From Washington, DC,
- Govexec reports
- “Weeks following the news that Office of Personnel Management Director Kiran Ahuja would step down, agency Deputy Director Rob Shriver has been appointed acting director of the federal government’s dedicated HR agency.
- “Shriver announced the news in a post on LinkedIn. * * *
- “According to the Vacancies Act, Shriver may serve as acting OPM director for 210 days, or until Dec. 2. If he is ultimately nominated to succeed Ahuja on a permanent basis, he likely will be able to remain in the acting director role during the Senate confirmation process, thanks to his service as her “first assistant” in a Senate-confirmed position.”
- Federal News Network tells us,
- “Highlighting the work federal employees and other civil servants perform, and especially noting their efforts in administrating pandemic recovery programs, President Joe Biden expressed his appreciation for public servants across the country. In keeping with tradition, the White House issued a proclamation that May 5 will mark the beginning of Public Service Recognition Week.
- “PSRW is traditionally celebrated the first full week of May. Many federally-focused organizations, including the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, show appreciation for public servants during the month of May.”
- Govexec adds,
- “Sammie Tafoya, a foreign service officer assigned to Haiti, said she didn’t know what the State Department was when her African history professor encouraged her to apply to work there.
- “Whenever I wrote for his class, he said…‘I think what you are looking for — the idea of being able to push change and to be able to write to inform the people that have power to make policies — there’s actually an agency for that. It’s the State Department. It’s the Foreign Service,’” she said.
- “Tafoya is one of 25 finalists announced Monday for the Partnership for Public Service’s 2024 Service to America Medals. Nicknamed the Sammies after the award’s namesake, Samuel J. Heyman, who founded the nonpartisan organization, the program has been around since 2002 and honors excellence and innovation in the career federal service.
- “The finalists will be recognized at a reception on Thursday, and winners will be announced ahead of an awards ceremony on Sept. 11 at the Kennedy Center. * * *
- “A full list can be found here.”
- The Society for Human Resource Management informs us,
- “On May 3, President Joe Biden vetoed a resolution to overturn the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) joint employer rule. However, the rule has been blocked by a federal district court in Texas, and litigation might continue.
- “Overcoming the veto by a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate and House of Representatives is unlikely. The resolution passed the House by a 206-177 vote on Jan. 12 and cleared the Senate by a 50-48 vote on April 10. SHRM had urged Biden not to veto the measure.”
- The Congressional Research Service posted reports concerning
From the public health and medical research front,
- The New York Time reports,
- “Scientists are proposing a new way of understanding the genetics of Alzheimer’s that would mean that up to a fifth of patients would be considered to have a genetically caused form of the disease.
- “Currently, the vast majority of Alzheimer’s cases do not have a clearly identified cause. The new designation, proposed in a studypublished Monday, could broaden the scope of efforts to develop treatments, including gene therapy, and affect the design of clinical trials.
- “It could also mean that hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone could, if they chose, receive a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s before developing any symptoms of cognitive decline, although there currently are no treatments for people at that stage.
- “The new classification would make this type of Alzheimer’s one of the most common genetic disorders in the world, medical experts said.”
- and
- “A new study, published Saturday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, revealed growing disparities in child death rates across racial and ethnic groups. Black and Native American youths ages 1 to 19 died at significantly higher rates than white youths — predominantly from injuries such as car accidents, homicides and suicides.
- “Dr. Coleen Cunningham, chair of pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine, and the pediatrician in chief at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, who was not involved in the study, said the detailed analysis of the disparities documented “a sad and growing American tragedy.”
- “Almost all are preventable,” she said, “if we make it a priority.”
- The Wall Street Journal discusses efforts in the U.S. to eliminate cervical cancer using the HPV vaccine.
- “Doctors are rallying around an audacious goal: eliminating a cancer for the first time.
- “Cervical cancer rates in the U.S. have dropped by more than half since the 1970s. Pap tests enable doctors to purge precancerous cells, and a vaccine approved in 2006 has protected a generation of women against human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted infection that causes more than 90% of cervical cancers.
- “With this evidence that the disease is preventable, groups that have worked for decades to end polio and malaria are turning to cervical cancer, plotting to take cases down to null. The World Health Organization is urging countries to boost vaccination, screening and treatment. Doctors in the U.S. are working on a national plan.”
- Beckers Hospital Review lets us know,
- “A 12-year-old boy is the first commercial patient in the world to receive an FDA-approved gene therapy for sickle cell disease, The New York Times reported May 6.
- “Kendric Cromer is a 12-year-old boy from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and the first to receive Lyfgenia, a gene therapy treatment created by Somerville, Mass.-based Bluebird Bio. Kendric’s treatment, which costs about $3.1 million, is covered by his family’s insurance. He underwent the first part of treatment at Washington, D.C.-based Children’s National Hospital, in which physicians removed his bone marrow stem cells, which Bluebird will genetically modify for his treatment. The modified cells will be returned in three months.
- “The FDA gave two companies authorization to sell gene therapy to people with sickle cell disease, a genetic disorder that affects roughly 100,000 people, most of them Black.
- “Bluebird estimates it can only treat 85 to 105 patients each year with sickle cell or beta thalassemia, who can receive a similar gene therapy. Children’s National, meanwhile, said it can accept only 10 gene therapy patients a year.”
- The American Medical Association points out “What doctors wish patients knew about osteoporosis.”
- The National Institute for Mental Health updated its website about coping with traumatic events.
- The Washington Post notes, Ultrasound technology is used in many ways. Addiction is the next frontier. The use of the high-frequency sound waves is also being adapted to treat Alzheimer’s disease, tumors and psychiatric disorders.
From the U.S. healthcare business front,
- Fierce Healthcare offers a look at how “major payers fared in a Q1 dragged by a cyberattack, MA challenges,” and Beckers Payer Issues ranks major payers by first quarter 2023 and 2024 medical loss ratios.
- Beckers Payer Issues discusses major Medicare Advantage insurer plans for 2025.
- Healthcare Dive reports,
- “Dallas-based Steward Health Care, the largest physician-led hospital operator in the country, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this morning in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, following months of financial struggles including missed payments to its landlord and vendors.
- “Steward operates more than 30 hospitals across eight states, according to a spokesperson for the company. The filing marks the largest provider bankruptcy in decades, according to Laura Coordes, professor of law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.”