The head of the FDA is now looking at whether it will still approve COVID-19 vaccines for next winter, citing a lack of data on booster shots. "We're taking a look. I can't comment on any particular application. As you know, we have a bunch of applications for those booster shots," FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary says many healthcare workers did not get the last round of COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, calling it "a bit of a public trust problem."
Experts say Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other health officials’ pronouncements to lower drug costs overlooks major key issues.
"Considering how infectious the virus is, they did a good job curtailing things," said Dr. Martin Van Dort, a Saint Vincent Hospital infectious diseases specialist. "Erie is fortunate to have a local health department that can do the contract tracing that is so important. Not every county is blessed with its own health department."
The system of directed payment programs (DPPs) has helped make Medicaid more financially viable for providers, but that system is under increasing political pressure.
House Republicans discussed a new, controversial proposal to cut federal spending for Medicaid in a closed-door meeting late Monday night, as lawmakers even beyond the moderate bloc are warning GOP leaders they will not swallow another alternative. According to four Republicans who were present for the meeting of GOP members of Energy and Commerce — convened to finalize their panel's portion of the party's megabill — lawmakers discussed at length a new version of a plan to place so-called 'per capita caps' on Medicaid funding to certain beneficiaries in states that have expanded the program under the ACA.
The explosion of compounded GLP-1 offerings over the past two years is coming to an end, and many patients are left with no good options. Blockbuster obesity and diabetes drugs — such as Wegovy, Ozempic, and Mounjaro — are no longer deemed by regulators to be in shortage, so compounding pharmacies and the telehealth companies they work with must stop offering copies of the treatments.