Health

A hearing was held on Tuesday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health to discuss 19 mental health bills, several of which have already passed the House. A number of the bills support establishing better links to... Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration held a meeting on Wednesday to discuss future COVID-19 vaccine booster doses and the process for selecting specific strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus for vaccines to address current and emerging variants. The big debate of the... Read More

A coalition of Puerto Rican health care members recently sent a letter to the Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, requesting equity in the Medicare Advantage program.  “Seniors in Puerto Rico are... Read More

A study developed by researchers at Northwestern University finds that light exposure during sleep impairs cardiometabolic function.  The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that in healthy adults one night of moderate light exposure during sleep can... Read More

Researchers from the University of Bristol have published two papers in the Journal of Royal Society Interface that give the first in-depth comparison of an artificial fingertip with neural recordings of the human sense of touch.  Evidence from the first and second papers shows... Read More

A paper published on Monday in Nature finds that researchers in an African clinical trial called ANTICOV, which aims to find COVID-19 treatments that are effective in resource-poor settings, have been denied access to key antiviral drugs.  According to the paper, the... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will institute new efforts this week to accelerate prevention, detection and treatment of long COVID. “There are federal efforts underway at the [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and the [National Institutes of Health]... Read More

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard an oral argument Monday from National Nurses United regarding the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration's emergency temporary standard for protecting health care workers... Read More

WASHINGTON — The U.S. health care system does a poor job of serving women of reproductive age compared to 10 other wealthy countries, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. “Women use the health care system more than men do,”... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has passed a bill capping the monthly cost of insulin at $35 for insured patients, part of an election-year push by Democrats for price curbs on prescription drugs at a time of rising inflation. Experts... Read More

The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange and the Confidentiality Coalition recently sent a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Commerce with recommendations to better protect patient health information from third-party apps. The WEDI, formed by... Read More

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy held an event on Tuesday to discuss the science behind clean indoor air and why Americans should care. Since May 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised the main... Read More

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden delivered remarks regarding the roll out of COVID.gov, a new one-stop shop website for people in the U.S. to access vaccines, tests, treatments, masks and receive local COVID-19 updates. The president outlined new tools, like a... Read More

Researchers from the University of Minnesota will soon begin a human trial to develop a new birth control method for men using a compound known as YCT529. There are currently only two forms of male birth control: condoms and vasectomies.  ... Read More

On Wednesday, the House Rules Committee considered legislation to federally legalize marijuana under the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement Act.  An earlier version of the MORE Act was passed by the House in 2020. The House is expected to pass... Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration held an advisory committee meeting on Wednesday to review concerns over evidence from Amylyx Pharmaceuticals on the ability of a drug, AMX0035, to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS is a rapidly progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease... Read More

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of the Actuary released a 2021-2030 National Health Expenditure report on Monday regarding health spending and enrollment projections for the coming decade.  According to the report, the annual growth in national health spending is... Read More

This week, President Joe Biden released his fiscal year 2023 budget, which includes investments in strengthening mental health services, innovating health research and laying the groundwork to respond to future pandemics.  Specifically, the budget requests $81.7 billion in mandatory funding over... Read More

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs met Tuesday to explore how effective credit bureaus will be in lightening the heavy load of medical debt many Americans are carrying.  “After increasing scrutiny and pressure, the... Read More

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden received a second booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Wednesday, a day after federal regulators approved a fourth shot for those aged 50 and older. He took the precautionary step as the White House... Read More

WASHINGTON —A manual used by clinicians and researchers to diagnose and classify mental disorders, known as the Diagnostic and Statical Manual, or DSM, was revised for the first time in nearly a decade to include "prolonged grief disorder." The latest... Read More

WASHINGTON — Bypassing its review panel of independent experts, the Food and Drug Administration authorized a fourth dose of the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccine for people 50 and older. The authorization for the fourth shot comes as an omicron... Read More

The Biden administration is requesting $700 million to launch the new 988 line for those in a mental health crisis, by July 16, 2022. “There’s a level of excitement because 988 is a chance to improve mental health care services... Read More

On Wednesday, the Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing to examine the importance of home-based health care services and how to lower costs for families in need. According to data presented at the hearing, more than 3 million... Read More

An executive order in Alaska will require the Department of Health and Social Services to restructure, creating two separate departments by July 1. Starting July 1, the two departments — the Department of Family and Community Services and the Department... Read More

On World Water Day, which was observed on March 22, the United Nations released a 2022 report on World Water Development to empower policymakers with the tools to implement sustainable uses of water resources. In the 300-page report, researchers find that nearly... Read More

White House officials warned this week that the federal government does not have enough money to pay for additional COVID-19 vaccine boosters for all Americans, if needed.  “Right now, we don’t have enough money for fourth doses, if they’re called... Read More

President Joe Biden signed the Lorna Breen Act last Friday to support behavioral health services for health care workers. Over the next three years the act will provide up to $135 million to train health care providers on suicide prevention and behavioral... Read More

On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services recognized the one-year anniversary of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Health Center COVID-19 Vaccine Program.  With funds provided by the American Rescue Plan, the program administered more than 20 million vaccines... Read More

This week, researchers from Washington University School of Medicine released preclinical data that shows a long-acting antibody combination called Evusheld can neutralize activity against omicron variants of the COVID-19 virus, including BA.2. To conduct the study, researchers used in vivo data generated... Read More