Medicare drug prices, meningitis, women’s health

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Nearly precisely two years in the past, the Inflation Discount Act was signed into regulation, permitting Medicare to barter drug costs for the primary time. At this time, the company introduced how a lot it lowered the prices for 10 medication within the first 12 months of negotiation. Our incomparable DC group offers information and evaluation right here and examines the implications for the presidential marketing campaign.

Arthritis sufferers on Medicare are getting cornered on remedy

One rheumatologist calls it the “birthday story.”  Somebody with arthritis has been secure for years taking Humira, an injection that they’ll self-administer at house. Then they flip 65. When folks swap from personal medical insurance to Medicare, sure medicines grow to be unaffordable in a single day because of the approach this system constructions its pricing of at-home prescribed drugs. One affected person, Linda Kaser, discovered her capsules would value greater than $4,000 a month after she turned 65. If an arthritis affected person needs to keep away from a value improve, the one workaround is to modify therapies to common, hour-plus-long visits to a hospital or infusion heart for intravenous drug therapies.

As many as 40,000 chronically sick seniors are selecting to endure these uncomfortable, time-consuming infusions as a result of Medicare doesn’t sufficiently cowl way more handy therapies. Learn extra on how the opaque drug pricing course of leads sufferers to decide on this lackluster hack.

NY tells suppliers to cease utilizing ciprofloxacin for meningitis

A rise in antimicrobial resistance has led the New York State Division of Well being to concern an advisory to well being care suppliers to cease utilizing the antibiotic ciprofloxacin for sufferers who might have been in touch with somebody who has meningococcal illness (aka meningitis). As a substitute, suppliers ought to use the opposite first-line antibiotic medicines, rifampin and ceftriaxone, as prophylactic remedy.

Meningitis is a uncommon however critical situation that may trigger mind swelling or blood and joint infections. About 10-15% of circumstances within the U.S. are deadly, and it’s important for individuals who might have been uncovered to the illness to start out antibiotic remedy. Final 12 months, 4 out of 20 circumstances of the illness within the state (however exterior NYC) had been discovered to be proof against ciprofloxacin. Within the metropolis, six of 25 circumstances since final summer time had been resistant.

(It’s at all times a good suggestion to maintain up with STAT’s protection of antibiotics.)

WHO declares mpox a world well being emergency

The WHO declared a public well being emergency of worldwide concern yesterday concerning the outbreak of mpox in a number of African international locations. That is the second time the company has made such a declaration in two years in response to the transmission of this virus.

What does this imply, you could be asking?  A public well being emergency of worldwide concern (PHEIC) might be referred to as when the danger of cross-border unfold is taken into account excessive, and worldwide cooperation will probably be wanted to include the menace. Right here, cross-border transmission of mpox has already occurred a number of occasions. The declaration additionally offers the WHO director-general the authority to concern what are often called momentary suggestions — steering to international locations on steps they need to take to deal with the issue. Learn extra from STAT’s Helen Branswell.

Is HHS local weather washing? (What’s local weather washing?)

The Division of Well being and Human Companies has acknowledged it’ll do all that it may possibly to mitigate the well being care business’s greenhouse fuel emissions. However in a brand new First Opinion essay, well being care advisor David Introcaso argues that the company is definitely simply “local weather washing.”

If the time period is unfamiliar to you, local weather washing is mainly when a authorities or firm concurrently engages in optimistic communications about local weather efficiency and adverse local weather practices.

Introcaso comes with proof: Three years in the past, HHS established the Workplace of Local weather Change and Well being Fairness (OCCHE). However to this point, OCCHE has performed nothing regulatorily to mitigate well being care emissions. And for the reason that workplace’s inception, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra has by no means argued for funding it in congressional finances testimony.

Learn extra on whether or not the company is placing sufficient of its cash the place its mouth is on local weather change.

How does girls’s well being care within the U.S. stack as much as different nations?

It’s possible you’ll not like this reply, however girls within the U.S. have worse well being care entry and outcomes than these dwelling in 13 different high-income nations like Australia, Canada, Japan, and South Korea, in accordance with a brand new examine from the Commonwealth Fund. What outcomes? Oh, you already know, like life expectancy, “avoidable deaths,” and psychological well being. Listed here are some highlights:

• Ladies within the U.S. have the bottom life expectancy and the very best fee of avoidable deaths. If prevention measures had been in place or the appropriate remedy had been supplied, 70 out of each 100,000 girls who die within the U.S. may dwell. This fee is greater than thrice the speed of avoidable demise in South Korea.
• All 13 different international locations within the evaluation present some type of authorities well being care protection to all residents. None have a considerable portion of people who find themselves uninsured. Within the U.S. final 12 months, 14% of ladies ages 19-64 mentioned they had been uninsured, together with greater than 1 / 4 of Hispanic girls.
• The U.S. and Australia are the 2 international locations the place girls most frequently report having a psychological well being care want. However they’re additionally the 2 international locations the place girls are almost certainly to skip getting psychological well being companies because of the value. One in 4 girls in every nation reported skipping psychological well being care. (At the very least we aren’t alone on this one?)

How one ALS affected person used a brain-computer interface at house for seven years

Mind-computer interfaces received’t be obtainable to most of the people anytime quickly. For now, disabled persons are the primary ones to test-drive new expertise like this. It could possibly assist individuals who have been paralyzed to speak, and will show significantly fruitful for ALS sufferers as their eye muscle management wanes, main eye-gaze gadgets to lose utility.

Mariska Vansteensel is a neuroscientist who has spent a lot of the final decade experimenting with BCI at-home use. Her group adopted one ALS affected person who used such a tool for greater than seven years. When the examine started, no one with motor impairment had ever tried to make use of a BCI implant at their house, she instructed STAT’s Timmy Broderick. The group discovered that the individual’s utilization of the BCI elevated as time handed and paralysis elevated.

Learn Timmy’s interview with Vansteensel about what her group discovered after observing virtually a decade of real-world BCI use.

What we’re studying

• The veterinarians stopping the following pandemic, The New Yorker
• All of them acquired mysterious mind ailments. They’re preventing to be taught why, New York Times
• Can AI assist ease medication’s empathy downside? STAT
• WHO to scrap weak PFAS ingesting water tips after alleged corruption, The Guardian
• Surgeons lower a large tumor out of my head. Is there a greater approach? Bloomberg