Rx Drugs

Infectious disease experts stress the importance of applying the same urgency to pediatric COVID-19 vaccine trials and vaccination efforts that has been applied to adult studies and vaccinations in order to achieve the herd immunity needed to reopen the United States.

Pediatricians say vaccine developers need to make information about their COVID-19 clinical trials more accessible, especially to historically underrepresented minority groups, to encourage parents to enroll their children in trials now taking place to study the vaccines’ effects on children.

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) said during a recent Energy & Commerce Committee hearing that pharmacy benefits manager audits are deterring some pharmacists from administering coronavirus vaccines.

Senate Democrats delayed by one year, till 2024, the removal of the cap on Medicaid inflation rebates included in their draft pandemic relief package, according to language circulating Wednesday (March 3).

A proposal to waive a selection of World Trade Organization intellectual property obligations is “misguided,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce argued on Tuesday, calling it “a distraction” from the broader vaccine access push.

Studies show that postponing the second dose of the two-dose mRNA COVID-19 vaccines beyond their currently recommended dosing regimens left some people less protected against SARS-CoV-2 variants, an official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed during a meeting of CDC’s vaccine advisers on Monday (March 1).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisers emphasized a need for the government and other health officials to quash any concerns that Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot COVID-19 vaccine is inferior to the two other FDA-authorized vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna by clearly communicating that none of the vaccines have been compared head to head.

The Biden administration on Friday (Feb. 26) updated and partially reversed Trump administration guidance on insurers’ responsibilities for covering COVID-19 testing, clarifying that non-grandfathered group health plans must fully cover diagnostic testing even if the patient is asymptomatic, except when done for public health surveillance or return-to-work mandates.

A majority of House lawmakers from both parties are telling HHS to fine drug companies that deny 340B discounts to hospitals for drugs dispensed by contract pharmacies and to make drug companies pay hospitals back for discounts that were withheld.