What We’re Reading: PhRMA Disputes Price Negotiation; ACIP Recommends RSV Vaccines for Older Adults; Black Women Miss Maternal Health Aid

PhRMA Contends Medicare Price Negotiation

The pharmaceutical industry’s biggest lobbying group filed a lawsuit protesting provisions in the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that will permit Medicare to begin price negotiations for select drugs, reported The Hill. PhRMA represents some of the biggest drug companies across the globe, 2 of which have already filed their own lawsuits. The lawsuit contends allowing Medicare negotiation is unconstitutional, even though the Biden administration and legal experts say the claims have no support.

CDC Advisors Recommend Older Adults Get Pfizer, GSK Vaccines

An advisory panel to the CDC Wednesday recommended that emerging vaccines from Pfizer and GSK to avoid serious respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections be accessible to older US adults, but did not say all of them should receive the injections, according to Reuters. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said in 2 separate votes that people aged 60 years and older may get the RSV shots after speaking with a health care provider. Some members vouched for a stronger recommendation, while others said there wasn’t enough data on effectiveness.

Black, Rural Southern Women Overlooked on Maternal Health Assistance

A federal program constructed to improve rural maternity care has missed Black mothers, who are at the highest risk of complications and death associated with pregnancy, even as maternal mortality spikes in the United States, reported KFF Health News. The grant-funded program from the Health Resources and Services Administration has budgeted almost $32 million to improve access and care to thousands of mothers and babies across the country. However, KFF Health News discovered that none of the sites funded by the organization serve mothers in the Southeast, where there is the largest concentration of predominantly Black rural communities, the US Census Bureau.