This Week in Congress

Congress is in Recess

The Senate returns on September 6 and the House on September 13.

Student Loan Relief

This week, the White House announced a plan to provide targeted debt relief to address student loan debt. The plan includes:

• Up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education, and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients.
• Borrowers are eligible for relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples).
• To ensure a smooth transition to repayment and prevent unnecessary defaults, the pause on federal student loan repayment will be extended one final time through December 31, 2022. Borrowers should expect to resume payment in January 2023.
• The Department of Education is proposing a new income-driven repayment plan that protects more low-income borrowers from making any payments, and caps monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income—half of the rate that borrowers must pay now under most existing plans. The average annual student loan payment will be lowered by more than $1,000 for both current and future borrowers.

The fact sheet can be found here

Other Legislation and Happenings Around the Nation

Monkeypox

Statistics

According to the WHO, the number of monkeypox cases reported globally dropped by 21% in the last week, reversing a month-long trend of rising infections and a possible signal the outbreak in Europe may be starting to decline. WHO reported 5,907 new weekly cases and said two countries, Iran and Indonesia, reported their first cases. To date, more than 45,000 cases have been reported in 98 countries since late April. US cases accounted for 60% of cases in the past month. US infections continue to show a steep rise. US case count stands at 16,603, an increase of 3,100 cases over last week.

Cases in Children

To date, nine children in the U.S. have tested positive for the monkeypox virus. This week, three children in Georgia were diagnosed with virus.

Senate Hearing on Administration Monkeypox Response

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee will hold a hearing in mid-September to discuss the Biden administration’s response to the monkeypox outbreak.  Senator Murray, Chair of the HELP Committee sent a letter to Dawn O’Connell, Administrator of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, expressing her concern regarding vaccines, diagnostic tests, and therapeutics and their availability and distribution.  Chair Murray stated “The Administration must do more to address existing, unacceptable shortages in vaccine supply, institute comprehensive distribution and communication strategies, and develop long-term procurement plans.”

The letter can be found here

Supplemental Funding Request

This week, Rep. Cicilline and 14 other members of Congress sent a letter to HHS Secretary Becerra and CDC Director Walensky urging the Administration to send a supplemental funding request to Congress to combat the spread of monkeypox. The letter outlines the funding needs including support for state and local health departments, vaccines and treatments, education, testing and data collection.

The letter can be found here.

NCSD FY’24 Request

On August 18, 2022, NCSD Executive Director David Harvey sent a letter to HHS Secretary Becerra and CDC Director Walensky requesting that they include the following in their FY’24 budget requests:

• $344.5 million at the CDC to combat the high rates of STDs;
• $100 million to promote school-based health at the CDC Division of Adolescent and School Health; and
• Lifting the 10 percent clinical services cap on STD health department grantees

The letter can be found here.

Op Ed by NCSD Director David Harvey

“The monkeypox mistake the US government won’t stop making.  For those of us at the forefront of the public health response to monkeypox, there was an overwhelming sense of whiplash watching the federal government roll out its new vaccine dose-sparing strategy earlier this month. This latest move is intended to finally get the country ahead of the virus — except it repeats the same strategic error we’ve seen time and again: it fails to fund implementation.”

The full Op Ed can be found here

Senators Want Better Monkeypox Data

Senator Cory Booker and 11 other Senators sent a letter to HHS Secretary Becerra and CDC Director Walensky asking federal health officials to monitor and address racial disparities in the national monkeypox response. The letter notes that while Black and Latino men are disproportionately impacted by the monkeypox outbreak, they appear to have more limited access to the monkeypox vaccine.  It also notes that the CDC has had to rely on states’ patchy reports of racial and ethnic data on monkeypox cases, leaving an incomplete picture of the racial and ethnic dynamics in the current outbreak.

The letter can be found here

Tpoxx Clinical Trials

Siga Technologies Inc.’s antiviral Tpoxx, which has mainly been shown to fight monkeypox in animal studies, will undergo human testing by University of Oxford researchers. The study will enroll at least 500 people across the UK who will take either the antiviral or a placebo twice a day for two weeks. The UK trial is a world first in testing the efficacy of an antiviral in monkeypox patients, said the researchers who previously led Britain’s Recovery trial of Covid-19 treatments. Investigators will assess whether Tpoxx helps heal the skin and mucosal lesions produced by the disease, as well as the time it takes infected people to test negative for the virus. The drug’s ability to prevent hospitalization will also be studied. Researchers hope to have trial results by Christmas, but it will depend on the pace of recruitment. Both adults and children with laboratory-confirmed monkeypox infections and active skin and mucosal lesions are eligible for participation in the study. Studies on Tpoxx and other candidates are also being planned elsewhere in Europe, the US and Canada.

Jynneos Vaccine in Low Supply

There is only one approved monkeypox vaccine in the world — Jynneos, made by Bavarian Nordic A/S — and supplies are running low. The UK government said last week that it cannot book any new vaccination appointments until more shots arrive in September. Bavarian is close to finalizing a deal with a US production partner as it seeks to ramp up production.

Abortion

August 25, Idaho — This week the Biden Administration scored its first legal victory on abortion rights since the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. A U.S. District Judge blocked part of an Idaho law that would have made it illegal to perform an abortion on pregnant patients whose health is at risk. The Idaho law, which would have taken effect on August 25, permits abortion in cases of rape, incest or when the woman’s life is in danger but doesn’t contain an exception allowing abortions where there is a serious risk to health. The judge has issued a preliminary injunction that will prevent Idaho from prosecuting anyone who performs an abortion in an emergency medical situation.

August 25, North Dakota — The day before a near-total abortion ban would have taken effect in North Dakota, a judge put that law on hold, pending the conclusion of a legal challenge being mounted by the state’s former sole abortion clinic. Although the trigger ban has been blocked, the state will have no abortion clinic for the foreseeable future.

A number of restrictive state abortion laws, including so-called trigger laws, took effect this week. The laws will impact about 10 million women of reproductive age (15-49).

• August 25, Tennessee, and Texas — will ban abortions with few exceptions.
• August 27, Oklahoma – will enforce higher criminal penalties for performing illegal abortions, adding to the state’s already tough laws prohibiting the procedure.