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Presented by PhRMA: Delivered daily by 10 a.m., Pulse examines the latest news in health care politics and policy. | | | | | |  | | By Adam Cancryn and Sarah Owermohle | Presented by |  | | | With Alice Miranda Ollstein and Dan Goldberg PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning PULSE will not publish on Friday June 18. We'll be back on our normal schedule on Monday June 21. Please continue to follow Pro Health Care. Editor’s Note: POLITICO Pulse is a free version of POLITICO Pro Health Care's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our s each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro. | | | — Senior Trump administration officials had no definitive evidence to support their charges that Covid-19 escaped from a Chinese lab, newly obtained documents reveal. — Labor groups are stepping up pressure on Congress to address drug pricing, as deadlock worsens. — Advocates are calling for acting FDA commissioner Janet Woodcock to resign, as debate over the agency’s decision to approve a new Alzheimer’s drug continues. WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY PULSE — where more than 600,000 in the U.S. have now died from Covid-19, a toll that exceeds the population of some major cities. To brighter days ahead: Reach us at acancryn@politico.com and sowermohle@politico.com. | | | | A message from PhRMA: The way insurance covers your medicine is too complicated. See how we can make the system work for patients. Not the other way around. | | | | | | HOW TRUMP OFFICIALS SOUGHT TO PIN COVID ON CHINA — Senior Trump administration officials implied that Covid-19 escaped from a Chinese lab despite lacking conclusive evidence about the virus’ origins, POLITICO’s Erin Banco and Daniel Lippman report. The effort in spring 2020 to blame a Wuhan infectious disease lab for the coronavirus pandemic was part of a messaging campaign spanning the White House, National Security Council and State Department, and was embraced on several occasions by then-President Donald Trump and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. They saw this messaging as central to a diplomatic offensive, to corner China into allowing an outside investigation. But documents and cables obtained by POLITICO show that the evidence the U.S. government gathered never supported those claims, leaving the administration’s top national security and health officials split on where the virus likely came from. For example: Economist Peter Navarro and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger bought into the lab-leak theory, while others including Anthony Fauci and then-CDC chief Robert Redfield thought it more likely to have originated in nature. It’s a mystery that’s continued into the Biden era, though it’s unclear whether there’s any more hope now of solving it; China has refused to share vital lab data with the U.S. “My guess is that if a lab leak did occur, the likelihood of gaining access to definitive evidence would be near zero,” said the American Enterprise Institute’s Zack Cooper. “This would be among the most closely protected secrets in the history of the Communist Party.” | | | | DON'T MISS THE MILKEN INSTITUTE FUTURE OF HEALTH SUMMIT: POLITICO will feature a special edition of our Future Pulse newsletter at the 2021 Milken Institute Future of Health Summit. The newsletter takes readers inside one of the most influential gatherings of global health industry leaders and innovators who are turning lessons learned from the past year into a healthier, more resilient and more equitable future. Covid-19 threatened our health and well-being, while simultaneously leading to extraordinary coordination to improve pandemic preparedness, disease prevention, diversity in clinical trials, mental health resources, food access and more. SUBSCRIBE TODAY to receive exclusive coverage from June 22-24. | | | | | FIRST IN PULSE: LABOR LAUNCHES NEW PUSH FOR DRUG PRICE BILL — A new coalition of more than 100 labor unions, religious groups and health policy advocates is warning congressional committee chairs and Democratic leaders not to leave provisions to negotiate Medicare drug prices, lower the qualifying age for Medicare and expand benefits out of the larger jobs and families plans. In a letter sent Wednesday morning and shared with POLITICO's Alice Miranda Ollstein, SEIU, the Communication Workers of America, the United Auto Workers and other groups say the current high cost of drugs has hurt their members and strained the insurance programs they bargained for. Action on these issues has stalled on the Hill. No House hearings or markups of the progressive-backed H.R. 3 have been scheduled since a group of Democratic moderates broadcast their concerns with the measure last month. Meanwhile, the staffs of Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are still trying to find a proposal that can get at least 50 Democratic votes, lawmakers and aides confirmed. “I’m trying to put down ideas and try them out on people, and I think before too long we’ll have something to show,” Wyden said on Tuesday. A Senate staffer added that Finance Committee Democrats are trying to “update and bolster” the bipartisan bill Wyden and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) put forward last Congress and add some form of government price negotiation to it. “But what that looks like is still TBD, especially whether it looks like HR.3 or not,” the aide said. “That’s the most complicated and contentious piece.” MORE J&J VACCINES AVAILABLE — Another batch of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 shots produced at Maryland contract manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions can be dispatched to the public, the FDA announced late Tuesday. Three tranches of J&J vaccines produced by Emergent have now been cleared for use, out of millions manufactured in the Maryland plant before contamination issues ground production to a halt. FDA last month said two batches, roughly 10 million doses, could be used safely, but that millions more would need to be trashed. The next question: Will J&J vaccines be used in the U.S. again? State vaccine orders had started to decline weeks ago, and excess shots have now been sitting around unused long enough to begin to expire, as federal officials’ raced to extend their expiration dates and deploy them overseas. | | | ADVOCATES CAMPAIGN AGAINST WOODCOCK AFTER ALZHEIMER’S DECISION — Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen is calling for Woodcock to resign following the FDA’s decision last week to approve an expensive new Alzheimer’s drug on limited evidence. FDA’s approval of Biogen’s Aduhelm “showed a stunning disregard for science, eviscerated the agency’s standards for approving new drugs, and ranks as one of the most irresponsible and egregious decisions in the history of the agency,” Public Citizen health research chief Michael Carome wrote in a June 16 letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. — The letter lands amid ongoing debates about the drug’s efficacy and cost on top of an unusually long search for a permanent FDA commissioner. Woodcock’s detractors argue that the Alzheimer’s decision is the latest evidence that the acting FDA commissioner, who helmed the agency’s drug division for decades, is too close to industry. Her defenders argue that the medicine is promising and could be the first bright news for the neurodegenerative disease in years. ICYMI: Harvard professors Aaron Kesselheim, who resigned from FDA’s advisory panel after the decision, and Jerry Avorn penned a New York Times opinion piece this week arguing the agency has hit “a new low.” TODAY: HHS PANEL MEETS ON VACCINE EQUITY — The National Vaccine Advisory Committee convenes today and Thursday to discuss vaccine outreach, equity, hesitancy and the specter of Covid-19 variants. — Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine will open the meeting in one of her first major public speaking events since her Senate confirmation in March. | | | |   | | | | | | POLIS TO SIGN COLORADO HEALTH REFORM BILL — Democratic Gov. Jared Polis is set to sign legislation aimed at reducing health insurance premiums, in a bid to deliver on a key piece of his 2018 campaign, POLITICO’s Dan Goldberg reports. The measure has been referred to by some as a public option bill, but it does not actually create a government-backed plan to compete on the private market. Rather, it calls for insurers to offer a standard plan in 2023 that cuts premiums 15 percent over three years. Lawmakers had to water down the bill to quell opposition from hospitals, physicians and insurers — but Polis has argued even modest reductions in premiums as a result of the bill would be better than none at all. | | | | SUBSCRIBE TO WEST WING PLAYBOOK: Add West Wing Playbook to keep up with the power players, latest policy developments and intriguing whispers percolating inside the West Wing and across the highest levels of the Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | AMA REBUKES STATES OVER TRANSGENDER BILLS — The American Medical Association will oppose all legislation aimed at restricting health care for transgender youth amid a surge in state-level GOP efforts to outlaw transition-related medical treatment. The AMA’s House of Delegates voted Tuesday to expand its stance against what it termed a “dangerous intrusion of government into the practice of medicine,” arguing that state legislatures should not interfere with physicians’ ability to consider a range of medical options for children. “Gender-affirming care is medically-necessary, evidence-based care that improves the physical and mental health of transgender and gender-diverse people,” AMA board member Michael Suk said. — The organization’s House of Delegates also advocated a crackdown on public health misinformation, urging social media companies to be more aggressive in rooting out false statements about vaccines in particular. The new policy comes on the heels of an increase in the time that physicians have had to spend with patients countering misinformation, the AMA said. | | | | A message from PhRMA: Getting to what you pay for medicines shouldn’t be a maze. Let’s make out-of-pocket costs transparent, predictable and affordable. And let’s do it without sacrificing access to medicines and innovation. See how we can make the system work for patients. Not the other way around. | | | | | | Washington state’s plan to offer marijuana to those who get vaccinated has failed to attract both the pot shops and health providers needed to make the program a success, the Associated Press’ Gene Johnson reports. Vaccine shortages have prevented Asian countries that did the best job containing Covid-19 from making any significant progress in vaccinating their populations against it, The New York Times’ Damien Cave writes. Despite pledging to end mandatory minimum sentences, President Joe Biden quietly extended a policy that makes it easier to punish people for low-level drug crimes, The Marshall Project’s Beth Schwartzapfel reports. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
