cameron, 1/9)

Dangling from a thin rope thousands of feet above Yosemite Valley last October, Zuko Carrasco could feel his arms tremble. A paraplegic who had lost the use of his legs eight years earlier in a bizarre accident — a trust fall gone awry — he had spent a week ascending El Capitan, the world’s most famous big wall rock climb, one tiny pull-up at a time. A “good pull” moved him up about 4 inches. He would need to perform something like 9,000 of them to reach the summit. Along the way, he suffered dehydration, searing blisters on his hands and, at times, soul-crushing doubt. He shivered in the early morning and evening shadows and baked in the midday sun. That was the worst because the injury that paralyzed him from the waist down also prevented him from sweating properly, adding heat stroke to the long list of mortal dangers he had to contend with. What kept him going? Desperation. (Dolan, 1/11)

In a desert valley along the Rio Grande in New Mexico, the city of Sunland Park has generally offered few amenities for its roughly 17,000 residents. No large grocery store. Few shops. Little to offer those uninterested in the racetrack casino or a hike to the gigantic cross of Cristo Del Rey that looms from a nearby mountaintop. But for Texans who live in El Paso, just over the state line, Sunland Park has lately become a regular destination. The reason: marijuana. Cars with Texas plates flock regularly to the many cannabis dispensaries — one with a drive-through, another offering discounts on “Texas Tuesday” — that have sprung up since New Mexico began legal recreational sales in 2022. (Goodman and Schaff, 1/7)

There is a problem with the recently approved Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm. It can remove some of the amyloid that forms brain plaques that are hallmarks of the disease. But most of the drug is wasted because it hits an obstacle, the blood-brain barrier, that protects the brain from toxins and infections but also prevents many drugs from entering. Researchers wondered if they could improve that grim result by trying something different: they would open the blood-brain barrier for a short time while they delivered the drug. Their experimental method was to use highly focused pulses of ultrasound along with tiny gas bubbles to pry the barrier open without destroying it. (Kolata, 1/10)

Many Americans reach retirement with almost no savings. No 401(k). Few investments. And almost no income aside from a monthly Social Security check. Roughly one in seven Social Security recipients ages 65 and older depend on their benefits for nearly all their income, according to an AARP analysis. Unable to maintain the lifestyle of their working years, they trim their already trim budgets, move into smaller homes, or rely on the kindness of relatives to get by. (Dagher and Tergesen, 1/6)

Coma. Stroke. Limb amputation. Hysterectomy. Organ failure. These are some of the consequences that pregnant women might face if they don’t obtain abortions in emergency circumstances, such as premature rupture of the amniotic sac or eclampsia. (Ruth Marcus, 1/11)

What does it mean that scientists found 240,000 nanoparticles of plastic in a typical bottle of water? The number is big and sounds alarming, but it isn’t very informative. How many particles are needed to cause disease? What kinds of ailments are likely to result? Are there people who are dead now who’d be alive if they’d avoided bottled water? (F.D. Flam, 1/11)

If you told me I’d encounter 240,000 nanoparticles of plastic in my lifetime, I’d say big woof. By now I know that plastic is everywhere. It’s in my workout leggings and sports bras. It’s in the placentas of new mothers. It’s in the clouds over our heads. 240,000 sounds reasonable, considering how inescapable plastic has become. But if you told me there are 240,000 nanoparticles of plastic in a single bottle of water, I’d start to freak out. (Jessica Karl, 1/11)

Congress is back in session this week with a long list of unfinished business. Topping the health-care agenda is legislation that aims to lower the cost of prescription drugs and make their prices more transparent. Although these proposals have rare bipartisan support, lawmakers should proceed cautiously. Some well-intentioned measures could backfire or prove ineffective. (1/11)

The Food and Drug Administration finally approved the importation of prescription drugs from Canada to Florida last week, a long awaited move. (Dr. Marc Siegel, 1/12)

Alvin ISD had a problem. The suburban school district south of Houston was “overrun” with vaping — the latest thing in nicotine. The popularity of e-cigarettes, the cleverly designed device used for vaping, has exploded among young people in recent years. Between 2011 and 2015, high schools across the country reported a 900% increase in the use of the battery-powered devices that are sometimes used with marijuana instead. (1/11)

In a groundbreaking move that aligns with its rich history of pioneering education and promoting inclusivity, Meharry Medical College has recently unveiled plans to establish a School of Global Health. This historic institution, based in Nashville, has been a trailblazer since its inception in 1876, when it emerged as the first medical school in the South dedicated to educating African Americans. (Daniel Dawes and Jonathan Low, 1/12)

Warfare results in serious physical and psychological impact on brain health often known as invisible wounds. Subsequently, military medicine  and sports medicine are more advanced in detecting and treating them than our emergency rooms. (Teresa Touey, 1/11)

Since having a baby 10 months ago, I’ve learned many things. Chief among them: Pumping sucks. But skipping a session ends up being even more painful. (Tara Bannow, 1/11)

Though the Covid-19 pandemic brought heightened attention to nurses overall, a unique nursing role has been long overlooked and, for the public, largely misunderstood: that of the nurse manager. Like nurses in other roles, nurse managers are increasingly leaving their jobs — and it’s critically important for organizations to find ways to keep them. (Toby Bressler and Lauren Ghazal, 1/12)