Weekly Health Digest: GLP-1 Prices, C-sections, Food Companies Against MAHA

White House strikes deals for lower prices on obesity drugs

By Sydney Lupkin, NPR

The White House announced new agreements with pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to significantly reduce the cost of popular weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound. Under the plan, the cost of injectable versions will drop to about $350 per month for people playing out of pocket, with prices expected to fall further over the next two years. The administration also aims to expand coverage under Medicare and Medicaid, with some copays as low as $50 per month.

These medications, known as GLP-1receptor agonists, have shown strong effectiveness in helping patients lose weight and reduce risks for diabetes and heart disease. However, high costs and limited insurance coverage have prevented many Americans from accessing them. The new deal includes provisions to increase manufacturing in the US and ensure that future drug prices are aligned more closely with those in other developed countries.

More than 40 percent of adults in US are obese, a condition linked to major chronic diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. By making weight-loss drugs more affordable and accessible, this policy could mark a major step in addressing one of the nation’s most persistent public health challenges. The agreement also represents recognition by federal health policy that obesity is a medical condition that needs treatment coverage.

— by Yiying Zhang

The ‘Worst Test in Medicine’ is Driving America’s High C-Section Rate

By Sarah Kliff, The New York Times

The rate of cesarean sections in the United States is abnormally high, in part, due to a widely accepted obstetric practice of monitoring a baby’s heartbeat. This continuous round-the-clock monitoring has been found to result in unnecessary C-sections. C-sections can impede mothers’ recovery, complicate future births, and increase risk of mortality. 

The belief that fetal heartbeat could predict a healthy baby originated in the 1950s and was quickly and widely adopted by doctors, along with the first prototypical machines claiming to monitor and document fetal heart patterns. The first clinical trial in 1976 and its follow-up study reported a much higher C-section rate but no significant reduction in adverse birth outcomes, such as stillbirth.

In healthy pregnancies, C-sections are primarily justified on fetal distress, measured and diagnosed by electronic monitors. However, obstetrics experts say that healthy babies often have high variability in heartbeat patterns. Due to this, constant monitoring does not predict fetal distress reliably enough to help either mother or baby, with experts arguing that monitoring does more harm than good. Continuous monitoring has recently been further sanctioned by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists this fall, despite new evidence and sanctions against it emerging in other countries, such as Canada and Britain.

Health outcomes are not the only factor influencing the practice of continuous fetal monitoring. In an economic sense, electronic, remote monitoring allows health care workers like nurses to watch multiple patients at a time through a screen. This economic benefit was and is the basis that monitoring device companies advocated and pitched their product on. However, with the subjectiveness of monitoring records comes malpractice lawsuits, many of which go into the tens and hundreds of millions and claim obstetrician negligence in regards to interpreting the fetal monitor records.

— by Kimberly Yang

Big Food’s Fight Against Kennedy Is Heating Up

By Christina Jewett and Julie Creswell, The New York Times

Food companies have begun to push back against recent state-wide food regulations. Two of the strictest examples of these regulations include West Virginia’s ban on artificial food dyes and California’s ban on ultraprocessed foods from school meals.

Within Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, a new player in food regulation advocacy has emerged. The Americans for Ingredient Transparency (AFIT) organization claims to endorse the MAHA movement, but behind-the-scenes it is funded by major food and beverage companies such as General Mills and Kraft Heinz. AFIT is currently pushing for food regulation power to be taken away from the states and put into the hands of the federal government instead. However, the Food and Drug Administration’s (F.D.A.) food division has a history of inaction and funding concerns. This transfer of power to the federal level would mean bad news for the MAHA movement.

Major food and beverage companies are taking major blows to business due to these state regulations. When different states ban different foods and additives, companies are forced to tailor their many products to each states’s varying rules. Food company executives have expressed their concerns to Senator Kennedy, pressuring him to ask state governors to stop passing these patchwork regulation laws. However, AFIT’s role in food regulation legislation is limited by the passionate pushback of mothers across the country who support the MAHA movement. Republican Senator Roger Marshall, a chairman of MAHA, recently revised a proposed bill to remove language suggesting centralization of regulation power at the F.D.A. after MAHA moms pressured him to support keeping this power in the hands of the states. As the battle between MAHA and food companies continues, federal versus state capabilities will be a major determinant in which side is able to pull ahead.

— by Clara Silvestri

Items summarized by: Yiying Zhang, Emily Zhou, Kimberly Yang and Clara Silvestri