Reuters (9/29, Choudhury, Sunny) reports the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) announced Monday it would launch a new website, to be called AmericasMedicines.com, “to help patients buy prescription drugs directly from manufacturers, bypassing pharmacy benefit managers and other middlemen.” The website, set to be launched in January, “will allow drugmakers to list medicines available for direct purchase and connect patients with programs that offer lower prices and fewer barriers to access.”

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— “US lobby group PhRMA plans website to boost access to cheaper drugs, Reuters, September 29, 2025

Modern Healthcare (9/26, Tepper, Subscription Publication) reported, “Medicare Advantage enrollment could slip next year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Friday.” Health insurers “project Medicare Advantage membership will fall from 34.9 million this year to 34 million in 2026, CMS said in a news release.” Additionally, “insurers…predict that Medicare Advantage will lose ground to fee-for-service Medicare next year.” Modern Healthcare adds, “The privatized program surpassed traditional Medicare in 2023 but will cover 48% of beneficiaries in 2026, down from 50% this year, according to industry estimates reported to CMS.”

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— “Medicare Advantage enrollment may shrink in 2026, CMS says,”Nona Tepper, Modern Healthcare, September 26, 2025

Psychiatric News (9/26) reported a study found that “older adults who took medications to treat hypertension had slower cognitive decline compared with their peers who did not take such medications.” The researchers “combined data from three studies that included 3,361 participants who were taking antihypertensives at baseline and 586 participants who never took these medications.” They observed that “participants using antihypertensives had higher levels of global cognition at baseline and a slower rate of cognitive decline over follow-up compared with non-users – especially in the domains of episodic and semantic memory.” Meanwhile, brain autopsy results “showed that taking antihypertensives was associated with a lower tau tangle density (a marker of Alzheimer’s disease) but not with other neurodegenerative or cerebrovascular pathologies.” The study was published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

Related Links:

— “Antihypertensive Drugs Associated With Slower Cognitive Decline, Psychiatric News , September 26, 2025

HealthDay (9/25, Thompson) reports a study found that “a growing number of Americans appear to be losing their brain power, particularly younger adults.” Researchers analyzed CDC survey data collected annually between 2013 and 2023 and observed that the U.S. “experienced a sharp increase in adults experiencing serious problems with memory, concentration and decision-making.” Overall, “the rate of people reporting thinking problems increased from 5.3% in 2013 to 7.4% in 2023, the survey found. For adults under 40, the rate rose sharply from 5.1% to 9.7%, nearly doubling, researchers said. On the other hand, rates among seniors 70 and older declined slightly, from 7.3% to 6.6%.” According to the study, “the biggest increases were found among people who had less education and earned lower wages.” The study was published in Neurology.

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— “Lights Are Dimming For America’s Brain Power, Study Says,”Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, September 25, 2025

The Washington Post (9/25, Timsit) reports a study published Wednesday in Science Advances explores why our brains sometimes “hold on to some seemingly ordinary moments while letting others slip away.” The study found that “our brains selectively strengthen certain memories when they are associated with important experiences, in a mechanism known as memory enhancement. As part of that process, the brain uses a sliding scale to decide which memories to preserve.” Moreover, the study “suggests that tying ‘fragile’ memories – of typically routine events – to memorable or rewarding moments could prevent them from slipping away, and that doing this in a systematic way could help strengthen useful memories or weaken irrelevant ones.” Study results further indicated “that people were more likely to remember neutral memories that came after a major event if that event was important or meaningful.”

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

Psychiatric News (9/25) reports a systematic review of 25 school-based interventions found that “two school-based trauma intervention programs – Enhancing Resiliency Amongst Students Experiencing Stress (ERASE-Stress) and Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT) – were found to have a high level of evidence for effectiveness.” The eligible studies “tested the intervention effects on posttraumatic stress and other mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, psychological distress, conduct problems, and other internalizing or externalizing symptoms.” ERASE-Stress and TRT were “rated as having a high level of evidence.” Meanwhile, “four interventions met criteria for a moderate level of evidence: Bounce Back, Classroom-Based Intervention, Support for Students Exposed to Trauma, and a selective intervention for Israeli children exposed to violence.” The review was published in Psychiatric Services.

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— “Six School-Based Trauma Interventions Found to Have High or Moderate Effectiveness, Psychiatric News , September 26, 2025

STAT (9/24, Cooney, Gaffney, Merelli, Subscription Publication) reports, “Federal health officials are telling Americans no, they shouldn’t take Tylenol during pregnancy for fear of autism and yes, they should try a drug used in cancer care to treat children who have developed autism. The medical world disagrees.” APA CEO and medical director Marketa Wills, MD, said, “We were actually pretty alarmed by some of the output that was coming from the administration.” And “until more research is conducted, Wills recommends that doctors rely on professional societies, peer-reviewed research in medical journals, and resources like UpToDate and the Washington Manual for guidance on how to talk with patients.” Meanwhile, “despite the FDA’s unusual reapproval of leucovorin as a potential treatment for speech-related autism symptoms, there is not enough evidence for any doctor to recommend the drug to a patient in any scenario, Wills said.” She remarked, “We’re years away from a recommendation for that type of intervention.”

Related Links:

— “Trump’s ‘tough it out’ to pregnant women meets wave of opposition by medical experts,” Elizabeth Cooney, Theresa Gaffney, and Annalisa Merelli, STAT, September 24, 2025

HealthDay (9/24, Gotkine) reports a study found that “for children at federally qualified health centers implementing behavioral health integration, encounters with a behavioral health clinician (BHC) and psychotropic prescriptions are associated with improved psychosocial symptoms.” Researchers observed that among 942 unique children at federally qualified health centers, “57.5 percent received any type of treatment and 42.5 percent were in the control group. The researchers found that the 17-item Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC-17) scores were 1.51 points lower among children in the treatment group after having at least one encounter with a BHC compared with the control group. PSC-17 scores were 2.21 points lower among children in the treatment group after they received a psychotropic prescription compared with the control group. There was no significant change in scores among children with at least one community health worker encounter.” The study was published in JAMA Network Open.

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— “Behavioral Health Integration Can Improve Psychosocial Health of Children,”Elana Gotkine, HealthDay, September 24, 2025

MedPage Today (9/23, George) reports, “Drinking any amount of alcohol increased dementia risk, data from a combined observational and genetic study suggested.” Researchers observed that “light alcohol consumption was associated with low dementia risk in observational analyses, and genetic analyses showed a monotonic increasing dementia risk with higher alcohol intake.” Furthermore, “Mendelian randomization suggested a causal role of alcohol consumption in increasing dementia risk with no evidence supporting a protective effect at any consumption level.” Overall, the study authors concluded the results “challenge the notion that low levels of alcohol are neuroprotective.” The study was published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

The AP (9/22, Swenson, Seitz) reports that on Monday, the President promoted “unproven and in some cases discredited ties between Tylenol, vaccines and autism as his administration announced a wide-ranging effort to study the causes of the complex brain disorder.” In a news conference at the White House, the President urged pregnant women not to take acetaminophen. He urged “mothers not to give their infants the drug, known by the generic name acetaminophen.” Trump “also fueled long-debunked claims that ingredients in vaccines or timing shots close together could contribute to rising rates of autism in the U.S., without providing any medical evidence.”
        
Reuters (9/22, Erman, Aboulenein, Steenhuysen) reports the President, who was accompanied by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “called for a reexamination of a link between vaccines and autism, a theory that has been repeatedly debunked, and a series of changes not grounded in science.” According to Reuters, the Administration’s advice “goes against that of medical societies, which cite data from numerous studies showing acetaminophen plays a safe role in the well-being of pregnant women.” The Administration “also suggested leucovorin, a form of folic acid, as a treatment for autism symptoms.”
        
NBC News (9/22, Lovelace Jr., Bendix, Edwards) reports the President “spoke alongside Kennedy, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.” Kennedy “said the FDA will issue a letter advising health care [professionals] that acetaminophen should be used during pregnancy only in cases of high fever, when the fever itself may pose a health risk to the fetus.” Bhattacharya also “said at Monday’s briefing that the NIH will dedicate $50 million to 13 research projects focused on identifying root causes and treatments for autism,” an effort known as the “autism data science initiative.”
        
Chief Healthcare Executive (9/23, Southwick) reports that the American Psychiatric Association “issued a statement Monday criticizing the federal government for its statements on acetaminophen.” In its statement, the APA said, “Autism is a complex disorder, and it is incorrect to imply that a handful of studies have established causation. A strong base of evidence shows that acetaminophen, when taken as directed, is safe for use during pregnancy. Any decisions around a course of treatment should be determined by a patient and their doctor.”

Related Links:

— “Trump makes unfounded claims about Tylenol and repeats discredited link between vaccines and autism,”Ali Swenson and Lauran Neergaard, AP, September 22, 2025