Dems plan to challenge parliamentarian on insulin cap

 Senate Democrats say they plan to challenge a ruling by the parliamentarian striking a proposal sponsored by Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) to cap insulin prices from the Inflation Reduction Act, according to a Democrat familiar with the plan.  

As of now, Warnock’s proposal to cap out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 a month is in the bill but the parliamentarian is expected to rule on the Senate floor that it does not comply with the Byrd Rule, which prohibits policymaking in budget reconciliation bills that have a tangential impact on spending and revenue.  

But Democrats plan to challenge the parliamentarian’s ruling on the floor, which means they would need 60 votes to waive an objection to keeping the insulin provision in the bill.

Any effort to overturn the parliamentarian is not likely to get 10 Republican votes, but it will put Republicans on the record as opposing a $35 monthly cap on patients’ insulin costs, which Democrats can use as political ammo in the midterm election.  

“I think it’s hard for elected officials to go home, as everybody’s headed now, and try to explain if they choose  to vote that way, why they’re not supporting getting relief to millions of Americans who are getting crushed by these insulin bills,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said ahead of the floor showdown.  

Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R) said it was “unfortunate” that Democrats are turning the issue into a political football.  

Collins has sponsored a bipartisan bill with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) to lower insulin costs. 

Their bill would encourage insulin manufacturers to reduce their list prices and limit out-of-pocket costs for patients with diabetes by ensuring that group and individual market health plans waive deductibles and cost-sharing to no more than $35 a month, according to a summary provided by their offices.  

“I think it’s unfortunate that it was included” in the reconciliation package, Collins said of the insulin proposal that is expected to be defeated on the floor Saturday.  

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3591084-democrats-plan-to-challenge-parliamentarian-on-insulin-cap/

Retraining Your Brain Could Help With Lower Back Pain

 Are you among the hundreds of millions of people worldwide with low back pain? If so, you may be familiar with standard treatments like surgery, shots, medications, and spinal manipulations. But new research suggests the solution for the world's leading cause of disability may lie in fixing how the brain and the body communicate.

Setting out to challenge traditional treatments for chronic back pain, scientists across Australia, Europe, and the U.S. came together to test the effectiveness of altering how neural networks recognize pain for new research published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The randomized clinical trial recruited two groups of 138 participants with chronic low back pain, testing one group with a novel method called graded sensorimotor retraining intervention (RESOLVE) and the other with things like mock laser therapy and noninvasive brain stimulation.

The researchers found the RESOLVE 12-week training course resulted in a statistically significant improvement in pain intensity at 18 weeks.

"What we observed in our trial was a clinically meaningful effect on pain intensity and a clinically meaningful effect on disability. People were happier, they reported their backs felt better, and their quality of life was better," the study's lead author, James McAuley, PhD, said in a statement. "This is the first new treatment of its kind for back pain."

Brainy Talk

Communication between your brain and back changes over time when you have chronic lower back pain, leading the brain to interpret signals from the back differently and change how you move. It is thought that these neural changes make recovery from pain slower and more complicated, according to the Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), a nonprofit research institute in Sydney, Australia.

"Over time, the back becomes less fit, and the way the back and brain communicate is disrupted in ways that seem to reinforce the notion that the back is vulnerable and needs protecting," said McAuley, a professor at the University of New South Wales and a NeuRA senior research scientist. "The treatment we devised aims to break this self-sustaining cycle."

RESOLVE treatment focuses on improving this transformed brain-back communication by slowly retraining the body and the brain without the use of opioids or surgery. People in the study have reported improved quality of life 1 year later, according to McAuley.

The researchers said the pain improvement was "modest," and the method will need to be tested on other patients and conditions. They hope to introduce this new treatment to doctors and physiotherapists within the next 6 to 9 months and have already enlisted partner organizations to start this process, according to NeuRA.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/978766

Cognitive Rehab May Help Older Adults Clear COVID-Related Brain Fog

 Eight months after falling ill with covid-19, the 73-year-old woman couldn't remember what her husband had told her a few hours before. She would forget to remove laundry from the dryer at the end of the cycle. She would turn on the tap at a sink and walk away.

Before covid, the woman had been doing bookkeeping for a local business. Now, she couldn't add single-digit numbers in her head.

Was it the earliest stage of dementia, unmasked by covid? No. When a therapist assessed the woman's cognition, her scores were normal.

What was going on? Like many people who've contracted covid, this woman was having difficulty sustaining attention, organizing activities, and multitasking. She complained of brain fog. She didn't feel like herself.

But this patient was lucky. Jill Jonas, an occupational therapist associated with the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who described her to me, has been providing cognitive rehabilitation to the patient, and she is getting better.

Cognitive rehabilitation is therapy for people whose brains have been injured by concussions, traumatic accidents, strokes, or neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease. It's a suite of interventions designed to help people recover from brain injuries, if possible, and adapt to ongoing cognitive impairment. Services are typically provided by speech and occupational therapists, neuropsychologists, and neurorehabilitation experts.

In a recent development, some medical centers are offering cognitive rehabilitation to patients with long covid (symptoms that persist several months or longer after an infection that can't be explained by other medical conditions). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 4 older adults who survive covid have at least one persistent symptom.

Experts are enthusiastic about cognitive rehabilitation's potential. "Anecdotally, we're seeing a good number of people [with long covid] make significant gains with the right kinds of interventions," said Monique Tremaine, director of neuropsychology and cognitive rehabilitation at Hackensack Meridian Health's JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in New Jersey.

Among the post-covid cognitive complaints being addressed are problems with attention, language, information processing, memory, and visual-spatial orientation. A recent review in JAMA Psychiatry found that up to 47% of patients hospitalized in intensive care with covid developed problems of this sort. Meanwhile, a new review in Nature Medicine found that brain fog was 37% more likely in nonhospitalized covid survivors than in comparable peers who had no known covid infections.

Also, there's emerging evidence that seniors are more likely to experience cognitive challenges post-covid than younger people — a vulnerability attributed, in part, to older adults' propensity to have other medical conditions. Cognitive challenges arise because of small blood clots, chronic inflammation, abnormal immune responses, brain injuries such as strokes and hemorrhages, viral persistence, and neurodegeneration triggered by covid.

Getting help starts with an assessment by a rehabilitation professional to pinpoint cognitive tasks that need attention and determine the severity of a person's difficulties. One person may need help finding words while speaking, for instance, while another may need help with planning and yet another may not be processing information efficiently. Several deficits may be present at the same time.

Next comes an effort to understand how patients' cognitive issues affect their daily lives. Among the questions that therapists will ask, according to Jason Smith, a rehabilitation psychologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas: "Is this [deficit] showing up at work? At home? Somewhere else? Which activities are being affected? What's most important to you and what do you want to work on?"

To try to restore brain circuits that have been damaged, patients may be prescribed a series of repetitive exercises. If attention is the issue, for instance, a therapist might tap a finger on the table once or twice and ask a patient to do the same, repeating it multiple times. This type of intervention is known as restorative cognitive rehabilitation.

"It isn't easy because it's so monotonous and someone can easily lose attentional focus," said Joe Giacino, a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School. "But it's a kind of muscle building for the brain."

A therapist might then ask the patient to do two things at once: repeat the tapping task while answering questions about their personal background, for instance. "Now the brain has to split attention — a much more demanding task — and you're building connections where they can be built," Giacino continued.

To address impairments that interfere with people's daily lives, a therapist will work on practical strategies with patients. Examples include making lists, setting alarms or reminders, breaking down tasks into steps, balancing activity with rest, figuring out how to conserve energy, and learning how to slow down and assess what needs to be done before taking action.

A growing body of evidence shows that "older adults can learn to use these strategies and that it does, in fact, enhance their everyday life," said Alyssa Lanzi, a research assistant professor who studies cognitive rehabilitation at the University of Delaware.

Along the way, patients and therapists discuss what worked well and what didn't, and practice useful skills, such as using calendars or notebooks as memory aids.

"As patients become more aware of where difficulties occur and why, they can prepare for them and they start seeing improvement," said Lyana Kardanova Frantz, a speech therapist at Johns Hopkins University. "A lot of my patients say, 'I had no idea this [kind of therapy] could be so helpful.'"

Johns Hopkins has been conducting neuropsychiatric exams on patients who come to its post-covid clinic. About 67% have mild to moderate cognitive dysfunction at least three months after being infected, said Dr. Alba Miranda Azola, co-director of Johns Hopkins' Post-Acute COVID-19 Team. When cognitive rehabilitation is recommended, patients usually meet with therapists once or twice a week for two to three months.

Before this kind of therapy can be tried, other problems may need to be addressed. "We want to make sure that people are sleeping enough, maintaining their nutrition and hydration, and getting physical exercise that maintains blood flow and oxygenation to the brain," Frantz said. "All of those impact our cognitive function and communication."

Depression and anxiety — common companions for people who are seriously ill or disabled — also need attention. "A lot of times when people are struggling to manage deficits, they're focusing on what they were able to do in the past and really mourning that loss of efficiency," Tremaine said. "There's a large psychological component as well that needs to be managed."

Medicare usually covers cognitive rehabilitation (patients may need to contribute a copayment), but Medicare Advantage plans may differ in the type and length of therapy they'll approve and how much they'll reimburse providers — an issue that can affect access to care.

Still, Tremaine noted, "not a lot of people know about cognitive rehabilitation or understand what it does, and it remains underutilized." She and other experts don't recommend digital brain-training programs marketed to consumers as a substitute for practitioner-led cognitive rehabilitation because of the lack of individualized assessment, feedback, and coaching.

Also, experts warn, while cognitive rehabilitation can help people with mild cognitive impairment, it's not appropriate for people who have advanced dementia.

If you're noticing cognitive changes of concern, ask for a referral from your primary care physician to an occupational or speech therapist, said Erin Foster, an associate professor of occupational therapy, neurology, and psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Be sure to ask therapists if they have experience addressing memory and thinking issues in daily life, she recommended.

"If there's a medical center in your area with a rehabilitation department, get in touch with them and ask for a referral to cognitive rehabilitation," said Smith, of UT Southwestern Medical Center. "The professional discipline that helps the most with cognitive rehabilitation is going to be rehabilitation medicine."

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/978758

Tracking monkeypox: Where the US outbreak stands, where it may be headed

 More than 7,000 monkeypox cases have now been confirmed in the U.S., and as the outbreak continues to grow, health experts are cautioning that, if not contained, the virus may begin spreading among the broader population. 

The current outbreak has mostly been concentrated among men who have sex with men and their sexual networks, though anyone is at risk of contracting the disease from skin-to-skin contact or by touching fabrics and surfaces that have been used by someone with an active infection. 

"Stigma and discrimination can be as dangerous as any virus and can fuel the outbreak," World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said during an update on the global outbreak in late July. "Anyone exposed can get monkeypox, which is why WHO recommends that countries take action to reduce the risk of transmission to other vulnerable groups, including children, pregnant women and those who are immunosuppressed."

There's been at least five confirmed pediatric cases in the U.S. 

"We're just starting to see a small number of secondary infections in women and children," Jason Zucker, MD, an infectious diseases specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, said during an Aug. 5 press briefing, adding that each of those cases involved close contact with someone who had tested positive for orthopoxvirus, which causes monkeypox infection. "Just like other diseases, there is no reason it can't spread to other communities via sexual or other close contact." 

If the outbreak isn't contained soon, the virus will likely begin spreading more broadly among the general public, according to Ted Ross, PhD, Cleveland Clinic's global director of vaccine development. 

"I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg right now," he told Becker's. "It won't be surprising to see young people, particularly those who are more likely to go to nightclubs and bars and have intimate contact more often" becoming infected if the outbreak continues to grow significantly. 

Monkeypox, unlike COVID-19, is what Dr. Ross calls a "self-limiting" disease, meaning one bout with infection "leads to life long immunity." 

This underscores the importance of vaccines in curbing this outbreak, though the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine remains in short supply. 

"If we get people vaccinated before they're infected, then they really will be protected against anyone who [they] might come into contact with," he said.

The U.S. on Aug. 4 declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency, which is expected to support the nation in speeding up distribution and administration of the vaccine, but federal health officials have previously said they expect the shortage to last for months. 

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/tracking-monkeypox-where-the-us-outbreak-stands-where-it-may-be-headed.html

Federal Court Judge Mulls Challenge to ACA Preventive Care Mandates

 The fate of preventive care services covered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) now lies in the hands of a Texas federal court judge who once tried to strike down the entire ACA.

Judge Reed O'Connor, who once declared the ACA to be unconstitutional -- a ruling that was later invalidated by the Supreme Court -- heard oral arguments on July 26 in a case known as Kelley v. Becerra. That case is based on the idea that the ACA's requirement that insurers must cover particular preventive services is unconstitutional, as explained in an article from the Commonwealth Fund.

STD Prevention, Contraceptive Benefits Mentioned

Although the suit would invalidate the mandate for all preventive services -- including vaccines and cancer screenings -- some of the plaintiffs, which include eight individuals as well as an orthodontics practice and a management services company, seem to object more to certain services in particular. "[Four plaintiffs] do not need or want contraceptive coverage in their health insurance," the original complaint stated. "They do not want or need free STD [sexually transmitted disease] testing covered by their health insurance because they are in monogamous relationships with their respective spouses. And they do not want or need health insurance that covers Truvada or PrEP [pre-exposure prophylaxis] drugs because neither they nor any of their family members are engaged in behavior that transmits HIV."

"[These plaintiffs] also object to contraceptive coverage and the coverage of PrEP drugs on religious grounds. Each of these plaintiffs is a Christian, and they are unwilling to purchase health insurance that subsidizes abortifacient contraception or PrEP drugs that encourage and facilitate homosexual behavior," the suit continued.

Two of the other defendants, a married heterosexual couple, don't have religious or moral objections to contraceptive coverage, but "their objection to the contraceptive mandate is based solely on the fact that they [do] not need or want contraceptive coverage on account of [the wife's] hysterectomy." Another plaintiff doesn't want the contraceptive coverage because "his wife is past her childbearing years."

As the Commonwealth Fund noted, the lawsuit argues that the preventive services mandate violates certain parts of the Constitution because it uses requirements developed by federal and non-federal employees -- such as those at the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) -- who were not appointed by the president or confirmed by the Senate. It also argues that requiring coverage of preventive services like PrEP violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Biden Administration Defending the Mandate

The Biden administration is defending the mandate with help from 21 state attorneys general, as well as the American Public Health Association, among others. They argue that "the USPSTF [and] ACIP ... are overseen by federal agencies whose heads have been nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, consistent with the Constitution. Moreover, Congress itself mandated the coverage of these services, by leveraging the well-established processes used by the USPSTF, ACIP, and HRSA [the Health Resources and Services Administration] as expert bodies," the Commonwealth Fund analysis said.

The question at issue in the case "is, does HRSA have the authority to mandate ... people to provide health insurance coverage for certain devices and drugs when [the agency hasn't] gone through the notice-and-comment rulemaking process?" Roger Severino, JD, vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, said in a phone interview. "What about the rule of law?"

Katie Keith, JD, MPH, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at the Georgetown University Law Center, said there are several possible outcomes to the case: first, that O'Connor could reject the plaintiffs' arguments and leave everything status quo, which isn't considered likely; second, that he could strike down the entire preventive services provision; and third, that he could strike down only some parts of the provision that pertain to certain agencies, such as, for example, invalidating only the preventive services requirements developed by HRSA.

If he does strike down all or part of the requirement, the other question is whether he would stay his decision to give the government time to appeal. Keith said she hopes he does stay the decision "so there is not massive confusion" and people don't suddenly lose their preventive benefits, she said in a phone interview.

Even if he doesn't stay the decision, "people would keep their preventive services until they renewed their coverage," after which a hodgepodge of coverage would probably appear, she added. "People would be at the whim of their insurer or employer ... The next plan year would be a lot of potential disruption and variation." And if he doesn't stay the decision, the Biden administration would likely petition for an emergency stay. No matter what happens, there's a 2- or 3-year process where the decision -- whichever way it goes -- is likely to be appealed, including all the way up to the Supreme Court, she said.

Possible Effects on Public Health

From a public health standpoint, stopping the preventive benefit mandate, which requires many of the benefits to be provided at no cost to the patient, "is really like cutting off your nose to spite your face," said Katherine Hempstead, PhD, senior policy advisor at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "A lot of research shows that if people have to make out-of-pocket payments for care they use less care." Making these benefits free "removes a disincentive for patients to get care that's really beneficial to prevent disease." And striking down the mandate would affect everyone with private insurance -- not just those who purchase insurance on the ACA marketplace -- which is about 167 million people, she added.

While the court case has been going on, the Department of Health and Human Services appears to be considering narrowing the exceptions to the federal contraceptive coverage mandate, which allows religious organizations and those with conscience objections to refrain from providing employees with no-cost contraceptive coverage. HHS has sent to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review a proposed rule entitled "Coverage of Certain Preventive Services Under the Affordable Care Act." The description of the rule reads: "This rule would propose amendments to the final rules regarding religious and moral exemptions and accommodations regarding coverage of certain preventive services" under the ACA.

Originally, as drafted under the Obama administration, the exemption allowed religious institutions to not pay for contraceptive coverage, but also required those organizations' insurers to provide the coverage directly, at no charge to patients. An order of nuns known as the Little Sisters of the Poor challenged that latter part of the exemption; the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 2020 ruled in the nuns' favor.

"Do you really have to force nuns to provide contraceptive coverage for their fellow nuns?" said Severino, who headed the HHS Office for Civil Rights under former President Trump. He testified earlier this week before OMB in opposition to changing the exemption.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/primarycare/preventivecare/100101

Rikers Island corrections staff contract monkeypox

 At least two uniformed Department of Correction staffers, including a captain who works directly with detainees, have contracted monkeypox, sources familiar with the matter told The Post Friday. 

One of the staffers, who the DOC said does not work in a jail on the island, tested positive on Thursday and has been isolating in accordance with medical guidelines, the agency said. 

It’s not immediately clear when the captain contracted the virus but at the time they did, they were working inside one of the DOC’s jails, sources said. 

“We take the health and safety of people who work and live in our facilities seriously, and have been working with our partners at Correctional Health Services to mitigate any potential spread of monkeypox should cases arise. This partnership and hard work has kept our facilities safe,” a DOC spokesperson said in an email. 

As of Thursday, no detainees have contracted monkeypox, according to Correctional Health Services, but jailhouse sources said it’s only a matter of time before the virus spreads among inmates considering the close contact many of them have. 

“This is definitely going to take over Rikers Island like COVID,” one source said. 

When detainees enter DOC custody, they undergo a monkeypox screening during the intake process and if they are suspected of having the virus, they are placed in medical quarantine, tested and observed, Correctional Health Services said. Testing and vaccines for the virus are also available on-site, they said. 

The DOC said they are following all recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state and local health departments and are cleaning and disinfecting areas where positive workers were present. 

On Thursday, President Biden declared a nationwide public health emergency over the growing monkeypox outbreak, which allows the federal government to increase its response to the virus without the usual regulatory red tape. 

As of Thursday, no detainees have contracted monkeypox.

David Howells/Corbis via Getty Images

The epicenter of the outbreak is in the Big Apple, which has registered more than 1,700 cases as of Friday, accounting for about a quarter of the cases reported nationwide, data show. 

On Saturday, Mayor Eric Adams declared monkeypox a public health emergency in the five boroughs after brushing off concerns over the bug’s spread in the Big Apple in May.

Monkeypox is known to cause fever, aches and bumps or sores on the body.

It primarily spreads through drawn-out skin-to-skin contact and gay and bisexual men are the primary demographic to be affected so far.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/05/nyc-doc-captain-who-works-on-rikers-island-contracts-monkeypox/

Over 1/3 of motorbikes in NYC bike lanes caught speeding by Post

 More than one-third of people riding motorized two-wheeleers on the Big Apple’s protected bike lanes and greenways speed dangerously, an analysis by The Post found.

Although the city last week revved up its crackdown on dangerous driving by operating speed cameras round the clock, bike lanes remain severe safety hazards flooded with scofflaws on e-bikes, mopeds and motorcycles that constantly disobey the 25-mph speed limit.

Over the past week, a team of Post journalists used a radar gun to track speeders on paths crossing the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queensboro bridges, as well as bike lanes in Midtown and at Hudson River Park.

Of the 486 two-wheelers clocked, 167 – or 34% — sped above the 25 mph max, including some as high as 35 mph. They include dirt bikes, all-terrain vehicles and others outlawed on city streets and bike lanes.

Of the 486 two-wheelers clocked, 167 – or 34% — sped above the 25 mph max, including some as high as 35 mph.

William C. Lopez/NYPOST

The need for speed was especially noticeable on the Williamsburg Bridge where 44 – or 59% — of 74 motor bikes using its pathway over an hour-long period Friday went over 25 mph.

The Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge’s lanes were also filled with speeders. Over an hour, 37% and 30% of its bikers were also caught, respectively, speeding by the reporter and photographer.

On the Queensboro Bridge, 18% of the 87 motorized bikers clocked went over 25 mph – but, unlike the other East River crossings, its bike lane is shared with pedestrians who were forced to dodge dirt bikes and other rogue rides.

Dept. of Transportation installing speed camera, located across street from P.S. 28 in the Bronx.

Robert Miller

On Thursday afternoon, The Post set up near Stuyvesant High School on Chambers Street for an hour and clocked 33 – or 43% — of 77 motorized bikes zipping along the Hudson River Park bike path over the speed limit.

New Yorkers said they’re fed up with bike-lane lawbreakers.

“It’s a huge problem!” barked Peter Epstein, an avid 60-year-old bicyclist after pedaling along the scenic bike lane on Manhattan’s West Side. “People are walking by” because they have “the green light to cross the path, and these [motor] bikes are zooming right up to them; there’s not even time for anyone to react. It’s just crazy.”

Mopeds on the bike paths on the 59th Street Bridge.

J.C.Rice

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine last week proposed converting part of the adjacent West Side Highway into a two-way protected bike lane so that electric bikes and other legal motorized bikes can use it. He declined to respond to questions about illegal bikes potentially using his proposed pathway or The Post’s findings.

Motorized bikes are not allowed at Hudson River Park, which is run by a state-city entity, nor on any bike lanes on city parkland.

However, enforcement by the NYPD and city parks enforcement patrol officers appears non-existent, according to some avid cyclists.

Enforcement by the NYPD and city parks enforcement patrol officers appears non-existent.

J.C.Rice

“We don’t have the manpower to deal with the illegal bikes or the speeding ,” conceded Joe Puleo, president of Local 983 of District Council 37, which represents parks officers. “Our members are being told to direct most of their attention this summer to protecting pools and beaches.”

Tommy Bayiokos, a Brooklyn-based actor and drummer, fumed that he fears for his life every time he pedals along two waterfront bike paths adjacent to the Belt Parkway: one connecting Bay Ridge to Bath Beach and the other Sheepshead Bay to The Rockaways in Queens.

“I’m constantly turning my head because these mopeds, these dirt bikes, come out of nowhere so fast that you have little time to react,” he added.

The 57-year-old also said he’s even noticed motorcycles this year brazenly riding along the historic Ocean Parkway bike lane, a heavily used pathway connecting Prospect Park to Coney Island shared by pedestrians. Motorcycles should instead be using a bustling roadway that runs adjacent to the bike path.

“Years ago, this would never happen, but these bikes operate with impunity – and there’s never a cop in sight,’ said Bayiokos.

An NYPD spokesman said commanding officers conduct traffic enforcement in their precincts “based on the conditions present” and that cops are also trying to weed out illegal-bike use through education awareness initiatives.

While campaigning for office last year, Mayor Eric Adams said the city and state needed to crack down on dirt bikes, ATVs and other illegal rides – including more effectively using speed cameras and cops to catch people speeding on them.

In June, he joined NYPD officials at a Brooklyn auto pound to watch 92 illegal dirt bikes seized by authorities being pulverized under a bulldozer. He boasted that the NYPD at the time had already taken 900 of the bikes and ATVs off the city streets in 2022 — an 88% bump over the same period a year earlier.

When asked about Post’s findings, mayoral spokesman Charles Lutvak cited a $900 million investment the mayor announced in April geared towards combatting traffic deaths and violence and said “the Adams administration is completely committed to keeping Yorkers safe in our streets.”

https://nypost.com/2022/08/06/over-1-3-of-motorbikes-in-nyc-bike-lanes-caught-speeding/