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The three largest drug middlemen inflated the costs of numerous life-saving medications by billions of dollars over the past few years, the Federal Trade Commission said in a report Tuesday. The top pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — CVS Health’s Caremark Rx, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx — generated roughly $7.3 billion through price hikes over about five years starting in 2017, the FTC said. (Kopack and Kaplan, 1/14)

President-elect Trump’s threat to tariff Denmark if it resists his acquisition plans for the island territory of Greenland could disrupt one export that is wildly popular in America: Ozempic. ... Danish multinational pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk is the sole owner of semaglutide, the active ingredient in both Ozempic and Wegovy. A month’s supply of Ozempic is close to $1,000 without insurance, though manufacturer coupons and patient assistance programs are available. Novo Nordisk was estimated to be responsible for half of Denmark’s gross domestic product growth in 2024. (Choi, 1/14)

Nearly half of Americans don’t believe that the incoming Trump administration will lower health costs, according to a new Gallup poll. The research, conducted after the presidential election, found 48 percent of Americans are pessimistic about the new administration’s ability to lower healthcare costs, while 45 percent feel the same about prescription drug costs. But much of the public’s opinion is colored by partisanship. The poll found 84 percent of Democrats said they think any future policy from the Trump administration on health costs is headed in the wrong direction, along with nearly half of independents. (Weixel, 1/15)

The Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners is suing Eli Lilly and Co., UnitedHealth Group, CVS and several other drug manufacturers for allegedly colluding to inflate the cost of insulin. Baltimore City Schools offers health insurance to more than 9,000 employees and their dependents, and one of the benefits is paying a “substantial share of the purchase price of their pharmaceutical drugs, including the diabetes medication,” according to the complaint. (Karpovich, 1/15)

Novant Health billed a Huntersville dad $41 for a MyChart message exchange about a medication refill, despite a published policy that says prescription refill requests are free. (Crouch, 1/15) 

Soon after being diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, Virginia King sat in an outpatient clinic in Santa Fe, N.M, while a nurse injected her with a powerful drug to slow damage to her spine, where the disease had spread. Even though the drug had a list price of about $2,700, the hospital that owned the cancer center billed Mrs. King’s insurance company $22,700. Her insurer paid $10,000, but the hospital wanted more. She got a bill for over $2,500 — “more than half my take-home salary for a month,” said Mrs. King, 65. (Gabler, 1/15)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Listen To The Latest '�鶹Ů�� Health News Minute'

This week on the �鶹Ů�� Health News Minute: Small interventions at the doctor’s office, such as removing a splinter, can be billed as surgeries, and billing problems with the Indian Health Service are leaving Native American communities with significantly higher medical debt than the national average. (1/14)

The number of Americans receiving psychotherapy increased by 30 percent during the pandemic, as virtual sessions replaced in-person appointments — but new research dampens the hope that technology will make mental health care more available to the neediest populations. In fact, the researchers found, the shift to teletherapy has exacerbated existing disparities. (Barry, 1/15)

Beth Israel Lahey Health has found a way to save millions of dollars while being a good corporate citizen. The Boston health system reprocesses some devices used in its in-patient settings, operating rooms and labs, sending them off to be reprocessed, made like-new again and then buying back some to use. In 2023, the reprocessing program at its 14 hospitals saved Beth Israel $1.7 million, and supported its goal of keeping 80% of its waste out of landfill or incinerators by 2030. (Dubinsky, 1/14)

Bankrupt hospital chain Prospect Medical Holdings Inc. won court permission to start drawing from its $100 million Chapter 11 financing despite a challenge from landlord Medical Properties Trust Inc. Judge Stacey G.C. Jernigan said late Tuesday she’d authorized Prospect’s request after company advisers testified that the hospital operator’s cash dwindled to about $3 million before filing for protection on Jan. 11. MPT challenged the financing, saying it improperly puts the new debt ahead of its liens. (Ma and Randles, 1/15)

The White House has withdrawn a proposed rule that would have ensured private health insurance plans cover birth control when it is purchased over the counter. The withdrawal will be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday. (Luthra, 1/14)

New Jersey is going to build up a supply of medication used in abortions, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy announced Tuesday during his state of the state address as he both pledged to work with President-elect Donald Trump and warned that the state is ready to push back against the incoming administration. Murphy is one of a handful of Democratic governors who criticized Trump on the campaign trail yet now say they are open to cooperation. But Murphy said he will not back down in the face of “anti-choice” policies supported by the Republican majorities in Congress. (Catalini, 1/14)

The Virginia House of Delegates passed resolutions on Tuesday enshrining rights to abortion, voting and marriage equality in a critical step for Democrats hoping to amend the state’s constitution next year. ... If the abortion ballot measure is ultimately successful, Virginia would become a rare southern state to join a growing trend of states putting reproductive rights-related ballot questions to voters. (Diaz, 1/14)

One of the most high-profile figures in the campaign to expand abortion access in Missouri has resigned from her position at Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis-based affiliate. Dr. Colleen McNicholas, an OB-GYN, has served as the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Great Rivers since 2019. Under her leadership, the organization opened its Fairview Heights clinic in the Metro East as legal restrictions made access to abortion more difficult and eventually illegal to obtain in Missouri. (Fentem, 1/14)

There's a new mobile health van in town, and it's ready to provide health care to women in underserved communities. On Tuesday, Allegheny Health Network unveiled the new van, which will provide OB/GYN services to communities. ... The goal is to improve maternal health outcomes in Pittsburgh-area communities. According to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, in 2024, the maternal mortality rate in the United States was about 10 deaths per 100,000 births. (Shinn, 1/14)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Midwives Blame California Rules For Hampering Birth Centers Amid Maternity Care Crisis

Jessie Mazar squeezed the grab handle in her husband’s pickup and groaned as contractions struck her during the 90-minute drive from her home in rural northeastern California to the closest hospital with a maternity unit. She could have reached Plumas District Hospital, in Quincy, in just seven minutes. But it no longer delivers babies. Local officials have a plan for a birth center in Quincy, where midwives could deliver babies with backup from on-call doctors and a standby perinatal unit at the hospital, but state health officials have yet to approve it. (Cohen, 1/15)

The House on Tuesday voted 218-206 to ban transgender girls and women from girls’ sports in federally-funded schools by amending Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions. This bill, the first federal anti-trans law brought to a vote in a newly GOP-controlled Congress, is Democrats’ first test on whether they will fight an expected wave of proposed anti-trans laws under President-elect Donald Trump. (Rummler, 1/14)

Alongside the announcement that Meta was ending its relationship with independent fact-checkers, the social media company outlined new "hateful conduct" policies. Those policies explicitly permit users to call LGBTQ+ people "mentally ill" or "abnormal" without violating platform rules. These changes are part of a larger shift in how Meta plans to moderate content and speech on its platforms, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. But these carve-outs could also allow the spread of misinformation. (Abels, 1/14)

The Food and Drug Administration wants to change how packaged food is sold in the U.S. In the waning days of the Biden administration, the agency has proposed requiring a new label on the front of most packaged food and drinks aimed at helping Americans make healthier food choices. The proposed labels would flag whether a packaged food or drink contains low, medium or high levels of sodium, added sugar and saturated fat, while also detailing the percent of the daily value of these nutrients the product contains. (Godoy, 1/14)

Fewer people are eating in a way they consider healthy – and they don’t even like it, according to new data. “In some instances, we’re still seeing strong majorities of people saying that they enjoy their food,” said Andrew Dugan, consulting principal researcher at Gallup. “But the decline has been pretty stark.” (Holcombe, 1/14)

Medical experts from around the globe proposed a more nuanced approach to diagnosing obesity that does not rely exclusively on body mass index (BMI) alone. Writing in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, the global commission argued that to reduce misclassification, other measures of body fat -- such as waist circumference or direct fat measurement -- should also be used, along with signs and symptoms of ill health at the individual level. (Monaco, 1/14)

All women ages 65 and older and at-risk postmenopausal women under 65 should be screened for osteoporosis to prevent fractures, according to a final recommendation statement from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). USPSTF said with "moderate certainty" that screening for osteoporosis to prevent osteoporotic fractures has a moderate net benefit in all women 65 and older and in postmenopausal women ages 40 to 64 who have at least one risk factor for osteoporosis (both grade B recommendations). (Monaco, 1/14)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: I’m Moving Forward And Facing The Uncertainty Of Aging

It takes a lot of courage to grow old. I’ve come to appreciate this after conversations with hundreds of older adults over the past eight years for nearly 200 “Navigating Aging” columns. Time and again, people have described what it’s like to let go of certainties they once lived with and adjust to new circumstances. These older adults’ lives are filled with change. They don’t know what the future holds except that the end is nearer than it’s ever been. (Graham, 1/15)

Consuming more than one drink a day results in a steep increase of the risk of premature death, a new federal review has concluded. The draft report was published Tuesday ahead of a major update to influential federal guidelines on how much alcohol Americans should drink. "In the United States, males and females have a 1 in 1000 risk of dying from alcohol use if they consume more than 7 drinks per week. This risk increases to 1 in 100 if they consume more than 9 drinks per week," the report's authors concluded, in a final draft published by the Department of Health and Human Services. (Gualtieri and Cohen, 1/14)

These drinks, which typically contain anywhere from 1mg of THC to 10mg of THC per serving, promise to deliver a feeling similar to a glass of wine sans the side effects of alcohol. But are they any healthier than drinking your favorite cocktail? Here's what you need to know about the risks and benefits, according to an MD and three cannabis experts. (Harrell, 1/14)

THC-infused hemp drinks are all the rage, but legal questions loom. (Brown, 1/14)

A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from enforcing a requirement that cigarette packages include graphic warnings on the impacts of smoking. On Monday, U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in Tyler, Texas, ruled in favor of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and others, finding the FDA does not have the authority to require cigarette packaging and advertising to include one of 11 different warning labels. (O’Connell-Domenech, 1/14)

In the heart of North Carolina tobacco country, one company manufactures cigarettes with ultralow nicotine levels designed to prevent smokers from getting addicted. Sales aren’t exactly sizzling. VLN cigarettes — the only smokable tobacco products the Food and Drug Administration allows to be marketed as lower risk for nicotine exposure — are available in about 5,100 stores in 26 states, a small fraction of the overall market for cigarettes. (Ovalle and Roubein, 1/14)

Amid an escalating bird flu outbreak spreading in the United States, federal health officials have begun to brief members of the incoming Trump administration about how they’ve responded to the crisis so far. “We sent them all of the information on our work,” said a Biden administration health official familiar with transition briefings within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Lovelace Jr., Edwards and Khimm, 1/14)

The Biden administration on Tuesday released a “roadmap” for maintaining government defenses against infectious diseases, just as President-elect Donald Trump pledges to dismantle some of them. The 16-page report recaps steps taken in the last four years against COVID-19, mpox and other diseases, including vaccination efforts and the use of wastewater and other measures to spot signs of erupting disease outbreaks. (Stobbe, 1/14)

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LACDPH) yesterday reported three more H5 avian flu infections in pet cats after exposure to raw food or raw milk. In other avian flu developments, federal officials confirmed those and several more H5N1 detections in domestic cats from California and other states. (Schnirring, 1/14)

China has reported to more human infections involving H9N2 avian influenza, which involve children from two different provinces, Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said in its latest weekly avian influenza update. The patients include a 1-year-old girl from the city of Chongqing whose symptoms began on December 13, 2024, and an 8-year-old girl from Hubei province who got sick on November 27, 2024. The report did not say how the patients were exposed, but H9N2 infections are typically reported in people who have contact with poultry or poultry environments. (Schnirring, 1/14)

This winter's wave of norovirus infections has reached levels that are now more than double last season's peak, in figures published Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracking the notorious stomach bug. Nearly 28% of norovirus tests run over the week of the New Year's holiday came back positive for the highly contagious virus, which is the leading cause of foodborne illness like vomiting and diarrhea in the U.S. (Tin, 1/14)

A study yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that even the kids who get most sick from an uncommon but serious condition that affects multiple organ systems after COVID-19 infections recover fully by 6 months after infection. The retrospective cohort study followed outcomes seen among pediatric patients diagnosed as having multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) associated with COVID-19 infection, one of the most severe outcomes seen during the pandemic. (Soucheray, 1/14)

Lifesaving HIV treatments. Cures for hepatitis C. New tuberculosis regimens and a vaccine for RSV. These and other major medical breakthroughs exist in large part thanks to a major division of the National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of biomedical research on the planet. (Barry-Jester, 1/15)

After years of prodding, the National Institutes of Health has adopted a new policy requiring companies seeking licenses to sell medical products invented with government research to submit plans for ensuring greater access to patients. (Silverman, 1/14)

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense said Tuesday that all the reports of his excessive drinking were false. Pete Hegseth also said at his confirmation hearing that he wouldn’t drink another drop if he’s confirmed by the Senate to lead the U.S. military. (Delaney, 1/14)

President-elect Donald Trump appears poised to tap a trio of health policy experts to serve as top deputies to Mehmet Oz, his pick to oversee the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to seven people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. (Diamond, 1/14)

How much money is going into a campaign to convince senators to block the confirmation of President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? More than $1 million, according to a spokesperson for the “Stop RFK War Room” initiative, helmed by the Democratic-aligned health care advocacy group Protect Our Care, POLITICO’s Daniel Payne reports. (Cirruzzo, 1/14)

Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey issued a slew of aggressive executive orders on his first full day as West Virginia’s chief executive Tuesday, including one enabling families to receive religious exemptions from required school vaccinations — a massive departure for a state with one of the strictest vaccine policies in the nation. Another order called for the termination of all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, initiatives from state-run institutions, something Morrisey said he believes will protect West Virginians from racial and gender discrimination — especially “inappropriate” preferential treatment for certain groups over others. (Willingham, 1/14)

As fires continue to burn across Los Angeles, several utilities have declared their drinking water unsafe until extensive testing can prove otherwise. A warmer, drier climate means wildfires are getting worse, and encroaching on cities — with devastating impact. Toxic chemicals from those burns can get into damaged drinking water systems, and even filtering or boiling won’t help, experts say. (Peterson, 1/14)

Chemicals found in sewage sludge that some farmers use to fertilize fields and pastures can pose a threat to human and animal health, the US Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday. Exposure to food from farms that use the sewage sludge can raise a person’s risk of developing cancer or other health conditions, it said. Under certain conditions, the human health risks from sludge used on farms are “several orders of magnitude” above what the EPA considers acceptable, the agency said. (Christensen, 1/14)

Officials say a new Mississippi law to decrease the number of people being jailed solely because they need mental health treatment has led to fewer people with serious mental illness detained in jails – but the data is contradictory and incomplete. A state agency, counties and community mental health centers – all of which have roles in carrying out the new law – reported vastly different numbers of people who spent time in jail during the civil commitment process during the first three months the law was effective. (Dilworth, 1/14)

The family of a man in Oregon is demanding $900,000 from the hospital where his face caught on fire mid-surgery while he was allegedly awake. The allegations are contained in a malpractice lawsuit filed by the wife of John Michael Murdoch against Oregon Health and Science University, as reported by the Oregonian. The lawsuit maintains Murdoch’s ordeal unfolded as he was undergoing surgery in 2022 while being treated for squamous cell carcinoma – a cancer of the tongue. Medical staff failed to let alcohol swabbed on his face dry properly, and his face ignited, according to the lawsuit. (Betts, 1/14)

Philips is recalling its remote cardiac monitoring software, which has been associated with 109 reported injuries and two reported deaths, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The agency labeled the action a Class I recall, its most serious designation. (Dubinsky, 1/14)

Approvals for drugs from Biogen Inc. and Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. show flaws in the process US drug regulators use to speed approval for drugs to fill unmet needs, federal watchdogs said in a report. Biogen’s Aduhelm, Sarepta’s Exondys 51, along with Covis Pharma’s Makena were all cleared quickly by the US Food and Drug Administration despite weak evidence and disagreements among reviewers, according to the report Tuesday from Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General. In one case, documentation about key decisions was missing, the report found. (Rutherford, 1/14)

CARB-X (Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator) today announced an award of $3.5 million to biotechnology company Melio to develop a rapid diagnostic test for bloodstream infections, including neonatal sepsis. Melio's culture-free diagnostic platform uses molecular and microfluidic technology to identify clinically relevant pathogens and actionable antibiotic-resistance markers directly from blood within 3 hours. Company officials say the platform could enable providers to make early, targeted antibiotic treatment decisions and fill a crucial gap in sepsis care for newborns. (Dall, 1/14)

The biggest threat to your health isn’t your inability to afford an inhaler or to get that weird mole checked, the GOP argues. It’s everything else about American society, from nutrition to neurotoxins. (Catherine Rampell, 1/14)

If anyone should have lobbied against the use of vaccines in this country, it was my family. My Aunt Jean, my father’s older sister, was a victim of the infamous Cutter vaccine, an early variant of the polio vaccine presumed to contain an inactivated version of the live virus. Except that it wasn’t inactive. (Laurie Maffly-Kipp, 1/15)

With the holidays past and the new year arrived, we look ahead — to losing weight. For some that resolve theoretically involves dieting or gym memberships, but for increasing numbers of overweight adults (roughly three-fourths of us) there is another option: GLP-1 drugs with names like Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus, with a mean weight loss of 15% to 25% at 1-1.5 years of use. But weight, there’s more to the story. (David A. Brenner, 1/14)

A few months ago, I had an experience much more familiar to me as a writer than a physician: getting rejected. I had written a piece about my experience as a woman trying to hide her cancer diagnosis. No one wanted to publish it. One major online news outlet suggested a different essay altogether: Write about what I didn’t know about breast cancer as a doctor that I learned only as a patient. I stared at this request and then shut my computer. Months later, I saw that the outlet published that piece by a different doctor, who detailed her experience with breast cancer and how it made her a more understanding physician. Unlike this brave person, I couldn’t bring myself to write an essay about how I became a better, more empathetic and less judgmental doctor after my cancer diagnosis. Because it wasn’t true. (Alessandra Hirsch, 1/15)

When you go to the hospital to get better, you expect the food to help you recover. But sometimes, the food can actually make your health worse. Hospitals are meant for healing, yet many meals are full of unhealthy ingredients like fat, cholesterol and processed foods. These foods are not what people dealing with heart disease, diabetes or obesity need. (Angelina Marone, 1/14)

In 2018, Massachusetts launched a website, CompareCare, to help consumers shop for health care. The goal was to let people compare the price and quality of health care across hospitals and to provide information to researchers. (1/15)