From Washington, DC,

• Govexec tells us,
  • “The Senate approved a $1.2 trillion spending package early Saturday shortly after a portion of the government was set to shut down, staving off the threat for the remainder of fiscal 2024. 
  • “The upper chamber moved to approve the measure after funding had lapsed, though shutdown procedures never commenced because an agreement was imminent. President Biden’s was expected to quickly sign the measure, which the House passed on Friday. The spending bill includes funding for the remaining parts of government that have not yet received full-year appropriations, including the departments of Defense, Treasury, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and State. 

• Federal News Network notes,
  • “Congress is looking for details on federal telework as part of the latest government spending agreement — echoing months of return-to-office scrutiny from the House Oversight and Accountability committee.
  • “Among its many provisions, the agreement congressional appropriators reached Thursday for the back half of fiscal 2024 government spending bills lays out six new requirements on federal telework and return-to-office for federal employees.
  • “Within 90 days of the legislation’s enactment, the Office of Management and Budget will have to turn over all agencies’ return-to-office “action plans” outlined earlier this year, lawmakers said in an explanatory statement for the 2024 Financial Services and General Government bill.”

• The House of Representatives and the Senate are on a two week long break. For those who are interested in an inside baseball approach, the Wall Street Journal examines the coalition government operating in the House of Representatives. Of course, the Democrats have a narrow majority in the Senate. All of that may change as a result of November’s national election.

• OPM’s FEHB carrier conference will be held on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

From the public health and medical research front,

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “Catherine, Princess of Wales, who Friday announced a cancer diagnosis, said she is getting preventative chemotherapy—a treatment that is given after surgery in hopes that it will increase the odds of a cure. 
  • “That the princess is undergoing preventative chemotherapy “suggests to me this is a curable cancer,” said Dr. Angela Jain, an assistant professor in the department of hematology and oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Jain and other doctors who spoke with The Wall Street Journal aren’t involved in Catherine’s care.
  • “Such chemotherapy, which oncologists call “adjuvant” therapy, is routinely given after surgical removal of a tumor for several months or for as long as a year, Jain said. Patients often get the treatment every two or three weeks. It doesn’t always stop the cancer from returning, but it can increase the odds of eliminating the disease.
  • “Not all cancers need chemo after surgery, but some do,” she said. “And usually you give that treatment with the hope and intention that this is a curable cancer, and chemo will reduce the risk of it coming back.” 

• The Washington Post adds,
  • “In a recent panel at SXSW in Austin earlier this month, [Katie] Couric spoke about the rise in colorectal cancer. In particular, she hopes women better understand their risks. The risk of developing colorectal cancer is 1 in 23 for men and 1 in 25 for women, according to the American Cancer Society.  
  • “Women, especially younger women, believe this is an old man’s disease, and that’s simply not true,” she says. “Women are diagnosed with colorectal cancer as often as men. I think sometimes people get colons and prostates confused.”
  • “Less than half—44%—of Gen X women have gotten screened for colon cancer, and yet, “they are right in the sweet spot,” Couric says. And 43% of young women believe colon cancer is a men’s disease, of which nearly half think men are impacted two to three times as much as women, which is not correct, according to Medtronic, a health care technology company implementing AI in screening protocols.”  
• and
  • “The Cancer Detectives,” a new American Experience documentary on PBS, tracks the fascinating and surprisingly frustrating backstory of the Pap smear, a cervical cancer screening test that’s now routine but was once anything but.
  • “The film takes viewers back to the days before Pap smears, a time when cervical cancer was rightfully feared by patients and doctors alike. A century ago, cervical cancer was a major killer of women. Early detection was impossible, and sexual stigma and shame kept women from discussing it.
  • “So it’s not surprising that when an immigrant physician from Greece, George Papanicolaou, nicknamed “Dr. Pap,” discovered a way to detect changes in cervical cells, his breakthrough was largely disregarded by the scientific community.
  • “It would take a massive public relations war against the unspeakable cancer to make the Pap smear a routine part of cervical cancer screening — a war waged in part by Black OB/GYN Helen Dickens, Japanese American illustrator Hashime Murayama and a group of women committed to cancer prevention.”

• Fortune Well offers tips on how to stay in shape in your thirties, forties, and fifties. Gook luck.

• The New York Times informs us,
  • “Most people, study after study shows, don’t take the medicines prescribed for them. It doesn’t matter what they are — statins, high blood pressure drugs, drugs to lower blood sugar, asthma drugs. Either patients never start taking them, or they stop.
  • “It’s a problem that doctors call nonadherence — the common human tendency to resist medical treatment — and it leads to countless deaths and billions of dollars of preventable medical costs each year.
  • “But that resistance may be overcome by the blockbuster obesity drugs Wegovy and Zepbound, which have astounded the world with the way they help people lose weight and keep it off. Though it’s still early days, and there is a paucity of data on compliance with the new drugs, doctors say they are noticing another astounding effect: Patients seem to take them faithfully, week in and week out.”

• Per mHealth Intelligence,
  • “Using telehealth to provide palliative care support to rural family caregivers is a low-cost and feasible strategy for transitioning patients from hospital to home-based care, new research reveals.
  • “Conducted by researchers from the Mayo Clinic, Duke University, and the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System, the study examines a telehealth-based palliative care support program for rural family caregivers who face challenges in accessing coordinated care for their loved ones during and after hospitalization. It also evaluated resource use, health system costs, and Medicare reimbursement pathways for this approach. Results were published in the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.”

• The MIT Technology News points out,
  • “Alex Zhavoronkov has been messing around with artificial intelligence for more than a decade. In 2016, the programmer and physicist was using AI to rank people by looks and sort through pictures of cats.
  • “Now he says his company, Insilico Medicine, has created the first “true AI drug” that’s advanced to a test of whether it can cure a fatal lung condition in humans. 
  • “Zhavoronkov says his drug is special because AI software not only helped decide what target inside a cell to interact with, but also what the drug’s chemical structure should be.”

• From the Wall Street Journal,
  • “Elon Musk’s Neuralink introduced the first patient to receive its brain-computer implant, a 29-year-old diving-accident victim who showed during a livestream that he can now move a computer cursor using the device.
  • “In a nine-minute presentation streamed on Musk’s X platform Wednesday, Neuralink showed Noland Arbaugh directing the cursor around a screen to play a game of chess. Arbaugh said it feels like “using the force on a cursor,” referring to a concept from movies such as “Star Wars.” He said his surgery went well and he left the hospital after one day.
  • “Moving a computer cursor isn’t a big technical leap for brain-computer interfaces. An older brain chip first implanted in a human in 2004 also helped a paralyzed person move a cursor with only their thoughts. But the older chip must be attached to a device on the outside of the brain to transmit data, requiring wires protruding through the skin.
  • “Neuralink’s device transmits data wirelessly, and it can be used at home, outside of a laboratory setting.
  • “Another notable feature of Neuralink’s presentation was that Arbaugh was multitasking: playing chess while speaking about his experience getting the implant. Prior demonstrations of brain-computer interfaces have required dedicated attention to a particular task.”
• and
  • “The more time you spend alone, the more likely you are to be lonely, right?
  • “Seems obvious. But it isn’t always true, according to a new study. For instance, it found that although, in general, those who spend the most time alone are the loneliest, that isn’t the case for young people; their time alone has little impact on how lonely they feel. What’s more, people who spend the least time alone tend to be slightly lonelier than those between the extremes. * * *
  • “Relationship status also was significant. Single people tended to spend more time alone than those in relationships and reported greater loneliness. Gender wasn’t a significant predictor of loneliness, the study found.
  • “The bottom line is that loneliness can’t simply be measured by the degree of a person’s social interaction.
  • “The degree of loneliness a person experiences is influenced by how much social interactions they have and by how much social interactions they feel they need,” Mehl says. “Beyond that, an important determinant of feelings of loneliness is the perceived meaning that a person derives from the social interactions they have.”