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President Biden plans to select former North Carolina health secretary Mandy Cohen to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to three people with direct knowledge of the pending announcement. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra spoke with Cohen this week to congratulate her on her selection, the people said. Biden’s formal announcement is expected later this month, after White House officials finalize Cohen’s paperwork, the people said. (Diamond and Sun, 6/1)

Cohen, a medical doctor, served in the Obama administration as chief of staff at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She helped implement the Affordable Care Act and new payment models at the agency. She also served as North Carolina’s health secretary for nearly five years into 2021, helping lead the state through the Covid-19 pandemic. She is an executive at Aledade, a network of independent primary-care practices.  (Armour, Restuccia and Toy, 6/1)

President Joe Biden tripped on a sandbag and fell as he completed handing out diplomas at the US Air Force Academy commencement in Colorado on Thursday. Biden appeared fine afterward, walking without assistance to his seat in the stands. He was seen smiling and jogging toward his vehicle at the ceremony’s conclusion. (Liptak, 6/1)

Medical officials inside a Border Patrol facility where an 8-year-old Panamanian girl died last month denied several requests for an ambulance by the girl’s mother, according to a statement released Thursday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The girl had arrived at the station in Harlingen, Texas, on May 14 with her mother, where she first had reported feeling flulike symptoms and pain, a continuing review by the agency has found, CBP said. At no point during her stay in custody did medical staff treating her consult with on-call doctors, including an on-call pediatrician, and they didn’t properly document her medical visits or the course of treatment. CBP said the girl’s mother requested an ambulance three or four times. (Hackman, 6/1)

The Senate passed the bipartisan debt deal Thursday night, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk days before the default deadline and capping off months of melodrama. The upper chamber saw some last-minute twists of its own, after defense hawks demanded a written statement from Senate leaders committing not to block supplemental defense funding and consideration of appropriations bills. Other senators demanded what became a total of 11 amendment votes — all of which failed — resulting in more than three hours of floor time before the chamber could move to final passage. (Diaz, 6/1)

The cuts are going to land disproportionately on programs that help the poor and on administration, which also affects the people who rely on government programs. Some discretionary spending — on the military and for veterans — is actually going to increase. But the rest, including funding for child care, low-income housing, the national parks, and more, will be subject to a cut for the next two years. (Prokop, Scott, Matthews, Leber, Paz and Zhou, 6/1)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: The Debt Ceiling Deal Takes A Bite Out Of Health Programs. It Could Have Been Much Worse

Policy analysts, Democrats, and Republicans dissatisfied with the deal agree: Federal health programs have dodged a budgetary bullet in the Washington showdown over raising the nation’s debt ceiling. A compromise bill — approved in a bipartisan vote by the House of Representatives on Wednesday night and approved by the Senate late Thursday — includes some trims and caps on health spending for the next two years. (Rovner, 6/1)

The U.S. Medicare health plan said on Thursday it would limit reimbursement for Eisai Co Ltd and Biogen Inc's Alzheimer's drug Leqembi to patients whose doctors participate in a health agency database should the drug win full approval, a move advocates say will hinder its use. The decision marks the first time that Medicare has required data-collection through a so-called registry for the intended use of a drug that has been deemed safe and effective by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (Steenhuysen, 6/1)

Despite pressure from Congress and advocates, Medicare isn’t changing its coverage plan for new Alzheimer’s drugs anytime soon. Medicare on Thursday issued a statement reiterating its intent to require patient registries to collect data about how medications perform even after they gain full Food and Drug Administration approval. Eisai’s Leqembi could gain full approval within the next month, so time is running short for the agency to solidify details. (Cohrs, 6/1)

A Medicare plan for covering new Alzheimer's drugs treatments is reviving thorny questions about whether pricey treatments with modest success slowing the disease's progression are worth the cost and safety concerns. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Thursday outlined conditions under which it would expand coverage for a specific class of Alzheimer's drugs, including Eisai and Biogen's experimental Leqembi. (Gonzalez, 6/2)

Millions of adults in the United States are not taking their medications as prescribed because of costs, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most adults between the ages of 18 and 64 took at least one prescription medication in 2021. But more than 8% of them – about 9.2 million people – said they tried to save money by skipping doses, taking less than prescribed or delaying a prescription fill, according to the CDC data. (McPhillips, 6/2)

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously revived whistleblower lawsuits claiming that supermarket and pharmacy chains SuperValu and Safeway overcharged government health-care programs for prescription drugs by hundreds of millions of dollars. The decision gives the whistleblowers another chance to pursue their claims that the companies defrauded the Medicare and Medicaid programs when they reported retail prices for generic prescription drugs, even though they had mainly been sold to customers at deeply discounted prices. (Sherman, 6/1)

AbbVie Inc.’s blockbuster drug Humira costs the US health system $90,000 per patient each year. Now, an emerging competitor plans to sell an alternative at an 85% discount. Coherus BioSciences Inc. will launch the cheapest-ever Humira copycat, Yusimry, in July, with a list price of $995 for two autoinjectors, the company said Thursday. That’s far below the $6,922 AbbVie charges for the same supply of its drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, plaque psoriasis and other autoimmune conditions. (Griffin, 6/1)

Just six weeks ago, Greg DeStefano began a new chemotherapy combination. The 50-year-old, from Northbrook, Illinois, had recently been diagnosed with his fourth round of cancer and doctors were hopeful the medication would treat the tumors growing in his neck. DeStefano was responding well, but then, in late May, he got a call from his doctor and was told one of the three drugs he was receiving -- carboplatin -- was under a global shortage and because of the way the hospital had to prioritize treatments, he wouldn't be qualified to receive it anymore. (Kekatos, 6/2)

Pfizer Inc said on Thursday data from late-stage trials showed its experimental combination of antibiotics was effective in treating deadly infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria. Deaths from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, also known as superbugs, have been on the rise globally, and health regulators have called for the development of newer treatments as resistance to older antibiotics grows. (6/1)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use off-brand versions of the popular weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy because they might not contain the same ingredients as the prescription products and may not be safe or effective. Agency officials said this week that they have received reports of problems after patients used versions of semaglutide, the active ingredient in the brand-name medications, which have been compounded, or mixed in pharmacies. Officials didn’t say what the problems were. (Aleccia, 6/1)

The two semaglutide-containing medications — Ozempic for type 2 diabetes control and Wegovy for weight loss — could also pose a serious risk to unborn babies. Animal studies have shown that when pregnant rabbits, rats and monkeys were given semaglutide, they experienced higher rates of miscarriage, birth defects and small fetal size — information that’s included in the drug labels for both medications, which are made by Novo Nordisk in New Jersey. (Rudy, 6/1)

Having insurance coverage alone doesn’t guarantee that people can afford or would be willing to pay continuously for chronic disease medications like Ozempic, a new, large-scale study finds. Looking at insured patients with type 2 diabetes and heart failure, researchers found that people with higher prescription copayments were less likely to consistently take glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1) and sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) — two classes of drugs that yield additional, long-term benefits compared with older treatments but are also costlier. (Chen, 6/1)

Vince Wescott was ready for top surgery. He had the cash saved up, he’d gotten a letter from his therapist, and he’d sent in the required photos of his chest and torso in preparation for a consultation. When his surgeon’s office called unexpectedly, he picked up, assuming that they were missing paperwork or needed to reschedule. But he was met by the panicked voice of a nurse. “The doctor had a look at the pictures and your weight is very concerning,” Wescott remembers her saying. “He is not going to be able to do this unless you lose about 100 pounds.” (Conley, 6/2)

Many hospitals in the United States use aggressive tactics to collect medical debt. ... But a wealthy nonprofit health system in the Midwest is among those taking things a step further: withholding care from patients who have unpaid medical bills. Allina Health System, which runs more than 100 hospitals and clinics in Minnesota and Wisconsin and brings in $4 billion a year in revenue, sometimes rejects patients who are deep in debt, according to internal documents and interviews with doctors, nurses and patients. (Kliff and Silver-Greenberg, 6/1)

Cancer treatment provider GenesisCare filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of Texas on Thursday and looks to sell its underperforming U.S. operations. Sydney, Australia-based GenesisCare said in a news release it is restructuring the business, including $1.7 billion in debt, to separate U.S. operations from those in Australia, Spain and the U.K. (Hudson, 6/1)

Friday Health Plans, a health insurer that covers more than 30,000 people who buy coverage on their own in the state, announced Thursday that it will cease operating. The announcement comes after Colorado-based Friday, which had operated in seven states, ran into financial troubles in Texas that cascaded throughout the rest of the company. In a statement posted on its website, Friday said that it had grown “incredibly quickly” but had been “unable to scale our financial infrastructure to match the pace of our growth and secure the additional capital required to run our business.” (Ingold, 6/1)

Tens of thousands of patients are scrambling to find new doctors, fill prescriptions, and reschedule appointments following the abrupt closure of a large physician group that had six offices throughout Southeast Massachusetts. Compass Medical, which has 80 physicians and serves 70,000 patients, said late Wednesday night that it would be closing its practices, effective immediately. Compass urged patients to go to their nearest local emergency room or urgent care center for medical attention in the interim. (Bartlett, 6/1)

Two eastern Idaho hospitals and their clinics are working to resume full operations after a cyberattack on their computer systems. Officials with Idaho Falls Community Hospital said the attack happened Monday, causing some clinics to close, some ambulances to be diverted to nearby hospitals and their cafes to only accept cash. Mountain View Hospital, also located in Idaho Falls, was similarly affected by the computer virus, officials said. (6/1)

A mistrial was declared Thursday in the federal trial of two Maryland doctors charged with trying to help Russia in its war against Ukraine with medical records they believed Moscow could exploit. The Baltimore Sun reports that U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked following two days of deliberations. Dr. Anna Gabrielian, a former Johns Hopkins anesthesiologist, and her spouse, Dr. Jamie Lee Henry, a physician and major in the U.S. Army, remain charged with conspiring to assist Russia after it invaded Ukraine and disclosing the health information of several patients. The charges carry maximum penalties of decades in prison. (6/1)

Patients who don’t feel heard by a health care professional are finding a voice on social media — with the hashtag #medicalgaslighting now garnering more than 226 million views on TikTok. "Medical gaslighting" is a term used to describe the situation in which patients — often young individuals, women and minorities — feel their symptoms are inappropriately dismissed or labeled as psychological when they go to see a doctor. (Sudhakar, 6/1)

Racial bias built into a common medical test for lung function is likely leading to fewer Black patients getting care for breathing problems, a study published Thursday suggests. As many as 40% more Black male patients in the study might have been diagnosed with breathing problems if current diagnosis-assisting computer software was changed, the study said. (Stobbe, 6/1)

There is a test that could diminish the toll of the nation’s top cancer killer—if people would use it. Doctors are pushing harder to make that happen. Lung cancer kills upward of 127,000 people in the U.S. each year. The toll has waned in recent years thanks to declining smoking rates and new treatments, but it remains the deadliest cancer for Americans by far. A CT scan can catch the disease early to help save lives. (Abbott, 6/1)

For decades, it has been known that prostate specific antigen ‒ or PSA ‒ tests are a flawed way to diagnose prostate cancer. Many men have a high PSA without having cancer. Others have low PSA that might lead to aggressive tumors being missed in screenings. This has led to overtreatment of men who didn't need biopsies or whose cancers would never have become dangerous and undertreatment of those whose tumors were missed. (Weintraub, 6/1)

Researchers from the University College London (UCL) recently used machine learning — a type of artificial intelligence — to pinpoint five distinct types of heart failure, with the goal of predicting the prognosis for the different kinds. "We sought to improve how we classify heart failure, with the aim of better understanding the likely course of disease and communicating this to patients," said lead author Professor Amitava Banerjee from UCL in a press release announcing the study. (Rudy, 6/2)

Tempus, a company that combines DNA sequencing for cancer with artificial intelligence, said Thursday that it is launching a voice-and-text assistant called Tempus One that will give physicians much easier access to patient data. The AI assistant is being launched ahead of the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. (Herper, 6/1)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: 'What The Health?' Podcast: Our 300th Episode!

This week, �������ýҕ�l Health News’ weekly policy news podcast — “What the Health?” — celebrates its 300th episode with a wide-ranging discussion of what’s happened in health policy since it launched in 2017 and what may happen in the next decade. (6/1)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has set limits for inorganic arsenic in apple juice, but Consumer Reports argues that the level is still too high and could harm children who consume the popular drink. The FDA on Thursday announced it is setting the limit of 10 parts per billion as an allowable amount of inorganic arsenic in apple juice, noting that it has identified some apple juice products with levels about that amount. (Picchi, 6/1)

Baskets of free gun locks will be available starting June 2 in the emergency departments and pediatric clinic waiting areas at SSM Health’s eight hospitals across the St. Louis region, officials announced Thursday. More than 11,400 locks are provided through the initiative, which is funded by the SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Foundation and the SSM Health Foundation–St. Louis. (Munz, 6/1)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: The Gun Violence Epidemic Is ‘Locking Us Back In Our Room’

Erin Brown recalls all too well the dreadful call he received from his mother in 2021, while in the thralls of the covid-19 pandemic: His cousin — his “brother” — had been shot six times. Although it was not the first time gun violence had reached the then-17-year-old Brown’s social circle, that incident was different. It involved family. So it hit Brown harder, even though his cousin, then 21, survived the gunshot wounds. (Racer, 6/2)

Hospitals reported a "large spike" of children with brain infections this past winter to the highest levels seen in several years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, but cases still remain rare overall. The new findings were published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, updating a previous analysis from the same database run by the Children's Hospital Association. (Tin, 6/1)

While it's long been suspected that our brains consolidate each day's events as we sleep, a new study is the first to show that process in action. Researchers were able to reinforce memories as study volunteers slept by stimulating specific parts of their brains in synchrony. The participants all had severe epilepsy and agreed to be part of the study while under observation for their seizures. (Weintraub, 6/1)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: How To Negotiate With Resistant Aging Parents? Borrow These Tips From The Business World

You’ve reached a standstill with your mother and father, who are in their late 80s. You think they need some help in the home, but they vigorously refuse. You’re frustrated because you want to make their lives easier. They’re angry because they think you’re interfering in their affairs. Can negotiation and dispute resolution techniques used in the business world help defuse these kinds of conflicts? Yes, say a group of researchers at Northwestern University. And they’re on to something. (Graham, 6/2)

Doctors and medical ethicists alike are warning about the risks of fathering children in old age, following news that actor Al Pacino is expecting a child at age 83. Pacino’s girlfriend, Noor Alfallah, is eight months pregnant. The "Scarface" star already has three other children: daughter Julie Marie, 33, and 22-year-old twins Anton and Olivia. (Bendix, 6/1)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Watch: Payback For The Opioid Crisis: How Did The Sackler Family Skirt Liability? 

This week, a federal appeals court ruling concerning opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma spared its owner, the Sackler family, from further civil litigation in exchange for a $6 billion settlement. �������ýҕ�l Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani appeared on PBS NewsHour to discuss the ruling and her reporting into the ongoing distribution of more than $54 billion in opioid settlement funds. (6/1)

Patients with persistent symptoms of depression and cognitive impairment after a mild to moderate COVID-19 infection had elevated levels of a protein indicating inflammation of the brain, finds a Canadian case-control study published yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry. (Van Beusekom, 6/1)

Cats can become infected with COVID-19 through contact with other infected animals or contaminated pens and should be considered part of the household dynamics of the virus, according to a new study in Microbiology Spectrum. (Soucheray, 6/1)

Most people were already aware of the 5,000-mile long sargassum bloom making its way toward Florida — and possibly Alabama — beaches, but thanks to a new study, there’s more to be concerned about than just the stench which accompanies the bloom. Florida Atlantic University has released a study which found that sargassum bloom contains both the Vibrio bacteria and plastic marine debris, creating what the study’s authors called a “perfect pathogen storm” with significant health risks to both humans and marine life. (6/1)

The effort to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida crossed a major hurdle but still faces a likely challenge from the state’s attorney general. Florida’s Department of State reported that the proposed ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot in 2024. (Ritchie, 6/1)

The Ohio Supreme Court declined a request Thursday from two anti-abortion activists to require that the Ohio Ballot Board divide the abortion rights constitutional amendment into two or more separate proposals, which would make it harder to pass at the ballot box. Thursday’s decision is one less hurdle for backers of the constitutional amendment proposal, who must collect roughly 413,000 signatures by July 5 to get on November ballots. (Hancock, 6/1)

State-by-state emergency plans aimed at minimizing the impacts of natural disasters overwhelmingly understate extreme heat as a hazard to human health, according to a Duke University analysis. The recently released policy brief, “Defining Extreme Heat as a Hazard: A Review of Current State Hazard Mitigation Plans,” highlights the need for states to better evaluate the growing threat of extreme heat as the climate changes, identify populations of people most vulnerable to high temperatures, and implement plans to educate and assist those populations. (Talton, 6/2)

Almost 800 police officers around the state have filed duty disability claims for PTSD since 2019. Many of these officers, said Rep. Kaohly Vang Her, DFL-St. Paul, were leaving their departments with this serious diagnosis without receiving medical treatment. “We want to ensure they get the treatment they need,” Her said, adding that there’s a need to destigmatize that treatment. (Collins, 6/1)

After Coloradans voted to legalize psilocybin in 2022, "magic mushrooms" are now becoming more mainstream, with a first-of-its-kind study and a national psychedelic conference on the horizon. The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora this month announced it would launch the first modern-era psilocybin clinical trial for depression this fall. (Hernandez, 5/31)

On April 25, four disability rights organizations sued California state agencies and officials in an attempt to overturn the End of Life Option Act, a seven-year-old law that allows doctors to prescribe lethal medication to people who have six months or less to live. The plaintiffs assert that the law violates the Americans With Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act—which form the foundation for disability rights law in the United States. (Luterman, 5/31)

In October 2019, just a few months before a novel coronavirus sparked a deadly pandemic, a group of government officials, business leaders, and academics convened in New York City to role-play a scenario in which a novel coronavirus sparked a deadly pandemic. Their imagined virus leaped from livestock to farmers in Brazil, then spread to Portugal, the United States, and China. Soon, it was everywhere. Eighteen months later, 65 million people were dead. (Stern, 5/30)

The young woman was catatonic, stuck at the nurses’ station — unmoving, unblinking and unknowing of where or who she was. Her name was April Burrell. Before she became a patient, April had been an outgoing, straight-A student majoring in accounting at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. But after a traumatic event when she was 21, April suddenly developed psychosis and became lost in a constant state of visual and auditory hallucinations. The former high school valedictorian could no longer communicate, bathe or take care of herself. (Sima, 6/1)

At 2 or 3 a.m., David Tedrow would hide the empty cardboard cereal box, shoving it into the bottom of the trash can or the back of the cupboard, where his wife wouldn’t notice it. Mr. Tedrow was in his 60s and retired, and he often slept until the afternoon so he could stay up late, after everyone else had gone to bed. During frantic late-night bursts, he would eat an entire box of cereal — Oatmeal Squares, Frosted Mini-Wheats, whatever was around — and then dispose of the evidence. He had eaten compulsively throughout his life, he said, but after months of going through a box of cereal each night, he decided to try to get help. (Blum, 5/31)

Barely clothed Marines huddled exhausted next to their coffin-style bunks stacked to the ceiling below deck on the USS Boxer after midnight in March 2016. They were extremely tired after a long day resupplying their ship, moving crate after crate dropped off by helicopter. A couple of the Marines got up from their ad hoc campfire -- gathered around a flashlight -- to grab a drink from a nearby water fountain. But something was off. The pungent smell of diesel fuel radiated from the tap. The poison was flowing from their sinks and permeating the laundry machines, the odor filling the mess hall. They’d been told the water was safe, but the Marines reached another conclusion. (LaPorta, Toropin and Kime, 6/1)

From 1950 to 1990, the U.S. Energy Department produced an average of four nuclear bombs every day, turning them out of hastily built factories with few environmental safeguards that left behind a vast legacy of toxic radioactive waste. Nowhere were the problems greater than at the Hanford Site in Washington State, where engineers sent to clean up the mess after the Cold War discovered 54 million gallons of highly radioactive sludge left from producing the plutonium in America’s atomic bombs, including the one dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in 1945. (Vartabedian, 5/31)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, and wounded many thousands more. The mental burden of the war has also exacted a heavy toll. For pregnant women, the stress can be particularly dangerous, with doctors and hospital officials warning about a sharp increase in maternal health problems such as premature births. (Varenikova, 6/2)

Starting April 1, states around the country began disenrolling people en masse from Medicaid. This is the result of the end of a temporary, covid-era rule that required states to keep existing Medicaid beneficiaries on their books; in 2020, exchange for extra Medicaid funding, states had to err on the side of preserving access to health care during a pandemic. (Catherine Rampell, 6/1)

Millions of Americans rely on inhalers to help them breathe. These products have existed for more than 65 years, but pharmaceutical manufacturers have used legal and regulatory strategies to keep prices artificially high. (William B. Feldman and Aaron S. Kesselheim, 6/1)

Let’s rescue those who, as New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, says, “slip through the cracks” of our mental health care systems; let’s give people “the treatment and care they need.” (Daniel Bergner, 6/2)

I’m standing over an operating table, excising a skin cancer from the forehead of an elderly gentleman while soft piano music echoes off the floor tiles. I’ve performed this procedure thousands of times, and I always enjoy the placid focus and deep satisfaction performing cutaneous surgery brings me. All I’ve done in adulthood has brought me here: cadaver prosections in anatomy labs, mentorship from dermatologic surgeons, and mastering various knot-tying techniques. (Peter A. Young, 6/2)

Last month, I saw a young woman named Marisol (not her real name, to protect her privacy), who came to my primary care practice suffering from intense pelvic pain. An ultrasound revealed an ovarian cyst nearly the size of a golf ball and as the pain continued to worsen, I was concerned that the ovary may have twisted, blocking all blood flow. Despite this potential surgical emergency, Marisol did not want to go to the hospital because, as an undocumented woman, she did not have health insurance. While she ultimately chose to accept treatment, she is now in thousands of dollars of medical debt. (Edelstein, 6/1)

Last Thursday, after 15 hours of deliberation, the Indiana State Licensing board ruled that our friend and colleague Caitlin Bernard, an OB-GYN, violated patient privacy laws in discussing the case of a 10-year-old girl who traveled from Ohio for an abortion. She was given a letter of reprimand and a $3,000 fine. While a relatively minor punishment, this finding should send a chill through the medical community and beyond. (Katie McHugh, Gabriel Bosslet, Caroline Rouse and Tracey Wilkinson, 6/1)

The statistics are dismal, though they bear repeating: 81% of overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2021 involved an opioid. But as an addiction medicine specialist, there are figures that give me hope: one seminal study showed that 75% of patients who were given the FDA-approved medication buprenorphine to treat opioid use disorder daily for 12 months remained in recovery — compared with 0% who did not receive buprenorphine treatment for the entire 12 months. That’s right: 0%. (Danny Nieves-Kim, 6/1)