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☆ ‘Medical Freedom’ Activists Take Aim at New Target: Childhood Vaccine Mandates
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-03 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | More About Sheryl Gay Stolberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Similar legal challenges have been filed in the five remaining states: California, Connecticut, Maine, New York and West Virginia. A few childhood vaccines, including those that protect against chickenpox and rubella, were developed with cells obtained from aborted fetuses in the early 1960s. The legal push comes as childhood vaccine exemptions have reached a new high in the United States, according to a report released last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Idaho had the highest rate of exemptions, at 12.1 percent, while West Virginia had the lowest, at less than one-tenth of 1 percent. A broad majority of Americans continue to believe in the value of childhood vaccines.

Organizations: Centers for Disease Control, Pew Research Center Locations: Mississippi, California , Connecticut, Maine , New York, West Virginia, United States, Idaho

☆ U.S. Offers Another Round of Free Covid Tests Through the Mail
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | More About Sheryl Gay Stolberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Just in time for the holiday season, the Biden administration is offering Americans a fresh round of free at-home coronavirus tests through the Postal Service. The administration revived the dormant program in September, announcing then that households could order four free tests through a federal website, covidtests.gov. Beginning Monday, households may order an additional four tests — or eight tests if they had not ordered any in the previous round. Hospital admissions of patients with Covid ticked up this summer, but they began declining slightly in September and have held fairly steady in recent weeks. About 16,000 people were admitted to hospitals with the virus in the week that ended Nov. 11, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Persons: Biden Organizations: Postal Service, Centers for Disease Control Locations: Covid, United States

☆ Peace Corps, Criticized for Medical Care, Settles Wrongful-Death Suit for $750,000
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | More About Sheryl Gay Stolberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Peace Corps, which has repeatedly come under scrutiny for the medical care it provides to volunteers, has agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the family of a 24-year-old volunteer who died of undiagnosed malaria in the island nation of Comoros off the coast of East Africa. The federal government did not admit any guilt or liability in the death of the volunteer, Bernice Heiderman of Inverness, Ill., according to a legal filing on Tuesday in Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The payment is nonetheless unusual. Under federal tort law, suing the government is a complicated and difficult process. Adam Dinnell, a lawyer for the Heiderman family, said he could find no record of any similar monetary settlements by the Peace Corps, a federal agency founded in the 1960s to spread peace and American good will around the world.

Persons: Bernice Heiderman, Adam Dinnell, “, Heiderman, ” Organizations: Corps, Court, Northern, Northern District of Illinois, Peace Corps Locations: Comoros, East Africa, Inverness, Ill, Northern District, American

☆ Senate Confirms Biden’s Pick for N.I.H. Director Over Sanders’s Objections
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | More About Sheryl Gay Stolberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli, a cancer surgeon who currently leads the National Cancer Institute, as the next director of the National Institutes of Health, overriding the objections of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate health committee. The vote was 62 to 36, with Mr. Sanders voting no. on a permanent basis, after Dr. Bernadine P. Healy, who served under President George H.W. She will take over an agency that has been the target of political attacks by Republicans, who have accused its scientists of intentionally downplaying the possibility that Covid-19 was the result of a laboratory leak. “I think no one wants to know what the true origin of the last Covid pandemic was more than the biomedical research community,” Dr. Bertagnolli told Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the top Republican on the health committee, during her confirmation hearing last month.

Persons: Monica M, Bernie Sanders of, Sanders, Bertagnolli, “, Dr, Bernadine, Healy, George H.W, George H.W . Bush, ”, Bill Cassidy of Organizations: National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Republican Locations: Bernie Sanders of Vermont, George H.W ., Bill Cassidy of Louisiana

☆ As Abortion Laws Drive Obstetricians From Red States, Maternity Care Suffers
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | More About Sheryl Gay Stolberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Across the country, in red states like Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee, obstetricians — including highly skilled doctors who specialize in handling complex and risky pregnancies — are leaving their practices. The departures may result in new maternity care deserts, or areas that lack any maternity care, and they are placing strains on physicians like Dr. Gustafson who are left behind. Restrictive abortion laws, experts say, are making that problem much worse. “This isn’t an issue about abortion,” said Dr. Stella Dantas, the president-elect of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. A temporary order issued by a federal judge also permits abortion in some circumstances when a woman’s health is at risk.

Persons: obstetricians, Gustafson, ”, Stella Dantas, Roe, Wade Organizations: American College of Obstetricians, Doctors Locations: Texas , Oklahoma, Tennessee, Idaho

A year ago, Congress overhauled how drugs for older Americans are paid for, giving Medicare the power to bargain with drug makers over prices. It’s the biggest change to health care for more than a decade, and this week, the Biden administration began to implement it. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who covers health policy for The Times, discusses the decades of struggle behind the change and Rebecca Robbins, who covers the pharmaceutical industry, explains its potential to reshape the business of drugs in America.

Persons: Biden, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Rebecca Robbins Organizations: The Times Locations: America

The medications on the list are taken by millions of older Americans and cost Medicare billions of dollars annually. The drugs were selected by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services through a process that prioritized medications that account for the highest Medicare spending, have been on the market for years and do not yet face competition from rivals. Drugs Selected for Price Negotiations1. Eliquis, for preventing strokes and blood clots, from Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer2. Xarelto, for preventing strokes and blood clots, from Johnson & Johnson4.

Persons: Biden, Price, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Johnson Organizations: Tuesday, Medicare, Centers, Services, Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, Johnson, Merck, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Novo Nordisk Locations: AbbVie, Novo

☆ AIDS Relief Program Under Threat as G.O.P. Insists on Abortion Restriction
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-28 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | More About Sheryl Gay Stolberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker, and George W. Bush, the Republican former president, do not agree on much. Mr. Bush created that program, the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, in 2003. But now PEPFAR is in danger of becoming a victim of abortion politics — just as the State Department is reorganizing to make the program permanent. But House Republicans are not moving forward with a bill to reauthorize it for another five years, because abortion opponents — led by a G.O.P. congressman who has long been a supporter of PEPFAR — are insisting on adding abortion-related restrictions.

Persons: Nancy Pelosi, George W, Bush, Bono, —, PEPFAR Organizations: Democratic, House, Republican, Dublin —, America’s, AIDS Relief, State Department, Republicans Locations: Washington —

The legal push comes just weeks before the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is scheduled to publish a long-awaited list of the first 10 drugs that will be subject to negotiations. Earlier this month, the chamber asked a federal judge in Ohio to issue an injunction that would block any negotiations while its case is being heard. Lawrence O. Gostin, an expert in public health law at Georgetown University, said the Supreme Court might be sympathetic to some of the industry’s arguments. The president and Democrats have long campaigned on reducing drug prices and plan to make it a central theme of their 2024 campaigns. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said in a statement that Mr. Biden was confident the administration would win in court.

Persons: Lawrence O, “, Mr, Gostin, Biden, Karine Jean, Pierre Organizations: Medicare, Medicaid Services, Georgetown University, Supreme, White Locations: Ohio

The promising drug, then in the early stages of testing, was an updated version of tenofovir. The “patent extension strategy,” as the Gilead documents repeatedly called it, would allow the company to keep prices high for its tenofovir-based drugs. Gilead could switch patients to its new drug just before cheap generics hit the market. By putting tenofovir on a path to remain a moneymaking juggernaut for decades, the strategy was potentially worth billions of dollars. The delayed release of the new treatment is now the subject of state and federal lawsuits in which some 26,000 patients who took Gilead’s older H.I.V.

Persons: Gilead

☆ Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Insisting He Is Not a Bigot, Says Opponents Seek to Silence Him
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | More About Sheryl Gay Stolberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came to Capitol Hill on Thursday and pointedly declared that he is neither an antisemite nor a racist, while giving a fiery defense of free speech and accusing the Biden administration and his political opponents of trying to silence him. Mr. Kennedy, a scion of the Democratic political clan, appeared before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government — a panel created by Republicans to conduct a wide-ranging investigation of federal law enforcement and national security agencies. He said he had “never been anti-vax” and had taken all recommended vaccines except the coronavirus vaccine. Thursday’s hearing was devoted to allegations by Mr. Kennedy and Republicans that the Biden administration is trying to censor people with differing views. It was rooted in a lawsuit, filed last year by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana and known as Missouri v. Biden, that accused the administration of colluding with social media companies to suppress free speech on Covid-19, elections and other matters.

Persons: Robert F, Kennedy Jr, Biden, Kennedy Organizations: Democratic, Capitol, New York Post, Federal Government, Republicans Locations: Missouri, Louisiana

☆ Biden Administration Moves to Ban Funding for Wuhan Lab
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | More About Sheryl Gay Stolberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Biden administration is taking steps to impose a 10-year ban on funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese research laboratory at the center of a heated debate over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a memo made public by a House subcommittee on Tuesday evening and an official familiar with the issue. The memo, written by an official in the Department of Health and Human Services, said the institute had failed to comply with repeated requests from the National Institutes of Health for laboratory notebooks and other documents necessary to establish its safety practices. The N.I.H.’s conclusion that the Wuhan institute “likely violated protocols of the N.I.H. regarding biosafety is undisputed,” wrote the official, whose name was redacted. The memo said that suspension of funding was necessary to “mitigate any potential public health risk,” and that there was “adequate evidence” to initiate “debarment proceedings.”The institute, which has not received any federal money since 2020, now has 30 days to respond to the notice.

Persons: Biden, ”, “ Organizations: Wuhan Institute of Virology, Department of Health, Human Services, National Institutes of Health Locations: Wuhan, “

☆ Pink Floyd, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and More: The Week in Reporter Reads
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Last October, when Roger Waters brought his “This Is Not a Drill” tour through Austin, Texas, he also took the time to record a nearly three-hour appearance on the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience.” During the episode, Rogan said he had to ask Waters — the former lead lyricist, bassist and co-lead vocalist for Pink Floyd — about the synchronicity that arises from watching “The Wizard of Oz” while listening to “The Dark Side of the Moon.”This phenomenon is sometimes called “The Dark Side of the Rainbow”: If you start the album at just the right time, the music and lyrics uncannily align with the movie’s visuals. Some coincidences are lyrical, as when Dorothy runs away from home at the line “No one told you when to run.” Some are tonal, as when the tornado sequence seems practically choreographed to Clare Torry’s wordless vocals in “The Great Gig in the Sky” — rising to a frenzy as the twister rolls in and then shifting to dreaminess just as Dorothy is knocked unconscious. Charlie Savage, who wrote the first article about the phenomenon as a summer intern at The Journal Gazette in his hometown, Fort Wayne, Ind., looks back at the discovery he made known when he was 19. ◆ ◆ ◆Written and narrated by Sheryl Gay Stolberg

Persons: Roger Waters, Joe Rogan, Rogan, Waters, Pink Floyd —, Oz, Dorothy, Clare Torry’s, “, Charlie Savage, ◆, Sheryl Gay Stolberg Organizations: The, Gazette Locations: Austin , Texas, Fort Wayne, Ind

☆ A Year After Dobbs, Advocates Push in the States for a Right to Birth Control
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“It’s going to be up to Republicans to choose whether they want to protect the right to contraception,” Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and the sponsor of the failed Senate bill, said in an interview before the governor’s veto. Mr. Markey called the Dobbs decision “a preview of coming atrocities.”On Wednesday, Mr. Markey and Representative Kathy Manning, Democrat of North Carolina, reintroduced legislation to create a national right to contraception. With the House now controlled by Republicans and Senate Democrats well short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, the legislation is most likely dead on arrival in Washington. Polls have consistently shown broad bipartisan support for access to contraception, and while Republicans may not be eager to enshrine a right to it in federal law, neither do they generally want to ban it. Still, some opposition to birth control does exist.

Persons: “, Edward J, Markey, Kathy Manning Organizations: Democrat, Republicans, Senate Democrats, Roman Catholic Church, American College of Obstetricians, and Drug Administration Locations: Massachusetts, North Carolina, Washington, implanting

☆ Biden Is Said to Pick Former North Carolina Health Secretary to Lead C.D.C.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | Apoorva Mandavilli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The selection of Dr. Cohen, which was first reported by The Washington Post, is not final. Dr. Cohen did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If chosen by Mr. Biden, Dr. Cohen, an internist, would replace Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, an infectious disease expert who announced last month that she would step down at the end of June. Dr. Walensky led the C.D.C. through difficult times; the agency had grown demoralized under President Donald J. Trump and drew fierce criticism under both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden.

Persons: Biden, Mandy Cohen, Dr . Cohen, Cohen, Mr, . Cohen, Rochelle, Walensky, Donald J, Trump Organizations: Centers for Disease Control, The Washington Locations: North Carolina

☆ A Cancer Surgeon and Patient Is Biden’s Pick to Lead N.I.H.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — President Biden will announce on Monday that he will nominate Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli, a cancer surgeon who became the director of the National Cancer Institute in October, to be the next director of the National Institutes of Health, filling a position that has been vacant for more than a year. Dr. Bertagnolli is also a cancer patient. She announced late last year that she had she received a diagnosis of early breast cancer. She is the first female director of the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. She would be only the second woman to lead the N.I.H.

☆ As Covid Emergency Ends, U.S. Response Shifts to ‘Peacetime’ Mode
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Sheryl Gay Stolberg | Noah Weiland | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Thursday, three years and 100 days after the Trump administration declared the coronavirus a public health emergency, the Biden administration will allow the emergency declaration to expire, ushering in a new era when the government will treat Covid-19 like any other respiratory ailment. If the coronavirus pandemic was a war, the United States is about to officially enter peacetime. State health officials, tasked with tracking the coronavirus, are burned out, their departments understaffed. President Biden’s coronavirus response team will soon disband. But the officials say they are operating on a tight budget; Congress has refused to give the administration any new money for the pandemic response.

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