Should Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, or any full-time DH, win an MVP award?

• September 5, 2024

Shohei Ohtani has been a unicorn since he came to MLB in 2018. So why wouldn’t he be unique in this as well?

Ohtani already has two Most Valuable Player awards to his credit – in 2021 and 2023. He spent most of his time as the Angels’ designated hitter in those two seasons but also made 23 starts as a pitcher each year, going 9-2 with a 3.18 ERA in 2021 and 10-5 with a 3.14 ERA in 2023. His unprecedented two-way stardom made him a unanimous MVP selection each year.

Since the designated hitter rule was adopted by the American League in 1973 and full time in the National League in 2022, though, no player who got most of his playing time as a DH – without pitching – has ever won an MVP award.

When Don Baylor won the AL MVP with the Angels in 1979, he started 65 of 162 games at DH, the highest percentage yet for an MVP winner.

Full-time DHs have finished as high as second in the MVP voting four times. David Ortiz came the closest with the Boston Red Sox in 2005. He received 11 first-place votes and finished behind Alex Rodriguez who received 16.

“If he stole 50 bags, he probably would have won it,” Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts said of ‘Big Papi’s’ near-miss.

And that is the crux of Ohtani’s case to add a third MVP to his trophy case – making him only the second player in MLB history to win one in each league (Frank Robinson won in the National League with the Cincinnati Reds in 1961 then in the American League with the Baltimore Orioles five years later).

“I always thought that (a DH shouldn’t win the MVP award),” said Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who made two starts at DH while winning the NL award with Atlanta in 2020. “But the things he’s doing this year, it’s hard to argue against it.”

Already the fastest of six players in baseball history to reach 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in the same season, Ohtani will enter play Friday with 44 home runs and 46 steals. The Dodgers have 22 games left for him to become the first 50-50 player.

“I think as baseball people it’s hard to view a DH as winning MVP. But you look up and he has a chance to do something no one’s done before,” Freeman said. “I’ve always thought it would be hard for a DH to win. He’s only out there for four or five at-bats (per game). But when you can potentially go 50-50, we might have to re-think that.

“It would be different if someone else playing was having a ridiculous year too.”

Indeed, no clear challenger has emerged to Ohtani in the NL – even as his offensive production has declined in the second half (he is batting .234 since the All-Star break).

New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor offers voters (two BBWAA members in each MLB city) an alternative candidate who plays exceptional defense at a premium position. Lindor is on his way to a 30-30 season – but his offensive numbers fall well short of Ohtani’s in every single category.

Ketel Marte was building a case during the Arizona Diamondbacks’ second-half surge, but he has been on the injured list the past three weeks.

Marcell Ozuna of the Braves might be the only candidate who can rival Ohtani’s offensive production. Ozuna has a higher batting average (.305 to .290), a comparable OPS (Ohtani leads .988 to .949) and nearly identical RBI totals (99 for Ohtani to 98 for Ozuna).

Like Ohtani, though, Ozuna hasn’t played an inning in the field this season, starting all 139 of the Braves’ games at DH.

“I’m not for it. But no DH has ever done what he’s done either,” said Betts, who made three starts at DH during his AL MVP season with the Red Sox in 2018. “I just think the best player that helps his team win – whether it’s all offense or all defense, that’s the MVP. The Most Valuable Player, that’s what it is.

“There’s no right or wrong. I do know without him we wouldn’t be where we are now. You can go with whatever you go off of. But I know we wouldn’t be here without him.”

Manager Dave Roberts is certainly aware of Ohtani’s contributions to the Dodgers’ best record in baseball and agrees that a DH could be the MVP.

“I do feel he would have to have that much of a better season than the field,” Roberts said. “It’s the same argument of could a pitcher win an MVP? I put it in that same discussion.”

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One-way players – pitchers – have won the MVP award in both leagues multiple times over the years, most recently Clayton Kershaw with the Dodgers in 2014.

“MVP should be all-encompassing on what is the most valuable. Obviously defense plays a part in that,” Kershaw said of a DH winning the award. “But if you’re that good offensively that you’re more valuable, then I think it’s okay.”

Ironically, Ohtani’s best challenger for this year’s award might have been his teammate – Betts. The runner-up to Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. a year ago, Betts was having another MVP-level season this year while providing positional versatility on defense. But Betts missed nearly two months after fracturing a bone in his left hand.

“Yeah, for sure,” Betts said when asked if that injury might have robbed fans of a two-man, one-team MVP race in the NL. “That’s always a personal goal. Personal goals don’t really matter. You’d like to get them. But stuff like that, that’s ancillary-type things.

“That would have been cool. But God has his plans.”

​ Orange County Register 

Horse racing notes: Bob Baffert can finish Del Mar meet on high notes

• September 5, 2024

DEL MAR LEADERS

(Through Monday)

Jockeys / Wins

Juan Hernandez / 42

Antonio Fresu / 31

Umberto Rispoli / 27

Hector Berrios / 20

Kyle Frey / 17

Kazushi Kimura / 14

Trainers / Wins

Bob Baffert / 21

John Sadler / 17

Doug O’Neill / 17

Phil D’Amato / 16

Mark Glatt / 15

Peter Miller / 13

WEEKEND STAKES

DEL MAR

Friday

• $100,000 I’m Smokin Stakes, California-bred 2-year-olds, 6 furlongs

Saturday

• $300,000, Grade I Del Mar Debutante, 2-year-old fillies, 7 furlongs

• $250,000, Grade II John C. Mabee Stakes, fillies and mares, 3 and up, 1⅛ miles on turf

• $100,000 Del Mar Juvenile Fillies Turf, 2-year-old fillies, 1 mile on turf

Sunday

• $300,000, Grade I Del Mar Futurity, 2-year-olds, 7 furlongs

• $100,000, Grade III Del Mar Juvenile Turf, 2-year-olds, 1 mile on turf

LOS ALAMITOS

Saturday

• $250,000, Grade II Golden State Derby, 3-year-old quarter horses, 400 yards

DOWN THE STRETCH

• Bob Baffert can dominate closing weekend at Del Mar again when he runs multiple undefeated horses in Saturday’s Del Mar Debutante and Sunday’s Del Mar Futurity. The trainer has Nooni (Juan Hernandez riding) and Tenma (Kazushi Kimura) in a field of seven 2-year-old fillies in the Debutante, and Getaway Car (Hernandez), Gaming (Flavien Prat) and Citizen Bull (Mike Smith) among seven 2-year-olds in the Futurity. Baffert has won the Debutante 10 times and the Futurity 17 times, and has won both in the same year six times.

• Anisette (Umberto Rispoli), queen of the Del Mar turf course, faces a challenge in Saturday’s John C. Mabee Stakes at Del Mar. The field of seven fillies and mares includes Didia (Hector Berrios), winner of three Grade I and II races on the East Coast and seemingly stronger now than she was when she won her only meeting with Anisette, the two running 1-2 in the Rodeo Drive at Santa Anita in October.

• Hernandez, with 11 more wins than Antonio Fresu as the final racing week of the meet began Thursday, is on his way to his third Del Mar summer title in a row. Baffert, four wins ahead of John Sadler and Doug O’Neill, can unseat Phil D’Amato, who won the summer title in 2023 and tied with Baffert in 2022.

• Mixto’s victory with jockey Kyle Frey at 22-1 odds in the Pacific Classic on Saturday received the lowest Equibase speed figure (108) in the 34 runnings of Del Mar’s million-dollar race. Mixto, who beat Full Serrano by a half-length, was clocked in 2:02.10 for 1¼ miles. The Pacific Classic was weakened by the scratch of Adare Manor and the absence of several of California’s top older males.

• Highland Falls’ convincing win with Prat aboard in the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga on Sunday made the 4-year-old son of Curlin a threat in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar on Nov. 2. Highland Falls jumped into the Classic contenders rankings at No. 6, below Fierceness, City of Troy, Forever Young, Sierra Leone and Dornoch. The rankings are voted by racing writers, handicappers and officials and don’t influence which horses get into the race.

• Prat set a Saratoga record with 18 stakes wins, including 14 in graded stakes and seven in Grade I’s, at the Spa meet that ended on Labor Day. He’s got a good chance of earning the Eclipse Award as outstanding jockey in North America for the first time, ending Irad Ortiz Jr.’s streak at six years.

• The filly Rockin With Energy (Henry Reynoso Lopez riding) looks fastest among three fillies who will try to beat males in Saturday’s Golden State Derby for quarter horses at Los Alamitos.

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• Los Alamitos begins a short thoroughbred season Friday, Sept. 13, racing Friday, Saturday and Sunday through Sept. 22, with a 1 p.m. first post. The meet’s two stakes are minor, the Sept. 14 E.B. Johnston and the Sept. 21 Dark Mirage.

• Del Mar announced the schedule for its Oct. 31-Dec. 1 Bing Crosby Season. It will include the Nov. 1-2 Breeders’ Cup races, as well as two other Grade I’s, the Nov. 30 Hollywood Derby and Dec. 1 Matriarch Stakes. After the Thursday-to-Sunday opening week and early starts on the Breeders’ Cup days, racing will be Friday-to-Sunday with first post 12:30 p.m. In a blow to tradition, there will be no Southern California racing on Thanksgiving this year.

— Kevin Modesti

​ Orange County Register 

Swanson: For Sean McVay and the Rams, perspective is everything

• September 5, 2024

Two years ago, our predictions about the Rams were too tall. Last year, too small.

In 2024, those predictions – not too tall, not too small, not too hot or too cold – might be just right.

No, I wouldn’t recommend betting all your gold on the Rams to win another Super Bowl, though they could.

Nor are they a lock to struggle, though they could.

And that space, this realistic balance of expectations, could be a recipe for success, as head coach Sean McVay sees it these days. Because of how McVay sees it these days.

He’s realized, he’s said, after the roller coaster ride his Rams have been on the past few seasons, how important it is to him to be more transformational than transactional in his working relationships.

A notion borne of experiencing the severe drop from top of the football world into an all-out stall in 2022. From the Super Bowl to 5-12, before creeping upward again, steadily, satisfyingly. Last year, the Rams recovered from a 3-6 start by closing the regular season 7-1. It was, McVay said two seasons after winning a championship, his “most rewarding” season.

“If you have the purpose of going on a journey that’s meaningful, where relationships are developed – and, hell yeah, you want to go try to win a championship – but if that’s the only thing that dictates and determines what you deem as successful, for me personally, I’ll be empty,” said McVay on a July podcast with The Athletic’s Robert Mays.

McVay – who at 38 is the fourth-longest tenured NFL coach, entering his eighth season leading the Rams – is an intense, fast-talker who could be a convincing con man if he didn’t have a track record as an actual football savant.

If he weren’t genuinely a philosophical dude, a new dad who says he values sleep more than before and also sounds a little like a golfer because of how much he’s selling us on the mental part of the game, the feel-good, play-good part, and how paramount that is.

For Rams fans, it’s been and still is In McVay They Trust. And why wouldn’t they? He’s six victories away of becoming the franchise’s winningest coach, entering this season ranked third among Rams coaches in games coached (115), playoff games coached (11) and playoff victories (seven).

He’s a head coach you can trust to traverse all of the pesky potholes along the way, issues that would derail many a team.

Because who could be expected to withstand losing the great – greatest – Aaron Donald and not be worse for it?

Who shuffles their offensive line at the starting line, on account of a suspension and injuries, and is better for it? Who trades away Ernest Jones IV, whose 145 tackles just set the team’s single-season record, without blinking? Who goes into a season with the NFL’s second-youngest roster without anticipating growing pains?

Who designates their primary running back as their primary punt returner without raising eyebrows?

Which team enters the fray with the younger of its star receivers just getting healthy and the other just getting older without expecting some turbulence along the route?

No one. No one at all. Including the Rams.

There are so many questions facing them, you’d think they’re opening their season with a midterm exam. And yet, even put together, it doesn’t seem like an insurmountable test heading into Detroit, where the Rams will open their season where they finished it last year, with a 24-23 wild-card loss.

That’s largely because McVay is doing the math on these football decisions and he’s telling us that, no, no one is adding up to a Donald on defense, but that the kids will be all right.

Because the Rams just need “Kobie Turner to be Kobie Turner, Bobby Brown to be Bobby Brown, Braden Fiske to be Braden Fiske …” And McVay has a hunch those guys absorbed enough of Donald’s desire and work ethic via their proximity to the 10-time Pro Bowler who has retired from the NFL and begun his career as a youth coach.

Because it’s by McVay’s calculations that the risk will be worth the reward of having Kyren Williams handle punts. If he thinks it will pay off to further feature the third-year running back who finished third in the NFL with 1,144 rushing yards, maybe it will.

Because, before Puka Nacua was injured in a joint practice with the Chargers, last season’s breakout star rookie spent the offseason learning from Cooper Kupp, one of the best in the business. “He’s a kid,” quarterback Matthew Stafford said of Nacua, “who’s always looking for, ‘How can I get better?’ ‘How can I work an edge here?’ ‘How can I make it easier on myself?’”

And because of what McVay has learned about his necessarily hard job, an edge you might call it.

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“I think a renewed perspective,” McVay said this week when I asked what’s resonating still from last season. “Certainly being a dad has helped gain an appreciation and the appropriate perspective. And really just the experiences, I’m so young, continuing to grow and mature and try to be better in every part of my life.

“When you look back on some of the shortcomings that you’ve had, you realize that these are all great learning opportunities and what a fortunate blessing it is to be in this role, to be around people that I love. You want to work hard to do right by then.

“And also balance, being the best competitor that you can be while understanding there are some things you can control and some things you can’t. But these players, these coaches, they’ve certainly got me feeling really excited about trying to work as hard as I can to do my part to not let them down.”

You know, that sounds about right.

“Grateful for the group of men, the efforts, the way that they worked, and the consistency.” pic.twitter.com/fxfytlLyLT

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) August 24, 2024

​ Orange County Register 

Ban cell phones in California schools? Georgia shooting raises questions

• September 5, 2024

“School shooting rn,” an Apalachee High School student texted his mother Wednesday morning.

“I’m not joking,” he said, later adding, “someone’s dead.”

The student’s mom posted a screenshot of the exchange on social media, captioning it her “worst (expletive) nightmare” but noting her child was safe. Her son had texted her as the shooting unfolded Wednesday, Sept. 4 — “rn” meaning “right now.”

Two students and two teachers were killed, and others injured, during the attack at the school in Winder, Georgia, by a 14-year-old suspect, according to authorities.

A horrific start to the new school year. And one that raises questions about efforts to ban cell phones in schools.

“I understand the motivation to ban cell phones in classrooms, and I agree with it 100%. When kids are learning, they should not have their phones to distract them,” said Joel Delman, a parent of a high schooler in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which will enact a ban next year.

“But the idea that my son won’t have a way to reach me in an emergency is very scary,” Delman added. “I’m not a helicopter parent, but I want to be able to reach my child.”

Across California, there have been concerted efforts to greatly restrict or outright ban the use of cell phones, particularly smartphones, in schools. The idea, according to proponents, is to limit distractions to learning and curtail harm to mental health.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a letter to school leaders last month, encouraged districts to enact restrictions on smartphones on campuses.

“The evidence is clear: reducing phone use in class leads to improved concentration, better academic outcomes and enhanced social interactions,” Newsom said in the letter dated Aug. 13.

“Every classroom should be a place of focus, learning and growth,” he added. “Working together, educators, administrators and parents can create an environment where students are fully engaged in their education, free from the distractions on the phones and pressures of social media.”

A few weeks after that letter, state legislators passed a bill requiring local education agencies to adopt policies that limit or prohibit the use of smartphones while at school. The policy, according to the bill, would need to be updated every five years.

While Newsom has backed restrictions on cell phones in schools, he does not believe students should be prohibited from possessing or using them in the event of an emergency or “in response to a perceived threat of danger,” Elana Ross, a spokesperson for the governor, said Thursday.

The governor does intend to sign that bill, AB 3216, Ross said.

“The current legislation retains that key provision at the urging of the administration to ensure that common sense restrictions do not infringe on the very real need for students and families, and law enforcement, to have every means available to communicate in these horrifying circumstances,” Ross said.

For Los Angeles Unified, a blanket district-wide cell phone ban isn’t coming until 2025, but individual schools have already enacted policies. LAUSD board member Nick Melvoin, who championed the district’s ban, said those schools have reported a decrease in fighting and an increase in engagement.

Melvoin, in a recent opinion article for the Los Angeles Times, acknowledged concerns about cell phone bans in emergencies. But he cited reports that suggest it might be safer for kids to pay attention to adults rather than be focused on their phone during an emergency or that too many 911 calls could overwhelm a switchboard.

“School officials, not parents, need to be executing emergency plans and communicating with teachers, parents and law enforcement,” Melvoin said.

Newport-Mesa Unified in Orange County updated its cell phone policy in October 2023, with differing rules for elementary and high school students.

High school students must keep cell phones off during instructional time but can use their devices in the event of an emergency or a perceived threat of danger, when authorized by a teacher or licensed physician or if its use is required by the student’s individualized education program.

For younger students, cell phones are not permitted and must be off and placed out of sight during the school day. Students can use phones in the school office if needed.

“We continually evaluate the impact of the policy in our schools and make adjustments to help students focus on their academics and engage with each other in meaningful ways,” said Annette Franco, a spokesperson for the district.

In Georgia, a new alert system at Apalachee High is being credited with likely saving lives when the shooting unfolded Wednesday. School staff were equipped with a special ID that has a button that, when pushed, alerts the school, other teachers and law enforcement, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Officers reportedly responded to the school within minutes after receiving those alerts.

The system also triggered flashing lights and a lockdown message that played throughout the campus, according to the newspaper. Students told the newspaper that classroom boards popped up a “lockdown” message even before they began to hear gunshots.

In 2022, it was at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman wreaked havoc, killing 19 students and two teachers.

Amid the horror, a 10-year-old student made a series of 911 calls, begging for help. “Please, I don’t want to die. My teacher is dead. Oh, my God,” the student said.

For Delman, it’s not just school shootings that concern him when it comes to cell phone bans. Aside from just the logistics parents must navigate with a high schooler’s everchanging schedule, he lives in Southern California; earthquakes are a fear, as well.

“The fact that LAUSD is going to remove my child’s phone frightens me,” he said.

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​ Orange County Register 

Remains of Redlands couple who went missing from nudist resort positively identified

• September 5, 2024

The remains of a Redlands couple believed killed by their nudist camp neighbor have been positively identified, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

The bodies of Stephanie Menard, 73, and Daniel Menard, 79, were officially identified Thursday, Sept. 5, according to Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Mara Rodriguez.

According to the Redlands Police Department, the Menards’ bodies were discovered Aug. 29 beneath the home of neighbor Michael Royce Sparks, 62. He was arrested and charged with two counts of murder, including a special circumstance allegation of committing multiple homicides. Sparks is being held without bail at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga. Police have not disclosed a motive for the alleged killings.

Sparks has yet to enter a plea in the case. His arraignment has been twice delayed, first on Wednesday and again Thursday.

The Menards and Sparks lived in the Olive Dell Ranch nudist resort, located in Reche Canyon on the border of Redlands and Colton.

The Menards’ car was found abandoned on a road inside the resort on Aug. 24, the keys still in the ignition. Stephanie Menard’s purse and her husband’s cellphone were found inside their mobile home nearby.

A friend reported the couple missing the next day, police said. Residents of the resort grew concerned about the couple’ disappearance, telling police Daniel Menard suffered from dementia. The couple’s white shih tzu, Cuddles, is missing and has not been found.

More on the Menard case

Search continues for elderly Redlands couple who went missing from nudist ranch
Redlands police recover human remains from under nudist resort home
Redlands nudist resort reeling from resident’s arrest on suspicion of killing 2 neighbors
Redlands man charged with murder in suspected dismemberment of elderly couple

​ Orange County Register 

States force drugmakers to keep selling cheaper meds under federal program

• September 5, 2024

Shalina Chatlani | Stateline.org (TNS)

In their ongoing quest to lower prescription drug prices, some states are forcing drugmakers to continue to sell cheaper medications to thousands of pharmacies through a federal drug-discount program.

Under the 32-year-old 340B program, pharmaceutical companies that participate in Medicaid must sell outpatient drugs at discounted prices to clinics, community health centers and hospitals that primarily serve low-income patients. The idea is that providers will use the money they save — between 20% and 50% off the normal price — to expand their services.

But many such facilities don’t have in-house pharmacies, so in 2010 the federal government expanded the 340B program to allow many more outside pharmacies — so-called contract pharmacies — to dispense the drugs to eligible patients on behalf of health centers and hospitals. Among the top four pharmacy chains (Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens), 71% of locations participate in the 340B program, according to a recent study by the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Drugmakers contend that the 340B program has grown far beyond its original intent, and that some hospitals are pocketing the savings instead of investing the money in more services. Some research supports that contention.

In 2020, seven major pharmaceutical manufacturers announced that they would restrict or halt 340B drug sales to contract pharmacies, since those sales aren’t required under federal law. As of last September, 25 drugmakers had imposed such restrictions, according to 340B Health, an advocacy group that represents more than 1,500 public and private nonprofit hospitals and health systems.

“We as an industry continue to provide those discounts, but we’re concerned that there’s no evidence patients are seeing any improved access or that they’re seeing lower costs,” said Nicole Longo, deputy vice president for public affairs at Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade group representing drugmakers.

States are pushing back. This year, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri and West Virginia have enacted laws requiring drugmakers that participate in Medicaid to sell discounted drugs to contract pharmacies. In 2021, Arkansas became the first state with such a law, and Louisiana followed in 2023. Other states, including New York, have considered similar bills this year.

“It’s very hard to maintain services and keep a hospital open. So, when 340B came into play, it was very helpful,” West Virginia Republican state Sen. Tom Takubo, the sponsor of the legislation in his state, told Stateline.

“They just unilaterally stopped delivering medications to those peripheral pharmacies,” Takubo said. “And so, we passed a bill that said you can’t do that. You gotta deliver out there. And if you don’t do it, we’re gonna fine you.”

340B expansion

One thing is certain: The 2010 expansion of the 340B program to many more contract pharmacies has dramatically expanded access to the discounted drugs. The number of retail pharmacies participating in the program grew from 789 in 2009 to 25,775 in 2022, according to a study published last year in JAMA Health Forum.

Patient spending on 340B discounted drugs also has increased significantly, from $6.6 billion in 2010 to $43.9 billion in 2021, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Karen Mulligan, a research assistant professor at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California, said there are valid arguments on both sides of the debate. The point of the 340B program is not to subsidize drugs for low-income patients, she said. Rather, it is to funnel financial support to struggling community health centers and rural hospitals.

The federal government began allowing those entities to use contract pharmacies because many of them did not have pharmacies in-house, Mulligan said. But she pointed out that the expansion of the 340B program also has brought in some hospitals that “make plenty of money without 340B.” And because the 340B reporting requirements for hospitals are lax, she said, it’s not clear that they are using the money they save to improve patient care.

The challenge, Mulligan said, is that efforts to rein in the program likely would harm all providers — those that need the savings to serve low-income patients and those that don’t.

“The program’s intention is not what the program looks like today, and that’s why you have so many different people on different sides,” Mulligan told Stateline.

A broad range of patients

Some critics of the 340B program claim the discounts end up flowing to hospitals located in wealthier neighborhoods.

But Joey Mattingly, an associate professor of pharmacy at the University of Utah who has been in pharmacy for more than two decades, said the health care providers that use contract pharmacies see a broad range of patients. And the revenue they get helps those hospitals stay open.

“When you lose the hospital and it’s no longer even available in your community, now you’ve got to drive farther to get to a hospital,” Mattingly told Stateline. “That’s not to say that if 340B went away tomorrow, you would lose a bunch of hospitals. But I think you’d see a lot of changes that would be dramatic.”

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Mattingly said a lot of hospitals and clinics use the savings to create changes that are both economical and helpful to patients. For example, they may start offering free or subsidized drugs in-house that patients could get right away, increasing the likelihood that they will actually take the medicine and avoid a costly hospital readmission.

Aimee Kuhlman, vice president of advocacy at the American Hospital Association, said the 340B program generates tens of billions of dollars in savings that hospitals use to benefit patients.

“The reality is, Big Pharma doesn’t want to give discounts to hospitals or the patients these hospitals serve, they want to keep it for themselves,” Kuhlman told Stateline. “The fact is, 340B is a critical resource to eligible hospitals and the patients and communities they serve.”

Participation in Medicaid is optional, and pharmaceutical companies that don’t want to provide the 340B discounts can decline to be part of it, said Greg Havard, CEO of the 49-bed George Regional Health System in Lucedale, Mississippi, a city of a few thousand people close to the Gulf Coast.

“Pharmacy manufacturers have agreed to sell certain drugs to us at a lower price, and the 340B program is there to help us recoup costs on services or facilities that we operate to treat these folks and try to keep the doors open,” Havard told Stateline. “The reason we as a group wanted to pursue legislation is because pharmaceutical manufacturers, during the height of the worst pandemic in 100 years … stopped honoring our contract pharmacies that have been a practice in place for 15 years.”

Vacheria Keys, associate vice president of policy and regulatory affairs at the National Association of Community Health Centers, also argued that the facilities she represents invest 340B savings into patient care. Keys said the program is essential because the federal funding that community health centers receive “doesn’t stretch as far as it used to.”

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are challenging the new state laws in court. Last month, for example, a federal judge denied a bid by drugmaker Novartis to halt Mississippi’s law. The company told Stateline it plans to appeal the decision.

Robert Dozier, executive director of the Mississippi Independent Pharmacies Association, hailed the new state law and the court’s ruling.

“We’re getting more brand-name drug manufacturers back on board,” Dozier told Stateline. “That gives us access to more medication to where we can help more people in the community.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

The technology used to make the COVID vaccine may be key to pancreatic cancer treatment

• September 5, 2024

Kendall Staton | (TNS) Lexington Herald-Leader

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Researchers at the University of Kentucky are testing the effectiveness of a vaccine that may be able to treat pancreatic cancer.

As one of 15 research institutions across the nation taking part in the new clinical trial, UK HealthCare will test a vaccine, made with the same sequencing technology as the COVID vaccine, to try to lessen the recurrence of pancreatic cancer.

“Patients with pancreatic cancer need additional treatment options. Pancreatic cancer is one of the cancers that we have made little, if any, progress over the last couple of decades, and so this is a potential major breakthrough,” said Dr. Joseph Kim, chief of surgical oncology at UK’s Markey Cancer Center.

To be eligible for the trial, patients have to have a cancerous tumor that is resectable, meaning it can be removed through surgery. That limits the number of potential participants, Kim said, because most forms of pancreatic cancer can’t be removed.

UK will enroll a few patients per month during the trial, with the plan for a total of 200 participants across all research institutions.

Once removed, the tumor is sent to a company in Europe, Genentech, which will perform DNA sequencing on the tumor to create an individualized vaccine for each patient. If effective, the vaccine will lessen the recurrence of pancreatic cancer.

“Even after removal, uniformly, a large percentage of patients will have a recurrence of disease,” Kim said. “There are additional sites of disease that are just not visible with the naked eye, not visible with all the fancy radiographic imaging studies that we have. And so the vaccine would target what we would call the occult, or hidden, cancer cells.”

This particular model was tested in a previous clinical trial to determine if it was safe to administer, called a phase one trial. With successful results, it now moves onto a phase two trial, where its effectiveness will be studied.

Unlike other forms of cancer, patients with pancreatic cancer do not have a lot of effective treatment options, making clinical trials almost standard treatment. Kentucky has the second-highest rate of pancreatic cancer among U.S. states, according to information from the CDC.

“Our pancreatic cancer group here just published a paper showing that the outcomes for patients from Appalachian areas are worse than they are from other areas of Kentucky,” Kim said.

“Patients from our underdeveloped, social, economically challenged areas of the state are not getting optimal care. We showed in our recent study, when patients did receive standard therapies – the best of care – that in the Appalachian patients with pancreatic cancer, such disparities are equalized, or those disparities are eliminated.”

Kim said other trials have so far found vaccines used to treat skin cancer to be safe and effective. He said he thinks vaccines created through DNA sequencing will become mainstream cancer treatment.

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©2024 Lexington Herald-Leader. Visit at kentucky.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Check out our OC photographers’ favorite images from August 2024

• September 5, 2024

We asked our photographers to pick their favorite moments from July 2024, and here are some of the images they selected.

Check out the photos and follow The Orange County Register on Facebook and Instagram. Here are our staff photographers’ individual pages: Paul Bersebach, Jeff Gritchen, Jeff Gritchen Aerial, Images, Leonard Ortiz, Mark Rightmire, and Mindy Schauer.

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