At the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals last week, Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) and North Dakota delivered oral arguments in litigation over state laws regulating some PBM practices. The proceedings were the latest step in PCMA v Wehbi’s winding path through the courts. The circuit court once sided with the PBM lobbying group, but the U.S. Supreme Court vacated that ruling after it unanimously decided to uphold an Arkansas PBM-regulation law.

Influenza cases and deaths in the United States and worldwide dropped to unprecedented lows between October 3, 2020, and July 24, 2021, according to CDC data. In a typical season, 75 to 150 children die of influenza in the United States, noted pediatric infectious disease specialist Paul Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in a recent JAMA Network article. Last influenza season, he said, one child was reported to have died.