- Ozempic, the happy drug? Study suggests weight-loss medications could reduce depression, anxiety Fox News
- Can Ozempic Treat Depression? Obesity Drugs May Help Mental Health Bloomberg
- Weight-Loss Drugs Like Wegovy Now Linked to Lower Depression Risk Healthline
- Exploration of the potential association between GLP-1 receptor agonists and suicidal or self-injurious behaviors: a pharmacovigilance study based on the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System database – BMC Medicine BMC Medicine
- Popular weight loss drugs connected with lower rates of anxiety, depression TMJ4 News
Tag Archives: medications
Increased use of telehealth services and medications for opioid use disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic associated with reduced risk for fatal overdose – nih.gov
- Increased use of telehealth services and medications for opioid use disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic associated with reduced risk for fatal overdose nih.gov
- Telehealth Services Tied to a Major Reduction in Overdose Deaths Medscape
- Used After Opioid Overdose, Anti-Addiction Drug Can Cut Odds for Fatal OD U.S. News & World Report
- Buprenorphine initiation in the ER found safe and effective for individuals with opioid use disorder who use fentanyl nih.gov
- Increased Use of Telehealth Services and Medications for Opioid Use Disorder During the COVID-19 Pandemic Associated with Reduced Risk for Fatal Overdose | CDC Online Newsroom CDC
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Enjoying nature may lessen need for some medications, study finds
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CNN
—
Going for a walk in a park or along a lake or a tree-lined space may reduce the need for medication for anxiety, asthma, depression, high blood pressure or insomnia, a new study found.
“Physical activity is thought to be the key mediating factor in the health benefits of green spaces when availability or active use of green space are considered,” said study coauthor Anu Turunen, a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, in an email.
The study found visiting nature three to four times a week was associated with 36% lower odds of using blood pressure pills, 33% lower odds of using mental health medications, and 26% lower odds of using asthma medications.
“The analysis can reveal key associations, but we can’t say for certain whether it was the greenspace proximity or use that led to reduced use of medications,” said Lincoln Larson, an associate professor in the College of Natural Resources at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who was not involved in the study.
“Perhaps people who were healthier to begin with (and less likely to take prescription drugs) were more likely to get outdoors in the first place,” Larson said via email.
The study, published Monday, January 16, in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, interviewed approximately 6,000 random people in three of the largest cities in Finland about their use of green and blue spaces within a kilometer of their homes.
Green spaces included forests, gardens, parks, cemeteries, moors, natural grasslands, wetlands and zoos. Blue spaces included lakes, rivers and the sea.
Prior studies have found people living near green spaces reap significant health benefits. A 2016 study compared the amount of plant life and vegetation near the homes of almost 100,000 women. After eight years, the researchers found having access to the most green space reduced the women’s death rate by 12% — and improved their mental health.
A 2019 study of green spaces around the globe found people who live near them are less likely to die prematurely. Even doctors are beginning to prescribe nature as a treatment for mental health, as CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta explored in an episode of his podcast series, Chasing Life.
The new study also investigated the impact of being able to view green or blue spaces from home on the use of medications. Observing nature while indoors didn’t appear to work.
“Just seeing nature didn’t really move the needle, but experiencing it did. Other research points to similar conclusions,” said Larson, who has studied the benefits of public parks across the United States on the well-being of urban dwellers.
“If you want to reap the full health benefits that nature can provide, you have to immerse yourself in those settings,” he said.
While research hasn’t yet been able to show a true association, Larson still believes in the benefits of seeing, as well as experiencing nature.
“If you don’t have access to those places, simply seeing green space (or perhaps even experiencing virtual nature) is better than nothing,” he added.
You might even put a plant on your desk. A 2019 study found taking care of plants in the workplace slightly reduced stress for Japanese workers — unless their plant died. On an objective measurement, 27% of the workers showed a significant decrease in their resting heart rate, according to the study.
Updated childhood obesity treatment guidelines include medications, surgery for some young people
CNN
—
Updated American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for treatment of obesity urge prompt use of behavior therapy and lifestyle changes, and say surgery and medications should be used for some young people.
The guidelines, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, are the first comprehensive update to the academy’s obesity treatment guidelines in 15 years. They provide guidance for treatment of children as young as 2 and through the teen years.
The guidelines acknowledge that obesity is complex, and tied to access to nutritious foods and health care, among other factors.
Treatment for younger children should focus on behavior and lifestyle treatment for the entire family, including nutrition support and increased physical activity. For children 12 and older, use of weight loss medications is appropriate, in addition to health behavior therapy and lifestyle treatment, AAP says. Teens 13 and older with severe obesity should be evaluated for surgery, according to the guidelines.
“There is no evidence that ‘watchful waiting’ or delayed treatment is appropriate for children with obesity,” Dr. Sandra Hassink, an author of the guideline and vice chair of AAP’s Clinical Practice Guideline Subcommittee on Obesity, said in a statement. “The goal is to help patients make changes in lifestyle, behaviors or environment in a way that is sustainable and involves families in decision-making at every step of the way.”
For children and teens, overweight is defined as a body mass index at or above the 85th percentile and below the 95th percentile; obesity is defined as a BMI at or above the 95th percentile.
Myles Faith, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Buffalo who studies childhood eating behaviors and obesity, praised the new report both for acknowledging that the causes of childhood obesity are complex and that its treatments must be a team effort.
“It’s not one cause for all kids,” he says. “There’s not been this kind of report to say that there are more options and that we shouldn’t automatically discount the possibility of medication, that we shouldn’t discount the role of surgery. For some families, it might be something to consider,” said Faith, who was not involved in the creation of the guidelines.
The new guidelines do not discuss obesity prevention; it will be addressed in another AAP policy statement to come, it says.
“These are the most comprehensive, patient-centered guidelines we have had that address overweight and obesity within childhood,” Dr. Rebecca Carter, pediatrician at the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital and assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in an email Monday.
“New to these recommendations are several new medication management strategies that have proven very successful in the treatment of obesity as a chronic disease for adults, and are now being recommended for use in children and adolescents,” Carter said. “This is a major step in allowing overweight and obesity to be considered as the chronic diseases that they are.”
She added that the recommendations also are a “major step forward” in helping both parents and medical teams “take ownership” over a child’s long-term health risks related to overweight and obesity.
“They give a variety of tools to help families feel empowered that there are ways to treat these medical conditions, and that there are nuanced causes for these conditions that go beyond easy solutions and certainly take our focus away from outdated or unhealthy dieting strategies,” Carter said.
The new guidelines are designed for health care providers, but Carter said parents should talk with their children’s doctor if there are concerns about weight, and discuss strategies to optimize health and monitor changes.
“It is also appropriate to do this in a child-focused manner, taking care not to stigmatize them or make them feel bad about their body, while empowering the child to feel they have the tools needed to keep their body healthy over time.”
The new guidelines are a “much-needed advancement” to align holistic care with current science, Dr. Jennifer Woo Baidal, assistant professor of pediatrics and director of the Pediatric Obesity Initiative at Columbia University in New York City, said in a separate email Monday.
“Uptake of the new guidelines will help reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity,” she said. “More work at policy levels will be needed to mitigate policies and practices that propagate racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in obesity starting in early life. Although the guidelines support advocacy efforts of pediatricians, we as a society need to voice our support for healthful environments for the nation’s children.”
AAP says more than 14.4 million children and teens live with obesity. Children with overweight or obesity are at higher risk for asthma, sleep apnea, bone and joint problems, type 2 diabetes and heart disease, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Separate research, published last month in the American Diabetes Association journal Diabetes Care, suggests that the number of young people under age 20 with type 2 diabetes in the United States may increase nearly 675% by 2060 if current trends continue.
Last month, the CDC released updated growth charts that can be used to track children and teens with severe obesity.
Growth charts are standardized tools used by health care providers to track growth from infancy through adolescence. But as obesity and severe obesity became more prevalent in the last 40 years – more than 4.5 million children and teens had severe obesity in 2017-2018, the agency says – the charts hadn’t kept up.
The growth chart in use since 2000 is based on data from 1963 to 1980 and did not extend beyond the 97th percentile, the agency said. The newly extended percentiles incorporate more recent data and provide a way to monitor and visualize very high body mass index values.
The existing growth charts for children and adolescents without obesity will not change, the CDC said, while the extended growth chart will be useful for health care providers treating patients with severe childhood obesity.
“Prior to today’s release, the growth charts did not extend high enough to plot BMI for the increasing number of children with severe obesity. The new growth charts coupled with high-quality treatment can help optimize care for children with severe obesity,” Dr. Karen Hacker, director CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, said in a statement. “Providers can work with families on a comprehensive care plan to address childhood obesity.
4 Common Medications That Spike Your Dementia Risk, According to a Pharmacist
Kevin Hwang, MD, tells GoodRx that research has found a possible link between anticholinergic drugs and dementia. Anticholinergics treat different conditions that include urinary incontinence. But Hwang points out that “Anticholinergics block the effect of acetylcholine, a chemical in your brain that helps send messages between cells. Blocking acetylcholine can cause temporary drowsiness, confusion, and memory loss.”
According to Drugs.com, the most common anticholinergic drug classes used by the elderly are tricyclic antidepressants, first generation antihistamines, and overactive bladder antimuscarinics.
“Overall, a higher overall use of anticholinergic medications (three years or more) across all groups of patients was linked with a 54 percent higher risk for developing dementia than taking the same dose for three months or less,” Drugs.com reported, also cautioning that “the risk for dementia with anticholinergics [may] remain even after drug discontinuation.”
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Why You Can’t Find Wegovy, the Weight-Loss Drug
Novo Nordisk
NVO 0.61%
A/S flubbed the launch of its buzzy new weight-loss drug Wegovy, missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and squandering a head start before a rival could begin selling a competing product.
Wegovy is among a new class of drugs that health regulators have approved to cut the weight of people who are obese, a goal long sought by doctors and patients. Their weight-dropping potential became a viral sensation on social media. Elon Musk tweeted about Wegovy in October. And a related drug for diabetes, Ozempic, is a hot topic in Hollywood among celebrities seeking to stay thin, according to doctors.
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Will Novo Nordisk A/S be able to retain its competitive edge with its weight-loss drug? Why or why not? Join the conversation below.
Yet Denmark-based Novo underestimated how big demand for the drug would be, and wasn’t ready to make enough to fill the prescriptions that flooded in after U.S. approval last year. Then a contract manufacturer halted production to address inspection issues.
“We should have forecasted better, which we did not,” Novo Chief Executive
Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen
said. “Had we forecasted that, we would have built a different supply chain.”
The missteps have proven costly for Novo, which was forced to ration Wegovy to patients who already had started taking it. The company has recorded around $700 million in sales to date, well short of the $2 billion in 2021 and 2022 sales that some analysts had projected before supply issues hit.
Novo Nordisk Chief Executive Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen admits the drug company misjudged how popular Wegovy would be.
Photo:
Carsten Snejbjerg/Bloomberg News
Amber Blaylock, a music teacher from Springfield, Mo., said she has been trying to get Wegovy to help her reduce weight since hearing about the drug on TikTok and YouTube. She asked her doctor in September to prescribe it, but hasn’t been able to find it.
“Frustrated and impatient for sure,” said Ms. Blaylock, 29 years old.
To turn things around, Mr. Jørgensen said Novo has increased its capacity to make Wegovy and plans a “relaunch” early next year, which should fulfill all orders.
Novo, however, lost valuable time establishing a beachhead in the lucrative obesity-drug market before rival
Eli Lilly
LLY 1.20%
& Co. can enter. Lilly is expected to launch a similar, competing drug named Mounjaro late next year or in early 2024.
The market for anti-obesity drugs, now worth $2.4 billion worldwide, could reach $50 billion in 2030, Morgan Stanley estimates.
“Novo has left the door open for Lilly,” said BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan David Seigerman.
Mr. Jørgensen said the company can regain lost ground because of high demand for Wegovy and the large potential for what is still a mostly untapped market. He said he was unconcerned with the looming competition with Lilly’s drug, because there is room for both products.
“We disappointed physicians and patients in the first round,” he said. “The company wants to be better prepared for the second round.” Novo lists Wegovy at $1,349 a month. Some commercial insurers cover the drug.
Wegovy works by imitating a hormone called GLP-1, which occurs naturally in the body and suppresses appetite, among other effects.
Novo developed GLP-1 drugs to treat diabetes. In 2017, the company began selling semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy, under the brand name Ozempic to treat diabetes.
During the drug’s development, Novo found that weight loss was a side effect, prompting the company to probe using semaglutide to treat obesity. A key trial found that Wegovy helped people with a high body-mass index shed up to 15% of their weight, surpassing the results for older obesity drugs like Novo’s Saxenda.
Saxenda and other older weight-loss drugs had sold modestly, partly due to their limited weight loss, as well as some unpleasant side effects and the refusal of many health insurers to pay up.
Novo worked with Catalent to fill its Wegovy weight-loss drug into syringes.
Photo:
yara nardi/Reuters
Given the experience, Novo figured Wegovy sales would increase gradually. To augment its own production, Novo contracted with a single manufacturer,
Catalent Inc.,
to fill the drug into syringes. Novo said it thought it would have time to add manufacturing capacity to meet a gradual increase in demand.
Wegovy may be superior to older drugs, but “we thought it would still be a journey to open up the market,” Mr. Jørgensen said.
When Novo started selling Wegovy in the U.S. in June last year, however, demand took off. Doctors with large followings on social media touted Wegovy as groundbreaking, while users posted photos holding injection pens and shared their progress losing weight.
“Demand for these new agents has been unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my time in medicine,” said Dr. Michael Albert, a physician specializing in weight-loss treatment at telehealth provider Accomplish Health who has consulted for Novo. Many of his patients began asking about Wegovy, he said, after they heard about it in Facebook groups or on TikTok.
It took only five weeks for doctors to write new prescriptions for Wegovy at the same weekly volume that Saxenda took four years to reach, according to Mr. Jørgensen. “It’s a completely different ballgame that we’re in,” said Ambre Brown Morley, the company’s vice president of media and digital global communication.
Within weeks, supplies were strained. Novo warned that patients might experience delays in receiving their prescriptions. Then in December 2021, Catalent temporarily stopped deliveries and manufacturing at its plant after Food and Drug Administration inspections found faulty air filters and damaged equipment.
To date, Novo has recorded around $700 million in Wegovy sales compared with the $2 billion in 2021 and 2022 sales that some analysts had projected before supply issues emerged.
Photo:
JACOB GRONHOLT-PEDERSEN/REUTERS
Many people who couldn’t get Wegovy for weight loss have sought prescriptions for Novo’s Ozempic and Lilly’s Mounjaro, according to analysts, even though the FDA hasn’t approved the latter two drugs for such use. Ozempic sales increased so much that certain doses are in short supply through at least January, the FDA said.
Lilly is studying Mounjaro, its GLP-1-containing drug for diabetes, for weight loss.
Novo and Lilly said they don’t promote their diabetes drugs for the “off-label” use treating obesity.
A Catalent spokesman said the company is still making improvements to the plant and working with customers to limit the impact of supply constraints on patients. The company restarted filling Wegovy syringes at the facility in the spring.
Novo has been amassing a sufficient inventory before the Wegovy relaunch, Mr. Jørgensen said. When Wegovy relaunches, he said, insurance coverage will be broader than when the drug first went on sale.
Write to Peter Loftus at Peter.Loftus@wsj.com and Denise Roland at denise.roland@wsj.com
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
A Connection Between Diabetes Medications and Multiple Sclerosis
Summary: People over the age of 45 who use anti-hyperglycemic medications to control their Type 2 diabetes are at increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis. However, those who are under 45 and take anti-hyperglycemic medications are at reduced risk of MS.
Source: University of Arizona
A new University of Arizona Health Sciences study found that people older than 45 whose Type 2 diabetes was treated with anti-hyperglycemic medications had an increased risk of multiple sclerosis, particularly among women, while anti-hyperglycemic exposure in people younger than 45 reduced that risk.
“Our findings reinforce the need for a precision medicine approach to preventing MS in these vulnerable populations,” said lead researcher Kathleen Rodgers, PhD, associate director of translational neuroscience at the Center for Innovation in Brain Science.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an unpredictable autoimmune neurological disorder that affects the central nervous system and leads to severe physical and cognitive disability. It is estimated that nearly 1 million adults in the U.S. and more than 2.8 million worldwide are living with MS.
For people with Type 2 diabetes, there is mounting evidence linking metabolic disorders and MS through a common driver of increased autoimmunity. This brings into question the impact of anti-hyperglycemic therapeutics used to treat Type 2 diabetes, including insulin, on the incidence of MS.
“Previous research has shown a neuroprotective effect of anti-hyperglycemic medications in Alzheimer’s disease and other related dementias,” Dr. Rodgers said. “For MS, we wanted to further examine age and sex differences, particularly among men and women under 45 with Type 2 diabetes.”
They found that men older than 45 years old had a slightly significant increase of MS risk and women older than 45 years exhibited a significant increase in MS incidence after anti-hyperglycemic exposure. In addition to age differences, the risk analysis by drug class showed that exposure to insulin in patients older than 45 years old was associated with a greater increased risk compared with other therapies.
In patients younger than 45, anti-hyperglycemic exposure was protective against the development of MS.
The study utilized a U.S.-based insurance claims database of 151 million participants to identify more than 5 million patients with a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes and either early-onset or late-onset MS. Researchers segmented the data by age – patients diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes prior to or after age 45 – and sex to decode the factors driving MS risk in both populations, especially in women over 45 years of age.
The paper, “Age and sex differences on anti-hyperglycemic medication exposure and risk of newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis in propensity score-matched type 2 diabetics,” was published recently in the journal Heliyon.
Co-authors from the Center for Innovation in Brian Science include Roberta Diaz Brinton, PhD, director and Regents Professor; Francesca Vitali, PhD, research assistant professor of neurology; Georgina Torrandell-Haro, doctoral candidate and graduate research assistant; and Gregory Branigan, PhD, third-year medical student in the UArizona College of Medicine – Tucson’s MD-PhD program.
Funding: This research was supported in part by the National Institute on Aging (P01AG026572, T32AG061897, R37AG053589) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R25NS107185), both divisions of the National Institutes of Health.
About this multiple sclerosis and diabetes research news
Author: Gloria Bloomer
Source: University of Arizona
Contact: Gloria Bloomer – University of Arizona
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Open access.
“Age and sex differences on anti-hyperglycemic medication exposure and risk of newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis in propensity score matched type 2 diabetics” by Kathleen Rodgers et al. Heliyon
Abstract
Age and sex differences on anti-hyperglycemic medication exposure and risk of newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis in propensity score matched type 2 diabetics
See also
Background
The association between exposure to anti-hyperglycemic medications (A-HgM) for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2D) treatment and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in T2D patients is unclear.
Methods
This retrospective cohort analysis used the Mariner claims database. Patient records were surveyed for a diagnosis of MS starting 12 months after diagnosis of T2D. Patients were required to be actively enrolled in the Mariner claims records for six months prior and at least three years after the diagnosis of T2D without a history of previous neurodegenerative disease. Survival analysis was used to determine the association between A-HgM exposure and diagnosis of MS. A propensity score approach was used to minimize measured and unmeasured selection bias. The analyses were conducted between January 1st and April 28th, 2021.
Findings
In T2D patients younger than 45, A-HgM exposure was associated with a reduced risk of developing MS (RR: 0.22, 95%CI: 0.17–0.29, p-value <0.001). In contrast, A-HgM exposure in patients older than 45 was associated with an increased risk of MS with women exhibiting greater risk (RR: 1.53, 95%CI: 1.39–1.69, p < 0.001) than men (RR: 1.17, 95%CI: 1.01–1.37, p = 0 · 04). Patients who developed MS had a higher incidence of baseline comorbidities. Mean follow-up was 6.2 years with a standard deviation of 1.8 years.
Interpretation
In this study, A-HgM exposure in patients with T2D was associated with reduced risk of MS in patients younger than 45 whereas in patients older than 45, exposure to A-HgM was associated with an increased risk of newly diagnosed MS, particularly in women.
4 Medications That Could Be Keeping You Up at Night — Best Life
Anyone who’s cared for an infant, pulled an all-nighter study session, or worked the graveyard shift knows the importance of a good night’s rest. Getting the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per night is essential for not only feeling well-rested but also for mood, cardiovascular health, brain function, immunity, and appetite. But unfortunately, sleep disorders are on the rise. According to the American Sleep Apnea Association, sleep-related problems affect 50 to 70 million Americans of all ages and socioeconomic classes. The causes of our collective sleep deprivation are numerous, but one reason could be lurking in your medicine cabinet. Read on to find out which popular drugs one doctor says might be interfering with your sleep.
READ THIS NEXT: 5 Signs Your Sleep Medication is Hurting You, Doctors Warn.
Antidepressants are among the most commonly prescribed medications because of their efficacy in treating depression. One of the most popular antidepressants, serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), work to combat depression and anxiety by regulating serotonin, known as the “feel good” brain chemical. Unfortunately, though antidepressants like SSRIs work medical wonders and help save lives, they can negatively impact your sleep quality, and even cause insomnia.
“Antidepressants can keep you up at night. Even though it seems counterintuitive, it’s common for antidepressants to cause insomnia,” says Laura Purdy, MD, MBA, and board-certified family physician in Fort Benning, Georgia. “For some people, it can be resolved by taking it in the morning, rather than at bedtime, or perhaps lowering the dose.”
These drugs are frequently prescribed to treat children, adolescents, and adults diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Popular ADHD medications include Ritalin and Adderall, two stimulant medications that can cause insomnia and sleep disturbances. In a 2021 study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, researchers looked at the link between ADHD and insomnia and found that nearly 45 percent of adult ADHD patients had insomnia associated with ADHD medications.
“Many people with ADHD prefer taking shorter-acting stimulants or taking them earlier in the day. That way, the medication has time to wear off before bedtime,” explains Purdy. “Ritalin and Adderall are stimulant medications, causing you to have trouble falling and staying asleep.”
If you’ve dealt with seasonal allergies before, then you’ve likely used (or at least heard of) Benadryl. Benadryl is an over-the-counter medication brand name for an antihistamine called diphenhydramine. Diphenhydramine is used to relieve symptoms associated with allergies, hay fever, and the common cold, including itchy, watery eyes, sneezing, coughing, and runny nose.
Though diphenhydramine and other histamines tend to make you sleepy and sedated, they don’t improve sleep quality. Benadryl can have the reverse effect and cause insomnia. In addition, this popular medication may even lead to hyperactivity, especially in children. Purdy states, “Some people have an idiopathic response, which means instead of getting tired or sedated, they become more awake and alert and have trouble sleeping. Children are particularly susceptible to this.”
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Oral steroids are anti-inflammatory medications that typically come in tablet form. These drugs treat various conditions, including allergies, asthma, eczema, inflammatory bowel disease, and arthritis. While steroids are incredible for resolving many uncomfortable and painful ailments, they can seriously disrupt your sleep. Sleep problems, psychosis, and delirium are commonly reported adverse side effects of corticosteroids (a widely prescribed steroid), according to a 2021 study published in Federal Practitioner.
“Steroids often cause insomnia when taken orally. However, most people do not take steroids for long periods, and the side effects of the steroids resolve when the person stops taking them,” says Purdy.
Best Life offers the most up-to-date information from top experts, new research, and health agencies, but our content is not meant to be a substitute for professional guidance. When it comes to the medication you’re taking or any other health questions you have, always consult your healthcare provider directly.
Biden Administration Pares Back Covid Fight as Funding Push Falls Short
The Biden administration has stopped paying to mail out free Covid-19 tests and expects to end free vaccines for Americans after Congress dropped billions of dollars for such efforts from a government funding bill last month.
People familiar with the matter said the administration’s Covid-19 task force will remain in place ahead of an expected uptick in cases in the coming winter months. But the team will shift focus from emergency response to longer-term issues, such as boosting domestic manufacturing of personal protective equipment, researching long Covid and supporting genomic sequencing to identify variants, the people said.
The shift means that health insurers and employers will likely pay for Covid-19 vaccines, drugs and tests, as they do for most medical products and services.
The administration on Tuesday released updates to the national biodefense strategy that it said would strengthen surveillance for risky pathogens and preparedness for future outbreaks or biowarfare attacks. Some of the planning is under way, officials said, and other aspects are dependent on $88 billion in funding for pandemic preparedness and biodefense the administration has requested from Congress.
Changes in the administration’s pandemic strategy come as Covid-19 cases are climbing in Europe, which is often a precursor to rising case numbers in the U.S. And the arsenal of available treatments for people infected with Covid-19 has dipped as mutations allow variants to evade them.
The White House had sought $22.4 billion from Congress for more Covid tests, vaccines and treatments.
Photo:
Kyle Mazza/Zuma Press
“Just because we’ve ended the emergency phase of the pandemic doesn’t mean Covid is over,” said
Eric Topol,
executive vice president of Scripps Research, a medical-research facility.
After the coronavirus hit, the federal government funded development of some Covid-19 vaccines and took control of the purchase and distribution of the shots, tests and other products to guarantee sufficient supplies and make sure they went where needed.
Federal officials planned to relinquish their control to the private sector after the emergency subsided.
Eli Lilly
& Co. said in August it planned to start selling its Covid-19 antibody drug after federal supplies ran out and without new appropriations from Congress.
The federal government has also wound down its program of providing free Covid-19 tests to people who ordered them online, though it is still distributing free tests in other locations, such as long-term-care facilities and rural health clinics.
The issue is tricky for the Biden administration. President Biden had campaigned on a promise to get the pandemic under control, and the White House has sought to show progress in combating the virus. Yet many Americans have stopped masking and taking other precautions, which administration officials worry will put them at risk if a new wave emerges during the winter.
The administration had sought $22.4 billion for the Covid-19 response from Congress, and it recently extended the pandemic’s status as a public-health emergency. The White House said the money was needed to pay for more tests, vaccines—including development of new, next-generation vaccines—and treatments.
The money wasn’t included in a must-pass government-funding bill last month.
To build support for new funding, Biden administration officials have been warning about the risks to people if cases surge in the cold-weather months and there aren’t sufficient supplies of Covid-19 products because the federal government lacks the money to buy them.
“We are going into this fall and winter without adequate tests because of congressional inaction,”
Ashish Jha,
the White House Covid-19 coordinator, said recently. “You can’t fight a deadly virus without resources.”
Republicans, who opposed including the Covid funds in the spending bill, said there had not been a thorough accounting of how pandemic-relief funds had been spent. Congress had allocated about $4.6 trillion as of August, according to USASpending.gov, which tracks federal-spending information.
“You have been given astonishing amounts of money,” Sen.
Richard Burr
(R., N.C.) said at a recent congressional hearing.
Without a new appropriation, funds for the federal government to buy and supply Covid-19 vaccines are expected to run out by early next year. The administration now is looking into ways to guarantee that about 30 million uninsured people can access future boosters, treatments and vaccines. Foundations, companies and other groups have paid for non-pandemic medicines for some people who don’t have insurance.
The administration is also in talks with various stakeholders such as vaccine makers about how to transition from the government procuring vaccines to more traditional models, such as insurance coverage of shots or treatments.
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Is Congress allocating enough money to fight Covid-19? Why or why not? Join the conversation below.
The administration is also figuring out how to move forward with efforts to develop a more durable, next-generation Covid-19 vaccine without the boost in funds. Without a vaccine that blocks both infection and transmission, the virus has been able to continue mutating to evade immunity. Members of the White House Covid-19 task force have said a nasal vaccine could be more effective because it targets immune responses where the virus first enters the body, though developing such a shot poses scientific challenges.
Anthony Fauci,
the president’s chief medical adviser, said the National Institutes of Health is giving grants totaling more than $60 million over three years to academic institutions for development of a broad coronavirus vaccine. But more funding will be necessary to finish that work, said Dr. Fauci, who leads the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Some public-health leaders and federal officials say the U.S. is falling behind countries such as China, which has introduced a vaccine that is inhaled through the nose and mouth.
“It’s a national-security risk,” said
Jennifer Nuzzo,
a professor of epidemiology and director of the pandemic center at the Brown University School of Public Health in Rhode Island. “Other countries have looked at how the U.S. is struggling.”
—Michael R. Gordon contributed to this article.
Write to Stephanie Armour at Stephanie.Armour@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
The White House wants to show progress in combating the coronavirus. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the White House wants to show progress in combating the vaccine. (Corrected on Oct. 18)
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Study finds Paxlovid can interact badly with some heart medications, and White House renews COVID emergency through Jan. 11
A new study has found that the COVID antiviral Paxlovid can interact badly with certain heart medications, raising concerns for patients with cardiovascular risk who test positive.
The study was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and found the reaction involved such medications as blood thinners and statins. As patients who are hospitalized with COVID are at elevated risk of heart problems, they are likely to be described Paxlovid, which was developed by Pfizer
PFE,
-0.28%.
“Co-administration of NMVr (Paxlovid) with medications commonly used to manage cardiovascular conditions can potentially cause significant drug-drug interactions and may lead to severe adverse effects,” the authors wrote. “It is crucial to be aware of such interactions and take appropriate measures to avoid them.”
The news comes just days after the White House made a renewed push to encourage Americans above the age of 50 to take Paxlovid or use monoclonal antibodies if they test positive and are at risk of developing severe disease.
White House coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told the New York Times that greater use of the medicine could reduce the average daily death count to about 50 a day from close to 400 currently.
“I think almost everybody benefits from Paxlovid,” Jha said. “For some people, the benefit is tiny. For others, the benefit is massive.”
Yet a smaller share of 80-year-olds with COVID in the U.S. is taking it than 45-year-olds, Jha said, citing data said he has seen.
On Thursday, the White House extended its COVID pubic health emergency through Jan. 11 as it prepares for an expected rise in cases in the colder months, the Associated Press reported.
The public health emergency, first declared in January 2020 and renewed every 90 days since, has dramatically changed how health services are delivered.
The declaration enabled the emergency authorization of COVID vaccines, as well as free testing and treatments. It expanded Medicaid coverage to millions of people, many of whom will risk losing that coverage once the emergency ends. It temporarily opened up telehealth access for Medicare recipients, enabling doctors to collect the same rates for those visits and encouraging health networks to adopt telehealth technology.
Since the beginning of this year, Republicans have pressed the administration to end the public health emergency.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has urged Congress to provide billions more in aid to pay for vaccines and testing. Amid Republican opposition to that request, the federal government ceased sending free COVID tests in the mail last month, saying it had run out of funds for that effort.
Separately, the head of the World Health Organization urged countries to continue to surveil, monitor and track COVID and to ensure poorer countries get access to vaccines, diagnostics and treatments, reiterating that the pandemic is not yet over.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said most countries no longer have measures in place to limit the spread of the virus, even though cases are rising again in places including Europe.
“Most countries have reduced surveillance drastically, while testing and sequencing rates are also much lower,” Tedros said in opening remarks at the IHR Emergency Committee on COVID-19 Pandemic on Thursday.
“This,” said the WHO leader, “is blinding us to the evolution of the virus and the impact of current and future variants.”
U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people overall are testing at home, where the data are not being collected.
The daily average for new cases stood at 38,530 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 19% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in six states, namely Nevada, New Mexico, Kansas, Maine, Wisconsin and Vermont, and are flat in Wyoming. They are falling everywhere else.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 7% at 26,665, while the daily average for deaths is down 7% to 377.
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Other COVID-19 news you should know about:
• Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has urged German states to reintroduce face-mask requirements for indoor spaces due to high COVID cases numbers, the Local.de reported. Lauterbach was launching his ministry’s new COVID campaign on Friday. “The direction we are heading in is not a good one,” he said at a press conference in Berlin, adding it’s better to take smaller measures now than be forced into drastic ones later.
• Health officials in Washington and Oregon said Thursday that a fall and winter COVID surge is likely headed to the Pacific Northwest after months of relatively low case levels, the AP reported. King County (Wash.) Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin said during a news briefing that virus trends in Europe show a concerning picture of what the U.S. could soon see, the Seattle Times reported.
• Kevin Spacey’s trial on sexual-misconduct allegations will continue without a lawyer who tested positive for COVID on Thursday, Yahoo News reported. The “American Beauty” and “House of Cards” star is on trial in Manhattan federal court facing allegations in a $40 million civil lawsuit that he preyed upon actor Anthony Rapp in 1986 when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. Jennifer Keller’s diagnosis comes after she spent about five hours cross-examining Rapp on the witness stand over two days — a few feet away from the jury box without wearing a mask.
• A man who presents himself as an Orthodox Christian monk and an attorney with whom he lived fraudulently obtained $3.5 million in federal pandemic relief funds for nonprofit religious organizations and related businesses they controlled, and spent some of it to fund a “lavish lifestyle,” federal prosecutors said Thursday. Brian Andrew Bushell, 47, and Tracey M.A. Stockton, 64, are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unlawful monetary transactions, the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston said in a statement, as reported by the AP.
Here’s what the numbers say:
The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 623.9 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.56 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. leads the world with 96.9 million cases and 1,064,821 fatalities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.2 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 110.8 million have had a booster, equal to 49% of the vaccinated population, and 25.6 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 39% of those who received a first booster.
Some 14.8 million people have had a shot of the new bivalent booster that targets the new omicron subvariants.