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The ideas and innovators shaping health care | | | | |  | | By Ruth Reader, Ben Leonard, Carmen Paun and Erin Schumaker | | | | |  Quantum biology aims to discover how the building blocks of the universe affect health. | AP | | The physical building blocks of the universe play a role in human biology and augmenting them could lead to better healing, researchers believe. Much of what we know about quantum mechanics – certain behavior of atoms and subatomic particles – comes from controlled environments and test tube experiments. But researchers in the budding field of quantum biology think how these tiny particles interact with each other inside our bodies may provide insight into hard-to-treat health conditions and answers on how to reverse or heal disease. The basic idea in quantum biology is that there are functions in the body that are influenced by electric and magnetic signals consistent with quantum mechanics. Researchers are studying those signals to understand whether they can use quantum processes to recalibrate the body’s functions or improve healing in diseased patients. The rub: Google the phrase “quantum medicine” and you will find a plethora of sites pushing dubious New Age healing practices. As a result, "It’s very hard to have sustained funding,” said Clarice D. Aiello, an assistant professor at the University of California Los Angeles who leads the school’s quantum biology tech lab. Even so: The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health are investing in quantum-sensing technology that can detect magnetic signals inside human brains and organs. The goal is to gather more data on what’s happening at the atomic level and then apply that understanding to biomedical research. That could help support more quantum biology research. “What magnetic fields do you need to apply in order to tweak biology for, for example, wound healing?” said Aiello. “Wound healing has been known to be altered by magnetic fields.” She said there’s already promising research and examples showing that magnetic signals can improve DNA repair or disrupt cell proliferation. Aiello points to a company called Optune, which makes an FDA-approved headworn device that uses an alternating current electric field to reduce cell division in patients with a rare and deadly brain cancer called glioblastoma.
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Asheville Botanical Gardens, N.C. | Sam Oates | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Google is opening up its ChatGPT-like medical AI, Med-PaLM 2, to a small set of Google Cloud users. The goal is to get a limited group of health systems to test out best-use cases and see where the model falls short. Share any 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. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, Ruth talks with Carmen about the steps the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is taking to combat the illicit use of Tranq, a horse sedative that's showing up in fatal fentanyl overdoses.
| | | |  Drug monitoring sites run by the states help doctors ensure patients aren't getting more medicine than they need. | Getty Images | Doctors could be doing more to ensure patients aren’t going to more than one physician to get scripts for opioid painkillers, HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT says. In a blog post, the agency raises concerns that doctors aren’t making full use of prescription drug monitoring programs that the states have set up to track opioid prescriptions, as well as those for other potentially dangerous drugs. Doctors are checking their state’s site — in 2021 about about three quarters of doctors “often” checked the system before prescribing controlled substances — but often are not looking at prescribing information from other states, ONC found. Why it matters: Better monitoring could rein in doctor-shopping by people abusing opioids. And the state websites have a lot of out-of-state data to review. Thirty-one states reported sharing information with more than 30 states. But less than a third of doctors said they ask to see data from other states before prescribing, ONC found. And a fifth weren't clear on whether doing so should be routine. Even so: Physician data requests varied widely by state. In Hawaii, which doesn’t border any state, just 6 percent of doctors requested other states' data, while in North Dakota, Vermont and New Hampshire roughly 75 percent of doctors did. Integration of the monitoring programs with electronic health records systems is also a mixed bag, ONC found. About half of prescribers using leading vendors, who have about two-thirds of the market, said the programs were integrated, but that figure was just 18 percent for prescribers using other vendors.
| | | | LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today. | | | | | | | | |  Gupta says xylazine is an emerging drug threat. | AP | | | "The bottom line is this: An American is dying from drug poisoning every 5 minutes, around the clock, each day and every day." Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy | | A horse sedative showing up in an increasing number of fentanyl overdoses is an emerging drug threat, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said this week. The designation obligates the administration to present a plan to Congress to fight xylazine, also known as Tranq, within 90 days. Congress is also mulling legislation to combat the drug, which reduces the effectiveness of opioid overdose reversal drugs like Narcan, and can cause severe wounds and rotting flesh in people who don’t fatally overdose after taking fentanyl mixed with it. Bipartisan companion bills introduced in the House and Senate would schedule xylazine as a controlled substance, subject to Drug Enforcement Administration regulation. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) are leading the effort in the Senate, while Reps. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), August Pfluger (R-Texas), Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) introduced the House version. Their bills would enable the DEA to track xylazine manufacturing to ensure the drug is going to treat horses and not the illicit market. The measure would also require the administration to report to Congress on prevalence, risks and recommendations to best combat xylazine's illegal use, while ensuring it remains available to veterinarians. Meanwhile, the House Science, Space and Technology Committee last month unanimously approved another bill, the TRANQ Research Act, to direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to study how to improve detection of xylazine and other substances that are often mixed with illicit drugs. Reps. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), Yadira Caraveo (D-Colo.), Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) co-sponsored that measure, which now awaits a vote in the House. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
