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Good morning! Amid in the present day’s information, two gadgets on being pregnant which are fascinating and eerie to learn in tandem. And on prime of that, two itchy items of mosquito-related information from STAT’s Helen Branswell.
Well being Care’s Colossus: UnitedHealth promised it will be palms off. It wasn’t.
Take our cash, the corporate mentioned. We’ll deal with the enterprise aspect when you take care of your sufferers, it mentioned. Collectively we are able to create a future the place major care leads, it mentioned. These had been the guarantees UnitedHealth Group made in 2014 to ProHealth Physicians, a good Connecticut-based major care community with greater than 50 clinics throughout the state.
However docs say the guarantees weren’t saved — 10 years later, the group is a shell of its former self. “Individuals can’t get the care that they want,” mentioned Sharon Maloney, whose husband couldn’t get into his physician’s workplace for 3 days, precipitating a series of occasions that led to his demise.
In Half 3 of STAT’s investigative sequence on UnitedHealth Group’s doctor empire, reporters recount intimately how the story unfolded at ProHealth. My colleagues spoke with greater than 15 former docs, present and former sufferers, and consultants. In addition they obtained paperwork via public data requests.
Learn the story. And when you haven’t already, return to learn Half 1 and Half 2.
CDC declares $118.5 million to analyze maternal deaths
The Biden administration announced yesterday that CDC will make investments $118.5 million over 5 years to assist determine and forestall pregnancy-related deaths. Particularly, the funds will go towards increasing a system of Maternal Mortality Evaluation Committees from representing 46 to 52 states and U.S. territories. The teams assessment deaths inside every state or territory that happen inside one yr of the tip of a being pregnant to find out if the deaths had been preventable, and suggest how the deaths could possibly be prevented sooner or later. Funds may even be used to implement the White Home Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Well being Disaster, in line with the announcement.
Maternal mortality is hard to measure, however by all skilled accounts, the U.S. is within the midst of a disaster. It’s but to be seen how extra funding from the federal authorities will have an effect on the work performed by MMRCs. “More and more, the reporting of these findings have grow to be a political problem, and there have been efforts to suppress their findings,” researcher Greg Roth informed STAT’s Nalis Merelli final summer season. Between 2017 and 2019, solely 36 state teams reported their findings to the CDC.
Are you able to think about having your tubes tied then getting pregnant anyway?
It occurs — to about 3 to five% of people that obtain tubal sterilization, in line with new estimates printed yesterday in NEJM Evidence. Researchers used knowledge from the Nationwide Survey of Household Progress collected in waves over the past twenty years. Amongst ladies surveyed between 2013 and 2015, the researchers estimated that about 2.9% of those that had their tubes tied turned pregnant inside a yr. However an estimated 8.4% had grow to be pregnant inside 10 years of the process.
The outcomes point out “nontrivial” charges of being pregnant after the purportedly everlasting process, the authors write. It’s good to know, as knowledge from the identical survey present that a couple of third of girls obtain the surgical procedure by the age of 44.
What’s Oropouche virus, ought to I be frightened about it, and the way do I pronounce it?
Twenty-one folks within the U.S. have contracted the Oropouche virus throughout travels to Cuba over the summer season, the CDC reported yesterday. The island nation is experiencing its first ever recorded outbreak of the virus, which has additionally been spreading in a number of South American international locations. However what precisely is Oropouche virus?
As traditional, STAT’s Helen Branswell has us lined. The virus is unfold via biting bugs — particularly one species of midge, which is a small fly, and one sort of mosquito. About 60% of people that grow to be contaminated will develop signs like fever, extreme headache, chills, muscle aches, and joint pains. And there isn’t a vaccine or particular drug remedy for the virus, so the easiest way to keep away from it, as Helen writes, is to not get bit.
Learn extra on every little thing you might want to know concerning the virus together with how one can pronounce its identify.
Uncommon mosquito-borne encephalitis is present in 4 states, with one demise
In additional mosquito information: New Hampshire has recorded the nation’s first death this yr from jap equine encephalitis, a uncommon however harmful illness unfold via the chunk of contaminated mosquitoes. The CDC says it has been knowledgeable of 4 human infections thus far in 2024, with Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and New Jersey additionally reporting circumstances. All 4 contain neuroinvasive illness, which means the virus moved into the mind. About 30% of Triple E circumstances are deadly, and survivors typically have long-term neurological issues. Massachusetts has begun spraying mosquitoes in some communities, and is urging folks to contemplate remaining indoors from nightfall to daybreak to keep away from being bitten.
Triple E infections usually happen in late summer season and early fall, earlier than cool temperatures kill off the mosquitoes that unfold it. The virus is mostly discovered alongside the Gulf Coast, within the Atlantic states and across the Nice Lakes. The variety of circumstances varies by yr, although most years fewer than 10 circumstances are reported. In 2019, nonetheless, a file 38 circumstances had been reported.
—Helen Branswell
NIH empowers Native People to review substance use in their very own communities
The Nationwide Institutes of Well being has introduced plans to commit over a quarter-billion {dollars} to researching substance use and drug overdose amongst indigenous tribes throughout the nation. However there’s a community-driven twist: Tribes and tribal-serving organizations get to design and conduct the analysis themselves.
In fact, main initiatives promising to serve indigenous folks will be tough to execute, given the federal authorities’s observe file of violence and damaged guarantees — and broader distrust of analysis initiatives geared toward traditionally marginalized communities, STAT’s Lev Facher reviews.
However that context is the “basis of this program,” mentioned Kathy Etz, the director of Native American Applications on the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse. “Tribes wish to lead analysis, they wish to be immediately funded to steer analysis, they usually need the analysis to replicate the priorities of their communities,” she mentioned. “What we’re doing right here is supporting tribes and Native American-serving organizations to do what they need.” Learn extra from Lev.
What we’re studying
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What psychological well being care protections exist in your state? Pro Publica
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America is doubling down on sewer surveillance, The Atlantic
- Medicare’s new transitional protection of rising applied sciences program doesn’t go far sufficient, STAT
- Polio vaccines arrive in Gaza, however distributing them is the subsequent problem, New York Times
- Unique: Centene eliminates brokers’ commissions for Medicare drug plans, STAT
