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While it closes a chapter in history, health experts point out the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet over as the virus continues to claim about 1,000 lives each week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To date, more than 1.1 million people in the country have died. “There’s no real mechanism to declare an end to the pandemic, but it is an end to the emergency phase, both in the U.S. and globally,” said Crystal Watson, associate professor at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. (Rodriguez and Alltucker, 5/11)

The U.S. government on Thursday will end the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency that allowed millions of Americans to receive vaccines, tests and treatments at no cost. The emergency is also tied to telehealth flexibilities, Medicaid enrollment safeguards, and the ability of government health agencies to collect data on the spread of the coronavirus. Here is what will change after Thursday, and what does not. (5/10)

The formal end of the national Public Health Emergency on Thursday is largely a symbolic and psychological step, representing the country’s formal emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic. But behind the scenes, several core aspects of America’s pandemic-era emergency safety net are also coming to a close, from extra food assistance to automatic re-enrollment in Medicaid. While these measures were always designed to be temporary, their expiration is inevitably producing hardship and confusion. (Khalil, 5/11)

Most people can expect to pay more for Covid tests after the federal public health emergency expires at the end of the day Thursday. The emergency declaration guaranteed widespread access to free Covid-related health services starting in January 2020. (Bendix, 5/10)

The popular offering will be available until the end of May, according to a press release this week from the Biden Administration outlining the transition of Covid measures. Since the online portal launched in January 2022, the program has distributed more than 750 million rapid antigen tests to over two-thirds of American households. (Griffin, 5/10)

When the Covid-19 public health emergency expires in the United States on Thursday, the coronavirus will not disappear. But many of the data streams that have helped Americans monitor the virus will go dark. ... But experts who want to keep tabs on the virus will still have one valuable option: sewage. People who are infected with the coronavirus shed the pathogen in their stool, whether or not they take a Covid test or seek medical care, enabling officials to track levels of the virus in communities over time and to watch for the emergence of new variants. (Anthe, 5/11)

In April 2020, the Food and Drug Administration announced a pandemic enforcement policy allowing mental health app developers to release certain treatment products without seeking authorization from the agency. With the end of the official public health emergency, companies that did so will now need to submit the products for FDA clearance and have them pass an early stage of review by early November — or remove the products from the market. (Aguilar, 5/11)

The pandemic-era policy used to block migrants at the southern border is coming to an end this week. Lifting so-called Title 42 will mean a major policy shift, one expected to draw an increase of asylum seekers to the U.S. — and scrutiny over how the Biden administration will handle that influx. ... The government has used Title 42 to turn away asylum seekers more than 2 million times for more than three years. But it’s not actually an immigration policy. Section 265 of Title 42 of U.S. Code addresses public health, social welfare and civil rights. In March 2020, the Trump administration ordered the CDC chief to implement the Title 42 authority and turn people away at the border on public health grounds. (Ward, 5/10)

The city will keep distributing free home tests at libraries and other locations until its supply from the federal government runs out. The city’s public hospitals and clinics will continue indefinitely to provide low-cost or free care to the estimated 200,000 uninsured people in the city, as it does for other illnesses. “Covid-related health care is going to start looking a lot more like all the other health care we receive, which involves health insurance for people who have it, and turning to our safety-net health care system for people who don’t,” said Rima Oken, director of policy for the New York City Health Department’s disease control division, at a panel hosted last week by the Pandemic Response Institute. (Otterman, 5/10)

A lot went wrong during the coronavirus pandemic as the virus tore through a polarized nation and public health leaders, policymakers and elected officials struggled to respond. Chronic underinvestment in public health at the federal, state and local levels only made things worse. All told, more than 1.1 million people have died of Covid-19 in the United States, and more than 1,000 are still dying each week. (Stolberg and Weiland, 5/11)

In the US, new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all trending downward, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s also true of cases and deaths in the EU. But when the US ends its emergency on May 11, the CDC will stop tracking community levels of transmission and instead will track overall hospitalization and death rates. The emergency declaration mandated that local data be provided, and that will now lapse. And with less data, it will be harder to track new variants, which in turn will complicate the puzzle of updating vaccines to provide the most protection, although in some areas wastewater surveillance and genomic surveillance will continue. (Hoover, 5/9)

Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician and public health expert at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said that, while overall deaths this spring are slightly lower than expected, they would be lower still if not for the continued presence of the coronavirus. “By now, I was hoping we would actually have a lot of deficit mortality,” said Faust, who analyzed Massachusetts mortality numbers for The Boston Globe. Deficit mortality occurs when surges of illness, like last winter’s COVID uptick, cause people to die sooner than expected, leading to a compensating period of fewer-than-usual deaths. (Kuchment, 5/10)

The expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency today will cut off a pipeline of data that tallied the pandemic's human toll and offered a view of how the stealthy virus spread. More than 1.1 million Americans have died from COVID over the course of the public health emergency, or about 980 people a day. (Moreno, 5/11)

On the eve of the expiration date for the federally declared coronavirus public health emergency, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha warned that the pandemic is far from over. “I don’t see this as an end to the pandemic or fighting Covid,” Jha said at a STAT event in Boston on Wednesday. “I see this as a transition out of this emergency phase into a very different phase.” (Castillo, 5/10)

If you look only at absolute numbers, the decision to end the PHE might make you scratch your head. After all, there were almost 9,900 new hospital admissions related to Covid in the US for the week ending May 1, and there were roughly 1,050 deaths per week at the end of April. Comparatively, when the first PHE declaration was signed at the end of January 2020, there were no deaths reported in the United States (the first US death wouldn’t be tallied until February 29). In fact, it wasn’t until February 10 that deaths worldwide topped 1,000. In medicine, however, numbers and data are important, but trends tell an even richer, more complete story. (Gupta, 5/10)

More than 1.1 million Americans have died of Covid, and the rate of death has markedly slowed in recent months. In 2020 and 2021, it was the third most common cause of death; by this point in 2023, preliminary data show, it has dropped to seventh. But the move by the Biden administration that takes effect on Thursday has landed with mixed emotions for many Americans who have lost family members and friends to the pandemic. (Bosman, 5/11)

A study today in JAMA Network Open found that social media posts spotlighted heightened levels of anxiety, anger, and depression among emergency medicine (EM) physicians during COVID-19 compared with posts during the prepandemic period. The authors of the study say their findings offer insight into the professional burnout seen widely across the medical field in the past 3 years. (Soucheray, 5/10)

We know so many people continue to be affected by COVID-19, particularly seniors, people who are immunocompromised, and people with disabilities. That is why our response to the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, remains a public health priority. To ensure an orderly transition, we have been working for months so that we can continue to meet the needs of those affected by COVID-19. (5/9)

Through partnerships with you and others, we are now in a better place in our response than we were three years ago, and we can transition away from the emergency phase. (Xavier Becerra, 5/10)

President Trump declared the Covid-19 pandemic a national emergency on Friday, the first time such a declaration has been issued over an infectious disease outbreak since the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009. In a Rose Garden press conference, Trump said his declaration would free $50 billion in federal resources to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus and the respiratory disease it causes, which has sickened over 1,000 Americans and killed thousands more worldwide. (3/13/20)

President Trump cautioned that Americans will have to make sacrifices and change their daily practices, a stark difference from two weeks ago when he said people should use common sense but otherwise not change their routines. “It could get worse. The next eight weeks will be critical,” he said. Shaking hands freely with the gathered business executives, the 73-year-old Trump later acknowledged he expected to be tested for the virus. He had come into contact with a Brazilian official last Saturday who later tested positive for coronavirus. (3/13/20)

The spread of COVID-19 within our Nation’s communities threatens to strain our Nation’s healthcare systems. As of March 12, 2020, 1,645 people from 47 States have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. It is incumbent on hospitals and medical facilities throughout the country to assess their preparedness posture and be prepared to surge capacity and capability. Additional measures, however, are needed to successfully contain and combat the virus in the United States. (3/13/20)

But Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned, “There will be many more cases” of coronavirus in coming weeks. (3/13/20)

President Trump tweeted that he is declaring Sunday will be a National Day of Prayer as many churches around the country are closed due to the spread of coronavirus. Large gatherings have been discouraged as social distancing is being used in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. (3/13/20)

This timeline provides information about select moments in the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and around the world beginning from its known origins to today. (5/11)

A Senate hearing on high insulin costs billed as a blockbuster showdown with drugmakers and middlemen turned out to be a familiar case of political theater that appeared to satisfy no one. The nation’s three biggest insulin makers, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi, and the trio of middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers, Express Scripts, OptumRx and CVS Health, testified Wednesday in a three-hour hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. The hearing sets up a debate by the same committee Thursday over a package of bills aimed at PBM reform. (Owermohle, 5/10)

In their opening statements, drug manufacturing leaders cited numerous causes of insulin’s sky-high price that exist outside their companies. ... Representatives from the PBM industry subtly shot back at the drug company representatives, insisting that their companies have a key role in keeping costs down. (Choi, 5/10)

Only Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks agreed to one of Senate HELP Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders's (I-VT) numerous requests of the chief executives, pledging his company would not raise the prices of any insulin drugs currently on the market. He joined the other CEOs in declining Sanders's other pleas, such as lowering list prices on other drugs that cost less in Europe and Canada. (Jacobs, 5/10)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: PBMs, The Brokers Who Control Drug Prices, Finally Get Washington’s Attention 

For two decades, patients and physicians eagerly awaited a lower-cost version of the world’s bestselling drug, Humira, while its maker, AbbVie, fought off potential competitors by building a wall of more than 250 patents around it. When the first Humira biosimilar — essentially a generic version — finally hit the market in January, it came with an unpleasant surprise. The biosimilar’s maker, Amgen, launched two versions of the drug, which treats a host of conditions including rheumatoid arthritis. They were identical in every way but this: One was priced at about $1,600 for a two-week supply, 55% off Humira’s list price. But the other was priced at around $3,300, only about 5% off. And OptumRx, one of three powerhouse brokers that determine which drugs Americans get, recommended option No. 2: the more expensive version. (Allen, 5/11)

An array of lawmakers called for a simpler reimbursement pathway for breakthrough devices at a Ways and Means health subcommittee hearing on Wednesday. They echoed a prevalent concern of medical device makers: that when device companies struggle to obtain insurance coverage, it discourages device innovation and limits patient options. (Lawrence, 5/10)

While they made their jabs, the health and financial security of millions of Americans across the country remained at risk. Though getting Republicans and Democrats to agree on financial aid is never a simple task, the side effect of the standoff is clear: U.S. residents who rely on government payments for their salaries, retirement money, food assistance, medical care and more would lose those benefits if the nation doesn't have money to cover its obligations. (Woodall, Looker, Elbeshbishi and Tran, 5/10)

President Biden sought to drive a wedge among Republicans in their escalating dispute over spending and debt on Wednesday, effectively reaching out to moderates in hopes of convincing them to break away from Speaker Kevin McCarthy rather than risk triggering a national default that could throw the economy into a tailspin. Appearing in a competitive suburb with a vulnerable House Republican in his sights, Mr. Biden accused Mr. McCarthy of pursuing a radical strategy at the behest of the “extreme” wing of his party loyal to former President Donald J. Trump, putting the country in economic jeopardy in a way that he said reasonable Republicans of his own era in the Senate would not have done. (Baker and Fandos, 5/10)

Battles in 2011 and 2013 taught President Biden not to lean on a House speaker who has little room to negotiate and to keep debt ceiling talks separate from the budget. (Rogers, 5/10)

An influential advisory panel recommended that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approve an oral contraceptive pill for over-the-counter use without an age restriction. While hormonal birth control is available without a prescription in many other countries, this medication, Opill, would be the first such option in the United States. (Luthra, 5/10)

The 17-0 vote by two advisory panels came despite serious reservations from agency officials about the quality of the data used to support switching the birth control pill, called Opill, from prescription to over the counter. The agency did not have concerns about the safety and effectiveness of the drug. The FDA is not required to follow the recommendation of the committees, though the vote is expected to weigh heavily on its final decision, expected in late summer. (Lovelace Jr., 5/10)

It's a startling statistic. Every year, 70,000 women around the world basically bleed to death after childbirth. That averages out to nearly 200 deaths a day and makes postpartum hemorrhage a leading cause of maternal deaths. Now a new study points to a surprisingly simple and inexpensive solution: Basically, if the woman lies on a plastic sheet with a small transparent pouch at the other end to collect the blood, the medical team has an immediate sense of how much danger she's in and can take swift action. The cost of the sheet-with-a-pouch: Between $1-2. (Chatterjee, 5/10)

Vermont’s Republican governor signed abortion and gender affirming shield bills into law Wednesday that are the first in the country to explicitly include protecting access to a medication widely used in abortions even if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration withdraws its approval of the pill, mifepristone. The bills protect providers from discipline for providing legally protected reproductive and gender affirming health care services. (Rathke, 5/10)

Nevada lawmakers on Wednesday passed a joint resolution that would codify reproductive rights — including already-existing abortion access up to 24 weeks — into the state constitution. The state Assembly approved of the measure 28 to 14 along party lines, about three weeks after the state Senate passed it 13 to 8 along party lines. State lawmakers must pass the resolution again in 2025 before it would go before voters as a ballot question in 2026. If passed, the resolution would provide the highest level of state protection for not only abortion rights, but also other reproductive access, including postpartum and prenatal care, as well as birth control. (Stern, 5/10)

North Carolina’s Democratic governor rallied residents and local doctors Wednesday in Wilmington as part of a last-minute bid to persuade at least one Republican lawmaker to sustain his expected veto of a bill banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The visit marks the second day of Gov. Roy Cooper’s cross-state campaign to urge the constituents of four GOP state legislators to demand they uphold abortion access after expressing hesitance about further restrictions during their election campaigns last year. (Schoenbaum, 5/11)

Republican lawmakers in Louisiana rejected legislation Wednesday that would add exceptions in cases of rape and incest to one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. This legislative session, there is a package of bills aimed at loosening Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban by adding exceptions, clarifying “vague language” and decreasing the punishment for doctors convicted of performing illegal abortions. However, much of the proposed legislation died in a GOP-controlled committee Wednesday or was voluntarily deferred by the bills’ authors. (Cline, 5/11)

South Carolina Republicans are pushing new abortion restrictions in a late attempt to curtail access after a near-total ban failed last month. A Senate bill that would ban abortion except in the earliest weeks of pregnancy is moving quickly through the South Carolina House in the first sign that Republican leaders may be close to restoring limits passed in 2021 but overturned by the state Supreme Court. (Pollard, 5/10)

The first Texas legislative session since the overturn of Roe v. Wade was “a draw,” said Rep. Donna Howard, a Democrat from Austin, as abortion bills on either side of the aisle languished in parliamentary purgatory. “For the first time that I can remember, for quite a few sessions, back to at least 2011, maybe before that, we haven’t really dealt with abortion,” Howard said. (Klibanoff, 5/11)

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has defended his decision not to join most of his Republican counterparts around the country in supporting a lawsuit challenging the safety and approval of the abortion medication mifepristone. In a wide-ranging interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Miyares said he opted not to sign onto the amicus brief by 22 other Republican attorneys general earlier this year because he had concerns about whether the plaintiffs in the case had standing to sue. (Rankin and Lavoie, 5/10)

As abortion access continues to dwindle in the South, its future in Virginia is set to loom large in this fall’s legislative elections. But this summer, before the parties duke it out for control of the statehouse, abortion rights advocates are eyeing a key primary that will pit [Lashrecse] Aird against the last anti-abortion-rights Democrat in Virginia. (Barclay, 5/11)

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said Wednesday that he does not support Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) blanket hold on more than 180 non-political military promotions, which Democrats say is keeping qualified people out of key roles. “I don’t support putting a hold on military nominations, I don’t support that,” McConnell told reporters. Tuberville has held up the promotions of 184 general and flag officers for weeks to protest the Defense Department’s abortion policy of providing paid leave and travel reimbursements to service members who have to cross state lines to obtain abortions and fertility treatments. (Bolton, 5/10)

Former President Trump called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade “a great victory” but did not say whether he would support a federal ban on abortion if he’s elected again. “It was such a great victory and people are starting to understand it now,” Trump said of the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down the 1973 decision protecting abortion rights, when asked at a CNN town hall on Wednesday how he would appeal to female voters in 2024. (Manchester, 5/10)

The Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was followed by a "sharp increase" in violence directed against abortion providers and patients, according to a new report from the National Abortion Federation. (Gonzalez, 5/11)

Scientists on Wednesday unveiled a new accounting of the human genome that improves on its predecessor by including a rich diversity of people to better reflect the global population - a boost to ongoing efforts to identify genetic underpinnings of diseases and new ways to treat them. This "pangenome" achievement was announced two decades after the first sequencing of the human genome, a feat that transformed biomedical research by giving scientists a reference map to analyze DNA for clues about disease-related mutations. (Dunham, 5/10)

For two decades, scientists have been comparing every person’s full set of DNA they study to a template that relies mostly on genetic material from one man affectionately known as “the guy from Buffalo.” But they’ve long known that this template for comparison, or “reference genome,” has serious limits because it doesn’t reflect the spectrum of human diversity. (Ungar, 5/10)

The pangenome, unveiled in the journal Nature, is based on the full genetic blueprints of 47 people who were sequenced between 2008 and 2015 for another study, including some of African, Asian, Caribbean, American and European ancestries. Scientists hope to expand the new tool over the next two years to incorporate 350 genetic blueprints from around the world. While the human genome is like a single road, the pangenome resembles a subway map, converging in parts of the sequence that are common to most people and branching out in areas where we differ. (Johnson, 5/10)

Britain’s fertility regulator on Wednesday confirmed the births of the U.K.’s first babies created using an experimental technique combining DNA from three people, an effort to prevent the children from inheriting rare genetic diseases. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority said fewer than five babies have been born this way in the U.K. but did not provide further details to protect the families’ identities. The news was first reported by the Guardian newspaper. (Cheng, 5/10)

The vaccine provoked an immune response in half of the patients treated, and those people showed no relapse of their cancer during the course of the study, a finding that outside experts described as extremely promising. The study, published in Nature, was a landmark in the yearslong movement to make cancer vaccines tailored to the tumors of individual patients. (Mueller, 5/10)

When Barbara Brigham was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2020, the odds were not in her favor. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies, fatal in 88% of patients. It is also one of the hardest to treat. Tumors can be surgically removed, but they come back within seven to nine months in 90% of patients. Chemotherapy can help prolong life, but it too is rarely a cure. Radiation, immunotherapy and targeted therapies also don’t work. (Goodman, 5/10)

A wearable patch could prevent severe allergic reactions in toddlers with peanut allergies, according to the results of a promising clinical trial. The late-stage trial, which involved more than 200 children ages 1 to 3 with peanut allergies, found that after wearing the experimental patch around 22 hours a day for a year, 67% were able to tolerate 300 to 1,000 milligrams of peanut protein — the equivalent of one to four peanuts. The findings were published Wednesday evening in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Bendix, 5/10)

Neurologic complications of Lyme disease such as hand and feet numbness and pain that do not resolve with treatment may be due to an exaggerated immune response rather than the infection itself, a study published on Wednesday suggests. Researchers found that Lyme disease patients with persistent central nervous system problems have high blood levels of interferon alpha, an inflammatory protein produced by the immune system in response to infection. (Leo, 5/10)

When you think of mosquito-borne illnesses, chikungunya is probably not the first one that comes to mind. But it’s a virus you may soon be hearing about more often. “Longer stretches of warmer periods in the south of the Americas have enabled the mosquito to do well in places where it didn’t do well before,” said Thais dos Santos, an advisor on surveillance and control of arboviral diseases at the WHO’s Pan American Health Organization. (Peng, 5/10)

Experts are concerned about the “alarming spread” of an invasive and aggressive mosquito species found in Georgia and South Carolina. Asian tiger mosquitoes are black with distinctive white stripes. They first entered the U.S. in the 1980s through shipments of used tires from northern Asia, according to the Center for Invasive Species Research. These mosquitoes can transmit severe and debilitating diseases including dengue fever, chikungunya and Zika virus. (5/9)

But to focus only on a mosquito’s hankering for flesh is to leave a whole chapter of the pests’ scent-seeking saga “largely overlooked,” Clément Vinauger, a chemical ecologist at Virginia Tech, told me. Mosquitoes are omnivores, tuned to sniff out blood and plants. And nowadays, most humans, especially those in the Western world, tend to smell a bit like both, thanks to all the floral, citrusy lotions and potions that so many of us slather atop our musky flesh. (Wu, 5/10)

Despite the continuing rise in opioid overdose deaths, one of the most effective treatments for opioid addiction is still drastically underprescribed in the United States, especially for Black patients, according to a large new study. From 2016 through 2019, scarcely more than 20 percent of patients diagnosed with opioid use disorder filled prescriptions for buprenorphine, the medication considered the gold standard in opioid addiction treatment, despite repeated visits to health care providers, according to the study, which was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Hoffman, 5/10)

Black people are far less likely than other Americans to receive buprenorphine, a key medication for treating opioid use disorder, according to a new study. White patients in need of addiction care were prescribed buprenorphine at more than twice the rate of Black patients in the six months preceding an addiction-related health emergency, according to the analysis. The treatment gap continued at a similar rate in the six months after an overdose, hospitalization, or admission to a rehab facility. (Facher, 5/10)

Former President Donald Trump spoke to New Hampshire voters during a CNN town hall held at St. Anselm College in Manchester Wednesday night. Audience members asked how he would tackle issues like abortion, Second Amendment rights, immigration and more. But nobody brought up the opioid crisis plaguing the Granite State. (Jones and Speak, 5/10)

Amid troubling signs that a dangerous sedative known as “tranq” has spread even further into the local street drug supply, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has launched a pilot program to better document the drug’s presence. Xylazine is an animal tranquilizer that began appearing several years ago in illicit pills and powders on the East Coast. It’s been linked to deaths across the country and can cause human tissue to rot, leaving users with grisly wounds that sometimes lead to amputations. (Blakinger, 5/10)

An initiative launched by Attorney General Ashley Moody will provide Florida's first responders with free naloxone, a medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. The “Helping Heroes” program will provide naloxone to law enforcement, firefighters and paramedics at select Walmart pharmacies in Florida, according to a press release from the attorney general‘s office. Moody announced the initiative Tuesday – on National Fentanyl Awareness Day – in Clearwater. (Pinos, 5/10)

Ohio State University is about to grow psychedelic mushrooms. For scientific research, people. Ohio State, alongside the mental health and wellness research and development company Inner State Inc., was awarded the first-ever license by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to grow whole psilocybin mushrooms. The mushrooms will be used in the study of mental health treatment capabilities with naturally grown psychedelic mushrooms. (Hendrix, 5/10)

Physician staffing company Envision Healthcare plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The filing could happen as early as this weekend, the newspaper reported Tuesday. Much of Nashville, Tennessee-based Envision's $7 billion in outstanding debt would be swapped for shares if the company restructures. (Hudson, 5/10)

Babylon Health announced plans Wednesday to be taken private as it reported a first-quarter loss more than twice the size of a year ago. The Austin, Texas-based company said it entered into an agreement with AlbaCore Capital Group, a London-based investment manager, and its affiliates to accept $34.5 million in interim funding. In return, AlbaCore plans to take the company private, provide additional financing and create a long-term employee incentive plan, according to a Wednesday regulatory filing. (Turner, 5/10)

Philipp Aldana well remembers a very ill young patient last year who needed an MRI scan because of "medical deterioration." The patient was so medically fragile that even the trip from the room to the imaging lab was a danger, said Aldana, co-medical director of the Stys Neuroscience Institute at Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville. (Scanlan, 5/10)

Bangor’s two major hospitals will receive $9 million each from the late John Webber’s estate. Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center and St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation made the announcement during a news conference at the Cross Insurance Center on Wednesday. The organizations anticipate several million dollars more at a later date, following the estate’s settlement. (Royzman, 5/10)

The Medical College of Wisconsin last week called off a panel on the "uses and abuses" of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in medicine and science after students and faculty said the subject lacked scientific evidence and flew in the face of the college's values. That decision has triggered speakers on the panel, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson among them, to argue they're the victims of cancel culture and intolerance of contrary thought in academia. (Shastri, 5/10)

Representing a man who died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm, attorney Tom Bosworth turned to an unusual platform in April to argue that the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania was at fault.He went on TikTok, where more than 175,000 followers know him as the blunt-spoken “tommythelawyer.” (Avril, 5/11)

A South Carolina doctor who built a nationwide practice prescribing ketamine for patients to use at home notified them Tuesday that federal authorities have ordered him to stop, prompting panic among those who depend on the drug for their mental health. “My privileges to prescribe controlled substances have been suspended until further notice,” Scott Smith of Mount Pleasant, S.C., emailed patients just after 5 p.m., with the subject line “Practice closed immediately per DEA instruction,” according to several messages reviewed by The Washington Post. “I am in quite a bit of a shock about this,” Smith wrote in the email. (Gilbert, 5/10)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: 'An Arm and a Leg': Mental Health ‘Ghost Networks’ — And A Ghostbuster 

Many people searching for a therapist or psychiatrist turn to the list of in-network providers offered by their insurance plan. But often, many of the doctors on the list don’t take that insurance plan, aren’t accepting new patients, or simply don’t answer the phone. Researchers and journalists call this phenomenon a “ghost network.” So, who you gonna call when you encounter a ghost network? A ghostbuster. (5/11)

Google’s generative AI system proved it can answer medical exam questions. But now the company is attempting a bigger leap — infusing its model with medical images such as X-rays and mammograms to help it communicate with doctors about data routinely used in patient care. (Ross, 5/10)

Vyera Pharmaceuticals, which previously settled price-fixing charges that resulted in founder Martin Shkreli being banned from the pharmaceutical industry, filed for bankruptcy late Tuesday to sell its assets. Vyera said its bankruptcy was the result of declining profits, increased competition for generic drugs, and litigation alleging that Vyera suppressed competition for its most valuable drug, Daraprim. (Knauth, 5/10)

As US drug shortages hit a five-year high and concerns mount about the safety of medicines, the Biden administration has quietly assembled a team to address chronic problems hurting America’s drug supply. Since the beginning of the year, a group of White House officials has been meeting frequently to increase the availability and quality of medications, according to several people familiar with the matter. The effort has intensified as Americans struggle to find common drugs like antibiotics and amid high-profile safety lapses like deadly eye drops. (Griffin, Edney and Swetlitz, 5/10)

The Food and Drug Administration needs to hire scores of in-demand scientists, and that difficult task could become even harder if the agency gives in to pressure from either Republicans or the Biden administration to return federal workers to the office. (Wilkerson, 5/11)

Reviewers at the Food and Drug Administration concluded that Sarepta Therapeutics did not show that its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy will likely benefit patients and left key safety concerns, according to briefing documents released Wednesday. (Mast and Feuerstein, 5/10)

Syneos Health, a North Carolina-based biopharma contract research organization, agreed to be taken private for $7.1 billion by an investor group that includes Elliott Investment Management, Patient Square Capital and Veritas Capital. Private equity firms are once again teaming up for big buyouts, a practice that was largely abandoned after the Great Financial Crisis. (Primack, 5/10)

Patients who take antidepressants are at highest risk of harming themselves in the weeks immediately after the drug is prescribed, according to a new analysis of more than 8.4 million electronic health records. The Food and Drug Administration has warned since 2004 that antidepressants can increase suicidal behavior, but little is known about when the potential threat is greatest, researchers wrote. (Moreno, 5/10)

Uncontrolled sleep apnea — a disorder in which people stop breathing for 10 seconds or more at a time multiple times a night — may harm future brain health, a new study found. It’s estimated 936 million adults worldwide between the ages of 30 and 69 may suffer from sleep apnea, with many more people undiagnosed. If the sleep apnea is severe and untreated, people have three times the risk of dying from any cause. People with severe sleep apnea who spent less time in deep, also known as slow-wave sleep, had more damage to the white matter of the brain than people who had more slow-wave sleep, according to the study. (LaMotte, 5/10)

It wasn't until Ashley Marchuck started experiencing frequent anxiety attacks at work — almost every day — that she started to suspect she might be autistic. Working at Starbucks, she was bombarded with loud noises such as the whirr of the coffee machines, the music playing, and the conversations among customers. The sensory overload was too much. The anxiety attacks, leaving her sweaty and panicked, wouldn't stop. (Altavena, 5/10)

The rule will prevent up to 617 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions through 2042, the equivalent of reducing the emissions of half the cars in the U.S., the EPA said. It would also generate an estimated $85 billion in net benefits to the climate and health benefits from reducing other types of pollution. The power sector has reduced its emissions 35% since 2005, according to the EPA. (Ebbs and Jacobo, 5/11)

The highest court in Massachusetts has upheld a nearly $37 million judgment for a woman who said she developed cancer after switching to Marlboro Light cigarettes because she thought they were less dangerous than the Marlboro Red cigarettes she had previously smoked. The Supreme Judicial Court’s unanimous ruling on Tuesday said that Patricia Walsh Greene might have smoked less or quit sooner had she not been swayed by Philip Morris’ claims that Marlboro Lights were safer. (5/10)

Missouri lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday to restrictions on transgender minors receiving gender-affirming care and participating on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. Members of the House voted 108-50 Wednesday to pass the legislation restricting gender-affirming health care and 109-49 to pass restricting sports participation. (Kellogg and Rosenbaum, 5/10)

Amid a series of legal and political battles in Florida about transgender people, a federal judge Tuesday heard opening arguments in a challenge to a state decision to prevent Medicaid coverage for treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy. (Saunders, 5/10)

Workplace regulators in California are drafting an emergency rule to address an epidemic of silicosis — a deadly, preventable lung disease — among fabricators of artificial-stone countertops. In December, Public Health Watch, LAist and Univision revealed what’s believed to be the nation’s biggest cluster of the disease, in the Los Angeles area. The news outlets’ stories — and a petition citing them — triggered a burst of activity by California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA. (Morris and Krisberg, 5/10)

The ash winds up everywhere — it’s in the laundry, on cars and blankets vegetation in backyard gardens. Black snow, as the ash is known, flutters down, covering homes in parts of South Florida from October through May each year, as planned burns are carried out in thousands of acres of sugar cane fields to help the crops. (Gaines, 5/10)

A Cook County initiative to address the effects of medical debt has so far erased more than $25 million in past-due bills and is expected to wipe out about $55 million more in the coming weeks for 73,000 county residents total, officials told the Tribune. The first round of debt-buying has spent down just $800,000 of the county’s allotted $12 million for the federal funded program. Officials hope to erase $1 billion in debt before its expiration. (Quig, 5/10)

Kara Kai Sanders knows all about how children face trauma, even when a parent is doing the best they can. In 2019, she struggled to find stable housing, living with her son in temporary shelters, hotels and even their car because living with her son’s father “was not healthy.” They later got kicked out of a hotel because she couldn’t pay on time and lived in their car while waiting for a shelter space to open up. Now she’s on a mission to turn her experiences with housing struggles into advocacy for other parents and children seeking stability. (Fernandez, 5/11)

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When 28-year-old Navy veteran Carisma Carter pulled her car up to the front of the Atlanta VA Clinic, her seat was pushed far back from the steering wheel to make room for her big belly. Carter was 8 months pregnant. “I’m having two boys, twins. It’s my first pregnancy,” she said. Carter knows the pregnancy risks she could face as a Black woman, especially in Georgia, where data shows Black women are more than twice as likely as white women to die during or within a year after a pregnancy. (Mador, 5/11)

A small randomized trial in patients with post-COVID syndrome has found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) promotes restoration of the heart's ability to contract properly, according to data presented today at EACVI 2023, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology. (Soucheray, 5/10)

Scientists have identified new genetic risk factors for two types of non-Alzheimer's dementia. These findings detail how researchers identified large-scale DNA changes, known as structural variants, by analyzing thousands of DNA samples. The team discovered several structural variants that could be risk factors Lewy body dementia (LBD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). (NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 5/8)

Researchers have developed a DNA enzyme -- or DNAzyme -- that can distinguish between two RNA strands inside a cell and cut the disease-associated strand while leaving the healthy strand intact. This breakthrough 'gene silencing' technology could revolutionize the development of DNAzymes for treating cancer, infectious diseases and neurological disorders. (University of California - Irvine, 5/8)

COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, according to the World Health Organization. But for millions of Americans, myself included, who continue to live with the sometimes debilitating effects of long COVID — symptoms that last for weeks, months, or even years after a COVID infection — the end is nowhere in sight. (Kimberly Atkins Stohr, 5/11)

Following his recent retirement, Dr. Anthony Fauci reflected on his government role during the COVID-19 pandemic. When asked about the high per capita COVID-19 death rate in the U.S., Fauci replied, “Something clearly went wrong. And I don’t know exactly what it was. But the reason we know it went wrong is that we are the richest country in the world, and on a per capita basis we’ve done worse than virtually all other countries. And there’s no reason that a rich country like ours has to have 1.1 million deaths. Unacceptable.” (Cory Franklin, 5/11)

After three long and difficult years, the federal COVID-19 public health emergency ends Thursday. The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus emergency was over globally the week before, and earlier this year California ended its pandemic state of emergency. But make no mistake: The emergency response may have ended, but COVID-19 is still with us. (5/11)

The coronavirus pandemic is here to stay, but the national and global emergencies it set off are, by all official accounts, over. Last week, the World Health Organization declared an end to its “public health emergency of international concern,” and on Thursday, the public health emergency designation in the United States will also expire. It’s a good time for the country to absorb the crisis’s many lessons. Instead, we seem to be actively forgetting them. (Jeneen Interlandi, 5/11)

Nearly 380 times as many people have died in the United States from covid-19 than from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Those killings sparked sweeping reforms to defend Americans from violence. In contrast, little has been done to make the country less vulnerable to deadly pathogens. (Amy Maxmen, 5/10)

Lab accidents happen, and they aren’t especially rare. A 2014 USA Today investigation by Alison Young, whose book “Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World At Risk” is a shocking accounting of the problem, identified more than a thousand accidents reported to federal regulators from 2008 to 2012. (David Wallace-Wells, 5/10)

While the public health emergency expires today, many states have already announced you can leave your mask at home when you go to the doctor. In fact, way back in September the CDC stopped recommending universal masking in health care settings (in areas where community transmission is not high). But as a pediatrician, I’ll be keeping my mask on, and I want you to do it, too. (Ada Fenick MD, 5/11)

In the last few years, 10,000 to 20,000 apps have stampeded into the mental health space, offering to “disrupt” traditional therapy. With the frenzy around AI innovations like ChatGPT, the claim that chatbots can provide mental health care is on the horizon. (Elisabeth Rosenthal, 5/11)

Last week, Serbia experienced two separate mass shootings that killed more than a dozen people, including children. Serbia, a nation tied for the third highest rate of gun ownership in the world, was shaken by this violence. Unlike here at home, mass shootings are not a daily occurrence. It did not take long for the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vucic, to take swift action. (Kris Brown, 5/10)

Americans openly discuss many problems in health care, such as out-of-control costs, greedy insurance companies, and understaffing. But not so much futile care, which is generally defined as an intervention that does not benefit the patient. (Kristin McConnell, 5/10)

The good news on the mental health front is that the state of Minnesota appears to have for the first time in recent memory actually enforced the state's mental health parity law against an insurance company that appeared to be violating it. (5/10)

It “rots” flesh. It “tears” bone. It will turn you into a “zombie.” According to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his colleagues, these are some of the reasons we should fear and criminalize xylazine, a veterinary sedative and painkiller that is increasingly found in drugs purchased on the U.S. illicit market. (Stacey McKenna, 5/11)