First Edition: October 1, 2018
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
White Coats As Superhero Capes: Med Students Swoop In To Save Health Care
Each wall of the library reading room at the New York Academy of Medicine is lined with tall wooden bookshelves holding leather-bound medical tomes. Atop the shelves perch busts — seemingly all white, all male — lit by two large brass chandeliers. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook New York City’s Central Park and Fifth Avenue. This setting, which speaks to medicine’s staid past, recently became the backdrop for plotting medicine’s future. (Bluth, 10/1)
Kaiser Health News:
Judges In California Losing Sway Over Court-Ordered Drug Treatment
Dressed in jailhouse orange, with hands and feet shackled, Jimi Ray Haynes stood up in a Santa Cruz County courtroom and pleaded guilty to a felony weapons charge. Haynes, then 32, had spent the previous two weeks in jail detoxing from methamphetamine and heroin. The judge told Haynes he could serve part of his yearlong jail sentence in a drug treatment program rather than locked in county jail. (Rinker, 10/1)
Kaiser Health News:
Eat, Toke Or Vape: Teens Not Too Picky When It Comes To Pot’s Potpourri
There is no doubt that some high school students will try to get high. However, the ways they’re doing it might be changing. A survey of more than 3,000 10th-graders from 10 high schools in Los Angeles showed that while traditional combustible marijuana is still the most popular method, kids are turning to edible and vaporized weed, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open today. (Bluth, 9/28)
Kaiser Health News:
Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ (Almost) Live From Austin!
President Donald Trump’s proposed rule that would make it more difficult for immigrants to gain permanent status if they use government aid programs could have a major impact in Texas, with its large immigrant population. Texas is also ground zero for the health debate in this year’s midterm elections. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is the lead plaintiff in a case filed by 20 GOP state officials arguing that the entire Affordable Care Act is now unconstitutional in light of last year’s tax bill, which canceled the penalties for people who fail to obtain health insurance. (9/28)
The Wall Street Journal:
Nobel Medicine Prize Awarded To American, Japanese Scientists For Cancer Work
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo “for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.” Dr. Allison is chairman of the department of immunology at the University of Texas and has spent his career developing strategies for cancer immunotherapy. Mr. Honjo is a professor at the department of immunology and genomic medicine at Kyoto University. (Sugden and Chopping, 10/1)
The New York Times:
2018 Nobel Prize In Medicine Awarded To 2 Cancer Immunotherapy Researchers
Dr. Allison and Dr. Honjo, working separately, showed how certain proteins act as “brakes” on the immune system’s T-cells, limiting their ability to attack cancer cells, and that suppressing those proteins could transform the body’s ability to fight cancer. (10/1)
The Associated Press:
Nobel Prize: James P. Allison, Tasuku Honjo Awarded Medicine Accolade
Allison’s and Honjo’s prize-winning work started in the 1990s and was part of significant advances in cancer immunotherapy. “In some patients, this therapy is remarkably effective,” Jeremy Berg, editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals, told The Associated Press. “The number of different types of cancers for which this approach to immunotherapy is being found to be effective in at least some patients continues to grow.” (Keyton and Heintz, 10/1)
The Associated Press Fact Check:
Trump's Falsehoods On Health Plan Protections
President Donald Trump isn't playing it straight when it comes to his campaign pledge not to undercut health coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions. Five weeks before midterm elections, he is telling voters that those provisions "are safe," even as his Justice Department is arguing in court that those protections in the Affordable Care Act should fall. The short-term health plans Trump often promotes as a bargain alternative to "Obamacare" offer no guarantee of covering pre-existing conditions. (Yen and Woodward, 10/1)
The Associated Press:
Employers Jump Into Providing Care As Health Costs Rise
Autoworkers in this blue-collar, central Indiana city have an eager helper waiting to pick up the bill at their next doctor visit. Fiat Chrysler is offering free health care for most of its employees and their families — about 22,000 people — through a clinic the carmaker opened this summer near one of five factories it operates in the area. The company pays for basic care like doctor visits and consults with a dietitian and even an exercise physiologist. Workers don’t pay a cent, not even a co-pay. (Murphy, 9/30)
Politico:
Will Beto’s Bet On Medicaid Expansion Pay Off?
Beto O'Rourke has staked his long-shot campaign to beat Sen. Ted Cruz on the idea that Obamacare should be even bigger in Texas — a state that has done more than any other to try to destroy the landmark health care law. It just might be working. (Ollstein, 9/30)
The Hill:
Dem Governor Hopefuls See Winning Issue In Medicaid Expansion
Democratic candidates for governor in red and purple states are going on the offensive on Medicaid expansion, betting the ObamaCare issue will resonate with voters. In ads and speeches in states including Wisconsin, Georgia and Florida, Democrats are seizing on the popularity of Medicaid, making it a central part of their campaigns and using it to attack their GOP opponents. (Weixel, 9/29)
The Associated Press:
Trump Signs Spending Plan, Avoiding Government Shutdown
President Donald Trump signed an $854 billion spending bill on Friday to keep the federal government open through Dec. 7, averting a government shutdown in the weeks leading up to November's pivotal midterm elections. Trump signed the legislation to fund the military and several civilian agencies without journalists present as the fate of his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, continued to hang in the balance. The House and Senate approved the spending plan earlier this week. (Colvin and Lucey, 9/28)
The Washington Post:
Trump Signs Bill That Averts Government Shutdown, Sets Up Fight Over Border Wall
Funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the labor and education departments, would grow to $178 billion, a $1 billion increase and $11 billion more than the White House originally requested. This was a major priority for Democrats. Because Republicans only narrowly control the Senate, they need support from Democrats to pass spending bills. (Paletta, 9/28)
The New York Times:
Migrant Children Moved Under Cover Of Darkness To A Texas Tent City
In shelters from Kansas to New York, hundreds of migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night in recent weeks and loaded onto buses with backpacks and snacks for a cross-country journey to their new home: a barren tent city on a sprawling patch of desert in West Texas. Until now, most undocumented children being held by federal immigration authorities had been housed in private foster homes or shelters, sleeping two or three to a room. They received formal schooling and regular visits with legal representatives assigned to their immigration cases. (Dickerson, 9/30)
The New York Times:
Do Migrant Teenagers Have Abortion Rights? Two Volatile Issues Collide In Court
The Trump administration is claiming broad new authority to block access to abortions sought by undocumented immigrants under age 18 who are in its custody. In a case that brings together two of the most volatile issues in American society, immigration and abortion, the Justice Department argued this past week before a federal appeals court that the government “has a strong, legitimate and profound interest in the life of the child in the womb.” (Pear, 9/29)
Politico:
Fight Over Fetal Tissue Splits HHS, Anti-Abortion Allies
Anti-abortion groups — normally staunch allies of the Trump administration — have turned their fire on the health department, accusing the agency of being complicit in abortions by refusing to end research projects using fetal tissue. The simmering fight spilled into public view on Monday night, as HHS abruptly terminated one longstanding contract with a fetal tissue provider while opening an audit of all federally funded research and practices related to fetal tissue, which is mostly obtained from abortions. (Diamond, 9/28)
The Washington Post:
In Rollback Of Mercury Rule, Trump Could Revamp How Government Values Human Health
The Environmental Protection Agency has sent a proposal to the White House that would weaken existing curbs on power plants' emissions of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin, by changing the way it calculates the cost and benefits of curbing hazardous air pollutants. The proposed rule, according to two senior administration officials who have reviewed the document but spoke on the condition of anonymity because it has not been finalized, would reverse a 2011 Obama administration finding that the agency must factor in any additional health benefits that arise from lowering toxic pollutants from coal plants when evaluating the rule’s costs and benefits. (Eilperin and Dennis, 9/30)
The Wall Street Journal:
The Complex Reasons Sexual Assaults Go Unreported
The heated national debate about sexual misconduct has cast a spotlight on victims’ reluctance to report assault. The issue has been at the center of some of the most high-profile cases in the #MeToo era. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center, a Harrisburg, Pa., nonprofit, reviewed studies by the U.S. Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as academic legal research, and found only 5% to 20% of sexual-assault victims report attacks to law enforcement. (Bernstein, 9/29)
NPR:
Traumatic Moments Are Burned Into Memory, Scientists Say
In Thursday's testimony at Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings, Christine Blasey Ford alleged Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in 1982, when she was 15 years old and he was 17. Kavanaugh staunchly denied these allegations.But memory is fallible. A question on many people's minds is, how well can anyone recall something that happened over 35 years ago? (Chatterjee, 9/28)
The Washington Post:
Sexual Assault Victims Are Reliving Their Trauma, Triggered By Kavanaugh Hearing
Painful. Gut-wrenching. Heartbreaking. Unbearable. That’s how women described listening to Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where Christine Blasey Ford testified that Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school. (Bloom, 9/28)
The New York Times/ProPublica:
Sloan Kettering Executive Turns Over Windfall Stake In Biotech Start-Up
A vice president of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has to turn over to the hospital nearly $1.4 million of a windfall stake in a biotech company, in light of a series of for-profit deals and industry conflicts at the cancer center that has forced it to re-examine its corporate relationships.
The vice president, Dr. Gregory Raskin, oversees hospital ventures with for-profit companies. As compensation for representing the hospital on the biotech company’s board, Dr. Raskin received stock options whose value soared when the start-up went public a little over a week ago. (9/29)
Stat:
Pharma Tries To Cash In On Migraine Market By Making New Drugs Free, For Now
With approval of a new migraine therapy, Eli Lilly has become the third drug company angling for dominance in what could become a multibillion-dollar market for preventing debilitating headaches. But because none of the three medicines is clearly better than another, the contenders are taking a novel approach to competition: giving drugs away for free. Lilly’s treatment, called Emgality, is an injected medicine that has proved to reduce the number of migraine days patients experience each month. Doctors say its effects are virtually identical to recently approved treatments from Teva Pharmaceutical and the partnership of Amgen and Novartis, and all three drugs carry a list price of $6,900 per year. (Garde, 9/28)
Stat:
New Bill Would Grant FDA Power To Add Off-Label Uses To Generic Drug Labels
A bipartisan duo of senators wants to give the Food and Drug Administration the power to add off-label uses to certain generic drug labels. Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) introduced legislation late Thursday that would put in place new requirements on generic drug makers and FDA. (Florko, 9/28)
Stat:
Regeneron Tries To Elbow Its Way Into Crowded Immunotherapy Market
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN) has won Food and Drug Administration approval for a new cancer therapy, lining up behind five marketed treatments that work by removing brakes on the immune system to turn the body’s defenses against tumors. The company, alongside partner Sanofi (SNY), is entering a crowded market in which it is years behind the leaders, who have reaped billions of dollars in sales while racking up FDA approvals in more than a dozen tumor types. But Regeneron believes that, with some clever positioning and combination treatments, it can outfox its rivals and build its drug, cemiplimab, into a contender in the field. (Garde, 9/28)
The New York Times:
China’s Health Care Crisis: Lines Before Dawn, Violence And ‘No Trust’
Well before dawn, nearly a hundred people stood in line outside one of the capital’s top hospitals. They were hoping to get an appointment with a specialist, a chance for access to the best health care in the country. Scalpers hawked medical visits for a fee, ignoring repeated crackdowns by the government. (Wee, 9/30)
The New York Times:
Ebola Likely To Spread From Congo To Uganda, W.H.O. Says
The risk of Ebola escaping from the Democratic Republic of Congo is now “very high,” and the outbreak already is nearing Uganda, the World Health Organization said on Thursday. The W.H.O. raised its official alert level because of violence by local militias, which has slowed efforts to contain the outbreak, and population movements in eastern Congo, where the latest outbreak erupted in August. (McNeil, 9/28)
The Washington Post:
Conquering Cancer By Attacking The Disease’s Genetic Abnormalities
When Teresa McKeown was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, her disease was easily treated with standard therapies. But 11 years later, the cancer returned. This time, it morphed into what’s called triple-negative disease, an aggressive and difficult-to-treat form. “I had one therapy after another,” she said, “and failed them all.” (Swartz, 9/30)
The New York Times:
The Risk Of Alternative Cancer Treatments
A diagnosis of cancer, even an early-stage, highly curable cancer, can prompt some people to feel as if they’ve suddenly lost control of their future and that they must do whatever they can to regain it. They may seek guidance from the internet, friends and acquaintances, some of whom may be quick to relate tales of miraculous cures from alternative remedies that claim to spare patients the challenges of established cancer treatments like surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. (Brody, 10/1)
The New York Times:
More Evidence That Nutrition Studies Don’t Always Add Up
Not too long ago, Brian Wansink was one of the most respected food researchers in America. He founded the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, where he won attention for studies that showed that small behavioral changes could influence eating patterns. He found that large plates lead people to eat more food because they make portions look smaller and that children eat more vegetables when they have colorful names like “power peas.” (O'Connor, 9/29)
NPR:
After Winter's Deadly Flu Season, Infectious Disease Experts Ramp Up Warnings
There are a lot of misconceptions out there about the flu shot. But following a winter in which more than 80,000 people died from flu-related illnesses in the U.S. — the highest death toll in more than 40 years — infectious disease experts are ramping up efforts to get the word out. (Aubrey, 10/1)
The Washington Post:
Studies Of Twins Look At The Roles Of Genes And Environment In Many Health Problems
Every August for the past 43 years, Twinsburg, Ohio, has hosted the biggest gathering of twins in the world. Two decades ago, organizers added an attraction to the lineup of parade, talent show and hot-dog dinner that drew more than 2,000 pairs this year: the chance to participate in research. Scientists vie for tent spots to test such things as twins’ exposure to the sun, their stroke risk and their taste preferences. “Every year we get more [research] requests than we can handle,” says Sandy Miller, a Twins Day Festival organizer and mother of 54-year-old twins. “We just don’t have room for all the scientists who want to come.” (9/28)
Stat:
Experts Call For More Research On Pregnant And Lactating Women
There’s very little research on whether medications are safe and effective in pregnant and lactating women, but an expert panel has ideas for how to close that information gap — and it’s calling on the federal government to take action in a new report that could stir change. The sweeping report is the product of more than a year of public meetings by a task force formed by Congress in 2016 to study why so few women can get reliable answers on medication use while pregnant and lactating. More than 6 million women are pregnant in the U.S. each year, and it’s estimated that more than 90 percent take at least one medication while pregnant or lactating. (Thielking, 10/1)
The New York Times:
In The Nursing Home, Empty Beds And Quiet Halls
For more than 40 years, Morningside Ministries operated a nursing home in San Antonio, caring for as many as 113 elderly residents. The facility, called Chandler Estate, added a small independent living building in the 1980s and an even smaller assisted living center in the 90s, all on the same four-acre campus. The whole complex stands empty now. Like many skilled nursing facilities in recent years, Chandler Estate had seen its occupancy rate drop. (Span, 9/28)
The Associated Press/The Virginian-Pilot:
‘Living Donor’ Uses His Medical History To Teach Students
Russ Clark’s favorite part of the ultrasound is when the medical students go for his gallbladder. His heart might not be in precisely the right spot, but it’s there. Same with his liver. But his gallbladder? It was removed years ago, and the students can get confused searching for it. (Hafner, 9/28)
The Washington Post:
Pain Treatment Complicated By Doctors' Opioid Fears
I felt a shake and opened my eyes. The clock read 1:30 a.m. “We need to go to the hospital,” my mother whispered in my ear, clutching her stomach. She knew; it was the same pain she had experienced many times before. (DeFilippis, 9/29)
The New York Times:
The Confidence Gap For Girls: 5 Tips For Parents Of Tween And Teen Girls
The early weeks of a school year can rattle even the most self-assured kid — the swirl of new classes, teachers and tribes, and the pressure to try out new extracurriculars, sports and even personalities. Tween and teen girls face an added challenge because their confidence is already plummeting during those years. Of course, puberty is a turbulent time for confidence in both genders. But girls experience a much more significant, dramatic drop. (Shipman, Kay and Riley, 10/1)
The New York Times:
How To Help A Child With An Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety disorders, the most common mental health problems in children and adolescents, often go untreated while children suffer, even though there are effective treatments available, according to a new report on anxiety in children and adolescents from the Child Mind Institute in New York. Anxiety may be missed because it doesn’t necessarily declare itself with attention-getting disruptive behaviors; in fact, symptoms may keep some children quiet and inhibited, though in other children, alternatively, anxiety may be misunderstood as oppositional behavior. (Klass, 10/1)
Los Angeles Times:
In Need Of Life-Saving Surgery, He Was Promised Refuge In America. Just 15 Months Later, He Died — Still Waiting
Seid Moradi was elated when he found out his family had been approved to resettle in America. As non-Muslims who’d fled death threats in Iran, the family barely scraped by in Turkey. His sons had trouble finding work because of discrimination toward refugees. His wife picked through trash bins for food. And the family of six crammed into a friend’s apartment. Moradi’s case had a special urgency, however. He needed life-saving surgery for a bulging blood vessel by his heart. An American doctor, he was told, could perform the operation once he arrived in the U.S. (Kaleem and Etehad, 9/30)
The New York Times:
Texas Boy Speaks Clearly For First Time After Dentist Discovered He Was Tongue-Tied
For years, parents of a Texas boy believed he was mostly nonverbal because of a brain aneurysm he had when he was 10 days old. The boy, Mason Motz, 6, of Katy, Tex., started going to speech therapy when he was 1. In addition to his difficulties speaking, he was given a diagnosis of Sotos syndrome, a disorder that can cause learning disabilities or delayed development, according to the National Institutes of Health. (Garcia, 9/29)
Reuters:
U.S. Judge Strikes Down Kentucky Abortion Restriction
A federal judge on Friday struck down a Kentucky law requiring abortion providers to sign advance agreements with hospitals and ambulance services for emergency patient care, in a ruling that keeps the state from revoking the license of its only remaining abortion clinic. U.S. District Judge Greg Stivers in Louisville sided with the EMW Women's Surgical Center and Planned Parenthood in challenging a law that threatened to make Kentucky the first U.S. state without a single legal abortion provider. (Gorman, 9/29)
The Washington Post:
Epidemics Examined In N.Y. Exhibit
In 1793, New York created its first health department in hopes of staving off a yellow fever outbreak that had occurred in Philadelphia. It was too little, too late: Despite the best efforts of early public health officials, a yellow fever epidemic reached the city, killing hundreds of New Yorkers and causing others to flee. It would not be the last time the city contended with a widespread disease outbreak. “Germ City,” a new exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, tells the story of the metropolis’s long history with microbes. (Blakemore, 9/29)
The New York Times:
A Veteran Had A Yard Sale To Pay For His Own Funeral. Two Men Helped Him Raise $58,000.
When two men visited a yard sale in Western Pennsylvania last month, they browsed under the shelter of a blue tarp through the typical wares: dishes and vases, books and DVDs, old paintings and used clothes. They spent about $10 between them. One of the men, David Dunkleberger, 27, picked up a carton of glass bottles and some newspapers from the summer of 1977, when heavy rains brought catastrophic flooding to the area. The other man, Ed Sheets, 27, bought a railroad stock certificate. (Fortin, 9/30)
The Associated Press:
California Governor Rejects Supervised Drug Injection Plan
California Gov. Jerry Brown rejected legislation on Sunday that would have allowed San Francisco to open what could be the nation's first supervised drug injection site under a pilot program. Advocates of "safe injection" sites say the locations would save lives by preventing drug overdoses and providing access to counseling. (Har, 10/1)
Los Angeles Times:
Gov. Jerry Brown Blocks Plan To Let San Francisco Establish 'Safe Injection Sites' For Drug Users
Proponents say such sites help prevent fatal overdoses by offering access to clean needles, trained supervisors and referral to treatment programs. There are about 100 secure injection facilities around the world, according to a legislative analysis. (Mason, 9/30)
Los Angeles Times:
A Mandate For Abortion Medication On UC, CSU Campuses Is Rejected By Gov. Jerry Brown
Gov. Jerry Brown broke ranks with Democrats and abortion rights advocates Sunday by refusing to require student health centers at California’s public universities to provide abortion medication by 2022. Brown, who vetoed a bill requiring the health centers to provide abortion pills during the first 10 weeks of a pregnancy, said those services are already available to University of California and California State University students. (Myers, 9/30)
Reuters:
California Governor Signs Gun Control Bills Into Law
California Governor Jerry Brown signed several gun control bills into law on Friday, including one measure that raises the minimum age for buying rifles and shotguns from 18 to 21. The new laws come seven months after a gunman opened fire with a semiautomatic assault-style rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 14 students and three adults, the second-deadliest mass shooting at a public school in U.S. history. (O'Brien, 9/29)
The Hill:
California Governor Vetoes Ban On Smoking At Parks And Beaches For Third Year In A Row
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Saturday vetoed a proposed ban on smoking at state parks and beaches for the third year in a row. Three bills passed by state legislators would have imposed $25 fines on the use of tobacco, marijuana and e-cigarettes at parks and beaches, according to the Los Angeles Times. The measures cited wildfire concerns and public health as reasons to ban smoking in those outdoor areas. (Anapol, 9/30)