In Likely Preview Of What’s To Come Next Year, VA Secretary Grilled By Increasingly Critical Congress
Fixing the problems that have plagued the VA is one likely area where a divided Congress could find common ground, and Secretary Robert L. Wilkie at a joint House-Senate hearing got a taste of what's likely to be a less friendly audience than he may be used to.
The New York Times:
Congress Grills Head Of V.A. Over New Health Care Law
Foreshadowing a likely partisan battle next year, Robert L. Wilkie, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, faced sharp questioning from Democrats on Wednesday over how the department will carry out a new expansion of private-sector medical care for veterans. Lawmakers attending a joint House-Senate hearing scrutinized evolving standards at the V.A. that dictate how and when veterans can get care outside of the system’s 1,300 government hospitals and clinics. The Trump administration is expected to better define the standards next year, but some at the hearing were not satisfied. (Steinhauer, 12/19)
In other national health care news —
Stat:
Trump Report Would Preclude Patent Seizures To Lower Drug Prices
In a rebuke to Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups, the U.S. Department of Commerce released a report earlier this month saying the federal government should not use so-called march-in rights, which involve seizing patents, as a tool to address high prices for prescription medicines. Under federal law, a government agency that funds private research — such as the National Institute of Health — can require a drug maker to license its patent to another party in order to “alleviate health and safety needs which are not being reasonably satisfied.” An agency can also do so when the benefits of a product, such as a medicine, are not available on “reasonable terms.” (Silverman, 12/19)
The New York Times:
Juul May Get Billions In Deal With One Of World’s Largest Tobacco Companies
E-cigarette maker Juul, which has vowed to make cigarettes obsolete, is near to inking a deal to become business partners with Altria, one of the world’s largest tobacco companies. The union — which would create an alliance between one of public health’s greatest villains and the start-up that would upend it — entails cigarette giant Altria investing $12.8 billion for a 35 percent stake in Juul, at a $38 billion valuation, according to two people briefed on the negotiations. (Richtel and Kaplan, 12/19)
ProPublica and The New York Times:
Top Cancer Doctor Resigns As Editor Of Medical Journal
Dr. José Baselga, the former chief medical officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, resigned under pressure on Wednesday as one of the editors in chief of Cancer Discovery, a prominent scientific journal, after he failed to accurately disclose his conflicts of interest in dozens of articles in medical journals. The American Association for Cancer Research, which publishes the journal, said a panel of experts and the group’s board of directors had concluded that “Dr. Baselga did not adhere to the high standards pertaining to conflict of interest disclosures that the AACR expects of its leadership.” (Ornstein and Thomas, 12/19)
Reuters:
Exclusive: Big Pharma Returning To U.S. Price Hikes In January After Pause
Novartis AG and Bayer AG are among nearly 30 drugmakers that have taken steps to raise the U.S. prices of their medicines in January, ending a self-declared halt to increases made by a pharma industry under pressure from the Trump administration, according to documents seen by Reuters. Other drugmakers set to raise prices at the start of 2019 include Allergan Plc, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Amgen Inc, AstraZeneca Plc and Biogen Inc, the documents show. (12/19)
The New York Times:
Heroin Addiction Explained: How Opioids Hijack The Brain
Getting hooked is nobody’s plan. Some turn to heroin because prescription painkillers are tough to get. Fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, has snaked its way into other drugs like cocaine, Xanax and MDMA, widening the epidemic. To understand what goes through the minds and bodies of opioid users, The New York Times spent months interviewing users, family members and addiction experts. Using their insights, we created a visual representation of how the strong lure of these powerful drugs can hijack the brain. Dr. Pedro Mateu-Gelabert, one of the nation’s top opioid researchers, said this work brings “an emotional understanding” to the epidemic but “without glamorizing or oversimplifying.” (Sinha, 12/18)
The New York Times:
Fewer Births, More Deaths Result In Lowest U.S. Growth Rate In Generations
The population of the United States grew at its slowest pace in more than eight decades, the Census Bureau said Wednesday, as the number of deaths increased and the number of births declined. Not since 1937, when the country was in the grips of the Great Depression and birthrates were down substantially, has it grown so slowly, with just a 0.62 percent gain between July 2017 and July 2018. With Americans getting older, fewer babies are being born and more people are dying, demographers said. (Tavernise, 12/19)