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President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday he plans to nominate Mehmet Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon and former daytime television host, as administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz, a 64-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon, has no experience running a government agency, and has been accused by many U.S. physicians and other health experts of peddling pseudoscience. (Jarvie, 11/19)

Oz spent the bulk of his medical and academic career at Columbia University, where he was a professor of medicine and a celebrated cardiothoracic surgeon. In 2022, Columbia cut ties with him after facing pressure to do so for nearly a decade. Oz has faced Senate grilling before for his promotion of weight-loss products on his show. He told senators in 2014 that his image and quotes were used unfairly to hawk scam products. This time around, early signs from the Senate are positive. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician who sits on the committee that will handle Oz’s nomination, wrote on the social platform X: “Glad to hear Dr. Oz has been nominated for CMS administrator. It has been over a decade since a physician has been at the helm of CMS, and I look forward to discussing his priorities.” (Zhang, Owermohle, Facher and Bannow, 11/19)

Oz has been a major supporter of Medicare Advantage, the Medicare-approved private option that has grown in popularity but has come under intense scrutiny for care denials and alleged overbilling. During his Senate campaign, Oz pushed a “Medicare Advantage for All” plan that would expand the program. “These plans are popular among seniors, consistently provide quality care and have a needed incentive to keep costs low,” Oz said in an AARP candidate questionnaire. In August, he posted a YouTube video to his nearly 2 million subscribers on “the benefits of enrolling” in Medicare Advantage. (Leonard and King, 11/19)

In 2014, a study in the British Medical Journal found that more than half the recommendations made on “The Dr. Oz Show” were either not backed up by, or contradicted, scientific research. In 2003, he was banned from presenting research at the American Association for Thoracic Surgery conference or in its journal for two years over concerns that claims made in a research paper abstract he led were not backed by the data in the study. (Vinall, 11/20)

Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania expressed openness to confirm his erstwhile Republican opponent Dr Mehmet Oz, whom President-elect Donald Trump nominated to lead the agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid. Fetterman beat Oz in an intensely personal race for Senate in 2022. But Fetterman told The Independent in an interview that he would be open to voting for Oz. “Do you think he's my first choice?” he said. “Do you think Trump is my first one? But it’s like yeah, here we are.” (Garcia, 11/20)

Dr. Mehmet Oz would be in a position to grant waiver requests from conservative-led states intent on reshaping Medicaid, including imposing work requirements on recipients, which is something the first Trump administration tried to do. (Habeshian, 11/20)

Oz is passionate about wacky — and often widely debunked — medicines. In 2010, he said that sleeping with a bar of lavender soap could help to prevent restless leg syndrome. On an episode of The Dr. Oz Show, which ran for 13 seasons, he said: “I know this sounds crazy, but people put it under their sheets.” It was widely refuted by medical experts. A group of ten doctors later demanded that Oz be fired from Columbia University’s medical faculty, arguing that he had “repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine”. The university did not take action. (Agnew, 11/20)

Before jumping into the Republican race for US Senate in Pennsylvania, Dr. Mehmet Oz regularly supported health insurance mandates and promoted Obamacare, taking positions that are unusual for a Republican candidate. A review by CNN’s KFile of hundreds of Oz’s television, radio, print and social media appearances over more than a decade found that Oz has supported a health insurance mandate for “everyone … to be in the system” and backed government-provided health care coverage for poor Americans and for minors. Of the health care systems he liked most, Oz has cited Germany’s and Switzerland’s, which utilize mandatory universal systems administered by private companies. (Steck, Myers and Woodward, 3/13/22)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: From Dr. Oz To Heart Valves: A Tiny Device Charted A Contentious Path Through The FDA 

In 2013, the FDA approved an implantable device to treat leaky heart valves. Among its inventors was Mehmet Oz, the former television personality and former U.S. Senate candidate widely known as “Dr. Oz.” In online videos, Oz has called the process that brought the MitraClip device to market an example of American medicine firing “on all cylinders,” and he has compared it to “landing a man on the moon.” (Hilzenrath and Hacker, 7/9)

The House passed a sweeping package of measures Monday to expand and strengthen private-sector medical care outside the Department of Veterans Affairs. The package will increase coverage for in-home care of disabled and aging veterans, fund mental health counseling for home-based caregivers and better integrate information on private clinicians in the VA’s computer system to facilitate appointments and sharing patient records. The omnibus package — known as the Sen. Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act —was approved 389-9, with support fairly even along party lines. (Hersey, 11/19)

A resolution proposed Monday by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina would prohibit any lawmakers and House employees from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” Mace said the bill is aimed specifically at Democrat Sarah McBride — the first transgender person to be elected to Congress who was elected to the House this month from Delaware. (Amiri, 11/19)

The first woman entered Congress in 1917. It would take 45 years for the seat of legislative power in the United States to give women their own bathroom. Now, bathroom access for women on the Hill could be restricted yet again — but not because of men. South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who in 2021 stated that she supported transgender equality, has introduced a bill that would ban transgender women from accessing women’s restrooms and facilities in the U.S. Capitol. (Rummler, 11/19)

President-elect Trump on Tuesday called for the Senate to stop confirming judges before he is sworn into office, amid a frantic effort from Democrats to confirm President Biden’s nominees. “The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door. Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told colleagues on the Senate floor Monday to confirm as many judicial nominees as they can before the new year, which could mean weekend and Christmas recess votes for the upper chamber. (Gangitano, 11/19)

Weeks after ProPublica reported on the deaths of two pregnant women whose miscarriages went untreated in Texas, state lawmakers have filed bills that would create new exceptions to the state’s strict abortion laws, broadening doctors’ ability to intervene when their patients face health risks. ... Democratic State Rep. Donna Howard, who filed the bill in the Texas House, said ProPublica’s recent reporting adds to evidence that the current legislation is a threat to the safety of pregnant women in Texas and increases the urgency to make changes. “This is my reaction,” she said. “It’s one of extreme sadness and disbelief that we are at a point where we are allowing women to die because we haven’t been able to clarify the law,” she said. (Jaramillo, Surana, Presser and Branstetter, 11/20)

In the year after Texas began implementing its six-week abortion ban, teen fertility rates in the state rose for the first time in 15 years, according to a study released earlier this year by the University of Houston. Overall, the increase in teen fertility in Texas was slight: only 0.39%. But the University of Houston researchers said the change was significant, because it reversed a 15-year trend and because the national teen fertility rate declined during the same period. They also noted that the increases were larger for Hispanic teens (1.2%) and Black teens (0.5%), while the rate for white teens declined by 0.5%. (Hassanein, 11/20)

Women's health advocates in Africa are worried that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will again invoke the so-called global gag rule, a policy that cuts off U.S. government funding for groups that offer abortion-related services. (Mutsaka, 11/19)

The nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has rankled some abortion opponents, who are concerned about his past statements expressing a liberal position on reproductive rights. Kennedy, a former Democrat who ran for president as an independent before backing Trump, has said in multiple interviews that while he's "personally pro-life," he does not believe it's the government's role to interfere with a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy. As recently as May, he said a woman should be able to have an abortion when she's full term, although he later walked that statement back and announced support for some restrictions on abortion. (Pandolfo, 11/19)

The GOP has signaled some openness to compromise: While campaigning, Trump said he supported abortion exceptions in cases of “rape, incest, and protecting the life of the mother,” and he promised to mandate insurance coverage for in vitro fertilization (IVF). Several Republican lawmakers have backed their own fertility treatment bills. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) backed a Democratic-led IVF measure and speaks openly about his family’s consideration of the procedure. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) has pushed legislation to expand over-the-counter contraception. ... Vox asked six major advocacy groups if they would consider pushing for new federal protections under a Republican-led Congress, be it for IVF, birth control or abortion. (Cohen, 11/20)

California health officials on Tuesday reported a possible case of bird flu in a child with mild symptoms. The child lives in Alameda County, part of the San Francisco Bay Area, and tested positive for the virus despite having no known contact with an infected animal. Officials with the California Department of Public Health said in a news release that they are investigating whether the child could have been exposed to wild birds. It's considered a “possible” case until the positive test is confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Burke, 11/19)

Raw milk has become a common rallying point for right-wing media and wellness influencers — and a cause that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could supercharge as President-elect Trump's Health and Human Services secretary nominee. The dairy product has had a niche following that transcends partisanship for decades. But federal health officials say the lack of heating and pasteurization poses risks like exposure to harmful bacteria like E. coli and listeria — a concern that's been amplified by bird flu spreading among dairy cattle. (Daher, 11/20)

A new study published today in JAMA Network Open shows 1 in 20 US adults were hospitalized within 28 days of a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection during the during the 2016 to 2022 RSV seasons. A second study, published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases estimates the cost of RSV infections and hospitalizations in US infants to be $1.6 billion annually, with infants 3 months and younger accounting for 43% of the costs. (Soucheray, 11/19)

Sixty percent of Americans say they probably won’t get an updated COVID-19 vaccine to protect themselves against the virus heading into the winter months when risk of contraction is higher, with more Democrats showing a willingness to receive another dose than Republicans, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday. Another 24 percent said they probably will get an updated vaccine, while 15 percent said they had already done so, according to an October survey. (Andersen, 11/19)

The rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from fringe figure to the prospective head of U.S. health policy was fueled by skepticism and distrust of the medical establishment—views that went viral in the Covid-19 pandemic. People once dismissed for their disbelief in conventional medicine are now celebrating a new champion in Washington. Scientists, meanwhile, are trying to figure how they could have managed the pandemic without setting off a populist movement they say threatens longstanding public-health measures. (Whyte, 11/19)

Deep in the Amazon rainforest, where Colombia stretches down to touch Peru and Brazil, Hospital San Rafael is overwhelmed. It’s a sweltering spring afternoon, and the rows of white plastic chairs inside the clinic are packed. They have been for days. Some patients are slumped in their seats, eyes closed, breathing slowly. Others, masks at their chins, yell after children running through the hallway. The humidity makes 90F feel well over 100. A few people are fanning themselves with medical records. (Griffin, 11/20)

The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that it has granted emergency use listing for Japan’s LC16m8 mpox vaccine, the second mpox vaccine to receive the designation since the group declared a public health emergency of international concern regarding outbreaks in Africa. The step paves the way for countries to receive doses and for children, hit hard by the virus in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Burundi, to receive doses. Japan had stockpiled the vaccine, which was used in 1974 to vaccinate children. (Schnirring, 11/19)

Change Healthcare’s vital clearinghouse platform has been restored after a cyberattack on the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary caused unprecedented billing and payment disruptions for providers nationwide, the company announced on its status webpage. This is a big step for the technology company after its systems were taken offline following a February ransomware attack that caused widespread disruptions throughout the healthcare system. (Berryman, 11/19)

Competition among Medicare Advantage insurers has accelerated slightly on a local level over the past six years, according to the American Medical Association's annual report on the industry. The average number of insurers selling Medicare Advantage plans in a single metropolitan area increased between 2017, when the AMA started tracking market share, and 2023. Individual companies' average market share also decreased. Nearly every market, however, was still considered "highly concentrated" according to Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department standards. (Tepper, 11/19)

CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group and Cigna sued the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, claiming that the agency’s case against drug supply chain middlemen over high insulin prices in the U.S. is unconstitutional. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, is the latest move in a bitter legal fight between the three largest pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, in the U.S. and the FTC. (Constantino, 11/19)

After more than a year without a dedicated cancer treatment center in Key West, cancer care is expected to return to the Lower Keys. GenesisCare cancer treatment center closed in August 2023, when its parent company filed for bankruptcy. Since then, Lower Keys cancer patients have had to find alternative treatment locations, in some cases driving three hours, over 100 miles away. Now, Baptist Health is planning to expand its cancer care and open a treatment center at the site of the former GenesisCare center, on North Roosevelt Boulevard. (Cooper, 11/19)

Mike Pykosz is no longer president of healthcare delivery at CVS Health. Pykosz, who co-founded Oak Street Health and was CEO when it was acquired by CVS in 2023, has decided to leave the company and will be replaced by Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sreekanth Chaguturu, according to a Tuesday news release. Chaguturu will continue his role as chief medical officer at CVS, the release said. (Hudson, 11/19)

Ex-MetroHealth CEO Dr. Akram Boutros has filed a lawsuit against the health system one week after the Ohio Auditor of the State’s office released a report saying his actions involving the bonuses he paid himself were not criminal. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, Nov. 19, in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, accuses MetroHealth of breach of contract, promissory estoppel and defamation. It alleges that MetroHealth’s Board of Trustees “unjustly fired” Boutros from his position and “publicly defamed” him with “baseless accusations that he received unearned incentive compensation without the Board of Trustees’ knowledge.” (Bennett, 11/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Ex-Eye Bank Workers Say Pressure, Lax Oversight Led To Errors

William Lopez remembers clearly the day in June 2017 when he says he was asked to call the spouse of a college friend who had just died and ask for her eyes. The spouse hadn’t responded to calls from other employees at the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Bank, he said. As Lopez recalled, his supervisor thought a friend’s personal number would have more success. Lopez refused. “I went for a walk,” he said. (Beck and Bichell, 11/20)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: FTC, Indiana Residents Pressure State To Block Hospital Merger

Indiana residents and federal officials are urging state health regulators to stop two rival hospitals in Terre Haute from merging. The deal, if approved, would leave residents with a hospital monopoly. Union Health, a nonprofit whose main hospital is licensed as a 341-bed facility, would buy the county’s only other acute care hospital, the 278-bed Terre Haute Regional Hospital, owned by for-profit chain HCA Healthcare and located 5 miles south across the city’s downtown area. Union says the merger to create one larger nonprofit health system would improve the area’s poor public health rankings. (Liss, 11/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Listen: A Tussle With A Rattlesnake Can Take A Bite Out Of Your Wallet

This spring, a San Diego toddler spent two days in a pediatric intensive care unit after a rattlesnake bit his hand in his family’s backyard. The bills that followed were staggering, with the lifesaving antivenom the 2-year-old needed accounting for more than two-thirds of the total cost — $213,000. Why is antivenom so expensive? One explanation is the markup hospitals add to balance overhead costs and make money. Another explanation is a lack of meaningful competition. There are only two rattlesnake antivenoms approved by the Food and Drug Administration. (Fortiér, 11/20)

The U.S. surgeon general said Tuesday that a federal ban on menthol cigarettes would be one of the most effective ways to slash tobacco-related illnesses and deaths among Black people — even as the clock winds down on the Biden administration’s ability to do anything about it. The long-standing promise of a ban on menthol cigarettes, which has been years in the making, is unlikely to move forward before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. (Edwards and Alba, 11/19)

As vaping’s popularity endures, a report issued by the surgeon general’s office Tuesday shows that LGBTQ Americans are among those helping to keep smoke shops in business. The surgeon general’s 837-page report on tobacco use found that 37.8% of gay, lesbian and bisexual U.S. adults have tried electronic cigarettes, compared with just 16.5% of their straight counterparts. Electronic cigarettes, also known as e-cigarettes, include e-cigars, e-pipes, e-hookahs, vaping pens and hookah pens. (Lavietes, 11/19)

The survival rate for people with lung cancer is improving, according to the new State of Lung Cancer report. The American Lung Association report says there have been important advances in early detection and treatments but lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths. ... The new report shows the lung cancer survival rate has improved 26% in the last five years. Temple lung surgeon Dr. Jamie Garfield, who's also a spokesperson for the lung association, says fewer people are smoking — the leading cause of lung cancer. (Stahl and Nau, 11/19)

It’s no secret that air pollution is tied to lung disease and cancer, but a new study sheds light on the significant role of pollution when it comes to head and neck cancer. Mass General Brigham researchers have found that air pollution is linked to higher rates of head and neck aerodigestive cancer. “While there has been substantial research investigating the effects of air pollutants on lung disease, few studies have focused on air pollution exposure as a risk factor for the upper airway, including the development of head and neck cancer,” said study senior author Stella Lee. (Sobey, 11/19)

Doing more aerobic exercise in middle age and old age may reduce the risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, a new study found. “Our study underscores the critical role of cardiovascular fitness in reducing dementia risk, even for those genetically predisposed to Alzheimer’s disease,” said Weili Xu, a professor in the Aging Research Center at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. (LaMotte, 11/19)

Derek Pfaff remembers being under a lot of stress throughout college. He remembers coming home from school during spring break in March 2014. But he does not remember the night that forever changed his life. (Howard, 11/19)

A stroke, a traumatic brain injury — at any moment, any one of us could leave behind our normal state of consciousness and start to require ’round-the-clock care. Sometimes, a patient displays regular cycles of wakefulness and sleep without regaining the capacity for normal voluntary action. This is a tragic situation for the patient’s family — but what, if anything, might the patient themselves be experiencing? (Jonathan Birch, 11/20)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the Memorial Hermann Health System for allegedly prohibiting off-duty police officers from carrying their firearms at the organization's facilities, according to court records. The suit, which was filed Tuesday, claimed that, in at least 10 instances, law enforcement officers were barred from carrying their service weapons at Memorial Hermann locations in and around Houston. Paxton is seeking $1,000 in civil penalties for each violation, in addition to associated legal fees. (Lomax V, 11/19)

Ivette Palomeque has endured plenty of threats as a registered nurse in Houston, but she’s still shaken by the memory of a family threatening to shoot her and her colleagues at a local hospital. The incident happened years ago at a hospital where Palomeque no longer works. A patient died, and the grieving family was so upset and angry that they threatened to come back to the hospital with guns, Palomeque said. Fortunately, they never did. “It was scary because they had to actually put the unit on lockdown,” said Palomeque, a critical care nurse. (MacDonald, 11/19)

Nurses and other health care workers have seen an increase in threats and violence against them in recent years, and the state of Texas is now requiring hospitals to do more to keep employees safe .Many hospitals in the Texas Medical Center had workplace violence prevention plans in place long before Texas legislatures passed a 2023 law, Senate Bill 240, that required all health care providers to adopt one by Sept. 1. (MacDonald, 11/19)

The strike by Kaiser Permanente mental health workers is in its fifth week. On Friday, the union filed a complaint with the California Department of Public Health alleging patient care violations due to understaffing. Elizabeth Meza, a hospice clinical social worker with Kaiser San Diego for 14 years, said she is concerned about the impact the strike is having on patients and their families. (de Marco, 11/19)

A report released Tuesday by the state’s Office of Health Strategy found shortfalls in reimbursement for behavioral health services across all insurance types, which could lead to issues for residents trying to access care. (Golvala, 11/19)

Personal care brand Tom's of Maine received a warning from the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month after the agency found disease-causing bacteria and mold-like and powdery substances in their products and facilities. In a letter to Tom's that was published Tuesday, a FDA inspector identified several types of bacteria in the water supply at its facility in Sanford, Maine, including Paracoccus yeei; Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can lead to blood, lung and urinary tract infections; and Ralstonia insidiosa, which can lead to sepsis. The brand used the water in its products and to rinse equipment, the FDA said. (Archie, 11/20)

An Iowa-based group that strives to alleviate world hunger and awards an annual prize honoring individuals for their efforts to improve food availability, on Tuesday announced a leadership change as the group works to expand its international focus. Mashal Husain, chief operating officer of The World Food Prize Foundation, will become president, replacing Terry Branstad, the former U.S. ambassador to China and Iowa governor, who will retire, the organization announced in a news release. The food prize was founded by Normal Borlaug, an Iowa native awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his part in the “Green Revolution,” which dramatically increased agricultural production and reduced the threat of starvation in much of the world. (McFetridge, 11/19)

Americans are living longer lives as we make progress against age-related illnesses. But if the added years are lost in dementia, what have we really gained? Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s announcement Monday that he is pushing forward a legislative initiative to fund new research into treatments for dementia is a welcome statement that Texas wants to fight. (11/20)

Vaccines save lives and reduce health care costs. Those are facts. They have been critical public health tools for more than 200 years. Their hallmark achievement was against smallpox, a frequently disfiguring and often fatal disease that killed over 300 million people in the 20th century before a worldwide vaccination campaign eradicated it in 1980. (Michael T. Osterholm and Ezekiel J. Emmanuel, 11/20)

An environmental lawyer, Kennedy is a master at seeding doubt around public health. He employs the same distrust-sowing technique that worked for the tobacco industry for decades, “just asking questions” dissembling that threatens support for science and an already stumbling public health infrastructure. (Maggie Fox, 11/19)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary, claims that the agencies overseeing the nation’s health are conspiring with the food industry to “poison” the American public, and he intends to fire hundreds of government workers who he believes are complicit in the scheme. (11/20)