�鶹Ů��

Vice President Kamala Harris is proposing to provide federal funding to cover home care costs for older Americans, aiming to help the “ sandwich generation " of adults caring for aging parents while raising their children at the same time. Appearing Tuesday on ABC’s “The View,” Harris talked about taking care of her mother when she was dying and personally experiencing the challenges many families face when seeking affordable in-home care for their aging loved ones. (Weissert, 10/8)

In an election this close, proposals that speak to the financial security and health care needs of older Americans will resonate and can make a difference," said Rich Fiesta, the executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, who has a PAC running anti-Trump advertisements. A September AARP poll showed that 78% of women who are over 50 years old and care for older family members say they've been struggling financially. Another AARP poll in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state, showed former president Donald Trump with an edge among voters 50 and over: 53% for Trump and 44% for Harris.  (Tin and Navarro, 10/8)

Insulin for $35 a month. A limit of $2,000 a year in out-of-pocket drug costs for older Americans. Billions of dollars in savings for Medicare resulting from drug negotiations. Whether these policies expand or, in the case of the negotiations, survive at all may be determined by the election in November. (Abelson and Robbins, 10/8)

Billionaire Mark Cuban has told Vice President Kamala Harris that one of her first priorities as president should be to require pharmaceutical companies and pharmacy-benefit managers to be more transparent about what they are charging consumers and insurance companies for drugs. Vice President Harris “told me specifically that she likes the idea of transparency, and she sees that as a winner,” Cuban told reporters at an event hosted by �鶹Ů��, a nonpartisan healthcare-policy organization, in Washington on Tuesday. (Matthews, 10/8)

On Tuesday, Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign released a proposal to crack down on middlemen in the pharmaceutical industry. It seems billionaire business mogul Mark Cuban had a heads up. (Zhang, 10/8)

Baxter on Oct. 8 said it has resumed shipments of IV products to hospitals and dialysis patients after a temporary week-long hold and is inspecting finished goods to support current allocations. Baxter also said several of the manufacturer's global plants are ramping production to meet U.S. needs and expect to receive product from the sources throughout October. As hospitals across the U.S. confront an IV fluid shortage  following the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, there have been new reports of supply disruptions. (Murphy, 10/8)

Germany's Fresenius (FREG.DE) said it was checking options to speed up the start of new production lines of medical equipment at a North Carolina facility to help mitigate potential shortages from hurricane damage to rival Baxter's (BAX.N) site in the same state. "We are working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Drug Shortage Staff, which is actively engaged with Baxter and other manufacturers" to assess whether and by how much capacity has to be increased, Fresenius said in a statement. (10/9)

The storm shutters are up at Stephen Johnson’s house near the water in North Fort Myers, Fla. He has extra food and water for his 65-year-old mother and their two dogs and two cats. But Jones won’t be home when Hurricane Milton is expected to thunder ashore this week along the Gulf Coast. Instead, the paramedic — like thousands of health-care workers across Florida — intends to ride out the storm at work, then jump into action when the winds die down, the waters recede and people seek medical assistance. (Ovalle and Malhi, 10/8)

Hospitals and other health care facilities on Florida’s Gulf Coast — still reeling from Hurricane Helene — are now revving up for Hurricane Milton. ... According to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ website, 10 hospitals have reported evacuations as of Tuesday afternoon. Three hundred health care facilities have evacuated as of this morning, the most many of the staff working there could remember, said Florida Agency for Health Care Administration deputy secretary Kim Smoak. That count included 63 nursing homes and 169 assisted living facilities. (Bose and Shastri, 10/9)

The drugmaker responsible for bringing the controversial abortion pill to the U.S. is now pursuing a new use that could widen women’s access: treating miscarriages. Danco Laboratories is preparing scientific data and taking other steps to ask the Food and Drug Administration to approve use of the abortion pill regimen Mifeprex for management of miscarriages, according to people familiar with the matter. (Essley Whyte, 10/8)

Texas’ new abortion laws are stressing the state’s already beleaguered OB/GYN workforce, and threatening the pipeline of new doctors that would help provide relief, a new survey shows. More than 70% of practicing OB/GYNs in Texas feel the near-total ban has negatively impacted their work, prohibiting them from providing high quality, evidence-based care for their patients, according to survey results released Tuesday. (Klibanoff, 10/8)

Two court rulings this week have delivered major blows to reproductive rights in Texas and Georgia but, during a crucial time in the election cycle, Democrats are seizing on them in an attempt to energize voters who support abortion access. Advocates hope the rulings will serve as reminders about what’s at stake in a post-Roe America just weeks before a presidential election that has been partly defined by competing visions of abortion rights and the sometimes harrowing consequences for women living in states with abortion bans. (Fernando, 10/8)

Former President Trump’s softening stance on reproductive health has raised questions about his standing with white evangelical voters, a key part of his coalition dating back to 2016. Last week, the former president said he would veto a national abortion ban if elected, while his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), said the GOP needed to regain voters’ trust on the issue. Former first lady Melania Trump went even further, emphatically voicing her support for abortion rights. (Manchester, 10/8)

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is threatening to criminally prosecute Florida television stations if they do not stop running a political advertisement featuring a brain cancer patient who supports a November ballot measure that would broaden access to abortion in Florida. But nearly a week after the state warned TV stations to pull the ad, the commercial is still running, and attorneys representing a political committee sponsoring the abortion ballot measure have issued a defiant legal letter in which they call the administration’s effort an “unconstitutional state action.” (Healy and Ceballos, 10/8)

Montana GOP Senate nominee Tim Sheehy said young women are “single-issue voters” on abortion and young voters are “indoctrinated” to support liberal causes, according to audio of the candidate speaking at campaign events last year. ... These newly reported comments concern abortion, which has been a rallying issue for supporters of abortion rights and a potential vulnerability for Republicans following the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. (Gans, 10/8)

A leading national survey finds that 22% of LGBTQ+ women respondents have attempted suicide, and 66% reported seeking treatment for trauma. “The trauma burden in this community is enormous,” said Jaime Grant, one of the researchers who conducted the survey. (Roldan, 10/8)

About 3.3 percent of high school students identify as transgender and another 2.2 percent are questioning their gender identity, according to the first nationally representative survey on these groups, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday. Transgender and gender-questioning teenagers reported alarmingly higher rates of bullying at school, persistent sadness and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, according to the survey, which was carried out in 2023. (Ghorayshi, 10/8)

The Biden administration on Wednesday will release a preliminary list of generic drugs that would be made available to Medicare recipients under a pilot program for no more than $2 out of pocket. The initiative — which covers common drugs for high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other chronic conditions — aims to test whether offering low-cost generics can boost seniors' medication adherence and health outcomes, while giving them more certainty on out-of-pocket costs. (Goldman, 10/9)

A slate of popular policies commonly bandied about to help reduce drug costs would each cut average prices by only a handful of percentage points, according to a recent Congressional Budget Office report. But even small percentage savings could be consequential: By 2031, the retail drug market is slated to grow to more than $690 billion, according to the CBO. That includes both public and private buyers. (Lim and Gardner, 10/8)

The U.S. health regulator has declined to approve Zealand Pharma's (ZELA.CO) drug to prevent and treat low blood sugar in children with a genetic disorder, the Danish biotech firm said on Tuesday, marking the second rejection for the treatment. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in its so-called "complete response letter" cited the timing of a third-party manufacturing facility reinspection for the decision, the company said. The letter, however, did not mention any concerns about the clinical data package or safety of the drug, dasiglucagon. (10/9)

Federal authorities are warning of a new ransomware gang that has already claimed at least one healthcare victim in the U.S. Trinity ransomware, which was first detected around May, uses tactics such as phishing emails, malicious websites and software vulnerabilities to hack organizations then employs "double extortion," according to an Oct. 4 notice from HHS' Office of Information Security and Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center. (Bruce, 10/8)

Providers, health IT groups and reproductive health care advocates largely support a proposed HHS rule to make health data, including public health information, easier to share while protecting patient privacy. But they disagree on the specific wording needed to protect reproductive health care data. Background: The rule, proposed in July, would standardize how public health departments transmit data among each other and to the CDC via certified protocols. (Cirruzzo and Leonard, 10/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Poppy Seed Brew Triggers Morphine Overdose, Drawing Attention Of Lawmakers

It sounds like a joke: poppy seeds infused with opioids. Indeed, it was a plotline on the sitcom Seinfeld. But for some it has been a tragedy. People have died after drinking tea brewed from unwashed poppy seeds. And after eating lemon poppy seed bread or an everything bagel, mothers reportedly have been separated from newborns because the women failed drug tests. Poppy seeds come from the plant that produces opium and from which narcotics such as morphine and codeine are derived. (Hilzenrath, 10/9)

GSK said on Tuesday that its Arexvy respiratory syncytial virus vaccine was 43.3% effective in preventing severe illness in its third season after patients received the shot. That compares with 94.1% effectiveness in preventing severe RSV in the first season and 64.2% a year later, according to data from GSK's Phase 3 clinical trial. The trial initially enrolled about 25,000 volunteers in 17 countries. Arexvy is one of three RSV vaccines approved for use, alongside shots made by Pfizer and Moderna, with GSK's shot so far dominating the market. (10/8)

U.S. sales of RSV vaccines from GSK (GSK.L) and Pfizer (PFE.N) are down significantly after regulators narrowed the targeted age group and said it was a once-in-a-lifetime shot for now, excluding millions of people who got one last year. Some independent pharmacists said demand during the autumn vaccination season for respiratory syncytial virus shots has fallen as much as two-thirds from a year ago. (Erman, 10/9)

As the country heads into the respiratory illness season, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced yesterday its marketing authorization of the first over-the-counter (OTC) rapid-antigen COVID-19/flu combination test outside of emergency use authorization. The Healgen Rapid Check COVID-19/Flu A&B Antigen Test takes 15 minutes to detect proteins from both COVID-19 and influenza A and B in nasal swabs. (Van Beusekom, 10/8)

Covid-19 could be a powerful risk factor for heart attacks and strokes for as long as three years after an infection, a large new study suggests. The study was published Wednesday in the medical journal Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. It relied on medical records from roughly a quarter of a million people who were enrolled in a large database called the UK Biobank. (Goodman, 10/9)

A trade organization representing compounding pharmacies that make unbranded versions of the weight loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound has filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for declaring an end to the shortage, effectively halting the sale of “copycat” versions of these drugs. On Oct. 2, the FDA announced that the nearly two-year-long shortage of tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro and Zepbound, had ended. (Choi, 10/8)

WeightWatchers said on Tuesday it would offer a compounded version of Novo Nordisk's popular obesity drug Wegovy as part of its weight-management programs, sending its shares nearly 47% higher to an over two-month closing high. Soaring demand for weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound, shown to help patients lose as much as 20% of weight on average, has led to shortages that allowed drug compounders to produce them under U.S. regulations. (10/8)

Responding to growing pressure, ViiV Healthcare announced steps to widen access to its HIV prevention medicine in low- and middle-income countries, marking the second time in two years the company is taking such steps. But as before, the move was met with criticism over certain details. The latest effort involves tripling the annual supply of the drug, a long-acting medication known as cabotegravir, in hopes of making more than 2 million doses available during 2025 and 2026. The company — which is largely owned by GSK, while Pfizer and Shionogi hold minority stakes — explained this will roughly triple the availability this year in those countries. (Silverman, 10/8)

UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health have petitioned a federal judge to sideline Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and the two Democratic FTC commissioners from the agency’s lawsuit against the country’s largest pharmacy benefit managers. Attorneys for UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx and CVS Caremark contend Khan, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, and Alvaro Bedoya “have made repeated incorrect prejudgments” about the PBMs as well as their group purchasing organizations that aggregate rebates from drug manufacturers, according to legal filings dated Tuesday night. (Herman, 10/9)

Investing in products for individuals with complex medical needs has emerged as a key tactic for health insurers endeavoring to revive Medicare Advantage margins. Leading insurance companies pulled back slightly from Medicare Advantage for the coming plan year amid financial strains but are continuing a big push into the market for Dual-Eligible Special Needs Plans, or D-SNPs, which cover people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid, according to analyses of preliminary data about the 2025 Medicare Advantage marketplace. (Berryman, 10/9)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Employers Haven’t A Clue How Their Drug Benefits Are Managed

Most employers have little idea what the pharmacy benefit managers they hire do with the money they exchange for the medications used by their employees, according to a �鶹Ů�� survey released Wednesday morning. In �鶹Ů��’s latest employer health benefits survey, company officials were asked how much of the rebates collected from drugmakers by pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, is returned to them. (Allen, 10/9)

When former executives team up with an activist investor to “help” a struggling company, it is often bad news for the current chief executive. That is one implication behind activist investor Starboard Value’s $1 billion stake and its push to make changes at Pfizer, which The Wall Street Journal reported has support from former Pfizer Chief Executive Ian Read and former Chief Financial Officer Frank D’Amelio. Another important takeaway is that investors are eager to see a more disciplined and focused development strategy from the company. (Wainer, 10/8)

Michael Waters, chief operating officer of Teladoc Health, will leave his position at the end of the year. Waters will exit effective Dec. 31 in connection with a change in the executive reporting structure, according to a Sept. 27 Securities and Exchange Commission filing. He has served as Teladoc's COO since July 2022. (Desilva, 10/8)

A trade group representing large compounding pharmacies has sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a “reckless and arbitrary” decision to remove a widely prescribed Eli Lilly drug for combating diabetes and obesity from an official shortages list. The Outsourcing Facilities Association argued that a shortage of the drug, known as tirzepatide, actually still exists and the agency action was a coup for the company that came at the expense of the public. Moreover, the trade group maintained the FDA move was “unlawful,” because it failed to follow so-called rule-making procedures and provide proper notice of its plans. (Silverman, 10/8)

Four large nonprofit health systems created a new company to use as a testing ground for boosting access to drugs, improved care coordination for Medicare Advantage patients and streamlined billing processes. Baylor Scott & White Health, Memorial Hermann Health System, Novant Health and Providence are the founding members of Longitude Health. Each health system has made an undisclosed financial commitment to fund Longitude, which is a Delaware-based holding company owned and managed by its founders. (Kacik, 10/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: 'An Arm and a Leg' Podcast: ‘Baby Steps’ In The Fight Against Facility Fees

An extra $99 fee on top of a copay for a checkup didn’t sit right with a listener. Turns out, state legislators across the country aren’t buying it either. (10/9)

A study published yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases describes prolonged shedding of Oropouche virus RNA in a symptomatic traveler's whole blood, serum, and urine, while viral replication was detected in semen 16 days after infection, which the authors say suggests a risk of sexual transmission. Oropouche virus, an emerging zoonotic arbovirus, is spread mainly by biting midges and Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes. (Van Beusekom, 10/8)

Rates of babesiosis, a tickborne disease, increased by 9% per year in the United States from 2015 to 2022, according to a study today in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. The study also found 4 in 10 people with babesiosis were coinfected with another tickborne illness, including Lyme disease. ... The infection attacks the red blood cells, and though most people recover after flu-like symptoms, infection can be deadly in the elderly and immune compromised. (Soucheray, 10/8)

When Dennis Carr learned he had early Alzheimer’s disease, he immediately thought of his older brother who had died of the illness in 2023. “There was not much anyone could do,” Carr said of his brother’s long decline. “You could see him diminishing.” Today, Carr is trying a new treatment called Leqembi that has been shown to modestly slow the disease for people in the initial stages of Alzheimer’s. Carr knows it is not a cure but he wants to buy time — to be with his family, to work and to give scientists a chance to find more solutions. (McGinley, 10/8)

Your behavior today could affect your brain activity in two weeks' time, new research suggests. These findings have significant implications for our mental health as well as our attention, cognition and memory. "The effect of your daily choices is not only reflected in today's brain connectivity," Ana Triana, a researcher at Aalto University in Finland and the study's lead author, told Newsweek. (Dewan, 10/8)

The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded Wednesday to three scientists for their breakthrough work predicting and even designing the structure of proteins, the building blocks of life. The prize was awarded to David Baker, who works at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, who both work at Google DeepMind, a British-American artificial intelligence research laboratory based in London. (Niemann and Corder, 10/9)

On just one sweltering day during the hottest June on record in Phoenix, a 38-year-old man collapsed under a freeway bridge and a 41-year-old woman was found slumped outside a business. Both had used methamphetamine before dying from an increasingly dangerous mix of soaring temperatures and stimulants. Meth is showing up more often as a factor in the deaths of people who died from heat-related causes in the U.S., according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Snow and Wildeman, 10/9)

White House officials say more than 250 companies, universities, labor groups and other organizations have joined a national effort to reduce drug overdose deaths. They’ve agreed to stock free doses of the medication naloxone, also known as Narcan, that quickly reverses most fentanyl-opioid overdoses. The list of participants joining the national naloxone push includes major corporations like Amazon, the National Hockey League, and United Airlines as well as some universities. Labor and contractor organizations have also signed on, along with restaurant and hospitality trade groups. (Mann, 10/8)

An exoskeleton gave Michael Straight the ability to walk again after a horse racing accident left him a paraplegic. Over the course of 10 years, Straight walked more than a half-million steps while paralyzed, helping to pioneer a field. But in June, his machine stopped working, and the manufacturer refused to repair it. For the first time in a decade, Straight couldn’t walk. “It was like being paralyzed all over again,” he said. (Edwards, 10/8)

In the aftermath of a propane explosion at her mother’s house in Savannah, Ga., in 2021, Ms. Townsend spent more than six weeks in an induced coma in a burn trauma unit. She had second- and third-degree burns over most of her body, and her face had become unrecognizable. Searching for a way to help her, surgeons turned to a rarely utilized tool: human placenta. They carefully applied a thin layer of the donated organ to her face, which Ms. Townsend said was “the best thing they could have done, ever.” She still has scars from grafts elsewhere on her body, but the 47-year-old’s face, she said, “looks exactly like it did before.” (Morgan, 10/8)

In a new study published in Frontiers in Microbiomes, researchers from Northwestern University collected samples from 32 toothbrushes and 92 showerheads across the United States and found hundreds of different viruses on their surfaces, many of which had never been seen before. "We may think of our toothbrushes and showerheads in one way, but in another sense, they are a habitat for microbes, a place where microbial ecology happens," the study's lead author, Erica Hartmann, told Newsweek. "It's a microbial world; we just live in it." (Dewan, 10/9)

"The Office" star Jenna Fischer has revealed her battle against an aggressive form of breast cancer. Fischer, 50, on Tuesday shared an Instagram post detailing her cancer journey, which began 10 months ago with a Stage 1 triple-positive breast cancer diagnosis. The cancer was detected early, before it could be felt, through diagnostic imaging, and Fischer is now "cancer-free" while still taking medications for treatment. (Robinson, 10/8)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Asian Health Center Tries Unconventional Approach To Counseling

In her first months as a community health worker, Jee Hyo Kim helped violent crime survivors access supportive services and resources. When a client with post-traumatic stress disorder sought a therapist, she linked him to one that fit his needs. She helped clients afraid to leave their homes obtain food delivery vouchers. As one client described her, Kim was a “connector.” Then, Kim learned to go further. (10/9)

Affordable healthcare is essential for public health and equality. However, access varies widely across the nation. ... Zoi Galarraga, Senior Digital PR Manager at Forbes Advisor, the group who led the study, told Newsweek. "A recent survey from Gallup and West Health found that just 55 percent of U.S. adults can access and afford quality healthcare when needed. "Additionally, over 100 million Americans—nearly one third of the nation— do not have access to a usual source of primary care, according to the National Association Of Community Health Centers." (Dewan, 10/8)

Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance is 6 foot, 2 inches, it was revealed last week, putting to bed speculation about his height after a Google error suggested he was much shorter. But epidemiologists have told Newsweek that Vance bucks a wider national trend, as average heights in America are falling in comparison with the rest of the world. Experts have suggested that poor nutrition and unequal access to healthcare could be holding Americans back from reaching their vertical potential. (Willmoth, 10/7)

More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia filed lawsuits against TikTok on Tuesday, saying that the popular short-form video app is designed to be addictive to kids and harms their mental health. The lawsuits stem from a national investigation into TikTok, which was launched in March 2022 by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from many states, including New York, California, Kentucky and New Jersey. All of the complaints were filed in state courts. (Hadero and Ortutay, 10/8)

Steward Health Care physicians could be exposed to malpractice lawsuits for years to come and plaintiffs may not be able to collect awards because a Panamanian insurer the bankrupt hospital operator owns will likely run out of money, Massachusetts officials said. TRACO International Group, which insures 1,400 physicians, is financially dependent on Steward and has little to no independent capital of its own, according to a court filing Monday by the Massachusetts attorney general and state health regulators. (Biswas, 10/8)

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

“Health Minute” brings original health care and health policy reporting from the �鶹Ů�� Health News newsroom to the airwaves each week. (10/8)

It's troubling that among Americans over 64, a full 25% struggle to afford their medicines, according to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. A separate analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services put the number of Medicare patients struggling with pharmacy costs at more than three million in 2019. (Kenneth Thorpe, 10/7)

There’s been a lot of attention on the federal government’s move to set price limits on 10 prescription drugs under Medicare to help reduce costs. While it’s encouraging to see some relief for a segment of consumers, this is merely a drop in the bucket when it comes to overall prescription drug cost savings – and more needs to be done to help Floridians. (Keith Dean, 10/4)

While insurers and their related entities should have the ability to question fraudulent or unnecessary treatments, they should not artificially inflate patient out-of-pocket costs to boost their profits. However, this is precisely what pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — the middlemen negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies — are doing. (Dodson Thompson, 10/3)

As director of the Health Outcomes, Policy, and Evidence Synthesis group at the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy, I teach and study about the ethics of prescription drug prices and the complexities of drug pricing nationally. (C. Michael White, 10/3)

Americans’ waistlines have grown relentlessly for decades: a costly, debilitating and deadly trend that prompted observers to wonder if and when they would finally stop expanding. Well, the federal government released data Sept. 24 showing that the obesity epidemic, one of the most dire public health crises, might have stopped worsening. (10/8)

When Covid hit the US and many public health experts were trying to act strong and confident, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm took a different approach. Asked about the novel coronavirus, he often replied honestly, “I don’t know.” (F.D. Flam, 10/9)

The conversation about the mental health crisis is loud, but at a standstill. Stuck on repeat around the challenges of accessing existing treatments, the situation can appear increasingly hopeless. (Miranda Wolpert, 10/7)

Another ultra-rare therapy will soon be subject to the gaze of an FDA advisory committee, with the fate of more than 200 boys diagnosed with Barth syndrome worldwide in the balance. On Thursday, the FDA cardiovascular and renal drugs advisory committee will be reviewing a new drug application for elamipretide hydrochloride injection, submitted by Stealth BioTherapeutics Inc., for the treatment of Barth syndrome. (Emil D. Kakkis, 10/9)