First Edition: November 26, 2018
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Overshadowed By Opioids, Meth Is Back And Hospitalizations Surge
The number of people hospitalized because of amphetamine use is skyrocketing in the United States, but the resurgence of the drug largely has been overshadowed by the nation’s intense focus on opioids. Amphetamine-related hospitalizations jumped by about 245 percent from 2008 to 2015, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That dwarfs the rise in hospitalizations from other drugs, such as opioids, which were up by about 46 percent. The most significant increases were in Western states. (Gorman, 11/26)
Kaiser Health News:
In Health Insurance Wastelands, Rosier Options Crop Up For 2019
In recent years, places such as Memphis and Phoenix had withered into health insurance wastelands as insurers fled and premiums skyrocketed in the insurance marketplaces set up by the Affordable Care Act. But today, as in many parts of the country, these two cities are experiencing something unprecedented: Premiums are sinking and choices are sprouting. In the newly competitive market in Memphis, the cheapest midlevel “silver” plan for next year will cost $498 a month for a 40-year-old, a 17 percent decrease. (Rau, 11/23)
California Healthline:
Nonprofit Bets Asian-American Students Can Learn To Avoid Unhealthy Gambling
The students listened attentively as Ryan Wong explained how casinos keep customers chasing that elusive jackpot. Labyrinthine layouts force guests to walk past card tables and slot machines in search of well-concealed restrooms and exits, said Wong, an intern at the nonprofit NICOS Chinese Health Coalition, a San Francisco partnership of health and social service organizations. Casinos ply customers with free alcohol to loosen inhibitions, and clocks are nowhere to be found. (Kam, 11/26)
The New York Times:
Trump Administration Invites Health Care Industry To Help Rewrite Ban On Kickbacks
The Trump administration has labored zealously to cut federal regulations, but its latest move has still astonished some experts on health care: It has asked for recommendations to relax rules that prohibit kickbacks and other payments intended to influence care for people on Medicare or Medicaid. The goal is to open pathways for doctors and hospitals to work together to improve care and save money. The challenge will be to accomplish that without also increasing the risk of fraud. (Pear, 11/24)
The Hill:
Five Controversial Health Actions On Trump's Agenda
The Trump administration is expected to push ahead with a range of controversial health policies next year despite Democrats retaking the House. Democrats captured the House majority in part on their health-care message. But despite that there are a slew of actions where the administration is moving ahead on its own agenda. (Weixel, 11/24)
Politico:
Can House Democrats Really Protect Obamacare?
House Democrats who swept back into power on the promise to protect people with pre-existing conditions face tough legal and political choices as they try to make good on that vow. Those promises galvanized millions of voters. But now, like the Republicans previously elected on promises to repeal and replace Obamacare, they face the formidable challenge of turning campaign rhetoric into reality. (Ollstein and Cancryn, 11/24)
Modern Healthcare:
HealthCare.Gov ACA Enrollment Lower By 400,000
A little more than 1.9 million people signed up for health insurance in the first three weeks of the Affordable Care Act open enrollment for 2019 coverage. That compares with almost 2.3 million during the first three weeks of open enrollment last year, which included an additional day. Americans are signing up for coverage through the federal marketplace at a slower rate this year, but the CMS numbers don't include enrollment in states that operate their own exchanges. It also does not include those who will be automatically enrolled in plans during the last week of open enrollment, which ends Dec. 15 in most states. (Livingston, 11/21)
The Associated Press:
Kansas Medicaid Expansion In Doubt Despite Governor Support
Democratic and moderate Republicans lawmakers worked together last year to try to make Kansas the latest state to expand Medicaid, only to see their bipartisan effort rewarded with a veto from former conservative GOP Gov. Sam Brownback. The election this month of a governor who supports Medicaid expansion seemed to remove the biggest hurdle for those hoping to bring health coverage to thousands of the state's poor. But it's not that simple. (Hanna, 11/22)
The Hill:
Maine Judge Orders GOP Governor To Implement Medicaid Expansion
A Maine judge on Wednesday ruled that the state must implement an expansion of Medicaid passed by voters last year, despite strong objections from outgoing GOP Gov. Paul LePage. The ruling follows a long legal battle over the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Voters passed the expansion last year, but LePage has steadfastly refused to follow that decision. (Sullivan, 11/21)
Stat:
Senators Press Insurers For Reams Of Pricing And Rebate Info On Insulin
As tensions persist over the cost of insulin, two U.S. senators want three of the nation’s largest health insurers to provide a raft of data about pricing, rebates, and plan coverage. In each case, Aetna (AET), Anthem (ANTM), and UnitedHealthcare (UNH) are being asked to fork over information about the effect that rebates have on their insulin spending, how rebates from drug makers may reduce expenses for beneficiaries, and the relationship between insulin pricing and what patients pay at pharmacies, among other things. (Silverman, 11/21)
Stat:
SCOTUS Case On ‘Sexual Energy’ Pills Highlights FDA Oversight Role
They aren’t the type of words that usually show up in Supreme Court briefs, but on Tuesday, they will be there just the same: Cobra Sexual Energy. The court is set to hear oral arguments in Nutraceutical Corp. v. Lambert, the latest flash point in a five-year spat between unsatisfied California men and Nutraceutical Corp., a supplement company that sells a dietary supplement called “Cobra Sexual Energy” that contains a mix of horny goat weed, yohimbe, and potency wood, and that the company boasts will help with “animal magnetism.” (Florko, 11/26)
Stat:
Mylan Is Scolded By The FDA For Manufacturing Gaffes At A Key Plant
In a rebuke to Mylan (MYL), the Food and Drug Administration warned the big generic drug maker about a host of manufacturing gaffes at a key plant in the U.S. that has been the focus of large job cuts this year. Following an inspection last March and April of the Morgantown, W.Va., facility, the FDA noted that Mylan failed to clean equipment, investigate unexplained discrepancies in batches of drugs, and follow proper procedures to assure medicines have the intended quality and purity. (Silverman, 11/21)
Stat:
New Research Highlights Unexpected Future For RNAi-Based Drugs
For years, all the research and drug development around the buzzy gene-silencing technique known as RNA interference has centered on the liver. It is by far the easiest target. But now, just a few months after the Food and Drug Administration approved the first-ever RNAi-based drug, there are early signs that the field is expanding. And while many public and private companies have eyed the brain as their next target, academic research is actually further along in an unexpected organ: the placenta. (Sheridan, 11/23)
The New York Times:
This City’s Overdose Deaths Have Plunged. Can Others Learn From It?
Overdose deaths in Montgomery County, anchored by Dayton, have plunged this year, after a stretch so bad that the coroner’s office kept running out of space and having to rent refrigerated trailers. The county had 548 overdose deaths by Nov. 30 last year; so far this year there have been 250, a 54 percent decline. Dayton, a hollowed-out manufacturing center at the juncture of two major interstates, had one of the highest opioid overdose death rates in the nation in 2017 and the worst in Ohio. Now, it may be at the leading edge of a waning phase of an epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States over the last decade, including nearly 50,000 last year. (Goodnough, 11/25)
The Washington Post:
Homeless People Are Synthetic Drugs’ Latest Victims. This Activist Has Had Enough.
Robin McKinney wasn’t wearing the right shirt. She also didn’t have all of her supplies. But the night was warm for mid-November, and that had gotten her worried. So she went anyway, pulling up to a Southeast Washington park hit hard by synthetic drugs, trying to make a difference on an issue she believes is usually met with indifference. The District had just seen another spike in K2 overdoses, this one smashing previous levels, with 1,054 overdoses in September alone. And McKinney, whose activism represents the latest chapter in the city’s ongoing struggle against the drug, wanted to get information to the people most in peril. (McCoy, 11/24)
The New York Times:
Federal Ban On Female Genital Mutilation Ruled Unconstitutional By Judge
More than two decades ago, Congress adopted a sweeping law that outlawed female genital mutilation, an ancient practice that 200 million women and girls around the world have undergone. But a federal court considering the first legal challenge to the statute found the law unconstitutional on Tuesday, greatly diminishing the chances of it being used by federal prosecutors around the country. A federal judge in Michigan issued the ruling in a case that involved two doctors and four parents, among others, who had been criminally charged last year with participating in or enabling the ritual genital cutting of girls. Their families belong to a small Shiite Muslim sect, the Dawoodi Bohra, that is originally from western India. (Belluck, 11/21)
The Associated Press:
Ruling In Genital Mutilation Case Shocks Women's Advocates
Women's rights advocates said they were shocked when a federal judge in Michigan ruled this week that a law protecting girls from genital mutilation was unconstitutional. They called his decision a serious blow to girls' rights. Legal experts said the judge made clear that U.S. states have authority to ban the practice, though only about half do. Here is a look at the ruling, which dismissed several charges against a doctor accused of cutting nine girls in three states as part of a religious custom, and what could happen next. (Forliti, 11/23)
The Associated Press:
Fights, Escapes, Harm: Migrant Kids Struggle In Facilities
In one government facility for immigrant youth, a 20-year-old woman who had lied that she was 17 sneaked a needle out of a sewing class and used it to cut herself. In another, cameras captured a boy repeatedly kicking a child in the head after they got into an argument on the soccer field. One 6-year-old tried to run away from the same facility after another boy threw his shoes into the toilet. Three employees had to pull the boy off a fence and carry him back into a building. (Merchant, 11/24)
The Washington Post:
Number Of Abortions In U.S. Hit Historic Low In 2015, The Most Recent Year For Which Data Is Available
Fewer U.S. women are having abortions than at any time since Roe v. Wade, according to new government figures released Wednesday. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, a total of 638,169 abortions were reported, a decrease of 2 percent from 652,639 abortions in 2014. The abortion rate was 11.8 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44 in 2015, compared with 12.1 in 2014 and 15.9 in 2006. (Cha, 11/21)
The Hill:
Anti-Abortion Groups In Standoff With Trump Over Fetal Tissue Research
The Trump administration and its anti-abortion allies have found themselves in a rare feud. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is facing pressure from leading anti-abortion groups to cancel more than $100 million in federal funding for research projects that use fetal tissue. (Hellmann, 11/25)
The Associated Press:
Mississippi Will Seek To Revive Law On 15-Week Abortion Ban
Mississippi's attorney general said Friday that he will appeal a federal judge's ruling that struck down one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the United States. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves ruled Tuesday that a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks "unequivocally" violates women's constitutional rights. (Wagster Pettus, 11/23)
The Associated Press:
Battle Over Idaho's Abortion Reporting Law Awaits Ruling
The battle over a new law that creates a list of what lawmakers deem to be complications of abortion and requires health professionals to report when they occurred now awaits a judgment from a federal appeals court. A federal lawsuit against the state of Idaho over the law, which went into effect on July 1, has been put on hold while the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals considers a judge's ruling rejecting a preliminary injunction against the legislation. (Ridler, 11/23)
The Washington Post:
Supreme Court Sets High Bar For Medical Device Lawsuits
The tiny balloon was supposed to stretch open a blocked artery on Charles Riegel’s diseased heart. Instead, when the doctor inflated the balloon, it burst. The patient went on life support but survived. His lawsuit against the manufacturer of that arterial balloon did not. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Medtronic, among the world’s largest makers of medical devices, setting a precedent that has killed lawsuits involving some of the most sophisticated devices on the market. (Pritchard, 11/25)
NPR:
Hospitals Rethink Role Of Medical Device Sales Reps During Surgery
In the operating room, surgical masks and matching scrubs can make it hard to tell who's whom — at least for outsiders. Patients getting wheeled in might not realize that salespeople working on commission are frequently present and sometimes even advise the clinical team during surgery. Who are these salespeople, and why are they there? (Farmer, 11/23)
The Associated Press:
Spinal-Cord Stimulators Help Some Patients, Injure Others
For years, medical device companies and doctors have touted spinal-cord stimulators as a panacea for millions of patients suffering from a wide range of pain disorders, making them one of the fastest-growing products in the $400 billion medical device industry. Companies and doctors aggressively push them as a safe antidote to the deadly opioid crisis in the U.S. and as a treatment for an aging population in need of chronic pain relief. But the stimulators — devices that use electrical currents to block pain signals before they reach the brain — are more dangerous than many patients know, an Associated Press investigation found. They account for the third-highest number of medical device injury reports to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with more than 80,000 incidents flagged since 2008. (Weiss and Mohr, 11/25)
The Wall Street Journal:
Hospitals Hire Frontline Workers To Improve Care, Trim Costs
To drive down health care costs and improve outcomes for patients with chronic illnesses, New York’s Northwell Health hospital system is training health care workers who can better relate to—and help—people from underserved and largely minority communities. Less than a year old, Northwell’s program has trained nearly 30 people to become community health workers, a nonmedical, entry-level job at the front lines of serving hard-to-reach patients in vulnerable communities, many of whom use Medicaid. (West, 11/22)
The Hill:
Trauma Surgeon Creates Twitter Account To Organize Doctors Against Gun Violence
A Twitter account for “Medical Professionals who care for #GunViolence Victims” has reached over 15,000 followers since it was created by a trauma surgeon earlier this month. The account @ThisIsOurLane has grown in popularity as health care professionals clash with the National Rifle Association (NRA) after the gun rights organization tweeted “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.” (Axelrod, 11/21)
NPR:
Preventing Suicides Unites Some Doctors And Gun Shop Owners
Doctors across the U.S. have become increasingly vocal in addressing gun violence as a public health crisis, a posture that recently has drawn the wrath of the National Rifle Association. Yet, in Colorado, a diverse group that includes doctors, public health researchers and gun shop owners has come together to bridge this divide. The Colorado Firearm Safety Coalition has found common ground on at least one issue: preventing firearm suicide. The group's motto: "fighting suicide, together." (Block, 11/21)
The Wall Street Journal:
When Mental-Health Experts, Not Police, Are The First Responders
They are the kind of calls that roll into police departments with growing regularity: a man in mental crisis; a woman hanging out near a dumpster at an upscale apartment complex; a homeless woman in distress. In most American cities, it is police officers who respond to such calls, an approach law-enforcement experts say increases the risk of a violent encounter because they aren’t always adequately trained to deal with the mentally ill. At least one in every four people killed by police has a serious mental illness, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit based in Arlington, Va. (Elinson, 11/24)
The Associated Press:
How Many Kids Have Autism? US Government Measures 3 Ways
How many American children have autism? The U.S. government answers that question at least three different ways and says the latest estimate — 1 in 40 kids — doesn't necessarily mean the numbers are rising. The new number, published Monday in Pediatrics , is from one of three periodic surveys the government uses to assess autism rates. It's higher than a different survey's estimate published earlier this year, but the surveys use different methods and measure different populations of kids so the results aren't really comparable. (11/26)
The Washington Post:
In The United States, Right-Wing Violence Is On The Rise
As a Republican, Mitchell Adkins complained of feeling like an outcast at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky. “Hardcore liberals” made fun of him, he wrote, and he faced “discrimination on a daily basis.” He soon dropped out and enrolled in trade school. But his simmering rage led him back to campus one morning in April 2017, when Adkins pulled out a machete in the campus coffee shop, demanded that patrons state their political affiliation and began slashing at Democrats. (Lowery, Kindy and Tran, 11/25)
The Washington Post:
Dispelling Deadly Myths About The Flu Vaccine
Every year as flu season emerges, so too do myths and misconceptions about the flu shot. Some people avoid getting the vaccine because they don’t think it works well enough to be worth it. Some think they are too healthy to need it. And some worry it will make them sick, possibly remembering a time when they got the shot and fell ill soon after. (Sohn, 11/24)
NPR:
C. Diff Infections Crop Up Outside Hospitals And Nursing Homes
Named from the Greek kloster, for spindle, a class of bacteria known as Clostridia abounds in nature. Staining deep violet under the microscope, they appear as slender rods with a bulge at one end, like a tadpole or maple seed. They thrive in soil, marine sediments and humans. They live on our skin and in our intestines. And sometimes, they can kill you. (Dalton, 11/25)
NPR:
Bed Rest Is Still Often Prescribed During Pregnancy, Despite Proven Risks
The couch is dark brown corduroy with lumpy cushions. There are a few telltale smears of food, maybe yogurt or a banana, and some crumbs here and there. It's a well-loved piece of furniture. Margaret Siebers plops herself down in the center and reaches out to baby daughter Frances, who climbs onto her mother's lap to breastfeed. "This is where I spent several months," says Siebers, with a shrug. Her 4-year-old, Violet, runs around nearby. "I could come downstairs and sit on the couch." (Kodjak, 11/26)
NPR:
Pilot Project To Reduce C-Sections Put To The Test By A Twin's Difficult Birth
The tiny hand and forearm slipped out too early. Babies are not delivered shoulder first. Dr. Terri Marino, an obstetrician in the Boston area who specializes in high-risk deliveries, tucked it back inside the boy's mother. "He was trying to shake my hand and I was like, 'I'm not having this — put your hand back in there,' " Marino would say later, after all 5 pounds, 1 ounce of the baby lay wailing under a heating lamp. (Bebinger, 11/24)
Stat:
Inside A Stanford Study On Virtual Reality Aimed At Helping Pediatric Patients
Virtual reality is often confined to the usual Silicon Valley crowd — mostly white and mostly wealthy. But at Stanford University, a new clinical trial is testing the technology in an underserved population: Spanish speakers with limited proficiency in English. The idea for the trial was dreamed up by a 24-year-old researcher who noticed that Spanish-speaking parents of pediatric patients undergoing medical procedures were showing more anxiety than is typical in those cases, often because of language and cultural barriers. That parental anxiety could sometimes trickle down to their kids, making them more anxious about their own procedure. (Robbins, 11/21)
Stat:
Purported Birth Of First Gene-Edited Babies Proclaimed On YouTube
In a promotional video posted on YouTube on Sunday, the Chinese researcher He Jiankui revealed new details about the two babies that he claims to have genetically modified as embryos using the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR. He said in the video that the twin girls — named Lulu and Nana — were born a few weeks ago after a normal pregnancy. They are now at home with their mother, a woman named Grace, and their father, Mark, a man who is HIV-positive and did not want to pass along his infection to his offspring, He said. (Robbins, 11/26)
USA Today:
Makeup's Maligned Ingredients: Are Goop, EWG Right About Chemicals?
Skincare sets wrapped in millennial pink and eco-green are already filling Instagram ads this season, and with their pore-refining promises these would-be stocking-stuffers also draw attention to “toxic chemicals" that’ve been canceled by clean-living proponents in the last few years. Face masks with parabens? Don’t even think about it, the gospel of Goop preaches. Body lotions with mineral oils? Definitely not on Beautycounter’s “nice” list. (Kelly and O'Donnell, 11/21)
The Washington Post:
Teenage Sleep And Brain Health May Improve With A Better Pillow
Healthy sleep leads to healthy brains. Neuroscientists have gotten that message out. But parents, doctors and educators alike have struggled to identify what to do to improve sleep for teenagers. Some have called for delaying school start times or limiting screen time before bed to achieve academic, health and even economic gains. Still, recent estimates suggest that about half of adolescents in the United States are sleep-deprived. These numbers are alarming because sleep is particularly important during adolescence, a time of significant brain changes that affect learning, self-control and emotional systems. (Galvan, 11/24)
The Washington Post:
Why You Should Carefully Read Medical Consent Forms You're Given Before Surgery And Other Treatment
Do you think you own your own medical data? Your hospital and doctor records, lab and radiology tests, genetic information, even the actual tissue removed during a biopsy or other surgical procedure? Well, you don’t. It’s a good bet that the fine print of the consent form you signed before your latest test or operation said that all the data or tissue samples belong to the doctor or institution performing it. They can study it, sell it or do whatever they want with it, without notifying or compensating you, although the data must be depersonalized in their best effort to make sure you are anonymous. (Petrow, 11/25)
The New York Times:
Excess Weight Increases Asthma Risk
Children who are overweight or obese are at increased risk for asthma, researchers report. A retrospective study, published in Pediatrics, included 507,496 children followed for an average of four years. None of the children had incidents of asthma before the start of the study. The researchers divided the children into three groups: overweight, defined as the 85th to 94th percentile for weight; obese, the 95th percentile or higher; and normal weight, the 25th to 64th percentile. (Bakalar, 11/26)
The Washington Post:
How An ‘Outbreak Culture’ Worsened The 2014-2016 Ebola Epidemic In West Africa
When Ebola broke out in West Africa in 2014, it spread with dizzying speed — and outwitted responders. By the time the epidemic ended in 2016, more than 28,000 people had been infected and 11,325 had died. It didn’t have to be that way, write Pardis Sabeti and Lara Salahi. In “Outbreak Culture: The Ebola Crisis and the Next Epidemic,” they uncover the chaos behind the world’s response to the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, and posit how it could have been avoided. Sabeti, a genetic researcher, was on a team that determined when and where Ebola first jumped from animals to humans. (Blakemore, 11/25)
The Washington Post:
Camp Fire, California’s Deadliest Wildfire In History, Has Been Contained
The Camp Fire — the deadliest, most destructive blaze in California history, which has killed 85 people, destroyed 14,000 residences and charred an area the size of Chicago — has been fully contained, authorities announced Sunday. Cal Fire, the state’s forestry and fire protection agency, made the announcement after spending 17 days beating back a blaze that has roared through 153,000 acres of Butte County, which is north of Sacramento. Three straight days of rain helped more than 1,000 firefighters get a foothold. (Wootson, 11/25)
The Wall Street Journal:
Deadliest Fire In California History Deemed Contained
“We’re confident that it’s not going to move out of the containment lines,” said Jennifer Erickson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service. The fire was contained, but it wasn’t completely out, with sections still smoldering. “There definitely are areas of smoke that probably will be going for a while,” Ms. Erickson said. (McWhirter, 11/25)
The Associated Press:
What Makes A California Wildfire The Worst? Deaths And Size
The so-called Camp Fire in Northern California in many ways has become the worst wildfire in the history of a state whose topography and climate have long made it ripe for devastating blazes. With terrain ranging from steep, tree-topped mountains to dry, brush-covered hillsides, and matched with a climate that frequently varies from light rainy seasons to drought years, California has been home to deadly, destructive wildfires since record-keeping began in the early 20th century. (Rogers, 11/23)
The Wall Street Journal:
In California, Last Year’s Wildfire Victims Struggle To Recover
Wendy Haynes lives 150 miles from the Camp Fire that has killed more than 80 people, but the smell of smoke and reports of devastation have rekindled memories of when flames raced toward her a year ago. “There’s a sense of reliving everything,” said the 63-year-old physical therapist. Ms. Haynes’s home was one of the few left standing after the 36,807-acre Tubbs Fire roared through Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood on Oct. 8, 2017. But she suffered emotional trauma from running for her life as fist-sized embers rained around her. By the time it was all over, more than 5,100 homes in this bedroom city north of San Francisco were lost and 22 people were killed. (Carlton, 11/25)
The Associated Press:
Adenovirus Cases Rise To 12 At Southern New Jersey Facility
Health officials say they've identified two new cases of children infected with adenovirus at a New Jersey pediatric health care facility. The Voorhees Pediatric Facility near Philadelphia tells WPVI-TV Friday that brings the total number of infected patients to 12. Facility officials say there have been no related deaths and none of the patients are in critical condition. (11/23)
The Washington Post:
Overdoses, Bedsores, Broken Bones: What Happened When A Private-Equity Firm Sought To Care For Society’s Most Vulnerable
To the state inspectors visiting the HCR ManorCare nursing home here last year, the signs of neglect were conspicuous. A disabled man who had long, dirty fingernails told them he was tended to “once in a blue moon.” The bedside “call buttons” were so poorly staffed that some residents regularly soiled themselves while waiting for help to the bathroom. A woman dying of uterine cancer was left on a bedpan for so long that she bruised. The lack of care had devastating consequences. One man had been dosed with so many opioids that he had to be rushed to a hospital, according to the inspection reports. During an undersupervised bus trip to church — one staff member was escorting six patients who could not walk without help — a resident flipped backward on a wheelchair ramp and suffered a brain hemorrhage. (Whoriskey and Keating, 11/25)
The Baltimore Sun:
Maryland Legislators Call For Health Insurance Down Payment Plan
Marylanders without health insurance would be required to pay a state penalty that can go toward purchasing coverage, under legislation to be introduced next year by state Sen. Brian Feldman and Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk. Proponents touted the plan Tuesday at a news conference, followed by a scheduled legislative hearing on health care in Annapolis. (Cann, 11/23)
The Associated Press:
Report: $15M Sought After Body Used For Medical Practice
Relatives of a man whose body was used by the Bellingham Fire Department for intubation practice have filed claims against the city totaling more than $15 million, a newspaper reported. Eleven fire department employees — including two office workers — acknowledged practicing inserting and removing breathing tubes on the body of Bradley Ginn Sr. while waiting for it to be transported to a funeral home on July 31, The Bellingham Herald reported. (11/25)
The Associated Press:
Scathing Report On Cleveland County Jail Spurs Vow Of Change
The short-staffed county jail in Cleveland keeps inmates in inhumane conditions, sometimes failing to provide proper food, health care and basics like toilet paper, and locks up juveniles in the same unit as adults, according to a scathing new report released by the U.S. Marshals Service. The Cuyahoga County jail was reviewed following at least six inmate deaths in a four-month span from early June to early October, including some that were considered suicides. Jail officials didn't investigate or document what led to the deaths, according to the report made public this week. (11/23)
Los Angeles Times:
Hidden In L.A. Suburbia, Wrenching Poverty Preys On Children And Destroys Dreams
Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest public school system in the country, is more than a sprawling collection of campuses — it’s one of the nation’s largest depositories of child poverty. About 80% of the more than 600,000 students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. When I heard from Supt. Austin Beutner that nearly a quarter of the students at Telfair last year were classified as homeless, I began visiting the school and the neighborhood, hoping to give some human shape to the numbers. You don’t see sprawling tent villages on the streets around Telfair, and there’s little of the squalor so starkly evident on skid row and elsewhere. Poverty is quieter here. It lives indoors for the most part. To an extent, it’s hidden in the fabric of the suburban design, and for all the focus on homeless encampments in Los Angeles, far more people cope with cramped, inadequate, barely affordable housing. (Lopez, 11/25)
The Associated Press:
Maryland Medical Marijuana Sales Surpassing Forecast
Medical marijuana sales in Maryland are surpassing a previous forecast and could reach $100 million this year. The Baltimore Sun reports that medical marijuana sales totaled $67 million for the first nine months of 2018. A market research firm predicted last year that the state’s sales in 2018 would be about $46 million. New Frontier Data Senior Economist Beau Whitney said sales could now hit $100 million in December. (11/25)