Top news stories from AMA Morning Rounds®: Week of Oct. 14, 2024

Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of Oct. 14, 2024–Oct. 18, 2024.

Reuters (10/11, Pierson) reported the FDA “on Friday agreed to reconsider a decision it made last month to bar drug compounders from selling their own versions of Eli Lilly’s blockbuster weight loss and diabetes drugs.” The FDA “said in a court filing it would now allow compounding pharmacies and facilities to keep providing the drugs while it reviews whether there is a shortage of their active ingredient,” tirzepatide. The agency’s decision “was in response to a lawsuit brought on” last week “by the Outsourcing Facilities Association, a compounding industry group,” and “after the FDA’s decision on Friday to reconsider, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth, Texas put the lawsuit on hold.”

CNN (10/14, Tupper) says a new study published in JAMA Network Open “shows how the increased administration of naloxone by non-medical laypersons – or bystanders with little to no medical training – could be one factor contributing to” 2023’s 3% decline in opioid-related overdose fatalities. The study found “that from June 2020 to June 2022, emergency medical services reported 744,078 patients receiving naloxone across the U.S.” Investigators “found that EMS-documented naloxone administration rates fell 6.1% in this period, but the percentage of people who got naloxone from a layperson before EMS arrival increased 43.5%.”

You may also be interested in: Why the AMA says naloxone should be next to defibrillators in public places.

Medical Economics (10/15, Payerchin) reports, “Congressional leaders should take up legislation to block a planned 2.8% cut to physician reimbursement in the 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS), according to a bipartisan group of lawmakers.” In a letter addressed “to House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the legislators said ‘Congress must pass a bill providing physicians and other clinicians with a payment update that takes into account the cost of actually delivering care to patients.’” AMA President Bruce A. Scott, MD, said, “As the letter says, the Medicare physician payment system is ‘inherently broken.’ ... Indeed, Medicare payment rates have fallen by 29% over the past two decades, when adjusting for the costs of running a practice, threatening patient access and practice viability. Patient access to Medicare is especially imperiled in rural areas and underserved communities.”

MedPage Today (10/15, Frieden) reports “a majority of House members urged House leaders to...pass a law that would avoid such cuts in the future.” The letter said, “Increased instability in the health care sector due to looming cost hikes impacts the ability of physicians and clinicians to provide the highest quality of care and threatens patient access to affordable health care.” Dr. Scott said, “Unlike past congressional efforts, this letter also requests a payment update to reflect inflationary pressures on physician practices.”

Reuters (10/16, Satija, Leo) reports the FDA “has put on hold a trial of Novavax’s COVID-influenza and its standalone flu vaccines after a participant who took the combination shot reported nerve damage, the company said on Wednesday.” The company “said a participant enrolled in a mid-stage study of the combination vaccine last month reported symptoms of motor neuropathy.” The individual “was given the vaccine in January last year.” Novavax “said it was not yet established that the vaccine had caused the safety event and it was working with the FDA to resolve the pause.”

ABC News (10/17, Kekatos) reports, “Tobacco product use among U.S. pre-teens and teens has fallen to the lowest levels seen in 25 years, according to new federal data published Thursday.” The drop “is largely driven by the” decrease “in the number of students who reported current e-cigarette use: 2.13 million in 2023 compared to 1.63 million in 2024, the report found.” Even though “e-cigarettes remained the most commonly used tobacco product among adolescents in 2024, e-cigarette use among students declined to the lowest level seen in more than a decade.” The findings were published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The AP (10/17, Stobbe) reports, “There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs.” The number dropped “from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year.”

HealthDay (10/17, Mundell) reports “vaping rates fell from 10% of high school students in 2023 to 7.8% this year, ‘reaching the lowest level ever measured’ by the National Youth Tobacco Survey, reported a team of researchers from the” CDC. Rates of traditional cigarette use “are also extremely low: Only 1.4% of middle- and high-school kids now smoke, the report found.”

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