NBC News (7/27, Tsirkin) reports, “A bipartisan group of lawmakers is working to address the staggering number of opioid overdoses nationwide, with two-thirds of drug overdose deaths last year caused by synthetic opioids like fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” On Thursday, “Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Chris Coons, D-Del., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced legislation aimed at expanding access to fentanyl test strips.” The legislation “would clarify the federal drug paraphernalia statute to exclude the test strips, potentially life-saving tools that remain criminalized in many states.”

Related Links:

— “A new bipartisan bill aims to increase access to fentanyl test strips amid overdose deaths,”Julie Tsirkin, NBC News, July 27, 2023

USA Today (7/27, Hauck) reports, “Gun suicides reached an all-time high in the United States in 2022, and the gun suicide rate among Black teens surpassed that of white teens for the first time on record,” according to “newly-released provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions in Baltimore.” In addition, guns “remained the leading cause of death for children and teens, marking the fifth straight year that firearms have claimed the lives of more minors than any other cause, including car crashes and cancer.” The provision data are “based on information from death certificates.”

Related Links:

— “‘A hidden epidemic’: Gun suicides reached an all-time high in the US in 2022,”Grace Hauck, USA TODAY, July 27, 2023

The Washington Post (7/26, Bever) reports, “Some people who experience cognitive issues after long covid continue to struggle with brain function for at least two years, a…study shows.” The Post adds, “Researchers in the United Kingdom found that people who reported having long-covid symptoms for at least 12 weeks after being infected with the coronavirus showed reduced performance in tests for, among other things, memory, reasoning and motor control, for up to two years after the infection.” Their conclusions were published online in eClinicalMedicine.

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (7/26, Reinberg) reports, “More than half of all patients with autoimmune diseases also suffer from depression and anxiety,” although “most are never asked about their mental health,” researchers concluded in a survey study involving “more than 1,800 patients.” The study revealed that “more than half rarely or never reported their mental health symptoms to their” physician, possibly meaning that “the range of mental health and neurological symptoms is much wider than has been reported.” The findings were published online July 26 in the journal Rheumatology.

Related Links:

— “Over Half of People With Autoimmune Conditions Suffer Depression, Anxiety,”Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, July 26, 2023

Healio (7/26, Cooper) reports, “An analysis of poisoning-related suicides in Australia identified several substances to be careful about prescribing, while finding that ‘many medicines are present at lower levels,’ even in non-poisoning suicides,” according to findings published online July 26 in JAMA Psychiatry. The “cross-sectional study,” which “examined suicides from July 2013 to October 2019 using postmortem toxicology data from Australia’s National Coronial Information System,” included “13,664 decedents…24.9% of whose suicides were classified as poisoning-related.” Investigators concluded that “the most common substances in poisoning-related suicides – such as tricyclic antidepressants, sedatives and opioids – should be prescribed cautiously or monitored.”

Related Links:

— “Analysis of poisoning suicides warns of opioids, sedatives, tricyclic antidepressants,”Justin Cooper, , July 26, 2023

Bloomberg Law (7/25, Belloni, Subscription Publication) reports, “Medicaid advocates are sounding the alarm over systemic oversight failures and misaligned incentives that allow Medicaid managed care companies to restrict patient access to health care services.” The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General “found that 37 states it surveyed had systemic problems with their prior authorization processes, leading to inappropriate denials of coverage.” Among the issues were failing to let Medicaid patients know about “their right to appeal a denial, allowing insufficiently trained staff to make prior authorization decisions, and writing notices in ambiguous, often hard-to-understand language that missed or concealed important information such as the reason for a rejection.”

Related Links:

— “Medicaid Advocates Decry Coverage Denials for Poor in Report (1),”Ganny Belloni, Bloomberg Law, July 25, 2023

KFF Health News (7/25, DeGuzman) reports, “The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline’s 988 hotline marked its one-year milestone this month,” with “mental health experts” saying “the three-digit number made help more accessible than before.” The “huge increase of calls to 988 compared with those to the” old “1-800 number in just a year is likely linked to the simplicity of the three-digit code, said Adrienne Breidenstine, vice president of policy and communications at Behavioral Health System in Baltimore.” The hotline “does not use geolocation,” however, “meaning call centers don’t automatically receive information about callers’ locations,” and many older adults have a low awareness of the hotline and the services it offers.

Related Links:

— “A year with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: What worked? What challenges lie ahead?,”Colleen DeGuzman, KFF Health News, July 25, 2023

CNN (7/25, McPhillips) reports, “At least 20 states have enacted policies restricting healthcare for transgender youth, and the loss of gender-affirming care clinics in those states has dramatically increased the average travel time to a” clinician, investigators concluded.

Healio (7/25, Monostra) reports, “Government-enacted restrictions have resulted in about half of U.S. children and adolescents aged 10 to 17 years living more than one hour from a clinic offering gender-confirming care,” investigators concluded in the findings of a research letter published in JAMA. The study identified “271 gender-confirming clinics…of which 25.8% were located in states with restrictions,” such as “Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.” What’s more, “an estimated 89,100 transgender adolescents live in those states, representing about 30% of all transgender youths in the U.S.”

Related Links:

— “State restrictions on gender-affirming care for children have doubled the average travel time to a provider in the US, study shows,” Deidre McPhillips, CNN, July 25, 2023

According to the AP (7/25, Megerian, Miller), on July 25, the Biden Administration “announced new rules meant to push insurance companies to increase their coverage of mental health treatments.” These “new regulations, which still need to go through a public comment period, would require insurers to study whether their customers have equal access to medical and mental health benefits and to take remedial action, if necessary.” Were the rules to be finalized, they “would force insurers to study patient outcomes to ensure the benefits are administered equally, taking into account their” clinician “network and reimbursement rates and whether prior authorization is required for care.”

Reuters (7/25, Holland) reports, “The administration…will release the text of a proposed rule change to the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act,” that “would also provide specific examples that make clear that health plans cannot use more restrictive prior authorization, other medical management techniques or narrower networks that make it harder for people to access mental health and substance use disorder benefits.” The proposed rule change text “will be open to public comment for 60 days and administration officials said they expected it would go into effect sometime afterward.”

Related Links:

— “The Biden administration proposes new rules to push insurers to boost mental health coverage,” Zeke Miller and Chris Megerian, AP, July 25, 2023

Healio (7/24, Bascom) reports, “Replacing mayonnaise and margarine with olive oil may reduce the risk for mortality from dementia among adults in the United States,” researchers concluded after conducting “a study including 60,582 women and 31,801 men to evaluate the connections between olive oil intake and subsequent risk for dementia-related mortality, which they ascertained from death records.” The findings were presented at NUTRITION 2023. HealthDay (7/24, Norton) also covers the study.

Related Links:

— “Choosing olive oil over margarine and mayonnaise may reduce dementia mortality risk,”Emma Bascom, Healio , July 24, 2023