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Top news of the day from across the healthcare landscape.
A recent poll reveals that some Republican US Representatives may be hesitant about fully repealing the Affordable Care Act. Instead, these Representatives would prefer scaling down the health law, rather than completely starting over, according to Kaiser Health News. A majority of these individuals would also like to create a replacement plan prior to repealing the law.
The House has passed the 21st Century Cares Act, which will increase federal grants for biomedical research, and speed up FDA drug approvals. The law will also create a program to improve the treatment of mental illnesses, and provides $1 billion for the prevention and treatment of opioid use disorder, according to The Wall Street Journal. The total cost of the bill is $6.3 billion, with $4.8 billion going to the National Institutes of Health over the next 10 years.
Hallucinogenic drugs could potentially help reduce psychological disorders in patients with cancer, a recent study found. In the study, patients with cancer received psilocybin, which is the main component of hallucinogenic mushrooms, which showed that 80% of patients experienced a reduction in anxiety and depression. This reduction was seen to last as long as 7 months after post-treatment, and a majority of patients did not experience side effects, according to The New York Times.