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A panel of federal judges on Monday largely upheld Idaho’s “abortion trafficking” law, a measure passed in the 2023 legislative session meant to punish an adult who helps a minor seek an abortion in another state or obtain medication that will induce an abortion. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ opinion reverses U.S. Magistrate Judge Debora K. Grasham’s November 2023 decision, which blocked enforcement of the law after Idaho attorney Lourdes Matsumoto and two advocacy organizations, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund and the Indigenous Idaho Alliance, filed a lawsuit against the state. The plaintiffs alleged the law restricts freedom of speech, the right to travel and the right to freely associate, and said it was too vague to be constitutional. (Maldonado, 12/2)

Wisconsin law prohibits the use of telehealth for abortion services. But a new study shows a number of Wisconsinites are receiving abortion medication from other states. Data from the organization #WeCount showed an average of about 130 orders for abortion medication being shipped to Wisconsin from providers in other states each month from last September to this June. (Bowden, 12/2)

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, California Democrats are developing new plans to strengthen the state’s abortion protections. Attorney General Rob Bonta [on Monday] announced two legislative proposals aimed at safeguarding medication abortion and enforcing the state’s Reproductive Privacy Act, which ensures individuals have the right to make decisions about reproductive care without government interference. (Hwang, 12/2)

State lawmakers will gavel in a special session Monday focused on a proposed $25-million litigation fund to respond to President-elect Donald Trump’s anticipated attacks on California policies on civil rights, climate change and abortion access. Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked the Legislature to approve the funding for the Department of Justice and other agencies so the state can file lawsuits against the federal government and defend against litigation from the Trump administration. (Jany, 12/2)

A Republican-led House committee investigating broad aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic and its effects in the US released a final report Monday summarizing its two-year effort, saying it hoped the work would “serve as a road map for Congress, the Executive Branch, and the private sector to prepare for and respond to future pandemics.” In the 520-page report, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic concludes that the coronavirus “most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” citing factors like biological characteristics of the virus and illnesses among researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in fall 2019. (Dillinger, 12/2)

Read the full report here. (12/2)

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo may have tried to “inappropriately” influence the testimony of a former aide before speaking to a House panel investigating his administration’s Covid-19 policies, a Republican-backed report found. Cuomo, a Democrat who is weighing a bid for New York City mayor, contacted the former adviser, Jim Malatras, days before he was due to speak with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. (Reisman, 12/2)

In related covid news —

The Covid wars are still raging in 2024, and now the Covid contrarians are in charge. President-elect Donald Trump has rounded out his roster of health agency nominees by picking Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University physician and economist who criticized lockdowns, school closures and health agency leadership during the pandemic, to lead the National Institutes of Health. (Schumaker, Perez Jr., Cirruzzo and Leonard, 12/2)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Nursing Home Industry Wants Trump To Rescind Staffing Mandate
Covid’s rampage through the country’s nursing homes killed more than 172,000 residents and spurred the biggest industry reform in decades: a mandate that homes employ a minimum number of nurses. But with President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the industry is ramping up pressure to kill that requirement before it takes effect, leaving thousands of residents in homes too short-staffed to provide proper care. (Rau, 12/3)

A majority of Supreme Court justices didn’t seem convinced Monday that federal regulators misled companies before refusing to allow them to sell sweet-flavored vaping products following a surge in teen e-cigarette use. The conservative-majority court did raise questions about the Food and Drug Administration crackdown that included denials of more than a million nicotine products formulated to taste like fruit, dessert or candy. Teen vaping use has since dropped to its lowest level in a decade, but the agency could change its approach after the inauguration next month of President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to “save” vaping. (Whitehurst, 12/2)

Trump has given different opinions on vaping through his social media and the legislation that he passed while in office. In September, 2024, Trump said he would "save vaping again" as part of a longer Truth Social post where he stated: "I saved flavored vaping in 2019, and it greatly helped people get off smoking. I raised the age to 21, keeping it away from the 'kids.' Kamala and Joe want everything banned, killing small businesses all over the country. I'll save vaping again!" Although Trump said he had "saved flavoured vaping," in 2019 he expressed support for a total ban on all flavored vapes. He then loosened his position in 2020 to only bar most flavors, including fruit vapes, such as mango Juul pods. (Clark, 12/2)

In related news on e-cigarettes and smoking —

The global tobacco industry is still big business, worth around £730 billion a year. This may seem strange for a product known to have caused more than 200 million deaths in the last 30 years. But people continue to smoke. And newer products like e-cigarettes have allowed the industry to diversify its range – and expand its appeal. (Fitzpatrick, 12/2)

The fight against the epidemic of e-cigarette and vaping use continues as the New York State Health Department is implementing the "This is Quitting" program. The initiative is a free, anonymous text message service that provides youths with 24/7 peer support if they have cravings or are looking for alternatives. In New York State, nearly one in every five high school students reported vaping nicotine, and in Broome County, about 10% of students vape. People can join "This is Quitting" by texting "Drop the Vape" to 88709. (White, 12/2)

Workers pushing for an end to smoking in Atlantic City casinos say the main employee union has been won over by tobacco companies seeking allies in the fight against smoking restrictions. An official of a union involved in the anti-smoking push on Monday called for the head of the Atlantic City casino workers’ union, Donna DeCaprio, to resign for failing to protect her members from the dangers of secondhand smoke. (Parry, 12/2)

Many transgender people in the US are scrambling to shore up their treatments out of fear the incoming Trump administration will follow through on threats to restrict their healthcare. A popular underground hormone manufacturer stopped taking new orders in order to get through a backlog. “[We] didn’t expect to be hit as hard as we did after the election,” the manufacturer wrote on Reddit. The provider, Plume Health, which focuses on gender-affirming care, also noticed “a bump” in inquiries after the election, said Jerrica Kirkley, the co-founder and chief medical officer of the virtual clinic. (Nowell, 12/2)

The conservative Supreme Court is poised to leap into another culture-war battle between red states and blue states, this time involving medical rights of transgender teens and their parents. Two years after the conservative majority overturned national abortion rights, the justices will hear arguments Wednesday over whether states may ban hormone treatment and puberty blockers for adolescents suffering from gender dysphoria. (Savage, 12/2)

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) sets global standards for doctors and nurses providing health care to transgender patients, especially for gender-affirming care. As that care has become increasingly politicized and banned across the United States, the organization’s work has become more fraught. Updating medical standards is slow and winding work, in which gaps in research are par for the course. But in the current political environment, far-right figures and opponents of gender-affirming care are ready to seize on any perceived misstep or discrepancy as reason to ban the care entirely. (Rummler, 12/2)

A key funder of a shadowy anti-transgender political action committee that attacked Democratic state lawmakers and candidates in the weeks leading up to last month’s election is one of the most powerful Republicans in Utah, according to the PAC’s first disclosure of a contribution filed Saturday. House Speaker Mike Schultz gave $120,000 to the PAC, according to a campaign finance report. Ads attributed to the PAC were left in mailboxes, sent over text and driven through Salt Lake City streets on mobile billboards declaring that Democratic lawmakers “voted against Utah’s girls” in opposing legislation that curtails transgender Utahns’ rights. (Stern, 12/2)

Also —

In the tight-knit community of Massachusetts families with transgender children, Boston Children’s Hospital is regarded as the most cautious institution in the region when it comes to providing medical transition treatments to minors. So, many parents were flummoxed, they said in recent interviews, when they heard that a former director at the hospital’s gender clinic, known as GeMS, had called the clinic’s practices “reckless.” (Damiano, 12/3)

Frequently asked questions about gender transition care for minors, including what are puberty blockers and whether cross-sex hormones impact fertility. (Parks, 12/3)

Prices for the first 10 drugs negotiated by Medicare fell from their initial net prices, but all drugs except one remained more expensive in the U.S. than in peer countries, researchers said. Compared with their net prices prior to negotiation, negotiated prices for the 10 drugs ranged from 8% lower for dapagliflozin (Farxiga) to 42% lower for sitagliptin (Januvia), reported Olivier J. Wouters, PhD, of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and co-authors. (Firth, 12/2)

UnitedHealthcare and Centene have received higher Medicare Advantage star ratings for the 2025 plan year after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revised their scores. On Monday, CMS published updated Medicare Advantage Star Ratings program data that reveal the agency increased the quality ratings for 12 UnitedHealthcare contracts and seven Centene contracts, each of which comprise multiple Medicare Advantage plans. CMS issued 2025 star ratings for all Medicare Advantage insurers in October. (Tepper and Broderick, 12/2)

Because some agents aren’t getting paid to sell certain Medicare Advantage policies, they may not recommend those plans even when they’re the best choices. (Eisenberg, 12/2)

Bruce Kitt is one of the Medicare Advantage industry’s most lucrative customers. The federal government pays his private Medicare Advantage insurer thousands of dollars a year to cover the cost of doctor visits, hospitalizations and other medical care that the 74-year-old retired aircraft mechanic might need. But Kitt, an Air Force veteran who served in Thailand during the Vietnam War, gets almost all of his healthcare outside the Medicare system, through the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. The taxpayer-funded Department of Veterans Affairs health system provides low-cost or free care to Kitt and about nine million other qualifying veterans. (Maremont, Weaver and McGinty, 12/2)

Also —

Dr. Oz has extolled Ozempic’s promise for weight-loss. Now Medicare, which Trump wants Oz to oversee, may cover it. (Butler, Weber and Gilbert, 12/2)

Medicare Advantage insurers thrived under the first Trump administration, and it’s expected to happen again now that Trump is returning to the White House and Republicans are taking control of Congress. The Medicare Advantage program is expected to cost taxpayers and beneficiaries more than $500 billion this year. For the past decade, it has been the insurance industry’s golden goose of profitability. But insurance companies have lamented recent regulations, worrying their margins will take a hit. (Herman, 12/3)

Health systems are boosting investment in outpatient expansion as some convert acute care hospitals to meet the growing demand for mental health, long-term care and other ambulatory services. Health systems are pumping billions of dollars into outpatient construction, which executives say their organizations will need as the population ages and as patients spend less time in the hospital. At the same time, some health systems are downsizing their acute care network to make space for an increasing number of patients managing anxiety, depression and other mental health issues and recovering from major procedures. (Kacik, 12/2)

The number of men in the U.S. with the job of registered nurse has nearly tripled since the early 2000s. Many come to the field after working in the military or in jobs, such as paramedics or firefighters, that exposed them to the work of nurses. “What I hear a lot from female students is, ‘I’ve always wanted to be a nurse, I like helping people,’ where the men tend to look more at job security and job stability,” said Jason Mott, president of the American Association for Men in Nursing. (Torry, 11/30)

Dietitian Emily Frymark slid open a drawer inside a Children’s National Hospital clinic that looks as though it should store bandages or medicine to reveal a surprise: heaps of onions and garlic bulbs. The produce is part of the food pharmacy at the Northwest Washington hospital, where patients can pick up fresh fruit and vegetables, pasta, cereal, canned foods and other supplies at their regular medical checkups. The program is one way the Capital Area Food Bank is bundling what it knows best — feeding people — with other basic services to help them manage health issues. (Portnoy, 12/2)

Patient education materials (PEMs) in rheumatology and general medicine demanded greater literacy than is typically recommended, researchers found. Handouts from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the JAMA Network group required a 10th-grade reading level on average by one metric, and a college-sophomore level by another, according to Yazmin Rustomji, MD, and colleagues at Rush University in Chicago. Those from JAMA were particularly difficult, with means of 121 "complex words" per piece and 21 words per sentence, the group reported in Arthritis Care & Research. (Gever, 12/2)

In corporate news —

CVS Health Corp. is talking to investors about possibly selling as much as $2.5 billion of bonds, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The health care company asked Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to arrange investor calls on Monday, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. (Joshua and Mutua, 12/2)

Former CVS Health executive Mario Ramos is the new chief financial officer at WellBe Senior Medical. Ramos will oversee financial decision-making within WellBe’s value-based care model, the in-home healthcare provider said in a Monday news release. Ramos served in several leadership roles at CVS from 2013 to 2019, including as CFO of CVS Caremark, its pharmacy benefit management unit. Prior to joining WellBe, Ramos was the CEO of money management company RWA Wealth Partners. (Eastabrook, 12/2)

Community Health Systems' Northwest Healthcare acquired 10 urgent care centers in Arizona from Carbon Health. The transaction grows Northwest's network across the Tucson, Arizona, area to more than 80 care sites, according to a Monday news release. One of the 10 centers was not in operation when the deal closed and is awaiting a certificate of occupancy from the state of Arizona, a CHS spokesperson said. (Hudson, 12/2)

Twenty five years ago, the Texas Legislature passed a sweeping set of reforms to resuscitate the state’s collapsing rural health care system. Now, health care providers, advocates and local leaders are proposing similarly aggressive action to pull the rural maternity care system back from the brink. The Rural Texas Maternal Health Rescue Plan is a package of proposals they’re hoping lawmakers will champion in this upcoming session. (Klibanoff, 12/3)

The Texas judge overseeing the case of Robert Roberson, convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter, has voluntarily recused herself from further proceedings, adding a new complication to a death penalty case that has drawn national scrutiny for its reliance on questionable evidence of “shaken baby” syndrome. (Goodman, 12/2)

The pattern goes like this: Barbara Vassis’ daughter, who has schizoaffective disorder, doesn’t take her medicine or is denied medication, goes into psychosis, gets arrested and goes to jail, is released to the streets, is admitted to a mental health facility, is released on day 13 or 14 because her Medicaid insurance runs out on day 15, does OK for a few days or weeks and then stops taking her medication again. Repeat. (Brown, 12/2)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: With Trump On The Way, Advocates Look To States To Pick Up Medical Debt Fight
Worried that President-elect Donald Trump will curtail federal efforts to take on the nation’s medical debt problem, patient and consumer advocates are looking to states to help people who can’t afford their medical bills or pay down their debts. “The election simply shifts our focus,” said Eva Stahl, who oversees public policy at Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit that has worked closely with the Biden administration and state leaders on medical debt. “States are going to be the epicenter of policy change to mitigate the harms of medical debt.” (Levey, 12/3)

Updates from California —

On a fall morning in East L.A. in 1974, Dolores Madrigal and her husband, Orencio, ate breakfast while listening to ranchera radio station KWKW when a news segment aired that would change her life. The couple heard about how 100 people had protested in front of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center to decry the hospital’s years-long practice of sterilizing low-income women without their consent. The rally came in the wake of a lawsuit filed against the Boyle Heights hospital by three Mexican American women who alleged they were victims. (Arellano, 12/2)

When San Francisco voters earlier this year mandated that welfare recipients struggling with addiction take part in treatment, they may have envisioned a residential program or structured outpatient counseling sessions. But the nonprofit tapped to run the new city program says that treatment could also include more unorthodox approaches such as going to church or practicing ballet .Cedric Akbar, executive director of Positive Directions Equals Changes — the nonprofit that will run the new city program — told the Chronicle that treatment isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. (Angst, 12/2)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: California Falling Short Of Enrollment Goal As Mental Health Courts Roll Out Statewide
California’s new initiative to compel treatment for some of the state’s most severely mentally ill residents — many of whom are living on the streets — is falling short of its initial objectives. But with the program expanding from 11 counties to all 58 on Dec. 1, state officials are projecting confidence that they can reach their goal to help 2,000 adults by the end of the year. In the first nine months of CARE Court, 557 petitions were filed by first responders, families, or local health officials, all of whom can now request help for individuals who are ill. (Mai-Duc, 12/3)

Belly fat, also known as visceral fat, may contribute to brain atrophy and early markers of Alzheimer’s disease, new research found. (LaMotte, 12/2)

On cancer —

In a world flush with hazardous air pollutants, there is one that causes far more cancer than any other, one that is so widespread that nobody in the United States is safe from it. It is a chemical so pervasive that a new analysis by ProPublica found it exposes everyone to elevated risks of developing cancer no matter where they live. And perhaps most worrisome, it often poses the greatest risk in the one place people feel safest: inside their homes. (Lerner and Shaw, 12/3)

In most of the country, formaldehyde contributes more to outdoor cancer risk than any other toxic air pollutant. Look up your address to see risks from the chemical on your block and where it comes from. (Shaw and Lerner, 12/3)

Overall, cervical cancer rates have been dropping in the United States since the early 1990s thanks to more widespread screening and the release of the first HPV vaccine in 2006. Those vaccinations and routine screenings, coupled with follow-up treatment when needed, can prevent “nearly all” cervical cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). But not all women take those precautionary steps — or are able to. Health experts theorize cervical cancer cases are climbing among 30- and 40-something women due to two things: low HPV vaccination rates among women over 30 and decreasing cervical cancer screening in the United States.  (O'Connell-Domenech, 12/2)

In other health and wellness news —

In Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, three new studies describe increased infections of parvovirus B19 detected in US commercial labs, with five worrisome cases in pregnant Minnesotans and infections in children and teens with sickle cell disease in Georgia. (Van Beusekom, 12/2)

A recall of carrot products for potential E. coli contamination has been expanded, the Food and Drug Administration announced. The agency announced on Nov. 29 that California-based 4Earth Farms was recalling multiple brands sold at different retailers in seven states out of abundance of caution after 4Earth was notified by Grimmway Farms that carrots used in its products may have been contaminated with E. coli. (Hauptman, Powel, Cervantes Jr., 12/2)

Lego is introducing several characters who wear sunflower lanyards to its brick universe for the first time to raise awareness of a badge worn to indicate someone has a hidden disability such as autism. ... The symbol is recognized in more than 90 countries. (Wood, 12/3)

Patients often are in the dark about which organs remain and which were removed — particularly the ovaries, which profoundly influence lifelong health. (Gross, 12/2)

As physicians, nothing brightens our faces quite like shutting off our computers. We spend almost two hours of every work day wrestling with the long loading times to view clinical data, the litany of structured data sets we must complete to meet medical billing requirements for innumerable insurance companies, and the nearly endless sea of protected health information we must wade through just to find the piece we need for our patients. (Ashten Duncan, Khuzeman Abbasi and Sana Augustine, 12/3)

For good or ill, the Kennedy family has often made their personal medical experiences a basis for health policy. As far back as the 1920s, when future president John F. Kennedy (RFK Jr.'s uncle Jack) fell ill as a toddler with scarlet fever, a then-potentially deadly and incurable bacterial infection, JFK's father, Joe, pulled political strings through his father-in-law, Boston's former mayor John F. Fitzgerald, to get young Jack admitted to a local hospital. Otherwise, the family, which had just welcomed its fourth baby, would have been confined to their house under quarantine. (Barbara A. Perry, 12/3)

Starting in the 1960s, most Illinois water systems were required to add fluoride, or adjust the level if it was already present, resulting in much healthier teeth. To this day, fluoride is required throughout Illinois. Altogether, nearly three-fourths of the nation’s population gets it in their water. Now this public health triumph is under new scrutiny, including from one of the highest-profile Cabinet nominees of the incoming Donald J. Trump administration. (12/2)

Most housing in the United States wasn’t developed with aging in mind. People don’t usually think about wheelchair ramps, walk-in showers, stair railings or grab bars in a home — until they desperately need them. Only an estimated 10 percent of the nation’s housing stock is considered senior friendly. Compounding the challenge, the housing stock is aging and sliding ever further into disrepair. Even minor modifications can be daunting and expensive. Nearly a third of households headed by seniors are cost burdened, meaning more than 30 percent of their income is eaten up by housing costs. That number is growing fast. So is the number of seniors falling into homelessness — a trend expected to continue for decades. (Michelle Cottle, 12/3)

On Wednesday I will present oral argument before the Supreme Court in United States v. Skrmetti, a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender adolescents. I, along with my colleagues at the American Civil Liberties Union and other co-counsel, represent three transgender adolescents, their parents and a Tennessee doctor who is barred from treating her transgender patients under the age of 18 with the hormone therapy she is permitted to prescribe for purposes other than to treat gender dysphoria. In Tennessee, doctors can prescribe puberty-blocking medication and hormone therapy for many medical reasons. Under the Tennessee law that is now being challenged before the Supreme Court, they are barred from doing so to allow an adolescent to identify, live or appear in a way inconsistent with the person’s sex assigned at birth. (Chase Strangio, 12/3)