Health Care — Public uninformed about new booster shots

🏈 A new chapter with the NFL and Congress: Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), head of Congress’s Brain Injury Task Force, is demanding answers after a brutal hit on Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.  

In other health news, many adults say they don’t know anything about the new COVID-19 booster shots.  

Welcome to Overnight Health Care, where we’re following the latest moves on policy and news affecting your health. For The Hill, we’re Nathaniel Weixel and Joseph Choi. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.

Poll: Millions of Americans lack booster knowledge

A new poll released on Friday found that half of U.S. adults say they know little to nothing about the recently authorized bivalent coronavirus booster doses almost one month after they were made available. 

Public awareness evenly split: 

• The data from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor found that a minority of people said they knew “a lot” about the omicron-specific boosters, at 17 percent, while another 33 percent said they knew “some.” 
• Among the other half of respondents, 31 percent said they knew “a little” about the shots, while 20 percent said they knew “nothing at all.” 

The bivalent COVID-19 boosters from Moderna and Pfizer contain mRNA components of the original SARS-CoV-2 strain as well as an mRNA component that is found in both the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants. 

Prospective immunization rates: The Kaiser survey found that about a third of U.S. adults say they have either gotten the updated shot or are planning to get it “as soon as possible,” with only 5 percent saying they had gotten the shot. 

A little more than a quarter of respondents said they were ineligible for the booster due to having not yet received the first two primary doses of the COVID-19 vaccines. Another 18 percent said they planned to wait and see before getting the shot,
10 percent said they would get it if they required to, and 12 percent said they would “definitely” not be getting boosted. 

Read more here. 

Price of more than 1,200 drugs outpaced inflation

More than 1,200 prescription drugs rose in price faster than the rate of inflation between 2021 and 2022, according to a report released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Friday. 

Between July 2021 and July 2022, the prices for 1,216 drugs rose more than the 8.6 percent rate of inflation; the drugs saw an average price increase of 31.6 percent.

• Between July 2021 and July 2022, the prices for 1,216 drugs rose more than the 8.6 percent rate of inflation; the drugs saw an average price increase of 31.6 percent.
• Some of the drugs that saw the highest dollar amount increases in 2022 include lymphoma medications like Tecartus, Yescarta and Zevalin as well as diabetes medications like Korlym. 

Context: The…