No images? Click here HealthPlatform.News(letter)July 21, 2025 In this week’s edition of health news across the states: States move to counter new threats to food, water supplies; Two companies control majority of dialysis market, study says; Heart attacks no longer the leading cause of heart disease deaths; Montana expands “Right to Try” law. Plus: Garcia: A health system under constant attack Growing risks to public food and water supplies are forcing states to pursue protective action. Lawmakers and government agencies are expanding biosecurity efforts and better agricultural practices through increased funding and taking legislative action regarding disease surveillance and prevention. That’s according to a June report from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Just two healthcare firms account for almost 80% of the market for dialysis treatments, which are a major source of spending across both the Medicare and Medicaid programs, according to a new study. Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the U.S., but the types of heart conditions causing those deaths are changing. While deaths from heart attacks have dropped significantly over the past five decades, fatalities from other forms of heart disease — especially heart failure, arrhythmias and hypertensive heart disease — are increasing. The state of Montana has passed a vigorous new update to its “right to try” law, becoming the first state in the nation to establish officially recognized experimental treatment centers. Existing Montana law, passed in 2023, had already expanded upon federal right to try legislation by allowing all patients, not only those suffering a terminal illness, to try experimental drugs. Those drugs are defined as having passed the first stage of the FDA’s three-step approval process. The reference to “healthcare cybersecurity” was generally not heard 10 years ago. But since 2017, when ransomware and other forms of cyberattack disabled the health system in the UK and many other U.S. providers and multinational companies, the epidemic of cyber threats against the health sector has only proliferated, impacting organizations of all sizes across the sector. Indeed, in 2017 the HHS Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force report diagnosed healthcare cybersecurity to be in “critical condition.” Support HealthPlatform.News
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