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The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it’s seeing a big uptick in the number of new customers buying private health insurance for 2023 from the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace. Nearly 3.4 million people have signed up for coverage — an increase of 17% compared to the same time last year. The boost in enrollment comes as the number of uninsured Americans this year reached a historic low of 8%. (Seitz, 11/22)

Enrollment in Affordable Care Act marketplaces is on pace to set a new record, Health Secretary Xavier Becerra told Axios on Tuesday, with subsidies that Congress renewed through 2025 softening the blow of premium increases. early 3.4 million people have signed up for individual coverage between from Nov, 1 to 19 — a 17% increase from last year, according to HHS data. The number of new enrollees is also up 40%. (Gonzalez, 11/22)

Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief Covid-19 adviser, offered Americans one final warning as he prepares to leave government, ending a tumultuous turn in the national spotlight that earned him enduring affection from some and unrelenting hostility from others. “Please, for your own safety, for that of your family, get your updated Covid-19 shot as soon as you’re eligible to protect yourself, your family and your community,” Fauci said. (Mahr and Cancryn, 11/22)

“I’ll let other people judge the value or not of my accomplishments, but what I would like people to remember about what I’ve done, is that every day, for all of those years, I’ve given it everything that I have and I’ve never left anything on the field,” Fauci said of his legacy. (Mueller, 11/22)

After 13 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines given worldwide, Fauci said, there is "clearly an extensive body of information" that indicates that they are safe. "When I see people in this country because of the divisiveness in our country ... not getting vaccinated for reasons that have nothing to do with public health, but have to do because of divisiveness and ideological differences, as a physician, it pains me," Fauci said. (Holland and Hunnicutt, 11/22)

At one point, Fauci acknowledged how those who wear masks are often singled out, joking with a reporter: “I mean, you’re absolutely right. I mean, I know sometimes when you walk in and you have a mask and nobody has a mask, you kind of feel guilty. You shouldn’t feel guilty. You look terrific, right?” (Scott, 11/22)

His departure will conclude 54 years at the institute and 38 years as director. "I gave it all I got for many decades," said Fauci, who has been lauded by the health community but made a top target by Republicans for restrictions he pushed to halt the spread of the coronavirus. House Republicans, who are poised to take control of the chamber in the next Congress, have vowed to investigate Fauci as part of a slew of investigations into the Biden administration. "If there are oversight hearings, I absolutely will cooperate fully and testify before Congress," Fauci said. (Garrison and Morin, 11/22)

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday reflected on the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic in what was likely his last public briefing as the nation’s top infectious disease expert. Nearly three years after Covid-19 first arrived on America’s shores, Fauci said he never imagined the pandemic would last so long and take so many lives. “I did not imagine and I don’t think any of my colleagues imagined that we would see a three-year saga of suffering and death and a million Americans losing their lives,” Fauci, 81, told reporters during a Covid update at the White House. (Kimball, 11/22)

The White House on Tuesday launched a six week sprint aimed at convincing Americans to get their updated COVID-19 vaccine before the end of the year. The administration said the focus of the campaign will be on seniors and vulnerable communities hardest hit by the virus. (Weixel, 11/22)

Anthony S. Fauci, who serves as President Biden’s chief medical adviser, emphasized that vaccine effectiveness wanes over time and that the coronavirus is an unusual foe because of the emergence of new variants every few months. He pointed to data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that the recently authorized omicron-specific boosters protect against new variants. “It is clear now, despite an initial bit of confusion,” he said. (Sellers and Cha, 11/22)

“These funds will ensure that people who live in underserved communities have access to updated COVID-19 vaccines this winter through community-based vaccination events hosted by healthcare providers and organizations they trust,” HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson said in the news release. (Berryman, 11/22)

Senior living and care organizations have done a “remarkable” job vaccinating residents against COVID-19, but they agree they have “work to do” with the most recent booster. In response to the White House announcement Tuesday regarding a six-week campaign to urge Americans — particularly older adults — to get their updated COVID-19 vaccine, LeadingAge and the American Health Care Association / National Center for Assisted Living issued an “all hands on deck” rallying cry to boost booster shot rates in long-term care settings. (Bonvissuto, 11/23)

While the trajectory of the virus remains uncertain, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said the administration was hopeful that the combination of infections and vaccinations had created “enough community protection that we’re not going to see a repeat of what we saw last year at this time” when a brand-new variant, Omicron, emerged seemingly out of the blue. (LaFraniere and Mueller, 11/22)

The updated Covid-19 boosters increase people’s protection against symptomatic infection from the coronavirus, according to some of the first estimates of how the shot is performing in the real world and in people, not just in lab experiments. What’s more, that protection was even stronger when people waited a longer period of time since their last dose of the original shot. (Joseph, 11/22)

The new bivalent COVID-19 booster shots are up to 56 percent more effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 infection than the two original COVID-19 vaccines in adults ages 18 and up, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Cohen and Clason, 11/22)

The CDC’s results are based on more than 360,000 symptomatic adults tested for Covid at pharmacies nationwide from Sept. 14 to Nov. 11, when omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 were the dominant strains in the United States. People who got the updated booster shots after two or more shots of the original vaccine were compared to another group of people who received only two or more doses of the original vaccine. (The first iterations of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccine target only the original coronavirus strain identified in late 2019.) (Lovelace Jr., 11/22)

Florida has the fourth lowest rate in the country for adults getting the updated COVID-19 booster shot, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rates for kids and teens are well below the national average as well. Some health experts say that’s concerning, especially as the holidays approach. (11/22)

Each dollar invested in New York City COVID-19 vaccine efforts generated $10.19 in savings by lowering infection and death rates, productivity loss, and healthcare use, estimates a study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open. (Van Beusekom, 11/22)

A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention links the antiviral drug Paxlovid with reducing the risk of hospitalization by more than half for people infected with COVID-19. U.S. adults with mild to moderate COVID who got Paxlovid within five days of diagnosis had a 51% lower hospitalization rate than those who did not take the drug, the study released Tuesday found. (Beamish and Narayan, 11/22)

The antiviral drug remdesivir and corticosteroids were linked to better outcomes in COVID-19 patients admitted directly to a hospital ward in the Netherlands, suggests a real-world study published today in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. Patients received remdesivir, corticosteroids, the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, immune-suppressing interleukin-6 (IL-6) antagonists, or combinations thereof; intensive care unit (ICU) patients didn't receive remdesivir. In patients admitted directly to an ICU, hydroxychloroquine, corticosteroids, and IL-6 antagonists weren't tied to a lower risk of death or hospital release alive. (11/22)

Owners of social media platforms should consider their personal responsibility regarding health disinformation, and the public should choose reputable sources to trust, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said on Tuesday. "You can decide to trust America's physicians, or you can trust some random dude on Twitter. Those are your choices," Jha said at a White House press briefing. (11/22)

Missouri’s soon-to-depart attorney general is scheduled to depose Dr. Anthony Fauci Wednesday in a lawsuit alleging Biden administration officials worked with social media companies to suppress misinformation about COVID-19. (Erickson, 11/22)

Less than one year after Twitter "permanently suspended" Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal account from its platform for violating its company policy on COVID-19 misinformation, the Georgia Republican returned on Monday to the site she'd once blasted as "an enemy to America." Greene's account is a beneficiary of new owner Elon Musk's rolling effort to reactivate predominantly far right-wing figures previously barred under Twitter's earlier leadership, including former President Donald Trump. (Schwartz, 11/22)

Not long after Randy Watt died of Covid-19, his daughter Danielle sat down at her computer, searching for clues as to why the smart and thoughtful man she knew had refused to get vaccinated. She pulled up Google, typed in a screen name he had used in the past and discovered a secret that stunned her. Her father, she learned, had a hidden, virtual life on Gab, a far-right social media platform that traffics in Covid misinformation. And there was another surprise as well: As he fought the coronavirus, he told his followers that he was taking ivermectin, a drug used to treat parasitic infections that experts say has no benefit — and in fact can be dangerous — for patients with Covid-19. (Stolberg, 11/22)

When employees at leading COVID pseudoscience group America’s Frontline Doctors tried to log in to work last week, they found themselves locked out of their email accounts. The nonprofit quickly fell into factions, with employees holding rival Zoom meetings to plot who would take over the group. The organization’s exiled founder, Dr. Simone Gold, tried unsuccessfully to gain access to a private Zoom call, only to find herself stuck in a waiting room. In internal emails, the group’s accountant worried about who could still access the $7 million locked in its bank accounts. (Sommer, 11/14)

Fifteen Republican states on Monday night asked a federal judge to keep a Covid-era policy in place that allowed authorities to severely restrict asylum-seekers from crossing the border into the country after the judge issued a ruling last week that blocked the rule. The GOP states said that lifting the rule, which the Biden admin straight has sought to end, will increase the flow of migrants and “directly harm” them. (Ainsley and Concepcion, 11/22)

A group of 24 Republican-led states won a nationwide injunction in May to maintain the expulsion policy after the Biden administration announced plans to rescind it, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that it was no longer needed to protect public health. (Jordan, 11/22)

Stanford Medicine is seeking volunteers for the nation’s first clinical trial looking at whether the antiviral drug Paxlovid can fight one of COVID-19’s thorniest problems affecting millions of people: the long-term, debilitating suite of symptoms known as long COVID. There are currently no treatments, and many people turn to risky, unproven methods to try to cure themselves. (Asimov, 11/22)

A nonprofit law firm has filed a class action lawsuit against the Massachusetts Department of Public Health for allegedly working with Google to secretly install COVID-tracing software onto as many as a million smartphones. (Bray, 11/22)

KHN: Trickle Of Covid Relief Funds Helps Fill Gaps In Rural Kids’ Mental Health Services 

The Mary Hill Youth and Family Center’s building has long been at a crossroads overlooking this rural Appalachian city, but its purpose has evolved. For 65 years, residents of Nelsonville and the rolling hills of southeastern Ohio traveled to the hilltop hospital seeking care. Then, in 2014, the 15-bed hospital, which was often without patients, closed. (Saint Louis, 11/23)

KHN: A Work-From-Home Culture Takes Root In California 

Even as pandemic lockdowns fade into memory, covid-19 has transformed California’s workplace culture in ways researchers say will reverberate well beyond 2022. According to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, working from home for some portion of the week has become the new normal for a large segment of Californians. The data shows high-income employees with college degrees are more likely to have access to this hybrid work model, while lower-income employees stay the course with on-site responsibilities and daily commutes. (Reese, 11/23)

The World Health Organization is planning to rename monkeypox, designating it as “MPOX” in an effort to destigmatize the virus that gained a foothold in the U.S. earlier this year, three people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO. The decision, which could be announced as early as Wednesday, follows an initial agreement the WHO made over the summer to consider suggestions for monkeypox’s new name. (Cancryn, 11/22)

An analysis released Tuesday by U.K. health officials indicates that even one dose of the monkeypox vaccine provides strong protection against the virus. Researchers at the U.K. Health Security Agency estimated that one dose of the vaccine was 78% effective at protecting against infection 14 or more days after vaccination. (Joseph, 11/22)

In a preprint study, Dutch researchers report finding no evidence of widespread human monkeypox virus (hMPXV) transmission in Dutch sexual networks of men who have sex with men (MSM) before May 2022. The study, which is not yet peer-reviewed, is published on medRxiv. (11/22)

Of course, COVID-19 is still sickening tens of thousands and killing hundreds of people every day. And new, even more contagious omicron subvariants that are especially adept at infecting people — even if they've been vaccinated or previously infected — are taking over. "There's a lot of moving parts here," says Dr. David Rubin, who's been tracking the pandemic at the PolicyLab at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. (Stein, 11/23)

People are eager to get back to their holiday rituals after years of pandemic restrictions, but what happens if just as the holiday approaches, you find yourself sneezing, sniffling, coughing and maybe even testing positive for a COVID-19 infection? (Hoban, 11/23)

“We’re facing the trifecta this year,” Santa Clara County Executive Jeffrey Smith said outside of Valley Medical Center in San Jose. “We really have a major problem with having COVID and the flu and RSV hitting us all at the same time.” (Woolfolk, 11/22)

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Linda Yancey set a strict rule for her family: No relatives were allowed to go over to Grandma’s house until they could do so without risking her life. As an infectious-disease specialist at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston, Dr. Yancey was keenly aware that her mother-in-law’s emphysema put her at high risk of hospitalization or even death if she got Covid. By 2021, Dr. Yancey’s mother-in-law was able to be fully vaccinated. Later in the year, Dr. Yancey and her husband got their shots, as did their children. But while most Americans now consider precautions like social distancing, wearing masks and quarantining after a Covid exposure optional, Dr. Yancey’s family still does all of them to keep her mother-in-law safe. (Sheikh, 11/22)

The much-feared twindemic — or even tripledemic — of respiratory viruses is here, but Americans are too COVID-fatigued to care. Flu in the southeast and RSV infections in multiple regions are filling up hospital wards and causing some facilities to cancel elective surgeries and bring back triage tents. (Bettelheim, 11/22)

As the nation grapples with a surge in respiratory illnesses making very young children and babies ill, the high demand for inpatient and pediatric intensive-care-unit beds means children are spending days and weeks in emergency rooms designed for short-term evaluation and treatment. The surge has hit states in the East and Southeast particularly hard, with D.C., Maryland and Virginia reporting the highest incidence of influenza-like illness, which includes RSV, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. (Portnoy, 11/22)

For every patient discharged from the pediatric intensive care unit at Mass General for Children in Boston, three more are waiting for that bed. A surge in cases of respiratory syncytial virus, also known as RSV, has hospitals nationwide struggling to treat patients. (O'Donnell, Hastey and Paulino, 11/22)

A mother of five is asking parents to keep their sick children at home after a recent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) outbreak infected three of her daughters and led to a frightening hospitalization for one of them. Carmen Bremiller, 27, of Barker, New York — in Broome County — has been caring for her daughters for several weeks and said the road to full recovery is ongoing. (Moore, 11/23)

Deaths caused by bacterial infections accounted for more than 1 in 8 global deaths in 2019, with five pathogens accounting for more than half of those deaths, an international team of researchers reported yesterday in The Lancet. (Dall, 11/22)

Rapid tests to check whether infections are caused by bacteria or viruses - and whether they need antibiotics - are to be trialled in GP surgeries. The trial, led by the University of Bristol, will investigate whether testing patients at the point they turn up with symptoms of a respiratory infection could cut the number of antibiotic prescriptions given out. (Kirby, 11/23)

On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) wrote to Sundar Pichai – the CEO of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google – urging him to curb deceptive advertisements and ensure that users receive accurate information when searching for abortion services on the platform. This letter comes on the heels of an investigation that reveals how Google regularly fails to apply disclaimer labels to misleading ads by anti-abortion clinics. (Frolo, 11/22)

The lawmakers cited a joint analysis by Bloomberg News and the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate, which found that ads displayed against Google searches such as “Planned Parenthood,” “Plan C pills” and “pregnancy help” didn’t carry labels that would indicate whether an advertiser was an abortion provider. (Love, 11/22)

Ten state attorneys general are urging Apple to address possible gaps in the tech giant’s privacy protections to ensure consumers’ reproductive health data is secure from possible law enforcement or individual action, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion ruling. The letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook is signed by attorneys general from California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, and follows earlier actions from lawmakers to Google, Apple, and other tech giants to protect the location data of users seeking abortions and other reproductive services. (Davis, 11/22)

It's not clear yet what role tech companies will play in helping police access data to prosecute abortions in post-Roe America, but it has already become apparent that law enforcement is willing to be sneaky when seeking data. Cops revealed one potential tactic they could use back in June, when Meta faced scrutiny from reproductive rights activists for complying with a search warrant request from police in Madison County, Nebraska. The Nebraska cops told Meta they were investigating a crime under the state’s “Prohibited Acts with Skeletal Remains.” But what they were actually investigating was a case involving a woman, Jessica Burgess, who was suspected of aiding her 17-year-old daughter, Celeste Burgess, in procuring an unlawful abortion in the state at 23 weeks. (Belanger, 11/23)

“We needed to both win the ballot and now we have to win in the courts, and luckily we can continue our fight in the courts because we won the ballot,” said Brigitte Amiri, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in the ongoing litigation, describing the battle to restore access as a “one-two step.” If the ballot measure had passed, the lawsuit would not have been able to continue. (Villa Huerta, 11/22)

"That's just nuts," Dr. Matthew Wynia says. He's a physician who directs the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado. "[A hysterotomy is] much more dangerous, much more risky – the woman may never have another pregnancy now because you're trying to avoid being accused of having conducted an abortion." (Risky, 11/23)

KHN: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: When Insurance Won’t Pay, Abortion Assistance Funds Step In

As Americans choose their insurance plans for next year, some might wonder: How does the recent rise in state abortion restrictions affect insurance plans? There’s no single answer, but for a lot of people, insurance has rarely helped pay for abortions. Most pay cash, and many can’t afford it. (Weissmann, 11/23)

The Food and Drug Administration cleared Hemgenix, an IV treatment for adults with hemophilia B, the less common form of the genetic disorder which primarily affects men. Currently, patients receive frequent, expensive IVs of a protein that helps blood clot and prevent bleeding. Drugmaker CSL Behring announced the $3.5 million price tag shortly after the FDA approval, saying its drug would ultimately reduce health care costs because patients would have fewer bleeding incidents and need fewer clotting treatments. The price appeared to exceed that of several other gene therapies priced upwards of $2 million. (Perrone, 11/22)

Hemgenix uses an engineered virus to deliver a functional copy of the gene that encodes for Factor IX. Once inserted, the replacement gene instructs cells to produce Factor IX on their own, which in turn, helps the body control bleeding. Currently, people living with hemophilia B receive regular intravenous infusions of Factor IX, which costs approximately $550,000 to $750,000 annually. The $3.5 million price tag for Hemgenix is justified, CSL Behring said, by eliminating the chronic need for Factor IX replacement therapy. (Feuerstein, 11/22)

"We are confident this price point will generate significant cost savings for the overall healthcare system and significantly lower the economic burden of hemophilia B," the company said. The list price is not necessarily what the patients pay for the drug. (Leo and Roy, 11/22)

“While the price is a little higher than expected, I do think it has a chance of being successful because 1) existing drugs are also very expensive and 2) hemophilia patients constantly live in fear of bleeds,” said Brad Loncar, a biotechnology investor and chief executive officer of Loncar Investments. “A gene therapy product will be appealing to some.” (Cortez, 11/23)

A district judge proposed Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes be sent to a federal prison camp, court filings show. District Judge Edward Davila recommended for Holmes to be designated to the Federal Prison Camp at Bryan, Texas, according to a November 21 filing. The Federal Prison Camp in Bryan is a minimum-security prison that houses female inmates. ... While Davila has recommended these provisions for Holmes' incarceration, the final decision is slated to be made by the US Bureau of Prisons. Holmes has been ordered to surrender herself into custody by April 27, 2023. (Descalsota, 11/23)

Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes will wake up at 6 am, will have her choice of three subdued colors of clothing, and will be well above the average age of her fellow inmates if she ends up serving her 11 1/4-year prison sentence at a minimum-security women’s facility outside Houston as recommended by her judge. US District Judge Edward Davila proposed the federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, according to a court filing, even though Holmes has been living in northern California, where she ran her blood-testing startup for almost 15 years before it collapsed and she was indicted in 2018. (Rosenblatt, 11/22)

Over the past 12 months, Iowa hospitals have been cited for dozens of violations, including a dirty surgical suite, patient abuse, inadequate staff, and discharging emergency-room patients with undiagnosed, life-threatening conditions. (Kaufman, 11/22)

The nursing home in western Wisconsin where a nurse is facing felony elder abuse charges for amputating a man's foot didn't immediately report the incident to state regulators and failed to complete an investigation, according to a state inspection report. (Volpenhein and Van Egeren, 11/22)

Over half of Mississippi’s rural hospitals are at risk of closing immediately or in the near future, according to the state’s leading public health official. Dr. Daniel Edney, the state health officer, spoke to state senators at a hearing Monday about the financial pressure on Mississippi hospitals. Edney said 54% of the state’s rural hospitals — 38 — could close. The potential closures threaten to exacerbate poor health outcomes in one of the nation’s poorest states. (Goldberg, 11/22)

Despite private equity owning only an estimated 5% of the nursing home industry, its high-profile problems in the sector have made it a bogeyman to politicians and the public. (Pringle, 11/22)

The Health and Human Services Department branch recommends healthcare entities—particularly hospitals—establish systems to track and manage greenhouse gas emissions, appoint leaders to oversee progress, set goals and timelines, and invest in technology that measures their environmental impacts. (Hartnett, 11/22)

Uber Health expanded its ride service for patients needing reimbursed, non-emergency health transportation to commercial and self-insured employers last week. Previously, the company had focused its attention on Medicaid and Medicare populations, but data showed gaps in commercially insured patients, said Caitlin Donovan, Uber Health’s global head. (Turner, 11/21)

Google has honed its message for hospital systems wary of moving their data to its cloud services: We are going to make this very easy for you. (Aguilar, 11/23)

The 18-month project, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, supports state and local efforts to reduce the health effects of extreme heat in Las Vegas, Nev., Phoenix, Ariz., Miami, Fla., and Charleston, S.C. According to the NOAA, the work in each city is specific to local needs and includes things like heat monitoring, identifying heat-risk reduction strategies, and improving services for the most vulnerable citizens. (Roedel, 11/22)

Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Simone Marstiller is stepping down from the job that includes overseeing Florida’s massive Medicaid program. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who will soon begin a second term, announced the move in a Twitter post Monday. (11/22)

A Cook County jury ruled in favor of Sterigenics, concluding that the Oak Brook-based medical-sterilization company should not take any responsibility for cancer in a woman who lived near the company’s plant in suburban Willowbrook. (Davis, 11/22)

According to statistics provided to ABC News by the Columbus Public Health Department (CPHD), as of Tuesday afternoon, 19 children have contracted the virus. Nearly half of these children were hospitalized due to severe symptoms of the infection. Almost half were under five years old. (Cahan and Kekatos, 11/23)

New Hampshire's Republican-controlled executive council blocked funding Tuesday for a long-running sex education program, saying they want state education officials to weigh in on the curriculum. (Gibson, 11/22)

New Hampshire already faces a shortage of nursing assistants, home health aides and other direct care workers. But a state commission says thousands more will be needed as the population ages. (Cuno-Booth, 11/22)

Officers trained in crisis intervention responded to the 911 calls in both incidents, according to police, but were unable to de-escalate either situation. Five officers shot 38 rounds at Burks in three seconds, striking him 19 times, after police said he lunged toward them. Three officers shot four rounds at Miller during an alleged struggle for a gun. (May Sahouri, 11/22)

Two officers responded to the residence to provide standby assistance, police said. Once they arrived at the garage at about 11:40 a.m., a member of the crisis outreach team spoke with one of them about the man’s recent drug use, prior police interactions and the team’s safety concerns, according to a Tuesday news release from Salt Lake police. (Peterson, 11/22)

As the fight against COVID-19 rolls on, regulators in Japan have bestowed a green light on the country's first homegrown antiviral. (Kansteiner, 11/22)

British pharma giant GSK said Tuesday that it will withdraw its blood cancer drug Blenrep from the U.S. market, following a request from the Food and Drug Administration. Blenrep’s removal is another sign that U.S. regulators are taking a more aggressive stance toward cancer drugs approved based on preliminary evidence of efficacy. (Feuerstein, 11/22)

Generic drug makers Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Sandoz say they are planning a significant ramp-up in production of biosimilars – copies of high-priced drugs used to treat illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and cancer – aiming to increase their share of an expanding market. More than 55 brand-name blockbuster biologic drugs, each with peak annual sales above $1 billion, are due to come off patent by the end of the decade, according to industry estimates. (Grover and Scheer, 11/22)

The courtroom drama surrounding Bristol Myers Squibb and its subsidiary Celgene over their efforts to restrict competition for lymphoma drug Revlimid has raged for more than a decade. (Dunleavy, 11/22)

Years after Merck & Co.'s Keytruda failed to move the needle in newly diagnosed stomach cancer bearing the PD-L1 biomarker, the company has come back with a win, this time for tumors regardless of PD-L1 expression. (Becker, 11/22)

A form of blood cancer known as mantle cell lymphoma is critically dependent on a protein that coordinates gene expression, such that blocking its activity with an experimental drug dramatically slows the growth of this lymphoma in preclinical tests, according to a study from Weill Cornell Medicine researchers. (Weill Cornell Medicine, 11/22)

Even as a child, La’Tonzia Adams was interested in diagnosing disease. One day, when she noticed a bump on her chest, she decided to look up “chicken pox” in the Webster’s dictionary at her grandmother’s house to figure out if her symptoms matched the illness. (Trang, 11/22)

Antimicrobial resistance has been a long-standing pandemic of its own that has been overlooked. COVID has reinforced the urgency of breaking the culture of liberal antibiotic use. (Sumanth Gandra and Madhukar Pai, 11/18)

In new research published this year in The Lancet, drug-resistant infections were found to be at least partly responsible for nearly 5 million deaths worldwide in 2019. In comparison, Covid-19 — an emergency that prompted a global response unlike anything in recent history — killed at least 3 million people in 2020. (Carlos del Rio, 11/21)

Biosimilars, a much-lauded approach to reducing drug costs in the United States, are still underused here, even as they are proving successful in Europe. Why? Two key reasons are misperceptions of inferiority and the intricacies of U.S. market access. (Thomas Newcomer, 11/18)

Next year, for the first time, Medicare will be allowed to start negotiating the prices of some prescription drugs. The policy is expected to lower out-of-pocket costs and save the US government almost $100 billion over a decade. (11/17)

In August, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) issued a warning about so-called “rainbow fentanyl,” calling it a “deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults.” The resulting coverage in the media was all about sparking fear amongst parents nationwide and turning the public against policies of harm reduction. (Diane Goldstein, 11/20)

For many modern families, holiday get-togethers present a rare but important opportunity for parents and grandparents to bridge the generational divide by sharing their health stories, said Dr. Daniel Sullivan, an internist at the Cleveland Clinic. “The greatest need is as children become adults,” said Sullivan. “Family history is an extremely important determinant for someone understanding their own personal health.” (Kroen, 11/22)

Since there are more octogenarians around, it stands to reason that more of them are still working — and if they are healthy, experts say there is no reason they shouldn’t. The number of years since a person’s birth, or chronological age, matters less than their biological age — how well their bodies and brains are functioning, said Dan Belsky, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. (Bahrampour, 11/19)

Stuart Jay Olshansky, an expert on aging at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said President Biden may be a member of a subset of older Americans who are "super-agers," with the mental faculties of people decades younger. "Age has been weaponized and people from the other party, whatever party you're dealing with, will always try to say that there’s something wrong with this individual," he said. "Those of us who study age as a profession say: 'Stop using age as a weapon.'" (Holland and Lange, 11/11)

Epstein-Barr virus has infected about 95 percent of adults. Yet only a tiny fraction of them will develop multiple sclerosis. Other factors are also known to affect a person’s MS risk, including genetics, low vitamin D, smoking, and childhood obesity. If this virus that infects nearly everyone on Earth causes multiple sclerosis, it does so in concert with other actors in a choreography that scientists don’t yet understand. (Preston, 11/21)

When it comes to sexual pleasure, there’s one spot on the female anatomy that tends to get the most attention: the clitoris. Yet despite the clitoris's association with orgasms and female pleasure, not much is known about the organ. For years, the clitoris was said to have 8,000 nerve endings — stated as fact in the 1976 book The Clitoris by Thomas Lowry and Thea Lowry, who cited a study on bovines. Now, thanks to a new study led by the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), which was presented at an Oct. 27 conference hosted by the Sexual Medicine Society of North America and the International Society for Sexual Medicine, we know that there are actually a lot more nerve fibers packed into the tiny sexual organ. (Reilly, 11/21)

OpenSensor’s devices measure carbon dioxide using internet of things, or IoT, technology, in which sensors publish real-time data over a network. Respiration produces CO2, which is exhaled along with aerosols, so the sensors can be used to measure the buildup of exhaled air within a space — and therefore the potential level of pathogens. (Essentially, CO2 serves as a proxy for potentially high levels of pathogens.) This, in turn, allows building managers to monitor and adjust air quality as necessary. (Smith, 11/23)

A sign of problematic play is that the play isn’t enjoyable anymore — it feels like work, or a grind, or that if you don’t log on, that something bad will happen (e.g., progress lost, missing an opportunity, letting others down). Sometimes games are frustrating, and there can be a sense of grind or drudgery, but if that’s the bulk of your experience, it’s probably a good idea to reevaluate your relationship to the game. (Beaton, 11/22)

Matthew Shelton was contending with diabetes and periodic substance abuse when he moved in with his sister outside Houston in order to get his life together. Three months later, facing an old criminal charge of driving while intoxicated, he turned himself in to the Harris County Jail one day in March with a supply of the insulin he relied on to stay alive. After two days, he told his family that no one was allowing him access to the insulin: He was trying to manage his illness by discarding the bread from the sandwiches he was served. He was alone, frightened and cold, he said. (Dewan, 11/22)

Nick Petito saw a lot in the six months he worked at North Star hospital in Anchorage. Petito wasn’t a therapist. He wasn’t a social worker. He was the maintenance manager, charged with fixing what was physically broken at Alaska’s only psychiatric hospital for children. (Theriault Boots, 11/20)

Now comes the big hurdle: Thanksgiving and winter holidays in crowded indoor rooms, filled with family and friends. Those are conditions ideal for spreading covid-19. (11/22)

Yale and Harvard Law Schools recently announced they would no longer participate in U.S. News & World Report’s (USNWR) flawed ranking system, followed closely by additional schools. The nation’s medical schools need to follow their lead. (Holly J. Humphrey and Dana Levinson, 11/23)

Francia Bolivar Henry was going to be the miracle patient. A pastry chef in her 30s with a captivating smile, she was funny and kind, loved Missy Elliott and chocolate souffle. Even as she battled a life-threatening disease, trapped in the intensive care unit while hooked to a machine that had taken over the functioning of her lungs, she found moments of joy. (Daniela J. Lamas, 11/22)

While mental health symptoms are common in airline pilots, getting help can affect their ability to work in a big way. Airline pilots are required to meet certain medical standards in order to maintain an active flying status, and disclosing a new symptom or condition to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) puts them at risk of losing, usually temporarily, their ability to work and fly. (William R. Hoffman, 11/22)

Few public policy issues are as personal to Americans as health care policy. To many, it is literally an issue of life or death.  That’s why pending legislation addressing Sickle Cell Disease is so vital to millions of Americans who have a friend, colleague or loved one living with the disease. (Brett Giroir and Regina Hartfield, 11/22)

Health inequities are the result of unfair systems negatively affecting the living conditions, access to care and overall health status of individuals, usually those from disadvantaged or historically marginalized groups. (Kristen M.J. Azar, 11/22)