• Alabama: Alabama lawmakers are considering legislation that would protect IVF access after the state's Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children. The court's ruling was in response to two lawsuits brought against a fertility clinic in Mobile, Alabama under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. In 2021, a patient at the clinic allegedly broke into a freezer, removed human embryos stored there, and then dropped them. Since the ruling, at least three IVF providers — the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama Fertility, and the Center for Reproductive Medicine at Mobile Infirmary — have suspended their IVF services as they consider the potential legal implications of the decision. Similarly, Cryoport, a major embryo shipping company, said it is "pausing" its business in Alabama as it evaluates the ruling. According to the New York Times, state Sen. Tim Melson (R), as well as Rep. Anthony Daniels (D), the state House minority leader, are working on legislation to ensure patients can still access IVF treatments. In addition, Katherine Robinson, chief counsel for Steve Marshall, the state's attorney general, said he "has no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting I.V.F. families or providers." (Medina/Cochrane, New York Times, 2/23; Kliff, New York Times, 2/23; Bendix, NBC News, 2/22)
• Illinois: According to a new study published in JAMA Oncology, over 134,000 cases of cancer may have gone undiagnosed in the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the study, researchers analyzed data from the U.S. Cancer Statistics 2001–2020 Public Use Database, which included 99.7% of all cancer cases in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Overall, there were 1,297,874 new cancer cases reported between March 1 and Dec. 31, 2020. The total incidence rate was 326.5 cases per 100,000 people, which was a 13.9% decrease from the expected rate of 375.4 cases per 100,000 people. This difference was equal to 134,395 potentially undiagnosed cancer cases between March and December 2020. Prostate, breast, and lung cancers had the highest number of potentially missed cases. "It is important that we continue to evaluate the trends identified in this study as U.S. cancer incidence data for years after 2020 become available," the researchers wrote. "Pandemic-associated disruptions will continue to affect rates of cancer incidence, and how long it will be until we fully recover is still unknown." (Bankhead, MedPage Today, 2/22)
• Texas: Several health system buyers have expressed interest in purchasing facilities from Steward Health Care, according to real estate investment trust Medical Properties Trust (MPT). MPT originally purchased Steward's real estate assets from Cereberus Capital Management in 2016. Over the last year, Steward, which operates 33 hospitals in eight states, has been closing and selling hospitals and reducing some of its services amid financial difficulties. "We have been extremely pleased with the amount of interest we have gotten in almost all of [Steward's] facilities," said Edward Aldag Jr., MPT's chair, president, and CEO. "In almost all the facilities, we have more than one party who is interested." Currently, attorneys general in the states where Steward operates are closely watching the company's restructuring for any impacts to care quality and access. (Kacik, Modern Healthcare, 2/22)

The Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos qualify as people and that a person can be held liable for destroying them, a decision that experts say could have a significant impact on patients' ability to receive in vitro fertilization treatments. Advisory Board's Emily Heuser, Kaci Plattenburg, and Gaby Marmolejos outline three ways this ruling demonstrates the far-reaching implications of the  Dobbs v. Jackson  decision.