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Happy Monday, all. Helen Branswell here. I’ve been with STAT since its launch in 2015. In fact, the 11th anniversary of the day I started was last week. But in all these years, I’ve never before written an entire newsletter. So please bear with me.
A woman aged 40 has died in Pennsylvania from measles-related illness, the third death in the state involving measles in recent weeks. The unidentified woman died Saturday, Greg Furlong, the coroner for Jefferson County, said in a statement posted to Facebook. “This is a heartbreaking loss for the family and an unfortunate reminder that measles can be a serious and potentially life-threatening disease,” he said.
Pennsylvania is in the midst of a large outbreak; as of Friday, it had recorded 676 measles cases. The two previous deaths in the state were in babies. Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has disputed the role measles played in the infant deaths and the CDC has not yet registered either as measles related.
Late Sunday, the CDC appeared to rebuke Pennsylvania’s handling of its measles outbreak. In a statement, Director Erica Schwartz said the CDC had not been notified by Pennsylvania officials of this latest death, and suggested the state has yet to avail itself of repeated offers from the CDC to provide “on-the-ground measles outbreak support.”
Trump administration may be drastically undercutting its own plan to lower Medicare drug costs
The Trump administration is seeking to lower Medicare drug costs as part of its “most-favored nation” pricing policy. But at the same time, it may be undermining its own efforts, a new modeling study published in the Lancet suggests. Secretive deals the administration has struck with more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies could reduce the benefit of the program by as much as 80%, the modeling suggests.
In some cases, the policy would require companies to pay additional rebates when Medicare prices for targeted drugs exceed the costs being charged in comparable high-income countries, a fact that could give manufacturers a strong incentive to hike prices outside the U.S. or to delay launching new products.
“Because these deals aren’t public, it is challenging for policymakers and the public to judge whether most-favored-nation pricing is delivering what was promised,” the lead author, Thomas Hwang of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told Ed Silverman.
Once a source of hope, rural health fund is underdelivering
The $50 billion pot of funds for rural health care that Republicans added to the bill to cut $1 trillion from Medicare was seen as promising when it was first announced. Hospital leaders thought it would help rural hospitals fill troublesome gaps. But the reality of what the fund has become has left those same leaders disillusioned, Daniel Payne reports.
The rural health transformation funds were meant to finance programs that would be sustainable after the five-year program expired. But as one executive told Daniel, it’s hard to focus on change when survival is on the line.
“Everybody’s trying to fill in holes,” added another, Tim Clifford, a longtime physician in Bucksport, Maine. “But they don’t know how much they’re going to get, and they don’t know how big the holes are that they’re going to need to fill.” Read more of STAT’s Unraveled series.
Heading toward respiratory viruses season
Though it pains me to say so, we’re in the dying days of summer, which means that the cold and flu season is stretching out ahead of us. So it’s time to think about when you’re going to get vaccinated against influenza, Covid-19, and respiratory syncytial virus or RSV, if you are eligible for that shot. (If you’ve already been vaccinated against RSV, currently there is no recommendation for a booster. So if you’ve had one, you’re done — at least for now.) If you’re late in a pregnancy — between 32 and 36 weeks, during the period from the beginning of September to the beginning of March — and have never before received an RSV vaccine, you should consider getting a shot to protect your baby after birth, when he or she is highly vulnerable to the infection.
As for flu and Covid, these viruses aren’t yet causing much illness. With flu vaccines in particular, the protection generated wanes over the course of the season, so it makes sense to hold off on getting vaccinated until signs the influenza activity is taking off materialize, if you are able. You can get all these shots at the same time, if it’s most convenient, or stagger them to align with activity in your community. But don’t forget to get them.
Federal judge presses pause on AAP’s challenge of Kennedy’s vaccine changes
A federal judge paused the proceedings in the sweeping legal challenge to health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s changes to vaccine policy on Friday. The suit, filed last July, challenged Kennedy’s reconstitution of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — a committee that helps the CDC set vaccination policy — as well as changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.
In March, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy issued an initial ruling that the plaintiffs, led by the American Academy of Pediatrics, were likely to win on their claim that Kennedy violated the Administrative Procedures Act and stalled much of his vaccine policy changes. In April, the Department of Health and Human Services appealed that ruling. As the two courts deliberate, ACIP has been in limbo and has not met.
Now, the federal court will hold off on further action until the appeals court rules on the case. “The district court has recognized that this is a case of national importance and we will continue to forge ahead; we are focused on the Oct. 6 oral argument before the First Circuit on the government’s appeal,” the AAP’s lead counsel Richard Hughes said. — Anil Oza
What we’re reading
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Ban bets on unfinished clinical trials, Science
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Indigenous groups are exempt from Medicare work rules, but Native Hawaiians aren’t, KFF Health News
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CDC’s response to measles deaths stirs fears about agency’s reliability, NPR
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U.S. officials declare an end to record-setting cyclospora outbreak, but its origin is still unknown, AP
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When do women really need a bone scan? the New York Times