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With Ben Leonard

RINGING THE LONG COVID ALARM — As the country prepares to exit the Covid-19 public health emergency, doctors who’ve been working on the NIH RECOVER study of the long-term effects of Covid say the federal government needs to do more — a whole lot more — to help the millions of Americans affected by the condition.

In a new “call to action,” the principal investigators of the RECOVER’s study hubs around the nation, which have enrolled long Covid adult, pediatric and pregnant patients, are collectively calling for the federal long Covid response to “evolve.”

“Hospital systems and healthcare providers currently lack the tools to address Long COVID,” the investigators write. “There are no current best clinical practices for providing care to individuals with Long COVID, and the national response toward developing such practices lacks coordination.”

That leaves patients who have long Covid — by the CDC’s count, as many as 1 in 5 Americans — to seek out care on their own from primary care physicians who don’t have the time, education or resources to diagnose and treat the complex condition, or at a handful of specialty clinics concentrated in major cities with long waiting lists.

What do they want? The investigators recommend Congress earmark $37.5 million for the Health Resources and Services Agency to fund the next stage of the federal response to long Covid by selecting and financing centers of excellence around the country.

The money would go to hiring practitioners and staff at the centers, maintaining a national treatment directory dashboard, conducting more community outreach about the condition and training emergency medical practitioners, rehab centers and school nurses to care for long Covid patients.

Backstory: The NIH launched RECOVER in 2021, investing about $470 million in the program. Recent research from the study released last month showed that Black and Hispanic Americans were likely to have more symptoms and health problems associated with long Covid than white people but less likely to be diagnosed with the disease.

WELCOME TO TUESDAY PULSE — We’re going back to the moon! And coming in at a very close second for mind-blowing facts … drumroll please … You don’t have to hard-boil eggs to dye them. Life is never going to be the same. Send whatever news is rocking your world this week and keep those tips coming to [email protected] and [email protected].

Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Ben Leonard talks with David Lim, who explores the implications of the FTC’s decision to tell biotech company Illumina to dissolve its acquisition of Grail, a multicancer early-detection test company.

A BLUEPRINT FOR HEALTH AI — The Coalition for Health AI, an alliance of major health systems and tech companies, has released a blueprint to build trust in artificial intelligence’s use in health care, Ben reports.

Who’s in it? The coalition members include Google, Microsoft, Stanford University and John Hopkins University. CMS, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the FDA, the NIH, the ONC and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality participate in the coalition as observers.

What does it want? They’re calling for algorithms used to treat diseases to be testable, safe, transparent and explainable and for software developers to take steps to mitigate bias and protect privacy, which isn’t always the case now.

“We have a Wild West of algorithms,” said Michael Pencina, coalition co-founder and director of Duke AI Health. “There’s so much focus on development and technological progress and not enough attention to its value, quality, ethical principles or health equity implications.”

MEANWHILE IN EUROPE … The EU is grappling with how to regulate AI medicines as more of them speed toward the market, POLITICO’s Ashleigh Furlong writes.

Pharma companies could use algorithms at all stages of the drug-development process: to identify which molecules could best target a specific disease, select patients for clinical trials based on how they’re expected to respond to a drug and extract trial data and complete forms for regulators. AI’s predictive powers could even eliminate the need to test drugs on animals.

All this poses a regulatory challenge, raising questions about the algorithms’ transparency, the risk of AI failure and, most importantly, the impact on a patient’s health.

While those in charge of approving new drugs in Europe are racing against the clock to be ready for the coming change, they’re not quite there yet.

HALF OF U.S. READY FOR YEARLY COVID SHOT — A new KFF poll shows about half of Americans say they’d get an annual Covid-19 shot if offered one.

More than a third of respondents said they weren’t likely to get one.

The FDA has said an annual shot is a potential way to protect Americans against Covid moving forward, and pharmaceutical companies are working on developing a combination flu and Covid shot. People who regularly get the flu shot were more likely to say they’d get the Covid shot, too.

In the same poll, about a third of Americans also said they’d never tested positive or thought they had the virus, with most citing that they avoided crowds.

A NEW MAP OF MATERNAL MORTALITY RISK — Last month, the CDC reported disturbing new data that maternal deaths shot up 40 percent between 2020 and 2021, with Black individuals having a significantly higher death risk.

A new study in the Lancet drilled down into that disparity by county, analyzing people’s location as a factor in their health outcomes during pregnancy. It found that Black women lived in counties where they were more vulnerable to harmful conditions during pregnancy than white women, including mental health and substance abuse, socioeconomic determinants and physical environment.

It found that pregnant people were most vulnerable in the South, due to mental health and substance abuse vulnerabilities. Those factors also affected maternal health in the Northeast, whereas in the Midwest and Texas, poor reproductive and general health care access played the largest role.

HHS ROLLS OUT NATIONAL CANCER PLAN — HHS rolled out its National Cancer Plan on Monday. The plan, developed by the NIH’s National Cancer Institute, is aimed at fulfilling President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden’s pledge to “end cancer as we know it” by cutting cancer death rates by 50 percent in the next 25 years and turning fatal cancers into treatable diseases.

The national plan outlines eight goals and priorities: preventing cancer, detecting cancer early, developing effective treatments, eliminating inequities, delivering optimal care, engaging people in the fight, maximizing data utility and optimizing the workforce.

Alison Cohen is now health and domestic policy legislative aide for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). She previously was a legislative aide for former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.).

In The Washington Post, former British foreign secretary David Miliband calls on the U.S. to take big action to stop childhood malnutrition as it did for HIV.

The Wall Street Journal writes about the next Ozempic.

White House Covid adviser Ashish Jha urges doctors to do more to fight misinformation, Stat reports.