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Fresh off a State of the Union speech to Congress that challenged opposition Republicans to help unite the country, President Joe Biden embarked on a tour of U.S. states crucial to his expected 2024 re-election bid. In Wisconsin, the Democratic president told workers at a union training facility "it looks like we negotiated a deal last night" on Social Security. (Holland and Hunnicutt, 2/8)

A jubilant President Joe Biden kicked off his post-State of the Union blitz on Wednesday, buoyed after a night of touting his wins from the past two years and challenging Republicans. “Folks, I hate to disappoint them, but the Biden economic plan is working,” the president told a crowd gathered inside a union training center. “It’s working.” (Lemire and Ward, 2/8)

Biden will travel to Tampa, Florida, on Thursday morning and deliver remarks at the University of Tampa in the afternoon. He will discuss his plan to fortify Social Security and Medicare as well as lower healthcare costs. The president will also "contrast his commitment to protecting and strengthening Medicare and Social Security and lowering prescription drug prices, with Congressional Republicans’ plans to cut these programs," the White House said. (Gomez and Winsor, 2/9)

President Biden ripped Republicans during his State of the Union address for efforts to use the nation’s debt ceiling as leverage to extract spending cuts from Democrats. “Some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage, I get it, unless I agree to their economic plans,” Biden said Tuesday night as the White House gears up for a budget battle with House Republicans. (Folley, 2/8)

Biden and Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly accused Republicans of attempting to target Medicare and Social Security in potential spending cuts that they hope to tie to a debt ceiling increase. However, Republicans have denied that the entitlement programs are at risk. But some prominent Republicans have previously suggested cuts to the programs. Here’s what they actually said about cuts and changes to Social Security and Medicare. (Shapero, 2/8)

In his State of the Union address, Biden said some — but not all — Republicans want to target programs such as Social Security and Medicare, drawing jeers and catcalls from certain members of the GOP caucus. On Wednesday, the president used his speech at a labor training center in Wisconsin to identify the Republicans he was talking about Tuesday night, reading direct comments the lawmakers have made when proposing changes. (Alfaro and Bella, 2/8)

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Wednesday defended his proposal to sunset all federal legislation after five years and slammed President Biden as “confused” in response to Biden’s claim at the State of the Union address that some Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare. “In my plan, I suggested the following: All federal legislation sunsets in five years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” Scott said in a statement following Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress.  (Bolton, 2/8)

The ad-libbed exchange on Tuesday night encapsulated a newfound reality in Washington: Leaders of both parties have become unwilling to discuss potential changes to Social Security and Medicare — even as time dwindles before they reach financial insolvency and benefit reductions for tens of millions of American seniors will automatically go into effect. What used to be a routine point of at least nominal agreement on “hard choices” about the budget is, for now at least, off-limits as Washington grapples with GOP demands to cut federal spending in exchange for raising the nation’s debt limit. (Stein, 2/8)

KHN and PolitiFact: Health Policies Were A Prominent Theme In Biden’s State Of The Union Speech 

President Joe Biden on Tuesday delivered his State of the Union address to a politically divided Congress for the first time, calling for permanent fixes on policy priorities like unaffordable health costs. In one marked difference from his earlier speeches, attendance in the House chamber was at capacity with no covid-19 limitations in effect. And the lawmakers in the audience, both supporters and opponents, seemed to be in a raucous mood. Our partners at PolitiFact fact-checked a variety of Biden’s statements — ranging from Medicare, Social Security, and the health of the economy to infrastructure and a possible assault weapons ban — during the 73-minute speech. (2/8)

“Here’s the most important part of this new prescription drug pricing: You have to be a Medicare recipient for you to benefit. You have to be 65 years or older or you have to be an American who’s disabled and qualifies for Medicare,” Becerra said. “All those other Americans still are strapped with the unfair negotiation, the unfair pricing that occurs.” (Wolf, 2/8)

People with Medicare will pay more for some Covid-19 tests and treatments after the public health emergency ends, according to the agency that oversees the program. The Biden administration will end the federal Covid-19 public health emergency declaration on May 11, bringing an end to some of the free services that lawmakers had guaranteed patients in various Covid-19 relief laws. (Cohrs, 2/9)

President Joe Biden’s calls in his State of the Union speech for strong criminal penalties in response to soaring deaths linked to the potent opioid fentanyl are being rebuked by harm reduction advocates who say that approach could make the problem worse, even as some in Congress jeered the comments and blamed the Democrat’s border policies for deepening the crisis. The reactions laid bare how preventing drug deaths touches on deep political, practical and philosophical differences even in addressing an unrelenting U.S. overdose crisis connected to more than 100,000 deaths a year. (Mulvihill, 2/9)

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden highlighted a recent policy change aimed at increasing access to a medication for opioid use disorder. ... He was referring to a provision wrapped into the omnibus funding bill, which Biden signed into law in December. It eliminated a requirement that medical providers obtain special waivers to prescribe buprenorphine, a painkiller that also reduces opioid cravings and withdrawal symptoms. (Bendix, 2/9)

A new deadly drug is showing up on the streets of San Francisco and it's poised to push the overdose death toll even higher. "It's a stronger analog of Fentanyl," said Jacquie Berlinn, Co-founder of Mother's Against Drug Addiction and Deaths, "It's very scary." Berlinn is referring to Isotonitazene, also known as ISO- a synthetic opioid is at least 20 times more potent than Fentanyl. The illicit drug is a concern for Berlinn, whose son has been battling drug addiction for more than a decade. (Campbell, 2/8)

“They’re using any data they can get their hands on to track xylazine and its complicated set of symptoms and effects on users,” said Richa Ranade, senior director of overdose prevention at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. (Vestal, 2/8)

Just last month, Montgomery County Commissioner John Shaw said, the county experienced four opioid overdose deaths over the span of seven days. While state data show that there are almost 11 opioid deaths per day in North Carolina, four deaths in a week in the central Piedmont county of only 26,000 people was particularly poignant. (Crumpler, 2/9)

Officials in New Hampshire’s largest city are forming teams to take a closer look at nine suspected overdose deaths this month, seven of them over a couple of days. A group of 20 service providers representing federal, state and local agencies held an emergency meeting Tuesday in Manchester to discuss what happened, WMUR-TV reported. (2/8)

Librarians will tell you the role of public libraries hasn’t changed — they’ve always been a community space open to all, with a mission to educate and serve. What changes is the world outside, and whatever is going on in society, will go on in the library. The rise in homelessness, untreated mental illness and drug use have forced libraries to adapt, from extensive staff training in how to de-escalate outbursts to hiring social workers and security guards. (Prentzel and Brown, 2/9)

John Arnold with Coast Cannabis in Bay St. Louis is on a mission to help people beat something he struggled with for years: opioid addiction. For Arnold, his addiction started after he broke his foot in 18 places thanks to an injury at work in 2004.“[The] only alternative to my pain was to get more surgeries or take the narcotic pain pills that they were prescribing me,” he said. (Rivers, 2/6)

During the midterm campaigns, Democrats spent months focused on the demise of federal abortion rights and the danger they said it posed to all Americans. In his State of the Union speech, President Biden spent roughly 42 seconds. (Lerer, 2/9)

Joe Biden is facing criticism for making only a late, brief mention of abortion rights in his first State of the Union address since the reversal of Roe v Wade by a conservative-led supreme court last year removed the federal right to the procedure in the US. During Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, Biden used the word abortion exactly once, making remarks about statewide abortions bans almost an hour into the speech. (Oladipo, 2/8)

Biden called on Congress to restore “every woman’s constitutional right to choose” by codifying Roe v. Wade and protect LGBTQ+ Americans by passing the Equality Act. In 2022’s State of the Union, he used 37 words when addressing abortion access and spent 58 words talking about LGBTQ+ Americans. In his 2021 address to Congress, Biden did not mention abortion and spent 40 words talking about LGBTQ+ Americans. ... Abortion is an uncommon topic in State of the Union addresses, and most presidents who mention abortion do so to condemn it. President Ronald Reagan was the first to explicitly address abortion, making an impassioned plea to “find positive solutions to the tragedy of abortion” in 1984 during a reelection campaign. President Barack Obama became the first president to express support for abortion, doing so in his penultimate address in 2015; Biden became the second last year. (Padilla and Mithani, 2/8)

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, a swiftly implemented Ohio law cut off access to nearly all abortions. Those abortion restrictions are now on hold and the law's fate is in the hands of Ohio judges. But proponents of abortion access in the Buckeye State want voters to decide when and how abortions are performed − as soon as this November. (Balmert and BeMiller, 2/8)

Just when Beth and Kyle Long received the worst news of their life, an Ohio law made their searing pain even worse. For four years, the Longs tried to have a baby, enduring multiple rounds of grueling fertility treatments. In September 2022, Beth finally became pregnant. But an ultrasound four months later showed that most of the baby’s organs were outside the body. (Cohen and Musa, 2/8)

A new bill introduced in Idaho's House State Affairs Committee on Tuesday would classify the act of helping a pregnant minor get a "criminal abortion" as human trafficking. Proposed by Republican Rep. Barbara Ehardt of Idaho Falls, House Bill 98 expands the state's existing trafficking laws and would restrict alternative ways a pregnant minor might seek an abortion. (Lee, 2/8)

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and state lawmakers are scheduled to announce support Thursday for measures protecting abortion rights, including a state constitutional amendment that would enshrine it. House Speaker Adrienne Jones and Senate President Bill Ferguson, who are both Democrats, will join the governor at a news conference to show their support for a measure that would protect patients and providers in Maryland from criminal, civil and administrative penalties relating to abortion bans or restrictions in other states. (Witte, 2/9)

Indiana lawmakers this session are eyeing ways to expand contraceptive access to prevent unintended pregnancies in the state after the Republican-led Legislature pushed through an abortion ban this past summer. A House committee on Tuesday considered a proposal that could permit pharmacists to prescribe birth control hours before state Senators approved a bill that would allow Medicaid recipients same-day access to long-acting reversible contraceptives. (Rodgers, 2/7)

An experimental COVID-19 antiviral appears to be effective at preventing hospitalizations without some of the downsides of other treatments. A study appearing Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine found that a shot of interferon lambda prevented 51% of hospitalizations among people who have been vaccinated — an already low-risk group and one that hasn't been proven to benefit from other treatments. (Weintraub, 2/8)

Positive results from an experimental Covid-19 therapy are rekindling questions about why it hasn’t gained authorization from US regulators, even as the availability of other treatments drops. Adults at high risk of severe Covid who were treated with Eiger BioPharmaceutical Inc.’s therapeutic, called peginterferon lambda, had a 51% lower risk of hospitalization than those who received a placebo, according to the study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Muller, 2/8)

Over the past year, America’s arsenal of Covid treatments has shrunk as new variants of the coronavirus have eroded the potency of drug after drug. Many patients are now left with a single option, Paxlovid. While highly effective, it poses problems for many people who need it because of dangerous interactions with other medications. But a new class of variant-proof treatments could help restock the country’s armory. Scientists on Wednesday reported in The New England Journal of Medicine that a single injection of a so-called interferon drug slashed by half a Covid patient’s odds of being hospitalized. (Mueller, 2/8)

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to end a requirement that most foreign air travelers be vaccinated against COVID-19, one of the few remaining pandemic travel restrictions still in place. The vote was 227 to 201 with seven Democrats joining Republicans. No Republicans voted against the bill. (Shepardson, 2/8)

Fears that China’s lifting of its zero-COVID policy could result in fresh coronavirus variants seem to have not (yet) materialized. A study published in The Lancet on Wednesday found there had been no new COVID-19 variants in the country since it lifted its draconian policy last year, a move which triggered a surge in cases and deaths. (Bencharif, 2/8)

The world should "calm down" about the possibility of new COVID-19 variants circulating in China, leading Chinese scientist George Gao said. A paper by Gao and colleagues published in the Lancet medical journal on Wednesday showed that no new variants had emerged in the initial weeks of China's recent outbreak, after the end of its zero-COVID policy saw a huge wave of cases. (Master and Rigby, 2/8)

China has always shared COVID-related information with the World Health Organization (WHO), the country's National Health Commission said on Wednesday. The Commission said that a Chinese delegation had made that assurance during a WHO meeting held in Geneva from Jan. 30 to Feb. 7. (2/8)

The acting director of the National Institutes of Health pushed back on Wednesday against Republicans’ assertions that a lab leak stemming from taxpayer-funded research may have caused the coronavirus pandemic, telling lawmakers that viruses being studied at a laboratory in Wuhan, China, bore no resemblance to the one that set off the worst public health crisis in a century. Those viruses “bear no relationship to SARS-CoV-2; they are genetically distinct,” the N.I.H. official, Dr. Lawrence A. Tabak, told a House panel, using the formal name for the virus. He added that to suggest otherwise would be akin to “saying that a human is equivalent to a cow.” (Stolberg, 2/8)

A study published yesterday in eLife shows that 60% of cancer patients still have COVID-19 symptoms for 7 months after infection, similar to the general population. University of Texas researchers identified 312 patients at MD Anderson Cancer Center who tested positive for COVID-19 from Mar 1 to Sep 1, 2020, and followed up with them until May 2021. Participants completed daily questionnaires on viral symptoms for 14 days after infection, then weekly for 3 months, and then monthly thereafter. (Van Beusekom, 2/8)

Boston’s COVID-19 statistics continue “to trend downward,” city officials said Wednesday while urging people to maintain precautions against the potentially deadly virus. In a statement, the Boston Public Heath Commission said COVID-19 particles in the city’s wastewater dropped by 47 percent over the previous two weeks, with readings now at an average of “1,014 RNA copies/mL” as of Jan. 29. (Andersen, 2/8)

KHN: Congress Told HHS To Set Up A Health Data Network In 2006. The Agency Still Hasn’t

In early 2020, as they tried to fight covid-19 across two rural counties in North Carolina, the staff of Granville Vance Public Health was stymied, relying on outdated technology to track a fast-moving pandemic. Lisa Macon Harrison, the agency’s health director, said her nurses’ contact-tracing process required manually entering case information into five data systems. One was decades old and complicated. Another was made of Excel spreadsheets. None worked well together or with systems at other levels of government. (Whitehead, 2/9)

When Stephen K. Bannon, the White House strategist turned podcaster, was explaining the latest Covid-19 developments in 2021, he passed the microphone to a special guest: Clay Clark, an evangelist and anti-vaccine activist. For nearly 10 minutes, Mr. Clark rattled off one false and misleading statement after another. Covid is “100 percent treatable” with hydroxychloroquine and other drugs. (No.) Covid vaccines are filled with fetal tissue. (False.) Concentration camps are coming. (Nope.) Bill Gates owns a demonic patent for a cryptocurrency that is injected into your body. (Where to begin?) (Thompson, 2/9)

The Labor Department’s internal watchdog identified nearly $30 billion more in pandemic unemployment benefits that were wrongfully sent out than previously estimated, according to testimony submitted Wednesday to the House Ways and Means Committee. Approximately $191 billion may have been misspent, according to the updated estimate issued by DOL Inspector General Larry D. Turner. Last year, Turner’s office pegged the amount of questionable payments at about $163 billion “with a significant portion attributable to fraud.” (Niedzwiadek, 2/8)

Signs of autism can be picked up as early as the first month of life, according to a new study from Duke University that used children's health records to create an algorithm. Infants later diagnosed with autism were much more likely than neurotypical children to have seen an ophthalmologist or neurologist, have stomach or gastrointestinal problems, or to receive physical therapy, said study author Geraldine Dawson, who directs the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development. (Weintraub, 2/8)

Minnesota’s started screening all newborns for congenital cytomegalovirus. Officials say the state is the first in the nation to do so universally. “With early detection through newborn screening, we will be able to provide these babies with the interventions and care they need to improve their future health and well-being,” Minnesota Health Commissioner Dr. Brooke Cunningham said during a press conference Wednesday to announce the screenings. (Wiley, 2/8)

Some Fabuloso cleaning products were recalled Wednesday over a risk of bacteria contamination, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. As of the recall, no incidents or injuries had been reported. The Colgate-Palmolive Company, the manufacturer of the popular brand, recalled about 4.9 million bottles in the U.S. and about 56,000 in Canada. Fabuloso says about 3.9 million of those bottles were never released for sale. (Radde, 2/8)

Community Medical Center had been delivering babies in Falls City, Nebraska, for more than a century until it shut down its obstetrics unit in November 2019. Annual delivery volumes had steadily declined at the critical access hospital, making it hard to attract and retain anesthesiologists, specialized nurses and surgeons, Community Medical Center CEO Ryan Larsen said. That meant administrators had to pay high rates for on-call physicians and practitioners, who were stretched thin. (Kacik, 2/8)

KHN: Community Resurrects Colorado Birth Center Closed By Private Equity Firm 

When a private equity firm closed Seasons Midwifery and Birth Center in Thornton, Colorado, in October, the state lost one of its few non-hospital birthing centers and 53 families with pregnancy due dates in November and December were left scrambling to find providers. But then staffers and community advocacy groups stepped in to fill the void for the suburban Denver community and its patients, many of whom rely on Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for people with low incomes. They reorganized Seasons as a nonprofit organization and struck a note of triumph and defiance in announcing its reopening in January as the free-standing Seasons Community Birth Center. Seasons has five deliveries scheduled in February and 30 in March. (Cleveland, 2/9)

Birth rates increased among women ages 25 and up — especially among those in their mid-to-late-30s — during the second year of the pandemic, according to final data released recently by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. (Reed, 2/8)

As the US Navy examines the balloon and searches for its cargo, experts fear the incident's effects on the US-China medical supply chain, according to an article yesterday in Scrip. The United States relies on overseas manufacturing for 18 of 21 critical antibiotics and 72% of its active pharmaceutical ingredients. ... One urgent issue is the resumption of FDA inspections of Chinese drug manufacturing plants. For example, BeiGene, Ltd., which has interests in both China and the United States, is still awaiting approval of its cancer antibody tislelizumab, which was postponed in July 2022 because the United States couldn't conduct inspections in China amid its now-scrapped zero-COVID policy. (Van Beusekom, 2/8)

Centene Corp has reached a $215.4 million settlement with California to resolve accusations it overcharged a state program for affordable healthcare by falsely inflating its costs for providing prescription drugs to patients. California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the settlement on Wednesday with the managed care company, which denied liability and wrongdoing but considered the settlement "fair, reasonable, and adequate." (Stempel, 2/8)

KHN: Centene Agrees To $215 Million Settlement With California For Alleged Medicaid Overbilling 

Centene Corp. has agreed to pay more than $215 million to California over allegations it overcharged the state for pharmacy services — the biggest payout to date by the nation’s largest Medicaid insurer over its drug pricing practices. The agreement announced Wednesday makes California at least the 17th state to settle pharmacy billing claims totaling $939 million with the St. Louis-based insurance giant. Centene reported $144.5 billion in revenue in 2022, up 15% from the previous year. (Young, 2/8)

It was late last summer when Dr. Guillermo Amescua started noticing "something weird" about the eye infections he was seeing in his clinic. Amescua, a cornea specialist at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, had been well-versed in using antibiotics to treat bacterial eye infections. (Edwards, 2/9)

Representatives from CVS Health, the nation’s biggest health care company, and a trade group of companies that run prescription drug plans descended on a meeting of the state pharmacy board in Oklahoma City last week to oppose approval of the nation’s first detailed rule aimed at protecting prescription medication from extreme temperatures during shipping to patients. (Kaplan, 2/8)

The moment a donor heart is cut off from its blood supply, transplant teams are on a race against the clock to remove it, transport it, and sew it into the recipient, all within four hours. A new way of reprogramming donor hearts could give them more time. (Chen, 2/8)

When Rena Rossi, 41, was diagnosed with a rare type of diabetes at age 36, one of the first things she did was seek out other people living with the illness. The easiest way to do that was through social media and online groups dedicated to diabetes. The groups she joined and the accounts she followed had what one might expect: information about different equipment and medications and posts about difficult days and triumphs. (Sullivan, 2/9)

There’s been a surge in funding for health tech startups trying to treat or stave off the worst symptoms of chronic kidney disease, a costly and often deadly condition that affects 37 million people in the U.S. alone. (Castillo, 2/8)

The Philips respiratory machine recall is a no-win situation for patients and doctors. But for the medical device giant’s longtime rivals and new competitors, business is looking up. (Lawrence, 2/9)

Valentine’s Day is almost here, with its roses, chocolate and other candy, the latter often colored with red dye No. 3, an additive that has been much debated for decades. ... There is no evidence that ingesting red dye No. 3 or any other artificial food colors causes cancer in humans. Scientists, however, tend to use results of animal studies to understand possible effects in people. “The FDA says it isn’t safe enough to put it on our cheeks, but it’s okay to put it in our mouths?” said Lisa Lefferts, a scientist and consultant to Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which filed a petition with the FDA seeking the dye’s removal from products consumers eat and drink. “That’s crazy.” (Cimons, 2/7)

Mayo Clinic. Johns Hopkins Hospital. Cleveland Clinic. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. All flagship destination research hospitals that attract complex patients from around the U.S. This is the class Henry Ford Health aspires to join. The newly announced $2.2 billion investment into its Detroit campus is a massive step in that direction. (Walsh, 2/8)

The Henry Ford Health system plans to build a major expansion to its Henry Ford Hospital campus in Detroit at about the same time as Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores undertakes two new nearby housing developments totaling at least 500 apartments. The projects, forecast to total $2.5 billion in costs and also to include a new joint medical research center with Henry Ford Health and Michigan State University, were unveiled Wednesday. (Reindl, 2/8)

Orlando Health on Thursday will launch its Hospital Care at Home program, allowing patients in need of acute care to be treated in the comfort of their homes. The program would treat patients suffering from cellulitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, urinary tract infection, heart failure, COVID-19, pneumonia and gastroenteritis. (Pedersen, 2/8)

CVS Health’s $10.6 billion acquisition of Oak Street Health plants another flag in the latest era of health insurance industry consolidation — one defined by insurers moving beyond managing medical and drug benefits, and into directly providing care to people in a primary care office or at home. (Herman and Bannow, 2/8)

It was around 2 a.m. when Carmen realized her 12-year-old daughter was in danger and needed help. Haley wasn't in her room — or anywhere in the house. Carmen tracked Haley's phone to a main street in their central Massachusetts community. "She don't know the danger that she was taking out there," says Carmen, her voice choked with tears. "Walking in the middle of the night, anything can happen." (Bebinger, 2/9)

Healthcare companies used to be some of the safest to lend to during economic downturns, until private equity firms bought them out and larded them with debt. Now they’re some of the riskiest borrowers in the world of leveraged loans. (Butt and Arroyo, 2/8)

More than 70 ambulances showed up Tuesday to transfer about 160 patients evacuated from a Massachusetts hospital that lost power after an electrical transformer fire. The power was shut off at Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital for safety reasons, officials said. “We are removing some critically ill and injured patients,” Brockton Fire Chief Brian Nardelli said at a morning news conference. The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency said about 160 patients were affected. Firefighters said 77 ambulances assisted in relocating them. (2/7)

KHN: Listen To The Latest ‘KHN Health Minute’ 

“Health Minute” brings original health care and health policy reporting from the KHN newsroom to the airwaves each week. (2/7)

Dr. Michael Taylor, a molecular biologist and an international leader in pediatric neuro-oncology, has joined Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine to become the inaugural director of the institutions’ childhood brain cancer research program. He will focus on pursuing therapies for difficult-to-treat brain tumors, the hospital said Wednesday. (Gill, 2/8)

Billionaire New York hedge fund manager Bill Ackman built a record of going against the grain and taking whatever flack or controversy came his way. True to form, Ackman announced last week that he and an anonymous donor had pledged $25 million over five years toward a new research lab for David Sabatini, a former star scientist from MIT and Whitehead Institute, whose career imploded in 2021 amid allegations of workplace misconduct and sexual harassment. (Mark Arsenault, 2/8)

Congratulations to Sister Carol Keehan, Dr. Herbert Pardes and the family of the late Dr. Philip Lee for the trio's induction into the Health Care Hall of Fame. Keehan led the Catholic Health Association of the United States, which represents more than 600 member hospitals and 1,600 other care sites, as president and CEO from 2005 to 2019. She has been a strong advocate for a more equitable healthcare system, including through championing the passage of the Affordable Care Act during the Obama administration. (2/8)

Evacuated residents can return to the Ohio village where crews burned toxic chemicals after a train derailed five days ago near the Pennsylvania state line now that monitors show no dangerous levels in the air, authorities said Wednesday. Around-the-clock testing inside and outside the evacuation zone around the village of East Palestine and a sliver of Pennsylvania showed the air had returned to normal levels that would have been seen before the derailment, said James Justice of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2/9)

Although the controlled releases were considered "low-level," the inhalation of fumes of vinyl chloride could cause dizziness, nausea, headache, visual disturbances, respiratory problems and other health-related issues, Ashok Kumar, a professor in the University of Toledo's department of civil and environmental engineering, told ABC News. (Jacobo, 2/9)

The fiery derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals when it went off the tracks — sending a huge plume of smoke in the air and forcing residents of a small Ohio town to evacuate — has highlighted the potentially disastrous consequences of train accidents and raised questions about railroad safety. The railroad industry is generally regarded as the safest option for most goods and federal data show accidents involving hazardous materials are exceedingly rare. But with rails crossing through the heart of nearly every city and town nationwide, even one hazardous materials accident could be disastrous, especially in a populated area. (Funk, 2/9)

Mississippi state senators passed a bill Tuesday that would let mothers keep Medicaid coverage for a year after giving birth, up from the current two months. “This is the exact same bill that we passed last session three times 45-5,” said Sen. Kevin Blackwell, a Republican from Southaven. State senators voted last year for an extension, but it failed in the House amid opposition from the Republican House Speaker, Phillip Gunn. (Goldberg, 2/8)

Lawmakers went to work Wednesday on a proposal to allow all residents to buy into the state-run MinnesotaCare health insurance program, not just low-income workers struggling to get by. Democratic legislators and Gov. Tim Walz have been pushing for several years to expand MinnesotaCare into a low-cost “public option” for health insurance that would be available to everyone. Now that Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s office, expanding the program is one of their top priorities for the 2023 session. (Karnowski, 2/8)

A five-year experiment aimed at improving care for some of California’s most at-risk Medicaid patients — including homeless people and people with severe drug addictions — resulted in fewer hospitalizations and emergency room visits that saved taxpayers an estimated $383 per patient per year, according to a review released Wednesday. The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research said that for every 1,000 people enrolled in California’s Whole Person Care pilot program, there were 45 fewer hospitalizations and 130 fewer ER visits when compared with a similar group of patients who were not in the program. (Beam, 2/9)

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who suffered a stroke during his campaign last year, was hospitalized Wednesday night after feeling lightheaded while attending a Senate Democratic retreat, his office said. Initial tests at George Washington University Hospital did not show evidence of a new stroke, Fetterman’s communications director, Joe Calvello, said in a statement issued Wednesday night. Doctors were running more tests and the senator remained at the hospital for observation, according to the statement. (2/9)

Facing blowback, the director of Florida’s high school sports governing body is backing away from using an eligibility form that requires female athletes to disclose their menstrual history in order to compete. Instead, the executive director of the Florida High School Athletic Association is recommending that most personal information revealed on medical history forms stay at the doctor’s office and not be stored at school. (Schneider, 2/8)

KHN: ‘The Country Is Watching’: California Homeless Crisis Looms As Gov. Newsom Eyes Political Future 

Driving through the industrial outskirts of Sacramento, a stretch of warehouses, wholesale suppliers, truck centers, and auto repair shops northeast of downtown, it’s hard to square California’s $18 billion investment in homeless services with the roadside misery. Tents and tarps, run-down RVs, and rusted boats repurposed as shelter line one side of the main thoroughfare. More tents and plywood lean-tos hug the freeway underpasses that crisscross Roseville Road, and spill into the nearby neighborhoods and creek beds. (Hart, 2/9)

A proposal to let Massachusetts prisoners donate organs and bone marrow to shave time off their sentence is raising profound ethical and legal questions about putting undue pressure on inmates desperate for freedom. The bill — which faces a steep climb in the Massachusetts Statehouse — may run afoul of federal law, which bars the sale of human organs or acquiring one for “valuable consideration.” It also raises questions about whether and how prisons would be able to appropriately care for the health of inmates who go under the knife to give up organs. (LeBlanc, 2/8)

After hours of administering state testing for her Houston area middle school students, Rowena Ward glanced at the phone silenced in her desk drawer to find dozens of missed calls from unknown numbers. Her first thought was one of relief: Maybe her son, Rory, had been released from the Harris County Jail. Maybe he was finally ready to come home after a decade on the streets. Maybe this time he would take the medications to regulate his bipolar and schizophrenia disorders. (Stuckey, 2/9)

How long can trapped people survive in the rubble of an earthquake? Up to a week or more, experts say, but it depends on their injuries, how they are trapped and weather conditions. Search teams from around the world have joined local emergency personnel in Turkey and Syria to look for victims from this week’s devastating earthquake that has killed thousands. (Tanner, 2/8)

The World Health Organization is deploying expert teams and flights with medical supplies to Turkey and Syria after Monday's devastating earthquake. It will send a high-level delegation to coordinate its response as well as three flights with medical supplies, one of which is already on its way to Istanbul, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing on Wednesday. (2/8)

“The first 72 hours are considered to be critical,” said Steven Godby, a natural hazards expert at Nottingham Trent University, told Sky News. “The survival ratio on average within 24 hours is 74%, after 72 hours it is 22%, and by the fifth day it is 6%.” In previous quakes people have been recovered alive after 15 days under rubble, but subzero winter temperatures since Monday mean those who survived the initial tremor but are still trapped risk dying from hypothermia, doctors have said. (Henley and Sullivan, 2/9)

A Japanese court on Tuesday rejected a damage suit filed by a group of children of Hiroshima atomic bombing survivors seeking government support for medical costs, saying the hereditary impact of radiation exposure is still unknown. A group of 28 plaintiffs whose parents suffered radiation exposure in the Aug. 6, 1945, U.S. atomic attack were demanding the central government include them in the medical support available to survivors. (Yamaguchi, 2/7)

Left or right political leaning in the United States predicts both physician and patient beliefs about COVID-19 treatments, with the two groups perceiving information differently, according to a study to be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). (Van Beusekom, 2/7)

Researchers have helped develop a new blood test to detect prostate cancer with greater accuracy than current methods. New research shows that the Prostate Screening EpiSwitch (PSE) blood test is 94 per cent accurate -- beating the currently used prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test. (University of East Anglia, 2/7)

Payers, providers and—especially—public policy officials might want to take a deeper dive into the race and ethnicity of mothers when weighing what to do about preterm births and low birth weights, according to a study published today in Health Affairs. (Diamond, 2/6)

There are significant racial inequities in high-risk infant follow-up program (HRIFs) participation, with notable variation within and between hospitals. Further study is needed to identify potential hospital-level targets for interventions to reduce this inequity. (Fraiman et al, 2/1)

Fungus-caused infections — real ones, not the ones sparking the zombie apocalypse on the popular show “The Last of Us” — pose a growing threat in the United States and around the world. Mississippi has become the latest state to report residents infected with Candida auris, a highly contagious fungus that thrives in hospitals and nursing homes. It won’t be the last and, without dedicated effort, infections and deaths will continue to pile up. (Henry Skinner, 2/9)

In the US, a whopping 58% of adults’ daily calories, and 67% of kids’ daily calories, come from ultraprocessed foods, according to cancer epidemiologist Fang Fang Zhang. But when we reach for that bag of Doritos in the larder, do we realize we are indulging in an ultraprocessed snack? What about when we toss plant-based meat alternatives into a stir fry? Do we truly understand what makes a food “ultraprocessed”? (Kirsi Goldynia, 2/8)

Three years after the federal government officially declared COVID-19 both a public health and national emergency, the White House is ready to relinquish the extra powers that came with those proclamations. Last week, the Biden administration announced that it will end the twin emergencies on May 11, a move that would trigger some major changes in how people access COVID vaccines, treatments, and testing. (2/9)

President Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address outlined the administration’s plan to reduce health care costs for Americans, including lowering health insurance premiums and expanding the $35-a-month cap on insulin costs to anyone who needs it. He boldly declared that cuts to Medicare and Social Security are off the table, and said he would veto any attempt to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act or institute a national ban on abortion. (Steven Lane, 2/8)

Perhaps we can blame Covid fatigue for numbing us to the risks of other viruses. But it should be bigger news that a bird flu has mutated to spread through mammals and is ominously appearing among wild and domesticated animals around the globe. (Faye Flam, 2/8)

Last week, the Biden administration announced that it will end the COVID-associated national and public health emergencies on May 11. That means stopping payments for COVID-19 tests and vaccines for some Americans depending on their insurance status, other people losing benefits such as Medicaid and some hospitals receiving less funding — placing higher burdens on our already depleted healthcare workforce. (Saad B. Omer, 2/9)

It is not yet known how many people have long covid, why and what their prospects for recovery are, let alone what the long-term impact on society will be. The U.S. government reported in August that “no laboratory test can definitively distinguish” long covid from other causes of illness. (2/8)

For many health-care workers watching the Super Bowl in recent years, the hardest hits have often come not during gameplay but in the commercial breaks. (Farzon A. Nahvi, 2/8)

Last year, nearly 20% of organs recovered from selfless donors were not transplanted. This includes more than a quarter of recovered kidneys. Most of those organs come from older donors; these can be more medically complex to transplant but remain safe for patients. (Dr. Maureen McBride, 2/9)

Incarcerated people are not autonomous. They exist in an intrinsically coercive environment, where every aspect of their daily life is controlled and surveilled and every interaction with other human beings is monitored. They are stripped of normal clothing and forced to wear prison garb. They are ordered, not asked, to do just about everything. (Arthur Caplan and Dominic Sisti, 2/8)

Legislation filed by Representatives Carlos González of Springfield and Judith García of Chelsea would allow prison inmates to qualify for a reduction in their sentence by donating one of their organs or bone marrow. Their bill, HD.3822, imposes no mandate or penalty; it simply offers prisoners who become organ donors a chance to shorten their incarceration by up to 12 months. (Jeff Jacoby, 2/8)

Though it may be hard for many to fathom, even pregnant people and new parents can have active substance use disorders. They need support, not criminalization. (Nora D. Volkow, 2/8)

Parents around the world want what’s best for their babies. Many have heard that breastfeeding is good for their babies’ health, and most expectant mothers want to breastfeed, but many can’t attain that goal. A new series of papers published in The Lancet — of which I am a co-author — makes clear that a key reason for this is the marketing tactics of companies selling formula. (Cecilia Tomori, 2/8)

For years since the U.S. Supreme Court made abortion legal with the decision on Roe versus Wade, the New England Journal of Medicine has supported reproductive rights. In July 2022, soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe, the Journal published an editorial condemning the Court’s reversal. (Rachel Gotbaum, 2/9)

Remember hearing stories about ancient civilization throwing women into volcanos to save their towns? That type of sacrifice lives on today in the town of Putnam. The CEO of Day Kimball Healthcare, Kyle Krammer, is claiming that the only way to save the hospital is to be acquired by Covenant Health, an out-of-state Catholic conglomerate. (The Rev. Jane Emma Newall, 2/9)