Leader of the abortion sanctuaries

By Ruth Reader, Ben Leonard and Erin Schumaker

Michael R. Blood/AP Photo

WHERE ABORTION RIGHTS ARE GROWING — California is implementing abortion access policies that aim to make it the country’s leading sanctuary for the procedure and an example to other like-minded states.

POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein reports on new rules requiring health clinics at California’s public colleges and universities to carry abortion pills.

It’s one of more than a dozen policy changes the state has pursued in response to the Supreme Court’s June decision that lets states ban the procedure.

Many states now have bans in place, but California and other blue states have gone in the opposite direction, seeking to improve access for their own citizens and abortion patients coming from another state.

California law bars law enforcement and private companies from cooperating with other states that attempt to prosecute an abortion patient for having the procedure in California.

Other new state laws are aimed at preparing California’s clinics to care for the thousands of patients around the country traveling from anti-abortion states — and making sure that influx doesn’t impede California residents’ access.

California has allocated more than $200 million in state funding to help people from other states pay for travel, lodging and other needs; reimburse doctors for providing abortions to people unable to afford them; and help clinics hire and train more providers.

The state’s moves provide models for lawmakers in other states who support abortion rights.

– Maine Democrats are pushing a bill to eliminate copays for abortion, a policy California enacted last year.

– In Minnesota, where Democrats flipped control of the legislature in the 2022 midterms, lawmakers are pushing the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act that replicates several California policies aimed at protecting patients and providers from legal peril.

– Illinois just passed a law to protect doctors treating out-of-state patients, as California did last year.

– Missouri and Washington state lawmakers have introduced bills similar to California’s that would prevent state officials and law enforcement from obtaining personal medical data from period trackers and other health apps.

– Massachusetts' law to make abortion pills available on public college and university campuses, inspired by California’s and passed in July, is set to take effect later this year.

The administration of California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom created a website that lists all the actions the state has taken related to abortion — administrative, executive and legislative — with the full bill language available should any legislator in another state want to copy it.

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PHARMA THREATS IN THE U.K. — Battles over drug prices and taxes have reached a fever pitch in the United Kingdom since the government lifted the tax rate for companies working on the government’s contract to 26.5 percent of sales.

POLITICO’s Helen Collis reports that generic drugmakers in the U.K. say the large rate increase — from 2019 to 2022, the tax rate was 9.6 percent, 5.1 percent and 15 percent — will make some of their products unprofitable, and they are threatening to pull out.

A recent report commissioned by the British Generic Manufacturers Association found that the most generics and biosimilar companies affected by the tax rate would downsize or end supplies and possibly operations in the U.K.

The warning comes as the U.K.’s National Health Service is on the brink of collapse from surging demand for winter care, huge pandemic backlogs and chronic understaffing.

FORWARD-THINKING ON DISEASE SURVEILLANCE — The Biden administration is ramping up surveillance of biological samples from international passengers arriving at U.S. airports to scan for new coronavirus variants and other hazards to Americans’ health.

By biological samples, they mean the sewage from airplane lavatories, POLITICO’s Krista Mahr reports.

The small but growing Traveler Genomic Surveillance program, run by the CDC with a biotech firm and a company that collects samples, is seen by administration officials and public health experts as part of a revolution in biosafety infrastructure — and a critical plank of national security in the post-pandemic era.

As the program expands geographically and sets its sights on new pathogens, it could function as an early warning system for where and when dangerous viruses and bacteria, natural or otherwise, enter the country.

“Just like we have radar to look for airplanes to make sure we know what’s coming into our country or we take swabs and samples to make sure somebody walking through security doesn’t have explosives on their hands, this is the same thing for pathogens or viruses or bacteria,” said Matthew McKnight, the general manager at Ginkgo Bioworks, whose biosecurity and public health unit, Concentric by Ginkgo, partners with the CDC in the program along with Covid testing firm XpresCheck.

Tidal Basin, Washington, D.C. | Ben Leonard

An Israeli study suggests Covid vaccination may dim the effects of Botox. In a retrospective study, users were touching up an average of 22 days later than before they were vaxxed. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccine is to blame — more research is needed. In the meantime, the bivalent booster is performing well against the latest Covid variant.

Share any other thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at bleonard@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com.

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Today on ourPulse Checkpodcast, Alice Miranda Ollstein talks with Ruth about Amazon’s new $5-a-month generic prescription service for Prime members called RxPass.

JOIN POLITICO ON 2/9 TO HEAR FROM AMERICA’S GOVERNORS: In a divided Congress, more legislative and policy enforcement will shift to the states, meaning governors will take a leading role in setting the agenda for the nation. Join POLITICO on Thursday, Feb. 9 at World Wide Technology's D.C. Innovation Center for The Fifty: America's Governors, where we will examine where innovations are taking shape and new regulatory red lines, the future of reproductive health, and how climate change is being addressed across a series of one-on-one interviews. REGISTER HERE.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has asked Congress to pass legislation that would allow the agency to compel states to share data. | Getty Images

Poor data infrastructure was at the root of the CDC’s struggle to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic as it evolved, according to a new report from In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit firm that assists the CIA with high tech investments.

The report calls for new approaches to collecting and analyzing public health data and sustained funding to improve the response to future outbreaks.

In-Q-Tel’s key recommendations:

— Establish national standards for compiling public health data.

— Require states to share real-time data.

— Implement representative sampling so public health agencies can launch large-scale studies quickly.

— Improve data collection along the lines of the laboratory network PulseNet, which tracks food-borne illnesses via whole genome sequencing.

— Collaborate with the private sector to stay ahead of the technological curve.

Who wrote the report? A roundtable of policy experts from In-Q-Tel, academia; government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC; and private-sector companies like Palantir Technologies, Kinsa and Biobot Analytics.

The state of play: The CDC is overhauling its information infrastructure to speed up the sharing of information with the public during public health emergencies.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has asked Congress to pass legislation that would allow the agency to compel states to share data and additional money to fund its data transformation.

However, Republicans, who control the House, are more inclined to reduce the CDC’s authority than expand it.

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