News from the USA, United States of America

6/30, A Chat with Uma: From Foster Care to Harvard Neuroscientist: "The Choice to Live, Maternal Psychedelics & Post-Viral Chronic Illnesses with Dr. Ya’el Courtney“

"Covid was a horrible thing..but it drew public attention and scientific attention to post-viral conditions that affect the brain..”

““And the reason that was good is because there was this resurgence of interest in not only long Covid, but again, this idea of what happens when people get sick and don't get better. And resurgence of interest for a while at least translated to resurgence of funding, which meant that more labs started to ask these questions.”

“I'm particularly studying it from this idea that maybe it's because an autoimmune disease gets triggered.Others are studying it from other angles, but that's the angle that I'm taking. And so I'm studying this in long Covid. I'm studying this in post-treatment Lyme disease, and I have the freedom and flexibility in my lab to get actually samples from patients with other diseases that might be similar.There's another woman who's leading a small group on ME/CFS in my lab, so that's really her territory and really, really important work as well.”
 
Terminated NIH grants are being reinstated almost entirely in blue states

Posted in STAT+ (paywall) so I was not able to read it all but maybe someone out there can find a link without a paywall.

Background: The term "blue state" means a state where the majority of elected officials are from the Democratic party vs. the Republican party.

Here's a comment from a user who posted this link:

"It's not that Trump officials feel more lenient toward blue-state scientists. It's that blue-state Attorneys General fight back in court. Sometimes resistance works."
 
Trump's second presidency begins: evaluating effects on the US health system
Science Direct said:
The first hundred days of the second Trump administration was unprecedented, with the administration taking remarkably aggressive, often questionably legal actions across health policy. This article uses the Health Systems Performance Assessment Framework to identify key policies regarding resources, financing, governance, and service delivery and their impact on the cost, quality, access, and equity of the US health system. The evaluation is largely negative. The administration, in its very energetic first hundred days, has already undermined resources, financing, and in particular governance in areas as diverse as oversight of long-term care, scientific research, and vaccination policy. Administration rhetoric and budget proposals called for severe reductions in health care access and actions to terminate services for particular groups, such as immigrants or gender minorities. Many of the particular actions, such as mass layoffs of specialist scientific and regulatory staff, will be difficult to reverse.
Click to expand...
 
“Computerized behavioral therapy device for the
treatment of fibromyalgia symptoms”

Source: U.S. Federal Register
Vol. 90, #134, pp 32352-33261
Date: July 16, 2025
URL:
https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...es-under-the-physician-fee-schedule-and-other

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-07-16/pdf/2025-13271.pdf


[A Proposed Rule by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services]

Medicare and Medicaid Programs; CY 2026 Payment Policies Under the
Physician Fee
Schedule and Other Changes to Part B Payment and Coverage Policies;
Medicare
Shared Savings Program Requirements; and Medicare Prescription Drug
Inflation
Rebate Program
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This document has a comment period that ends in 57 days. (09/12/2025).

Summary

This major proposed rule addresses: changes to the physician fee
schedule (PFS); other changes to Medicare Part B payment policies to
ensure that payment systems are updated to reflect changes in medical
practice, relative value of services, and changes in the statute;
codification of establishment of new policies for: the Medicare
Prescription Drug Inflation Rebate Program under the Inflation Reduction
Act of 2022; the Ambulatory Specialty Model; updates to the Medicare
Diabetes Prevention Program expanded model; updates to drugs and
biological products paid under Part B; Medicare Shared Savings Program
requirements; updates to the Quality Payment Program; updates to
policies for Rural Health Clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers
update to the Ambulance Fee Schedule regulations; codification of the
Inflation Reduction Act and Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023
provisions; updates to the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program.

(...)

I. Policies To Improve Care for Chronic Illness and Behavioral Health
Needs

1. Updates to Payment for Digital Mental Health Treatment (DMHT) and
Comment Solicitation on Payment Policy for Software as a Service (SaaS)

a. Updates to Payment for DMHT

(...)

Additionally, we welcome comments on whether we should establish coding
and payment policies for devices classified under the following FDA
regulation sections that were recommended to us by interested parties:
Computerized behavioral therapy devices for treating symptoms of
gastrointestinal conditions at paragraph 876.5960; Digital therapy
devices to reduce sleep disturbance for psychiatric conditions at
paragraph 882.5705; and Computerized behavioral therapy device for the
treatment of fibromyalgia symptoms to be codified at paragraph 882.5804.

(...)

BILLING CODE 4120-01-P
BILLING CODE 4120-01-C
[FR Doc. 2025-13271 Filed 7-14-25; 4:15 pm]
BILLING CODE 4210-01-P
 
7/22/25, NIH: 'Mitochondria and health’

Excerpt:

Viral Damage

Infections may also affect how mitochondria function. Many researchers now think that mitochondrial damage from viruses holds clues to some medical conditions that have long vexed scientists.

One such condition, called myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), has been a medical mystery for decades. It’s called a post-viral syndrome—a condition that develops and persists after the body has seemingly eliminated an infection. ME/CFS is a complex medical problem that likely has different causes in different people, explains Dr. Paul Hwang, a mitochondrial researcher at NIH.

People with ME/CFS often experience debilitating exhaustion, exercise intolerance, cognitive problems, and a worsening of symptoms after even mild exertion (known as post-exertional malaise). Because the condition’s main symptom is chronic fatigue (a lack of energy), researchers have wondered if mitochondrial dysfunction may help drive the condition in some people.

In 2023, an NIH research team including Hwang linked a protein called WASF3 to ME/CFS in one woman. WASF3 is boosted in cells by stress signals from a signaling pathway called the ER stress response pathway. This overproduction disrupts mitochondrial energy production.

When Hwang and his colleagues compared muscle tissue samples taken from 14 additional people with ME/CFS to samples from 10 healthy volunteers, they found substantially higher levels of WASF3 in most of the people with ME/CFS.

In experiments using cells, blocking WASF3 allowed mitochondria to produce energy at normal levels. The researchers are now planning a clinical trial using an FDA-approved drug repurposed to tamp down ER stress.

“We’re hoping that if we can block WASF3 overproduction, then we have a chance of improving mitochondrial functioning, and hopefully improve symptoms,” Hwang explains.

This tactic may help with other post-viral syndromes, Hwang added, including Long COVID. Millions of people in the U.S. currently live with Long COVID, defined as symptoms lasting at least 3 months after an initial infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Many of its symptoms—including fatigue, post-exertional malaise, and “brain fog”—are similar to those of ME/CFS.

“We have some evidence that WASF3 may be increased in some Long COVID patients as well,” Hwang says. “So, if we see positive results from our trial in people with ME/CFS, we’d naturally consider trying this in Long COVID.”

SARS-CoV-2 may affect the mitochondria in other ways. A recent NIH-funded study found that the virus can block mitochondrial energy production during infection. This interference shifts cells into a state where they produce more of the substances the virus needs to copy itself. In some people, the mitochondria in organs such as the heart, kidney, liver, and lymph nodes never recovered, even though the body had cleared the virus.

Finding ways to block this mitochondrial damage during infection may be a way to reduce the severity of disease as well as prevent Long COVID from developing."
 
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