Did you get a file A glimpse of the green comet making its way near us yet? Some lucky stargazers may be able to catch a glimpse of the icy rock over the course of this month as it approaches our solar system for the first time in more than 10,000 years.
Today in health, we look at bills rolling through state legislatures that have the potential to affect access to treatment for transgender adults.
Welcome to The Hill’s Health Care news roundupWhere we keep up with the latest moves related to politics and news affecting your health. they were Nathaniel Wicksell And Joseph Choi. Subscribe here.
The trans youth healthcare ban now targets adults
Lawmakers in at least three states this year have introduced legislation aimed at restricting access to gender-affirming health care for individuals as young as 26, an escalation of a battle that took place across the country last year over whether minors should have access to Certain medications and medical procedures. .
- Bills introduced this year in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia aim to prevent state health care providers from recommending or administering treatments such as puberty blockers, hormones and gender confirmation surgeries to patients under 21, signaling an exacerbating struggle over transgender health care.
- else OklahomaBill introduced this month It would ban adults up to the age of 25 from receiving gender-affirming care in one of the strictest and most restrictive bans imposed to date.
The state’s proposed “Milstone Law,” which takes its name from a Bible verse about punishing adults who harm children, would also prevent Oklahoma’s Medicaid program from providing coverage for “gender transition measures” to individuals under the age of 26.
“I don’t think it’s ever about children,” Erin Reed, an independent legislative researcher, told The Hill this week. Referring to the state andIdeal attempts To prohibit gender confirmation sponsorship within the past two years.
“Banning adults shows that’s not what it used to be,” Reed said. “It’s about banning care altogether. It’s about forcing transgender people back into the closet.”
Pence: Candidates should bet on abortion positions
Former Vice President Mike Pence He argued that his party should adopt an anti-abortion stance that puts Democrats on the defensive in the wake of last summer’s Supreme Court ruling, a departure from former President Trump’s reading of the issue.
“What I saw in the last election is that men and women who made themselves clear about the sanctity of life fared well in being elected,” Pence said in an exclusive interview with The Hill on Wednesday.
“Going forward, I believe it will be the duty of the men and women of our party to stand unapologetically for the sanctity of human life, to stand for the inalienable principle of the right to life, but also to express sympathy for women facing crises of pregnancy.”
The former vice president has been among the most outspoken conservatives in calling for states to enact restrictions on abortion after the Supreme Court’s decision last summer to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The abortion dilemma: His comments to The Hill underscore the debate within the GOP about how to handle abortion moving forward, after some in the party said it cost them winnable races in the November midterm elections.
Trump wrote last week on Truth Social that he is not responsible for the party’s underwhelming midterm majority performance, which saw Republicans narrowly regain the House and lose ground in the Senate.
PFIZER’S BIVALENT BOOSTER NOT ASSOCIATED WITH STROKE RISK: CDC, FDA
After analyzing vaccine surveillance data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) say they found no evidence of an increased risk of stroke among people 65 and older who receive a bivalent booster dose of the drug. Pfizer.
After a bivalent COVID-19 booster shot was made available from Pfizer, the CDC said its vaccine safety Datalink prompted additional investigation into concerns about whether the shot was a safety concern for people age 65 or older. Larger.
- The investigation of rapid signaling response in VSD raised the question whether subjects 65 years of age or older who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine were more likely to have a stroke in the 21 days following vaccination than in days 22-44 after vaccination” The CDC said.
- An ischemic stroke, which is more common than hemorrhagic strokes, occurs when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel in the brain, stopping blood flow and potentially causing brain cell death. If a stroke is not treated quickly, the effects can be devastating.
Studies using databases from the Centers for Medicare, Medicaid Services, and Veterans Affairs did not indicate or show an increased risk of stroke, according to the CDC. The vaccine adverse event reporting system administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration did not show an increase in reports of ischemic stroke after a bivalent booster dose.
High rates of cervical cancer death among the middle age. Women: study
to me New study Conducted by researchers at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, more California women age 65 and older face a late-stage cervical cancer diagnosis and death from the disease.
- Data from more than 12,000 patients diagnosed with the disease between 2009 and 2018 showed nearly a fifth of them were at least 65 years old, while 71 percent of older women had late-stage disease compared to 48 percent of women. Women under the age of 65.
- Older women also tended to have lower late-stage five-year survival rates from 23.2 percent to 36.8 percent, compared to younger women. For those younger than 65, the five-year relative survival in late-stage was measured at 41.5 percent to 51.5 percent.
Despite the documented disparities, CDC guidelines recommend most women stop screening for cervical cancer when age 65That potentially leaves this age group vulnerable, researchers said.
Biden officials tout gains in health insurance coverage
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Friday announced significant gains in health insurance coverage across several demographics in 2021, two days before the deadline to sign up for ObamaCare.
The report from the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation found that the national rate of uninsured people under 65 fell from 11.1 percent in 2019 to 10.5 percent in 2021, with greater gains in demographics that have historically had higher rates of unemployment. High rate of uninsured individuals.
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- Non-English speaking adults, people ages 19 to 49, Hispanic individuals and American Indian/Alaska Native all saw coverage gains of about 1 percent or higher.
- The report noted that gains in health care coverage were highest among people in households with incomes between 100 and 250 percent of the federal poverty level.
- Statewide, Maine saw the largest decrease in its uninsured rate between 2019 and 2021, with coverage increasing 3.2 percent. In the same time frame, Alabama saw the largest increase in the rate of uninsured individuals, increasing by 0.4 percent.
According to a statement from HHS earlier this week, nearly 16 million people have so far chosen a health care plan through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, which is a 13 percent increase over last year.
what we read
- The ban on abortion does not persecute pregnant women. This may be about to change (The nineteenth news)
- More men were diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer with lower PSA screening (NBC News)
- The FDA no longer requires that all drugs be tested on animals prior to human trials (NPR)
State by state
- California Attorney General sues drug companies over inflated insulin prices (Kaiser Health News)
- WCSD looks to address student mental health, chronic absenteeism with federal funds (Connor)
- expects more than 700,000 households in Wisconsin to be affected by the termination of additional FoodShare benefits (After the crescent)
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Health care page For the latest news and coverage.
A note about programming: We will be off Monday for MLK Day and back on Tuesday.
See you next week!