POCATELLO — Students, staff and members of the community marched across a college campus Monday in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

The crowd of around 50 people started the march at the parking lot of the Pond Student Union Building on the Idaho State university campus and then ended at the alumni center. There, they joined a larger crowd and listened to faculty and students deliver speeches.

Those who spoke centered their remarks around a statement MLK once made about healthcare: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”

Jones Asiegbu, president of the Public Health Student Association, is particularly passionate about this subject. He feels preventative healthcare is important for a strong community and he wanted people who heard his speech to embrace that idea.

“We all gathered together to talk about things, but how about action?” Asiegbu told the crowd.

Asiegbu grew up in Lagos, Nigeria in West Africa. The area is commonly known as a place with low quality healthcare and infrastructure, he said, but his community has an advantage.

“Whenever there is an act to improve the health care and wellbeing of people, the community jumps in together and performs that act,” Asiegbu said. “That is the power of what the community can do.”

Asiegbu’s grandmother is more than 100 years old and her memory, he says, is “as sharp as a nail” because she understands the importance of taking care of her health.

“We have the power to make that change in our community. We do not have to rely solely on public health programs, Asiegbu said.

To do this, Asiegbu said people have to mobilize their neighborhoods and communities to focus on new healthcare prevention plans.

“Where I grew up, every last Saturday of the month, everyone in the community comes out to clean the drainage system to sweep or repair the levies. The community is clean. We did not depend on the governments to come and do something,” Asiegbu said.

Asiegbu invited the audience to become their own “center for disease prevention.”

“Teach your children the importance of health and safety. Promote health and wellness in your workplace,” Asiegbu said. “I believe the power is in you and that you can do it.”

During the event, organizers collected donations for Benny’s Pantry, a food bank on campus catering to the student population.

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(CNN) — Marijuana has a lower potential for abuse than other drugs that are subjected to the same restrictions, with scientific support for its use as a medical treatment, researchers from the US Food and Drug Administration say in documents supporting its reclassification as a Schedule III substance.

Marijuana is currently classified as Schedule I, reserved for the most dangerous controlled substances, including heroin and LSD.

In 2022, President Joe Biden asked U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and the attorney general to begin the administrative process of reviewing how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Rachel Levine wrote a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration in August in which she supported the reclassification to Schedule III, a list that includes “drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence” such as ketamine, testosterone and Tylenol with codeine.

The FDA documents, which are posted online, “reflect HHS’ evaluation of the scientific and medical evidence and its scheduling recommendation” to the Department of Justice, HHS said Friday.

The members of the FDA’s Controlled Substance Staff write in the documents that the agency recommends rescheduling marijuana because it meets three criteria: a lower potential for abuse than other substances on Schedules I and II, a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the US and a risk of low or moderate physical dependence in people who abuse it. The National Institute on Drug Abuse concurs with the recommendation.

Although marijuana has a “high prevalence of nonmedical use” in the US, it doesn’t seem to elicit serious outcomes compared with drugs such as heroin, oxycodone and cocaine, the researchers say. “This is especially notable given the availability” of products that contain very high levels of Delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary active compound in cannabis.

The data also provides “some credible level of scientific support for some of the therapeutic uses for which marijuana is being used in clinical practice in the United States,” namely anorexia, pain, and nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy, the researchers say. However, they note that their analysis and conclusions “are not meant to imply that safety and effectiveness have been established for marijuana” that would support its approval for any particular health condition.

Finally, the researchers point out that marijuana withdrawal has been reported in heavy, chronic users – with symptoms that peak within days and decline over a week or two – but not in occasional users.

“The marijuana withdrawal syndrome appears to be relatively mild compared to the withdrawal syndrome associated with alcohol, which can include more serious symptoms such as agitation, paranoia, seizures and even death,” they write. Rather, marijuana withdrawal symptoms are similar to those of withdrawal from chronic use of Marinol and Syndros, two FDA-approved drug products that use synthetic THC, and the magnitude and timeline of marijuana withdrawal are similar to that of tobacco.

Rescheduling marijuana could open up more avenues for research, allow cannabis businesses to bank more freely and openly, and have firms no longer subject to a 40-year-old tax code that disallows credits and deductions from income generated by sales of Schedule I and II substances.

Twenty-four states, two territories and DC have legalized cannabis for adult recreational use, and 38 states allow medical use of cannabis products, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Since the first adult-use cannabis sale took place in 2014 in Colorado, cannabis has blossomed into a multibillion-dollar industry that has attracted the attention of multinational companies across sectors such as alcohol, agriculture, pharmaceutical and tobacco.

The DEA will have the final authority to make any changes to marijuana’s scheduling, and it will go through a rulemaking process that includes a period for the public to provide comments before any scheduling action is finalized.

The post Marijuana meets criteria for reclassification as lower-risk drug, FDA scientific review finds appeared first on East Idaho News.

(CNN) — At 16, Jude Maboné often went to bed wondering whether she would wake up the next morning. She’d recently had her first heart attack — and would go on to have five more by the age of 18, spurring her to create a bucket list that included a foray into pageantry (inspired by watching the film “Miss Congeniality,” Maboné told CNN).

While her peers were enjoying high school, every other week Maboné was in the hospital. An ostensibly unlikely candidate for heart disease, which she was later diagnosed with, Maboné had done everything right — there wasn’t a history of such conditions in her family, and she was eating well, managing her stress and exercising. In fact, all her heart attacks had occurred while she was running. Embarrassed about having a condition most people associate with older age and poor lifestyle decisions, she isolated herself, never telling friends or teachers what she was going through.

But Maboné is now 28, and as the 2023 winner of the Miss District of Columbia pageant and a contestant in this year’s Miss America pageant — which takes place January 14 and hasn’t crowned a Miss District of Columbia as the national titleholder in 80 years — she’s talking about it.

“This is the most indiscriminate disease in the US, and it’s also the thing that’s killing the most people,” Maboné said. “That’s why a big part of me taking on the Miss America platform was to destigmatize this.”

She’s using her title to expand her advocacy work for proactive heart health and preparedness for cardiac emergencies, including working closely with the American Heart Association and other organizations to promote preemptive heart health awareness, helping to provide screenings to communities and implement plans for the use of automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, in schools. AEDs are “portable, life-saving devices designed to treat people experiencing sudden cardiac arrest” by electronically shocking the heart to restore its normal rhythm, according to the US Food and Drug Administration.

“Most people don’t survive one heart attack — I survived six,” Maboné said. “So I felt like there was a purpose there, and there was a responsibility to help other people be better off than I was.”

A journey in persistence

Born in Southern California in 1995, Maboné was one of four children raised by her single mother, who served in the Navy.

“My mom had a rule from the time we were in fifth grade to the time we graduated high school: to live in her house, we had to play a sport, play an instrument, learn a second language, join a club, have a leadership activity and take voice lessons,” she said. (Her pageant talent is Italian opera.)

Competitive track and distance running were Maboné’s sports, and the thing that would make her heart problems apparent. During the second half of a six-mile run on July 11, 2012, she started having chest pains that progressed to profuse sweating, difficulty breathing, dizziness, nausea and pain in her left shoulder.

Maboné had learned in health class that these were signs of an impending heart attack, but thought it unlikely due to her age and healthy lifestyle. However, she knew she needed help. She eventually took herself to the hospital.

“Looking back now, I would have stayed put … and had someone run somewhere nearby to call 911,” she said. “Calling 911 is always the first thing one should do when someone is experiencing symptoms and I’m grateful to be equipped with that information and to be in a position where I can share with others what to do in a cardiac emergency.”

But even between the subsequent heart attacks Maboné suffered over the next two years, heart health tests she took were returning completely normal. Some specialists told her she was fine, and that the attacks were flukes — but her primary physician encouraged her to seek other opinions.

Of a potential cause for her condition, “my doctor who diagnosed me (with heart disease) told me that she believes that this type of condition is either hormonal or environmental, but we can’t pinpoint where it came from because it’s not genetic,” Maboné said. “It’s something I could potentially grow out of someday, or maybe not. It’s something that could get worse. It’s very inconclusive.”

And raising awareness of cardiovascular health cases without enough information to identify a cause — like in Maboné’s own case — is a key part of her platform, along with lobbying for increased funding for relevant medical research. “Heart disease kills more people than cancer,” she explained, but in the US “it receives a very small percentage of funding (from medical research organizations).”

Of the $49.2 billion in National Institutes of Health’s funding for 2023, the Heart, Lung and Blood Institute was budgeted $4 billion — slightly over 8% of the funding compared with the approximate 13% and 15% allotted to the institutes for allergy and infectious diseases, and cancer, respectively.

“Although NIH Institutes and Centers each have areas of focus, NIH support of research in specific disease areas is not limited to any single institute or center,” an NIH spokesperson said via email. “Often separate diseases are related, and a better understanding of one may reveal information about another. For example, diabetes is a known contributor to heart disease, and better understanding diabetes may give insight into incidences of related heart disease.”

‘Committed to bettering the US’

Maboné isn’t “necessarily the person that people think of when they think about pageantry,” she said, since she didn’t grow up with it. By 2021, though, she had run for Miss District of Columbia seven times — at that point, she was 26 and, having aged out of the Miss America system, grieved the loss of what had become a dream. But when the pageant came under new leadership last year — and later announced a partnership with the American Heart Association as its national philanthropy, to boot — it upped the age limit for contestants to 28.

And when then-24-year-old NFL athlete Damar Hamlin experienced cardiac arrest during a game in January 2023 — after getting hit in the chest area when he made a tackle — the nation was talking about cardiovascular issues among young people.

“I thought, ‘All of these things are aligning. I should humble myself, get over my pride and try this one more time,’” Maboné said. “Because finally, it felt like the issue I’ve been talking about for a decade was finally one that people were taking seriously.”

Instead of letting her condition limit her, she has gotten treatment — beta blockers, which slow activity that helps control blood pressure, heart rate and more — and done the work needed to live the dynamic life she uses to educate others. “I’m actually in better physical and cardiac shape than I was pre- my heart attacks,” Maboné said. “Because you have to work so hard to overcome it.”

She wants other kids to have that same chance.

It’s why she advocates for the implementation of automated external defibrillators in schools — as well as the training of personnel who can use them. (Proposed legislation for “cardiac emergency response plans,” thanks in part to Maboné’s advocacy, will go before the DC City Council for a hearing soon.)

In combination with CPR, another focus of Maboné’s advocacy, the use of AEDs within a few minutes of cardiac arrest saves lives, according to the FDA. “In my mind, the fact that these things aren’t federally mandated is a problem,” Maboné said.

“Damar Hamlin’s life, (NBA player) Bronny James’ life — they were saved because somebody knew that it was their job to call 911,” Maboné told CNN. “Somebody else knew it was their specific task to start chest compressions. Somebody else got the AED.”

As Maboné participates in the Miss America pageant, she’s excited to “give representation” to the more than 121.5 million Americans who are living with cardiovascular disease, she said.

“As Miss DC, I’ve been able to … touch thousands of people in DC and even beyond DC,” Maboné said. “As Miss America, those thousands turn into millions. I just see the opportunity here to really tangibly change the way that this country views this disease in a way that I don’t necessarily think I would get without the Miss America platform.”

“And with the partnership with the American Heart Association, there’ll be so many opportunities to leverage what they do and what I do to provide tangible change,” she added — hosting larger-scale CPR trainings and heart screenings to help people approach their heart health proactively.

If you’re having heart attack symptoms — such as chest pain, pain in the arms or shoulders, or shortness of breath — take them seriously and get them checked out by a doctor, Maboné said. “Don’t let the doctor brush it off. There are a lot of incredible doctors,” she added, “but you need to be your own best advocate.”

Maboné also urged the criticalness of stress management even if you’re taking care of your diet, sleep and fitness. And since many lives are harmed or lost due to the lack of CPR administered by bystanders, she also suggested learning hands-only CPR, which is now the recommended form of the treatment.

Miss America symbolizes different things to different people, Maboné said: nostalgia, tradition, celebrity or beauty.

“To me, Miss America is somebody who … also has a goal and is driven and committed to bettering the US in some way,” she said. “In my way, it’s heart health, which I think is exactly what we need right now.”

The post She survived 6 heart attacks. Now this 28-year-old pageant queen is bringing cardiovascular health to Miss America appeared first on East Idaho News.

POCATELLO — A recently opened facility in Pocatello is focused on supporting women who have recently given birth.

The Idaho Postpartum Haven is a postpartum care center where women can go to receive doula services and round-the-clock care as they recover from labor. The center’s founder, Kristina Fackrell, had been dreaming of opening it for over a decade after she had her first baby.

“I realized there is just not enough care and support for women after they have their babies, and it’s something that I became very passionate about over the years,” said Fackrell, also one of the center’s three doulas.

The center did a soft open in October 2023 to make sure it didn’t overextend the staff. In addition to the doulas, it offers a certified lactation specialist and a foot zone practitioner. One of the doulas is also a registered dietician.

A mother, baby and optional support person who come to the center get their own apartment, meals provided, at least daily in-person support throughout their stay, and their choice of professional services. If people book with higher-level plans, they can get 24/7 on-call support or have their baby in the nursery overnight.

While it can best be described as a postpartum care center, Fackrell also likes to refer to the center as a “home for healing.” The facility is in a home-type setting for the patients to feel comfortable during the recovery process.

Places like this are common in places like China and Korea but rare in the United States. However, more of them are being introduced in parts of the country.

Boram Care, in New York City, was the first postpartum recovery center introduced in the United States. Since then, more have been opened. As it stands now, Fackrell says the Idaho Postpartum Haven is the only postpartum recovery center in the Mountain West.

Some of the services patients can access at the center are lactation consulting and massage therapy. They can also receive “foot-zoning,” which is when a practitioner helps release tension in a person’s body through the feet.

Booking at the center and accessing these services can cost anywhere from $600 to $900 per night.

“I realized that this is potentially a luxury that a lot of people are not going to afford,” Fackrell said.

Medicaid and most insurance companies don’t cover doula services.

“I hope that one day they’ll be able to. That has been a very slow thing, for insurance to pick up any type of non-medical support,” Fackrell said.

She said that some insurance companies cover lactation support, massage therapy and doula services, so some of the offered services can receive insurance support, but, “as of right now, the entire stay altogether is definitely not going to be covered.”

Fackrell said that her center has been working with some insurance companies to try to “help them understand that it will be very beneficial for them to have this covered.”

She said that this is so important because the majority of complications in childbirth come after a baby is born.

“There is very little care given after you leave the hospital, and it affects women’s health for the rest of their lives. If there were more eyes on women … after they have their baby, it could catch countless complications,” Fackrell said.

Those who can’t afford to stay in the center can access its in-home services. For a minimum of four hours, people can pay to have a doula visit them at home. It’s $40 per hour for one of the center’s doulas.

For people who can’t afford an in-home doula visit, the center offers free 30-minute consultations.

“We can direct you to other places that do other doulas and lots of groups that can provide different types of support as well,” Fackrell said.

She hopes that there will be expanded coverage for new mothers to access doula services.

Fackrell said that people who don’t believe the services the center offers are important have probably never had a baby.

“It is hard for everybody. Just because everybody has babies, and billions of people around the world are having babies doesn’t mean that it’s easy. Every single person’s journey is difficult,” Fackrell said.

The post Postpartum care center opens in Pocatello appeared first on East Idaho News.

(Idaho Capital Sun) — Dr. Ryan Cole’s medical license is restricted in the state of Washington after state regulators concluded that Cole knowingly shared disinformation about COVID-19 and broke medical standards by virtually prescribing ivermectin to COVID-19 patients – against medical evidence.

Cole is an Idaho pathologist who has spread COVID-19 disinformation while serving as an appointed Idaho health official.

The decision by the Washington Medical Commission restricts Cole for five years from practicing primary care medicine and from prescribing medications for patients in Washington. Cole’s medical practice, in Washington, is now limited to the practice of pathology. 

Cole broke medical practice standards by prescribing ivermectin for COVID-19 to at least four patients via an instant-message based telehealth-platform, the commission ruled. Cole likely knew his COVID-19 claims were a “misrepresentation of the true facts,” the commission ruled.

RELATED | Health misinformation was an Idaho-grown product for years. Now it has a body count

Dr. Ryan Cole must take action to keep medical license in Washington, commission rules

If Cole wants to keep his medical license in the state of Washington, he must complete medical education courses and write an essay focused on honesty in medicine. The commission ordered Cole to complete classes focused on COVID-19, pulmonary and respiratory diseases, medical record-keeping and telehealth in six months.

The commission ordered Cole to submit an essay, at least 1,000 words long, about “professionalism, truthfulness and honesty in medicine.” The paper should, the commission says, explain how Cole would apply what he learned in his medical practice. Cole should be prepared to discuss the paper’s content with the commission, the ruling said.

The commission also ordered $5,000 in fines.

Not complying with the order could mean Cole’s license would be suspended or revoked, the commission warned. 

Cole and his attorney could not be immediately reached for comment. However, in a 40-page response to the Washington Medical Board to complaints against him, Cole and his attorney argued that he did not violate any rules when he prescribed drugs to patients over telehealth and claimed COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous. But some of the arguments in the response to the Washington Medical Commission do not match Cole’s public comments, investigations by the Idaho Capital Sun have found.

In public appearances, Cole has said the complaints are politically motivated attacks.

It is not clear what the decision means for Cole’s Idaho medical license. The Idaho Board of Medicine previously closed a complaint into Cole’s Idaho medical license without looking into patient records, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.

Cole serves as physician representative on the Central District Health Board of Health, which directs Idaho’s largest regional public health department.

Cole can appeal the decision after completing an approved family medicine course, the commission said. 

Cole has been licensed to practice as a physician and surgeon in Washington since 2007.

Cole “disregarded the body of COVID-related evidence” and “misrepresented that evidence when he presented only one side of it to the public.”

Cole’s conduct could harm people and erode trust in medical professionals, the commission said.

“The behavior in (Cole’s) presentation raises concerns that (Cole) may use his professional position as a physician to harm members of the public. There can be no legitimate dispute that it also tends to lower the standing of physicians in the eyes of the public,” the commission concluded.

Cole’s care for four patients to prescribe ivermectin and other unproven medications for COVID-19 “was insufficient,” the commission ruled. Cole was also dishonest about his education and experience in family medicine in presentations, the commission said, which he continued to misrepresent during hearings before the Washington Medical Commission.

“Even if (Cole) had been more credible, his lack of recent education and experience in the provision of direct patient care also means that the Panel must give little weight to his testimony,” the commission said.

The commission referenced Cole’s frequent public comments about COVID-19 in its ruling, saying Cole “engaged in a pattern of dishonesty. Cole’s false statements — on COVID, ivermectin and masks — “are harmful and dangerous to individual patients, generate mistrust in the medical profession and in public health, and have a wide-spread negative impact on the health and well-being of our communities,” the commission said.

A 2022 investigation by the Idaho Capital Sun found that Cole gave talks and presentations in at least four foreign countries — England, France, Brazil and Ireland — and at least 15 states including Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Idaho, as well as in Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. In addition, Cole had done more than 70 online presentations, podcasts and video interviews since early 2021, the investigation found.

Cole, by saying he believed his false statements were true, “was making his own interpretations of the available COVID-19 data and was then closed to evaluating alternate viewpoints as more evidence became available,” the commission said.

That is “problematic,” the commission wrote, “as the nature of medical practice requires that physicians remain skeptical of their own interpretations and be aware of a constantly evolving body of evidence.”

Cole “interfered” with the investigation by “willfully misrepresenting facts,” the commission said. He did that when he told the commission, in a written statement, that he didn’t tell patients or the general public to avoid the COVID-19 vaccine, the commission said. That statement misrepresented the facts, the commission said, pointing to Cole’s public comments.

Cole knew, or should have known as a “reasonably prudent physician” that many of his COVID statements misrepresented the truth, the commission said.

Medical evidence does not indicate that ivermectin “is effective in treating or preventing COVID-19,” the commission said.

RELATED | She had invasive surgery after Idaho doctor misdiagnosed her. Now she’s suing.

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(CNN) — The United States is facing an emergency blood shortage, according to the American Red Cross, and there is growing concern that a combination of severe winter weather and seasonal respiratory illnesses could lead more people to cancel their donations and that the shortage may delay medical procedures.

The number of people volunteering to donate blood is at the lowest level in 20 years, and over the past two decades, the number who donate through the Red Cross has fallen about 40%, the nonprofit announced Sunday.

Now, there does not appear to be enough donated blood to meet demand among hospitals and patients in need. Data from the national organization America’s Blood Centers indicates that, as of Monday, at least 17 community blood centers have a one-day supply or less, “critically” low supply that suggests they need donations as soon as possible.

“One of the most distressing situations for a doctor is to have a hospital full of patients and an empty refrigerator without any blood products,” Dr. Pampee Young, chief medical officer of the Red Cross, the nation’s largest blood supplier, said in the announcement. “A person needs lifesaving blood every two seconds in our country – and its availability can be the difference between life and death, however, blood is only available thanks to the generosity of those who roll up a sleeve to donate.”

In the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, there was a donation shortfall of nearly 7,000 units, according to the Red Cross.

“Now, getting out of the holidays and looking at what hospital demand is starting to look like, we can see that we need about 8,000 additional donations every week in January in order to shore up supply,” Dr. Eric Gehrie, executive physician director for the Red Cross, said Monday.

One unit of blood, equivalent to about a pint, is typically collected during a donation, and experts estimate that a single car accident victim can require as many as 100 units of blood.

“We hear all the time about really dramatic things that happen in hospitals – of women after childbirth who have substantial unexpected bleeding and who might require dozens or even hundreds of units of blood to survive, and then they do survive because the blood is available. Same thing for people who are in accidents or who require really complicated surgery that’s associated with a lot of blood loss,” Gehrie said. “When that blood isn’t available, it really diminishes the ability to offer that to somebody who’s in need.”

The American Red Cross announced a national shortage of blood and called for more donations in September, and blood inventory rebounded afterward.

However, the supply has fallen yet again “to critically low levels across the country,” according to the Red Cross, and in recent weeks, the organization has had to limit distributions of type O blood products – among the most transfused blood types – to hospitals.

RELATED | If you give blood, you have a chance to win a Super Bowl experience in Las Vegas

“When the Red Cross is trying to determine how much blood is needed to supply hospitals, it takes into account seasonal changes – and there certainly are a lot of seasonal changes that occur around the holidays,” Gehrie said. “One thing that is very different this time around is that hospital demand, even in the lower-utilization holiday period, has been greater than it has been in previous years. And the lower donations, as a result of the seasonal figure, combined with the unexpectedly higher demand from hospitals, is what’s really contributing to the emergency that we have presently.”

The Red Cross is now calling on health care professionals and members of the public to donate blood to help the nation’s supply bounce back.

The two types of blood products that are most frequently in need are platelets and red blood cells, according to Gehrie.

“The need for platelets is constant because they only last for five days after donation. As a result of that, it’s not really possible to build up a big inventory to draw from in the future because that inventory would just expire in a few days, and so the only thing that sustains the platelet supply are dedicated donors,” he said. “With red blood cells, the situation is a little bit different. Red blood cells can last for up to 42 days after being collected.”

In August, the Red Cross announced that more gay men were eligible to give blood with the use of a more inclusive risk-based individual assessment to determine whether someone is eligible to give blood, regardless of sexual orientation, sex or gender. Historically, gay and bisexual men were banned from donating.

Volunteers can make appointments to give blood or platelets at RedCrossBlood.org or by calling 1-800-RED-CROSS. This month, the Red Cross and the National Football League are partnering to offer volunteers a chance to win a trip for two to Super Bowl LVII in Las Vegas. Donors will be automatically entered for the chance to win.

Volunteers can also find blood donation centers in their area using the Blood Donation Site Locator on the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies’ website.

RELATED | 85-year-old donates his 10th gallon of blood

The post American Red Cross declares emergency blood shortage as number of donors hits 20-year low appeared first on East Idaho News.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday allowed Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, while a legal fight continues.

The justices said they would hear arguments in April and put on hold a lower court ruling that had blocked the Idaho law in hospital emergencies, based on a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration.

The Idaho case gives the court its second major abortion dispute since the justices in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to severely restrict or ban abortion. The court also in the coming months is hearing a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s rules for obtaining mifepristone, one of two medications used in the most common method of abortion in the United States.

In the case over hospital emergencies, the Biden administration has argued that hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required by federal law to provide emergency care, potentially including abortion, no matter if there’s a state law banning abortion.

The administration issued guidance about the federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, two weeks after the high court ruling in 2022. The Democratic administration sued Idaho a month later.

RELATED | Judge allows lawsuit that challenges Idaho’s broad abortion ban to move forward

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Idaho agreed with the administration. But in a separate case in Texas, a judge sided with the state.

Idaho makes it a crime with a prison term of up to five years for anyone who performs or assists in an abortion.

The administration argues that EMTALA requires health care providers to perform abortions for emergency room patients when needed to treat an emergency medical condition, even if doing so might conflict with a state’s abortion restrictions.

Those conditions include severe bleeding, preeclampsia and certain pregnancy-related infections.

“For certain medical emergencies, abortion care is the necessary stabilizing treatment,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in an administration filing at the Supreme Court.

The state argued that the administration was misusing a law intended to prevent hospitals from dumping patients and imposing “a federal abortion mandate” on states. “EMTALA says nothing about abortion,” Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador told the court in a brief.

Just Tuesday, the federal appeals court in New Orleans came to the same conclusion as Labrador. A three-judge panel ruled that the administration cannot use EMTALA to require hospitals in Texas to provide abortions for women whose lives are at risk due to pregnancy. Two of the three judges are appointees of President Donald Trump, and the other was appointed by another Republican president, George W. Bush.

The appeals court affirmed a ruling by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, also a Trump appointee. Hendrix wrote that adopting the Biden administration’s view would force physicians to place the health of the pregnant person over that of the fetus or embryo even though EMTALA “is silent as to abortion.”

After Winmill, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, issued his ruling, Idaho lawmakers won an order allowing the law to be fully enforced from an all-Republican, Trump-appointed panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But a larger contingent of 9th Circuit judges threw out the panel’s ruling and had set arguments in the case for late January.

RELATED | Hypothetical situations or real-life medical tragedies? A judge weighs an Idaho abortion ban lawsuit

The justices’ order on Friday takes the case away from the appeals court. A decision is expected by early summer.

Friday’s development is just one of several legal battles currently making their way through the courts in Idaho.

Separately, four women and several physicians have filed a lawsuit asking an Idaho court to clarify the circumstances that qualify patients to legally receive an abortion. That lawsuit was recently granted the greenlight to move forward despite attempts by the Attorney General’s office to dismiss the case.

RELATED | Idaho law forced women out of state for abortions. They detail ‘grim’ experiences.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in November temporarily blocked Idaho’s “abortion trafficking” law from being enforced while a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality is underway. That law, which Idaho lawmakers passed last year, was designed to prevent minors from getting abortions in states where the procedure is legal if they don’t have their parents’ permission.

Associated Press writer Kimberlee Kruesi contributed to this report from Nashville, Tennessee.

The post US Supreme Court allows Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban, even in medical emergencies appeared first on East Idaho News.

SMYRNA, Del. (WPVI) — A Delaware woman suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning says her Apple Watch helped save her life.

Natalie Nasatka says she was preparing for her day on the morning of December 29 when she began to suffer from symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.

RELATED | 40+ people treated for carbon monoxide poisoning after leak in Latter-day Saint meetinghouse

“I started feeling weak and dizzy, and my vision was going blurry,” says Nasatka. “I was too weak to try to find my phone, so I used my Apple Watch and held down the side button.”

That SOS feature on the watch connected Nasatka directly to 911 while her phone simultaneously sent messages to her emergency contacts with her location.

By this time, Nasatka says she couldn’t move. The next thing she remembers is waking up with emergency responders carrying her down her stairs.

“Firefighters got me to my porch chairs where I was able to sit down, but I couldn’t hold my head up. I was crying, saying ‘I want to live,'” said Nasatka.

Nasatka was rushed to a nearby emergency room, where she was treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. She spent nearly 24 hours in the ER.

Rescuers couldn’t find her cat, named Mary Kate, who was hiding upstairs, so they closed her bedroom door and opened a window for fresh air.

“Definitely waves of emotions, knowing how close I could have been to dying,” said Nasatka. “Of course my first kiss on New Years was my cat. Picked her up, I’ve been saying this since I got home that, whatever our purpose here is on earth is not done yet.”

She believes the leak came from her heater, and a carbon monoxide detector is something Nasatka says she did not have.

She is now encouraging people to make sure you have all the necessary sensors and detectors in your home.

“I didn’t smell anything, I didn’t hear anything, didn’t taste anything different,” said Nasatka.

Nasatka says her apartment maintenance team has since repaired her hot water heater. She also had a new carbon monoxide detector installed.

Click here for updates on this story.

RELATED | Carbon monoxide miracle: 5 kids and sister-in-law survive after being poisoned

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(CNN) — Starting January 1, a drug that thousands of patients depend on to help them breathe will disappear from pharmacy shelves, and doctors are concerned patients may have delays switching to alternatives and getting them covered by insurance.

Manufacturer GSK has said it’s discontinuing the branded asthma inhaler Flovent, and instead is making an “authorized generic” version, which is identical but without the same branding.

Physicians who treat patients with asthma say the authorized generic will work just as well as the branded drug, but it doesn’t appear to be covered as widely by insurers. That may mean patients will have to obtain new prescriptions and sort out coverage hurdles at the height of respiratory virus season.

“This medication has been the most commonly used inhaled medication for the past 25 or 30 years,” said Dr. Robyn Cohen, a pediatric pulmonologist at Boston Medical Center. “It’s the one that, overwhelmingly, pediatricians reach for when they decide that their patient needs a daily preventive medication. … The fact that it’s being discontinued is going to be a huge shock to the system for patients, for families and for doctors.”

Doctors are urging patients to take action now to ensure they’ve got their medicine heading into the new year and advocacy groups have been trying to get the word out.

But the story of why Flovent is disappearing, and the lack of insurance coverage for its ostensibly identical replacement, touches on some of the most complex facets of American health care and drug pricing.

Major change to Medicaid’s drug program

A spokeswoman for GSK said the company is making the change “as part of our commitment to be ambitious for patients.”

She noted the company introduced the authorized generics of Flovent HFA, an inhalation aerosol, and Flovent Diskus, an inhalation powder, in May 2022 and October 2023, and that, subsequently, it would discontinue manufacturing the branded versions in the United States on January 1, 2024.

The authorized generics, she said, “will provide patients in the US with potentially lower cost alternatives of these medically important products.”

Experts who follow the industry both on Wall Street and in academia, though, point out GSK is making the switch at precisely the time a change in Medicaid rebates could cause the company to have to pay large penalties because of price increases on Flovent over a number of years. 

The legal change coming into effect on the first of the year removes a cap on Medicaid rebates that companies are required to pay if they raise the price of medicines more than inflation.

“Flovent Diskus has been on the market since 2000 and Flovent HFA since 2004, and GSK has hiked the price on both products numerous times since their launch,” Dr. William Feldman, an associate physician in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who studies asthma drugs, told CNN. “These are precisely the sort of drugs that will be affected by the new policy eliminating the Medicaid rebate cap.”

Until now, the rebates were capped at the total price of a drug, so manufacturers would never pay more than a drug costs back to Medicaid.

But under a provision in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, that limit was removed, and starting January 1, 2024, drugs that have been subject to large price increases over time could end up incurring rebates to Medicaid that are greater than their price — meaning pharmaceutical companies would sell those drugs to Medicaid at a loss.

“Obviously pharma doesn’t want to be selling at a loss on anything in its portfolio,” said Andrew Baum, an analyst who covers the stock of GSK and other pharmaceutical companies for the financial firm Citi. “So it seeks to evade impact by, one: discontinuation; two: authorized generic.”

An authorized generic, Baum told CNN, is viewed as a separate product, “but still enables pharma to collect some of the economics.”

Or, put another way, it’s the same product without the branding and also without the history of price increases that would leave the medicine vulnerable to such large rebates to Medicaid.

According to data from GoodRx, the price of branded Flovent has gone up about 47% since 2014.

Other drugmakers have made changes ahead of the January 1 rebate cap removal as well; makers of insulin this year announced major price cuts — of 70% or more — on their products, a move analysts estimate will save them hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

The authorized generic strategy GSK is employing “is a way, broadly speaking, to maximize the profitability of the product in question,” said David Amsellem, a financial analyst who covers the industry at investment firm Piper Sandler.

He noted there are currently no other generic versions of Flovent approved by the FDA.

GSK did price the authorized generic lower than branded Flovent; one package of Flovent HFA in the 110 microgram dose, for example, costs $273.83, about 50% more than the $177.99 wholesale acquisition cost of its authorized generic counterpart, according to prices the company shared with CNN. The wholesale acquisition cost is the price before insurance and rebates.

But CVS Caremark, a major pharmacy benefit manager that determines which medicines are covered by insurance for its members, is giving preferential placement to another branded inhaler, Pulmicort, on its formulary, instead of the authorized generic versions of Flovent.

“In this case, the authorized generics were more expensive than the brand name medications,” a CVS spokesman told CNN. He noted that’s based on net prices, rather than the wholesale acquisition cost, meaning Pulmicort could be less expensive because of rebates its manufacturer, AstraZeneca, pays to obtain better insurance coverage.

‘The worst possible time of year’

The fact that insurance plans aren’t broadly covering the authorized generic of Flovent, said BMC’s Cohen, “means that patients are going to need to get a brand new prescription for a completely different medication in the middle of the worst possible time of year, which is the winter respiratory virus season.”

For patients with persistent asthma, Cohen said, Flovent has been the most commonly used daily preventive anti-inflammatory medication for decades. It shrinks swelling in the airways and reduces the body’s exaggerated response to triggers that make it hard to breathe.

During cold and flu season, she said, it becomes even more crucial to have that daily medicine.

“Flu, Covid, RSV — all these circulating viruses that are going around right now — are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, triggers for asthma attacks in kids,” Cohen said. “This is what leads to kids being in the emergency room.”

Cohen said she’s concerned that patients, as well as physicians and pharmacists, don’t know this change with Flovent is coming, and they need to act now to work out alternatives and determine insurance coverage.

For some groups, the alternatives are more limited. For patients with a more rare inflammatory condition, called eosinophilic esophagitis, Flovent HFA is one of the most commonly prescribed topical steroids, and other medicines don’t have as much data supporting their use in the condition, said Dr. Erin Syverson, an attending physician in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Boston Children’s Hospital.

As EoE affects the esophagus, patients swallow the medicine instead of breathing it in, and it can tame the inflammation that can cause pain with swallowing or food getting stuck, requiring procedures to remove it. In kids, Syverson said, EoE can lead to recurrent vomiting, heartburn, belly aches, and trouble making progress starting solid foods, and Flovent can help keep the condition under control.

“With the discontinuation coming up, I worry it’s going to just be one more hurdle for this patient population that already has very limited medications available to them,” Syverson told CNN. “I don’t know what January is going to be like, but I’m worried.”

CNN’s Tami Luhby contributed to this report.

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BOISE (AP) — An Idaho judge on Friday denied a request by the state’s top legal chief to throw out a lawsuit seeking to clarify the exemptions tucked inside the state’s broad abortion ban.

Instead, 4th District Judge Jason Scott narrowed the case to focus only on the circumstances where an abortion would be allowed and whether abortion care in emergency situations applies to Idaho’s state constitutional right to enjoy and defend life and the right to secure safety.

Scott’s decision comes just two weeks after a hearing where Idaho’s Attorney General Raul Labrador’s office attempted to dismiss the case spearheaded by four women and several physicians, who filed the case earlier this year.

Similar lawsuits are playing out around the nation, with some of them, like Idaho’s, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of doctors and pregnant people who were denied access to abortions while facing serious pregnancy complications.

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Idaho’s Constitution entitles its residents to certain fundamental rights, but a sweeping abortion ban poses a risk to those rights.

Labrador’s office countered that the Idaho Supreme Court has already upheld the state’s abortion bans — thus solving any lingering questions on the matter.

Scott agreed in part with the state attorneys that the state Supreme Court ruled there was no fundamental right to abortion inside the state constitution, but added that the court didn’t reject “every conceivable as applied challenge that might be made in a future case.”

“We’re grateful the court saw through the state’s callous attempt to ignore the pain and suffering their laws are causing Idahoans,” said Gail Deady, a senior staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Now the state of Idaho will be forced to answer to these women in a court of law.”

Meanwhile, the Idaho judge also sided with the attorney general in removing Gov. Brad Little, Labrador, and the Idaho Board of Medicine as named defendants in the lawsuit — leaving the state of Idaho as the only remaining defendant. Scott called the long list of defendants as “redundant,” saying that all three would be subject to whatever is ultimately decided in the lawsuit.

“This is only the beginning of this litigation, but the Attorney General is encouraged by this ruling,” Labrador’s office said in a statement. “He has long held that the named defendants were simply inappropriate, and that our legislatively passed laws do not violate the Idaho Constitution by narrowly limiting abortions or interfering with a doctor’s right to practice medicine.”

The four women named in the case were all denied abortions in Idaho after learning they were pregnant with fetuses that were unlikely to go to term or survive birth, and that the pregnancies also put them at risk of serious medical complications. All four traveled to Oregon or Washington for the procedures.

Idaho has several abortion bans, but notably Idaho lawmakers approved a ban as a trigger law in March of 2020, before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

At the time, any suggestion that the ban could harm pregnant people was quickly brushed off by the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Todd Lakey, who said during one debate that the health of the mother “weighs less, yes, than the life of the child.”

The trigger ban took effect in 2022. Since then, Idaho’s roster of obstetricians and other pregnancy-related specialists has been shrinking.

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