Health News Roundup: WHO warns of growing resistance to GSK's HIV drug; US to accelerate some payments to hospitals after UnitedHealth hack and more

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Physician group asks US to make funds available to doctors hurt by Change hack

Influential U.S. doctors' group the American Medical Association (AMA) on Monday asked the Biden Administration to make emergency funds available to physicians hurt by ongoing problems created by the hack of UnitedHealth's Change Healthcare unit. The AMA said the cyberattack on Change, which provides healthcare billing and data systems, has led to disruptions of numerous administrative and billing processes at physician practices. They said that many practices have not been able to submit insurance claims for reimbursement since the hack was disclosed on Feb. 21.

Latest J&J talc trial ends with hung jury

The latest trial over claims that Johnson & Johnson's talc products cause cancer ended in a mistrial on Tuesday, as a Florida state court jury said it could not agree on a verdict. The lawsuit was brought by Bob Sugarman, who said that J&J's talc-based baby powder led his wife to develop ovarian cancer and die from the disease.

US to accelerate some payments to hospitals after UnitedHealth hack

The U.S. government said on Tuesday that it will accelerate Medicare and Medicaid payments to some hospitals hurt by the hack at UnitedHealth's technology unit Change Healthcare.

Still, U.S. doctors' group the American Medical Association (AMA) said the support did not go far enough to protect individual physician practices and urged the Biden administration "to go above and beyond what has been put in place and include financial assistance such as advanced payments for physicians."

WHO warns of growing resistance to GSK's HIV drug

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday resistance to GSK's HIV drug dolutegravir has exceeded levels observed during its trials, citing observational and survey data received from a few countries. Resistance ranged from 3.9% to 8.6% and reached 19.6% among people who have received and transitioned to a dolutegravir-containing antiretroviral therapy (ART) regimen to combat high HIV viral loads.

South Carolina still cannot defund Planned Parenthood, US court rules

South Carolina cannot cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday, finding that doing so would deprive Medicaid patients of their right to choose their provider. The order marks the third time that a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has stopped the state from defunding the reproductive health organization on the grounds that it provides abortions.

Dialysis providers gain as investors focus on cardiac benefits after Ozempic's latest data

Shares of dialysis services providers jumped between 3% and 12% on Tuesday as latest data from Novo Nordisk's hugely popular diabetes drug Ozempic indicated a less-than-expected effect in chronic kidney disease patients. Investors, concerned after the interim data in October, are betting that most of the benefits of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic are related to cardiac events "rather than a game-changing extension in kidney disease progression, which the market has been worried about", said Morningstar analyst Julie Utterback.

Novo kidney trial finds Ozempic cuts cardiac deaths in diabetics

Novo Nordisk's widely used diabetes drug Ozempic delayed progression of chronic kidney disease in diabetes patients, a large late-stage study found, cutting the risk of death from that and major cardiac events by 24%. The trial results are the latest indication that drugs from the GLP-1 class, which suppress appetite by mimicking gut hormones, have medical benefits for conditions beyond type 2 diabetes and weight-loss, their initial purposes.

Roche, Alnylam say blood pressure drug succeeds in mid-stage trial

Roche and partner Alnylam said on Tuesday their experimental drug against high blood pressure was shown to work when used in combination with the standard of care in a phase 2 trial. Full results of the Phase 2 KARDIA-2 trial, testing the twice-a-year injection zilebesiran, would be presented at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session in Atlanta on April 6, Roche said in a statement on Tuesday.

Healthcare providers hit by frozen payments in ransomware outage

Healthcare providers across the United States are struggling to get paid following the week-long ransomware outage at a key tech unit of UnitedHealth Group, with some smaller providers saying they are already running low on cash. Large hospital chains are also locked out of processing payments with some absorbing the upfront costs of being unable to collect, according to the American Hospital Association (AHA), which represents nearly 5,000 hospitals, healthcare systems, networks and other providers.

Ozempic reduces severity of liver disease in people with HIV, study shows

A weekly injection of semaglutide was safe and reduced the amount of fat in the liver by 31% in people with HIV and a type of liver disease, data from a mid-stage study funded by the National Institutes of Health showed. Data from the study was first released on Monday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Denver, Colorado.

(With inputs from agencies.)