Texas sues the makers of Tylenol

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the makers of Tylenol, claiming the companies hid the drug's risks for childhood brain development.

In the lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson (J&J), which sold Tylenol for decades, and Kenvue, a spinoff company that has sold Tylenol since 2023, Paxton claims the companies knowingly withheld evidence from consumers about Tylenol's links to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and that J&J created Kenvue to shield itself from liability over the drug.

Melissa Witt, a spokesperson for Kenvue, said the company will "defend ourselves against these baseless claims and will respond per the legal process. We stand firmly with the global medical community that acknowledges the safety of [Tylenol] and believe we will continue to be successful in litigation as these claims lack legal merit and scientific support."

Clare Boyle, a spokesperson for J&J, said the company "divested its consumer health business years ago, and all rights and liabilities associated with the sale of its over-the-counter products, including Tylenol (acetaminophen), are owned by Kenvue."

The lawsuit marks the first by a state following President Donald Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s unproven claim last month that using Tylenol during pregnancy can cause autism.

On Sept. 22, Kennedy announced a series of actions targeting the potential link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and autism, including directing FDA to change the safety label for Tylenol and its generic equivalents. FDA also issued a notice to physicians recommending that they minimize the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy for routine low-grade fevers.

In response, Kenvue said it told FDA the labeling request is unsupported by scientific evidence and would be a departure from the agency's long-standing position on the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy.

(Robbins, et al., New York Times, 10/28; Bettelheim, Axios, 10/20)

Millions set to lose SNAP benefits because of shutdown, more than two dozen states file lawsuit

At least 25 states have told recipients for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that they won't receive checks in November because of the government shutdown. In a memo on Friday, Trump administration officials said they can't legally tap into a $5 billion contingency fund for SNAP amid the government shutdown to pay benefits in November. As a result, healthcare experts are warning that families will be forced to make "impossible" choices between groceries and other basic needs.

"People can die" from even short gaps in nutrition and food access, said Lindsay Allen, a health economist at Northwestern University, noting that people with diet-sensitive chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease rely on SNAP to purchase nutritious foods that help them manage their conditions.

Without SNAP funds, people may end up skipping meals or opt for cheaper, ultra-processed foods, which are typically lower in nutritional value and higher in ingredients like sodium and sugar, according to Colleen Heflin, a professor of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University.

"People are going to go hungry very quickly," Allen said. "And then their health is going to deteriorate." Even if they're only temporarily cut off from benefits, Allen said people could still get evicted or have their power shut off or skip medications. "So what kind of compounding effect does that have?"

Now, more than two dozen states have sued the Trump administration, arguing that impending cuts to SNAP are unnecessary and illegal, saying that the federal government has a legal obligation to maintain funding for SNAP, which Congress made permanent in the 1960s. The states asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to force the administration to tap into the contingency fund.

Some Republican lawmakers are pushing for a standalone bill to keep SNAP beneficiaries from losing their assistance. However, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) argued the best way to fund SNAP would be for Democrats to reopen the government, though he added that Republican senators would discuss the issue during their policy lunch on Tuesday.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and a few other Republican senators have signed onto a bill from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to fund SNAP and are pushing for a vote this week, POLITICO reports.

(Todd, STAT, 10/27; Hill, POLITICO, 10/27; Romm/Cochrane, New York Times, 10/28)

In 2024, the Biden administration released a final rule saying that organizations receiving any federal health funding and health insurers doing business through government plans can't refuse to provide healthcare services, including gender-affirming care, that would be provided to a person for other purposes.

Guirola ruled that the word "sex" is not defined in Title IX and that the court must interpret the term according to its meaning in and around 1972 when it was passed, which Guirola ruled focused on biological sex.

A statute "cannot be divorced from the circumstances existing at the time it was passed," Guirola said.

(Weixel, The Hill, 10/23; Taylor, Becker's Hospital Review, 10/27)

Majority of Americans say healthcare is unaffordable and that the US should switch to a new system

A new poll from Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit that works to eliminate medical debt, alongside nonpartisan research firm PerryUndem, found that most Americans say that U.S. healthcare is unaffordable and that the country should switch to a new system of health insurance.

Specifically, the poll found that 69% of respondents said they believe healthcare is not affordable today, with that figure remaining fairly consistent across political parties.

Thirty-five percent of respondents said they currently owe money or have debt due to medical or dental expenses, and the same percentage said they have skipped or delayed medical care in the last year due to fears of medical debt.

Meanwhile, 63% of respondents said they blamed insurance companies the most for medical debt while 12% blamed pharmaceutical companies and 9% blamed hospitals.

In addition, 76% of respondents agreed with the statement: "We need to switch to a different system of health insurance where people can change jobs or become self-employed and not have to worry about losing their health insurance."

Allison Sesso, president and CEO of Undue Medical Debt, said that healthcare affordability "is a common ground issue that you know is resonating with people. Health care is clearly unaffordable."

"What I thought was really interesting is really the focus on insurance," Sesso added. "Seventy-four percent saying that insurance is failing to protect them from medical debt. And I think that that, to me, is a little bit new. Not that it's new that insurance isn't working that great, but that such a large percentage of voters on both sides of the aisle were pointing that out as one of the biggest failures."

(Choi, The Hill, 10/27)

NEJM and public health group launch alternative to CDC's MMWR

The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) will collaborate to start publishing "public health alerts" in the coming month to serve as an alternative to CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), according to CIDRAP Director Michael Osterholm.

The alerts "will basically serve to be a way to convey the information that once was shared in the MMWR with all of us in a very timely way," Osterholm said at the IDWeek conference earlier this month. "We encourage all of you to begin thinking about submissions of outbreaks or data you think should be evaluated. So, I hope you'll help participate in that."

A spokesperson for NEJM said the alerts will be published in a new section of the NEJM Evidence Journal as needed rather than on a weekly basis. The alerts will also be made available for free.

"In the coming weeks, we will be sharing more information on a new, rapid digital alert to disseminate essential data on disease outbreaks and other issues of public health importance" created in partnership with CIDRAP, the spokesperson added.

(Oza, STAT, 10/21)