From Washington, DC

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) threw a wrench into a Republican plan to avert a government shutdown this weekend, saying there wasn’t enough Democratic support to advance the measure funding federal agencies through Sept. 30.
  • “Republicans “do not have the votes in the Senate,” to move the resolution forward, Schumer said on the Senate floor, indicating that his party was prepared to block it. He blamed Republicans, saying they “chose a partisan path” in their bill without any input from congressional Democrats.  
  • “As an alternative, Schumer floated a shorter-term plan that would fund the government for a month. “I hope my Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday,” he said.
  • “Government funding will lapse at 12:01 a.m. Saturday if Congress doesn’t act. The GOP-led House left town after it approved Republicans’ resolution on Tuesday, effectively giving the Senate no time to revise the bill—but to simply pass it or reject it.”

• The Hill adds,
  • Some Democrats floated the idea that an amendment vote on the 30-day CR, which would fail, could be won in exchange for the requisite number of votes to advance the GOP bill. Some Republicans could support it, according to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), but not enough that it would be adopted. 
  • “It remains unclear whether Republicans would go along with that though. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) did not fully shoot down the idea. 
  • “I think there would have to be some understanding,” he told The Hill on Wednesday evening. “We’ll see. I’m not sure exactly what their demand is — if they just need a vote on that, and if in exchange for that they’ll give us the votes to fund the government.”
  • “Thune added that discussions are “going on right now” on a path forward, but he also panned the idea of a full shift to a 30-day CR in order to finish 2025 appropriations bills.”

• The Wall Street Journal further tells us,
  • “The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to terminate four demonstration projects at the end of 2025, closing out models affecting primary care, kidney care and healthcare payments in the state of Maryland.
  • “The agency will also make changes to other projects, including dropping a planned initiative that would offer certain generic drugs to Medicare enrollees for $2. CMS said its planned terminations would save nearly $750 million, and an agency official said the projects would affect millions of patients.”

• Per Modern Healthcare,
  • “Johnson & Johnson MedTech said Wednesday its Monarch Quest robotic platform received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration.
  • “Robotic-assisted bronchoscopy is a minimally invasive technique that allows surgeons to reach airways and suspicious lung nodules.”

From the public health and medical research front,

• The New York Times reports,
  • “Measles continues to spread in West Texas and New Mexico, with more than 250 people infected — many unvaccinated school-age children. Two cases in Oklahoma, for which state officials have not provided a location, have also been linked to these outbreaks. Twelve other states have reported isolated measles cases, typically linked to international travel.”

• The American Medical Association lets us know what doctors wish patients knew about measles.

• STAT News reminds us,
  • “The 2020s have inarguably been Covid-19’s decade. 
  • “Since the coronavirus outbreak was acknowledged as a pandemic exactly five years ago, the pandemic has killed well over 1 million Americans, derailed the global economy, and sparked political upheaval that continues today. It also yielded what many hail as the greatest scientific accomplishment in human history: the development of effective vaccines in under a year. 
  • “Yet in dominating the early 2020s, Covid-19 also distracted from what is arguably a more significant public health emergency. Even at the height of the pandemic, more young Americans died of drug overdose than Covid. And in the last year, the overall death toll from the country’s drug crisis has exceeded the Covid-19 pandemic as the deadliest health event this generation.”

• MedPage Today notes,
  • “Using only targeted models of syphilis screening in the emergency department (ED) would miss large proportions of active syphilis cases as well as new HIV diagnoses and acute HIV cases, according to new research.
  • “Only screening patients for syphilis who came to the ED for gonorrhea and chlamydia testing would have missed 76.4% of positive syphilis screens as well as 68.7% of new HIV diagnoses, reported Kimberly Stanford, MD, MPH, of the University of Chicago Medical Center.”

• Healio informs us,
  • “An increase in depressive symptoms was observed among U.S. teenagers without, rather than with, behavioral risk factors, underscoring the need for greater screening in this population, data show. 
  • “Over the last decade, national survey data has revealed a sharp rise in depressive symptoms among U.S. adolescents,” Tanner J. Bommersbach, MD, MPH, child and adolescent psychiatrist and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, told Healio regarding the research presented in The Lancet Regional Health Americas. “Yet, surprisingly little is known about what is driving this increase and which adolescents are most affected.”

• Consumer Reports, writing in the Washington Post, explains what to do about ear pain.

• Per a National Institutes of Health press release,
  • “The antiviral drug tecovirimat used without other antivirals did not reduce the time to clinical resolution of clade II mpox lesions or improve pain control among adults in an international clinical trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The trial enrollment was stopped in late 2024 when an interim analysis showed that tecovirimat monotherapy was ineffective in the study population. Detailed results were presented at the 2025 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in San Francisco.
  • “This study brought us a step forward in better understanding mpox disease and potential treatment strategies,” said Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., M.P.H., director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which sponsored and funded the trial. “We are grateful to the study team and participants for their contributions to groundbreaking research on a disease that we still do not know enough about.”

• The National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Information Highlights cover the following topics this week: “AI and Immunotherapy | Breast Reconstruction | Multiple Myeloma Research.”

• Food Safety Magazine alerts us,
  • “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a summary analyzing the causes of foodborne illness outbreaks that occurred between 2014 and 2022. Data included in the analysis was drawn from the Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (FDOSS), via the National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS).
  • “According to CDC, approximately 800 foodborne illness outbreaks occur in the U.S. each year, causing an estimated 15,000 illnesses, 800 hospitalizations, and 20 deaths, annually.
  • “An overall trend revealed in the FDOSS data for 2014–2022 included that many foodborne illness outbreaks occur because of contamination of food by an animal or environmental source before arriving at the point of final preparation. Additionally, most viral outbreaks are caused by contamination from ill food workers. The data showed that common contributing factors to bacterial outbreaks are 1) allowing foods to remain out of temperature control for a prolonged period, and 2) inadequate time and temperature control during cooking.”

• The American Hospital Association News relates,
  • “The AHA and Press Ganey March 12 released a new report showing hospital and health system patients reporting improvements in overall care experience and perception of safety alongside gains in key safety outcomes. It also shows that the health care workforce has had a rebound in their reported experience, resilience and perceptions of safety culture.
  • “The insights report, “Improvement in Safety Culture Linked to Better Patient and Staff Outcomes,” highlights how hospitals that foster a strong culture of safety also report a better experience for patients and the health care workforce.
  • “Key report findings include: 
    • “13 million patients surveyed after hospital stays report improvements in their overall care experience and perception of safety.
    • “Surveys of 1.7 million members of the health care workforce show a rebound in their reported experience, resilience and perceptions of safety culture, following the enormous strain of the COVID-19 pandemic.
    • “Improvements in key safety outcomes like falls and infections across more than 25,000 units in 2,430 hospitals.”

• Per MedTech Dive,
  • “Capstan Medical says it has notched a first in the treatment of structural heart disease, employing a robot to implant two people with mitral valve replacement devices.
  • “Current treatment options for heart valve disease exclude too many patients who are not good candidates for existing procedures, said Capstan CEO Maggie Nixon, and the company hopes its approach will provide them with a new alternative.
  • “The Santa Cruz, California-based startup is developing a valve implant, catheter and robotic delivery platform to expand structural heart intervention to a broader group of people.
  • “There need to be more percutaneous, minimally invasive options to help treat valve disease,” Nixon said in an interview.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Modern Healthcare reports,
  • “Blue Shield of California President and CEO Lois Quam is out at the company two months after taking the helm.
  • “The company declined to explain the circumstances of Quam’s immediate departure.
  • “Chief Financial Officer Mike Stuart will serve as interim president and CEO until the board names a permanent successor, the company said in a news release Tuesday. Stuart has worked at the nonprofit insurer for more than a decade, the company said.
  • “Quam joined the company as president in August after having served as CEO of Pathfinder, a nonprofit global health organization. She was named CEO in early January as part of a corporate restructuring and was touted as its first female CEO.”

• Fierce Healthcare reports,
  • “Health technology company Innovaccer launched a new platform that seeks to make it easier for insurers to manage risk adjustment and quality improvements.
  • “On Wednesday, Innovaccer unveiled the 360-Degree Gap Closure Solution, which assist payers in improving coding accuracy and patient outcomes. The tool comes at a time when the industry is under significant scrutiny from regulators over coding practices.
  • “The platform enables better engagement across different care settings, greater automation and data governance, Innovaccer said. Health plans can deploy one-click campaigns that address care gaps in a way that reaches provider offices, pharmacies and home healthcare.”

• Per BioPharma Dive,
  • “Roche has raised its bet on obesity, agreeing to pay Zealand Pharma $1.65 billion to license an experimental shot the Danish company put into a Phase 2b trial in December, Zealand said Wednesday.
  • “Per deal terms, Roche will pay $1.4 billion immediately and $250 million in anniversary payments to license petrelintide. With further milestone payments, Zealand could receive up to $5.3 billion. Roche and Zealand will co-commercialize the shot in the U.S. and Europe, and share in any profits and losses.
  • “The deal gives Roche access to a type of experimental drug known as an amylin analog, a class the Swiss pharmaceutical company didn’t obtain when it acquired Carmot Therapeutics 15 months ago. Roche plans on testing petrelintide with one of those drugs, for which Zealand could reimburse Roche $350 million.”

• Per MedTech Dive,
  • “Labcorp will pay up to $225 million to acquire the oncology diagnostics businesses of BioReference Health, a subsidiary of Opko Health, to expand its portfolio of tests used in cancer care.
  • “The deal, announced Tuesday, includes $192.5 million to be paid at closing and a payment of up to $32.5 million based on performance. 
  • “The assets, including certain customer accounts, generate about $85 million to $100 million in annual revenue, according to the announcement. Labcorp expects the acquisition to be accretive to earnings in the first year after closing.”

• Healthcare Dive relates,
  • “Hospital operator Landmark Holdings of Florida filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections on March 9, becoming the latest in a growing number of embattled providers to restructure amid financial headwinds. 
  • “In first day court filings, Landmark, which owns or operates six long-term acute care hospitals across three states, said rising labor and pharmaceutical costs, as well as stagnating Medicare reimbursements, had dinged Landmark’s profitability and threatened the provider’s ability to make timely loan repayments.”
  • “Still, Landmark told the court it expects to have enough cash on hand to keep its hospitals open through the bankruptcy process.:

• STAT News lets us know,
  • While there are no official statistics on the number of end-of-life doulas in the United States as this emerging field is still largely unregulated, Fortune reports that the National End-of-Life Doula Alliance (NEDA) has significantly grown its membership, especially after the pandemic. In 2024, NEDA had over 1,500 registered members, compared to about 250 in 2019. 
  • “The term “end-of-life-doula” was first formally used in the early aughts. In 2001, the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services launched the “Doula to Accompany and Comfort Program,” a pilot program that trained volunteers to aid and support people who would otherwise die alone. 
  • “Sometimes known as “death doulas,” [these] professionals * * *help people navigate what can be a confusing and overwhelming time.”