First Edition: August 31, 2017
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Pioneering Cancer Gene Therapy Gets Green Light — And $475,000 Price Tag
Novartis said that it priced its drug based on several considerations. British health authorities have said a price of $649,000 for a one-time treatment would be cost-effective given Kymriah’s significant benefits. Novartis also considered the cost of bone-marrow transplants, which are currently given to many leukemia patients whose cancer relapses. Those transplants can cost up to $800,000, Novartis said. (Szabo, 8/30)
Kaiser Health News:
Soul Purpose: Seniors With Strong Reasons To Live Often Live Stronger
After making it through the maelstrom of middle age, many adults find themselves approaching older age wondering “what will give purpose to my life?” now that the kids have flown the nest and retirement is in the cards. How they answer the question can have significant implications for their health. (Graham, 8/31)
California Healthline:
Why One California County Went Surgery Shopping
Retiree Leslie Robinson-Stone and her husband enjoyed a weeklong, all-expenses-paid trip to a luxury resort — all thanks to the county she worked for. The couple also received more than a thousand dollars in spending money and a personal concierge, who attended to their every need. For Santa Barbara County, it was money well spent: Sending Robinson-Stone 250 miles away for knee replacement surgery near San Diego saved the government $30,000. (Terhune, 8/31)
The New York Times:
Trump Administration Wants To Stabilize Health Markets But Won’t Say How
A Trump administration official said Wednesday that the administration wanted to stabilize health insurance markets, but refused to say if the government would promote enrollment this fall under the Affordable Care Act or pay for the activities of counselors who help people sign up for coverage. The official also declined to say whether the administration would continue paying subsidies to insurance companies to compensate them for reducing deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for low-income people. Without the subsidies, insurers say, they would sharply increase premiums. (Pear, 8/30)
The Wall Street Journal:
Leaders Of A Dozen State-Run Insurance Exchanges Call For Preservation Of Subsidies
Leaders of a dozen state-run health insurance exchanges threw their support Wednesday behind congressional efforts to bolster the individual insurance markets while giving states more leeway over implementing the Affordable Care Act. The state health leaders warned that premiums would continue to climb, and state budgets would suffer, if the federal government didn’t commit to preserving payments to insurers that offset out-of-pocket costs for some consumers, and if states didn’t get more flexibility. (Armour, 8/30)
The Wall Street Journal:
Voters Urge Bipartisanship As Congress Returns To Washington
On a swing through western Iowa this week, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley told constituents he is committed to working in a bipartisan way when Congress returns next month to provide storm relief, stabilize the health-care system and fund the government without drama. It is a message that has resonated with many voters as Mr. Grassley tours the state during Congress’s August recess. It comes as President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican, has criticized lawmakers in his own party and said this month that he is willing to risk a government shutdown if the GOP-controlled Congress declines to appropriate money for additional border fencing between the U.S. and Mexico. (Tau, 8/30)
Los Angeles Times:
Sen. Kamala Harris Plans To Back Medicare-For-All Legislation
Sen. Kamala Harris will co-sponsor a Medicare-for-all plan proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), she told Californians at a town hall in Oakland on Wednesday. The freshman Democratic senator from California has previously said she supports the concept of universal healthcare, but this is the first time she has explicitly said she would join Sanders when he files the bill. The House version of the measure, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), has 117 sponsors, including 27 California Democratic House members. (Wire, 8/30)
Politico:
Harris To Co-Sponsor Sanders' Single-Payer Bill
To the delight of a hometown crowd at a packed town hall meeting Wednesday in Oakland — where she was raised — Harris announced for the first time that she intended to co-sponsor “Medicare for All,’’ the single-payer health care bill which has the strong support of progressives and groups including National Nurses United, saying it was “the right thing to do.” But that stated position puts her at odds with Feinstein, who has publicly expressed concerns about the costs and details of single payer, and who this week at the Commonwealth Club of California said she favored a public option for health care instead. (Marinucci, 8/31)
The New York Times:
A Sea Of Health And Environmental Hazards In Houston’s Floodwaters
Officials in Houston are just beginning to grapple with the health and environmental risks that lurk in the waters dumped by Hurricane Harvey, a toxic stew of chemicals, sewage, debris and waste that still floods much of the city. Flooded sewers are stoking fears of cholera, typhoid and other infectious diseases. Runoff from the city’s sprawling petroleum and chemicals complex contains any number of hazardous compounds. Lead, arsenic and other toxic and carcinogenic elements may be leaching from some two dozen Superfund sites in the Houston area. (Tabuchi and Kaplan, 8/31)
The Hill:
Five Public Health Crises Facing Houston After Harvey
Texas is reeling from Hurricane Harvey, with thousands of residents displaced by flood waters and a climbing death toll. But the dangers go beyond the rising waters, as the storm brings an array of public health dangers, from mosquitoes to mold. Here are five public health threats facing authorities in Houston. (Sullivan and Weixel, 8/31)
The Washington Post:
Some Hospitals Evacuated, But Houston’s Medical World Mostly Withstands Harvey
The first ambulances finally arrived at Ben Taub Hospital, in the heart of Houston’s vast Texas Medical Center, to remove five patients clinging to life on ventilators. The county hospital had initially planned to transfer all of its 350 patients. As the remnants of Hurricane Harvey continued to unleash epic rains, a foot of water was rising in the hospital’s basement from a burst pipe and wet seeping in from the city’s inundated streets. The kitchen was knocked out, as well as the pharmacy and the area where supplies such as linens and needles are stored. (Goldstein and McGinley, 8/30)
NPR:
After Harvey, Most Houston Hospitals Up And Running
In southeastern Texas, about two dozen hospitals remained closed as of midafternoon Wednesday, and several Houston hospitals remain under threat of flooding from nearby reservoirs. But things are looking up. Some hospitals that had been evacuated have reopened, and others are restoring services they had temporarily suspended. Many never closed at all. (Hsu and Sullivan, 8/30)
Stat:
Houston Hospitals May Not Be Back To Normal For A Month
Amid the evacuation of approximately 1,500 patients from Houston-area hospitals, officials are commending the emergency response by health providers — while also cautioning that it may be weeks before the facilities are back to business as usual. The SouthEast Texas Regional Advisory Council — which has overseen catastrophic medical operations since Hurricane Harvey as part of Houston’s emergency command center — estimates that nearly two dozen hospitals have evacuated patients by ambulance and airplane over the course of the past week. (Blau, 8/30)
NPR:
Need For Dialysis Soars For Harvey Evacuees In Houston
Among the most pressing medical needs facing Houston at the moment: getting people to dialysis treatment. At DaVita Med Center Dialysis on Tuesday afternoon, nurses tended to dozens of patients on dialysis machines while another 100 people waited their turn. Some were clearly uncomfortable, and a number said they hadn't been dialyzed in four days. Those delays can be life-threatening. (Hersher and Hsu, 8/30)
The Washington Post:
Trump Could Seek Billions In Harvey Recovery Aid Next Week
President Trump could request a package of emergency funding to deal with the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey as soon as next week, a senior administration official said, reshuffling the political agenda as the White House scrambles to deal with devastation left by the storm. The funding package is expected to only be a partial down payment and serve in part to backstop depleted reserves that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had on hand to respond to disasters. (Paletta, O'Keefe and DeBonis, 8/30)
The Associated Press:
US Clears Breakthrough Gene Therapy For Childhood Leukemia
Opening a new era in cancer care, U.S. health officials on Wednesday approved a breakthrough treatment that genetically engineers patients' own blood cells into an army of assassins to seek and destroy childhood leukemia. The Food and Drug Administration called the approval historic, the first gene therapy to hit the U.S. market. Made from scratch for every patient, it's one of a wave of "living drugs" under development to fight additional blood cancers and other tumors, too. (Neergaard, 8/30)
The New York Times:
F.D.A. Approves First Gene-Altering Leukemia Treatment, Costing $475,000
The new therapy turns a patient’s cells into a “living drug,” and trains them to recognize and attack the disease. It is part of the rapidly growing field of immunotherapy that bolsters the immune system through drugs and other therapies and has, in some cases, led to long remissions and possibly even cures. The therapy, marketed as Kymriah and made by Novartis, was approved for children and young adults for an aggressive type of leukemia — B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia — that has resisted standard treatment or relapsed. The F.D.A. called the disease “devastating and deadly” and said the new treatment fills an “unmet need.” (Grady, 8/30)
The Washington Post:
FDA Clears First Gene-Altering Therapy — ‘A Living Drug’ — For Childhood Leukemia
“We’re entering a new frontier in medical innovation with the ability to reprogram a patient’s own cells to attack a deadly cancer,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said. “New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold out the potential to transform medicine” and cure intractable illnesses. He said companies are pursuing hundreds of experimental treatments involving gene therapy products. (McGinley and Johnson, 8/30)
NPR:
CAR-T Therapy For Leukemia Wins FDA Approval
The treatment, which is also called CTL019, produced remission within three months in 83 percent of 63 pediatric and young adult patients. The patients had failed to respond to standard treatments or had suffered relapses. Based on those results, an FDA advisory panel recommended the approval in July. (Stein, 8/30)
The Wall Street Journal:
FDA Approves Pioneering Cancer Treatment With $475,000 Price Tag
The procedure can only be undertaken at a limited number of facilities in the U.S. It is highly tailored to individual patients and can take the better part of a month to complete. Those logistical hurdles and its expected high price had cast a shadow over what has otherwise been seen as a groundbreaking treatment. (Roland and Loftus, 8/30)
Stat:
Clues Point To Inflammation's Role In Many Diseases. Will Treatments Follow?
Inflammation has become one of the hottest buzzwords in medical science, pointed to as a culprit in causing or aggravating conditions ranging from allergy to autism to Alzheimer’s disease. But it’s far from clear that standard anti-inflammatory drugs, which have been around for decades, will help patients with those conditions, especially since they often come with dangerous side effects. So in labs across the country, scientists are trying to puzzle through the basic biology, understanding how inflammation leads to disease — and whether it’s possible to develop drugs that could interrupt that process. (Keshavan, 8/31)
Stat:
Scientists Question Key Finding In Landmark Genome-Editing Study
A group of prominent scientists, including pioneers in genome-editing, have questioned the key finding of a headline-making study in which researchers reported using CRISPR to repair a disease-causing gene in viable human embryos. In the new, unpublished paper, posted this week to the biology preprint site bioRxiv and not yet peer-reviewed, scientists led by Maria Jasin of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center took aim at a startling claim in the embryo study. (Begley, 8/30)
The Washington Post:
Fentanyl Drives Another Record Year Of Ohio Overdose Deaths
Ohio says a record 4,050 people died of drug overdoses in the state last year, driven in large part by the emergence of stronger drugs like the synthetic painkiller fentanyl. The data released Wednesday mean on average, 11 Ohioans are dying each day by overdosing on pain pills, heroin, fentanyl or other drugs. Overdose deaths rose 33 percent over the 3,050 deaths in 2015. (Welsh-Huggins, 8/30)
Stat:
Will Trump Give Pharma A Gift? Fines For Overcharging Safety-Net Hospitals May Be Delayed
A controversial rule that would penalize drug makers for overcharging hospitals, clinics, and other providers for medicines that are purchased under the federal government’s 340B drug discount program may be delayed by nearly an entire year. The 340B program requires drug makers to offer discounts of up to 50 percent on all outpatient drugs — for everything from AIDS to diabetes — to hospitals, clinics, and health centers that are known as safety-net providers, because they serve indigent populations. Currently, there are about 12,470 such providers, according to the U.S. Human Resources and Service Administration. (Silverman, 8/30)
Stat:
New Data On Incyte, Merck Skin Cancer Immunotherapy Look Promising
Updated results were disclosed Wednesday night from a mid-stage clinical trial of Incyte’s epacadostat combined with Merck’s Keytruda to treat patients with metastatic melanoma. The new data, culled from the study Incyte calls ECHO-202, look good, matching or exceeding investor expectations. (Feurstein, 8/30)
NPR/ProPublica:
Hawaiians Are Less Likely To Use Prescription Drugs
If you think you would be healthier if you lived in Hawaii, you may be right. People in Hawaii appear to be much less likely to overuse problematic prescription drugs, including opioid pain medications and antibiotics, than people in the mainland United States. (Jones and Ornstein, 8/31)
The Associated Press:
CVS Customer Seeks Dismissal Of Recent Drug Prices Lawsuit
A CVS customer wants to end a short-lived, federal lawsuit that hit the drugstore chain in a sensitive area: The prices it charges for prescriptions. The customer accused CVS Health Corp. of conspiring with pharmacy benefits managers to charge insured patients more for some generic medicines than people who pay cash. The lawsuit filed earlier this month also said the chain wasn't telling customers about the potential savings they could gain by paying cash. (8/30)
The New York Times:
Breast-Feeding May Lower Risk Of Endometriosis
Breast-feeding is linked to a reduced risk for endometriosis, a new study reports. Endometriosis — the growth of uterine tissue outside the uterus — can cause severe pain and excessive bleeding during menstruation, among other problems. It is a chronic disorder with an unknown cause. (Bakalar, 8/30)
The New York Times:
Moving When Young May Strengthen The Adult Brain
Being active in youth may change the inner workings of brain cells much later in life and sharpen some types of thinking, according to a remarkable new neurological study involving rats. The study suggests that the effects of youthful exercise on the brain could linger deep into adulthood, potentially providing a buffer against the declines in brain health and memory that otherwise occur with age. (Reynolds, 8/30)
NPR:
Turtles Tied To Salmonella Outbreak In 13 States
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series has been around for decades and has raked in millions of dollars in merchandise. Why? Because turtles are cool. Warnings about real live turtles giving salmonella to the people who handle them have also been around for decades, but people keep getting sick, and that's not cool. (Fulton, 8/30)