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The Biden administration is opening an investigation into UnitedHealth Group following a cyberattack on a subsidiary that has crippled health-care payments and probably exposed millions of patients’ data. The Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday said its probe would focus on identifying the extent of the breach and compliance by UnitedHealth and its subsidiary, Change Healthcare, with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — widely known as HIPAA — which is intended to protect patients’ private data. (Diamond, 3/13)

Doctors across the US are stretching to keep their practices afloat as a debilitating cyberattack on a once little-known company at the center of the health-care system continues to cause havoc. “I can’t believe we’re in this mess,” said Kathy Oubre, chief executive officer of Pontchartrain Cancer Center in southeast Louisiana. “It’s going to take us months to dig out.” (Tozzi, Swetlitz, and Griffin, 3/13)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Exclusive: Social Security Chief Vows To Fix ‘Cruel-Hearted’ Overpayment Clawbacks

The Social Security Administration’s new chief is promising to overhaul the agency’s system of clawing back billions of dollars it claims was wrongly sent to beneficiaries, saying it “just doesn’t seem right or fair.” In an interview with �鶹Ů�� Health News, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley said that in the coming days he would propose changes to help people avoid crushing debts that have driven some into homelessness and caused financial hardships for the nation’s most vulnerable — the poorest of the poor and people with disabilities or persistent medical conditions or who are at least age 65. (Clasen-Kelly, 3/13)

As TikTok users flooded Congress with calls opposing a bill that could ban the popular video app in the United States, Representative Jake Auchincloss said his office received one so disturbing that it convinced him the legislation was needed. “We got a voicemail from a young individual threatening suicide if we banned TikTok. That is a case in point . . . of the deleterious impact that these apps are having on our youth,” the Newton Democrat said. ... “I mean, Congress needs to get a grip on this.” (Puzzanghera, 3/13)

Minnesota Republican Michelle Fischbach last week saw the Ways and Means Committee endorse her bill that would block the Biden administration from finalizing a rule to require minimum staffing in nursing homes. The rule, proposed last year, requires patients to receive at least three hours of direct care every day and mandates that facilities have a registered nurse on staff at all times. Fischbach’s bill advanced 26-17, with all Republicans and one Democrat voting in favor, echoing the nursing home industry’s arguments that the rule would force facilities to close because they can’t find workers. (Eskow, 3/13)

Vice President Kamala Harris plans to meet with abortion providers and staff members on Thursday in the Twin Cities, a visit that is believed to be the first stop by a president or vice president to an abortion clinic. Ms. Harris plans on Thursday to tour the center with an abortion provider and highlight what the administration has done to try to preserve access to the procedure as conservative states enact growing restrictions. Minnesota has become a haven for abortion seekers since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ushering in restrictive laws and bans in neighboring states. (Lerer and Nehamas, 3/13)

A new poll shows plurality of Missourians support restoring abortion rights as they existed under Roe v. Wade, but a large undecided group holds the key to victory. (Keller, 3/13)

The Missouri Abortion Fund distributed the morning-after pill and condoms to concertgoers during Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS tour Tuesday night in St. Louis. It was part of the pop star’s Fund 4 Good initiative focused on “building an equitable and just future for all women, girls, and people seeking reproductive health freedom.” (Gerson, 3/13)

The Planned Parenthood clinic in Omaha has been under construction since January. The center remains open to family planning patients, but all abortion appointments have been temporarily moved to the Lincoln location. That leaves just two clinics currently providing abortion services in Nebraska. (Rembert, 3/14)

Last January, Jen Jackson Quintano stepped into a theater in Sandpoint, a tiny city in northern Idaho, to debut a production that could best be described as The Vagina Monologues meets The Moth – a night of Idahoans sharing stories about their own reproductive agency. Quintano was nervous. Idaho, where Republicans outnumber Democrats five to one, has one of the most punitive abortion bans in the country. Further, Quintano lives in a region of the state that keeps making national headlines for bold displays of armed intimidation by militia, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists. This was not necessarily a safe place to talk about abortion. (Randall, 3/12)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Montana, An Island Of Abortion Access, Preps For Consequential Elections And Court Decisions

A years-long battle over abortion access in a sprawling and sparsely populated region of the U.S. may come to a head this year in the courts and at the ballot box. Challenges to several state laws designed to chip away at abortion access are pending in Montana courts. Meanwhile, abortion rights advocates are pushing a ballot initiative that would add extra protections to the state constitution. (Zionts, 3/14)

Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) announced Wednesday that he was cosponsoring a bill to protect access for in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, becoming the first Republican to back the care. In a statement, Molinaro said he would be cosponsoring the Access to Family Building Act, with Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.). It had companion legislation introduced in the Senate by Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.). (Irwin, 3/13)

The Chicago Department of Public Health on Wednesday announced two new confirmed cases of measles – one of which was in the migrant shelter in Pilsen where most of the cases have originated. This makes a total of 10 cases of measles citywide, and eight associated with the migrant shelter. It is not known where the other new measles patient was exposed. Two of the 10 measles patients from the shelter have also now been confirmed to be Chicago Public Schools students. (Franza, 3/13)

One of the measles patients attended Philip D. Armour Elementary in Bridgeport, and is staying in the migrant shelter. Another student is at Cooper Dual Language Elementary Academy and was also a shelter resident. Specifically at Armour Elementary, data showed as of the start of the school year, the vaccination protection level at the school was 89 percent. This is technically beneath the 95% vaccination set by the CDC to achieve herd immunity. (Molina, 3/13)

Amid a burgeoning measles outbreak and one day after 18 Chicago City Council members signed a letter urging him to call off his 60-day eviction policy for city migrant shelters, Mayor Brandon Johnson vowed to forge ahead with an untold number of evictions on Saturday. (Spielman and Loria, 3/13)

The Chicago Department of Public Health said Wednesday that everyone who is eligible for vaccination at the temporary shelter housing migrants at the center of a measles outbreak has now been vaccinated. (Christensen and Musa, 3/13)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance Wednesday for travelers in the wake of a global rise in measles outbreaks, as cases have mounted across 17 states. Americans planning to travel abroad should consult their doctors at least six weeks before traveling if they are unsure about whether they are up to date on their vaccines, the agency now says, in order to avoid catching the highly contagious virus during their trip. The CDC previously said in November that travelers only needed to schedule an appointment at least one month before their trip, in order to have enough time to get vaccinated. (Tin, 3/13)

Unvaccinated children and immunocompromised people — especially those receiving certain cancer treatments — face the highest risk when measles is in circulation. “Even an uncomplicated case of measles is really awful,” said Sarah Lim, an infectious disease doctor and medical specialist at the Minnesota Department of Health, during a press conference on March 12. (Landman, 3/13)

Data shows that cases are close to the number of total cases reported in 2023. (Gleeson, 3/13)

The results of a clinical trial, published Wednesday, in The New England Journal of Medicine, show that the blood-based screening test detects 83% of people with colorectal cancer. If the FDA approves it, the blood test would be another screening tool to detect the cancer at an early stage. ... Dr. Barbara Jung, president of the American Gastroenterological Association says the test could help improve early detection of colorectal cancer. "I do think having a blood draw versus undergoing an invasive test will reach more people, " she says. (Aubrey, 3/14)

Two early trials published Wednesday showed promise in treating one of the deadliest types of cancer, glioblastoma. The aggressive brain cancer, which took the lives of John McCain and Beau Biden, is only diagnosed at stage 4, and the five-year survival rate is around 10%. ... The two clinical trials published Wednesday were extremely small, conducted on just nine patients in total, and much more research is needed, with larger trials, to determine how effective the therapy might be in the long run. (Sullivan, 3/13)

More than 35 years after it was invented, a therapy that uses immune cells extracted from a person’s own tumour is finally hitting the clinic. At least 20 people with advanced melanoma have embarked on treatment with what are called tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), which target and kill cancer cells. The regimen, called lifileucel, is the first TIL therapy to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And it is the first immune-cell therapy to win FDA approval for treating solid tumours such as melanoma. Doctors already deploy immune cells called CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T cells to treat cancer, but CAR-T therapy is used against only blood cancers such as leukaemia. (Reardon, 3/11)

New research shows that worsening metabolic syndrome – which is present in more than a third of adults in the United States – carries with it an increased risk of developing cancer. Metabolic syndrome is not a single condition, but rather the term applied when a person has three or more of the following markers: central or abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high serum triglycerides, and low serum high-density lipoprotein. (Gray, 3/13)

A tool that’s available as an online calculator played a key role in actress Olivia Munn’s discovery that she had breast cancer – even after she had “a normal mammogram,” according to a social media post. (Howard, 3/13)

Of the many young people whom Cathy Eng has treated for cancer, the person who stood out the most was a young woman with a 65-year-old’s disease. The 16-year-old had flown from China to Texas to receive treatment for a gastrointestinal cancer that typically occurs in older adults. Her parents had sold their house to fund her care, but it was already too late. “She had such advanced disease, there was not much that I could do,” says Eng, now an oncologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. ... Thousands of miles away, in Mumbai, India, surgeon George Barreto had been noticing the same thing. (Ledford, 3/13)

The Air Force is reporting the first data on cancer diagnoses among troops who worked with nuclear missiles and, while the data is only about 25% complete, the service says the numbers are lower than what they expected. The Air Force said so far it has identified 23 cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer, in the first stage of its review of cancers among service members who operated, maintained or supported silo-based Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. (Copp, 3/13)

Adolescents are using an often unregulated, psychoactive derivative of cannabis, according to national data released Wednesday, as the Biden administration deliberates expanding access to marijuana at the federal level.  The data could complicate hemp regulation at the state level, as some states move to rein in THC use. It could also have ripple effects around efforts to legalize marijuana, which already operates under an extremely gray patchwork of regulations at the state level, where it’s often legal, and the federal level, where it’s not. (Raman and Clason, 3/14)

The CEO of Texas’ largest medical cannabis distributor is urging leaders to regulate the state’s CBD market, citing concerns over health issues related to hemp-derived products such as delta-8 and delta-9 THC. Delta-8 and delta-9 THC are compounds closely related to the psychoactive compound in marijuana that gets users “high.” It’s legal in most states after Congress passed the 2018 farm bill, which had an unintended loophole due to how lawmakers defined “hemp” while legalizing it. (Madden, 3/13)

Vice President Harris will convene a roundtable on marijuana reform Friday with rapper Fat Joe, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and individuals who received pardons for marijuana convictions. A White House official said Harris will highlight actions the Biden administration has taken to pursue criminal justice reforms, including by pardoning tens of thousands of Americans with federal marijuana possession charges. (Samuels, 3/13)

Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday proposed a blanket pardon of misdemeanor marijuana possession convictions in Massachusetts in what she described as the broadest action taken by a governor to forgive past marijuana crimes since President Joe Biden handed down federal pot pardons. Healey’s move to wipe out all past adult state court misdemeanor convictions for possession of marijuana comes seven years after the state legalized cannabis. The pardons will be mostly automatic, she said, and could potentially clear the charge from hundreds of thousands of people’s records. (Kashinsky and Garity, 3/13)

A quadruple murder in Oklahoma shows how the Chinese underworld has come to dominate the booming illicit trade, fortifying its rise as a global powerhouse with alleged ties to China’s authoritarian regime. Rotella, Berg, Yalch and Adcock, 3/14)

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Wednesday didn’t shut the door to drug testing welfare recipients, a policy San Francisco voters approved earlier this month. Becerra, former California attorney general, said that he didn’t want to tell cities, counties or states what actions they should take but that all options should be on the table when considering how to address the drug crisis facing the nation. (Messerly, 3/13)

Speaking before a virtual audience of CommonSpirit Health employees, RaDonda Vaught, the former nurse who accidentally killed a patient by administering the wrong medication, listed the outside factors she claims contributed to her fatal error. Among them: a missing drug order, a faulty medication dispenser, and a hurricane that hampered the drug supply. (Bannow, 3/13)

After thousands of Twin Cities union workers went on strike last week, workers are pushing for changes at the Capitol — including public health insurance open to all Minnesotans and insurance for striking workers. (Spencer, 3/13)

Thirty years after joining forces, Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals are taking their most ambitious step yet toward creating a more unified hospital system. The two flagship hospitals, which anchor Mass General Brigham, the state’s largest health care system, announced Wednesday that it will be combining clinical services across its vast network that serves more than 2.6 million patients a year. The effort will include the creation of new, disease-focused institutes that executives say will dismantle silos and lead to more coordinated, streamlined care. (Serres, 3/13)

Mayo Clinic Platform said it has developed a program designed to speed the introduction of new digital healthcare solutions. Solutions Studio, announced at HIMSS, seeks to help digital health companies deploy solutions faster by giving them access to curated, de-identified data along with analytic and training tools in one centralized platform, Mayo Clinic said in a news release. (DeSilva, 3/13)

A growing number of established health tech companies are outlining a strategy to connect startups to health systems. The trend was highlighted at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida, with health tech vendors such as Innovaccer, Royal Philips, GE HealthCare and Epic outlining their strategies to court startups for a platform solution they can sell to health systems. (Turner, 3/13)

Children’s Minnesota on Tuesday debuted one of the country’s first modest hospital gowns for kids. The hospital system partnered with local design business Henna and Hijabs to create a medical grade modesty gown with a detachable hijab, three-quarter length sleeves and closures that can be worn in the front or back that allow medical providers access for IV lines or breathing tubes. (Miles, 3/13)

Public health officials in Arizona’s most populous county on Wednesday reported they confirmed a staggering 645 heat-associated deaths last year — more than 50% higher than 2022 and another consecutive annual record in arid metro Phoenix. The numbers in the preliminary report by the Maricopa County Department of Public Health alarmed officials in America’s hottest big metro, raising concerns about how to better protect vulnerable groups such as homeless people and older adults from the blistering summer heat. (Snow, 3/13)

Changes to a pair of Illinois programs that offer health care coverage to undocumented — and some documented — residents will mean thousands of people stand to lose their health insurance. (Degman, 3/13)

The Nebraska Legislature could not override Gov. Jim Pillen’s veto of a “safe needles” bill on Tuesday, losing by just three votes. Thirty supporters were needed to override the veto, but only 27 voted to do so despite previous broad bipartisan support for the bill that would’ve established a syringe service program (SSP) to reduce HIV and other blood-borne infections by distributing clean syringes and creating touchpoints to access addiction treatment. (Marchel Hoff, 3/13)

People with mental illnesses who are in conservatorships are being held in Los Angeles County jails even after their criminal charges are dropped, according to a report released Tuesday by Disability Rights California. Similarly, they are staying months in county psychiatric hospitals after doctors have agreed that it’s safe for them to leave, the report said. The issue is partly one of capacity. (Cosgrove, 3/13)

Operation Warrior Resolution is seeing success treating post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues with a holistic method called brain-based healing. (Owens, 3/13)

A new select committee on happiness holds its first hearing to figure out how to make Californians happier. (La, 3/12)

A New Hampshire House committee is recommending passage of a bill that would add people who are involuntarily committed to psychiatric facilities or found incompetent to stand trial to the FBI’s gun background check database. New Hampshire is currently one of just a handful of states that does not share similar data with the FBI. (Bookman and Cuno-Booth, 3/13)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: They Were Injured At The Super Bowl Parade. A Month Later, They Feel Forgotten

Jason Barton didn’t want to attend the Super Bowl parade this year. He told a co-worker the night before that he worried about a mass shooting. But it was Valentine’s Day, his wife is a Kansas City Chiefs superfan, and he couldn’t afford to take her to games. ... So Barton drove 50 miles from Osawatomie, Kansas, to downtown Kansas City, Missouri, with his wife, Bridget, her 13-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and Gabriella’s school friend. When they finally arrived home that night, they cleaned blood from Gabriella’s sneakers and found a bullet in Bridget’s backpack. (Sable-Smith and Lowe, 3/14)

For years, scientists have known people who use neti pots can become infected with a brain-eating amoeba if they use the wrong kind of water. On Wednesday, researchers linked a second kind of deadly amoeba to nasal rinsing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report that for the first time connects Acanthamoeba infections to neti pots and other nasal rinsing devices. Officials also renewed their warning that extremely rare, but potentially deadly, consequences can come from flushing nasal passages with common tap water. (Stobbe, 3/13)

Polio struck Paul Alexander in 1952, when he was just 6 years old. Within days, the disease robbed him of the use of his body. But he fought through the illness, using an iron lung for more than 70 years — and inspiring people with his determination to live a full life. He painted, wrote a book and worked for years as an attorney. ... Alexander died on Monday at age 78. ... "I'm crippled in most people's minds, except mine," he said, adding later, "I'm Paul Alexander, human being." (Chappell, 3/13)

Trump’s ridiculing of Biden comes as advocates have built broader acceptance of speech impediments. (Gardiner, 3/12)

Plenty of research has investigated the bond between humans and dogs, demonstrating that canine companions can improve people’s moods, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. ... But few past studies have pinpointed what happens in people’s brains when they interact with a furry friend. A study published Wednesday did exactly that. ... The results indicated that walking the dog made the participants feel more relaxed, brushing her improved concentration, and playing with her yielded both of these effects. (Bendix, 3/13) 

The existence of menopause in humans has long been a biological conundrum, but scientists are getting a better understanding from a surprising source: whales. Findings of a new study suggest menopause gives an evolutionary advantage to grandmother whales’ grandchildren. ... A paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature looked at a total of 32 whale species, five of which undergo menopause. The findings could offer clues about why humans, the only land-based animals that also goes through menopause, evolved the trait. (Weise, 3/13)

More than 80% of people in Asia and Africa who have culture-confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) don't have one of the symptoms most commonly associated with the disease, according to a study published yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. (Dall, 3/13)

A new study finds that policies to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from motor vehicles combined with investments in electric vehicles and public transportation would reduce air pollution and bring large benefits to children's health. They would also save money. (Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, 3/12)

Scientists have studied the impact of maternal obesity on the risk of developing liver disease and liver cancer. Using an animal model, the team discovered that this risk was indeed much higher in the offspring of mothers suffering from obesity. (Universite de Geneve, 3/12)

Healthcare providers (HCPs) and laypeople both say scarce resource allocation (SRA) policies should aim to save the most lives possible but diverge somewhat on how to achieve that goal, according to a survey launched early in the COVID-19 pandemic. University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers published the results yesterday in JAMA Network Open. (Van Beusekom, 3/13)

Should your insurance company be allowed to stop you from getting a treatment — even if your doctor says it’s necessary? (Alexander Stockton, 3/14)

Newly reported measles cases in Chicago are the latest in a potentially deadly—and highly preventable—string of outbreaks, which have been recorded in at least 17 states since the start of 2024. These outbreaks are a direct result of anti-vaccination misinformation that is rooted in ableism and harms all communities—able-bodied and disabled alike. (Sam Streuli, 3/13)

Medical students who anticipate hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt will likely make career decisions based on whether they can afford their monthly payments. Graduating debt-free opens every possible option — including working in less lucrative specialties or in underserved communities. (Erin Lowry, 3/13)

Decades after a Black man’s heart was used in a transplant without his family’s consent, Virginia lawmakers express “profound regret.” That matters. (Theresa Vargas, 3/13)

In the early days after it was hit by a cyberattack on Feb. 21, Change Healthcare, one of the country’s largest claims and prescription processors, said it would be back online soon. Three weeks later, customers were still waiting — and Biden administration officials were calling its owner, the giant company UnitedHealth Group, to task, even as Medicare offered emergency funds to providers who hadn’t been paid. However the crisis plays out in the coming days, one thing is clear: The critical technology infrastructure of the U.S. health care system needs to be better protected from any future attack. (Jonathan Slotkin and David Vawdrey, 3/14)