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More on the Health desk

• Health Aug 7, 2026 Drug-Resistant Candida auris Reaches 23 States as CDC Logs More Than 3,000 Cases in 2026 CDC surveillance data show the antifungal-resistant yeast has spread to nearly half the country, with cases concentrated in hospital and long-term care patients on invasive devices.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Aug 5, 2026 Once-Weekly HIV Pill Matches Daily Therapy in Phase 3 Trials Data from two international trials presented at AIDS 2026 show a single weekly tablet combining islatravir and lenacapavir kept HIV suppressed as well as current daily regimens at 48 weeks.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Aug 3, 2026 Once-Weekly Interval Walking Cuts Belly Fat as Well as Three-Day Routine, Trial Finds A four-month randomized trial out of the University of Hong Kong found that cramming 75 minutes of high-intensity interval walking into a single weekly session produced fat-loss results comparable to spreading the same workout across three days.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Aug 2, 2026 Phase III Trial Backs Cavity-Arresting Liquid for Young Children, Bolstering FDA Drug Application A University of Michigan-led trial published in JAMA Pediatrics found that silver diamine fluoride stopped decay in more than half of treated baby teeth with no drilling, shots, or sedation.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Aug 1, 2026 Phase III Trial Finds Painted-On Liquid Stops Cavities in Young Children Without Drilling A University of Michigan-led study published in JAMA Pediatrics found silver diamine fluoride arrested decay in more than half of baby teeth treated, with no drilling, injections, or sedation required.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 31, 2026 Phase III Trial Shows Silver Diamine Fluoride Stops Cavities in Young Children Without Drilling or Sedation A U.S. trial of 830 children under age 6 found the liquid arrested decay in more than half of treated baby teeth, with no drilling, shots, or anesthesia required.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 26, 2026 FDA Approves First Oral PCSK9 Inhibitor for High Cholesterol Merck's Lipfendra (enlicitide) becomes the first pill in a drug class that has required an injection since its introduction, cutting LDL by more than half in Phase 3 trials.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 24, 2026 FDA Approves First Oral PCSK9 Inhibitor for High Cholesterol Merck's Lipfendra (enlicitide) gives patients who can't tolerate injections a once-daily pill option, but it still lacks the long-term cardiovascular outcomes data its injectable predecessors carry.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 17, 2026 Cyclospora Parasite Sickens Thousands Across 34 States as CDC Flags Surveillance Gaps A rapidly expanding cyclosporiasis outbreak has confirmed more than 1,600 domestically acquired cases since May 1, with a concentrated cluster in the Midwest pointing to lettuce or salad greens as a likely vehicle.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 16, 2026 Nearly Half of Kidney Failure Patients Never Start Transplant Evaluation, Study Finds A national study of more than 720,000 referred patients shows the biggest barrier to a kidney transplant isn't finding a donor, it's surviving the evaluation process itself.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 14, 2026 Lifestyle Intervention Cuts Cognitive Decline Risk in Older Adults Across Latin America, Trial Finds A two-year randomized trial published in The Lancet shows culturally adapted programs combining exercise, diet, cognitive training, and social support improved brain health in adults aged 60 to 77 across 11 countries.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 12, 2026 FDA Clears Casgevy Gene Therapy for Sickle Cell Disease in Children as Young as 2 The CRISPR-based one-time treatment from Vertex Pharmaceuticals now covers toddlers and young children, extending a label that previously started at age 12.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 8, 2026 U.S. Measles Cases Hit 2,170 With Five Months Left, Threatening Elimination Status CDC data updated July 2 show this year's confirmed case count is just 119 short of the full-year 2025 record, with 93% of infections tied to active outbreaks spanning 41 states and jurisdictions.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 7, 2026 FDA Clears Casgevy Gene Therapy for Sickle Cell Patients as Young as 2 The CRISPR-based one-time treatment was previously limited to patients 12 and older; the label expansion opens eligibility to an estimated 5,500 additional U.S. children.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 6, 2026 FDA Clears Casgevy Gene Therapy for Sickle Cell Patients as Young as 2 The CRISPR-based one-time treatment was previously limited to patients 12 and older; the label expansion opens access to an estimated 5,500 additional American children.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 5, 2026 Half of Kidney Failure Patients Referred for Transplant Never Start the Evaluation Process, Study Finds A national analysis of more than 720,000 patients shows most Americans referred for a kidney transplant drop out before they ever reach the waitlist, with rural location, marital status, and income among the strongest predictors.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 4, 2026 Medicare Launches $50-a-Month GLP-1 Weight-Loss Coverage for Seniors A new CMS demonstration program opened July 1, giving eligible Medicare Part D enrollees access to Wegovy, Zepbound, and Foundayo for a flat $50 monthly copay, but the fine print matters.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 3, 2026 U.S. Death Rate Hits Century-Low, but Racial Gaps Persist, CDC Data Show A new CDC provisional report puts the 2025 age-adjusted death rate at 689 per 100,000, the lowest since federal tracking began, while gaps by race and sex remain wide.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 2, 2026 Medicare Launches $50-a-Month GLP-1 Weight Loss Program for Older Adults A CMS demonstration called the GLP-1 Bridge went live July 1, giving eligible Medicare Part D enrollees access to Wegovy, Zepbound, and Foundayo at a flat $50 monthly copay, but the program has a firm expiration date and notable carve-outs.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jul 1, 2026 FDA Scientists Find Little Evidence for Seven Peptides Kennedy Backs for Compounding Agency reviewers say compounds including BPC-157 and TB-500 lack human data, setting up a clash with HHS Secretary RFK Jr. ahead of a July 23 advisory panel vote.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 28, 2026 Medicaid and ACA Enrollment Falls by More Than 5 Million in a Year A new report finds combined Medicaid and ACA marketplace enrollment dropped by more than 5 million people over the past 12 months, driven by federal spending cuts and the expiration of enhanced insurance subsidies.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 27, 2026 ACA Enrollment Drops 5 Million as Medicaid Losses Mount Nationwide New federal data and an advocacy group report confirm combined Medicaid and ACA marketplace losses exceeding 5 million people over the past year, with policy experts warning the worst is still ahead.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 25, 2026 FDA Clears Tzield as First Disease-Modifying Therapy for Newly Diagnosed Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes The accelerated approval covers children and adolescents ages 8 to 17 with Stage 3 type 1 diabetes and aims to slow the loss of the body's own insulin production, not just replace it.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 24, 2026 RAS Inhibitor Daraxonrasib Nearly Doubles Survival in Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer Trial The Phase 3 RASolute 302 trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed median overall survival of 13.2 months on daraxonrasib versus 6.7 months on chemotherapy in previously treated patients.
  By Dr. Maya Iyer, Staff Reporter
• Health Jun 23, 2026 Vaping Likely Causes Lung and Oral Cancer, Major Review Concludes A peer-reviewed analysis of more than 100 studies finds nicotine e-cigarettes are probably carcinogenic to humans, landing just as the FDA loosens its stance on flavored vape products.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 20, 2026 Federal Watchdog Finds Medicare Advantage Plans Reversed 95% of Nursing Home Denials on Appeal Twin HHS inspector general reports released June 11 show the nation's largest Medicare Advantage insurers denied post-acute care at some of the highest rates among their peers, then reversed nearly all those decisions when patients fought back.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 19, 2026 Federal Watchdog Flags Medicare Advantage Insurers for High Post-Acute Care Denial Rates A pair of HHS Inspector General reports released June 11 found the three largest Medicare Advantage insurers denied prior authorization for rehabilitation and long-term care at rates far above their peers, and then reversed most of those denials on appeal.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 18, 2026 GLP-1 Users Move Less After Starting Ozempic or Wegovy, Wearable Data Show A study of 753 adults with obesity found daily step counts and moderate exercise dropped significantly after starting GLP-1 therapy, raising muscle-loss concerns clinicians can't ignore.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 16, 2026 GLP-1 Drugs Linked to 30% Drop in Breast Cancer Risk in 111,000-Woman Study A retrospective analysis presented at ASCO 2026 found that women with excess weight who used GLP-1 receptor agonists were significantly less likely to develop breast cancer, though researchers say a prospective trial is still needed.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 11, 2026 CMS Issues Medicaid Work Requirement Rule, Putting Millions of Low-Income Adults at Risk of Coverage Loss An interim final rule published June 1 sets an 80-hours-per-month standard for ACA-expansion enrollees and adopts a narrow medical frailty exemption that health policy researchers say will strip coverage from people who qualify for it.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 9, 2026 U.S. Measles Cases Hit 2,030 With Half the Year Still Left, Threatening Elimination Status The CDC has confirmed more cases through early June than in all but the final weeks of last year's record-setting count, with more than 92% of patients unvaccinated.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 7, 2026 Oral Drug Daraxonrasib Nearly Doubles Survival in Advanced Pancreatic Cancer Trial A Phase 3 trial of 500 patients showed the daily pill cut the risk of death by 60% compared with standard chemotherapy, prompting calls to reclassify it as the new second-line standard of care.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 6, 2026 U.S. Measles Cases Top 2,000 as Country Nears Record Set Last Year The CDC counted 2,030 confirmed cases as of June 4, nearly matching all of 2025, which was already the worst year for measles since 1991.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jun 4, 2026 Trump Orders CDC to Review Childhood Vaccine Schedule Against Peer-Nation Standards An executive order signed May 29 directs the CDC and its advisory panel to update the U.S. childhood immunization schedule to align with practices in other developed countries, drawing sharp pushback from major medical groups.
  By Marcus Reyes, Senior Correspondent
• Health May 27, 2026 Why Clinical Guidelines Move Slowly: An Anatomy of the Update Cycle From trial publication to bedside recommendation, the path that shapes how clinicians treat patients is longer and more contested than most patients realize.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health May 27, 2026 Why Your Doctor's Guidance Hasn't Changed Yet: The Long Road From Evidence to Clinical Guideline New research can sit for years before it reshapes what clinicians are officially told to do, and the reasons are more structural than most patients realize.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health May 20, 2026 Why Home Health Is the Next Consolidation Wave (And What That Means for Patients) Private equity and large health systems have been circling home health agencies for years. Here is what the structural pressure looks like from the patient's side of the bed.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health May 13, 2026 What Health Quizzes on Brand Websites Are Actually Measuring Direct-to-consumer health quizzes feel clinical, but most are designed to qualify you as a customer, not assess you as a patient.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health May 13, 2026 What the Health Quiz in Your Instagram Feed Cannot Actually Tell You Direct-to-consumer symptom quizzes promise personalized insight but routinely deliver population-level guesses dressed up in the language of clinical assessment.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health May 6, 2026 The Patient Advocate as Profession: What the Role's Rise Tells Us About a Health System in Translation A position that barely existed on paper two decades ago is now on hospital org charts and in ICU waiting rooms, and its growth says something uncomfortable about how care actually gets delivered.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Apr 29, 2026 What Patient Navigation Actually Looks Like on the Ground The role gets described in policy documents as a care coordinator. Patients describe it as the person who kept them from falling through every crack in the system.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Apr 29, 2026 What Patient Navigation Actually Looks Like From the Bedside Navigation programs get praised in policy circles and misunderstood in practice. Here is what the work involves and why the evidence behind it holds up.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Apr 22, 2026 The Unbundling of Primary Care: What Patients Lose When the Visit Gets Sliced Apart Urgent care apps, chronic disease platforms, and pharmacy clinics each handle one piece of what a family doctor used to hold together - and no one has figured out who carries the whole patient.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Apr 15, 2026 Why a Nursing Shortage Hits Patients Before a Physician Shortage Does Nurses are the continuous presence at the bedside, so when their numbers drop, the effects on care quality are immediate in ways that physician staffing gaps are not.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Apr 8, 2026 Why the Supplement Aisle Is Always Ahead of the Science The regulatory gap between drug approval and dietary supplement sales explains why Americans spend tens of billions of dollars a year on products that often lack clinical proof of benefit.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Apr 1, 2026 Why Drug Pricing Reform Keeps Promising More Than It Delivers Every few years a new policy arrives with the same pitch: lower costs, broader access, no trade-offs. Here is why the gap between that promise and the pharmacy counter never fully closes.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Mar 18, 2026 What Value-Based Care Actually Changed Inside the Exam Room The policy shift from fee-for-service to value-based payment models got a lot of headlines, but the real story is what it demanded from the people already in the building.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Mar 4, 2026 Mental Health Parity Laws: What the Statute Says Versus What Patients Actually Encounter Federal parity rules require insurers to cover mental health care the same way they cover a broken arm, but the gap between legal obligation and lived experience remains wide.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Mar 4, 2026 Mental Health Parity Laws: What the Fine Print Does Not Fix Federal parity rules say insurers must treat mental health coverage the same as medical coverage. In practice, the gap between that legal standard and what patients actually receive is wide and largely invisible.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Mar 4, 2026 Mental Health Parity Laws: What the Statute Says Versus What Patients Actually Face Federal parity rules require insurers to cover mental health care the same way they cover physical health care. The gap between that legal requirement and the clinical reality is wide, documented, and largely invisible to patients until they need the coverage.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Feb 25, 2026 The Bridge Nobody Sees: How Community Health Workers Keep Chronic Illness From Spiraling They are not nurses, not social workers, and not doctors, but community health workers often do the one thing the clinic cannot: show up where the patient actually lives.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Feb 25, 2026 The Bridge Between Clinic and Kitchen Table: What Community Health Workers Actually Do for Chronic Disease They are not nurses and not social workers, but community health workers have quietly become one of the more reliable tools for keeping patients with diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure out of the emergency department.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Feb 18, 2026 The Chart That Never Quite Fit: What the EHR Transition Left Behind Electronic health records were supposed to streamline care and surface better data. A decade-plus in, the promise and the reality remain stubbornly far apart for the people doing the actual work.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Feb 18, 2026 What the EHR Transition Actually Cost Clinicians, and Why the Bill Keeps Arriving A decade-plus after most hospitals went digital, the hidden burdens of electronic health records are still showing up in burnout rates, workflow breakdowns, and patients who feel like data entries.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Feb 11, 2026 What Hospital Consolidation Actually Did to the Patient in the Bed Health system mergers reshaped American care delivery over decades, and the changes patients feel most are rarely the ones the press releases promised.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Feb 4, 2026 Prior Authorization Is Not a Paperwork Problem. It Is a Clinical One. When a physician has to justify a treatment decision to a health plan reviewer who has never seen the patient, the encounter itself becomes part of the care pathway, for better or worse.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Feb 4, 2026 Prior Authorization Is a Clinical Problem. The Paperwork Is Just Where It Shows Up. Framing prior auth as a billing headache misses what it actually does to patient care at the bedside and in the exam room.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Feb 4, 2026 Prior Authorization Is a Clinical Problem. The Paperwork Is Just Where You Notice It. The fight over prior auth has been framed as a billing dispute. Clinicians and patients live the consequences in a different register entirely.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jan 28, 2026 What Telehealth's Rapid Scaling Taught Us About Which Visits Actually Need a Room The pandemic forced clinicians to find out fast which appointments could survive a video window, and the answer was more complicated than either the boosters or the skeptics expected.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jan 28, 2026 What Telehealth's Pandemic Scaling Taught Us About What Patients Actually Need The emergency expansion of virtual care forced health systems to run a years-long experiment at once, and the results are more complicated than either the boosters or the skeptics predicted.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jan 21, 2026 Lost in Translation: Why Medical Interpretation Is Still Fighting for a Seat at the Care Table Decades after federal law required meaningful language access in federally funded health settings, the gap between policy and bedside reality remains wide enough to cause serious harm.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jan 21, 2026 Lost in Translation: Why Medical Interpretation Is Still Catching Up to the Patients Who Need It Decades after federal law required language access in health care, the gap between policy and bedside practice remains wide enough to cause real harm.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jan 14, 2026 Screening Is Not a Diagnosis: What Patients Miss in the Space Between a Positive Test and a Confirmed Condition A positive screening result opens a clinical question. It does not answer one. Understanding that gap can change how patients navigate what comes next.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jan 14, 2026 Screening Is Not a Diagnosis: What the Distinction Actually Means for Patients A positive screening result is the beginning of a clinical process, not the end of one, and conflating the two causes real harm.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jan 7, 2026 The Middlemen Nobody Talks About: How Pharmacy Benefit Managers Shape What You Pay at the Counter Pharmacy benefit managers sit between drug makers and patients and quietly determine whether a prescription is affordable, covered, or even available - and most patients have no idea they exist.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent
• Health Jan 7, 2026 The Middlemen Nobody Talks About: How Pharmacy Benefit Managers Shape What You Pay at the Counter Pharmacy benefit managers sit between your insurer and your pharmacist, and their pricing decisions affect nearly every American with a prescription drug benefit.
  By Karen Bishop, Correspondent

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