In early April, YouTube took down a video featuring Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a group of controversial scientists at a March 18 coronavirus roundtable. The online video platform, owned by Google, cited as its rationale that the video contained false statements about the efficacy of children’s mask-wearing.

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The decision has drawn public blowback on social media and from DeSantis himself.

DeSantis held another public roundtable on April 12 (which is currently available on YouTube), along with three of the same scientists who participated in the March 18 session, during which he blasted YouTube for taking down the earlier video, calling the action “censorship.”

He said Google and YouTube have not acted as “repositories of truth and scientific inquiry” throughout the covid pandemic but instead as “enforcers of a narrative.”

“What we’re witnessing is Orwellian,” DeSantis said. ‘It’s … Read the rest

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University of Virginia Health System, which for years has sued thousands of patients annually for unpaid bills, said Monday it will cancel a massive backlog of court judgments and liens resulting from those lawsuits dating to the 1990s.

This story also ran on The Washington Post. It can be republished for free.

Combined with reforms UVA announced in 2019, the move is likely to benefit tens of thousands of families and make UVA Health’s collections policies much more generous than those of many hospital systems, said scholars who study health care finance. The decision to wipe out liens that can drain home equity years after a hospital visit is extremely rare, they said.

UVA had been suing patients for decades, many with unpaid bills in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, KHN reported in 2019. Once the health system won cases in court, it could seize wages and … Read the rest

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En respuesta a la pandemia de covid-19, el Congreso ha invertido decenas de miles de millones de dólares en los departamentos de salud pública estatales y locales, pagando por máscaras, rastreadores de contactos y campañas educativas para persuadir a las personas de que se vacunen.

Sus funcionarios, que han manejado presupuestos famélicos durante años, están felices de tener este dinero adicional. Sin embargo, les preocupa que esta ayuda pueda desaparecer pronto, a medida que la pandemia se repliega, continuando con un ciclo de altas y bajas en la financiación, que ha plagado al sistema de salud pública de los Estados Unidos durante décadas.

Advierten que, si los presupuestos se recortan de nuevo, la nación podría volver a donde estaba antes de covid: sin preparación para enfrentar una crisis de salud.

“Necesitamos fondos con los que podamos contar año tras año”, dijo la doctora Mysheika Roberts, comisionada de salud de Columbus, … Read the rest

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The effort to vaccinate Americans against covid-19 took a hit this week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration jointly called for a pause in use of the vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson while experts try to figure out whether it is responsible for a small number of serious blood clots, mostly in women of childbearing age. While the J&J vaccine has so far made up only a small percentage of vaccines delivered in the U.S., experts are worried that concerns about it could spread to the other vaccines currently in use and exacerbate vaccine hesitancy.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden unveiled a budget that calls for major increases in health programs, and his administration moved to keep promises to abortion-rights backers regarding the abortion pill and the federal family planning program, Title … Read the rest

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California Healthline correspondent Rachel Bluth unpacked California’s newly expanded vaccine eligibility rules and the state’s vaccine appointment website on KALW’s “Your Call” on Thursday.

• Click here to hear Bluth on KALW

California Healthline correspondent Angela Hart discussed California cities’ experiment with city-managed homeless camps on KQED’s “Forum” on Thursday.

• Click here to hear Hart on KQED
• Read Hart’s “‘Go Ahead and Vote Me Out’: What Other Places Can Learn From Santa Rosa’s Tent City“

Midwest editor and correspondent Laura Ungar joined a covid-19 reporter’s roundtable on Illinois Public Media’s “The 21st Show” on Wednesday. Ungar also discussed gender-based vaccine disparities with KCBS on Tuesday.

• Click here to hear Ungar on Illinois Public Media
• Click here to hear Ungar on KCBS
• Read Ungar’s “The Gender Vaccine Gap: More Women Than Men Are Getting Covid Shots“

Digital producer Hannah Norman discussed over-the-counter rapid tests with Newsy’s “Morning Rush” on April 9.

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Robin Hauser, a pediatrician in Tampa, Fla., got covid in February. What separates her from the vast majority of the tens of millions of other Americans who have come down with the virus is this: She got sick seven weeks after her second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

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“I was shocked,” said Hauser. “I thought: ‘What the heck? How did that happen?’ I now tell everyone, including my colleagues, not to let their guard down after the vaccine.”

As more Americans every day are inoculated, a tiny but growing number are contending with the disturbing experience of getting covid despite having had one shot, or even two.

In data released Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that at least 5,800 people had fallen ill or tested positive for the coronavirus two weeks or more after they completed both … Read the rest

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Chuck Peterson of Omaha, Nebraska, recently experienced a swollen, painful knuckle caused by arthritis. He got a prescription for colchicine.

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Doctors have used the drug for treating gout and other rheumatic conditions for well over two centuries.

When Peterson went to the pharmacy, he was shocked to discover that a two-month supply of 120 pills, distributed by Par Pharmaceutical, would cost him $225 out-of-pocket on his Medicare Part D drug plan. Taking it for an additional three months, as his rheumatologist wanted him to do, would cost him nearly $600 under his drug plan.

A dozen years ago, the drug cost about a dime per pill.

“My reaction was ‘goodness gracious,’ or maybe something I couldn’t say in polite company,” he said.

The startling price hike was precipitated by a well-intentioned federal government program, called the Unapproved Drugs Initiative, that created … Read the rest

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The Biden administration Wednesday formally proposed the repeal of Trump-era regulations barring abortion referrals and making other changes intended to evict Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from the federal family planning program, Title X. The 2019 rules dramatically limited access to these family planning services for many low-income people.

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In promising to return to the pre-Trump rules for the program, the new regulations by the Department of Health and Human Services note that the Trump policy “has been devastating to the hundreds of thousands of Title X clients who have lost access to critical family planning and related preventive health services.” Since the Trump rules took effect, Planned Parenthood and many city and state health departments have dropped out of the program, resulting in six states with no Title X providers and six more with dramatically reduced services.

KHN is … Read the rest

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In certain circles of San Francisco, a case of syphilis can be as common and casual as the flu, to the point where Billy Lemon can’t even remember how many times he’s had it.

This story is from a partnership that includes NPR, KQED and KHN. It can be republished for free.

“Three or four? Five times in my life?” he struggles to recall. “It does not seem like a big deal.”

At the time, about a decade ago, Lemon went on frequent methamphetamine binges, kicking his libido into overdrive and silencing the voice in his head that said condoms would be a wise choice at a raging sex party.

“It lowers your inhibitions, and also your decision-making abilities are skewed,” said Lemon, who is 50.

He’s sober now and runs the Castro Country Club in San Francisco — which is not a resort, but a place where gay men … Read the rest

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Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has joined Big Ass Fans, lending his scientific credibility to a company division that says its ion-generating technology kills the coronavirus. The company charges $9,450 for a fan with technology that academic air quality experts question.

This story also ran on The Daily Beast. It can be republished for free.

As strategic health and safety adviser, he follows Dr. Deborah Birx, former White House coronavirus response coordinator, into the booming air purifying industry. Last month, she signed on with ActivePure, a company that also makes a pitch about virus-destroying technology, but markets some devices that run afoul of California indoor air quality rules, according to a KHN investigation.

The two bring name recognition to companies selling products that are advertised to make it safer for people to gather maskless inside schools, offices, gyms and stores. The companies … Read the rest

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