Some patient advocacy groups opposing Medicare changes have received funding from pharma companies in the past; new techniques allow scientists to target individual cells for analysis; rural nursing homes continue to close.
Numerous patient advocacy groups recently appeared in nationwide advertisements opposing a Trump administration proposal that could limit the drugs required to be covered by Medicare. Nearly half of the groups representing patients have received payments, totaling more than $58 million in 2015 alone, from pharmaceutical companies, Kaiser Health News reported. While these groups continue to lobby Congress and the administration, experts have raised concerns regarding whether their financial ties could push them to put drugmakers’ interests ahead of the patients they represent.
Previously, studying key traits of cells required analysis of vast tissue samples, resulting in a scattered average of results from numerous cell types. Recently, scientists have discovered new techniques that allow them to directly study DNA codes, the activity of genes, and other traits of individual cells, the Associated Press reported. These methods have become widespread, revealing new details about the body and potentially allowing every human cell type to be catalogued.
Many residents have been forced to relocate as nursing homes continue to close in rural towns across the nation, mainly for financial reasons, and more individuals, swayed by changing health policies, are encouraged to live in their own homes with help from caregivers. Some residents of these nursing homes have been transferred long distances from their prior locations, making trips to visit them difficult or impossible and isolating them from spouses, friends, relatives, and religious groups they have known throughout their lives, The New York Times reported.
The Supreme Court seems likely to reject a challenge to the abortion pill mifepristone; the FDA is inspecting far fewer pharmaceutical companies conducting clinical research; AstraZeneca has sued to block an Arkansas law that it said would unlawfully expand the 340B program to include for profit-pharmacy chains.
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Most private health insurers have yet to publish criteria for when they will cover postpartum depression drug, zuranolone; state lawmakers are increasingly opposing health care mergers that they believe do not serve the public interest; Medicaid extensions made in 2021 led to a 40% decline in postpartum lack of insurance.
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President Biden will preview his plan to more than double the size of Medicare’s new drug price negotiation program in the upcoming State of the Union address; Mexicans and Central Americans were most affected by the pandemic in terms of all-cause mortality; two Alabama fertility clinics said they expect to resume in vitro fertilization (IVF) services after a bill was passed to protect doctors.
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