Good morning and welcome to this week’s New York Health Care Newsletter, where we bring you up to date with this week’s healthcare news and a recap of last week’s big news.
It’s that time of year again: The days are getting cooler, the kids are back to school, the apples are ready to be picked upstate – and it’s time to start thinking about the next cold and flu (and Covid) season.
Given the expected rebound in Covid-19 rates this fall — as they do every year during the pandemic — state health officials are urging New Yorkers to get a booster shot (and a flu shot) in the coming weeks. And with a new version of the vaccine targeting omicron subvariants that have seen cases spike lately, there is hope the spread of the virus will slow.
The CDC recommends that everyone 12 years and older gets a Covid-19 booster shot formulated to target subvariants that dominate US infections, reported Lauren Gardner of POLITICO. The decision came shortly after the CDC’s independent vaccine advisory panel overwhelmingly recommended the updated Moderna vaccine for all adults and the updated Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for those ages 12 and older, setting the stage for a fall immunization campaign.
This was announced by the state health authorities on Friday that New Yorkers should soon be able to get the new booster shot. Small volume shipments of the updated booster vaccine are expected to begin this week based on pre-orders and shipments. That, according to the Ministry of Health, will “increase rapidly once all approval processes are complete and regular ordering begins.”
“We have a very strong pharmacy network and clinics and private doctors, and there will be any number of places for people to get vaccinated,” State Health Commissioner Mary Bassett said during a recent speech at the Great New York State Fair.
Would you like to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also get daily political news and other information you need to react to the biggest stories of the day.
POST-ROE VOTE SWITCH IN NY – Bill Mahoney of POLITICO: Voter registration among young women has surged across the country following the devastating Supreme Court ruling Roe v. calf – Signaling a fundamental rejection of the verdict. Not so in deep blue New York.
In the first six months of 2022 Overall, 50.8 percent of newly registered voters in the state were women, according to a review of the enrollment database maintained by the state elections agency. July topped that number at 51.6 percent. Both are in the same range as in 2018, when 52.3 percent of New York’s newly registered voters were women. The numbers pale in comparison to registration trends in other states.
… But in almost every respect the decision of the Supreme Court didn’t immediately impact New York’s electoral rolls. Between Jan. 1 and May 3 — the day POLITICO first reported on a draft of the upcoming decision — the proportion of newly registered New York voters who were women under 40 was 34.1 percent. As of May 4, it was 34.7 percent after the June 24 decision, and the number rose to 35.9 percent in the following five weeks. Nor has there been a dramatic increase in Democratic enrollment statewide. From January through June, the Democratic Party attracted 2.09 times as many new voters as the Republican Party. In July, 2.13 times as many as Democrats registered — likely due to the larger number of Democratic primaries on ballots in August.
A MONKEYPOX GAMBLE – POLITICO’s Krist Mahr: Since monkeypox began its unprecedented spread across the country in May, more than 352,600 people in the US have put their faith in a vaccine that has never been tested to evaluate how well it fights the virus in humans. The vaccine was developed to prevent smallpox, a related virus, and studies by the Danish manufacturer have shown that it is also effective against monkeypox in animals.
Much less is known about how it works in humans. But the Biden administration is not only banking on it working, but also that it can prevent another debilitating, communicable disease from becoming endemic in the US, as it has been in parts of Africa for decades. The risks of the strategy are real: If the vaccine isn’t enough, Americans will have to live with another disease, and public health officials will almost certainly continue to damage public health confidence.
OPEN FOR BUSINESS — Shannon Young of POLITICO: New York has an embassy for businesses in states that have restricted access to abortion following the US Supreme Court ruling Roe v. calf Reversal: move here. Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday that her administration is touting its reproductive health policies and access to abortion as part of its strategy to recruit companies headquartered outside of New York to relocate to the state.
IN OTHER NEWS:
— The National Academy of Medicine selected Gunisha Kaur, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine and Medical Director of the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights, as an Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholar.
WE LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU: This summary is for you! Send news tips, health tips, ideas, critiques and corrections to [email protected].
AND WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU: Then the Supreme Court tipped Roe v. calf In June, reports surfaced of patients — including those not seeking abortions — having trouble filling certain prescriptions and being denied treatment because of pregnancy-related complications. Have Abortion Laws Affected Your Access to Health Care? We want to hear from you.
NOW WE KNOW – American life expectancy has fallen to 76 years, the lowest since the mid-1990s.
TODAY TIP — The Washington Post breaks down “what you need to know” about the latest Covid-19 booster shots rolling out this fall. (As well as STAT.)
MUST FOLLOW shannon@ShannonYoung413 on twitter. And for all New Jersey health news, check out Daniel Han, @danieljhan_.
LEARN THIS – Via CNN: “Taking oral or inhaled glucocorticoids, a type of steroid used to reduce inflammation in asthma and other autoimmune diseases, may be linked to harmful changes in the brain’s white matter, a new study has found. “
The Wall Street Journal reports that “Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder specialists plan to create the first U.S. guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of the disorder in adults.”
STAToffers a glimpse of where things stand ahead of ‘a third Covid fall’.
The New York Times reports on “how the pandemic has shortened life expectancy in indigenous communities”.
demographic data of New York City and state health officials suggest thousands of women may have received the monkeypox vaccine despite their low risk of exposure to the virus, the Times Union reports.
children returned in New York classrooms without Covid-19 rules, reports Gannett.
Gothamist looks at how The New York City Child Welfare Board cites marijuana in family breakups, despite legalization of the drug and changes in state policy.
The Atlantic examines the reported benefits of singing for babies (or even pets).
The “Public Housing Authority” of New York Citydiscovered traces of arsenic in tap water at one of its largest developments in Manhattan,” reports THE CITY.
Carlo Martuscelli and Sarah-Taissir Bencharif from POLITICO report that if you want to do the right thing, it’s better to do it right. That’s the lesson the European Commission needs to learn after a landmark proposal to level the playing field for access to medicines across the EU bounced back amid concerns that the cost to the drug industry might be too high for people to believe the drawing board was sent familiar with the matter.
A coalition of abortion rights groups in Michigan filed an urgent complaint in the state Supreme Court on Thursday, asking it to overturn the Board of State Advocate’s decision and order its abortion law amendment to be included in the November election, reports Alice Miranda Ollstein of POLITICAL.
POLITICO’s Erin Banco and Adam Cancryn report that senior health officials in the Biden administration are considering storing doses of vaccine that could be used to fight monkeypox for a possible future smallpox outbreak, according to two people with knowledge of the matter and a senior administration official.
Medical practices acquired by private equity according to a new study released Friday, reports Daniel Payne of POLITICO.
MISSED A LOT? Find out about the New York Health Care Newsletter.
