New York's Ground Zero claim limit extended

Presented by the New York State Society of Anesthesiologists

BILL TRACKER — Ground Zero responders who have not yet filed for workers’ compensation benefits or were denied between September 2015 and September 2017 can submit or refile claims under a new law. NY S 7797 (17R), which Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law on Sept. 7, grants a third extension for Ground Zero rescue, recovery or cleanup workers to file a notice of participation for workers’ compensation benefits. The new deadline to file is Sept. 11, 2022. Amanda has more here.

— Cuomo also urged Congress to ensure the solvency of the federal Victims Compensation Fund after the fund’s overseer expressed concern to the New York Daily News that it could run out of money if claims continue to increase in the coming years. “All are equally heroes to the nation, and all should be equally and fully funded,” he said in a statement.

Story Continued Below

OZONE — Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday he has directed the Department of Environmental Conservation to adopt regulations that will phase out hydrofluorocarbons, a chemical used in refrigeration and foam packaging that contributes to ozone depletion. Cuomo first announced in January he would develop a strategy to reduce HFCs in his “State of the State” plan. On Monday, Cuomo said he is moving forward with that plan by directing the DEC to officially adopt regulations set by the Significant New Alternatives Policy — a 2015 rule by the Environmental Protection Agency that would effectively ban some of the largest and most harmful HFCs. The EPA rule has never gone into effect. POLITICO’s Danielle Muoio has more here.

SHARE ME: Like this newsletter? Share it with your friends.

MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW Nick @NickNiedz, Amanda @aeis17 and Dan @DanCGoldberg on Twitter. And for all New Jersey health news, check out @samjsutton.

ELECTION SEASON — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has endorsed Democratic insurgents Jumaane Williams and Zephyr Teachout in their bids for lieutenant governor and attorney general, respectively."The progressive movement today is transforming American politics from coast to coast,” Sanders said in a statement released by his campaign committee on Monday.

... But Sanders did not weigh in on the Democratic gubernatorial primary between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon, who is aligned with Williams and Teachout, despite her embrace of single-payer health care. The New York Daily News in April reported that Sanders was unlikely to endorse Nixon’s candidacy unless the race tightened substantially; A Siena College Research Institute poll released Monday showed Cuomo with a 40-point lead over Nixon. Read more here.

— Teachout, who is expecting to deliver a baby next month, released a campaign ad of her getting a sonogram. Read more here.

NOW WE KNOW — The model made famous by da Vinci's Mona Lisa may have suffered from hypothyroidsim, judging by some of her distinctive features in the painting. “In many ways, it is the allure of the imperfections of disease that give this masterpiece its mysterious reality and charm,” said Mandeep Mehra, the medical director of Brigham and Women's Hospital's Heart & Vascular Center in Boston. Read more here.

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU: This roundup is for you, so please tell us how we can make it even better. Send tips, news, ideas, calendar items, releases, promotions, job postings, birthdays, congratulations, criticisms and corrections to nniedzwiadek@politico.com and aeisenberg@politico.com.

K2 — Five more people in Brooklyn overdosed on synthetic marijuana over the weekend, leading community leaders to call for action in curbing the problem. More than 100 people in the borough have overdosed on the drug this year. Read more here.

SUNY UPSTATE — The Albany Times Union reports: “The administration of SUNY Chancellor Kristina M. Johnson was involved in two matters at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse that are a focus of a joint investigation by the state inspector general's office and an Onondaga County grand jury. The investigation includes an examination of allegations that at least three former employees of the sprawling medical university had been involved in making back-dated alterations to bid documents in connection with a $200 million construction project, according to interviews with sources familiar with the investigation.”

POLICE PROBLEMS — NYPD is investigating a video that circulated on social media recently showing a uniformed officer wielding a gun at men outside of a methadone clinic and telling them to “go shoot your ... heroin and die.” The identity of the male police officer is not yet known. Read more here.

FEMININE HYGIENE — School districts are spending thousands of dollars to comply with a new state law mandating they provide free tampons and feminine hygiene products for students. It’s unclear what the long term cost of the new mandate will be, as it depends on student usage, but it could weigh more heavily on schools serving large populations of low-income students, who may not have the means to bring their own. Read more here.

MAKING ROUNDS — Robert Wright, the head of the environmental medicine and public health department at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, has been appointed to the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council.

PHARMA REPORT:

COMPOUND CONUNDRUM — Drugmakers specializing in custom, “compound” drugs are facing pushback from traditional manufacturers for undercutting their market and largely skirting FDA regulatory oversight. Read more here.

OTC REFORM — Seven public health and consumer advocacy groups sent a letter to Congress calling for lawmakers to act on over-the-counter drug reform. The House last month passed H.R. 5333 (115) to overhaul OTC regulation, giving the FDA more power to pull products off market and allotting $134 million for a five-year user fee program. The bill represents the first major reform to the $34 billion industry in nearly four decades, but has not received a Senate vote yet. The signatories include the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Public Health Association, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, March of Dimes, National Association of County and City Health Officials, Pew Charitable Trusts and Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

WHAT WE’RE READING:

BALANCE BILLING — While nearly two dozen states have laws in place to protect against surprise medical bill where patients visit in-network facilities but are treated by out-of-network doctors, those laws rarely apply to self-funded insurers. One way of addressing that disparity may be by updating ERISA, which governs such plans. Read more here.

ENERGY DIET — The Kaiser Permanente health system announced it will become carbon neutral by 2020. Read more here.

WEED WATCH — The Wall Street Journal reports: “Two years after the Drug Enforcement Administration began accepting requests to grow marijuana for federally approved research, none have been answered, leaving more than two dozen applicants in limbo, people familiar with the process said.”

NOT DOPE — Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s recent pot toke while recording a podcast highlights how many companies do not drug test their top executives, even at companies like Tesla who test rank and file employees. Read more here.

SEPSIS — Roughly 25,000 nursing home residents who needed to be transferred to a hospital had sepsis and other similar conditions and cost the system some $2 billion, according to an analysis done for KHN and the Chicago Tribune. Read more here.

SINGLE PAYER — HuffPost looked at Tawain’s implementation of a universal health care system as a potential model for the United States. Read more here.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT — Recalls and other food safety warnings have increased this year, but that’s in part due to improvements in testing and diagnosis of potential illnesses. The upshot: scares are generally more treatable, though they also can increase distrust in the food supply. Read more here.

THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD — Private equity firm The Carlyle Group has taken a minority stake in Ambio Holdings Inc. Ambio produces pharmaceutical ingredients for drugs approved by U.S., European and Chinese regulators, reports The Wall Street Journal.

DURB DRAMA — A Colorado physician who sat on the state’s Drug Utilization Board resigned after the Colorado Sun reported on the thousands of dollars in payments and favors given to him from pharmaceutical companies that he did not disclose. Read more here.

TODAY’S TIP — Comes from the Mayo Clinic: “All pregnant women should be screened early for syphilis, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which reaffirms an earlier recommendation”

STUDY THIS:

FIREARM SUICIDES — More than half of Americans who killed themselves in 2016 used a gun, despite encompassing less than 1 percent of all suicide attempts, according to a new report by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Read more here.

MISSED A ROUNDUP? Get caught up here.