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The US Supreme Court is poised to allow abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho, according to a copy of an opinion that was briefly posted on the court’s website. The decision would reinstate a lower court order that had ensured hospitals in the state could perform emergency abortions to protect the health of the mother. The posted version indicated the majority will dismiss appeals by Idaho and Republican leaders in the state without resolving the core issues in the case. (Stohr, Robinson and Wheeler, 6/26)

The raw text that was originally posted to the court’s website has been converted to PDF by Bloomberg News for readability. No styling or textual changes have been made. (6/26)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin that asks the court to declare that access to abortion is a right protected by the state constitution, according to a draft court order obtained by Wisconsin Watch. (Kelly, 6/26)

The chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court called for an investigation Wednesday after the leak of a draft order that showed the court would take a case brought by Planned Parenthood that seeks to declare that access to abortion is a right protected by the state constitution. Chief Justice Annette Ziegler called for the investigation after Wisconsin Watch reported on the draft order that it obtained. The order as reported by Wisconsin Watch said the court would hear the court challenge, but it was not a ruling on the case itself. (Bauer, 6/26)

Use of prescription emergency contraception, also known as Plan B, fell by 60% in US states that implemented near-total abortion bans almost immediately after the Dobbs decision, due in part to clinic closures and misinformation. The findings, published Wednesday in JAMA Network Open, add to concerns about abortion bans limiting a wide range of reproductive care. Levels held steady in states with moderate restrictions. (Vahanvaty, 6/26)

People of color in need of support during and after pregnancy can now get help in Florida. An advocacy group called The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective centers its mission on maternal health with its Birth Justice Care Fund. The group's director, Leah Jones, said Florida's six-week abortion law is the reason why it is expanding to Florida. (Carter, 6/26)

Florida Democrats haven’t won a Senate race since 2012. A referendum that would overturn the state’s near-total abortion ban and enshrine access to abortion in its constitution offers hope. (Rodriguez, 6/26)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Rate Of Young Women Getting Sterilized Doubled After ‘Roe’ Was Overturned

Sophia Ferst remembers her reaction to learning that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade: She needed to get sterilized. Within a week, she asked her provider about getting the procedure done. Ferst, 28, said she has always known she doesn’t want kids. She also worries about getting pregnant as the result of a sexual assault then being unable to access abortion services. “That’s not a crazy concept anymore,” she said. (Bolton, 6/27)

When President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump face off Thursday during the first general election debate, health policy experts say tackling the exorbitant cost of health care is as much a top issue for voters as the U.S. economy. Health care costs in the United States continue to rise — and Americans increasingly say they are unable to afford the care they need. (Lovelace Jr., 6/26)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Battleground Wisconsin: Voters Feel Nickel-And-Dimed By Health Care Costs

The land of fried cheese curds and the Green Bay Packers is among a half-dozen battleground states that could determine the outcome of the expected November rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — a contest in which the cost and availability of health care are emerging as defining issues. ... Wisconsinites said they’re struggling to pay for even the most basic health care, from common blood tests to insulin prescriptions. (Hart, 6/27)

The Biden administration on Wednesday said it will impose inflation penalties on 64 prescription drugs for the third quarter of this year, lowering costs for certain older Americans enrolled in Medicare. ... A provision of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act requires drugmakers to pay rebates to Medicare, the federal health program for Americans over age 65, if they hike the price of a medication faster than the rate of inflation. (Kim Constantino, 6/26)

Drug manufacturers are rolling back their limitations on 340B drug discounts as more states pass laws aimed at making the program's benefits more accessible. Missouri is the latest state to pass legislation requiring pharmaceutical manufacturers to distribute discounted drugs to pharmacies that contract with hospitals, federally qualified health centers and other 340B-covered providers. (Kacik, 6/26)

Employee health care costs are increasingly eating up larger shares of payroll costs for America's smallest businesses, according to a new analysis from the JPMorgan Chase Institute. (Reed, 6/27)

The National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine on Wednesday said law and policy changes aimed at eliminating health disparities have made slow and uneven progress improving racial inequities over the past 20 years. The Ending Unequal Treatment report found that people of color in 2024 are still disproportionately uninsured, underutilizing care services and underrepresented in the healthcare workforce. (Devereaux, 6/26)

In an unusual move, federal health officials revised their recommendations for who should receive the vaccine against the respiratory syncytial virus. Among Americans aged 60 to 74, only those with certain health conditions need to receive the shots, the CDC concluded. (Mandavilli, 6/26)

Moderna Inc. respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) shot mRESVIA showed 50% efficacy in preventing RSV after 18 months, the drugmaker said on Wednesday. In their clinical trials, GSK's RSV vaccine Arexvy was 78% effective in preventing severe RSV over a second year and Pfizer's was 78% effective through a second RSV season. (6/26)

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed H5N1 avian influenza in three more dairy herds, two in Colorado and one in Iowa, raising its number of affected herds to 129 in 12 states. APHIS today added reports of nine more H5N1 detections in mammals across four states, of which five were domestic cats. The infected cats were from Minnesota (Kandiyohi County) and Texas (Hartley County). Other detections involved raccoons from Michigan and New Mexico, a striped skunk for New Mexico, and a red fox from Minnesota. The group also added eight more detections in wild birds, including five bald eagles from Iowa, New Jersey, and Virginia and three agency-harvested birds from New Mexico. (Schnirring, 6/26)

Mike Leavitt is in the small club of government officials who’ve led an avian flu response. The experience is still fresh in his mind nearly two decades later. When he first heard about the avian flu outbreak in 2005, he had been secretary of health and human services in George W. Bush’s administration for just a couple of months. (Zhang, 6/27)

A new study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases uses data from 1,988 SARS-CoV-2–positive US Military Health System beneficiaries to define the characteristics and clinical patterns observed in patients with long COVID, or post-COVID condition (PCC), grouping patients into three phenotypes based on clusters of symptoms. (Soucheray, 6/26)

The World Health Organization urged greater attention to mpox cases Tuesday as independent scientists raised concerns that a more deadly version of the virus is circulating in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "There is a critical need to address the recent surge in mpox cases in Africa," Rosamund Lewis, the WHO's technical lead for mpox, said to reporters in a briefing note, as reported by Reuters. (Powel and Forbes, 6/26)

All Walmart Health clinics will close Friday, ending the retail chain's yearslong effort to build its own primary care network. Walmart announced April 30 it would shut down Walmart Health, including the virtual care platform and all 51 clinics across five states. The company did not provide closing dates for individual centers, but at the time a spokesperson said some clinics would be open for up to 90 days, or the end of July. (Hudson, 6/26)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is proposing a net 1.7% Medicare pay cut to home health agencies for 2025. The proposed reduction is the sum of several factors: The agency proposes a 2.5% payment update, which is offset by a proposed 0.6% fixed-dollar loss cut and a 3.6% spending cut tied to the Patient-Driven Groupings Model. (Early, 6/26)

Home health companies fear care delivery could get harder as a federal nursing home staffing mandate forces them to vie for a limited pool of talent with skilled nursing facilities. Demographics, consumer preference and Medicare Advantage are driving more post-acute care into the home and increasing the demand for home healthcare workers. But companies offering home health services worry the nursing home staffing mandate ... will make it even harder for them to recruit enough workers to meet rising demand. (Eastabrook, 6/26)

Tech entrepreneur Rishi Shah was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison Wednesday for his part in what prosecutors called a billion-dollar fraud scheme centered on video advertisements in doctors’ offices. Federal Judge Thomas Durkin said Shah, former chief executive and co-founder of startup Outcome Health, had undermined the integrity of the markets. (Keilman and Winkler, 6/26)

Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who took his investment firm and largesse to Miami two years ago, is once again making a name for himself in Chicago philanthropic circles. Griffin Catalyst, a civic engagement initiative he launched last year, announced a $10 million donation Wednesday to Northwestern Medicine to fund advanced research and treatment into esophageal diseases. (Channick, 6/26)

The emergency department at Northwest Hospital in Randallstown is getting a “much needed” $6 million face-lift, according to LifeBridge Health, the health system that owns the medical center. (Roberts, 6/26)

The Food and Drug Administration has drafted guidance aimed at getting drug companies and medical device makers to enroll more people of color and women in the clinical trials that test whether products work. (Wilkerson, 6/26)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted approval to a treatment from Verona Pharma for a chronic lung disease that commonly affects smokers, the U.K.-based company said on Wednesday. (Jain and Chari, 6/26)

Nature retracted a high-profile paper that served as part of the scientific groundwork for Micronoma, a San Diego-based startup, on Wednesday. “Some of the findings of the article are affected and the corresponding conclusions are no longer supported,” Nature said in the retraction. (Chen, 6/26)

Boston researchers say they’ve created a promising AI model that predicts the likelihood of someone developing Alzheimer’s early. The Boston University researchers on Tuesday announced that they designed the new artificial intelligence computer program — which identifies those with mild cognitive impairment who are likely to develop Alzheimer’s within six years. (Sobey, 6/26)

A new startup called Ovax Inc. has raised $10 million to develop a vaccine to prevent fentanyl deaths, aiming to commercialize academic research that prevents the drug from reaching the brain. The startup has licensed intellectual property from researchers at the University of Houston who have successfully tested a fentanyl vaccine in rats. Ovax, which officially launches this week, plans to begin the first human trials of the vaccine early next year. If successful, the vaccine will block users of fentanyl from getting high or overdosing from the drug. (Chapman and Langreth, 6/26)

As weight loss medications have exploded in popularity, a bill to allow Medicare to cover the drugs has languished virtually unchanged in Congress for a decade. Until now. (Zhang, 6/26)

As hundreds of employees gathered in the sweltering heat Wednesday outside Moderna’s new six-floor headquarters in Kendall Square, its chief executive said consolidating dispersed employees at the new site will spur collaboration on drug discovery. “We’ve got the Cambridge team back together,” Moderna chief executive Stéphane Bancel said at the grand opening of the headquarters on 325 Binney St. “We’re going to be here on Binney Street for a very long time.” (Weisman, 6/26)

The numbers are staggering: 39% of young people who identify as LGBTQ+ seriously considered attempting suicide within the last year. The data, from a May 2024 study by the Trevor Project, a crisis intervention nonprofit for LGBTQ+ youth, also shows that more than 1 in 10 (12%) actually attempted suicide. For transgender and nonbinary young people, it's even worse – 46% report having considered suicide within the last year. And only half of those who wanted mental health care were able to access it, the Trevor Project report said. (Trethan, 6/27)

The study, which is published in the journal Environment International, found that children who spent just 60 minutes daily in nature had a 50% lower risk of mental health issues. Notably, the benefits were greatest for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly in terms of improved behavior and social skills. (6/26)

A U.S. Senate report released last week accused four of the nation’s largest behavioral health companies of putting profits above the safety and treatment of children placed in their care. The blistering report — Warehouses of Neglect — is the result of a two-year investigation by Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) into psychiatric residential treatment facilities run by Acadia Healthcare, Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, Vivant Behavioral Healthcare and Universal Health Services. (Knopf, 6/27)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: US Judge Finds California In Contempt Over Prison Mental Health Staffing

A federal judge has found top California prison officials in civil contempt for failing to hire enough mental health professionals to adequately treat tens of thousands of incarcerated people with serious mental disorders. Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller on June 25 ordered the state to pay $112 million in fines at a time when the state is trying to close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. (Thompson, 6/26)

Investors funding a “psychedelic renaissance” are outpacing scientific research into substances like Ketamine and LSD, putting potential drug users’ health at risk, the United Nations warned. Public interest in and private sector attention to psychedelic therapies are greater than the scientific evidence regarding their effectiveness in improving mental health and cognitive functions, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in its annual report on Wednesday. (Tirone, 6/26)

“Chances are, you’re never ever going to have to use this. If you do, it’s gonna be scary,” Kate Carleton told the 20 or so 8- and 9-year-olds. “But because we’ve taught you what to do, it makes it a little less scary.” She spent the next 30 minutes teaching them how to stop a wound from bleeding out. The lesson is appropriately titled “Stop the Bleed.” Carleton is a trauma nurse at Sutter Roseville Medical Center, a level 2 trauma center in Rocklin, California, a northern suburb of Sacramento. At the beginning of her 17-year career, she saw a lot of car crashes, motorcycle accidents and falls. More recently, the number of gunshot wounds coming through her hospital has increased, most often from domestic violence or suicide. (Gupta, 6/25)

A Texas hospital could be the first in the United States to use a technology that allows doctors to visit patients via hologram. Crescent Regional Hospital, located in Lancaster -- about 13 miles south of Dallas -- has installed "Holobox," a 3D system that projects a life-sized hologram of a doctor so that they can perform real-time consults with patients at a clinic 30 miles away. (Kekatos, 6/26)

Indiana Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb said the state will resume executions for the first time in over a decade after acquiring a drug used for lethal injections. Holcomb said Wednesday that the state is seeking an execution date for Joseph Corcoran, a man convicted in the killings of four people in 1997. The yearslong pause has been attributed to the unavailability of lethal injection drugs. The Indiana Department of Correction now has acquired a drug used by multiple states in lethal injections — the sedative pentobarbital — after “years of effort,” Holcomb’s announcement said. (Volmert, 6/26)

Pregnant women and new mothers could soon benefit from expanded physical and mental health care options under a sweeping maternal health bill the state House unanimously passed on June 20. Representatives say the legislation could stem the tide of deteriorating maternal health outcomes, particularly among people of color, by creating a pathway for certified professional midwives (CPMs) and lactation consultants to be licensed in Massachusetts, and removing regulatory barriers to open birth centers that offer home-like environments during labor. (Kuznitz, 6/26)

In a heatwave that spanned several states last week, New England experienced the highest rate of heat-related emergency department visits in the country, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the region experienced temperatures of 90 degrees and above, posing a threat to public health. Rates of heat-related ER visits in New England topped those of every other region in the US on Wednesday and Thursday. (Getahun-Hawkins, 6/26)

As heat blankets much of the US, hospitals in many states are seeing extremely high rates of heat-related emergencies, according to data compiled by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and forecasters say more abnormally warm weather is on the way later this summer. (Goodman, 6/26)

The thermometer read 121 degrees Fahrenheit when 71-year-old Steve Curry collapsed outside a restroom in Death Valley National Park last summer. Curry, who’d reportedly been hiking on a nearby trail in Golden Canyon, was just trying to make it back to his car. The National Park Service and the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office quickly responded to the scene. They tried to revive him with an external defibrillator, but it was not enough, and the medical helicopter that could’ve transported him to a hospital wasn’t able to take off because of the extreme heat. It was too late. (Mohr, 6/26)

If you’re taking a multivitamin to help you live longer, a new study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute may prompt you to reconsider. After analyzing health and nutrition data from nearly 400,000 Americans, the researchers found that people who took multivitamins had a small but significantly greater risk of premature death than people who eschewed the supplements. The findings, reported Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open, may seem baffling. (Kaplan, 6/26)

In the pit of the pandemic, with no one to see and nowhere to go, and horrors unfolding daily outside the front door, there was for many a reliable bright spot: the 5 p.m. drink that would mark the end of the workday. (Cueto and Parker, 6/27)

A first-of-its-kind study has found that “forever chemicals” — toxic compounds found in everyday beauty and personal care items like sunscreen, waterproof mascara and lipstick — can seep through human skin and enter the bloodstream. “If you put some of these products directly onto your skin and they contain PFAS, there’s a very high potential for them to be transferred across the skin,” said study co-author Stuart Harrad, whose research was published this week in Environment International. ... It was previously thought that PFAS were unable to breach the skin barrier. (Ajasa, 6/26)

Foppen Seafood is recalling smoked salmon sold at Kroger and Pay Less Super Market stores in 15 states after routine tests detected listeria in the product. The recall involves Smoked Norwegian Salmon Slices — Toast-sized, 8.1-ounce, identified by lot number 412 in the clear plastic window on the front of the package, the Harderwijk, Netherlands-based company said Tuesday in a notice posted by the Food and Drug Administration. (Gibson, 6/26)

Thousands of people slice their hands and fingers every year while cutting avocados, and research shows that most of these injuries occur from April through July. Hand surgeons see these injuries so often that they have a name for it: Avocado hand. Eric Wagner, a hand surgeon and associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Emory University in Atlanta, and his colleagues encountered so many patients needing hand surgery because of avocado-related knife wounds that in 2020 they published a study that examined the phenomenon’s nationwide prevalence. They found that between 1998 and 2017, more than 50,000 people in the United States went to emergency rooms seeking treatment for avocado-related knife wounds. (O'Connor, 6/26)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Chorus Or Cacophony? Cicada Song Hits Some Ears Harder Than Others

Shhhooo. Wee-uuu. Chick, chick, chick. That’s the sound of three different cicada species. For some people, those sounds are the song of the summer. Others wish the insects would turn it down. The cacophony can be especially irritating for people on the autism spectrum who have hearing sensitivity. (Dyer, 6/27)

The word Neanderthal is sometimes used as a synonym for stupid or brutish, but a new fossil analysis has added weight to the hypothesis that our prehistoric cousins actually had collaborative or even compassionate qualities. Evidence of a Neanderthal child with Down syndrome who survived to the age of 6 suggests the youngster was cared for by the social group, according to a new study. The piece of bone was found in the Cova Negra cave site in Spain’s Valencia region and analyzed by a research team led by Mercedes Conde-Valverde of the University of Alcalá in Madrid. The results, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, concluded that the fragment likely came from the inner ear of a 6-year-old. (Vinall, 6/27)

A pair of new University of Pennsylvania studies describes the influences on the decision to vaccinate, with one tying greater adult social media use to keep current with recommended COVID-19 and flu vaccinations and one finding that parental attitudes and social norms influenced the decision to vaccinate children against COVID-19. (Van Beusekom, 6/25)

A recent study investigated whether a transglutaminase 2 inhibitor has potential as a drug to treat celiac disease. Previous tissue studies have shown that the ZED1227 transglutaminase 2 inhibitor prevents gluten-induced intestinal damage. The results of the new study, based on an analysis of the molecular activity of more than 10,000 genes, provide very strong evidence that the first successful drug to treat celiac disease may be at hand. (Tampere University, 6/24)

A comparison study based on two large, open-label studies links the antiviral drug remdesivir (Veklury) to a 54% lower risk of all-cause death and shorter hospital stays compared with standard of care (SOC) alone in hospitalized COVID-19 patients requiring supplemental oxygen in 2020. (Van Beusekom, 6/26)

Not all patients with depression respond to medication. Two recently published studies provide additional information on how an alternative treatment, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), could be further enhanced. (University of Helsinki, 6/24)

Revolutionary. A game changer. Spine chilling. Those are some of the words experts used to describe fresh data for lenacapavir, a twice-yearly shot developed by Gilead Sciences for the prevention of HIV. (Lisa Jarvis, 6/27)

As a Canadian-born physician who has treated people with opioid use disorder on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, I know that if I ever needed addiction treatment I’d head to the Great White North. Deaths from drug overdoses are twice as high in the U.S. as in Canada. Some of that difference stems from how people with opioid use disorder are treated in the two countries. (Safina Adatia, 6/27)

For the second time in two years, an abortion-related decision from the Supreme Court has appeared before its due date. Unlike the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, leaked by a person or persons still unknown, the latest case, about Idaho’s harsh abortion ban, got out by accident when someone at the court briefly posted the opinion on the court’s website. (Noah Feldman, 6/26)

It is clear that our health care system needs a lot of work. The average American faces the looming threat of financial ruin in the event of illness or a serious accident. And hospital billing is a huge factor in the rising cost of employer-sponsored health plans. (Josh Gottlieb, 6/25)

Heart disease is the leading killer in America, causing 1 in every 5 deaths. In recent years, the country has been largely losing the battle against it. It's especially tragic given that an estimated 80 percent of cardiovascular disease (including heart disease and stroke) can be prevented. The economic costs are severe as well, reaching an estimated $422 billion a year. (Ben Green, 6/26)