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The U.S. health department proposed on Tuesday three new pilot projects aimed at lowering prescription drug prices for people enrolled in government health insurance plans, including offering some essential generic drugs for $2 a month. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) said it would test the models in the Medicare health program for people age 65 or over and the disabled and the Medicaid program for the poor. (Aboulenein, 2/15)

The three programs focus on different classes of treatments and coverage. One would encourage Medicare prescription drug plans to offer a standardized set of about 150 generic drugs to patients for a maximum copayment of $2 per month. The list would target drugs for chronic conditions like hypertension. Another would give state Medicaid agencies the option to coordinate with manufacturers and other states to test new ways to pay for gene and cell therapies based on health outcomes. (Goldman and Owens, 2/15)

The new proposals are the result of an executive order President Biden signed last year directing the administration to develop demonstrations that would complement Democrats’ new drug pricing law. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services uses demonstrations to pilot test policy ideas, and if those policies work out, the agency can expand them into programs without the approval of Congress. The law Democrats passed last summer directs Medicare to negotiate drug prices, makes drug companies pay back Medicare when price hikes outstrip inflation, and caps seniors’ annual spending for retail drugs — but it will take years to fully implement. (Cohrs and Wilkerson, 2/14)

The three models initially chosen will also test: A model to address the skyward cost of gene and cell therapies for diseases like sickle cell and cancer that can come with a price tag of up to $1 million. The goal is for state Medicaid agencies to assign CMS to “coordinate and administer multi-state, outcomes-based agreements with manufacturers for certain cell and gene therapies,” CMS said. (King, 2/14)

KHN: Armed With Hashtags, These Activists Made Insulin Prices A Presidential Talking Point 

Hannah Crabtree got active on Twitter in 2016 to find more people like herself: those with Type 1 diabetes who’d hacked their insulin pumps to automatically adjust the amount of insulin delivered. Soon, though, Crabtree found a more critical diabetes-related conversation happening on Twitter: rising insulin prices. (Sable-Smith, 2/15)

Top doctors groups are pressing Congress to overhaul the way Medicare pays physicians just as lawmakers are getting pulled into the politically charged debate over possible cuts to entitlement programs. The new appeals serve notice that there's political risk if provider cuts become part of conservative-led efforts to balance the federal budget or a deal on raising the debt limit. (Dreher, 2/15)

Doctors have so far managed to sidestep the thorny political debates about cost and value that have put pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital executives in the congressional crosshairs. Instead, they’re in D.C. this week to ask for help. (Owermohle, 2/15)

The number of people with medical debt on their credit reports fell by 8.2 million — or 17.9% — between 2020 and 2022, according to a report Tuesday from the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. White House officials said in a separate draft report that the two-year drop likely stems from their policies. Among the programs they say contributed to less debt was an expansion of the Obama-era healthcare law that added 4.2 million people with some form of health insurance. Also, local governments are leveraging $16 million in coronavirus relief funds to wipe out $1.5 billion worth of medical debt. (Boak, 2/14)

Millions of Americans mired in medical debt face difficult financial decisions every day — pay the debt or pay for rent, utilities and groceries. Some may even skip necessary health care for fear of sinking deeper into debt. To address the problem, an increasing number of municipal, county and state governments are devising plans to spend federal coronavirus pandemic relief funds to eliminate residents’ medical debt and ease those debt burdens. (Pratt, 2/15)

The side effects from cancer treatment can be notoriously toxic: nausea, hair loss, pain, and fatigue are among the most common. But the economic burdens of care—known as financial toxicity—can also that threaten patients’ health and well-being. Now, a new analysis published last week in JAMA Network Open quantifies the level of financial toxicity among breast cancer patients worldwide. (Gordon, 2/14)

After passing bills to add more price transparency and end surprise medical billing in recent legislative sessions, this year Colorado lawmakers are once again considering a bill to add more protections for patients. Senate Bill 23-093 does four main things: It caps interest rates on medical bills. It requires more price transparency for people who plan to pay out of pocket. It pauses debt collection on bills that are being disputed. It gives the Colorado Attorney General’s office additional tools to go after predatory practices. (Lopez, 2/14)

A new bill introduced at the Ohio Statehouse already had 30 Republican co-sponsors and could bring more transparency to the state’s healthcare system. The bill’s sponsors, Rep. Ron Ferguson (R-Wintersville) and Rep. Tim Barhorst (R- Fort Loramie) said it is modeled after one that went into effect a year ago in Colorado. The Colorado bill was called the Prohibit Collection Hospital Not Disclosing Prices and passed with bipartisan support. The goal of the Ohio legislation is to let patients “know before they go” to the hospital how much they are going to be paying in bills. (Fahmy, 2/14)

For a generation of young Americans, mass shootings at schools or colleges once considered sanctuaries for learning have become so painfully routine that some of them have lived through more than one by their early 20s. People a few years older grew up with active shooter drills. Their younger counterparts have become repeat survivors of traumatic violence. Even those who may not have lived through shootings themselves often know people who have. Being keenly aware of the possibility of gun violence has become a trademark of the generation of adults who grew up after the Columbine High School attack of 1999, which left 12 students and one teacher dead and reshaped how Americans viewed mass shootings. (Bosman, Lada, Tully and Mazzei, 2/14)

Some Michigan State University students who survived Monday’s mass shooting – and their parents – had already been through a similar, horrific experience. “I never expected in my lifetime to have to experience two school shootings,” Andrea Ferguson told CNN affiliate WDIV. “There’s several kids there that our daughter’s friends with that are going through the same thing.” Ferguson told the station her daughter and other classmates were also survivors of the November 30, 2021, shooting at Oxford High School, which is about 80 miles northeast of the MSU campus in East Lansing. (Sanchez, 2/14)

Emma Riddle had felt this fear before. It was just past 8:30 Monday night, and the freshman at Michigan State University was in her dorm room, staring at an email on her phone. Shots had been fired on campus. “Secure-in-Place immediately,” it read. “Run, Hide, Fight.” Emma, 18, took a screenshot and texted it to her parents. “I’m sorry babe,” her dad, Matt Riddle, wrote back. “Let’s hope it is nothing.” His daughter called a few minutes later. It wasn’t nothing. (Cox, 2/14)

More than a decade has passed since Jackie Matthews survived the Sandy Hook shooting, crouched down in her sixth grade class in a different school in the district as students were directed to shelter in place. The Michigan State University senior relived that moment on Monday night, she said in a TikTok video posted at 1 a.m. Tuesday. This time, Matthews said in the video that she was in a building directly across from where some of the shootings occurred at MSU."I am 21 years old and this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through," she said. In the video, Matthews said she had crouched for so long in her classroom on Dec. 14, 2012, that she was injured in her lower back, an injury that flares up when she's in a stressful situation. That shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, left 26 people dead, 20 children and six adults. (Altavena, 2/14)

Authorities on Tuesday said they still had no explanation for why a gunman opened fire on Michigan State University’s campus the previous night, killing three students, severely wounding five more and spreading terror across yet another school community shaken by an act of gun violence. Police said the gunman, whom they identified as 43-year-old Anthony Dwayne McRae, had no apparent connections to the university where he shot people in two campus buildings Monday night, setting off an hours-long manhunt that forced thousands to shelter in place. The gunman then shot and killed himself, police said, betraying no clear reason for targeting the school in East Lansing. (Khan, Berman, Bella and Brulliard, 2/14)

On social media, many expressed shock and concern over the recommended course of action. The gunman killed three people at the university and critically injured five others before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. ... Yet the “Run, Hide, Fight” guidance is not specific to the Michigan campus — it is part of a program developed by the U.S. government and taught across the country. It was created by the Department of Homeland Security and promoted by the FBI and other federal bodies. (Bisset and Hassan, 2/14)

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) chastised state lawmakers in her recent State of the State address for not taking action on gun-control laws after four students were killed in a mass killing at Oxford High School in November 2021.Just 19 days later, Whitmer choked back tears during a news conference Tuesday morning after a mass shooting in the state ended the lives of three Michigan State University students and wounded several more. (Itkowitz, 2/14)

As a new legislative session kicks into gear, Tracy King is working on a bill that would increase the age limit to buy semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. The Uvalde gunman had tried to get at least two people to buy him firearms before he turned 18. Days after his 18th birthday, he purchased two AR-15-style rifles before invading the school and targeting students and teachers. In August, Uvalde residents and relatives of the shooting victims protested at the Capitol, calling on lawmakers to raise the age limit to buy the kind of firearms the Robb Elementary gunman used. (Serrano, 2/15)

A divided U.S. appeals court on Tuesday said federal workers are generally not entitled to extra pay for being exposed to COVID-19 through their jobs .In a 10-2 decision with potentially "far-reaching" ramifications, the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against 188 current and former correctional employees at a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. (Stempel, 2/14)

The World Health Organization has quietly shelved the second phase of its investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic due to a lack of cooperation from the Chinese government. “Their hands are really tied,” Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, told the scientific journal Nature. Without access to China, researchers said it may be impossible to understand how the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 first infected people. (Vaziri, 2/14)

Rates of COVID-19 rebound were similar among hospitalized patients infected with the Omicron BA.2.2 variant who did and didn't receive oral antiviral drugs, and relapse wasn't tied to worse clinical outcomes, suggests a study published yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Rebound is a re-emergence of symptoms and an uptick in viral load after a period of recovery. The antiviral drug nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) was associated with COVID-19 rebound in some previous research, while some newer research has concluded that it is not unique to Paxlovid. (Van Beusekom, 2/14)

On May 11, the central pillar of the country’s pandemic response — the declaration of a national emergency that began March 1, 2020 — will come down. But Americans will continue to have access to the vaccines, drugs and medical devices that were authorized for emergency use against COVID-19, so long as they remain sufficiently safe and effective in the view of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (Healy, 2/14)

Public health experts warned from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that the disease was “not like the flu,” resulting in far more deaths and hospitalizations each year. Unless most people get annual booster shots, that grim tide is not going to let up anytime soon, a new Pennsylvania State University study finds. (Avril, 2/14)

The illness struck the little baby suddenly. It was a hot, sticky day late in the summer of 2017. Only 5 months old at the time, her little boy was a peaceful infant, his mother recalls. "He didn't make much of a fuss." The family lives in a small fishing town near the South China Sea in Sarawak, Malaysia, at the mouth of the Rajang River. Their tidy home sits atop stilts, above a maze of canals and families' rowboats tied to piers. (Doucleff, 2/15)

“Covid left its scars, like the spike in violent crime in 2020 — the first year of the pandemic.”— President Biden, remarks in the State of the Union address, Feb. 7. We quickly fact-checked various claims in the president’s address to Congress last week, but there’s usually something that requires a bit more digging. That’s the case with this line, which appeared to make a direct connection between an increase in violent crime and the coronavirus pandemic. (Kessler, 2/15)

Tennessee’s GOP-dominant Statehouse on Tuesday took a first step toward loosening one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, advancing a narrow exemption bill over threats from anti-abortion advocates that doing so would come with political retribution. Tennessee currently has no explicit exemptions in its abortion ban. Instead the law includes an “affirmative defense” for doctors, meaning that the burden is on the physician to prove that an abortion was medically necessary, instead of requiring the state to prove the opposite. (Kruesi, 2/15)

Proposed by Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, R-Clearfield, and sponsored by the same senator who put forward the 2020 trigger law that is currently on hold, the proposal — titled “Abortion Changes” — would stop licensing abortion clinics in May, and would ban the operation of all abortion clinics starting in January 2024. (Anderson Stern, 2/14)

A bill that would have allowed pregnant women to drive in the HOV lane, further codifying in Utah law personhood status for unborn fetuses, failed in a Senate committee meeting Monday. (Anderson Stern, 2/14)

The administration of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) helped defeat a bill this week to put menstrual data stored on period-tracking apps beyond the reach of law enforcement, blocking what supporters pitched as a basic privacy measure. Millions of women use mobile apps to track their cycles, a practice that has occasionally raised data-security worries because the apps are not bound by HIPAA, the federal health privacy law. (Vozzella and Schneider, 2/14)

Protect Choice Ohio and Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom plan to file language for their amendment with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost's office by Feb. 28. Yost would have 10 days to determine whether the language constitutes "fair and truthful representation" of the proposed amendment and submit it to the Ohio Ballot Board. If the language is approved, 413,446 signatures from registered voters — 10% of the voter turnout in the 2022 gubernatorial election — would have to be collected by July 5 for the amendment to make the November ballot. (Smith, 2/15)

A few months after South Dakota banned abortion last year, April Matson drove more than nine hours to take a friend to a Colorado clinic to get the procedure. The trip brought back difficult memories of Matson’s own abortion at the same clinic in 2016. The former grocery store worker and parent of two couldn’t afford a hotel and slept in a tent near a horse pasture — bleeding and in pain. Getting an abortion has long been extremely difficult for Native Americans like Matson. It has become even tougher since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. (Ungar and Hollingsworth, 2/14)

A new form of birth control for men is showing promising results in lab mice, rendering them "temporarily infertile" via a single injectable dose, according to a study published on Tuesday in the peer-reviewed medical journal Nature. (Mandler, 2/14)

In 2018, Melanie Balbach, a postdoctoral scientist at Weill Cornell Medicine, surprised her bosses with a remarkable video of mouse sperm — just sitting there. A colleague in the lab had asked for help injecting mice with an experimental drug developed for eye disease, and Balbach agreed, with one condition. She knew that the potential eye drug targeted a molecular pathway that was crucial for male fertility. On a scientific hunch, she wanted to check what happened to normally thrashing, free-swimming sperm. (Johnson, 2/14)

The bankruptcy case filed by Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ.N) subsidiary shouldering talc-related lawsuits will soon be dismissed unless a U.S appeals court agrees to reconsider its decision to nix the company's attempt to offload the litigation into Chapter 11 proceedings, a federal judge said on Tuesday. (Spector, 2/14)

The small British company was sometimes called Glaxo University, because it conducted important pharmaceutical research that rarely resulted in profitable drugs. Then the scientists at Glaxo Laboratories created a molecule they called ranitidine, and in 1978 the company was granted a US patent. The molecule was new, but not novel. The scientists had, as scientists sometimes do, looked for a way to mimic the success of an established drug—in this case, one that healed ulcers and could be used to treat heartburn. (Edney, Berfield and Feeley, 2/15)

The World Health Organization (WHO) today released a draft of a "people-centered" framework for addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in healthcare. The framework consists of 13 high-level interventions in the human healthcare sector that were developed through internal WHO consultations, multidisciplinary expert opinion, and review of existing evidence. The interventions span four pillars that are seen as critical to addressing AMR in healthcare settings: prevention of infections, access to essential health services, timely and accurate diagnosis, and appropriate and quality-assured treatment. (Dall, 2/14)

On Valentine’s Day, one of the largest hospital systems in Colorado announced that it is getting a divorce. For more than a quarter-century, Centura Health has operated as a partnership between CommonSpirit Health and AdventHealth. On Tuesday, Centura announced that CommonSpirit Health, which is Catholic-affiliated, and AdventHealth, which is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, will split, with each planning to manage their respective hospitals separately. (Ingold, 2/14)

CommonSpirit Health and AdventHealth will unwind their longtime Centura Health joint venture, with CommonSpirit taking control of most of the 20 hospitals. Then-Catholic Health Initiatives, which became Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health following its 2019 merger with Dignity Health, and AdventHealth formed Centura in 1996. The joint venture has reached its “natural maturity,” the health systems said in a news release. (Kacik, 2/14)

A lawsuit against Cedars-Sinai Health System and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles claims the hospitalshared patient data with third parties. Filed by plaintiff John Doe, the proposed class action lawsuit claims his and other patients' private information -- including data related to their medical inquiries -- was shared with marketing and social media platforms including Google, Microsoft Bing and Meta, the parent company of Facebook. (Kekatos, 2/15)

The investigation that led to the downfall of Outcome Health started with a single email after the company made headlines with a blockbuster deal that valued it at more than $5 billion. The company, which was previously called Context Media, raised nearly a half-billion dollars from an investor group that included Goldman Sachs, Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s former venture fund, Google and Laurene Powell Jobs. The funding elevated the profile of the company and its young founders, putting a target on their backs. (Pletz, 2/14)

Harris County commissioners unanimously approved an agreement last month between the county and Harris Health System to launch the hospital violence interruption program at one of the busiest trauma centers in Southeast Texas. The model has been implemented with success locally and nationally, according to officials. (Bauman, 2/14)

It was only at the end of the five-hour heart transplant that attending cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Amy Fiedler looked up from her patient and realized the significance of the moment. There was not a man in the operating room, including the person on the operating table. (Whiting, 2/14)

The intent is admirable: Give doctors guidelines so they can be sure to cover what needs to be discussed with patients and help select options. Let’s talk about your diet and any problems you might have sleeping. Are you getting enough exercise? If not, here is some advice. You are due for colon cancer screening. Do you prefer a colonoscopy or a fecal test? Here are the pros and cons of each. But there is a problem. There are just not enough hours in a workday to discuss and act on all the guidelines. (Kolata, 2/14)

KHN: Watch: In Insurers’ Eyes, Not All Midwives Are Equal 

Vanessa Garcia Clark wanted a more personal, nontraditional birth when she was pregnant with her son. She hired a midwife and gave birth at her home in California. But when she asked her insurer to reimburse her for the midwifery bill totaling more than $9,500, her claim was denied. In the first installment of InvestigateTV and KHN’s “Costly Care” series, Caresse Jackman, InvestigateTV’s national consumer investigative reporter, explores the different types of midwives — and how not all of them may be covered by insurance. (2/15)

Employers will make changes to their roster of digital health and wellness solutions in the next two years, according to a new survey from WTW, a global benefits consulting company. WTW (formerly Willis Towers Watson) surveyed 232 U.S.-based employers covering 3 million people from a variety of industries. (Turner, 2/14)

To become more equitable and inclusive organizations, higher education and scientific institutions must go beyond increasing the number of people from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in their ranks and change their cultures, a leading academic group said in a sweeping new report Tuesday. (Joseph, 2/14)

Studies of men from around the world show that the length of the erect penis has grown 24% over the last 30 years. That sounds like it would be good news but it concerns some male fertility experts. "The million-dollar question is why this would occur," said Dr. Michael Eisenberg, a urologist and male fertility specialist at Stanford Medicine, who led the research, published Tuesday in The World's Journal of Men's Health. Penile length may not be directly related to fertility, Eisenberg said, but anything that changes the reproductive system is fundamental to human existence and "something we should pay attention to and try to understand why." (Weintraub, 2/14)

Ever wake up regretting the last round of drinks from the previous night? There’s a medicine that might help. A recent study adds to the evidence that people who binge-drink may benefit from taking a dose of the medication naltrexone before consuming alcohol, a finding that may be welcomed now that alcohol-related deaths in the United States have surpassed 140,000 a year. (Alcorn, 2/14)

Eating disorder treatment specialists are sounding the alarm over new guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics advising doctors to treat obesity earlier and more aggressively, which they say could lead to eating disorders.They say it focuses on weight loss and BMI rather than health, minimizes the risk of disordered eating and could perpetuate deep-rooted, damaging stigmas. (Radde, 2/15)

KHN: Listen To The Latest ‘KHN Health Minute’ 

Tune in to the KHN Health Minute this week to hear how unusual changes in spending can be an early warning of dementia, and why the safest way to drive and use a phone in your car … is not to. (2/14)

Senators sounded off against social media platforms and called for action during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, saying the companies lack accountability and are focused on profits at the expense of children. The hours-long hearing touched on an array of issues, including: the harms of cyberbullying, the scourge of child sexual abuse material on social media, and mental health issues among youth. It also underscored how there is bipartisan support for taking action on social media platforms — even in a narrowly divided Congress. (Tarinelli, 2/14)

Fourteen-year-old Adriana Kuch told her father that she could not bear the humiliation after she was attacked by another girl inside her New Jersey high school and a clip of the assault was posted to TikTok. “She said, ‘I don’t want to be that girl who gets beat up on video and made fun of,’” Adriana’s father, Michael Kuch, recalled his daughter saying as they sat in the kitchen of their home in Bayville. “Can you imagine walking through the school with her face beat in?” he asked. The day after the Feb. 1 assault, Adriana retreated to her room at about 10 p.m. and took her own life during the night, he said. (Rothfeld and Caron, 2/13)

The private companies that manage care for most of Tennessee’s Medicaid program could no longer contract with the state if they cover gender-transitioning medical care, according to a bill Republican lawmakers advanced Tuesday. The legislation is the latest proposal targeting transgender people that Tennessee lawmakers have introduced this year. It’s similar to bills seeking to limit or ban gender-affirming care being considered in statehouses across the country. (Kruesi, 2/15)

A bill criminalizing gender-affirming healthcare for minors overwhelmingly passed the Idaho House Thursday, despite warnings from opponents who said it would likely increase suicide rates among teens. The bill, which would subject physicians to felony charges if they provide puberty blockers, hormone treatment or gender-affirming surgeries to transgender youth under 18, is just one of several targeting Idaho’s LGBTQ+ residents this year. Proponents of the bill have acknowledged that gender-affirming surgeries on minors are not currently being performed in Idaho. (Boone, 2/15)

The president and CEO of BJC HealthCare and the chancellor of Washington University on Tuesday said they were “establishing additional oversight” at the transgender center that is currently the focus of state and federal scrutiny. The statement from Richard Liekweg, president and CEO of BJC HealthCare, and Washington University Chancellor Andrew Martin, came in response to a letter Friday by Attorney General Andrew Bailey calling for a moratorium on puberty blockers and hormone therapy at Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital pending investigation. Children’s is a BJC hospital. (Suntrup, 2/15)

Missouri legislators debated a set of bills Tuesday that criminalize physicians who provide gender-affirming health care for minors in the state. Kansas legislators also debated a bill Tuesday morning that would strip doctors of their medical licenses for providing gender-affirming health care to minors. It would also allow patients to open civil lawsuits against physicians who provided this care to them as minors in the past. But what is gender-affirming health care, really? Here’s a quick overview of this concept and some common misconceptions around it. (Wallington, 2/14)

Gov. Kim Reynolds has released a bill that would put any successfully challenged school library book on a statewide "removal list" and prohibit schools from teaching about gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. The measure, Senate Study Bill 1145, would also require school districts to immediately tell parents if they believe a student is transgender. And it requires districts to share their curriculums and course materials online. (Gruber-Miller and Akin, 2/13)

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the president of the Senate, released a list of 30 priority bills on Monday, including proposals to stop children from attending drag shows; to remove “obscene” books from school libraries; to prevent transgender children from obtaining gender-affirming care; and to ban transgender athletes from participating in college sports that align with their gender identity. (Goldenstein and Harris, 2/15)

As officials investigate the recent derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in eastern Ohio, concerns about the disaster’s effects on human health and the environment are growing, and experts warned that understanding the causes and consequences could require a more comprehensive investigation than what they have seen so far. (Zhong and Einhorn, 2/14)

Eleven days after a train derailed, spilling toxic chemicals and causing a massive fire here, officials told residents Tuesday to use bottled water until testing could confirm whether the local water supply was safe to drink — heightening concern among some locals who were already wary of returning to their homes. ... Along with wondering about their drinking water, many residents pondered their options as a strong odor of chemicals continued to hang over the town. Some locals said they are considering leaving East Palestine and are frustrated with how little they know about their potential exposure to toxic chemicals. (Keppler, McDaniel and Phillips, 2/14)

“There’s a lot of urgency,” said Sarah Doll, national director of Safer States, an alliance of environmental health groups focused on toxic chemicals. “I’m seeing more states try to take really big bites at managing the PFAS crisis.” Doll’s group has tracked more than 260 proposals in 31 states related to toxic chemicals, many focused on PFAS. Eleven of those states will consider sweeping restrictions or bans of PFAS across many economic sectors. (Brown, 2/14)

The first laboratory approved to test drinking water for toxic “forever chemicals” has opened in Maine, with an aim to reduce the amount of time people are currently waiting for results. (Rhoda, 2/15)

Nearly one-quarter of Oklahomans receiving health care through Medicaid, about 300,000 people, will no longer be eligible by the end of this year, mostly because they or a parent earn too much to qualify, state health officials said Tuesday. (Murphy, 2/14)

Often legislative committee hearings are sleepy affairs, attended by lawmakers, lobbyists and the occasional person interested in the intricacies of government. That was not the case Tuesday on the sixth floor of the legislative office building. The size and excitement of the crowd looked more like someone had a small stash of Taylor Swift tickets or the hottest new iPhone for sale. Lobbyists and advocates of expanding the state’s Medicaid program were jammed into a hallway, hoping to get inside the room where something, after more than a decade of waiting,  might start to happen. (Hoban, 2/15)

Nationwide, the homeless population has been slowly rising during the past few years, up more than 5% since 2017. But among veterans, the number has declined by more than 17% over that period, a drop advocates attribute to an aggressive and well-funded “housing first” policy. The approach is in full swing in a program that operates out of a nondescript brick building in an industrial area of Denver. Lauren Lapinski, a licensed clinical social worker with the Department of Veterans Affairs, arrived at Denver’s VA Community Resource and Referral Center before dawn one day earlier this month—after having been up late the night before canvassing strip malls and alleys as part of an annual homeless count. (Kesling, 2/14)

A long-anticipated Golden Gate Bridge suicide barrier, intended to catch jumpers in a web of marine-grade steel, is now mired in a lawsuit that could more than double its cost as construction falls further behind schedule. The contractors building the net sued the Bridge Highway and Transportation District in San Francisco Superior Court, claiming that design flaws, worker safety requirements and “extensive” deterioration of the span have raised the project cost from $142 million to $392 million. (Swan, 2/14)

Republican state Sen. Corey Simon and Democrat Rep. Allison Tant, both of Tallahassee filed identical bills to allow parents to stay involved in their child’s IEP until age 22. Tant has experience with the issue firsthand; her son Jeremy has a cognitive disability called Williams syndrome. She explains that students with an IEP may graduate between ages 18 to 22, but parents are only kept informed about that plan until their child reaches age 18. (Crowder, 2/14)

Gov. Jim Pillen has selected a private practice doctor from Lincoln to serve at Nebraska’s next chief medical officer. Pillen announced Tuesday that he selected Dr. Timothy Tesmer, an ear, nose and throat specialist, to replace the former chief medical officer, Dr. Gary Anthone. Anthone left the post earlier this year when former Gov. Pete Ricketts’ term expired. Ricketts had appointed Anthone just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020 that ushered in school and business closings and debates over public masking. (2/14)

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., underwent surgery for prostate cancer Tuesday, just over a month after he revealed his diagnosis. A spokesperson said that the surgery was performed Tuesday afternoon and that Casey planned to return to the Senate in the near future. (Richards and Thorp V., 2/15)

KHN: In California, Democrats Propose $25 Minimum Wage For Health Workers 

Union-aligned Democrats were set to introduce legislation Wednesday mandating a statewide $25 minimum wage for health workers and support staffers, likely setting up a pitched battle with hospitals, nursing homes, and dialysis clinics. State Sen. María Elena Durazo’s bill would require health facilities and home health agencies to give raises to many support employees, including nurse technicians, housekeepers, security guards, food workers, and laundry providers. The Los Angeles Democrat said workers remain underpaid even as they have played a crucial role in the covid-19 pandemic. Now, she argued, many who earn close to the state’s $15.50 minimum wage struggle with inflation. (Young, 2/14)

KHN: As Opioids Mixed With Animal Tranquilizers Arrive In Kensington, So Do Alarming Health Challenges

Many people living on the streets in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood — the largest open-air drug market on the East Coast — are in full-blown addiction, openly snorting, smoking, or injecting illicit drugs, hunched over crates or on stoops. Syringes litter sidewalks, and the stench of urine fouls the air. The neighborhood’s afflictions date to the early 1970s, when industry left and the drug trade took hold. With each new wave of drugs, the situation grows grimmer. Now, with the arrival of xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer, new complications are burdening an already overtaxed system. (Harris Bond, 2/15)

A Marburg fever outbreak in Equatorial Guinea is galvanizing efforts to test drugs and vaccines for a virus that currently has none. But every day counts, warned experts who gathered virtually on Tuesday to try to chart a course for the work. (Branswell, 2/14)

No vaccine or antiviral treatment is approved to treat Marburg virus disease, which has an average death rate of around 50%, according to the WHO. On Tuesday, the WHO convened an urgent meeting to evaluate several possible vaccine candidates that could be administered during the outbreak. The meeting brought together a consortium of vaccine developers, researchers and government officials — a group the WHO created in 2021 to advance a Marburg vaccine. (Bendix, 2/14)

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) yesterday issued an epidemiologic alert about elevated chikungunya activity in the Americas, which urged countries to prepare their healthcare systems to handle the medical management of it and other mosquito-borne diseases. (Schnirring, 2/14)

As temperatures rise, many tropical species once confined to the warmest parts of the globe are expected to climb to higher altitudes and creep farther from the equator. That already may be happening with mosquitoes carrying malaria, one of the world’s most devastating diseases and one that already kills more than 600,000 people a year. Evidence shows the insects are flapping their tiny wings to new locales in Africa, according to a new study. (Grandoni, 2/14)

More than a week removed from the disaster, with the death toll above 41,000, extended families and authorities on both sides of the Turkey-Syria border are still trying to figure out how many children have been orphaned, and how to care for them. They are spread across tents and hospital wards, sleeping in cars or in the apartments of the closest relatives they have left. (Loveluck and Georges, 2/14)

Russia’s system for supervising thousands of Ukrainian children uprooted during the war involves “re-education” camps and forced adoptions, U.S. researchers said Tuesday, calling it a sprawling operation directed by the Kremlin’s highest levels. According to a report from the Conflict Observatory, a State Department-supported initiative, Russia has placed at least 6,000 Ukrainian children at 43 camps and institutions stretching from Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea region to Siberia and Russia’s Pacific coast, or with new families, as part of its “systematic, whole-of-government approach to the relocation, re-education and, in some cases, adoption and forced adoption of Ukrainian children.” (Ryan, 2/14)

A Polish mother of seven has successfully given birth to premature quintuplets, hospital officials in southern Poland said Tuesday. The two boys and three girls were born through cesarean section Sunday, in the pregnancy’s 28th week, at the University Hospital in Krakow. Weighing between 710-1,400 grams (25-49 ounces,) they were all put in incubators and given breathing support, but doctors said they are all doing fine, given their premature birth. (2/14)

Chinese pensioners returned to the streets of Wuhan to protest changes to their medical benefits, highlighting the challenge confronting President Xi Jinping’s government following historic anti-lockdown demonstrations in November. (2/15)

Biocon’s recent biosimilar track record at the FDA isn’t looking so hot. Following an insulin copycat slap-down last month, Biocon on Sunday revealed (PDF) a complete response letter from the FDA on a proposed biosim to Roche's Avastin. (Kansteiner, 2/13)

Generics giant Sun Pharma has found itself at the center of another nationwide recall in the U.S. (Becker, 2/14)

Watch out, Incyte: Leo Pharma’s topical JAK inhibitor is catching up. In a late-stage trial in moderate to severe chronic hand eczema, Leo Pharma's delgocitinib cream met its primary and secondary endpoints, the Danish dermatology specialist said Friday. (Becker, 2/13)

The use of azithromycin reduces maternal infection in women during planned cesarean delivery, but its effect on those with planned vaginal delivery is unknown. Data are needed on whether an intrapartum oral dose of azithromycin would reduce maternal and offspring sepsis or death. (Tita, M.D., Ph.D., et al, 2/9)

In another thrilling development in this best of all possible worlds, a ruling from a single Trump-appointed judge in Texas might undo the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of one of the two key drugs used in medication-based abortions and render it inaccessible nationwide. (Alexandra Petri, 2/10)

Since 2017, GoodRx has helped millions of people find deals on prescription drugs via an app and website. But what its customers may not have known is that the Santa Monica-based health company had also been sharing information about their prescriptions and illnesses with third parties such as Google and Facebook for advertising purposes. (2/10)

In the last five years, there has been a spike in overdoses nationally, and especially among young people. Between 2019 and 2021, fentanyl overdose deaths doubled in the U.S., increasing nearly fourfold among children. Statewide, fentanyl was present in 97% of drug overdoses last year. (Scott Walters, 2/13)

My ears perked up in recent months when I began to hear the buzz about ketamine, the anesthetic and hallucinogenic drug that has found a new market as an antidepressant. Numerous credible studies have documented benefits, including that it is fast-acting, with patients sometimes showing improvement within a couple of days. (Steven Petrow, 2/12)

Included in the end-of-year appropriations bill that President Biden signed on December 29, 2022 was the bipartisan Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act of 2023. This act eliminates the so-called X-waiver that physicians had long needed to prescribe buprenorphine, a medication that curbs opioid cravings, reduces drug use, and prevents deaths among people who use opioids. (Beth S. Linas and Benjamin P. Linas, 2/14)

A generation of kids who grew up haunted by the fear of school massacres can’t outgrow their trauma: It’s also stalking their carefree college days. America’s latest mass shooting, until the inevitable next one, wrote a new community in the roll call of colleges stigmatized by tragedy. To Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois and the University of Virginia, add Michigan State University. (Stephen Collinson, 2/15)

This time, the victims were students at Michigan State University. This time, the gunman had no apparent connection with the people he shot or the school they attended. This time, the assailant killed himself before we could learn why he went on his rampage. But we do know how: with a gun. ... The one certain way to reduce the intolerable toll of gun violence in this country is to keep guns out of the hands of those who would use them to kill. Michigan, finally, is prepared to try. (Eugene Robinson, 2/14)

Although the Federal government uses large-scale surveys of Americans to understand trends in health and risk behaviors – such as consumption of drugs and alcohol, use of seatbelts, exercise habits, and even sexual practices – questions about ownership, storage, and use of firearms have been notably absent from national versions of these surveys for almost two decades. Indeed, one of the CDC’s flagship health behavior surveys included questions on gun ownership, but removed that question from the core module after 2004. As a result, many studies of the effects of gun violence prevention that need information on state firearm ownership rates must use data that are almost 20 years old. (Rosanna Smart and Andrew R. Morral, 2/14)

The subject of school shootings often makes people feel hopeless, especially at a time when America is experiencing its worst stretch in history. But we have now studied 366 separate incidents of campus gun violence, and the data, along with dozens of stories on the damaged children it represents, has taught us that there are reasons to remain hopeful, none more so than this one: Most school shootings are preventable. That’s just one of the lessons we’ve learned about a singularly American epidemic. (John Woodrow Cox and Steven Rich, 2/14)

Feb.14 will be a day of love for many and mourning for others. It will be Valentine’s Day but also the fifth anniversary of the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. An expelled student armed with an AR-15-style  rifle, invaded the building and murdered 17 students and staff and wounded another 17 people. A day of love will forever be a day of loss for the grieving families there. (Brad Bannon, 2/13)