Mississippi expands monkeypox vaccine eligibility to LGBTQ+ residents
The Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) announced on Thursday it is expanding the eligibility criteria for receiving a monkeypox vaccine to include LGBTQ+ Mississippians at risk of infection.
Mississippi’s initial allotment of the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine included enough doses to inoculate 300 people. Due to the limited supply, the vaccine has only been available to those who have had close, intimate contact with an infected person.
Now, Mississippians over the age of 18 who identify as gay, bisexual or transgender may be eligible for vaccination if they report having multiple or anonymous sexual partners or have attended an event where the virus may have been transmitted.
“While anyone who is exposed to monkeypox through close person-to-person or intimate contact may become infected, most of the cases being seen in this outbreak are among individuals who are gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men,” State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said in a statement.
The monkeypox vaccine is only available by appointment at county health department clinics in the following counties: Lee, Panola, Leflore, Lowndes, Lauderdale, Adams, Hinds, Forrest, and Harrison. Those who wish to check their eligibility and schedule an appointment can do so by calling MSDH’s Monkeypox Call Center at 1-877-978-6453.
Though MSDH has expanded eligibility, supplies are extremely limited, and the department still does not know how many more doses the state will receive through the rest of the year.
The monkeypox virus has spread to dozens of countries and infected more than 31,000 people worldwide since the outbreak began in May. Eleven cases have been identified in Mississippi to date. As of Aug. 11, there were 10,768 confirmed monkeypox cases in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.
Monkeypox, which is part of the same family of viruses as smallpox, has not caused any deaths outside of Africa during the current outbreak, but does produce painful symptoms. Transmission often occurs through close skin-to-skin contact with an infected person. Airborne transmission can also occur during prolonged close contact with an infected person.
Symptoms of monkeypox can include: fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion. Infected persons often experience a rash that looks like pimples or blisters that appear on many parts of the body and fill with pus over time. The illness typically lasts for two to four weeks, and after an infected person’s pustules scab over, and the scabs fall off, they are no longer infectious.
The Biden administration declared the monkeypox outbreak a national health emergency on Aug. 4. In addition to increasing public awareness of the virus, the declaration frees up federal funding for the further creation and vetting of medical treatments.
The World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global public health emergency on July 23, the first time it has taken this step since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. Monkeypox, COVID-19 and polio are the only diseases that have this designation.
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Reddit AMA recap: Inside Mississippi’s welfare scandal investigation with Anna Wolfe
Anna Wolfe — the investigative reporter behind the most in-depth coverage of the biggest public welfare embezzlement scheme in Missississippi history — answered question’s about the state’s welfare scandal and her reporting on Friday, August 5.
Click to jump to a specific question about Mississippi’s welfare scandal :
Do you know if the U.S. Attorney General’s office or Justice Department is, or will be investigating?
Did Phil Bryant know that you had his text messages before he sat down for the interview with you?
Why would Gov. Reeves have incentive to remove Brad Pigott?
What could possibly happen to former Gov. Phil Bryant?
How involved/guilty is Brett Favre in this?
Do you think Auditor Shad White held onto the case for too long before alerting the feds?
Is there any chance anyone other than Nancy New and her group being punished for this?
Does the Biden justice department actually have the appetite to take this on?
Are you aware of any individuals who were knowingly involved but whose names have never been made public?
Where did you get the text messages?
Q: It seems at this point this would be best investigated by outside authorities. Do you know if the U.S. Attorney General’s office or Justice Department is, or will be investigating?
A: Nancy New’s plea agreement signals federal authorities are investigating, yes. We also know federal authorities have met with other figures in the case, such as a defendant in the civil suit.
Q: Did Phil Bryant know that you had his text messages before he sat down for the interview with you?
A: Yes, he did. It’s the only reason he agreed to the interview. He wanted to “look me in the eye,” his spokesperson said, because he had concerns about “crucifixion by innuendo.”
Q: This is an opinion question of sorts, but assuming Tate’s move was political, why would he have incentive to remove Pigott? It seems like an unforced error that just draws scrutiny on him.
A: Yes, Gov. Reeves’ comments last week illustrated how much control his office has had over the welfare department’s handling of the case. The welfare department is, of course, an executive agency under the control of the governor and run by a Reeves-appointed director. Based on Reeves’ connections to some of the defendants or potential defendants, it does raise questions about how MDHS can be an impartial lead on the case.
Q: Please tell me more about what could possibly happen to former Governor Phil Bryant. Wasn’t he supposedly getting a kick-back from it?
A: Two days after Bryant left office, the founder of Prevacus texted him and said, “Now that you’re unemployed I’d like to give you a company package for all your help …We want and need you on our team!!!”
Over his last year in office, Bryant helped Favre and Prevacus by participating in fundraisers, connecting them with an investor and making inroads with the FDA. The company also received $2 million in stolen welfare funds from Mississippi.
“Sounds good,” Bryant responded. “Where would be the best place to meet. I am now going to get on it hard…”
Bryant says he never accepted the stock, but even an attempt to receive a bribe or kickback can be considered a crime in statute. Nancy New has also alleged that Phil Bryant directed her to make the $1.1 million payment to Brett Favre.
READ MORE: Phil Bryant had his sights on a payout as welfare funds flowed to Brett Favre
Q: Just how involved/guilty is Brett Favre in this?
A: Brett Favre was the inspiration behind at least $8.25 million in TANF spending (volleyball, $5M, Prevacus/PreSolMD, $2.15M, himself, $1.1M). And he knew these were grant funds, his texts show.
READ MORE: ‘You stuck your neck out for me’: Brett Favre used fame and favors to pull welfare dollars
He also said, “Don’t know if legal or not but we need to cut him in,” with reference to giving then-Gov. Phil Bryant stock in Prevacus in exchange for his help.
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Q: Do you think Auditor Shad held onto the case for too long before alerting the feds?
A: Some experts we talked to noted that was strange.
Q: Do you feel cases like this embezzlement scandal make your job as an investigative journalist easier or harder? What’s the most enjoyable parts about it all for you?
Please please please keep your foot on the gas; your efforts are invaluable to those of us residents who recognize the abject corruption in this state.
A: I began reporting on TANF before this scandal broke and that was really, really hard. I knew something wasn’t right, but the agency blocked me from getting any information that would allow me to tell the stories I knew were there. Shad White’s arrests in February 2020 definitely set off a chain reaction for me. I focused my reporting on elements of the case that weren’t public (or at least public yet), like breaking stories about the USM volleyball stadium, Marcus Dupree’s horse ranch, and of course, Phil Bryant’s text messages with Brett Favre. Making my own discoveries and making connections I didn’t pick up on before is definitely one of the [most fun] parts of my job.
Q: Geoff Pender writes.., “(Tate Reeves) said criminal investigations are ongoing by the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI, Health and Human Services fraud investigators and others.”
I hate to admit it, but doesn’t Reeves have a point in using this as the defense for firing Pigott?
Why would Pigott be investigating something the Feds aren’t? WHY would the feds not be interested in the things Pigott’s interested in?
A: I don’t think anyone is arguing that the feds aren’t investigating USM. It wasn’t Pigott’s responsibility to know what the feds considered a crime or not. He was bringing a separate civil suit, which attempts to recoup the money. Some targets in the civil suit (such as Prevacus, John Davis, etc.) are still wrapped up in criminal proceedings and investigations, so it’s not as though the state is avoiding any of those folks in its current civil suit.
The $5 million the USM athletic foundation received would be an obvious target for any civil litigator because 1) it’s the biggest ticket item in the entire scheme, 2) it’s easy to prove laws were broken—a defendant has already pleaded guilty to such in state court and 3) the athletic foundation might actually have the money to pay it back, unlike many other defendants.
Q: Do you have any hope this reporting will lead to any positive changes? I only ask because I am a disenfranchised Mississippian who sees the same scenario play out time and again with minimal repercussions on the “politicians” that started the mess to begin.
A: I totally understand this sentiment and I ask myself this question a lot. Ideally, we’d see some big consequence or policy change that we could point to, to know we’re making an impact, but that’s not usually the reality. After the Backchannel published, I got a call from someone pretty high up in government that told me because of the reporting, “I feel emboldened more than ever to just tell the truth and know that that’s the right thing to do.” That stuck with me. Too many of the ills of this state are the result of secret-keeping. I can’t think of many better ways for us to have a positive impact than penetrating the culture of silence that has kept Mississippians in the dark.
Q: The welfare money is federal money. The FBI, Department of Justice and probably the IRS and US Postal Inspector should be swooping in and investigating everyone and every organization involved. Any word on that aspect?
A: You’re right. Nancy New’s plea deal struck in April signals that state and federal authorities are still investigating. And they got a pretty sweet deal to cooperate, which would lead one to believe they’re pursuing those involved at the top.
Q: Is there any chance anyone other than Nancy New and her group being punished for this? When I say punished I mean actual punishment, not a slap on the wrist type fine for less than what was stolen.
A: Yes, the six people arrested in 2020 are certainly facing consequences, even if they haven’t yet been sentenced to prison time. Sentencing won’t happen until the investigation is concluded and it’s hard to predict how much time, if any, each defendant will get. I’ve heard a lot of doubt about the civil suit being fruitful: Many of the defendants likely do not have the funds to pay whatever damages they may be hit with. If it’s determined they broke the law, wage garnishment is an option, but some of them aren’t even working right now. So what I think you’re asking is, will anyone else be arrested? The feds, as is typical, have been super quiet so I can’t answer that.
Q: Does the Biden justice department actually have the appetite to take this on? We hear a lot about the FBI and the federal part of this, but previous JDs were hesitant to get involved in obvious cases.
A: That’s a good question. Biden hasn’t appointed a U.S. Attorney in Jackson, which has inevitably had an impact on the progress of the case. They have no political reason not to pursue this case to the furthest extent. But it’s also not exactly a cut-and-dried investigation. It’s a mammoth.
Q: Are you aware of any individuals who were knowingly involved but whose names have never been made public?
A: Nancy New’s response to the civil suit was fairly comprehensive.
READ MORE: Gov. Phil Bryant directed $1.1 million welfare payment to Brett Favre, defendant says
Q: Where did you get the text messages??
A: Someday I’ll tell the story…
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The post Reddit AMA recap: Inside Mississippi’s welfare scandal investigation with Anna Wolfe appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Prisons chief wants incarcerated people to construct buildings at Parchman
Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain plans to ask the Legislature to pass a bill to allow incarcerated people to construct buildings as a form of job training, a tie in with the department’s focus on reentry.
Under state law, the Department of Administration and Finance oversees construction, repairs, additions and demolition for all state buildings. The department also reviews and pre-approves all architectural and engineering service contracts for building projects.
Cain said licensed contractors are required to build any state building, which is why he sees a need for a change in state law.
“It takes too long and we need to move faster,” he told Mississippi Today about the current process. “Those are the things we can hone our own skills on and have the inmates build the buildings themselves.”
Cain envisions incarcerated people constructing one-story buildings that are no more than 5,000 square feet to house prison programs such as a welding school, carpentry program or a commercial truck driving simulator.
The buildings would be at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, which has the most space compared to the state’s other prisons. A certified contractor, electrician, roofer and others involved would supervise incarcerated people during construction, he said.
“You’re teaching an electrician how to be an electrician,” Cain said. “You’re teaching a carpenter how to frame a building. You put a roof on a building, you’re teaching an inmate how to be a roofer.”
The commissioner also believes allowing incarcerated people to construct buildings for prison training programs could help save taxpayer money. That is especially true as construction-related costs remain high, he said.
A Department of Administration and Finance spokesperson declined to comment.
During a previous legislative session, Cain said he tried to get a law passed to allow incarcerated people to construct buildings, but he said the timing didn’t work out and the effort didn’t have momentum.
Now that he has reentry, job training and other programs in place, Cain said he has a way to show the Legislature that it should invest in more of his efforts.
READ MORE: After 121 scalding Mississippi summers, Parchman prison is getting air conditioning
Since becoming commissioner in 2020, Cain has focused on rehabilitation and reentry as a way to prevent people from returning to prison. Skilled jobs training has been part of those efforts.
Last year, MDOC debuted a mobile welding training center. It started with a group of women at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl and moved to the South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Leakesville.
Earlier this year, MDOC accepted a donated tractor trailer from Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey and District Attorney Bubba Bramlett that was seized during a drug transportation arrest on Interstate 20. The vehicle was turned into a simulator to train incarcerated people for careers in commercial truck driving.
“Now the trend is reentry, and reentry only happens when you send them out with a skill so he can get a job,” Cain said.
Businesses may not want to hire a formerly incarcerated person to sweep the floor, but he said they may be more inclined to if they are certified and have a skill such as welding, truck driving or roofing.
More than 9,000 people leave the Missisisppi prison system each year, according to a 2021 report by the Corrections and Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force, which Cain is a member of.
“Let me have the freedom to teach them how to build those buildings and pour the concrete and let them do that and to prove themselves,” Cain said.
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Marshall Ramsey: Corky
Legendary Southern Miss baseball coach Corky Palmer has passed away. Read Rick Cleveland’s excellent column here.
The post Marshall Ramsey: Corky appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Reporting with impact: 2022 mid-year report
A recent Pew Research Center study revealed that while legacy papers have continued to cut full-time capitol reporters, nonprofit newsrooms have increased their number of devoted political investigators from 92 in 2014 to 353 in 2022, now representing 20% of the total statehouse press nationally. At Mississippi Today, we are honored to be part of this community of nonprofits championing statehouse coverage to ensure government accountability.
Our role in maintaining democracy is critical. Mississippi is one of 16 states where the number of full-time statehouse reporters has suffered a 23.5% decrease since 2014. The consequences of this loss put access to the coverage Mississippians deserve at risk, and profoundly impact our state’s democratic processes and outcomes. This is, in part, why Mississippi Today launched our flagship nonprofit newsroom six years ago. We proudly serve as a government watchdog for Mississippi and demand accountability from all of our leaders. Today, our Capitol Team makes up at least one-third of the full-time statehouse investigators in Mississippi.
Devotion to this coverage fuels our team’s ability to go above and beyond traditional news sources, ensuring no stone is left unturned when we report to you. Our vigilance and earnestness ensures that our readers are always informed about the critical issues that influence their lives, but, we are not alone in this effort. While the work of our journalists is imperative, it is our collective impact that continues to be truly transformational. Your support strengthens our ability to deliver free, nonpartisan news to all Mississippians. Thank you for enabling us to help fill the void in Mississippi with news you can depend on from a team you can trust.
Please take a moment to check out our 2022 mid-year impact report. I am incredibly inspired and encouraged by the work of our team over the course of this very newsy year, and I believe you will be, too.
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Corky Palmer: Hall of Fame coach, Hall of Fame character
Some days you remember for a lifetime. Here’s a memory from 61 years ago, the day I met Corky Palmer, the future Hall of Fame Southern Miss baseball coach who died Wednesday at 68 after a prolonged illness.
Corky was 7, and I was 8. Future college and NBA basketball coach Tim Floyd — he was still Timmy at age 7 — had invited Corky, my brother Bobby and me the Floyds’ house on Mamie Street in Hattiesburg for a backyard baseball game.
“You’re gonna really like my new friend, Corky,” Timmy had told me. “He’s a good ballplayer, and you aren’t going to believe the way he talks. He’s more country than Gomer (Pyle).”
So we started playing ball, Bobby and I against Timmy and Corky, a chunky little guy with a round face, baggy shorts and a crewcut. Early on, Bobby hit a sharp ground ball right at Corky, who bent over to catch it, only to have it go right through his legs. Six decades later, the scene is as vivid as it was comical. Corky stayed bent over and watched through his legs as the ball kept going into some hedges. When Cork looked back up, his eyes were as big around as donuts. He really could not believe he had missed it.
“Well, I’ll be a sardine sandwich!” Corky shouted before turning around and retrieving the ball.
Corky did not miss many balls that day, nor any day we played baseball from then on, which was a lot. Corky became a catcher, a damned good one. He was a sports junkie, but first and foremost he was a baseball guy, just like his daddy, who everyone knew as Punchy Palmer.
Punchy Palmer, a former star all-around athlete Hattiesburg High, was a fixture at baseball parks around Hattiesburg. Didn’t matter whether one of his sons was playing or not. If baseball was being played in Hattiesburg, Punchy Palmer was there. And he was always dispensing homespun baseball wisdom to anyone who would listen — and you were crazy if you didn’t because Punchy knew his stuff.
Corky soaked in all that knowledge and went on to become a catcher for Hattiesburg High and then on to Southern Miss, where he caught for Pete Taylor’s ballclubs in the mid 1970s. He was a solid hitter but he was a marvelous catcher. He really was like a coach on the field.
Doug Munn was Southern’s ace pitcher for much of that time. “Corky caught me for four years and back then we called our own pitches,” Munn said Wednesday. “I don’t think I shook him off once in the entire four seasons. We were always on the same wave length.
“Corky was a joy to pitch to, just a great receiver. He was framing pitches back before that was a thing. I never worried about bouncing a breaking pitch, because Cork blocked everything. Nothing got by him. More importantly, he was a great friend and such a super quality person. Corky was just the best.”
Some folks are meant to be doctors or lawyers or teachers. Corky Palmer was meant to be a baseball coach. He knew it. Everybody who knew him knew it. There was never a doubt.
He steadily moved up the coaching ladder one rung at a time from small-town high schools, to bigger high schools, to Meridian Community College where his teams became a national powerhouse and won 409 games while losing just 160. He moved to Southern Miss as an assistant coach under fellow Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer Hill Denson in 1997 and then became the head coach the next year. Over the next 12 seasons Southern Miss won 458 games and lost 281. His teams qualified for eight NCAA Regionals, including seven straight.
He announced his retirement in April of 2009 with his injury plagued team seemingly going nowhere. And then it happened. Much like Ole Miss this past season, the Golden Eagles got hotter than Mississippi asphalt in August. A late season win streak vaulted them into the NCAA Tournament as a 3-seed. Then they won a regional at Georgia Tech. Then they won a Super Regional at Florida. And then they went to Omaha for what remains Southern Miss’ only appearance in the College World Series.
At Omaha, Palmer won over the national media with that same countrified twang and witticisms that blew away Timmy Floyd, my brother and me when we were little boys. The ESPN announcers and all the national writers were smitten.
Mighty Texas outlasted Southern Miss in a first round in a 7-6 heartbreaker. The next day at practice, Palmer told everyone he was going to pitch J.R. Ballinger in an elimination game against North Carolina. He pointed to a light pole in centerfield. “You see that big ol’ light pole out there,” Corky said. “If I asked Jimmy Ray Ballinger to go out there and climb that light pole right now, he’d be out there in seconds shimmying up that pole. He wouldn’t ask why, he wouldn’t ask anything. He’d just go out there and find a way to climb that big ol’ pole. I don’t know how he’ll do against North Carolina. They are a great hitting club. But I do know this: Jimmy Ray is going to give me everything he’s got. I love that boy. He’s what I call a company man. He’s a country boy, so you know me and him get along.”
Well, North Carolina got the best of Jimmy Ray and Southern Miss. But Corky Palmer’s last game as a baseball coach was in Omaha at the College World Series. How splendid is that?
Joe Paul, Southern Miss interim president and a close friend of Palmer’s spoke for thousands when he issued this statement Wednesday: “The University of Southern Mississippi family mourns the loss today of Golden Eagle baseball coaching icon Corky Palmer. While our hearts break at the notion of his special presence not being with us, we do take solace that he has moved from suffering to a rightful and well-earned eternal peace. I am fortunate to have been blessed to claim Corky as my Southern Miss classmate and my friend. His impact on generations of young men ripples out in to the world of baseball and beyond. Corky was definitely one of a kind, and we will honor and cherish his memory here at Southern Miss always…”
As it happens, Tim Floyd and I were together Wednesday when we received the news, which was expected but nonetheless painful to hear.
There were several moments of silence. But before long we were telling Corky stories, smiling because how could you not when talking about such a memorable character and friend.
Tim summed it up pretty perfectly: “Corky lived his dream and he lived it in his hometown doing what he loved. What’s more, he touched countless people while he was doing it. Think about it. When you get right down to it, how many people can say that?”
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Plan to help poor Mississippians with health insurance stripped from latest federal bill
The budget reconciliation bill approved over the weekend by Democrats in the U.S. Senate and now pending a vote in the House does not provide help for poor Mississippians trying to obtain health insurance.
While generally praising the bill, Sharon Parrott, president of the Washington D.C.-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said, “However, the current bill does nothing to make affordable coverage available to the more than 2 million people with incomes below the poverty line who are uninsured because their states have refused to adopt the Medicaid expansion. Most of the people in the Medicaid coverage gap live in the South and three in five are people of color.”
An earlier version of the bill, considered last fall, provided a mechanism for people living under the federal poverty level (about $13,550 annually) to obtain health insurance. The proposal was designed specifically to provide a health care option for the poor in the 12 states, including Mississippi, that have not expanded Medicaid. But at the time Senate Democratic leadership could not muster the 50 votes needed to pass what is known as the reconciliation bill. Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona rejected the far-reaching $3.5 trillion bill for various reasons, not necessarily related to the health care provision.
Over the weekend, Sinema and Manchin got on board to help pass a scaled-down, $669 billion version of the reconciliation bill – called the Inflation Reduction Act – that provided numerous items, including:
- Various tax credits and other incentives for electric vehicles and other green energy technology.
- A 15% minimum tax on large corporations.
- Caps on insulin for Medicare recipients.
- A provision that allows Medicare to negotiate the costs of drugs.
- Continuing subsides to help people purchase private insurance on the health care marketplace exchange.
The health care provision that was in the earlier version of the bill but removed from last week’s proposal would allow those falling under the federal poverty level to obtain private health care coverage paid for by the federal government on the health care exchange.
Under current law, people who earn below the federal poverty level do not qualify for marketplace policies.
Two million Americans could access health care coverage through the plan, with the bulk of those being in Texas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, according to an analysis by Judith Solomon, a health policy analyst with the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Primarily Republican politicians in Southern states have been opposed to Medicaid expansion.
In Mississippi, studies have estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000 primarily working Mississippians could qualify for coverage if the state would expand Medicaid.
If Mississippi were to expand Medicaid under current law, the federal government would pay 90% of the health care costs with the state paying the remainder. Gov. Tate Reeves, House Speaker Philip Gunn and others have argued Mississippi cannot afford the costs of expanding Medicaid, though multiple studies have found that the expansion, including the infusion of billions of dollars in federal funds, would actually increase state revenue collections.
Of course, still dangling in front of the non-Medicaid expansion states is a sizable incentive to expand Medicaid. The federal American Rescue Plan, passed in early 2021 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, provides additional incentive for states to expand Medicaid. The incentive in Mississippi to expand Medicaid is more than $600 million over a two-year period.
The Inflation Reduction Act will likely pass the House in the coming days and be sent to President Joe Biden, who is expected to sign it into law.
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Hyde-Smith, in rare deviation from the party line, votes to cap insulin prices
In a rare vote that set her apart from most Senate Republicans, U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith voted on Saturday to keep a proposal in the Inflation Reduction Act that would have capped the price of insulin at $35 per month for patients with private health insurance.
The U.S. Senate passed a major budget package that will invest hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy, health care subsidies and deficit reduction, but not before Republican senators forced the removal of the insulin price cap proposal.
Seven Republicans voted with Democrats to keep the insulin price cap in the bill, including Hyde-Smith. However, the 57-43 vote to waive budget rules still fell short of the 60 votes needed to keep the proposal in the final bill.
Republicans did not challenge a provision that places the same price cap on insulin for Medicare patients.
The vote from Hyde-Smith was surprising because of her opposition to the bill as a whole, which she voted against. Hyde-Smith supported the insulin proposal because of the aid it would provide her constituents, she said in a statement to Mississippi Today.
Mississippi had the highest rate of diabetes in the nation in 2016, according to the Mississippi Department of Health, with over 308,000 adults estimated to be living with the disease. Mississippi had the second-highest diabetes mortality rate in the nation in 2020, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
“We must find a sensible solution to lower drug prices for the American people, especially now that everyone is struggling from the pressures of high inflation,” Hyde-Smith said. “I strongly opposed the Democrats’ tax and spend plan, but liked the chance of capping insulin costs even if that plan may not have been a perfect fix. I will continue to work toward improving access to affordable insulin for Mississippians and others across the nation with diabetes.”
The price of insulin in the United States is far higher than in any other country. According to a Rand Corporation study from 2020, the average price of a vial of insulin in the U.S. was $98.70 in 2018, while the same insulin only costs $12 in Canada and $7.52 in the United Kingdom.
The price disparity was worse when Rand looked at the price of rapid-acting insulin. The average cost of this insulin in 35 other countries was just over $8. In the U.S., it cost $119.
Sen. Roger Wicker voted against the insulin price cap, citing an opposition to government price controls, but supported a separate amendment proposed by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., that would have lowered insulin costs by providing $3.1 billion to federally qualified health centers to cover the costs of discounted insulin and epinephrine for certain patients through 2026. That amendment also failed due to a 50-50 vote split evenly along party lines.
“ … I believe that imposing government price controls on private insurance is the wrong way to lower costs. Instead, I have pushed for alternatives that would help lower-income Americans get access to cheaper insulin and end regulatory barriers that have kept lower-cost insulin away from the market,” Wicker said in a statement to Mississippi Today.
He continued: “I hope to continue working with Senator Hyde-Smith and my other colleagues on a truly bipartisan package to help lower insulin costs without setting a government price control.”
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‘We can do our job’: Disability rights group wins access to mental health agency’s records
When the state’s advocacy organization for people with disabilities couldn’t get the Department of Mental Health to turn over records that could show abuse or neglect at state-run psychiatric facilities, it sued. This week, the two parties reached a settlement that will allow the advocacy group to access reports of serious incidents involving staff and residents through an online system.
“The Department of Mental Health is going to allow us to see what we need to see,” said Polly Tribble, executive director of the nonprofit Disability Rights Mississippi, the group that sued the mental health department. “We can do our job.”
Department spokesperson Adam Moore said in an email to Mississippi Today that the settlement will provide extra transparency.
“Though the incident reports included in this agreement were already being reported to the Attorney General’s Office and all other required licensure entities, Disability Rights will now be able to access these reports at any time and request additional documentation if needed,” he said.
Last year, Disability Rights began hearing about how staffing shortages were leading to neglect at the state hospitals. The group is Mississippi’s “protection and advocacy (P&A) system,” charged by the U.S. Congress with advocating for people with disabilities and investigating abuse and neglect at programs that serve them. Each state has a P&A.
The advocacy group sought incident reports from 10 mental and behavioral health facilities around the state, a broad request intended to identify potential patterns and trends. But the state refused to turn over the reports, arguing that the group hadn’t shown “probable cause” to launch a systemic investigation and was undertaking “a fishing expedition.”
The Department of Justice sued the state of Mississippi over its failure to provide adequate community-based mental health services in 2016. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves sided with the federal government and last year ordered the state to comply with a reform plan overseen by a special monitor.
Disability Rights sued the agency in November after months of negotiations over the records.
Tribble was surprised the lawsuit was necessary; her organization has always had a good relationship with the Department of Mental Health, she said.
On Wednesday morning, Disability Rights staff used the new system to access incident reports for the first time, though there are still some technical kinks to work out.
“Our intention all along has been to look at the reports and see if there’s any patterns of abuse by a particular staff person, but also to see if the staffing shortage is having an effect on incidents,” she said. “Which I suspect it is. But we don’t know.”
The Justice Department filed an amicus brief siding with the advocacy organization in March. The brief asked the court to order the department to turn over the incident reports from its facilities.
“During its routine monitoring activities, DRMS advocates observed troubling issues, including understaffing, unreported incidents, patient neglect, nonuse of COVID protocol and precautions by onsite staff, and staff-on-resident injuries and incidents,” the brief said. “Most importantly, the existence of incident reports regarding specific individuals inherently indicates that unusual events involving those individuals, such as harm or an error or omission in care, have occurred.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment for this story.
Lawyers at the attorney general’s office represented the Department of Mental Healthin the suit.
“The State remains committed to serving Mississippians in need of mental health and substance use services and we were pleased to be able to reach a resolution in this case,” Michelle Williams, chief of staff for Attorney General Lynn Fitch, said in a statement.
Earlier this year, the advocacy group settled another lawsuit with the department after it denied a request for records relating to the Mississippi State Hospital’s forensic unit, which serves people who have been diverted from jail or prison, usually because they have a mental illness that makes them unfit to stand trial. The organization wanted to investigate after getting reports of mistreatment.
Tribble said that settlement, too, allowed her organization to get the records it had initially sought.
Even as the Department of Mental Health says it is trying to comply with the court-ordered settlement agreement and expand community mental health services, the state attorney general is still fighting the ruling. Last year, the office appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where it is arguing that the department is already providing needed services and that Reeves has unconstitutionally installed “perpetual federal oversight” of the state agency.
Oral arguments have been tentatively scheduled for the week of Oct. 3.
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