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January 26th, 2023:

New Mexico sues its “abortion sanctuary cities”

Good.

New Mexico’s top prosecutor on Monday asked the state’s highest court to overturn abortion bans imposed by conservative local governments in the Democratic-run state where the procedure remains legal after Roe v. Wade was struck down.

The move comes after the New Mexico cities of Hobbs, Clovis and two surrounding counties bordering Texas passed ordinances in recent months to restrict abortion clinics and access to abortion pills.

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez filed an extraordinary writ in New Mexico Supreme Court to block the ordinances which he said were based on flawed interpretations of 19th century federal regulations on abortion medication.

“This is not Texas. Our State Constitution does not allow cities, counties or private citizens to restrict women’s reproductive rights,” Torrez said in a statement.

[…]

New Mexico’s largest cities of Las Cruces and Albuquerque have become regional destinations for women seeking abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court in June ended the nationwide constitutional right to the procedure.

Located on New Mexico’s eastern plains, Clovis and Hobbs do not have abortion clinics but approved ordinances to stop providers locating there to serve patients from Republican-controlled Texas, one of the first states to impose a near-total ban on abortion.

In direct response, New Mexico Democrats have drafted legislation to prevent cities from overriding state laws guaranteeing womens’ rights to reproductive healthcare. The legislation is due to be debated this month and has a strong chance of passing the Democratic-controlled state legislature.

See here for some background, and here for a reminder that New Mexico has been a regional access point for abortion for some time now.

More details here.

It’s not clear how soon the New Mexico Supreme Court could decide to take up the issue. Torrez said he hopes his petition to the Supreme Court will inspire a quick response within weeks or months — avoiding the potentially yearslong process of pursuing a civil lawsuit.

The filing targets Roosevelt and Lea counties and the cities of Hobbs and Clovis — all on the eastern edge of the state near Texas, where most abortion procedures are banned.

Clovis and Lea County officials declined to comment Monday, citing pending litigation. Officials could not immediately be reached in Hobbs and Roosevelt County.

Prosecutors say abortion ordinances approved in November by an all-male city council in Hobbs and in early January by Roosevelt County define “abortion clinic” in broad terms, encompassing any building or facility beyond a hospital where an abortion procedure is performed — or where an abortion-inducing drug is dispensed, distributed or ingested.

Torrez warned Roosevelt County’s abortion ordinance in particular gives private citizens the power to sue anyone they suspect of violated the ordinance and pursue damages of up to $100,000 per violation.

“The threat of ruinous liability under the law operates to chill New Mexicans from exercising their right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy and health care providers from providing lawful medical services,” the attorney general wrote in his petition to the state Supreme Court.

In 2021, the Democrat-led Legislature passed a measure to repeal a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures, ensuring access to abortion in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she wants to see legislation that would codify the right to an abortion across the state.

Lawmakers have already proposed measures that would prohibit local governments from placing restrictions on abortion access — and call for putting in place protections for doctors and patients.

During her reelection campaign last year, Lujan Grisham cast herself as a staunch defender of access to abortion procedures. She has called a local abortion ordinance an “affront to the rights and personal autonomy of every woman in Hobbs and southeastern New Mexico.”

In June, the governor signed an executive order that prohibited cooperation with other states that might interfere with abortion access in New Mexico, declining to carry out any future arrest warrants from other states related to anti-abortion provisions.

The order also prohibited most New Mexico state employees from assisting other states in investigating or seeking sanctions against local abortion providers.

She followed up in August with another executive order that pledged $10 million to build a clinic that would provide abortion and other pregnancy care in Southern New Mexico.

Not much for me to add here other than I wish Attorney General Torrez good luck. This is clearly the right approach to take, and I hope the New Mexico legislature follows up as well. I look forward to the day when the state of Texas doesn’t make it necessary for them to do all this extra stuff. The Albuquerque Journal has more.

FDA suggests annual COVID booster

I like the idea of this, which is to make COVID shots simpler and thus hopefully more likely to be taken, but it seems to be more nuanced than that.

The US Food and Drug Administration wants to simplify the Covid-19 vaccine process to look more like what happens with the flu vaccine, according to documents posted online on Monday. That could include streamlining the vaccine composition, immunization schedules and periodic updates of Covid-19 vaccines.

The FDA said it expects to assess circulating strains of the coronavirus at least annually and decide in June which strains to select for the fall season, much like the process to update annual flu vaccines.

Moving forward, the agency said, most people may need only one dose of the latest Covid-19 shot to restore protection, regardless of how many shots they’ve gotten before. Two doses may be needed for people who are very young and haven’t been exposed, who are elderly or who have weakened immune systems, according to the FDA’s briefing document for its vaccine advisers.

The agency is urging a shift toward only one vaccine composition rather than a combination of monovalent vaccines – which are currently used for primary shots and target only one strain – and bivalent vaccines – which are currently used for booster doses and target more than one strain.

The FDA briefing documents do not say whether the annual shot would contain a single strain, two strains or more. The annual influenza vaccine immunizes against four strains.

“This simplification of vaccine composition should reduce complexity, decrease vaccine administration errors due to the complexity of the number of different vial presentations, and potentially increase vaccine compliance by allowing clearer communication,” the FDA said.

The agency’s independent vaccine advisers, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, are scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss the future of Covid-19 vaccine regimens and will be asked to vote on whether they recommend parts of the FDA’s plan.

Vaccine experts had mixed responses.

[…]

Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, said he sees the plan for an annual update as a balance between what science says is needed to fight the virus and what’s actually practical.

“I think it’s a balance, trying to do what the science says, which is the need for adaptability and flexibility. Yet the practicality that’s unlikely the companies can probably make that switch more than once a year,” he said.

But this plan also has some weaknesses, he notes. Annual updates are fine as long as the virus continues to evolve incrementally, based on previously circulating viruses. But he questions whether the world has enough genomic surveillance to catch a radically different variant that pops out of left field, as Omicron did.

“We don’t have the surveillance mechanisms in place globally. We don’t have the genomic sequencing in place globally. We don’t have the carefully orchestrated dance that took decades to build for influenza surveillance in place for coronavirus surveillance,” Hotez said.

The NYT has more from the scientists.

The proposal took some scientists by surprise, including a few of the F.D.A.’s own advisers. They are scheduled to meet on Thursday to discuss the country’s vaccine strategy, including which doses should be offered and on what schedule.

“I’m choosing to believe that they are open to advice, and that they haven’t already made up their minds as to exactly what they’re going to do,” Dr. Paul Offit, one of the advisers and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said of F.D.A. officials.

There was little research to support the suggested plan, some advisers said.

“I’d like to see some data on the effect of dosing interval, at least observational data,” said Dr. Eric Rubin, one of the advisers and editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. “And going forward, I’d like to see data collected to try to tell if we’re doing the right thing.”

Still, Dr. Rubin added, “I’d definitely be in favor of something simpler, as it would make it more likely that people might take it.”

Only about 40 percent of adults aged 65 and older, and only 16 percent of those 5 and older, have received the latest Covid booster shot. Many experts, including federal officials, have said that the doses are most important for Americans at high risk of severe disease and death from Covid: older adults, immunocompromised people, pregnant women and those with multiple underlying conditions.

In its briefing documents, the F.D.A. addressed the varying risks to people of different ages and health status.

“Most individuals may only need to receive one dose of an approved or authorized Covid-19 vaccine to restore protective immunity for a period of time,” the agency said. Very young children who may not already have been infected with the virus, as well as older adults and immunocompromised people, may need two shots, the documents said.

But some scientists said there was little to suggest that Americans at low risk needed even a single annual shot. The original vaccines continue to protect young and healthy people from severe disease, and the benefit of annual boosters is unclear.

Most people are “well protected against severe Covid disease with a primary series and without yearly boosters,” said Dr. Céline Gounder, an infectious disease physician and senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The F.D.A. advisers said they would like to see detailed information regarding who is most vulnerable to the virus and to make decisions about future vaccination strategy based on those data.

“How old are they? What are their comorbidities? When was the last dose of vaccine they got? Did they take antiviral medicines?” Dr. Offit said. At the moment, the national strategy seems to be, “‘OK, well, let’s just dose everybody all the time,’” he said. “And that’s just not a good reason.”

I am obviously not remotely qualified to weigh in on the merits. I like the idea of yearly boosters, because I already get a yearly flu shot and this is appealing as a neat and orderly risk-mitigation device. I’d like to think it might help increase the number of people who get boosted, but I’m not quite that optimistic. It would be nice to say that the science should prevail over the politics in this debate, but you can’t take the politics out of it, and you still need people to buy into whatever eventually gets recommended. Just try to make a good decision and don’t draw it out to the point where the only thing people hear about is the argument over the decision. StatNews has more.

Scott Rolen elected to the Hall of Fame

Well deserved.

Scott Rolen

The hot corner has historically had a high bar for National Baseball Hall of Fame entry. But in 2023, Scott Rolen made the cut and completed a meteoric rise in support in his time on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot.

Rolen was the only one of the 28 candidates on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot to reach the necessary 75% support in results, which were revealed Tuesday night on MLB Network. Rolen will join first baseman Fred McGriff in the Class of 2023 after McGriff’s selection in December by the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee.

Induction ceremonies will be held July 23 in Cooperstown, N.Y.

“You don’t think about this,” Rolen said of his playing days. “You think about trying to do the best you can and play for your team and do the best you can. It’s such a long road, and I never thought the Hall of Fame would be the answer.”

It is now.

Though Rolen was the BBWAA’s only inductee for 2023, he was not the only one to continue a major surge. Todd Helton jumped from 52% in 2022 to 72.2% in his fifth of 10 possible appearances on the ballot, falling just 11 votes shy of what would have been one of the biggest final flourishes for an electee in history. Billy Wagner went from 51% to 68.1% in his eighth year, and Andruw Jones (58.1%), in his sixth year, and Gary Sheffield (55%), in his ninth, both made the important cross above the 50% threshold for the first time.

Carlos Beltrán had a solid 46.5% showing on his first ballot, (Francisco Rodríguez, at 10.8%, was the only other first-timer to receive the necessary 5% to remain on next year’s ballot), while Jeff Kent had the exact same percentage on his 10th and final try with the BBWAA. Kent’s case will go to the Historical Overview Committee for potential inclusion on the 2025 Contemporary Baseball Era ballot.

Rolen was definitely deserving, and as the article notes third basemen are under-represented in Cooperstown. Everyone else from Helton down to Beltran is also deserving and will hopefully have their time soon. Next year it gets a bit more crowded as Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer, and Chase Utley join the ballot. Congrats to Rolen and better luck to the rest in 2024. ESPN and Fangraphs have more.

Texas blog roundup for the week of January 23

The Texas Progressive Alliance is ready for pitchers and catchers to report as it brings you this week’s roundup.

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