Happy Mothers Day!

• Per an HHS news release,
  • “On Mother’s Day, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched Moms.gov, a groundbreaking website for new and expecting mothers. This first-of-its-kind resource offers guidance and information to support the health and well-being of mothers and their families.
  • “Moms.gov also supports expecting parents who are navigating difficult or unexpected pregnancies. It features information about pregnancy centers, Federally Qualified Health Centers, nutritional guidance, Trump Accounts, and other resources that allow maternal and infant health to thrive.”

• Bloomberg Law reports,
  • “The Trump administration will encourage more employers to offer fertility benefits by expanding exemptions to certain legal requirements.
  • “The Department of Labor will soon publish a proposed rule that extends the same legal exemptions for vision and dental coverage to the diagnosis, mitigation, and treatment of infertility, according to a White House official.
  • “By altering the category of excepted benefits—those that don’t have to meet certain requirements under the Affordable Care Act—the DOL moves to make good on President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to make fertility care more accessible.
  • “The Treasury and Health and Human Services departments will also issue proposed rules on how insurance providers can offer individuals standalone fertility coverage plans and how employers should handle the tax implications.
  • “The proposed regulation will give a broad definition of covered procedures to include the underlying causes of infertility and other related reproductive health conditions, the official said.
  • “Fertility treatments, which may include in vitro fertilization, donor eggs, and medications, can cost thousands of dollars per treatment.
  • :The proposed rule offers a lifetime benefits cap of $120,000, but the White House official said the administration is seeking public comment on whether a cap is even necessary. The administration will also seek comment on how health insurance providers can offer individuals standalone fertility coverage plans.”

From Washington, DC,

• The House of Representatives and the Senate return to Capitol Hill this week for Committee business and floor voting.

• Tomorrow, the Senate will take a final vote on S. Res. 690, “authorizing the en bloc consideration in Executive Session of (49) certain nominations on the Executive Calendar.” The FEHBlog does not notice any noteworthy nominations on that list.

• Federal News Network reports,
  • “The Postal Service is floating the possibility of Congress stepping in to provide more financial assistance to keep the largely self-funded agency from running out of cash early next year.
  • “Postmaster General David Steiner said USPS hasn’t officially pitched the idea to Congress, but it’s an option lawmakers should consider to get the agency on firmer financial footing. Steiner said USPS will spend the next month refining its wish-list of legislative proposals before sharing it with Congress.
  • “Steiner told members of the House Oversight Committee in March that USPS will run out of cash in early 2027, as long as it continues to pay its bills on time. But USPS is relying on some emergency measures to conserve cash.
  • “To the credit of Congress, they’re not looking for short-term band-aids, but for long-term solutions,” Steiner said Friday at a public meeting of the USPS Board of Governors.”

From the public health and medical / Rx research front,

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • ‘The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sending staff to the Canary Islands to meet a cruise ship with a hantavirus outbreak.
  • “The MV Hondius has a hantavirus outbreak that has killed three people and infected five others; the rare Andes variant is confirmed.
  • “Seventeen American passengers from the ship will be quarantined at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s National Quarantine Unit.” * * *
  • “The facility looks more like a hotel than a hospital. People quarantining at the center are asked not to leave their rooms and receive, essentially, room service brought to their door, said Dr. Michael Wadman, medical director of the National Quarantine Unit at University of Nebraska Medicine.” * * *
  • “If any cruise ship passengers are quarantined and develop symptoms, they will be moved to the nearby Nebraska Biocontainment Unit—a facility isolated from the rest of Nebraska’s medical center, designed to treat patients infected with highly hazardous infectious diseases, according to Nebraska Medicine.
  • “A CDC official said Saturday that ship passengers will be monitored for around six weeks, or 42 days, but not necessarily only in Nebraska. The official said authorities will coordinate with some passengers and local jurisdictions for at-home monitoring, though it wasn’t clear how many people were going home or when.”
    
• MedPage relates,
  • “The CDC has issued a Health Alert Network (HAN) health advisory on hantavirus, urging clinicians to be aware of the potential for imported cases of hantavirus disease in connection with an outbreak of Andes virus aboard a cruise ship.
  • “While the risk of broad spread in the U.S. is “considered extremely unlikely at this time,” the agency noted that early symptoms can be easily confused with influenza or other viral illnesses. In addition, the virus may not be accurately detected in body secretions and excretions within the first 72 hours of symptom onset, so testing should be repeated after that window, the agency warned. * * *
  • “Several state health departments — including Arizona, California, Georgia, and Texas — confirmed to MedPage Today that they are monitoring individuals in their respective states. New Jersey also is monitoring two peopleopens in a new tab or window who were on the same flight as a woman who was symptomatic on board and later died.”

• The Wall Street Journal tells us “After the hantavirus uutbreak here’s what cruise travelers should know.”
  • “The hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius has revived memories of Covid-era cruise chaos. Infectious-disease doctors say the current situation is very different.”

• The Wall Street Journal also reports,
  • “A study of more than 57,000 iPhone users confirmed a correlation between hearing loss and slower walking speeds.
  • “The Apple and University of Michigan study used data people agreed to share via Apple’s Research app.
  • “Doctors state addressing hearing issues could lead to a longer, healthier life and recommend annual hearing tests.”

• Healio informs us,
  • “Among adults with obesity, the risk for new physician-reported sleep apnea and new-onset obstructive sleep apnea significantly fell if they used vs. did not use a GLP-1 agonist, according to data from two studies.
  • “Both studies were published in Annals of the American Thoracic Society.“

From the U.S. healthcare business and artificial intelligence front,

• HR Dive reports,
  • “The merit increases employers awarded this year were only slightly below previous projections, with a mean 3.1% merit increase, versus a 3.2% projection in October 2025, according to the latest Mercer QuickPulse Compensation Planning Survey.
  • “Average total increases were 3.4%, versus a predicted 3.5%, per the report. 
  • “Meanwhile, just 4% of employers gave workers equal, across-the-board salary increases, also called “peanut butter” raises, rather than merit increases, Mercer found. Most still use a combination of individual performance and position relative to market value or relative to peers.”

• Healio relates,
  • “The AI tools that benefit clinicians most are not always the glamourous ones contributing to drugs, robotics and therapeutics innovations, but could also be the mundane ones that help ease physician burnout. 
  • “That is according to David Ting, MD, keynote speaker at Digestive Disease Week.
  • “Ting, chief clinical product lead at Microsoft and primary care internist and pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital, told attendees he envisions a 2036 where AI products assist with the ordinary: workflow redesign, administrative burden and workplace collaboration.
  • “AI also might one day take center stage in reshaping the clinical environment and restoring the “joy of practice,” he said.”

• BioPharma Dive tells us,
  • “Odyssey Therapeutics, a maker of medicines for autoimmune disorders, has brought in $279 million through an initial public offering that’s been more than a year in the making.
  • “Selling 15.5 million shares at $18 each, Odyssey on Thursday raised more than what it expected and became the latest drug company of late to top $250 million in IPO proceeds. The company also added another $25 million to its haul via a concurrent private stock sale at the IPO price. Odyssey is now the 11th biotech company to go public so far this year, according to BioPharma Dive data, and will start trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday under the ticker symbol “ODTX.”
  • “Odyssey is led by Gary Glick, a biotech veteran who’s led multiple drug startups that were later acquired. Glick launched the company in 2021 with backing from the likes of OrbiMed and SR One, and it’s since netted $727 million in venture funding.”
    
• Healthcare Dive informs us,
  • “Staffing technology company Cross Country Healthcare has entered into an agreement to be acquired by private equity firm Knox Lane in an all-cash deal worth $437 million.
  • “The acquisition, which will take Cross Country private, values the company at $13.25 per share, a 31% premium over the staffing firm’s closing stock price on Wednesday, according to a press release. It’s expected to close in the third quarter if the deal clears regulatory approval.
  • “The deal comes months after Cross Country and travel nursing agency Aya Healthcare abandoned plans to combine following antitrust scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission.”
• That’s a better outcome than Spririt Airlines experienced.