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Conflicts abound on influential federal panel
Federal officials have granted waivers to every member of an influential, yet little-known panel that evaluates preventive medical services, allowing them to serve despite some having clear financial stakes in decisions they might make.
The waivers, signed by a top federal official and obtained by STAT’s Chelsea Cirruzzo, show a willingness by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s health department to overlook financial conflicts of interest, despite the secretary frequently decrying corporate influence in health care. Read more from Chelsea on what the filings reveal.
The U.S. may lose measles elimination status this week
Today begins a four-day meeting of a committee of the Pan American Health Organization, a regional World Health Organization body that will announce whether or not the U.S. has maintained measles elimination. All signs point to no: Cases have soared in the last few years, and at least eight deaths have been reported this year. In January, then-CDC official Ralph Abraham told the late Helen Branswell that losing measles elimination status would be “the cost of doing business.” Still, we will have to wait and see how the experts rule.
If you want to review how the decision is made, the chair of the U.S. committee that analyzes the data and sends a report to the PAHO committee wrote a First Opinion essay in August about what they look for in that process.
A new tactic in the war over out-of-network bills
What do Amazon, Walmart, Eli Lilly, United Airlines, General Motors, PepsiCo, State Farm, and Toyota have in common? All of these companies are being sued by PHI Health, a national air ambulance chain, which claims the employers are responsible for bills that health insurers haven’t fully paid, or have delayed paying. And it’s not just targeting big companies — the owner of a family-run plumbing and heating company in Kentucky (above) was in disbelief when he learned he was being sued for costs related to an employee’s emergency airlift after a heart attack.
In the latest installment of his series Out of Pocket, Out of Reach, STAT’s Bob Herman explains this evolving tactic in the raging war over out-of-network bills. “It kind of undercuts the narrative that this is provider versus insurance company,” said Katie Keith, an attorney who tracks No Surprises Act lawsuits. Read more from Bob, who examined hundreds of pages of court documents to unravel this story.
The issues doctors are prioritizing post-midterms
The American Medical Association’s legislative and policy-making body met in Orlando, Fla., for its annual interim meeting earlier this week. There, voting members instituted a number of policy positions that will at least partially dictate how lobbying dollars are spent. Amanda explained one in yesterday’s newsletter, on the threat moral injury poses to doctors. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the other policies adopted:
- Artificial intelligence isn’t a doctor. One new policy argues for establishing a framework for physician oversight of artificial intelligence in medicine, including liability protections for instances where doctors choose not to use an AI tool or follow an AI recommendation. And interestingly, the policy uses the phrase “artificial intelligence” and not “augmented intelligence” as the group has previously insisted on, STAT’s Brittany Trang pointed out to me.
- Going after peptides: Under another policy, the AMA plans to urge HHS, the FDA, and other regulatory bodies to revoke any policies that ease restrictions on compounding and distributing synthetic peptides that don’t have FDA approval.
- Piggybacking off this summer’s sunscreen success: In June, the FDA approved the first new sunscreen ingredient in more than 25 years. The House of Delegates voted for the AMA to advocate for more federal reforms to the process of assessing and approving ingredients.
- Prioritizing deprescribing: The AMA offers a new definition of deprescribing as the “planned, supervised process of reducing or discontinuing medications” when use no longer provides a clinical benefit, causes harm that outweighs the benefit, or is misaligned with a patient’s goals for care. The new policy argues that it should be a routine part of patient-centered care.
The high stakes of a picky eater when money is tight
As high food costs and cuts to food assistance squeeze family budgets — just yesterday, the Trump administration proposed changes that would cut 6.3 million more families from SNAP — there are growing concerns about how low income families will get meals on the table. It’s hard no matter what, but for families with picky eaters, there’s a high-stakes calculus going on.
“For well-off parents, watching a child push away a helping of vegetables is annoying but manageable,” write two experts from the Global Food Institute at the George Washington University in a new First Opinion essay. But for parents with little money to spare, “it represents money that could have been spent on something their child would have actually eaten.” Read more about how, for some families, fruits and veggies can actually be a bad investment.
What we’re reading
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MAHA stands by Russell Brand following rape sentence, MS Now
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Republicans bet everything on anti-trans messaging. It didn’t pay off, The 19th
- Oura to acquire Counsel Health for $625 million, placing a big bet on AI care, STAT
- For years, she felt awful. Her flexible joints held a clue, New York Times
- Former Eli Lilly rep claims she was fired for complaining about marketing of Mounjaro diabetes drug, STAT
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