The new services, costing a total of more than $16 million to establish, are described by clinic officials as a boon for patients. But they could siphon some revenue away from the city's two nonprofit hospitals as they struggle with the financial aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic and other forces stressing medical providers nationwide.
A fresh wave of gene-editing therapies is surging to the fore — even as the field wrestles with the challenge of getting the first generation of expensive and complex CRISPR treatments to the people who need them.
Those with views like Mr. Kennedy's believe it is wrong to use pharmaceuticals to manage obesity and related issues that are tied to unhealthy lifestyle and to a ruinous food environment. The makers of obesity drugs, Mr. Kennedy told Greg Gutfeld on Fox News before the election, are "counting on selling it to Americans because we're so stupid and so addicted to drugs." But there are many like Mr. Musk, who says he has used Wegovy, applauding the power of the new drugs to improve health and treat the seeming intractability of obesity. Many health and nutrition researchers say they would love for obesity to be treated through lifestyle changes alone, but they are not optimistic. They point to a history of attempts to teach people to change their diet and exercise habits. Multiple studies left them with dashed hopes and tempered their enthusiasm.
After two years of haggling, Congress has nearly reached a deal to rein in the drug-industry middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers. Lawmakers agreed to extend telehealth flexibilities, fund public health programs, and enact these major PBM changes as part of a government funding package they are planning to pass before the end of the year, according to four health care industry sources and two congressional aides. The language of the government funding package has not been publicly released, and could still change.