Publisher Health

The state’s insurance regulator has demanded detailed information about patients and their medications, raising privacy concerns.Florida’s insurance regulator has demanded an unusually intrusive trove of data on millions of prescription drugs filled in the state last year, including the names of patients taking the medications, their dates of birth and doctors they’ve seen.The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation in January sought this information from pharmacy benefit managers like UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx and CVS Health’s Caremark, companies that oversee prescription drugs for employers and government programs.It remained unclear why the state was ordering the submission of so much data. In a letter to one benefit manager reviewed by The New York Times, the regulator said the state required the data to review whether the benefit managers, known as P.B.M.s, were compliant with a 2023 state law aimed at lowering drug prices and reining in the managers.But the demand is sparking concerns about government overreach and patient privacy.“You don’t need such granular patient information for purposes of oversight,” said Sharona Hoffman, a health law and privacy expert at Case Western Reserve University. She added: “You have to worry: Is the government actually trying to get information about reproductive care or transgender care or mental health care?”Florida’s six-week abortion ban, enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and the state’s Republican-dominated legislature, requires that doctors who prescribe abortion pills dispense them in person, not through the mail. Another Florida law banned transgender transition care for minors and made it harder for adults to seek such care. Last year, a judge struck down key parts of that law, though it is still being enforced while the legal fight makes its way through the courts.The data requested by the state could, in theory, be used to determine whether physicians are complying with those laws.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

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Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University health economist who came to prominence crusading against lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, faced questioning from the Senate health committee on Wednesday morning as President Trump’s nominee to direct the National Institutes of Health.The agency, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, with a $48 billion budget and 27 separate institutes and centers, has been rocked lately by the Trump administration’s efforts to block government spending and shrink the federal work force. Hours before Wednesday’s hearing, the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting group led by Elon Musk, trumpeted the cancellation of N.I.H. grants.Dr. Bhattacharya, who has a medical degree and is a professor of medicine but has never practiced, has expressed an interest in restructuring the agency and reducing the power of “scientific bureaucrats” who he has said end up “dominating a field for a very long time.”His views on medicine and public health have at times put Dr. Bhattacharya at odds with many of the scientists whose research the N.I.H. oversees.While he has defended vaccines and has said he was dubious that they caused autism, Dr. Bhattacharya told an interviewer last year that he could not rule out a link. “I don’t know that for a fact,” he said. Extensive evidence shows no link between immunizations and autism.Dr. Bhattacharya became a go-to witness in court cases challenging Covid policies, including mask mandates. In several cases, judges said he was disregarding facts or was untrustworthy. His detractors note that while he has published studies on health policy issues — like drug prices and the link between different types of health insurance and H.I.V. deaths — he is not a scientist conducting biomedical research, the core mission of the agency.But supporters have said that Dr. Bhattacharya could bring needed reform to the N.I.H. and have defended some of his contrarian views on Covid.Dr. Bhattacharya burst into the news at the height of the pandemic in October 2020, when he co-wrote an anti-lockdown treatise, the Great Barrington Declaration, that argued for “focused protection” — a strategy that would focus on protecting the elderly and vulnerable while letting the virus spread among younger, healthier people.The nation’s medical leadership, including Dr. Francis S. Collins and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, denounced the plan. Referring to Dr. Bhattacharya and his co-authors as “fringe epidemiologists,” Dr. Collins wrote in an email that “there needs to be a quick and devastating takedown of its premises.”Dr. Collins, who later stepped down as the N.I.H. director to pursue his laboratory research, retired last week in anticipation of Dr. Bhattacharya’s arrival.

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What’s the air quality in New Delhi, Jakarta or Buenos Aires? Until Tuesday, the United States Embassy in those cities could have told you.But the Trump administration has effectively shut down a global air quality monitoring program, ending more than a decade of public data-collection and reporting from 80 embassies and consulates worldwide.The information has supported research, helped thousands of foreign service officers working abroad to decide if it was safe to let their children play outdoors, and has directly led to air quality improvements in countries like China.The State Department said in an email that the program was being suspended “due to budget constraints.”Health officials and environmental experts said ending air quality monitoring would hurt Americans overseas, particularly those who work for the U. S. government.“Embassies are situated sometimes in very difficult air quality circumstances,” said Gina McCarthy, who led the Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama administration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, claimed that local doctors had successfully treated children with a steroid, antibiotics or cod liver oil.A measles outbreak that has spread over a swath of West Texas, killing one child, shows no signs of slowing, according to data announced on Tuesday by state health officials.The Texas Department of Health reported that since late January, nearly 160 people have contracted measles — 20 more cases than reported on Friday — and 22 have been hospitalized.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Tuesday that it would send some of its “disease detectives” to Texas, one of the first steps the new administration has taken to help manage the outbreak.The news comes amid criticism of federal officials for underplaying the need for immunizations with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, one of the most important tools in quelling an outbreak.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary and a prominent vaccine skeptic, published an opinion piece on Sunday night acknowledging that vaccines protect children from measles and urged parents to talk with their doctors “to understand their options to get the M.M.R. vaccine.”“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” he wrote.In a prerecorded interview that aired on Fox News on Tuesday, Mr. Kennedy said that the federal government was shipping doses of vitamin A to Gaines County, in West Texas, and helping to arrange ambulance rides.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

The High Street pharmacy chain Boots is asking customers to return packs of 500-milligram paracetamol tablets because a labelling error incorrectly states they are a different painkiller, aspirin.

Kyle Diamantas, a former corporate lawyer, is the new director for the F.D.A. food division, which oversees infant formula. He defended a top maker in cases claiming the company had not warned of potential risks to very low-weight babies.The new head of the Food and Drug Administration division that regulates infant formula was in recent months a corporate lawyer defending a top formula maker from claims that its product gave rise to debilitating harm to premature babies.Kyle A. Diamantas joined the F.D.A. last month to lead the food division, leaving the law firm Jones Day, which has served as a pipeline of talent to both Trump administrations.As a partner in Jones Day’s Miami office, Mr. Diamantas’s recent work included defending Abbott Laboratories in lawsuits accusing the company of failing to adequately warn parents that its specialized formula for premature infants was associated with an elevated risk of a deadly bowel condition.Abbott lost the case and was ordered to pay $495 million. Abbott is appealing the verdict. Mr. Diamantas’s role in the Abbott cases has not been previously reported.The leader of the F.D.A.’s food division has a wide-ranging role in ensuring the safety of about 80 percent of the food supply in the United States. In that job, Mr. Diamantas is also expected to take a lead role in enacting Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda, which calls for reducing additives in food and eliminating what Mr. Kennedy has described as corruption in public health agencies.“We will shut the revolving door to re-establish public trust,” Mr. Kennedy told the Health and Human Services Department’s staff during his first week in office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.