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Senate lawmakers approved a $3 billion budget stopgap for the Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday, preventing a threatened delay in the delivery of some veterans benefits checks next month. The move came just two days after House lawmakers advanced the same appropriations measure, which also mandates a report from department officials on the reasons behind the department’s budget shortfall within a month. The legislation is expected to be signed into law by President Joe Biden before the end of Friday. ... Through the first 10 months of fiscal 2024, VA staff granted disability compensation benefits to more than 1.1 million veterans and survivors, a new record. (Shane III, 9/19)

Thousands of veterans will resume paying a portion of their prescription medication cost following a two-year suspension of the requirement at five Veterans Affairs facilities served by the department's new electronic health records system. The VA is notifying affected patients in the Pacific Northwest and Ohio this week by letter and email of the impending change, which will go into effect Oct. 1. (Kime, 9/19)

Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.), a key Republican senator with seats on the chamber’s health and finance committees, introduced a bill to let some small drugmakers avoid Medicare price negotiations. (Wilkerson, 9/19)

A Senate committee Thursday overwhelmingly approved two resolutions compelling testimony from a hospital executive who resisted a subpoena to address the lawmakers a week ago. The panel is seeking civil and criminal action against Ralph de la Torre, the CEO of Steward Health Care, following a 20-0 vote on both resolutions, with one abstention. The senators approved a resolution seeking civil enforcement and a criminal contempt charge against the executive after he refused to appear before the committee under subpoena on Sept. 12. (Alltucker, 9/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: American Health Under Trump — Past, Present, And Future

Dreaming of a Trump victory, Republicans have a wish list of health policy changes — including loosening Affordable Care Act regulations to make cheaper coverage available and ending Medicare drug price negotiations. ... Tami Luhby of CNN, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins University join �鶹Ů�� Health News senior editor Emmarie Huetteman to discuss these stories and more. (Huetteman, 9/19)

After an in-depth analysis of the genetic material from hundreds of swabs taken from the walls, floors, machines and drains inside the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China — a site that’s been described as an epicenter of early spread of Covid-19 — scientists say they now know exactly which species of animals were in the same area where investigators also found the most positive samples the virus that causes Covid-19. (Goodman, 9/20)

Remember the raccoon dog? The adorable fox-like critter made headlines in the spring of 2023, when it was implicated in some preliminary research on the source of the virus that causes COVID-19. Researchers had found genetic evidence that raccoon dogs, an exotic species known to be susceptible to the virus, were among the animals for sale at the wet market in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak was first identified. Now that research has been updated and published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell. (Spitzer, 9/19)

The official in charge of New York City’s pandemic response participated in sex parties and attended a dance party underneath a Wall Street bank during the height of the pandemic, even as he was instructing New Yorkers to stay home and away from others to stop the spread of Covid-19. He acknowledged his transgressions on Thursday after being caught on hidden camera boasting about his exploits. The video of the official, Dr. Jay K. Varma, who was City Hall’s senior public health adviser under Mayor Bill de Blasio from April 2020 to May 2021, was posted on Thursday by the conservative podcaster Steven Crowder. (Nir, 9/19)

At the end of September, American households will be able to order free COVID-19 tests that will detect current variants and be usable until the end of the year, according to officials. In August, public health officials announced that the COVIDtest.gov program will once again be made available ahead of the COVID-19 surge that happens during winter. The respiratory virus peaks twice a year, once in summer and once in winter, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. (Gomez and Forbes, 9/19)

Some industry players are still trying to move past the COVID-19 pandemic 4 1/2 years after health officials declared it a global health crisis, though the lingering effects are giving others a financial boost. Executives at health systems, insurers, home health agencies and virtual care companies have pointed to the pandemic's continuing impacts as they feel out the latest trajectories for labor costs, utilization rates and investment priorities during earnings calls, investor presentations and conferences. (Hudson, 9/19)

COVID-19 can directly affect the brain, and living through the pandemic has indirectly affected cognition and memory, too. (Ducharme, 9/16)

Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida Republican leaders have repeatedly tapped into taxpayer-funded resources to fight a November ballot initiative that would overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban. Their repeated efforts — from a state-run website attacking the amendment to election police questioning signers of the petition to get the measure on the ballot — have drawn them into a protracted legal fight with the campaign behind the initiative, which will appear before voters as Amendment 4. It is an escalation of government overreach, amendment supporters say. (Sarkissian, 9/20)

Florida health officials told physicians Thursday that abortion is permitted “at any stage in pregnancy” to save the life and health of the mother, and regulatory action will be taken against any providers who don’t offer that care.  In a notice to providers, the Florida Department of Health and the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) said Florida “requires life-saving medical care to a mother without delay when necessary.” (Weixel, 9/19)

The state of North Dakota is asking a judge to pause his ruling from last week that struck down the state’s abortion ban until the state Supreme Court rules on a planned appeal. The state’s motion to stay a pending appeal was filed Wednesday. State District Judge Bruce Romanick ruled last week that North Dakota’s abortion ban “is unconstitutionally void for vagueness,” and that pregnant women in the state have a fundamental right to abortion before viability under the state constitution. (Dura, 9/19)

More information emerged Thursday about the confusion that wrecked plans for a trial next week on South Dakota’s abortion-rights ballot measure, but no new trial date has been scheduled, while a motions hearing has been scheduled for nearly a month after the election. A judge signed an order last month saying the trial would take place the week of Sept. 23 in Sioux Falls. On Tuesday of this week, the judge emailed the parties saying the matter still needed to be added to the court calendar. The email surprised lawyers on both sides who had been planning for the Sept. 23 trial. (Haiar, 9/19)

In the most contested races for control of the U.S. House, many Republican candidates are speaking up about women’s rights to abortion access and reproductive care in new and surprising ways, a deliberate shift for a GOP blindsided by some political ramifications of the post-Roe v. Wade era. Looking directly into the camera for ads, or penning personal op-eds in local newspapers, the Republicans are trying to distance themselves from some of the more aggressive anti-abortion ideas coming from their party and its allies. Instead the Republican candidates are working quickly to spell out their own views separate from a GOP that for decades has worked to put restrictions on reproductive care. (Mascaro, 9/19)

A new abortion clinic in Pittsburg, Kansas, is now the state’s fourth clinic offering access to abortions. In the month it’s been opened, the abortion clinic has already served patients in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. The new clinic is just a five-mile drive from Missouri's border. (Schoenig, 9/19)

A health care proposal suggested by Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance could gut a popular Affordable Care Act protection, making it legal for companies to charge more for or deny coverage of expensive medical conditions, including pregnancy. (Luthra, 9/19)

Amanda Duffy said she didn't even realize stillbirth was a risk when she was pregnant with her daughter, Reese, a decade ago. But when she arrived 16 hours before her scheduled delivery, she was already gone. ... She is not alone in her grief: 1 in 160 pregnancies end in stillbirth, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Some reports suggest 25% of stillbirths are potentially avoidable. (Cummings, 9/19)

Sara McGinnis was nine months pregnant with her second child and something felt off. Her body was swollen. She was tired and dizzy. Her husband, Bradley McGinnis, said she had told her doctor and nurses about her symptoms and even went to the emergency room when they worsened. But, Bradley said, what his wife was told in response was, “‘It’s summertime and you’re pregnant.’ That haunts me.” Two days later, Sara had a massive stroke followed by a seizure. (Houghton, 9/20)

Cigna Group's health insurance unit is scaling back Medicare Advantage offerings in eight states next year, according to a notice to third-party marketers published by the insurance brokerage Pinnacle Financial Services. Members in 36 health plans will be affected by Cigna Healthcare’s cuts and service area reductions in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. Most people will have another Cigna Medicare Advantage plan available in their counties. (Berryman, 9/19)

Atrium Health announced Thursday, Sept. 19, that it is wiping out all existing judgments and liens against patients for unpaid medical bills, offering relief to hundreds of North Carolinians who have been sued by the hospital system. The Charlotte Ledger/NC Health News reported in October 2023 that the nonprofit system had quietly stopped filing new lawsuits against patients but that the hospital was still pursuing collection on past debts. (Crouch, 9/20)

Smaller rivals to UnitedHealth's tech unit Change Healthcare say they are signing longer-term contracts with hospitals and other customers who had temporarily switched from the company after February's cyberattack shut down the unit's services. The new contracts landed by Waystar and privately held Availity and Inovalon show a shift to healthcare practices signing deals with multiple service providers instead of relying on a single vendor, in what may be the first sign of needed change in an industry. Health tech experts said the move to more than one vendor is long overdue, but was hastened by the hack. (Leo and Roy, 9/19)

Proton therapy is an advanced, cutting-edge cancer treatment that can precisely target a tumor with minimal side effects. It’s a well-established approach, but accessibility has been an issue due to the house-like size of the hardware and cost. However, ongoing advancements are shrinking these units and expanding their use. BayCare broke ground Tuesday on a $33 million "compact" proton therapy center at St Joseph’s hospital in Tampa with plans to begin treating patients in fall 2025. (Mayer, 9/19)

Amid a steady rise in research misconduct allegations over the past decade, the Department of Human Health and Services last week updated its guidance on how universities and other institutions investigate claims. It’s a move that experts say is a step in the right direction — though many warn that more systemic change is needed to address mounting concerns over data manipulation and other issues in the sciences. (Oza, 9/20)

A former executive at Outcome Health — who was the star witness against his bosses in a trial last year — was sentenced to seven months in prison on Thursday for his role in what prosecutors have called a $1 billion fraud at the company. (Schencker, 9/19)

UnitedHealth Group's Optum filed plans to lay off 160 employees at one of its locations in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The majority of the cuts will occur on Dec. 11, with a single worker laid off Jan. 22, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice filed with the state of New Jersey this month. (DeSilva, 9/19)

Allina Health says it will soon be reducing hours for some of its medical-surgical staff members at Owatonna Hospital, but the Minnesota Nurses Association says the reductions are actually layoffs caused in part by the Mayo Clinic. An Allina Health spokesperson says the nonprofit is trimming the hospital's elective surgery schedule from five to four days a week, resulting in cuts to hours for its registered nurse care coordinator staff. (Swanson, 9/19)

The percentage of Latina doctors in the U.S. has held at 2% for several years, even as Latinas accounted for 17% of all women here. Nearly 19% of the U.S. population overall is Latino, and advocates for Hispanic health say the population of doctors who are Latinos is severely underrepresented. Just 6% of Latino men work as doctors. (George, 9/20)

Amid ongoing concern over the quality of medicines made in India, a major supplier of generic medicines was seen removing three truckloads of “scrap materials” from a facility that was being inspected last month by the Food and Drug Administration. Specifically, a “large number of torn pieces” of documents that should have been kept to verify manufacturing and testing practices were found in the trucks, as well as in a scrap bag at a site run by Granules in Telangana, India. And when confronted by the FDA inspectors, the plant management acknowledged the papers should not have been destroyed. (Silverman, 9/19)

The Lasker Awards, a prestigious set of prizes given for advances in medicine and public health research, were given on Thursday to scientists whose research helped lead to the discovery of a new class of obesity drugs, infectious disease specialists who worked on the drivers of H.I.V. infection and how to stop it, and a scientist who discovered a way the body protects itself from infectious diseases and cancer. The Laskers are highly regarded in the fields of biomedicine and are sometimes seen as foretelling recipients of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences. (Kolata and Nolen, 9/19)

A study from The BMJ indicates that the newest class of migraine drugs—which includes Pfizer’s Nurtec, AbbVie’s Ubrelvy and Eli Lilly’s Reyvow—is less effective in the acute treatment of migraines than a previous class of medicines. What's more, the newer drugs are no more effective in treating migraines than traditional headache remedies such as Tylenol, ibubrofen and aspirin, according to The BMJ's analysis. (Dunleavy, 9/19)

Theratechnologies' reliance on a small pool of contract manufacturers has come back to bite the Quebecois biopharma, which announced Tuesday that supplies of its HIV med Egrifta SV could soon run short. Egrifta SV—approved to reduce excess abdominal fat in HIV patients with lipodystrophy—is at risk of facing a “temporary supply disruption” in early 2025, Theratechnologies warned in a release. (Kansteiner, 9/18)

New reports reveal the most commonly prescribed inhaler in the U.S. may actually be contributing to climate change. While these inhalers are critically important to saving lives and making it easier to breathe, a Stanford-led study is showing that there are easier, less polluting options. (Goodrich and McCrea, 9/19)

A group of lawmakers wants the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and drug companies to change their approach toward handling mistakes in disclosing patent terms, because the errors can be exploited in ways that thwart competition and, ultimately, raise the cost of medicines. (Silverman, 9/19)

Los Angeles County Public Health yesterday announced that two more locally acquired dengue cases have been identified, raising the number in the cluster to three. The two latest patients are from Baldwin Park, the same area where the first case was reported last week. (Schnirring, 9/19)

Minnesota’s measles outbreak has grown to 51 cases as of Thursday, and most infected are unvaccinated children in the Somali community living in Hennepin County, as confirmed by the state health department. Twelve people have been hospitalized. Across the board, people are challenging the need for all vaccines, not just the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The general vaccination rate is even lower in the Somali community, Michael Osterholm, head of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told MPR News. (Wurzer and Stockton, 9/19)

Jacksonville is joining hundreds of cities or metropolitan areas and international organizations trying to stop the spread of HIV by 2030. The city held a signing ceremony Wednesday to join a global partnership called Fast-Track Cities. (Ponson, 9/19)

Houston ISD is working toward a new policy prohibiting students from using cellphones during certain campus emergencies because they could be “counterproductive," top school safety officials said Thursday. ... “I understand the need for communication, and parents want to make sure that their children are safe, so there's a time and a place for cellphones, but again, as it pertains to a lockdown situation, the best practice is to remain silent, and so the use of cellphones, as natural as it may be, may be counterproductive,” HISD Police Chief Shamara Garner said. (Menchaca, 9/19) 

Mississippi consistently ranks in the top five in the nation for its rates of antipsychotic drugging in nursing homes, data from the federal government shows. More than one in five nursing home residents in the United States is given powerful and mind-altering antipsychotic drugs. That’s more than 10 times the rate of the general population – despite the fact that the conditions antipsychotics treat do not become more common with age. In Mississippi, that goes up to one in four residents. (Paffenroth, 9/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Rural NC County Is Set To Reopen Its Shuttered Hospital With Help From A New Federal Program

On a mid-August morning, Christopher Harrison stood in front of the shuttered Martin General Hospital recalling the day a year earlier when he snapped pictures as workers covered the facility’s sign. “Yes, sir. It was a sad day,” Harrison said of the financial collapse of the small rural hospital, where all four of his children were born. Quorum Health operated the 49-bed facility in this rural eastern North Carolina town of about 5,000 residents until it closed. (Sisk, 9/20)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Fighting Staff Shortages With Scholarships, California Bill Aims To Boost Mental Health Courts

A seemingly innocuous proposal to offer scholarships for mental health workers in California’s new court-ordered treatment program has sparked debate over whether the state should prioritize that program or tackle a wider labor shortage in behavioral health services. Nine counties have begun rolling out the Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment Act, which Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed into law in 2022 to get people with untreated schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, many of them incarcerated or homeless, into treatment. (Castle Work, 9/20)

Mpox vaccines have been administered in Africa for the first time, with several hundred high-risk individuals vaccinated in Rwanda, the African Union's disease control center said Thursday. The first 300 doses were administered on Tuesday near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokesperson for the AU's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) told AFP. On a call with reporters, Africa CDC director general Jean Kaseya said vaccinations would start in the DRC in "the first week of October." (9/19)

The mpox outbreak in Africa is still not under control, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) warned on Thursday, adding that cases were still increasing in several countries. The number of mpox cases in Africa has surged 177%, and deaths have increased 38.5% compared with the same period a year ago, data from the Africa CDC showed. (9/19)

Slumped on the ground over a mound of dirt, Divine Wisoba pulled weeds from her daughter’s grave. The 1-month-old died from mpox in eastern Congo in August, but Wisoba, 21, was too traumatized to attend the funeral. In her first visit to the cemetery, she wept into her shirt for the child she lost and worried about the rest of her family. “When she was born, it was as if God had answered our prayers — we wanted a girl,” Wisoba said of little Maombi Katengey. “But our biggest joy was transformed into devastation.” Her daughter is one of more than 6,000 people officials suspect have contracted the disease in South Kivu province, the epicenter of the world’s latest mpox outbreak. (Mednick, 9/19)

Jynneos vaccine wane significantly over the course of a year, raising new questions about just how protected vaccinated people are against reinfection and if booster doses of the vaccine are needed among at-risk populations. (Soucheray, 9/19)

Bavarian Nordic A/S, one of the only companies with a vaccine approved for mpox, has received regulatory approval in Europe for the use of its jab for adolescents. The European Commission extended the current marketing authorization for Bavarian’s inoculation to include adolescents 12 to 17 years of age, the company said on Thursday. To date, the shot has only been indicated for adults. (Wass, 9/19)

A new lung function test ditches the medical racism of the old version, but with serious consequences to how results are applied. (Freyer, 9/18)

Kendric Cromer, 12, is among the first patients to be treated with gene therapy just approved by the F.D.A. that many other patients face obstacles to receiving. (Kolata, 9/16)

Robert Roberson, who faces execution in Texas on Oct. 17, is the latest death row prisoner to see a glossy campaign to save his life. He was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis in 2002 on a theory of “shaken baby syndrome.” A growing chorus, from the lead detective in his case to novelist John Grisham, is arguing that he is innocent and Curtis’ death, while a tragedy, was not a crime. He’d be the first person ever executed based on shaken baby syndrome, even as the diagnosis faces growing scrutiny in the courts. But another fact about Roberson deserves more attention to make sense of his story — his diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. (Chammah, 9/18)

Ballistic armor companies are marketing protective products designed for the military to parents and schools. Some people see the items as unsettling but prudent; others find them infuriating. (Baumgaertner and Kalman, 9/18)

As extreme heat worsens, schools nationwide are increasingly replacing asphalt playgrounds with green, cooler spaces. (Phillips, 9/14)

On Sept. 5, China’s Foreign Ministry suddenly, and with little explanation, announced an end to the country’s three-decade-old foreign adoption program, which has sent more than 82,000 children to the United States, more than any other country. Chinese civil affairs officials “will not continue to process cases at any stage,” the State Department said. That will stop hundreds of families who have been matched with children by Chinese authorities from completing their adoptions, even those in the final stage of what can be a years-long process, adoption advocates said. (Laris, 9/17)

Around 80% of women in camps for the displaced have been raped in brutal attacks, as international attention wanes. ‘If the war ends, I won’t have to be raped anymore.’ (Steinhauser, 9/15)

I am a physician and a scientist. Over 12 years, I had the privilege of serving Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden as the director of the National Institutes of Health. Before that, I led the U.S. component of the Human Genome Project. (Francis Collins, 9/20)

Rural health care in Pennsylvania and across the country is on the brink of collapse. Yet neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump have addressed this crisis or offered solutions to fix it. (Zach Womer, 9/19)

In 2013, I sat down at my computer and secured the URL t1international.com. I wanted a place where I could collect and share everything I was learning about the global insulin price crisis. I was only 25 years old, and I had already been living with type 1 diabetes for more than two decades. I had struggled with the ups and downs of high and low blood sugars, been hospitalized multiple times, and faced wildly high costs for my insulin and diabetes supplies in the United States. (Elizabeth Pfiester, 9/20)

The core premise of Measure 110 was that “a health-based approach to addiction and overdose is more effective, humane, and cost-effective than criminal punishments.” That decriminalization not only failed to spare lives, but seemed to cost many more of them, was considered the most damning evidence of its folly. (Lisa Jarvis, 9/19)

Thanks to GOP vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, we finally know what Donald Trump’s “concepts of a plan” for replacing the Affordable Care Act might look like. Unfortunately, those concepts would probably unravel the U.S. health-care system. (Catherine Rampell, 9/19)