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Most Americans should get an updated COVID-19 vaccine, health officials said Tuesday. Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed the new shots for everyone 6 months and older and the agency’s director quickly signed off Tuesday on the panel’s recommendation. That means doses should be available this week, some as early as Wednesday. (Stobbe and Neergaard, 9/12)

Mandy Cohen, director of the CDC, advised that anyone 6 months and older should get at least one dose of an updated shot. Her broad recommendation came after the agency’s expert advisers voted for a universal approach to seasonal coronavirus vaccination. The shots are intended to bolster defenses as the nation heads into the fall and winter virus season, when influenza and RSV are also primed to be on the rise. Cohen said the reformulated vaccines can restore protection and provide “enhanced protection” against variants currently responsible for most infections and hospitalizations in the United States. Cohen followed the lead of the agency’s vaccine experts who earlier in the day voted for the universal vaccination policy. (Sun and Nirappil, 9/12)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Why The CDC Has Recommended New Covid Boosters For All

The CDC advises that everyone over 6 months old should, for the broader benefit of all. Those at highest risk of serious disease include babies and toddlers, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with chronic health conditions including obesity. The risks are lower — though not zero — for everyone else. The vaccines, we’ve learned, tend to prevent infection in most people for only a few months. But they do a good job of preventing hospitalization and death, and by at least diminishing infections they may slow spread of the disease to the vulnerable, whose immune systems may be too weak to generate a good response to the vaccine. (Allen, 9/13)

The downsides are pretty small: Research shows that people are only slightly more likely to experience side effects like pain at the injection site, headaches, fatigue or fever if they opt for both shots at once. In one study published last week, researchers in Israel found that the incidence of side effects in people who just got the flu shot was 12.7 percent. Among those who only received the Covid bivalent booster last year, 27.4 percent experienced side effects, and of the people who received both vaccines, 27.6 percent experienced side effects. In other words, you shouldn't worry too much about feeling extra sore or sick if you get both vaccines together. (Sheikh and Blum, 9/12)

The effort to get Americans updated COVID-19 shots this fall will be the first major vaccination campaign without the federal government guaranteeing their availability at no cost. A new federal program and other community efforts will continue providing free vaccines for uninsured people, but experts say it won't be as easy for them to access the shots. (Goldman and Millman, 9/13)

A Texas city council voted on Tuesday to prohibit the enforcement of any COVID-19 mandate implemented at the federal or state level. The City of Odessa's resolution was presented by City Council Member Chris Hanie, who said residents should decide for themselves whether to mask up, KOSA reported. "Nobody’s gonna lose a job because they don’t get a stick or they have to wear a mask," Hanie said. (Mion, 9/13)

A meeting Tuesday of South Carolina lawmakers considering how to best counter future pandemics was dominated by vaccine skeptics pushing concerns about COVID-19 immunizations that are unaccepted by the greater medical community. Members of the all-Republican panel seeking more independence from federal health regulators were receptive to speakers who sewed doubt about vaccine safety and efficacy, as well as distrust in the scientific establishment. Testimony began with an hourlong presentation from Aaron Siri, the managing partner at a New York law firm that 2021 tax filings show received over $3 million from an influential Texas-based group that campaigns against vaccine requirements. (Pollard, 9/12)

A new study in Nature Communications suggests that both prior infection with COVID-19 and prior vaccination with mRNA vaccines can limit the secondary attack rate of SARS-CoV-2.Immunity from prior infections is stronger at limiting contagiousness, but fades quickly, compared to immunity from vaccines, which was longer-lasting. And SARS-CoV-2 infections, of course, come with much higher risks of poor outcomes than do COVID vaccines. (Soucheray, 9/12)

The leading decongestant used by millions of Americans looking for relief from a stuffy nose is no better than a dummy pill, according to government experts who reviewed the latest research on the long-questioned drug ingredient. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Tuesday against the effectiveness of the key drug found in popular versions of Sudafed, Dayquil and other medications stocked on store shelves. (Perrone, 9/12)

In the meantime, experts advised consumers not to panic or toss out all the drugs in their medicine cabinet. Even though the agency’s advisers have decided the ingredient, phenylephrine, doesn’t work to relieve nasal congestion when taken orally, it is not dangerous, and the products do contain other ingredients that will work to ease cold symptoms. ... “If you have a stuffy nose and you take this medicine, you will still have a stuffy nose,” said Dr. Leslie Hendeles, a pharmacist from the University of Florida in Gainesville who, along with colleagues, first petitioned the F.D.A. in 2007 to remove the drug from the market. (Jewett and Rabin, 9/12)

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CPHA) maintains that phenylephrine is effective and that the FDA's guidance could have significant "negative unintended consequences." Pulling drugs like Sudafed from store shelves would make it harder for consumers to treat mild illnesses, according to the industry trade group. Removing popular over-the-counter medications from the market would force some people "to find time to seek help from a pharmacist, doctor or clinic for an oral decongestant for a minor ailment they could otherwise self-treat," the group said in a statement before the determination was made. (Cerullo, 9/12)

The FDA found that phenylephrine, the primary ingredient in many over the counter decongestants, is ineffective. But what exactly is it? (Walrath-Holdridge, 9/12)

The number of prescription opioid pain pills shipped in the United States plummeted nearly 45 percent between 2011 and 2019, new federal data shows, even as fatal overdoses rose to record levels as users increasingly used heroin, and then illegal fentanyl. The data confirms what’s long been known about the arc of the nation’s addiction crisis: Users first got hooked by pain pills saturating the nation, then turned to cheaper and more readily available street drugs after law-enforcement crackdowns, public outcry and changes in how the medical community views prescribing opioids to treat pain. (Rich and Ovalle, 9/12)

The data showed how doctors were prescribing more powerful pills, even as the deaths added up. And it showed just how pervasive the drugs were: Each year, drug companies were shipping enough pills for everyone living in some counties — mostly in Appalachia — to have more than a 100-day supply. The newly released data is the first deep look at what happened with prescription drug shipments later in the 2010s. But the story of the overdose crisis from that time forward is well documented and dire. (Mulvihill, 9/12)

A federal appeals court weighing whether to uphold a $650 million judgment against pharmacy operators CVS, Walmart and Walgreens for fueling the opioid epidemic in parts of Ohio has asked the state's highest court to weigh in first. The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday said that the pharmacies' appeal of the judgment won by two Ohio counties raised "novel and unresolved questions" of whether state law permits the public-nuisance claim the case was centered on. (Raymond, 9/12)

Birmingham, Ala., is seeing a high rate of overdose deaths and addiction among Black men. Officials blame fentanyl and a lack of addiction treatment. (Hodgin and Short, 9/13)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Despite Successes, Addiction Treatment Programs For Families Struggle To Stay Open 

Two playgrounds border the Recovering Hope Treatment Center for addiction that sits at the end of a gravel road in eastern Minnesota’s rural Kanabec County. A meeting room inside is furnished with rocking chairs and baby walkers. And there are strollers in the halls. Recovering Hope is one of only five providers in the state that offer family-based residential treatment, allowing women to enter the program while pregnant or to bring one of their children younger than 5 with them for the duration of their stay. Men can receive outpatient treatment but aren’t permitted in the residential program. (Saint Louis, 9/13)

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

This week on the �鶹Ů�� Health News Minute: Doctors and patients turn to social media to shame insurers into paying for care, and artificial intelligence designed to prevent opioid misuse may be denying pain medication for patients who need it. (9/12)

Child poverty in the United States more than doubled and median household income declined last year when coronavirus pandemic-era government benefits expired and inflation kept rising, according to figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. At the same time, the official poverty rate for Black Americans dropped to its lowest level on record, and income inequality declined for the first time since 2007, when looking at pre-tax income, due to income declines in the middle and top income brackets. (Schneider, 9/12)

The expected spike in poverty — particularly child poverty — between 2021 and 2022 shows the impact of letting major pandemic-era safety net program expansions expire, a policy experiment with no precedent in the U.S. The pandemic programs were enacted as temporary measures. But their expiration still stings for the Americans who experienced an economic boost only to lose it — and there's more to come. (Owens, 9/13)

As much as $135 billion in unemployment insurance benefits may have been lost to fraud during Covid-19, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday, more than double an earlier estimate. The federal watchdog estimated that fraudulent payments may have amounted to between 10 and 15 percent of the $900 billion spent on UI between April 2020 and May 2023, when the federal public health emergency ended. (Niedzwiadek, 9/12)

The Labor Department, which oversees federal unemployment insurance programs, expressed concerns about the report’s methodology in a letter to G.A.O. officials and argued that the level of fraud was likely overstated. Officials pointed to efforts that have since been taken to deter fraud, and said the “enormous task” of doling out the funds was made “only more daunting by the decades-long chronic underfunding” of the unemployment benefits system. “As a result, state agencies were unprepared for the extraordinary spike in the number of claims to be processed each week,” Brent Parton, a principal deputy assistant secretary at the department, wrote in the letter. (Ngo, 9/12)

Baby boomers, who transformed society in so many ways, are now having a dramatic effect on homelessness. Higher numbers of elderly living on the street or in shelters add complications and expenses for hospitals and other crisis services. The humanitarian problem is becoming a public-policy crisis, paid for by taxpayers. (Najmabadi, 9/12)

Eight women in Idaho and Tennessee are asking state courts to place holds on their states’ abortion laws after being denied access to the procedure while facing harrowing pregnancy complications that they say endangered their lives. Four physicians have also joined the lawsuits, saying the state laws have wrongly forced medical experts to weigh the health of a patient against the threat of legal liability. A woman in Oklahoma who said she had a dangerous and nonviable pregnancy filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday asserting that she was denied an abortion despite a U.S. law that requires doctors to perform the procedure when it’s medically necessary. (Kruesi, 9/12)

Early in her pregnancy, Jaci Statton was in her kitchen when she felt like she was going to pass out and saw that her jeans had become soaked with blood. Doctors told her the pregnancy was not viable and that it could threaten her life if an abortion was not performed soon, she said. But Ms. Statton lives in Oklahoma, a state that bans most abortions. Three hospitals declined to provide the procedure, she said. At the third, “they said, ‘We can’t touch you unless you’re like crashing in front of us,’” Ms. Statton, 26, said in an interview. The hospital’s only suggestion, she said, was “we should wait in the parking lot until I was about to die.” (Belluck, 9/12)

North Carolina remained the South's destination for abortions in the first six months of this year, as state lawmakers debated how far to go in restricting the procedure. Patients are proving highly motivated to travel to get the care in the face of state bans, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. (Sherman, 9/12)

A Republican lawmaker’s misleading narratives before a Kansas House hearing this spring supported a state law prohibiting physicians from euthanizing infants who survive abortions — despite medical experts’ assertion that the scenario is a non-existent scare tactic. The lawmaker, Rep. Ron Bryce, acknowledges he had little first-hand evidence for the claims he repeated on and off the House floor. He speculated that abortion providers murder infants, and his testimony appeared to be based on unreliable data. (Donnelly, 9/12)

After Dobbs, the political ground seems to be shifting in some unpredictable ways. (Bazelon, 9/12)

Over more than a decade working with immigrant farmworkers in the public clinics of the Santa Clara River Valley, Rosemary Hernandez has seen many new moms struggle during the postpartum period. Some were separated from their families in Mexico. Others’ husbands or boyfriends had to head straight back to work picking fruit after the baby arrived. Some mothers had to return to work themselves while they were still recovering from childbirth, or else risk losing their jobs in the fields and fruit-packing houses. Their isolation and vulnerability compounded the challenges of caring for a newborn, and drove many of these mothers into anxiety and depression. (Rubenstein, 9/13)

Melinda French Gates says she takes personally the deaths of hundreds of thousands of women and babies during child birth each year and believes more people should get involved in the fight for improving maternal health care. French Gates, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation co-founder and co-chair told The Associated Press that when her daughter, Jennifer, gave birth to Leila — Jennifer’s first child and the Gateses’ first grandchild — earlier this year, she couldn’t help but think of her own experience giving birth. (Beaty, 9/12)

A wall of debt is coming due for private equity-owned hospitals and nursing homes that threatens to undermine care for some of the most vulnerable Americans. That’s triggering alarms in Washington. Cheap and flexible financing that helped big Wall Street buyout firms snap up health centers, long-term care facilities and provider networks in recent years has evaporated. Higher borrowing costs are chipping away at margins. And bankruptcies at private equity-owned businesses are on track to reach decade highs, which could result in job cutbacks. (Sutton, 9/11)

In 2021, venture capital firms spent nearly $5 billion to fund behavioral health startups, according to an estimate from research firm CB Insights. The funding bonanza helped start hundreds of companies offering remote therapy, medication prescription, wellness and other mental health services. A lot has changed in two years. Because of high interest rates, an oversaturated market and potential regulatory changes to remote prescribing, many of those mental health startups may look for an exit ramp, industry insiders said. (Perna, 9/12)

As part of one of the tech industry’s most revered venture funds, Daryl Tol is very familiar with fast-paced, sometimes overblown pitches from go-getter founders, lining up at happy hours and investor panels to score just a few minutes of face time. A chance meeting, or an email to the right person, could propel pie-in-the-sky ideas into billion-dollar, global businesses. But he’s also deeply embedded in another world: One where inflated claims have life-or-death consequences, and where breathless newcomers inspire more derision than enthusiasm. (Ravindranath, 9/13)

Walgreens has inked a deal with primary care enablement technology company Pearl Health to expand the retailer's push into value-based care. Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens, the retail and pharmacy division of the Walgreens Boots Alliance, will provide value-based care services to provider partners through the agreement with Pearl. The companies will help clinicians transition to value-based reimbursement, starting with Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Accountability and Community Health members. (Turner, 9/12)

�鶹Ů�� Health News and InvestigateTV: Watch: In Emergencies, First Comes The Ambulance. Then Comes The Bill

When her 9-year-old daughter was having trouble breathing, Yvette Hammonds took her to a local emergency room. It quickly became clear that girl needed to be transferred to the children’s hospital about 40 minutes away in Atlanta, so her daughter was loaded into an ambulance. Months later, Hammonds received a bill for nearly $1,000: the cost of the ground ambulance ride from one in-network hospital to another. (Jackman, 9/13)

About 1,000 Kaiser Permanente employees in the Baltimore area will vote this week on whether to strike, as contract negotiations crawl forward between the California-based health care organization and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which represents more than 85,000 health care workers nationwide. (Roberts, 9/12)

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia CEO Madeline Bell was the top-paid executive in The Inquirer’s review of pay at 13 Philadelphia-area nonprofit health systems. The bulk of her $7.7 million total came from a $5.6 million bonus. Bell’s bonus, which included one-year and three-year awards, was about the same as the next five highest bonuses combined. (Brubaker, 9/13)

The White House says it’s working to end shortages of three key generic chemotherapies. But experts said the administration would have to provide more details to fully mitigate the health care system’s concerns. (Wilkerson, 9/12)

2Seventy Bio, a Cambridge biotech developing cancer drugs, said Tuesday it will lay off about 40 percent of its workforce, or 176 employees, becoming the latest Massachusetts drug company to slash its staff as the business sector faces hard times. 2Seventy’s chief executive, Nick Leschly, who led the Somerville gene therapy company Bluebird Bio for 11 years before it spun off 2Seventy in 2021, also said he plans to step down as chief executive and become chairman of the board of directors. (Saltzman, 9/12)

Over-the-counter eye drops sold by CVS Health Corp., Walgreens Boots Alliance and six other companies are illegally marketed and pose a public health concern to Americans, US regulators said in warning letters Tuesday. A deadly bacterial outbreak was linked to other eye drop products earlier this year. (Muller, 9/12)

A local supplement manufacturer sold products made with ingredients that could lead to heavy metal toxicity, the Southern Nevada Health District reported Tuesday. Harmonic Innerprizes, the health district said in a news release, also sold items which had ingredients that are not food grade and with ingredients from unapproved sources. (9/12)

Amid high demand for laxatives, doctors are cautioning people not to overuse the products or take them for purposes other than constipation relief, such as weight loss. Pharma giant Sanofi said its over-the-counter laxative, Dulcolax, is facing supply constraints. “Over the past few months, we have seen unprecedented demand for Dulcolax products," a Sanofi spokesperson said. "As a result, some retailers temporarily may not have certain Dulcolax products on their shelves.” (Bendix, 9/12)

Plenty of legal precedent already allows Medicare to determine what it will pay for health care goods and services, the Department of Justice argued this week in defense of new Medicare drug price negotiations. The filing, in response to Merck's lawsuit, indicates how the government will defend the program's constitutionality against a wave of similar challenges. (Reed, 9/13)

A Utah judge has granted the state unprecedented access to the private medical records of two transgender minors — including any of their counseling and mental health reports and specifically any documents about when they started puberty. The minors are both transgender girls suing over Utah’s 2022 ban on athletes like them playing high school sports for girls’ teams. Judge Keith Kelly said the girls’ medical records “go to the issues that are squarely raised in this case.” (Tanner, 9/12)

A new Florida law restricting health care for transgender people can still be applied to adults while it is being challenged in court, a federal judge ruled Monday. Judge Robert Hinkle, who previously blocked the law’s enforcement on behalf of minors, ruled that adults seeking to expand his injunction haven’t proven they would be irreparably harmed until the case is resolved. (9/12)

Alabama families with transgender children asked a full appellate court Monday to review a decision that will let the state enforce a ban on treating minors with gender-affirming hormones and puberty blockers. The families asked all of the judges of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review a three-judge panel decision issued last month. The panel lifted a judge’s temporary injunction that had blocked Alabama from enforcing the law while a lawsuit over the ban goes forward. (Chandler, 9/12)

After Missouri’s state law restricting transgender care, Washington University in St. Louis joined University of Missouri Health in ceasing to prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors for purposes of gender transition. ... "This legal claim creates unsustainable liability for health-care professionals and makes it untenable for us to continue to provide comprehensive transgender care for minor patients without subjecting the university and our providers to an unacceptable level of liability," the statement continued. (Nelson, (9/12)

Some Northeast Ohio residents fear that a formal policy from the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland will increase the risk of suicide and self-harm among young people who identify as LGBTQ. The policy, which went into effect earlier this month, bars students and staff from undergoing gender-affirming care and using pronouns different than those affiliated with a person’s biological sex. It also requires church or school staff members to tell the parents of a child who might be transgender. (Walsh, 9/12)

The food industry is anxious that regulators are focusing too much on the health impacts of so-called ultra-processed foods, the popular, ill-defined food group that includes everything from hot dogs and chicken nuggets to cookies and potato chips. Frozen food makers and the meat industry on Tuesday, speaking to a panel of nutrition experts tasked by the federal government with advising on the next round of the national dietary guidelines, raised concerns with its focus on that fare. So too did a coalition that includes the bakery, candy, corn syrup, and sugar lobbies, and the Consumer Brands Association, which includes General Mills, Kellogg’s, and Hostess. (Florko, 9/12)

If you’re groggy in the morning but perky in the evening, you may be a night owl — a sleep pattern or chronotype that makes you more inclined to want to stay up late and sleep in. If so, you could be at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes as well as a number of unhealthy lifestyle habits, a new study found. (LaMotte, 9/11)

The consumption of raw oysters at a Texas restaurant led to the untimely death of a relatively healthy man in his 30s.  The man, contracted a bacterial infection known as Vibrio vulnificus that thrives in warm coastal waters. Bacterial infections like this one are on the rise as water temperature continues to increase in response to climate change. Vibrio vulnificus bacteria can be found in raw or undercooked seafood, but also naturally occurs in saltwater and brackish water. (Encinas, 9/12)

For older adults, there is a significant association between more time spent in sedentary behavior and a higher incidence of all-cause dementia, according to a study published in the Sept. 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. ... "More time spent in sedentary behaviors was significantly associated with higher incidence of all-cause dementia," the authors write. "Future research is needed to determine whether the association between sedentary behavior and risk of dementia is causal." (Gotkine, 9/12)

French government watchdog agency ordered Apple to withdraw the iPhone 12 from the market, saying it emits levels of electromagnetic radiation that are too high. The National Frequency Agency, which oversees radio-electric frequencies as well as public exposure electromagnetic radiation, called on Apple in a statement Tuesday to “implement all available means to rapidly fix this malfunction.” (9/12)

The California Legislature has passed a first-of-its-kind bill to ban four food additives linked to potential health issues. If Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signs it, Assembly Bill 418 would prohibit the sale of foods and drinks in California that contain red dye No. 3, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil and propylparaben starting in 2027. If it is enacted, it would mark the first time that a state has banned food additives that are permitted by the Food and Drug Administration. (Chuck, 9/12)

California lawmakers voted Tuesday to put a proposal before voters next March that would overhaul how counties pay for mental and behavioral health programs in an effort to address the state’s worsening homelessness crisis. The bill authored by Democratic state Sen. Susan Eggman was passed by the state Assembly and will need one more vote in the Senate if it is to make the ballot. (Nguyen, 9/12)

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) used a public health order Friday to ban firearms in Albuquerque, a move that has garnered widespread criticism from Democrats and Republicans amid concerns that it could violate the Second Amendment. Grisham’s declaration bans the carrying of firearms — both open and concealed carry — in parts of the state that meet a specific threshold of violent crime. Only the city of Albuquerque meets that threshold. (Robertson, 9/12)

It was only six days into the fall semester at UNC Chapel Hill when a gunman in a chemistry building sent the campus into lockdown mode. On Tuesday, 15 days after the incident of terror, students from that campus and others were in Raleigh to tell lawmakers they were fed up with the “thoughts and prayers” that flow after these increasingly common occurrences in their lives. They were determined to let the lawmakers know how hollow those words are to them — and what they would rather hear and see. (Blythe, 9/13)

About twice a week, a pregnant patient turns up in Dr. Irene Stafford’s obstetrics office in Houston with syphilis, a sexually transmittable disease that affects more newborns in Texas than anywhere else in the country. For a seasoned professional like Stafford, the sheer numbers are startling. She’s been treating congenital syphilis with increasing frequency in recent years in a city that has the state’s highest newborn infection rates. (Harper and Carver, 9/13)

A new 330-bed mental health hospital being built in Oklahoma City is expected to provide services to Oklahomans in their most vulnerable moments. The new operation, to be built near the campus of Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City in 2026, will replace Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman. “This hospital is an investment, dedicated to the people of Oklahoma,” said Carrie Slatton-Hodges, commissioner of Oklahoma's Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. (Money, 9/12)

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a lack of sleep is “common” among high school students and is associated with increased risk of being overweight, drinking, smoking, using drugs and poor academic performance. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that high schools not start before 8:30 a.m., and says changing to later start times would result in better outcomes for teens, including reduced obesity risk, lower rates of depression, fewer drowsy driving crashes and improved quality of life. (Povich, 9/13)

Former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin is renowned for authoring the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law in 1990. As he prepared to retire after serving 40 years in Congress, the senator founded The Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement in 2013 to carry on his legacy and policy work primarily on issues of labor and employment, people with disabilities, retirement security and wellness and nutrition. (Fischels, McIntosh and Kieffer, 9/12)

Finding the right medication regimen to treat Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex healthcare challenge. (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, 9/12)

It's no secret that antibiotics are one of the foundations of modern medicine. Since penicillin was first introduced in the early 1940s, antibiotics have turned once-deadly infections into easily treatable conditions, made surgery and childbirth safer, enabled cancer patients to withstand immune system–sapping chemotherapy, and rendered organ transplants much less risky. But antibiotics don't come without their own risks. Just ask Pamela McCollister. (Dall, 9/11)

A multifaceted, quality improvement (QI) intervention at a Denver health system was associated with significantly reduced ophthalmic antibiotic prescribing for pediatric conjunctivitis, researchers reported yesterday in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. (Dall, 9/12)

Neurocrine Biosciences announced on Tuesday that an experimental drug for congenital adrenal hyperplasia succeeded in a late-stage trial, bringing the company a step closer to treating patients with a rare and serious set of genetic disorders that alters their ability to produce key hormones. (Wosen, 9/12)

When I took office in 2001, the situation with HIV/AIDS on the African continent and elsewhere was dire. A group of advisers including Condi Rice, Josh Bolten and Mike Gerson encouraged me to act before an entire generation was lost. (Former President George W. Bush, 9/13)

In the early 2000s, therapies for HIV were widely available in Western countries but scarce in the developing world — in places like Botswana, one-third of the adult population was infected. Millions of people were dying from AIDS. In response, George W. Bush created the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — PEPFAR, for short. Over time, it would blossom into the largest global health initiative ever dedicated to a single disease. (Arjun Sharma, 9/13)

Two weeks ago, the Biden administration announced the first 10 prescription drugs that will be subject to price negotiation. In other health-care policy news, this week, the Food and Drug Administration approved updated versions of mRNA coronavirus vaccines that are better tailored to one of the most common current variants of covid-19. (Megan McArdle, 9/13)

As the CEOs of the National Organization for Rare Disorders and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, the threat to rare disease drug development hits close to home for us. NORD was established 40 years ago by rare disease patients and families to drive advances in care, research, and policy. (Rachel King and Peter L. Saltonstall, 9/13)

Patients often ask two questions about every medical treatment: Will it help me? Will it hurt me? The Food and Drug Administration knows many of the answers. It wants patients to know them, too. (Baruch Fischoff, Steven Woloshin, Tamar Krishnamurti and Barry Dewitt, 9/12)

Drug shortages are rocking the U.S. health care system. Over 300 medicines were in short supply in the second quarter of this year—more than at almost any other time in the past decade. Policymakers agree that something must be done about this growing problem. But there's less consensus about what to do. (Jean-Claude Dubacher, 9/11)

Prenuvo, a San Francisco-based startup launched in 2018, is one of several companies that have begun offering head-to-toe scans to anyone willing to pay out of pocket for them. Designed to detect diseases before they cause symptoms, they are pitched to consumers as the ultimate in preventive care. (Lisa Jarvis, 9/13)

Several years ago, I attended an international health care conference, eagerly awaiting the keynote speaker’s talk about a diabetes intervention that targeted people in lower socioeconomic groups of the U.S. He noted how an AI tool enabled researchers and physicians to use pattern recognition to better plan treatments for people with diabetes. (Faye Cobb Payton, 9/12)

As a practicing pediatrician, new guidelines for the treatment of childhood obesity released by the American Academy of Pediatrics do not scare me – childhood obesity scares and saddens me. Yet, since their release, these guidelines have faced sharp criticism and have even been referred to as “terrifying” and “scary” in the media. The time to intervene to reduce childhood obesity is now, as this chronic condition is all too pervasive. (Susan Washburn MD, 9/13)

This fall, Congress has an opportunity to address an issue that impacts the health and safety of many of our constituents. PFAS — commonly called “forever chemicals” since they do not degrade in the environment — have been found nationwide. We shouldn’t hesitate to deliver solutions that clean up and reduce risks posed by PFAS in a scientific, bipartisan, and responsible manner. (Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, 9/12)

We have come a long way since the early days of 2020. Back then, I was the head of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services and working alongside Gov. Roy Cooper to navigate the uncertainty, the challenges and the fear around Covid-19. My extended family was in New York, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak. I didn’t realize then that it would be over a year until I saw them in person again. All I wanted was for them to be safe. (Mandy K. Cohen, 9/13)

COVID-19 cases are rising once again, both in the Kansas City region and nationally. That’s no reason to panic. Even at somewhat elevated levels, the number of severe cases and hospitalizations don’t begin to approach the often-devastating highs created by previous iterations of the virus since the pandemic began in 2020. Unfortunately, some of our regional Republican officeholders seem intent on stoking fear for political gain. (9/13)