First Edition: October 15, 2018
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
As U.S. Suicides Rates Rise, Hispanics Show Relative Immunity
The young man held the medication in his hand — and considered using it to end his life. But then he “put it down and said, ‘No. I need help,’” before heading to a Laredo, Texas, emergency room, said Kimberly Gallegos, who at the time earlier this year was a mobile crisis worker for a local mental health center. (Huff, 10/15)
Kaiser Health News:
Medicare Advantage Riding High As New Insurers Flock To Sell To Seniors
Health care experts widely expected the Affordable Care Act to hobble Medicare Advantage, the government-funded private health plans that millions of seniors have chosen as an alternative to original Medicare. To pay for expanding coverage to the uninsured, the 2010 law cut billions of dollars in federal payments to the plans. Government budget analysts predicted that would lead to a sharp drop in enrollment as insurers reduced benefits, exited states or left the business altogether. (Galewitz, 10/15)
California Healthline:
Children’s Hospitals Again Cry For Help From Voters, But Are They Really Hurting?
Back in 2004, California’s children’s hospitals asked voters to approve a $750 million bond measure to help fund construction and new medical equipment. In 2008, they asked for $980 million more. Now they’re hoping voters will agree on Nov. 6 to cough up an additional $1.5 billion. The state’s 13 children’s hospitals treat California’s sickest kids — including those with leukemia, sickle cell disease, rare cancers and cystic fibrosis — so approving their fund-raising requests is an easy “yes” for many voters. (Ibarra, 10/12)
Kaiser Health News:
Who Knew? Life Begins (Again) At 65
I was convinced I would become an adult when I turned 21. But now, I’m certain that turning 65 was the watershed moment that finally grew me up. I’m pleased as pomegranate punch to be 65 — and alive. Not just alive and breathing, but actively engaged in making the right choices about this next chapter. (Horovitz, 10/15)
Kaiser Health News:
Hidden Drugs And Danger Lurk In Over-The-Counter Supplements, Study Finds
“It’s mind-boggling to imagine what’s happening here,” said Dr. Pieter Cohen, an associate professor of medicine at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts. Cohen wasn’t involved in the study but wrote a commentary published alongside the research. (Bluth, 10/12)
The Associated Press:
Democratic Candidates Focus On Health Care As Midterms Near
In a windowless conference room, Republican Senate candidate Martha McSally was asking executives at a small crane manufacturing company how the GOP tax cut has helped their business when one woman said: "I want to ask you a question about health care." Marylea Evans recounted how, decades ago, her husband had been unable to get health insurance after developing cancer, forcing the couple to sell some of their Texas ranch to pay for his treatment. Now she was worried about Democratic ads saying McSally, currently a congresswoman, supported legislation removing the requirement that insurers cover people with pre-existing medical conditions. (Riccardi, 10/15)
Politico:
The Great American Health Care Panic
With whiffs of cigarette smoke wafting from the adjoining Band Box bar, surrounded by the nonstop clatter of bowling pins, Donna Brown and Kaci Rickert sat across from each other at a little low table one recent evening at the shabby, homey Levittown Lanes. The women’s league teammates ate salad and ziti and made small talk. Brown got up for her turn, and Rickert offered an admission in what was almost a whisper. “We’re on two different sides of the political aisle,” she said, “but we don’t discuss it.” There was, however, one perennial problem they wanted to talk about. And when they started, they couldn’t stop. (Kruse, 10/15)
Modern Healthcare:
Tight Iowa Congressional Races Key On Pre-Existing Condition Protections
The battle over keeping the Affordable Care Act's strong insurance protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions has surged to the center of tight House and Senate contests across the country. But the issue has become particularly heated in two toss-up House races in Iowa. Unregulated Farm Bureau health plans will go on sale Nov. 1, and they can consider pre-existing conditions under a new state law. It's expected that some Iowans applying for the cheaper Farm Bureau plans will get turned down or will be quoted higher rates based on their health status. That could raise the stakes for voters. (Meyer, 10/12)
The Associated Press:
Ohio US Senate Candidates Spar Over Health Care, Immigration
Candidates in Ohio's U.S. senate campaign sparred Sunday over health care, approaches to climate change, student loan debt, immigration, tariffs and gun control in the first of three debates. Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci repeatedly criticized incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown as being a Washington insider, citing Brown's connections to Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer multiple times. (Welsh-Huggins, 10/14)
The Washington Post Fact Checker:
Democratic Attack Ad Falsely Knocks Republican On Preexisting Conditions
This is a story about how relatively minor procedural votes make their way into campaign ads. A key issue in the debate over the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the failed House Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, was Obamacare’s popular provisions barring insurance companies from refusing people with preexisting health conditions — or charging them more. As we have documented, the GOP bill would have weakened those protections, with states having the option to make changes that could have left people with preexisting conditions vulnerable to large increases in premiums, according to the Congressional Budget Office. (Kessler, 10/15)
The New York Times:
First Came A Flood Of Ballot Measures From Voters. Then Politicians Pushed Back.
The South Dakota Legislature’s social calendar was busy this year. Video lottery operators held a hog roast. Truckers put on an ice cream sundae social. Beer distributors organized an especially sought-after gathering featuring plenty of samples. And the American Legislative Exchange Council, known for drafting conservative-leaning model legislation, hosted a wine and cheese party. The gatherings — 107 events in all during the Legislature’s 38-day session — are popular with lawmakers, but less so with the public. (Williams, 10/15)
The Hill:
Vulnerable Republicans Throw ‘Hail Mary’ On Pre-Existing Conditions
Dozens of vulnerable House Republicans have recently signed on to bills or resolutions in support of pre-existing conditions protections, part of an eleventh-hour attempt to demonstrate their affinity for one of ObamaCare’s most popular provisions. Thirty-two of the 49 GOP incumbents in races deemed competitive by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report have backed congressional measures on pre-existing conditions in the past six weeks, according to an analysis by The Hill. (Hellmann, 10/14)
The Associated Press:
Study: Without Medicaid Expansion, Poor Forgo Medical Care
Low-income people in states that haven't expanded Medicaid are much more likely to forgo needed medical care than the poor in other states, according to a government report due out Monday amid election debates from Georgia to Utah over coverage for the needy. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office worked with the National Center for Health Statistics to analyze federal survey data from 2016. The research focused on low-income adults ages 19-64 in states that did not expand Medicaid under the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, compared to their peers in states that did. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 10/15)
The Associated Press:
State Set To Start Medicaid Expansion Advertising Effort
The state agency overseeing Medicaid expansion in Virginia is set to roll out an advertising campaign seeking eligible patients in the next two months. The Daily Press reports the Department of Medical Assistance Services has set aside $750,000 to advertise Medicaid expansion through radio spots, billboards, digital advertising and bus ads ahead of the Jan. 1 implementation. (10/13)
The New York Times:
Medicare Advantage Plans Found To Improperly Deny Many Claims
Medicare Advantage plans, the popular private-insurance alternative to the traditional Medicare program, have been improperly denying many medical claims to patients and physicians alike, federal investigators say in a new report. The private plans, which now cover more than 20 million people — more than one-third of all Medicare beneficiaries — have an incentive to deny claims “in an attempt to increase their profits,” the report says. (Pear, 10/13)
Politico:
Trump Set To Force Drugmakers To Post Prices In Ads
The Trump administration will require drug companies to post their list prices in consumer ads under a proposal to be announced next week — a prominent part of its drug price agenda, according to four individuals with knowledge of the plan. The move — which follows months of battles between the administration, congressional leaders and the pharmaceutical industry — is one of many proposals in President Donald Trump's blueprint to lower drug prices. But experts caution that the impact may be relatively insignificant and it could even confuse patients, considering the complexities of drug pricing. (Diamond and Karlin-Smith, 10/12)
CNBC:
Trump Administration To Force Drugmakers To Advertise Prices: Report
It's unclear how effective including prices in prescription drug ads would be in lowering prices. Few patients actually pay the list price of a drug. How much they pay depends on a number of factors, including which insurance plan they have. (LaVito, 10/12)
Reuters:
Abbvie Settles Humira Patent Disputes With Novartis Unit
Abbvie Inc said on Thursday it settled all patent disputes with Novartis AG, granting it a non-exclusive license to manufacture and sell a copycat version of blockbuster drug, Humira. Abbvie, however, did not disclose details regarding the royalties it will receive from Novartis generics unit, Sandoz, as part of the agreement. (10/12)
The New York Times/ProPublica:
Sloan Kettering Researchers Correct The Record By Revealing Company Ties
Top researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center have filed at least seven corrections with medical journals recently, divulging financial relationships with health care companies that they did not previously disclose. The hospital’s chief executive, Dr. Craig B. Thompson, disclosed his relationship with companies including the drug maker Merck, and Dr. Jedd Wolchok, a noted pioneer in cancer immunotherapy, listed his affiliations with 31 companies. (Ornstein and Thomas, 10/12)
Stat:
Harvard And The Brigham Call For 31 Retractions Of Cardiac Stem Cell Research
Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have recommended that 31 papers from a former lab director be retracted from medical journals. The papers from the lab of Dr. Piero Anversa, who studied cardiac stem cells, “included falsified and/or fabricated data,” according to a statement to Retraction Watch and STAT from the two institutions. (Oransky and Marcus, 10/14)
The New York Times:
Code Name Jane: The Women Behind A Covert Abortion Network
The no-frills advertisement, printed at times in student and alternative newspapers, went straight to the point: “Pregnant? Don’t want to be? Call Jane.” A telephone number followed. This was nearly half a century ago, when abortion was illegal almost everywhere in the country and alternative newspapers were in their heyday. There was no Jane, though, not literally anyway. Yet at the same time, Jane was anybody. (Haberman, 10/14)
The Associated Press:
Texas Cancels Troubled Contract With Anti-Abortion Group
Texas is canceling $6 million in troubled contracts with an anti-abortion group hired to bolster women's health services after Republican lawmakers cut off Planned Parenthood, and officials said Friday that more than $1 million in billings are under investigation. The announcement ends a tumultuous two years of Texas in business with the Heidi Group, an evangelical nonprofit that started in the 1990s promoting alternatives to abortion. (10/12)
The New York Times:
Inside The Vast Tent City Housing Migrant Children In A Texas Desert
On a barren patch of desert near the border, the incident commander stepped into the Incident Command Post trailer. Walkie-talkies were charging in the corner. Flat-screen TVs and computer monitors showed surveillance camera footage and weather forecasting models. The 911 dispatch center, in a nearby trailer, was quiet, and so were the ambulances and fire trucks. (Fernandez and Dickerson, 10/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
Inside The Texas Tent City Housing More Than 1,000 Migrant Teens
Officially, the massive complex just north of the Mexican border is a temporary, emergency “influx shelter” overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. But in practical terms, it is home, school and playground for migrant teens who were arrested after illegally crossing the U.S. border. Most are now asking for asylum and will spend an average of two months total in the government’s care. Government officials opened the Tornillo shelter to reporters Friday as part of an effort to combat criticisms of conditions inside the facility. (Caldwell, 10/12)
Reuters:
Texas Desert Tent City For Immigrant Children Balloons In Size
Since it opened, the camp, with air-conditioned tents, has enhanced its amenities to include access to legal services for the children, medical care, soccer, televised sports events and religious services, U.S. officials said. The average stay of a child at Tornillo is 29 days before the child is released to a sponsor, according to Health and Human Services. Civil rights groups have said that no matter what amenities are offered, holding children in a detention facility for prolonged periods can be a human rights violation. (Chavez, 10/12)
Reuters:
In Crackdown, U.S. FDA Seeks Details On New Electronic Cigarettes
Faced with a proliferation of new electronic cigarettes and a sharp rise in teen vaping, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday sent letters to 21 electronic cigarette manufacturers seeking information to assess whether the products are being marketed illegally. (Kirkham, 10/12)
The Washington Post:
FDA Investigating Whether Dozens Of E-Cigarette Products Are Being Illegally Marketed
The FDA said it has asked 21 manufacturers and importers to provide information about whether more than 40 products were on the market before Aug. 8, 2016. Products introduced or changed after that date must receive FDA clearance before going on sale. If the FDA determines that the products are being sold illegally, the companies could face fines, seizures or a court order to take them off the market. Friday’s move is the agency’s first large-scale action to enforce the requirement that products introduced after the August 2016 date get advance agency clearance, officials said. (McGinley, 10/12)
The New York Times:
Fathers And Sons, Reliving On Film The Pain Of Addiction
Nic Sheff was sitting next to his father, David, as he recounted one of the lowest moments in his life. It was the time when Nic, college-aged and living in his father’s home, observed his little brother, Jasper, and their younger sister, Daisy, fighting over a few missing dollars that Jasper accused Daisy of stealing from him. All along, Nic knew that he was the thief and that he’d robbed his brother to finance his own methamphetamine habit. Having recently watched this re-enacted in a movie, Nic, now 36 and eight years sober, struggled for a moment as he sought the right words to describe the disembodied way it made him feel. (Itzkoff, 10/12)
The Washington Post:
Diet, Weight Loss And Sex Supplements Are Tainted With Unapproved Drugs
Researchers found unapproved and sometimes dangerous drugs in 746 dietary supplements, almost all of them marketed for sexual enhancement, weight loss or muscle growth, a new analysis published Friday shows. The review of a Food and Drug Administration database of contaminated supplements for the years 2007 to 2016 most commonly turned up sildenafil — the drug sold as Viagra — and other erectile dysfunction drugs in sex enhancement products; sibutramine and the laxative phenolphthalein, both banned by the FDA, in weight-loss supplements; and steroids or their analogues in muscle-building products. (Bernstein, 10/12)
NPR:
Viagra, Steroids And More Appear In Products Marketed As 'Natural'
"The FDA didn't even bother to recall more than half of the potentially hazardous supplements," says Dr. Pieter Cohen, a Harvard Medical School professor and an internist with Cambridge Health Alliance in Boston, who wrote an accompanying commentary in the journal. "How could it be that our premier public health agency spends the time and money to detect these hidden ingredients and then doesn't take the next obvious step, which is to ensure that they are removed from the marketplace?" he asks. (Cohen, 10/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
How Fathers Should Talk With Their Sons About Sex In The #MeToo Era
When Michael Kawula was 14 years old and dating his first girlfriend, his dad brought up the topic of sex for the first—and last—time: He rolled up a copy of a Playboy magazine and stuffed it in his son’s Christmas stocking. “That was the end of my sexual education from my dad,” says Mr. Kawula, a 45-year-old entrepreneur from Trinity, Fla. With his own son, now 16, Mr. Kawula says he tries to be much more open. Talking about sex with our boys “is a conversation that needs to be had,” he says, “even more so today than in the past.” (Bernstein, 10/13)
Stat:
The Fertility Business Is Growing, And So Is Investor Interest
The field of fertility medicine is booming right now. Women are waiting longer and longer to have children. Same-sex couples looking to start families are increasingly turning to in vitro fertilization. And investors are pouring money into startups pitching egg freezing and genetic testing and other services to young women. There are few observers more qualified to weigh in on this business than Dr. David Sable. Sable previously spent years as an IVF doctor and now he invests in biotech on Wall Street, as a portfolio manager for the firm Special Situations. (Robbins, Feuerstein and Garde, 10/12)
NPR:
The Flu Nearly Killed Him. Now He Says 'Get The Vaccine'
Charlie Hinderliter wasn't opposed to the flu shot. He didn't have a problem with vaccinations. He was one of about 53 percent of Americans who just don't get one. "I figured [the flu] was something that's dangerous to the elderly and the young, not somebody who is healthy and in their 30s," says Hinderliter, who is 39 and the director of government affairs at the St. Louis Realtors association. "Turns out, I was wrong," he says. (Sable-Smith, 10/14)
The New York Times:
How An Unlikely Family History Website Transformed Cold Case Investigations
On Halloween night in 1996, a man in a skeleton mask knocked on the door of a house in Martinez, Calif., handcuffed the woman who greeted him and raped her. Two weeks later, he called the dental office where she worked. Investigators tried to track him down through phone records, but got nowhere. They obtained traces of his semen, but there was no match for his DNA in any criminal database. (Murphy, 10/15)
The New York Times:
Tiny Nanoparticles To Treat A Huge Problem: Snakebites
An Epi-Pen to treat a snakebite? It’s still a distant dream, but a Californian chemist and Costa Rican venom expert are reporting progress in a novel effort to make injectable nanoparticles that can neutralize snake venom and can be carried in backpacks. (McNeil, 10/12)
The New York Times:
Should You Have Knee Replacement Surgery?
For the vast majority of patients with debilitating knee pain, joint replacement surgery is considered an “elective” procedure. While it’s true that one’s life doesn’t depend on it, what about quality of life? Many people hobbling about on painful knees would hardly regard the surgery as optional. Consider, for example, two people I know: a 56-year-old man passionate about tennis who can no longer run for a bus, let alone on the court, and a 67-year-old otherwise healthy woman with bone-on-bone arthritis who can’t walk without a cane or stand for more than a few minutes. (Brody, 10/15)
NPR:
Shared Scooters May Be Fun, But Are Riders Safe?
Over the past year, companies have been rolling out electric scooters by the thousands in cities across the country — from Washington, D.C. to Milwaukee, to Lubbock, Texas. People download the app, find a nearby scooter and then just unlock and ride. But as these shared scooters have spread, so have concerns about safety. (Prichep, 10/15)
The Washington Post:
Autism And The Risk Of Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy
Among the many things a woman is supposed to avoid when pregnant are antidepressants, particularly a subtype of the drugs that some studies have linked to an increased risk of autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Yet the evidence linking antidepressants to autism is thin. And untreated depression is dangerous for a mother and her child. (Wright, 10/14)
The Washington Post:
Why Do Women Suffer More Migraines Than Men?
Migraine can afflict men, women and children. But it is not an equal opportunity disorder. Of those who suffer chronic crippling migraine attacks, the vast majority are women. They are as many as85 percent, according to the Migraine Research Foundation. “A researcher once said that ‘the femaleness of migraine is inescapable,’ ” says Elizabeth Loder, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and chief of the division of headache and pain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “It’s true. Migraine disproportionately affects women.” (Cimons, 10/13)
The Washington Post:
Eugenics Movement History Is Examined
What if you could engineer the perfect baby? Would you, if you could? A century ago, a group of American scientists and reformers thought it was possible — and desirable. Their perfect baby was white, able-bodied, Christian. And the cause they embraced, eugenics, was used to justify incarceration, sterilization and even murder. (Blakemore, 10/14)
The Wall Street Journal:
Hurricane Michael Forces Florida Hospitals To Shut Down
Hurricane Michael has forced five hospitals in Florida to close, and two more facilities in coastal Panama City were evacuating patents Thursday, reporting that the storm had damaged their roofs, buckled walls and shattered windows. Two more hospitals in the state said they planned to evacuate following the hurricane, which came ashore Wednesday, bringing to nine the number of Florida hospitals shut down by the storm. (Evans, 10/12)
Reuters:
Without Captions, Warnings About Hurricane Michael Failed To Reach Disabled
When Oscar-winning deaf actress Marlee Matlin turned to the internet to view a video warning about Hurricane Michael, she was quickly reminded that sign language interpreters are often edited out of broadcast clips and closed captioning seems to be non-existent online. "There are 35 million deaf and hard of hearing people and it's amazing today that there isn't full access to them," she told Reuters through an interpreter on Friday in a telephone interview. (10/13)