From Washington, DC,

• The FEHBlog watched the closing of today’s Senate session. He learned that late tomorrow morning the Senate will vote to invoke cloture on the nomination of Scott Kupor to be OPM Director for a four-year term and if cloture is invoked the Senate will vote to confirm Mr. Kupor’s nomination tomorrow afternoon.

• Govexec tells us,
  • “President Trump on Monday extended his administration’s hiring freeze of all federal civilian positions for another three months, leaving in place the moratorium into the start of fiscal 2026.
  • “The freeze, which the president initially ordered on Jan. 20, the day he took office, prevents the hiring of civilian employees at federal agencies for either vacancies or new positions. The initial executive order was set to run through April 20 and was subsequently extended until July 15.
  • “As with previous orders, the freeze exempts positions related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety, as well as the components of the Executive Office of the President. The order also reiterated that roles will be filled to protect the “provision of Social Security, Medicare, or veterans’ benefits.” Despite the carveouts, the Defense Department continues to operate under a partial hiring freeze of its own for civilian personnel.” 

• Per MedTech Dive,
  • “Boston Scientific said Monday it gained Food and Drug Administration approval for use of its Farapulse pulsed field ablation system in people with persistent atrial fibrillation, broadening the pool of patients eligible for the treatment.
  • “Farapulse has become a significant growth driver for Boston Scientific as physicians embrace the technology for its potential safety benefits over traditional cardiac ablation methods to treat AFib, an irregular heartbeat that increases stroke risk.
  • “The label expansion, for both the Farawave and Farawave Nav PFA catheters, was backed by evidence from the first phase of the Advantage AF clinical trial, which met its primary safety and effectiveness goals.”

• Cardiovascular Business adds,
  • “Boston Scientific has received an expanded approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Farapulse Pulsed Field Ablation (PFA) System. More U.S. heart patients are now eligible to be treated with the technology than ever before.
  • “The Farapulse PFA system first gained FDA approval to treat patients with symptomatic, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AFib) back in January 2024. This new approval covers patients with symptomatic, persistent AFib that is resistant to drug treatment. 
  • “Backed by clinical evidence and our global commercial experience, this update advances our efforts to further shape the future of AFib treatment with safe and effective ablation technologies,” Brad Sutton, MD, chief medical officer of AFib solutions for Boston Scientific, said in a statement. “We look forward to studying the system in new clinical trials, including patients in need of re-do ablations and those with more complex arrhythmias, which account for a large portion of the procedures today still using thermal ablation.”

From the judicial front,

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a halt on President Trump’s plan to shrink the federal workforce, clearing the way for potential mass layoffs. 
  • “In February, Trump issued an executive order aimed at drastically reducing the government’s workforce “by eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity.” The order directed heads of agencies to work with the Department of Government Efficiency on hiring decisions and developing plans for layoffs. In May, a federal judge in San Francisco blocked it from taking effect
  • “The high court, in an unsigned order on Tuesday, said it had based its decision on the legality of Trump’s executive order, and didn’t rule on whether any reorganization plans broke the law.  
  • “The Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful,” the court said. 
  • “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, accusing the court of greenlighting legally dubious actions.” * * *
  • “Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday wrote separately to concur with the court’s decision to lift the halt, noting that the plans themselves weren’t before the high court. She said the district court could still consider the legality of the layoff plans.”
     
• Fedweek adds,
  • OPM said “hundreds of thousands” of federal employees accepted deferred resignation offers while confirming that “tens of thousands” are facing layoffs in pending RIFs.
  • OPM made that statement in the first—although not exact—accounting of the government-wide impact of those offers, and touted a reduction in the federal employee count on its FedScope site to just under 2.29 million through March, down by some 23,000 from last September.
  • “In addition, hundreds of thousands more workers will drop off the rolls in October 2025, when workers depart the federal government as part of the Deferred Resignation Program; and tens of thousands of employees who have received reduction-in-force or termination notices remain on government payrolls due to court orders that the administration is now challenging,” the OPM said prior to Tuesday’s SCOTUS decision siding with the White House.

• Per Fierce Healthcare,
  • “Southwest Airlines is buckling up to join in on a long-running legal battle surrounding an alleged price-fixing scheme involving generic medicines in the U.S.
  • “In a 730-page lawsuit filed in federal court in Pennsylvania, the airline targets dozens of drugmakers and argues the companies “deprived the public” of the benefits of cheaper generic drugs by fixing the price of their meds since at least 2009. Among the generic defendants named are Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Sandoz, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Lupin and Apotex.
  • “The scheme cost Southwest, a large employer that self-funds its employee health plans, “hundreds of millions of dollars” and caused “substantial injury” to its business, the company claims in the recently unsealed lawsuit.” * * *
  • “American Airlines and Target are among other large employers that have sued the group of generic drugmakers. The companies filed a joint lawsuit in the same court back in April 2024, Bloomberg Law reported at the time. 
  • “The issue is also playing out in pending multi-district litigation grouping more than 20 separate lawsuits that date back to 2016. A handful of drugmakers, including Sandoz, Apotex, and Sun Pharma, have so far agreed to multi-million dollar settlements to resolve their end of the claims.” * * *
  • “Southwest, for its part, cited the federal government’s prosecution efforts in its own case. At least seven companies have admitted to criminal wrongdoing, according to the Department of Justice, and have agreed to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars in fines, civil penalties and restitution.”

From the public health and medical research front,

• The American Hospital Association News tells us,
  • “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention July 7 announced it is streamlining H5N1 bird flu updates with its routine influenza data given the low public health risk and lack of person-to-person spread. Data on the number of people monitored and tested for bird flu will be reported monthly.
  • “Bird flu detection data in animals will no longer be reported on the CDC website; instead, it will be publicly available on the U.S. Department of Agriculture website.”
• and
  • “A study published July 7 by JAMA found children’s health has significantly worsened from 2007 to 2023. Researchers studied changes in child mortality; chronic physical, developmental and mental health conditions; obesity; sleep health; early puberty; limitations in activity; and physical and emotional symptoms. Researchers said the findings highlight the need to identify root causes for the decline in health.”
    
• Beckers Clinical Leadership lets us know eight things to know about the JAMA report on children’s health.

• STAT News reports,
  • “Female hearts are different from male hearts, down to their cell populations and up to the thickness of their walls, making cardiovascular care far from one-size-fits-all. There’s a growing appreciation that heart attack symptoms occur on a spectrum. Women may not have the classic crushing chest pain that men do; they may feel a subtler, wider discomfort that can delay care. 
  • “There’s another potentially deadly, dramatic difference. Men are much more likely than women to suffer sudden cardiac arrest, but when female athletes do collapse on the playing field from sudden cardiac arrest, they are less likely than male athletes to be resuscitated right away, despite coaches, trainers, or teammates watching on the sidelines. That’s a disparity women share outside sports events with people of color, whose chances of receiving life-saving help from bystanders are even lower. 
  • “Across disciplines, scientists are arguing for the importance of studying sex differences throughout biomedical research. Sports medicine researchers are also bringing new attention to women, from young competitors in the spotlight to older amateurs trying to stay active.” “

• Beckers Hospital Review points out,
  • “Mississippi had the highest mortality rate across all cancer types between 2018 and 2022, according to data published by the American Cancer Society. 
  • “The American Cancer Society used data from the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries to calculate mortality rates per 100,000 people for each state and each cancer type.
  • “Read the states with the highest cancer incidence, by type, here.”
• and
  • “A commonly prescribed medication used to counteract lung cancer therapy side effects could be minimizing a cancer treatment’s efficacy, according to research from Los Angeles-based Keck Medicine of USC. 
  • “To evaluate how baseline steroid use can affect immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, researchers analyzed clinical outcomes of 277 patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Corticosteroids, a frequently prescribed steroid to treat side effects common to this type of lung cancer, was associated with worse outcomes, the study found. 
  • “Among 88 patients at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, N.Y., and 189 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles who received immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, 21 were taking steroids at the start of ICI therapy. Compared to those not taking corticosteroids, these patients experienced a higher number of negative effects. 
  • “The study, published July 7 in Cancer Research Communications, found a worse overall response rate and shorter overall survival and progression-free survival rates among lung cancer patients taking the steroid concurrent with ICI therapy. 
  • “Additionally, higher doses of corticosteroids severely affected ICI therapy and patient outcomes more than small or medium doses.”

• Per Health Day,
  • “Some women have expressed concerns about the risk of breast cancer associated with using hormone therapy to treat symptoms of menopause like hot flashes and night sweats, and now, new research suggests that one type of hormone therapy might increase your risk if you’re younger than 55.
  • “Women in this age group who were treated with estrogen plus progestin were more likely to develop breast cancer than those not on hormone therapy, researchers report in The Lancet Oncology.
  • “On the other hand, women younger than 55 given estrogen alone, without progesterone, had a lower risk of breast cancer, results show.
  • “Hormone therapy can greatly improve the quality of life for women experiencing severe menopausal symptoms or those who have had surgeries that affect their hormone levels,” lead author Katie O’Brien, an epidemiologist with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said in a news release.”

• Per BioPharma Dive,
  • “Biotech and pharma companies are searching for ways to “hijack” the cell’s waste disposal systems in hopes of making more effective drugs.”
• and
  • “Glucotrack, which is developing a glucose monitor that is implanted through a minimally invasive surgery, said the small study met safety and performance goals.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Risk and Insurance reports,
  • “Medical stop loss claims are undergoing significant shifts as cancer diagnoses remain dominant across all deductible levels while million-dollar claims have doubled in frequency over four years, driven by expensive treatments and rising disease prevalence among younger populations, according to analysis by QBE.” * * *
  • “View the full report here.”
    
• Check out Adam J. Fein who writes in Drug Channels,
  • “The 2025 launch of biosimilars to Johnson & Johnson’s Stelara (ustekinumab) marks another turning point in pharmacy benefit dynamics. But unlike the chaotic rollout of Humira biosimilars, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) came prepared.
  • “Private label strategies, aggressive pricing, and exclusive formulary deals have transformed what might have been a slow-crawling biosimilar introduction into a full-on pricing war. As with Humira, the reality of biosimilar economics is far messier—and more revealing—than the policy narratives suggest.
  • “In this post, I examine how the major PBMs—and some of the smaller ones—are handling Stelara biosimilars, what’s changed since the Humira experience, and why their strategies reflect the growing dominance of private-label rebating schemes.”

• Beckers Hospital Review calls attention to “18 health systems that recently had their outlooks upgraded by Fitch Ratings or Moody’s Investors Service in 2025, and considers the state of virtual nursing
  • “Virtual nursing has continued to expand since bursting onto the scene a few years ago. But has the care model lived up to its promise?
  • “Health system leaders told Becker’s that virtual nursing still has room to grow but has had positive benefits for the industry thus far.
  • “While virtual nursing has proven effective at boosting patient outcomes and satisfaction, its broader adoption faces significant barriers: high implementation costs, complex regulatory policies and the challenge of integrating new hospital workflows,” said Zafar Chaudry, MD, senior vice president and chief digital, AI and information officer of Seattle Children’s.”

• Per Fierce Healthcare,
  • “Nearly all states saw declines in the number of acute care hospitals offering obstetric services between 2010 through 2022, with seven states seeing a quarter or more of their hospitals dropping obstetric care, according to new analysis.
  • “The shutdowns were spread across urban and rural hospitals alike, but more pronounced in the latter. Twelve states lost obstetric services among a quarter or more of their hospitals, and by 2022, there were eight states in which more than two-thirds of all rural hospitals did not offer obstetric care, researchers found.” * * *
  • “Rural hospital obstetrics closures exceeded more than 40% in Pennsylvania (46.2%), South Carolina (46.2%), West Virginia (42.9%) and Florida (40%) between 2010 and 2022. Urban hospital closure percentages were less pronounced among individual states, with Rhode Island (28.6%), Oklahoma (27.6%) and Hawaii (25%) leading the way.
  • “Three states—Delaware, Utah and Vermont—had no hospital obstetric service losses during the study window, as opposed to the seven (Iowa; Oklahoma; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; Washington, D.C.; and West Virginia) that saw cuts among a quarter or more of their hospitals. Rural-urban divides were also spotted within individual states, such as New Hampshire, where 36.4% of rural hospitals lost obstetrics as opposed to zero urban hospitals.
  • “Access to obstetric care is a key determinant of health outcomes among mothers and infants, the researchers wrote. The study’s findings could be a resource for policymakers and others to craft targeted, state-level interventions addressing access disparity.”
• and
  • “Humana’s senior-focused primary care unit is set to acquire The Villages Health, which provides care to the large Florida-based retirement community.
  • “The Villages Health filed for bankruptcy last week as it seeks to undergo a strategic restructuring designed to “preserve the business’s day-to-day operations and further enhance patient care.” Humana’s CenterWell has entered a “stalking horse” agreement to buy TVH’s assets, according to an announcement.
  • “Finalizing the sale will require a court order after an auction process that accepts additional bids. As it navigates the sale and bankruptcy proceedings, The Villages Health said it will continue to operate as normal, with the goal of averting disruptions to patient care.
  • “As CenterWell is payer-agnostic, current TVH patients are “expected” to be able to maintain the relationship with their existing providers, according to the release.”