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Nevada Department of Corrections Director Charles Daniels testified...that of all the potential complications from death row inmate Zane Floyd’s proposed execution, he is most concerned about the state’s drug supply...“My primary concern, quite frankly, is that all the necessary pharmaceuticals will expire,” Daniels told U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware...State law authorizes Daniels to plan and carry out execution protocols. While he is required to consult with Nevada’s chief medical officer about the drugs the state plans to use, the officials do not have to come to an agreement...Floyd was sentenced to die for fatally shooting four people and gravely wounding another in a Las Vegas grocery store more than two decades ago. He also was convicted of repeatedly raping a woman before the shooting...READ MORE

Drugs like AbbVie's Lupron, used to treat children with a condition that triggers premature puberty, have also gained use by transgender kids and their parents to forestall the development of sexual features...Hormone blockers, used to treat children with a condition that triggers premature puberty, have also gained use by transgender kids and their parents to forestall the development of sexual features. But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking issue with that trend...Texas...is investigating makers of the drugs, Endo and AbbVie, for allegedly promoting them outside of their FDA approved use without disclosing their risks...In Texas, Paxton is employing the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act to launch the investigation. The probe centers on AbbVie's Lupron Depot plus Endo's Supprelin LA and Vantas...The drugs are "being used to treat gender dysphoria even though they are not approved for such use," Paxton's office said in a statement...READ MORE 

The Biden administration is doling out $30 million in unprecedented grants aimed at harm reduction strategies to combat opioid abuse, including funding for needle exchanges and fentanyl test strips..The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration announced...it is accepting applications for the harm reduction grant program, including from primary care and other types of providers. The announcement comes more than a month after recent data showed more than 100,000 people died of a drug overdose over a 12-month period...READ MORE

...Gov. Steve Sisolak delivered a bouquet of flowers to Las Vegas nurse practitioner Geoconda Hughes...In this manner, the governor launched a slate of events during what he called “Health Care Week in Nevada” aimed at recognizing Nevadans who work in medicine and raising community awareness of their efforts. The events also provide an opportunity, he said, to learn more about the problems facing health care workers and possible solutions to their workplace challenges...READ MORE

Nevada health officials have confirmed the state’s second confirmed case of the coronavirus caused by the highly transmissible omicron variant, this time in a rural county...The second case was found in Churchill County in northern Nevada and involved an unvaccinated woman in her mid-40s, according to the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory...READ MORE

A federal judge overturned a roughly $4.5 billion settlement that legally shielded members of the Sackler family who stand accused of helping fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic, a decision that threatened to upend the bankruptcy reorganization of their company, OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP...U.S. District Judge...said...the New York bankruptcy court that approved the settlement did not have authority to grant the Sacklers the legal protection from future opioid litigation that formed the linchpin of Purdue’s reorganization...READ MORE

A Nevada jury has awarded TeamHealth $60 million in punitive damages as part of an ongoing legal spat between the physician staffing firm and health insurance giant UnitedHealthcare... jury ruled late last month that the insurer underpaid emergency physicians at three TeamHealth affiliates in the state and at the time awarded $2.65 million in compensatory damages...Nine additional, similar lawsuits are pending in other states, and TeamHealth is expecting the Nevada results to drive momentum in those other cases...“Today’s ruling that United must pay $60 million in punitive damages sets a critical precedent that large health insurers can’t underpay frontline doctors for lifesaving care,” said TeamHealth President and CEO Leif Murphy in a statement. “We look forward to continuing the fight against United in nine future cases that will be decided on the same set of facts.”...

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The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court to preserve its vaccination mandate for healthcare workers after legal challenges in several states...The Department of Justice released a legal filing...that seeks to overturn a ruling from a federal court late last month that blocked the mandate in 10 states...a divided panel in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the government’s motion to hold off enforcing the ruling until an appeal can be heard...This week, a federal appeals court reinstated in 26 states the administration's vaccination mandate for health workers at hospitals that receive federal funding. As it stands, the vaccine requirement for Medicare and Medicaid providers is blocked by courts in about half of U.S. states but not in the other half, creating the potential for patchwork enforcement across the country...READ MORE

A college student who argues he’s immune from COVID-19 because he was previously infected has lost his bid for an emergency court order that would have allowed him to register for classes while he presses his federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of UNR's mandatory vaccination policy...A U.S district judge from California...said in denying the temporary restraining order sought by 18-year-old Jacob Gold that he’s failed to establish a fundamental constitutional right to refuse vaccination...Gold claims that because he recovered from COVID-19, he has immunity superior to students who’ve been vaccinated and it is statistically impossible for a shot to benefit him...READMORE

A former Immunomedics executive was charged with tipping his partner and several relatives of confidential information that the biotech's then-experimental breast cancer drug had succeeded in a clinical trial, according to a suit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in New Jersey district court...Usama Malik, Immunomedics' chief financial officer from 2017 until late 2020, learned the drug, now sold as Trodelvy, benefited patients in the late-stage study. Within hours of being told of the trial's success, the SEC charges said, Malik relayed the news to his former girlfriend Lauren Wood and three relatives, who subsequently bought shares in Immunomedics before the results were disclosed publicly...READMORE