KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: The FDA Goes After Nicotine

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The FDA this week launched a crackdown on smoking and vaping — ordering the vaping gadget Juul to be taken off the market and saying its intention to require makers of cigarettes and different tobacco merchandise to cut back the quantity of nicotine in them.

In the meantime, the Supreme Courtroom didn’t announce a ruling in a high-stakes abortion case, but it surely stated that personal well being insurers may restrict the quantity of kidney dialysis care they supply, thus forcing some sufferers onto Medicare.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Faculty of Public Well being and Politico, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat.

Among the many takeaways from this week’s episode:

• The FDA has ordered Juul to take away its e-cigarettes from the U.S. market as a result of the corporate’s software to the company didn’t present sufficient data for regulators to find out whether or not Juul introduced a hazard to customers. The FDA stated there have been considerations in regards to the threat of some dangerous chemical substances leaching from the Juul pods. Juul is anticipated to attraction the FDA resolution to the courts.
• Juul helped ignite an explosion in e-cigarette use when it got here available on the market, and officers initially thought it might assist people who smoke in search of to kick the cigarette behavior. However the trade’s use of flavored tobacco and aggressive advertising helped gasoline a dramatic rise in use amongst teenagers and led to a regulatory crackdown.
• The Supreme Courtroom this week dominated that employers could choose to make all dialysis remedy out of community of their staff’ well being plans, a call that will possible drive many sufferers to hunt Medicare protection for his or her kidney issues. The choice was a disappointment for dialysis suppliers, who obtain much less in reimbursements from Medicare than they usually get from non-public insurance policy.
• The choice leaves many particulars unresolved and additional authorized fights may very well be coming. Dialysis suppliers may also flip to Congress to determine legal guidelines that will prohibit employers from such strikes.
• The Senate is more likely to think about a invoice proposed by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) that seeks to decrease the price of insulin. The invoice is taken into account extra pleasant to drugmakers than one other measure that handed the Home this yr. The Senate invoice seeks to get drugmakers to supply insulin on the worth they obtained from Medicare in 2021 by permitting them to bypass rebates and different expensive subsidies paid to pharmacy profit managers and insurance policy. It could additionally restrict out-of-pocket prices for insured shoppers to $35.
• Because the Senate strikes nearer to a vote on gun security laws, different efforts are underway to search out extra funding for applications to assist cope with psychological well being issues. These efforts may assist with campaigns to cut back suicides and home violence, that are additionally usually tied to weapons.
• The Home is launching efforts to move appropriations payments, and the preliminary funding measure for the Division of Well being and Human Companies as soon as once more doesn’t embrace the so-called Hyde Modification, a long-standing coverage named for the late Rep. Henry Hyde (R-In poor health.) that bans federal funds from getting used for many abortions. Earlier efforts by the Home to jettison the Hyde Modification didn’t clear the Senate.
• President Joe Biden has nominated Arati Prabhakar, former head of the Protection Superior Analysis Initiatives Company (DARPA), to go the White Home Workplace of Science and Know-how Coverage. She would change Eric Lander, who was pressured to resign after experiences of employees harassment.
• Prabhakar seems to be a noncontroversial selection and comes with a great deal of administration expertise. Her duties will possible embrace overseeing pandemic planning, efforts to form a brand new biomedical analysis company referred to as ARPA-H, and techniques to boost most cancers prevention.

Additionally this week, Rovner interviews KHN’s Noam N. Levey in regards to the new KHN-NPR venture on medical debt, referred to as “Prognosis: Debt.”

Plus, for further credit score, the panelists suggest their favourite well being coverage tales of the week they suppose you need to learn, too:

Julie Rovner: The AP’s “At Westminster Canine Present, New Concentrate on Veterinarians’ Welfare,” by Jennifer Peltz

Joanne Kenen: Fern.org’s “Again Forty: The way to Defend Farmworkers From Warmth-Associated Kidney Illness,” by Nancy Averett

Rachel Cohrs: The Markup’s “Fb Is Receiving Delicate Medical Data From Hospital Web sites,” by Todd Feathers, Simon Fondrie-Teitler, Angie Waller, and Surya Mattu

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