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Democrats protest secrecy around health bill

There still isn’t a Senate health bill for anyone to see, and Democrats are fed up. It's been reported that GOP leaders in the Senate plan to roll out the legislation this week, send it to the Congressional Budget Office for a score, and squeeze in a vote next week — all before heading out for the July 4 recess. That has Democrats worried that Republicans will force a vote on the bill quickly and without much time for debate or consideration of the implications it'll have on health care. Last night, Democrats began protesting the secrecy around the repeal effort by using procedural maneuvers to bring everyday work in the Senate to a screeching halt.

"These are merely the first steps we're prepared to take in order to shine a light on the shameful Trumpcare bill and reveal to the public the GOP's backroom deal-making," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor last night.

Meanwhile, President Trump’s proposed 31 percent cut in the FDA budget is up for discussion again today. FDA director Scott Gottlieb goes before the Senate appropriations committee to justify the budget requests for next year. Watch here.

Do patients tune out the warnings in drug ads?

The FDA is looking to find out at what point your eyes start to glaze over while reading the terrifying laundry list of potential side effects in a drug ad. Direct-to-consumer drug ads have to include information on side effects, contraindications, and other warnings. In print ads, marketers typically include that information in the main part of an ad and on another summary page. Some research has suggested that repeating that information will help it stick.

But the FDA is now concerned that drug companies might be “overwarning” consumers — essentially, including so many warnings we don’t really pay attention to any one in particular. There isn’t much empirical research to show that actually happens, though, so the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion is studying the idea. They’ve already started to research repetition in TV drug ads, and now they’re proposing a new study to analyze whether overwarning is a problem with print drug ads.

High temperatures spark concern about burns

Doctors at a burn center in Arizona are warning that high temperatures in the Southwest this week are putting residents at risk of serious burns. Temperatures in some regions of Arizona, Nevada, and California are projected to rise above 115 degrees this week. Those high temperatures can lead to too-hot sidewalks, playground equipment, and steering wheels, as well as scalding water from lawn hoses. Kids and older adults, who have more sensitive skin, are particularly at risk of second and third degree burns during the heat wave.

EU and UK life sciences industry contemplates a post-Brexit world

Though the official exit won’t happen until 2019, pharmaceutical and medical device companies in both the EU and the UK are beginning to speculate on what Brexit will mean for business. In this video, Elisabethann Wright, partner, and Jane Summerfield, counsel, in Hogan Lovells’ European Life Sciences Regulatory Group discuss the impact of Brexit on life sciences companies. Watch here.

Inside STAT: The complete genome isn't so complete

(hyacinth empinado / stat)

The completion of the sequencing of the human genome in 2003 was hailed as a historic achievement and it made headlines around the world. But, in fact, the genome wasn’t actually ever completely sequenced. “As a matter of truth in advertising, the ‘finished’ sequence isn’t finished,” said Eric Lander, who led the lab at the Whitehead Institute that deciphered significant parts of genome for the government-funded Human Genome Project. No one lied at the time — they said the genome was “complete as it can be” using the technology available. But now those missing pieces are starting to bother scientists, who see it as the final frontier in human genetics. STAT’s Sharon Begley has more here.

An antibiotic-packed scaffold to stave off infection

Scientists hoping to tamp down on infections caused by medical implants have come up with a new strategy to help stop bacterial films from forming. They started by creating scaffolds from collagen. “Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body,” Dimitrios Zeugolis, a researcher working on the scaffolds at the National University of Ireland, tells me. That makes it easier for those scaffolds to be used without coming under fire from the immune system. They loaded those scaffolds up with antibiotics.

The goal: Deliver the drug to a specific spot to ward off bacteria, rather than giving a patient a dose of antibiotics that will circulate through the whole body. Zeugolis tells me the sponges could be used as a thin, dissolvable layer underneath an implanted device that slowly delivers antibiotics to control infection.

Keeping a closer eye on shifts in antibiotic resistance

The National Academy of Medicine is delving into the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance in a two-day meeting that gets underway this morning. On the agenda: Scrutinizing the gaps in data that make it difficult to monitor the prevalence of drug-resistant bacteria among both humans and animals. Officials from the CDC and the FDA will talk about how they’re keeping tabs on the changing landscape of antimicrobial resistance, and about the public health actions that can be done right now that’ll make the biggest impact. You can watch a livestream of the workshop here.