Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Is Veozah The Miracle Fix For Menopause Hot Flashes?; Vaccine Distrust Is Spreading
The Food and Drug Administration just approved fezolinetant (Veozah) for moderate to severe hot flashes associated with menopause. Physicians call hot flashes and night sweats vasomotor symptoms, a term that has been shortened to VMS and was rebranded by Astellas Pharma as part of a pre-launch marketing campaign aimed at consumers and health care providers to 鈥渆ducate鈥 them about VMS and resurrect 20th century myths about menopause. (Patricia Bencivenga and Adriane Fugh-Berman, 5/17)
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, and the credit goes to parents who, year after year, brought their children to get measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations. When enough children are vaccinated, say 90 percent or more in a school or community, they reach herd immunity, and the highly contagious measles virus has nowhere to go. (5/17)
North Carolina鈥檚 Republican lawmakers overrode a veto by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper last night, enacting a ban on most abortions after 12 weeks of gestation. The ban will take effect in July. (David A. Graham, 5/17)
Millions of patients and their caregivers breathed a collective sigh of relief when drugmaker Eli Lilly recently announced its new experimental Alzheimer鈥檚 medication appears to slow cognitive decline by 35%. The Food and Drug Administration could approve the new treatment, donanemab, as soon as this year. (Tomas Philipson, 5/18)
Millions of Americans in the past few years have run into this experience: filing a health-care insurance claim that once might have been paid immediately but instead is just as quickly denied. (Rosenthal, 5/17)
Former president Donald Trump has been hammering Ron DeSantis over his past votes to significantly change Social Security and Medicare. The Florida governor and former congressman has attempted to wave away the attacks, but there鈥檚 a better way to counter Trump鈥檚 charges: Appeal to both GOP conservatives and populists by targeting entitlement benefits to those in need. (Henry Olsen, 5/17)