Leader of abortion havens
Where abortion rights grow – California implements abortion access policies intended to make it the nation’s primary resort for the procedure and an example for other like-minded states.
Politico Reporting by Alice Miranda Olstein regarding new rules requiring health clinics at California public colleges and universities to carry abortion pills.
It is one of more than a dozen policy changes the state has followed in response to a Supreme Court decision in June that allows states to ban the procedure.
Many states now have bans, but California and other blue states have gone in the opposite direction, seeking to improve access for their citizens and abortion patients coming from another state.
California law prohibits law enforcement and private companies from cooperating with other states that attempt to prosecute an abortion patient for performing the procedure in California.
Other new state laws aim to prepare California clinics to care for the thousands of patients across the country who fly in from anti-abortion states — and make sure the influx doesn’t hinder Californians’ access.
California has set aside more than $200 million in state funding to help people from other states pay for travel, lodging, and other needs; compensating doctors for providing abortions to people who could not afford them; and helping clinics to recruit and train more service providers.
The state’s moves provide models for other state lawmakers who support abortion rights.
Maine Democrats are pressing a bill to eliminate subscriptions to abortions, a policy California enacted last year.
— In Minnesota, where Democrats have reversed control of the legislature in the midterms of 2022, lawmakers are pushing for the Defense of Reproductive Freedom Act that replicates several California policies intended to protect patients and providers from legal risks.
– Illinois just passed a law to protect doctors who treat out-of-state patients, as California did last year.
– Lawmakers in Missouri and Washington have introduced bills similar to California’s that would prevent state officials and law enforcement from obtaining personal medical data from period trackers and other health apps.
– Massachusetts law to make abortion pills available at state colleges and universities, California inspired It was passed in July and is scheduled to go into effect later this year.
Administration of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom Create a website It lists all of the actions the state has taken regarding abortion—administrative, executive, and legislative—with the full language of the law available if any other state legislator wanted to copy it.
UK Pharma Threats – Battles over drug prices and taxes have come to a head in the UK since the government raised the tax rate for companies operating under a government contract to 26.5 percent of sales.
Politico Reporting by Helen Collis The UK’s generic drug makers say significant rate increases — from 2019 to 2022, the tax rate was 9.6 per cent, 5.1 per cent and 15 per cent — will make some of their products unprofitable, and they threaten to pull out.
A recent report commissioned by the Association of British Generic Manufacturers found that most generic and biosimilar companies affected by the tax rate would reduce or end supplies and possibly operations in the UK.
The warning comes as the UK’s National Health Service is on the brink of collapse due to surging demand for winter care, a huge backlog from epidemics and chronic staff shortages.
Forward thinking in disease surveillance – Biden administration Surveillance intensified of biological samples from international passengers arriving at US airports to look for novel coronavirus variants and other risks to Americans’ health.
By biological samples, they mean sewage from airplane toilets, Politico says Reporting by Krista Maher.
Administrative officials and public health experts view the small but growing Traveler Genome Surveillance Program, which the CDC is running with a biotechnology company and a sample-collecting company, as part of a revolution in biosafety infrastructure—and a baseboard for national security in the post-pandemic era.
As the program expands geographically and sets its sights on new pathogens, it can act as an early warning system for where and when dangerous viruses and bacteria, natural or otherwise, enter the country.
“Just as we have radar to look for planes to make sure we know what’s coming into our country or we take swabs and samples to make sure someone going through security doesn’t have explosives on their hand, it’s the same for pathogens or pathogens,” said Matthew McKnight, general manager at Ginkgo Bioworks. , whose biosecurity and public health unit, Concentric by Ginkgo, is partnering with the CDC in the program with testing company Covid XpresCheck: Viruses or Bacteria.
Israeli study suggests Vaccination against COVID may reduce the effects of Botox. In a retrospective study, users were an average of 22 days later than they were before they were vaccinated. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccine is to blame – more research is needed. Meanwhile, the Bivalent booster It performs well against the latest Covid version.
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Today on our sitePulse checkpodcast, Alice Miranda Olstein talks with Roth about Amazon’s new $5-a-month generic prescription service for Prime members called RxPass.
The data infrastructure is weak It was at the root of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s struggle to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic as it developed, according to A new report from In-Q-Tela non-profit corporation assisting the CIA with high-tech investments.
The report calls for new approaches to collecting and analyzing public health data and sustainable financing to improve response to future disease outbreaks.
Key In-Q-Tel Recommendations:
Develop national standards for collecting public health data.
Require countries to share data in real time.
Implement representative sampling so that public health agencies can quickly launch large-scale studies.
Improved data collection similar to the laboratory network PulseNet, which tracks foodborne illnesses via whole genome sequencing.
Cooperate with the private sector to stay ahead of the technology curve.
Who wrote the report? In-Q-Tel Policy Experts Roundtable, Academia; government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Disease Control; and private sector companies such as Palantir Technologies, Kinsa, and Biobot Analytics.
Play status: The CDC is doing the overhaul Its information infrastructure to expedite the exchange of information with the public during public health emergencies.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has asked Congress to pass legislation that would allow the agency to force states to share data and additional money to fund its transfer of data.
However, Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, tend to reduce CDC’s power more than expand it.
