From Washington, DC,

• The House of Representatives and the Senate will be holding Committee hearings and conducting floor voting this week on Capitol Hill.

• The House Oversight and Accountability Committee will hold its third hearing on prescription benefit managers this Tuesday July 23 at 10 am.

• Over the past two weeks —
  • Tammy Flanagan, writing in Govexec, offered tips on creating a smooth transition from federal employee to federal annuitant.
  • Kevin Moss, writing in the Federal Times, discusses the pros and cons of paying for both FEHB and Medicare Part B coverage. He summarizes as follows:
    • “The main reason to not consider enrolling in Part B is the cost of the extra premium. For federal annuitants that are not subject to IRMAA, adding Part B will most likely be worth it. Having Part B gives you the option to see doctors outside of the plan network and if you enroll in an FEHB plan that waives some out-of-pocket costs or consider MA plans offered by FEHB plans, you could see a reduction in your total healthcare spending.
    • “For federal annuitants that are subject to IRMAA, most of the benefits of enrolling in Part B will erode by having to pay more. This is especially true if your income places you in the second tier or higher of IRMAA and you expect that level of income throughout your retirement.”
  • The FEHBlog points out that the IRMAA tax is temporary because incomes usually subside in retirement below the IRMAA relatively high thresholds while the Medicare Part B late enrollment penalty is forever.

From the public health and medical research front,

• Fortune Well lets us know,
  • “As U.S. health officials investigate a fatal outbreak of listeria food poisoning, they’re advising people who are pregnant, elderly or have compromised immune systems to avoid eating sliced deli meat unless it’s recooked at home to be steaming hot.”
  • “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didn’t mandate a food recall as of early Saturday, because it remains unclear what specific products have been contaminated with the bacteria now blamed for two deaths and 28 hospitalizations across 12 states. This means the contaminated food may still be in circulation, and consumers should consider their personal risk level when consuming deli meats.
  • “Federal health officials warned on Friday that the number of illnesses is likely an undercount, because people who recover at home aren’t likely to be tested. For the same reason, the outbreak may have spread wider than the states where listeria infections have been reported, mostly in the Midwest and along the U.S. eastern coast.
  • “The largest number known to get sick — seven — were in New York, according to the CDC. The people who died were from Illinois and New Jersey.
  • “Of the people investigators have been able to interview, “89% reported eating meats sliced at a deli, most commonly deli-sliced turkey, liverwurst, and ham. Meats were sliced at a variety of supermarket and grocery store delis,” the CDC said.”

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “How much drinking is bad for you?
  • “Though more people are calling themselves sober-curious or are trying zero-proof replacements for alcohol, drinking is a regular part of social life for most of us. A coupe of champagne can add fun to a celebration. A cocktail can take the edge off a tough day. And a cold beer can liven up a sports game. 
  • “Yet scientists’ warnings about the potential health problems of even small amounts of alcohol are growing more dire. For moderate drinkers, it can be hard to know what’s actually OK to consume: Is two a day that much worse than one? Are two drinks over a week the same as two in a day? 
  • “Averaging no more than about one drink a day is relatively low risk, according to scientists who study alcohol. They warn the risk of cancer rises significantly when you exceed that. Studies have suggested that alcohol contributes to about half a dozen types of cancers, including breast and colorectal, as well as heart and liver disease, among other conditions.” 

• MedPage Today reports,
  • “U.S. health officials on Friday said a new study in Michigan suggested the bird flu virus is not causing asymptomatic infections in people, while also announcing two new human cases in Colorado.
  • “Last month, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services launched a study of workers who were around cows sickened by the bird flu. The researchers drew blood from 35 people.
  • “One goal was to determine if there were people who never had any symptoms but did have evidence of past infections. None of the blood testing showed antibodies that would indicate infections with the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) virus circulating among dairy cattle and poultry, the CDC reported on Friday.
  • “The lack of antibodies to avian influenza A(H5N1) virus suggests these people were not previously infected with an avian influenza A(H5N1) influenza virus,” the agency said. “These data are consistent with other dataopens in a new tab or window demonstrating the seroprevalence to HPAI A(H5N1), even among workers with known exposures, is low.”
  • “Many of the workers did show antibodies to seasonal flu, which was used as a control virus in the study. Researchers will continue to sample workers, and the data will be analyzed and prepared for a peer-reviewed publication, the CDC said.

• Per Medscape,
  • “One in five children (20.2%) who have an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are likely to be diagnosed with the disorder as well, according to a study published in Pediatrics.
  • “When a baby had more than one older sibling with autism, the family recurrence rate rose to 36.9%, the study found. * * *
  • “Dr Ozonoff’s team found that sex and race played a part in likelihood of recurrence. Younger siblings of females with ASD were much more likely to develop the disorder (34.7%) than siblings of boys (22.5%). And male younger siblings were more likely to have ASD than girls (25.3% vs 13.1%).”