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A federal district judge on Monday granted the Biden administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Medicare’s new drug price negotiation program from the drug industry lobbying organization PhRMA. The move is an early but positive sign for the Biden administration in a legal fight that could stretch for years, as a host of major drugmakers, including Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Johnson & Johnson, have also filed lawsuits over the constitutionality of Medicare’s new powers. (Cohrs, 2/12)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: In Fight Over Medicare Payments, The Hospital Lobby Shows Its Strength 

In the battle to control health care costs, hospitals are deploying their political power to protect their bottom lines. The point of contention: For decades, Medicare has paid hospitals — including hospital-owned physician practices that may not be physically located in a hospital building — about double the rates it pays other doctors and facilities for the same services, such as mammograms, colonoscopies, and blood tests. (Galewitz and DeGuzman, 2/13)

Tampa General Hospital decreased sepsis mortality rates by nearly 10%, reduced emergency department utilization by close to two-thirds and slashed more than $1 million in costs over a two-year period. The hospital set up a command center that uses predictive, artificial intelligence-backed analytics that flags potential early indicators of diseases like sepsis and tracks a patient's treatment. (Kacik, 2/12)

Private equity investment in Medicare Advantage has declined in recent years amid rising interest rates and an unfavorable regulatory environment, according to a report the Private Equity Stakeholder Project published Tuesday. These investor groups inked just four Medicare Advantage-related deals in 2023, the second-lowest total during the seven years the Private Equity Stakeholder Project has tracked such transactions. (Tepper, 2/13)

Medicare Advantage is facing a bit of a disadvantage. The private plans have grown in popularity in recent years because many seniors like that they come with no monthly premiums and offer extra benefits, including vision and dental coverage as well as fitness memberships. (It also doesn’t hurt that the plans are marketed aggressively). Now, though, the industry is contending with pressure on both cost, as seniors who held back on procedures during the pandemic rush back, and revenue, as the Biden administration curtails payments to plans. (Wainer, 2/11)

More than 2 million people have been removed from Texas' Medicaid program since federal pandemic-era coverage protections were lifted last April, new state data shows. That's the most of any state and nearly equivalent to all of Houston — Texas' most populous city, with 2.3 million residents — losing coverage in less than a year. (Goldman, 2/13)

On Sundays, the Rev. Carl Nichols preaches at Big Zion AME Zion Church in little Kenansville on North Carolina’s coastal plain. Tuesdays to Fridays, he drives a cargo van on a daily 320-mile circuit along rural roads edged with pine and fields of tobacco, collards and corn. His mission: delivering boxes of food to people who cannot always afford their own. The minister, his wife, two grown daughters and three helpers make up a tiny nonprofit whose food deliveries are part of an experiment that places North Carolina at a leading edge of the new face of Medicaid. A pillar of the nation’s social safety net since the 1960s, Medicaid is the largest public source of health insurance. Now, it is becoming something more. (Goldstein, 2/12)

Danay Burke, 43, was released from prison on Nov. 1. Among the many tasks on her to-do list for reestablishing her life was to figure out how to manage her health care needs. But she left prison without health insurance, making that a difficult and costly prospect. (Crumpler, 2/13)

Americans who test positive for the coronavirus no longer need to routinely stay home from work and school for five days under new guidance planned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency is loosening its covid isolation recommendations for the first time since 2021 to align it with guidance on how to avoid transmitting flu and RSV, according to four agency officials and an expert familiar with the discussions. (Sun, 2/13)

Millions of people deal with Covid-19 symptoms long after their initial infections. Two new studies – one looking at pregnant people and the other on children – give a better look at the burden from this health problem that doctors say often goes under the radar. (Christensen, 2/12)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently announced that it is monitoring a newly identified SARS-CoV-2 variant called BA.2.87.1 from South Africa that has mutations that may pose a risk of immune escape, but so far there's no sign that it is spreading widely. (Schnirring, 2/12)

The Canadian government bungled a COVID-era app for travelers at every stage, failed to keep records and poorly utilized funds, the country's top watchdog said in a highly critical report on Monday. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), working with the health and public services ministries, launched the ArriveCAN application in April 2020 to collect health information from travelers and assist with quarantine measures. ... The app was updated 177 times, often with little to no documentation of testing, and at one point some 10,000 travelers were wrongly instructed to quarantine, she said. (2/12)

Employees, parents and students are trying to figure out the new norms for taking a sick day. Schools and businesses largely erred on the side of caution at the height of the pandemic, but expectations are now shifting — in ways that can be difficult to predict. (Rubin, 2/12)

On top of the usual colds and flu that are common this time of year, there's a new strain of COVID to worry about. In response, doctors from Tallahassee- based Capital Health Plan are urging people to beef up their immune systems before they get sick. (Flanigan, 2/12)

In Utah, more of Dr. Cara Heuser’s maternal-fetal medicine patients are requesting early ultrasounds, hoping to detect serious problems in time to choose whether to continue the pregnancy or have an abortion. In North Carolina, more obstetrics patients of Dr. Clayton Alfonso and his colleagues are relying on early genetic screenings that don’t provide a firm diagnosis. The reason? New state abortion restrictions mean the clock is ticking. (Ungar and Seitz, 2/12)

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nationwide body that supports the reproductive rights organization's regional affiliates, told a federal appeals court Monday that it cannot be liable in a $1.8 billion lawsuit accusing it of defrauding Texas's Medicaid program. The group in a brief urged the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, that it must face trial along with the regional and local Planned Parenthood chapters named in the lawsuit, which was brought by an anonymous individual and the state of Texas. (Pierson, 2/12)

Conservative and liberal US Supreme Court justices have flipped their positions on standing over the years, with conservatives now more apt to find it exists in order to allow them to take up challenges to hot-button issues. The change is evident in how the current conservative-led court has handled student loan forgiveness and separation of powers. The legal battle over the availability of the abortion drug mifepristone presents one of the clearest examples of how the justices can manage procedural questions to get at an issue and obtain desired results, or leave courts out of it altogether. (Robinson, 2/12)

Senate Democrats have passed a bill to protect women who come to Virginia for an abortion, as well as their doctors. A bill sponsored by State Senator Barbara Favola (D-Arlington), which passed along party lines Monday, would prevent Virginia from extraditing women who come to the Commonwealth for an abortion from states in which the procedure is illegal.  (Englander, 2/12)

Clearfield Republican Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, a frequent sponsor of anti-abortion legislation and fixture in anti-abortion circles, is asking her colleagues for hundreds of thousands of dollars year-after-year to fund controversial anti-abortion crisis pregnancy programs. Those faith-based programs, which critics say give inaccurate medical information and promote “abortion reversal” treatments that can be dangerous, could cost taxpayers $400,000 a year. (Anderson Stern, 2/12)

New Michigan laws approved by Democrats take effect Tuesday, ushering in changes to a slew of policies from labor to abortion rights. These laws received little or no Republican support in the state Legislature. For laws to take effect immediately after the governor signs the legislation, at least six GOP votes in the state Senate are needed under the current partisan makeup of the chamber. The Democratic bills didn't meet that threshold, meaning they instead went into effect 90 days after lawmakers adjourned their legislative session last year early. (Hendrickson, 2/13)

A man sentenced to life imprisonment for fatal bombings at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and an Alabama abortion clinic will not get a chance at a new sentence, an appeals court ruled Monday. A three-judge of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that Eric Robert Rudolph remains bound to the terms of his 2005 plea agreement in which he accepted multiple life sentences to escape the death penalty. (2/12)

A baby girl who was several hours old became the first child to be surrendered in the Safe Haven Baby Box at the Mehlville Fire Protection District Station 2 in south St. Louis County last week. The baby box at the fire station in Mehlville opened in August 2023 and is the first of its kind in Missouri. Fire Chief Brian Hendricks shared a message with the anonymous person who surrendered the baby on Feb. 8. The child is beautiful and healthy, he said. (Wimbley, 2/13)

As the Biden administration mulls a politically sensitive decision on whether to ban menthol cigarettes, another corner of the tobacco industry — cigar makers — is fighting to be left alone. The fate of a proposed ban on flavored cigars has been linked to a separate and closely scrutinized proposal to outlaw menthol cigarettes that's been under White House review for months. (Reed, 2/13)

Researchers at Rutgers University have received more than $7 million to study disinformation and marketing around a proposed federal ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars — with a particular focus on how such information affects Black and Hispanic smokers. Kymberle Sterling, the associate director for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion at the Rutgers Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies, will lead two studies funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. (Whelan, 2/12)

Smoking in cars with children is banned in 11 states, and lawmakers are pushing to join them in West Virginia, where more adults use cigarettes than anywhere else in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state Senate on Monday passed a bill calling for fines for anyone caught smoking or possessing a lit tobacco product in a vehicle when someone age 16 or under is present. The bill passed on 25-8 vote and now goes to the House of Delegates, where similar legislation has failed and it faces an uncertain future. (Raby, 2/12)

The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to expand eligibility for Agent Orange disability benefits to Vietnam-era veterans who served at 129 locations in the U.S. during specific time frames, as well as parts of Canada and India, officials announced Friday. Ahead of a notice published Monday in the Federal Register, VA officials also said they plan to widen eligibility for veterans who were sickened by herbicides used after World War II in the Demilitarized Zone in Korea in the 1950s and in areas off the shores of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. (Kime, 2/12)

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin underwent new medical procedures under general anesthesia on Monday to address a bladder problem that landed him back in the hospital over the weekend, the Pentagon said, as officials forecast he would resume his job duties soon. Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters that doctors had performed “non-surgical procedures” on Austin, 70, related to an “emergent bladder issue.” Ryder declined to provide more information about what was entailed or what symptoms the defense chief had experienced before returning to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Sunday, his third admission there since having surgery to treat prostate cancer in late December. (Ryan and Nirappil, 2/12)

A Suffolk Superior Court judge on Monday dismissed all the lawsuits against Harvard Medical School over the theft of body parts from its morgue, saying that the allegations from donors’ families “do not plausibly suggest” that Harvard failed to act in good faith and do not show Harvard was responsible for its morgue manager’s conduct. (Freyer, 2/12)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: ‘Behind The Times’: Washington Tries To Catch Up With AI’s Use In Health Care 

Lawmakers and regulators in Washington are starting to puzzle over how to regulate artificial intelligence in health care — and the AI industry thinks there’s a good chance they’ll mess it up. “It’s an incredibly daunting problem,” said Bob Wachter, the chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco. “There’s a risk we come in with guns blazing and overregulate.” (Tahir, 2/13)

Gilead Sciences said Monday it will acquire CymaBay Therapeutics for $4.3 billion, adding a new treatment for a liver disease that is on track for approval later this year. (Feuerstein, 2/12)

All Jennifer Howell wanted was to find medication for her son. Instead, she was caught in a maze of desperate phone calls to pharmacies and physicians. Her son, Linus, had been diagnosed with ADHD in 2021 during the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of his behavioral traits — restlessness, impulsivity, difficulty focusing — suddenly made sense. When he was first prescribed medication, its effects were instantaneous. (Armanini, 2/12)

Super Bowl ads are a show within the show, an opportunity for brands and advertising creatives to put their work in front of more than 100 million viewers. And while the occasion is most closely associated with ads for beer, cars, and soft drinks, pharma giant Pfizer dished out millions of dollars for its own message: “Here’s to science.” (Merelli, 2/12)

The vow is “til death do us part.” But for former Dutch prime minister Dries van Agt and his wife, Eugenie, the aim was to leave this life the same way they had spent the past seven decades — together. The couple, both 93, died “hand in hand” earlier this month, according to a statement from the Rights Forum, a pro-Palestinian organization that Dries van Agt created. They chose to die by what is known as “duo euthanasia” — a growing trend in the Netherlands, where a small number of couples have been granted their wish to die in unison in recent years, usually by a lethal dose of a drug. (Cho, 2/13)

The first fatality from Alaskapox, a type of orthopoxvirus, has been reported on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. State officials released a bulletin Feb. 9 detailing that an elderly man contracted the virus in Sept. 2023, likely from an infected stray cat who scratched him. The man, whose immune system had been suppressed by cancer treatments, first noticed a tender red bump in his underarm. Over the next few weeks, he also experienced fatigue and pain in his arm and shoulder. (Rudy, 2/12)

The Alaskapox virus was first identified in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2015, according to the Alaska Department of Health. Since then, there have been only seven cases reported in the state, according to the state health department. This is the first case of an Alaskapox infection resulting in hospitalization and death ever reported. State public health officials noted the patient was an elderly man who was immunocompromised, putting him at higher risk for severe illness. The virus typically occurs in small animals, commonly identified in voles and shrews, according to the Alaska State Department of Health. There have been no reports of human-to-human spread, according to the state health agency. (Benadjaoud, 2/12)

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday there was a low risk of human-to-human spread after China reported a case involving a person infected with combined H3N2 and H10N5 strains of bird flu. "No new suspected human cases have been detected through the investigation and testing done by authorities," the WHO said in a statement, saying avian flu viruses are not thought to have acquired the capacity for sustained human transmission. "Thus, the likelihood of human-to-human spread is considered low." (2/13)

The Minnesota Department of Health confirmed Monday that there is a case of measles in the Twin Cities metro area. The department provided little information on the case, but said the risk to the public is "extremely low." MDH is investigating and will inform anyone who may have been exposed. Measles was officially declared eradicated in the United States more than 20 years ago, but declining vaccination rates are increasing the risk of the spread of the disease. Communities need high vaccination rates to maintain herd immunity and prevent outbreaks, experts say. (Moser, 2/12)

A visitor from outside the country was a confirmed Maricopa County measles carrier, the Maricopa County Department of Public Health announced Saturday morning. The Maricopa County Public Health Department announced it was investigating this measles case because, as it mentioned in its news release, cases of the highly contagious airborne disease have risen across the U.S. and overseas and leave the unvaccinated at the highest risk of becoming sick if exposed. (Gonzalez, 2/10)

The return of measles is a "canary in the coal mine" for the country's ability to fight the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases, vaccine expert Paul Offit warned in an interview with Axios. That's among the many consequences of vaccine misinformation and politicization that exploded during the pandemic, Offit writes in a new book out Tuesday, "Tell Me When It's Over: An Insider's Guide to Deciphering COVID Myths and Navigating Our Post-Pandemic World." (Reed, 2/12)

Health officials announced Monday that they have identified the source of a potentially deadly disease outbreak in northern Minnesota. Fourteen cases of Legionnaires' disease have been confirmed around the city of Grand Rapids since April 2023, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. ... MDH officials now say the municipal water supply is the source of the outbreak. (Moser, 2/12)

A new study has shown that people vaccinated against Ebola who still developed the disease had a substantially lower risk of dying than people who were not vaccinated, even if they received the vaccine when they were already infected with the virus. (Branswell, 2/12)

As afternoon services were beginning at Lakewood Church in Houston on Sunday, a woman arrived in a trench coat and carrying a backpack, her 7-year-old son at her side. She brought two rifles and had a piece of yellow rope resembling a detonation cord, law enforcement officials said on Monday. The woman pointed an AR-15 at an unarmed security guard, officials said, and then made her way inside the church, which is led by the televangelist Joel Osteen. Almost immediately, she opened fire in a hallway with the assault-style rifle. (Goodman, Sandoval and Graham, 2/12)

The person who opened fire Sunday in one of the country’s largest megachurches — using an AR-15 adorned with the word “Palestine” — was subject to an emergency detention order in 2016 due to mental health issues and was caught up in a fraught dispute with her ex-husband and his family, officials said Monday. Genesse Moreno, 36, pulled up outside Lakewood Church about 2 p.m., walked inside with her 7-year-old son just before the start of a Spanish-language service and started shooting. The gunfire set off a panic in the cavernous building, with two off-duty officers confronting Moreno, who was wearing a trench coat, according to police and a search warrant executed early Monday. (Hennessy-Fiske and Boorstein, 2/12)

After Del Shea Perry’s son died in the Beltrami County jail of an untreated illness more than five years ago, she became a vocal advocate for better protections for incarcerated people. In 2021, the Minnesota Legislature passed the Hardel Sherrell Act, named after her son. It set minimum standards for medical care, mental health, suicide prevention and death reviews in jails and prisons. (Marohn, 2/12)

North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, a leading candidate in this year’s gubernatorial election, said this month that transgender women who use women’s restrooms “will be arrested” and suggested they instead “find a corner outside somewhere.” “We’re going to defend women in this state,” Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) said at a campaign event. “That means if you’re a man on Friday night, and all of a sudden Saturday you feel like a woman and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the hall, you will be arrested — or whatever we got to do to you.” (Edwards, 2/12)

Gov. Jared Polis and a bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers are proposing to dramatically expand health care education programs at higher education institutions across the state to combat persistent workforce shortages in health care fields, including by creating a new medical college at the University of Northern Colorado that would graduate about 150 medical professionals a year. (Breunlin, 2/12)

Wayne County commissioners will consider a plan on Thursday that may erase medical debt for more than 300,000 residents. According to the Wayne County Health director, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, one in six residents has the burden of medical debt. In total, they owe $700 million. "We feel that this is an opportunity that we cannot pass up," El-Sayed said while addressing Wayne County's Committee of the Whole at a recent meeting. (Gutierrez, 2/12)

A federal judge on Monday prevented Ohio from implementing a new law that requires social media companies, including Meta Platform's Instagram and ByteDance's TikTok, to obtain parental consent before allowing children under 16 to use their platforms. Chief U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley in Columbia agreed with the tech industry trade group NetChoice that the law violated minors' free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.(Raymond, 2/12)

Supporters say the measure would protect children from "addictive features" to modify the way that kids behave, while opponents say it would infringe on First Amendment rights. (Pinos, 2/12)

Women who develop high blood pressure or diabetes in the course of pregnancy are more likely to give birth to children who develop conditions that may compromise their own heart health at a young age, scientists reported on Monday. By the time they are 12 years old, these children are more likely to be overweight or to be diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol or high blood sugar, compared with children whose mothers had complication-free pregnancies. (Rabin, 2/12)

The risk of heart attack and ischemic stroke in patients aged 50 and older more than doubled in the 2 weeks after even mild influenza in those with few risk factors and more than quadrupled in high-risk patients with severe cases, with elevated risk persisting for 2 months, according to a self-controlled case series in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. (Van Beusekom, 2/12)

Interventional cardiologist Dr. Joseph Puma is founder and president of Sorin Medical. He has helped pioneer coronary heart CT scanning technology that continues to improve with AI-assisted software. "Our practice has actually been able to reduce by almost 50% the need for invasive heart catheterization or angiogram, reducing almost 50% the need to bring patients into the hospital to try and figure out if they have heart disease," Puma said. A three-minute scan can show plaque and blockages before an invasive procedure. (Carlin, 2/12)

A growing body of data show that South Asians are at greater risk of developing heart disease than white people, and they tend to get complications at younger ages, but it’s not been fully clear what explains this disparity. A new study suggests one potential reason is that South Asians have a decreased ability to repair blood vessels that get injured from cardiovascular problems. (Chen, 2/12)

People who lower the amount of salt in their diets by using a salt substitute may significantly decrease the risk of developing high blood pressure, a study published Monday suggests. The report, in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, analyzed data from hundreds of men and women, ages 55 and older, who were in elder care facilities in China. ... The researchers found that cutting salt back by more than a third by swapping in another mineral supplement — salty-tasting potassium chloride — along with other flavorings, such as mushroom, seaweed and lemon, was protective against high blood pressure over a two-year period. (Carroll, 2/12)

Multiple large retailers, including Costco and Trader Joe’s, have recalled items containing dairy products from Rizo-López Foods Inc. due to possible Listeria contamination. Rizo-López Foods Inc. initially recalled dozens of dairy products last week after an investigation identified them as the source of a multistate Listeria outbreak that led to two deaths and 23 hospitalizations. (Cheng, 2/12)

Have you ever checked the ingredients in a bottle of nail polish? How about hair dye or chemical straighteners? Many of these products do what they do thanks to strong chemicals that can be bad for our health. (Wurzer and Elder, 2/12)

Almost unnoted, the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the COVID pandemic in the U.S. passed in January. Missteps made in the early weeks of that tragedy, however, still offer vital lessons about what public health agencies need to do better to keep us safe. (Jill Taylor, Ewa King and Scott Becker, 2/12)

It is normal to be more forgetful as you get older. Broadly speaking, memory functions begin to decline in our 30s and continue to fade into old age. However, age in and of itself doesn’t indicate the presence of memory deficits that would affect an individual’s ability to perform in a demanding leadership role. (Charan Ranganath, 2/12)

Gyasi Sellers, a native of Springfield, was among the first entrepreneurs to get a license to deliver marijuana in the state. His mission was “to serve communities that have suffered under the war on drugs and to provide job training and skills to ex-offenders.” But because marijuana is still an illegal drug under federal law, his highly regulated state business can’t get a loan from the federal Small Business Administration. (2/13)

When the public health emergency around covid-19 ended, vaccines and treatments became commercial products, meaning companies could charge for them as they do other pharmaceuticals. Paxlovid, the highly effective antiviral pill that can prevent covid from becoming severe, now has a list price of nearly $1,400 for a five-day treatment course. (Leana S. Wen, 2/13)

There's always a flip side to those living-your-best-life images featured in prescription drug ads. The medication may aid an ailment, but there's often a long list of potential side effects to consider. The decision comes down to whether the advantages outweigh the trade-offs. (2/12)

The U.S. Surgeon General has a warning for Americans about a pervasive condition that worsens the risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety and premature death. (Jessica Bakeman, 2/12)