Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.

KHN: For Kids With Kidney Disease, Pediatric Expertise Is Key — But Not Always Close By Jaxon Green, 6, was diagnosed with kidney disease the day he was born. His illness meant that for years his life would depend on daily dialysis. And because his family lives in Tamaqua, a rural Pennsylvania town, his diagnosis also meant taking frequent two-hour trips to Philadelphia to see the closest pediatric nephrologist — even though an adult dialysis center was just five minutes from their home. Pediatric kidney care is not as simple as prescribing small doses of adult medication, said Dr. Sandra Amaral, the lead researcher for a study published by JAMA this month. It’s important for children with kidney disease — especially end-stage kidney disease, or ESKD — to receive specialized care, but pediatric nephrology is a niche field. On top of that, specialists are not spread out evenly across the country. (DeGuzman, 8/19)

KHN: Indiana’s New Abortion Ban May Drive Some Young OB-GYNs To Leave A State Where They’re Needed  On a Monday morning, a group of obstetrics and gynecology residents, dressed in blue scrubs and white coats, gathered in an auditorium at Indiana University School of Medicine. After the usual updates and announcements, Dr. Nicole Scott, the residency program director, addressed the elephant in the room. “Any more abortion care questions?” she asked the trainees. After a few moments of silence, one resident asked: “How’s Dr. Bernard doing?” “Bernard is actually in really good spirits — I mean, relatively,” Scott answered. “She has 24/7 security, has her own lawyer.” They were talking about Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indiana OB-GYN who provides abortions and trains residents at the university hospital. (Yousry, 8/19)

KHN: More Communities Are Giving Flavored Tobacco The Boot. Will California Follow?  California’s third-largest city banished flavored tobacco products from store shelves this summer, joining scores of other cities and counties in the state in a public health push to reduce nicotine addiction among youths and young adults. Like San Jose, Sacramento County also imposed a ban this summer. Los Angeles, California’s largest city, and San Diego will implement prohibitions in January. (Finn, 8/19)

KHN: Local Health Officials To Feds: Where’s The Rest Of Our Monkeypox Vaccine?  Los Angeles County health officials found out Tuesday that the federal government slashed the county’s requested and expected monkeypox vaccine allotment by 60%. Last week, the FDA told health care providers to split a one-dose vial of the monkeypox vaccine into five doses. The shift was good news for vaccine-strapped cities throughout the country because it meant what little supply is available could be stretched much further. (Fortier, 8/18)

KHN: Readers And Tweeters Place Value On Community Services And Life-Sustaining Care  KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. (8/19)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Wrapping Up Summer’s Health News  Congress and President Joe Biden are officially on summer vacation, but they left behind a lot of health policy achievements. The president returned this week from his South Carolina beach retreat to sign the Inflation Reduction Act, which, among other things, allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time. (8/18)

AP: US Offers Extra Monkeypox Vaccine Doses For Gay Pride Events The U.S. is setting aside an extra 50,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine for places with upcoming gay pride events, health officials said Thursday. The number of doses sent to each place will be based on factors like the size of the event, how many health workers will be available to give shots, and how many of the attendees are considered at highest risk for catching the virus. (Stobbe, 8/18)

The Hill: Biden Officials Accelerating Monkeypox Vaccine Effort, Including 1.8 Million Additional Doses The Biden administration is planning to accelerate the delivery of its remaining supply of monkeypox vaccines and will make an additional 1.8 million doses available for ordering starting Monday, officials said Thursday. Jurisdictions will only be able to access the additional doses if they adopt the new intradermal administration of vaccine and have used 90 percent of their current supply of vaccine, officials said. (Weixel, 8/18)

The Washington Post: White House Speeds Monkeypox Vaccines, But Not Everyone Likes The Pace White House officials on Thursday touted steps to expand access to monkeypox vaccines, including a deal to finish 2.5 million vials in the United States. Although some local health officials applauded the moves, others were unnerved by a rapid plan to stretch existing supply by splitting vaccine doses into fifths, clamoring for more time to examine the data and train providers to deliver the shots correctly. The Biden administration is “forcing our hand,” said one local health official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize vaccine orders. “It’s extraordinarily frustrating because we have to execute and defend this strategy … it’s just a question of giving us the time and the doses to bridge to that strategy.” (Diamond and Nirappil, 8/18)

ABC News: Monkeypox Vaccine Not 'A Silver Bullet,' WHO Says, As Breakthrough Cases Emerge As demand for monkeypox vaccines increases, the World Health Organization (WHO) has begun to receive preliminary reports on the efficacy of the shots, which suggests there are breakthrough cases occurring, officials said Wednesday. "We have known from the beginning that this vaccine would not be a silver bullet, that it would not meet all the expectations that are being put on it, and that we don't have firm efficacy data or effectiveness data in this context," officials said during a press conference. (Mitropoulos, 8/17)

Politico: Before Monkeypox Outbreak, U.S. Officials Knew For Years They Didn't Have Enough Of Key Shot  Top U.S. health officials have known for years that the country’s Strategic National Stockpile did not have enough doses of a smallpox vaccine that is now key to the monkeypox fight, according to three former senior officials and a current official working on the monkeypox response. The U.S. has stockpiled Jynneos, the vaccine by Bavarian Nordic, which is also being used to combat monkeypox. The U.S. never had the money to purchase the millions of doses that experts felt were necessary, the officials said. (Banco and Collis, 8/18)

CNBC: Stalled Monkeypox Vaccines Raise Risk Of Spillover, Wider Outbreak Concerns are mounting that the window of opportunity for containing the escalating monkeypox outbreak may be closing, with vaccine shortages leaving some at-risk groups waiting weeks to get jabbed. (Gilchrist, 8/19)

Politico: LGBTQ Advocates Say The Government Is Missing Communities Of Color In Its Monkeypox Response As monkeypox spreads across the country, new data suggests a worrying trend: Black and Latino men who have sex with men are far more likely to catch the virus than their white counterparts. While the numbers are limited, they are stark. Nearly 28 percent of monkeypox cases in the U.S. right now are among Black individuals, and 33 percent are among Hispanic people, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on Thursday, despite those groups only comprising 13.6 and 18.9 percent of the population, respectively. (Messerly and Mahr, 8/18)

AP: Kentucky Supreme Court Denies Request To Block Abortion Ban  Kentucky’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state’s near-total abortion ban will remain in place while it reviews arguments by abortion clinics challenging two state laws. It was the latest legal setback for the two remaining abortion clinics in Kentucky — both in Louisville, the state’s largest city. The state’s highest court kept in place a recent lower court ruling that reimposed enforcement of the laws banning nearly all abortions in Kentucky. (Schreiner and Lovan, 8/18)

AP: Arizona Judge To Hear State Request To Enforce Abortion Ban An Arizona judge will hear arguments Friday on the state’s request to allow prosecutors to enforce a near-total ban on abortions under a law that has been blocked for nearly 50 years under a now-overruled U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Abortion-rights advocates are fighting the request from Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich to lift an injunction blocking enforcement of the ban on abortions unless the mother’s life is in danger. That law was first enacted decades before Arizona was granted statehood in 1912 and blocked following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion. (Christie, 8/18)

Reuters: Abortion Drug Maker Drops Challenge To Mississippi Ban  A manufacturer of the drug used in medication abortions on Thursday dropped its bid to sell mifepristone in Mississippi despite the state's recently enacted abortion ban. GenBioPro Inc said it was voluntarily dismissing its case in a filing in federal court in Jackson. The company had argued that federal regulators' approval of mifepristone to induce abortion at up to 10 weeks of pregnancy overrode the state's prohibition on nearly all abortions. (Pierson, 8/18)

The Boston Globe: FTC Threatens To Sue Firm Allegedly Revealing Abortion Clinic Visits The agency’s proposed complaint, against Idaho-based Kochava, argues the company violates laws that prohibit “unfair or deceptive practices” by allowing its customers to license data collected from mobile devices that can identify people and track their visits to health care providers. (Zakrzewski, 8/18)

Bloomberg: Anti-Abortion Group’s Data Trove Represents ‘Serious Concern’ Post Roe Heartbeat’s information represents a “data honey pot,” said Johnny Lin, chief technology officer at Lockdown Privacy, a company that offers to block apps from tracking users. He worries that information about women who inquire about reversing an abortion pill would be valuable for prosecutors in states where the procedure is illegal. (Murphy, 8/18)

Axios: Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers Are Expanding In The Post-Roe Era As abortion bans shutter clinics across the country, "crisis pregnancy centers" led by anti-abortion advocates see an opening to expand into the reproductive care void. (Gonzalez, 8/19)

AP: FDA Targets Illegal Nicotine Gummies In New Warning Letter Federal regulators on Thursday issued a first-of-a-kind warning to the maker of nicotine gummies, saying the illegal candies pose a growing risk to teenagers and younger children. The Food and Drug Administration said the fruit-flavored gummies from Florida manufacturer VPR Brands could cause nicotine poisoning or even death if eaten by small children. Regulators also cited recent research suggesting nicotine candies and similar products are becoming more popular among high school students. (Perrone, 8/18)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Plans To Shift Bill For Covid Shots And Treatments To Insurers, Patients The Biden administration is planning for an end to its practice of paying for Covid-19 shots and treatments, shifting more control of pricing and coverage to the healthcare industry in ways that could generate sales for companies—and costs for consumers—for years to come. The Department of Health and Human Services intends to hold a planning session on Aug. 30 that would bring together representatives from drugmakers, pharmacies and state health departments with a stake in a Covid-19 treatment industry. (Armour, 8/18)

NBC News: Fauci Urges Black Americans To Get Covid Booster Shots In Preparation For Fall Surge In a recent interview with TheGrio, Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged the Black community to get a Covid booster shot in preparation of the fall surge, when the Covid infection rates are expected to rise. He said that the Food and Drug Administration will soon authorize an updated booster shot, known as the bivalent BA.5 vaccine, which is a closer match to the circulating Omicron variants of Covid. (Bellamy, 8/18)

AP: RFK Jr.'s Anti-Vaccine Group Kicked Off Instagram, Facebook  Instagram and Facebook suspended Children’s Health Defense this week after the anti-vaccine group led by Robert Kennedy Jr. repeatedly violated rules prohibiting misinformation about COVID-19.A nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense is one of the most influential anti-vaccine organizations active on social media, where it has spread misleading claims about vaccines and other public health measures designed to control the pandemic. (Klepper, 8/18)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Proposes Mandatory Medicaid, CHIP Quality Reporting States would be required for the first time to report on the quality of healthcare Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program beneficiaries receive under a proposed rule published Thursday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services believes that mandatory reporting would promote equity and consistent use of standardized quality measures, and would identify disparities among Medicaid and CHIP enrollees, the draft rule says. (Devereaux and Goldman, 8/18)

Modern Healthcare: Home Health Agencies Make Legal Case Against CMS' Proposed Cuts Home health providers have set the stage for a legal fight if the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalizes a proposal to cut home health Medicare reimbursement by 4.2% next year. In comment letters to CMS, home health association leaders included findings from law firms hired to analyze the draft policy—though the leaders say it's too early to discuss taking legal action. (Goldman, 8/18)

Modern Healthcare: What The Inflation Reduction Act Means For PBMs Still, Medicare’s authority to now negotiate drug prices is an “indictment” of PBMs, which are supposed to manage costs for Medicare Part D enrollees, said Antonio Ciaccia, president of 3 Axis Advisors. Government officials, "through their actions, are saying, ‘You guys, we’re cutting it, and we can do better.' So from a PBM perspective, I think that this, in some ways, undercuts their value,” he said. (Berryman, 8/18)

AP: Biden Bill To Help Millions Escape Higher Health Care Costs As the calendar pushed closer to the Nov. 1 open enrollment date, Sara Cariano was growing nervous about her work helping people across Virginia sign up for subsidized, private health insurance on the HealthCare.gov website. “I expected very difficult conversation with folks to explain why their premiums were spiking,” said Cariano, a policy specialist at the Virginia Poverty Law Center. But the passage of the “Inflation Reduction Act” erased those worries. (Seitz, 8/19)

Los Angeles Times: Democrats Launch Major Effort To Sell Inflation Reduction Act To Voters Democratic lawmakers, members of President Biden’s Cabinet, and allied organizers and activists are kicking off a multipronged public relations campaign aimed at ensuring voters understand — and appreciate the benefits of — the $700-billion climate-change and drug-prices bill that Biden signed Tuesday. (Stokol and Vega, 8/19)

Modern Healthcare: Kaiser Mental Health Worker Strike To Expand To Hawaii Fifty mental healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente sites in Hawaii plan to join colleagues in Northern California in an open-ended strike over access to care. Hawaii workers will strike Aug. 29, according to a news release from the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents the psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses and chemical dependency counselors. Two thousand mental health workers in California began a strike Monday. (Christ, 8/18)

The CT Mirror: CT Group Fighting Sale Of Day Kimball Hospital To Catholic Provider A coalition of northeast Connecticut residents is calling on state officials to deny a Catholic health system’s proposal to acquire Day Kimball Hospital in rural Putnam, citing potential restrictions the new owner could place on reproductive health and emergency contraception, as well as gender-affirming, end-of-life and other care. (Phillips, 8/18)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Licensing Agency Problems Leaves Nurses, Therapists Waiting At Door County Medical Center, three nurses have been waiting to get their license from the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services since May. One is an ICU nurse, one will work in the emergency room and the third, officials there say, is a nurse practitioner currently being paid to do tasks well below her level of education and ability while waiting for her application to be processed. (Hess, 8/18)

WUSF Public Media: Florida Doctors Sign Letter Urging Health Companies To Stop Donating To Anti-Abortion Politicians The advocacy group Floridians for Reproductive Freedom says state-based corporations, including health care companies, have donated $1.7 million to anti-abortion lawmakers. (Carter, 8/18)

USA Today: Polio NYC: Rockland County Case Won't Spread Like COVID, Experts Say In the early 1900s, up to 35,000 Americans a year were disabled by polio. The virus, which mainly spread during summer months, was finally tamed with a highly effective and widely embraced vaccine. For decades, transmission had disappeared in the United States. Until now. New York reported a confirmed case of paralytic polio in July, and wastewater surveillance showed the virus may have been circulating in neighboring counties since April. (Rodriguez, 8/19)

WUSF Public Media: Florida's Meningococcal Disease Outbreak Is Slowing, But Health Officials Say It's Still A Threat Health officials say Florida's meningococcal outbreak appears to be slowing, but they still urge caution against the deadly disease. (Colombini, 8/18)

AP: Kentucky Offers Cost-Effective Care Program For Older Adults Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration has unveiled an initiative aimed at providing comprehensive, cost-effective care for people age 55 and older. People voluntarily enrolling will receive a variety of medical and social services. Beshear said it will expand services for people who otherwise qualify for placement in nursing homes. (8/18)

The Colorado Sun: Colorado Moving Closer To Importing Prescription Drugs From Canada Colorado has taken another step toward importing lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada, after signing contracts with companies on both sides of the border that will handle the transaction. (Ingold, 8/18)

Bloomberg: Hundreds Of Small Pharmacies Report Trouble Stocking Adderall Nearly two-thirds of community pharmacies had trouble ordering the popular attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder drug Adderall at the end of July and beginning of August, at a time when demand is at all-time highs. (Swetlitz, 8/18)

AP: Vance's Anti-Drug Charity Enlisted Doctor Echoing Big Pharma  When JD Vance founded “Our Ohio Renewal” a day after the 2016 presidential election, he promoted the charity as a vehicle for helping solve the scourge of opioid addiction that he had lamented in “Hillbilly Elegy,” his bestselling memoir. But Vance shuttered the nonprofit last year and its foundation in May, shortly after clinching the state’s Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, according to state records reviewed by The Associated Press. An AP review found that the charity’s most notable accomplishment — sending an addiction specialist to Ohio’s Appalachian region for a yearlong residency — was tainted by ties among the doctor, the institute that employed her and Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. (Smyth, 8/18)

AP: Court: Extraordinary Damages OK In 'Wrongful Life' Case  The Washington Supreme Court says that under state law, it’s OK for judges to award extraordinary damages in so-called “wrongful life” cases where a child has birth defects or disabilities that require extensive care. The unanimous decision Thursday came in the case of a woman who became pregnant in 2011 after a federally funded health clinic mistakenly gave her a shot of flu vaccine instead of the contraceptive Depo-Provera. Her child was born with a condition that causes cognitive delays, slowed speech and language skills, epilepsy and vision problems. (Johnson, 8/19)

Stat: Despite Overall Decline, Late-Stage Cervical Cancer Cases Are Rising Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable malignancies. The introduction of HPV tests and the HPV vaccine over the past 20 years, following decades of Pap testing, have contributed to a steady decline in the disease — with one notable exception. (Chen, 8/18)

USA Today: Aerobic Exercise And Simple Stretching May Both Lower Alzheimer's Risk For older adults at risk of dementia, regular exercise from light stretching to rigorous aerobics can help slow memory and thinking decline, a new study shows. Alzheimer’s researchers said the findings are from a late-stage trial measuring exercise as a potential remedy for people with mild cognitive decline. And they described it as a new avenue to attack a neurodegenerative disease that for decades has stymied researchers and pharmaceutical companies. (Alltucker, 8/19)

NBC News: Scientists Find New Way To Break Down PFAS 'Forever Chemicals' So scientists have tried for years to find ways to break down PFAS, an acronym for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. On Thursday, researchers at Northwestern University published a study showing that PFAS can be destroyed using two relatively harmless chemicals: sodium hydroxide or lye, a chemical used to make soap, and dimethyl sulfoxide, a chemical approved as a medication for bladder pain syndrome. (Bendix, 8/18)

Axios: Over 5.5 Million U.S. Adults Use Hallucinogens, Study Finds Hallucinogen use in the United States has increased among adults in the last two decades, a new study found. (Habeshian, 8/18)

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Abortion Is Shaking Up Attorneys General Races and Exposing Limits to Their Powers

For Kids With Kidney Disease, Pediatric Expertise Is Key — But Not Always Close By

Indiana’s New Abortion Ban May Drive Some Young OB-GYNs to Leave a State Where They’re Needed

More Communities Are Giving Flavored Tobacco the Boot. Will California Follow?

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