First Edition: October 9, 2018
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Spurred By Convenience, Millennials Often Spurn The ‘Family Doctor’ Model
Calvin Brown doesn’t have a primary care doctor — and the peripatetic 23-year-old doesn’t want one. Since his graduation last year from the University of San Diego, Brown has held a series of jobs that have taken him to several California cities. “As a young person in a nomadic state,” Brown said, he prefers finding a walk-in clinic on the rare occasions when he’s sick. (Boodman, 10/9)
Kaiser Health News:
Black Market For Suboxone Gives Some A Glimpse Of Recovery
Months in prison didn’t rid Daryl of his addiction to opioids. “Before I left the parking lot of the prison, I was shooting up, getting high,” he said. Daryl had used heroin and prescription painkillers for more than a decade. Almost four years ago, he became one of more than 200 people who tested positive for HIV in a historic outbreak in Scott County, Ind. After that diagnosis, he said, he went on a bender. (Harper, 10/9)
The Wall Street Journal:
Health Care Crowds Out Jobs, Taxes In Midterm Ads
Eight years ago, the newly passed Affordable Care Act was so widely criticized that it contributed to Democrats losing control of the House of Representatives. But in this midterm election, health care is the party’s most-mentioned topic in advertising—far above anything else, including opposition to President Trump. Meanwhile, Republicans—who have made repealing the Affordable Care Act one of their top advertising messages since the 2010 election—are barely mentioning it this year, after the GOP-led Congress tried unsuccessfully to overturn the law last year. The party has instead turned its attention to touting the tax legislation Mr. Trump signed into law late last year. (McGill and Bykowicz, 10/9)
The Hill:
Dem Ad Accuses Heller Of 'Lying' About Record On Pre-Existing Conditions
A new Democratic ad is accusing Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) of “lying” about helping people with pre-existing conditions. The ad from Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who is seeking to unseat Heller in a close Senate race, features people with pre-existing conditions, one of whom says, “Dean Heller is lying about helping us.” (Sullivan, 10/8)
The Washington Post:
Rep. Dave Brat’s Attack Ad Focuses On ‘Sanctuary Cities,’ Taxes And Health Care; Opponent Calls Foul On Two Of Three
Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) is airing a TV ad that criticizes Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s positions on taxes, health care and “sanctuary cities” — and her campaign calls two out of the three untrue. Locked in a tight race, both candidates and their allies are spending heavily on TV ads in the central Virginia district, which comprises rural areas and parts of Richmond and its suburbs. Brat and Republican-aligned interest groups spent $363,275 on commercials last week alone, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. Spanberger and her allies spent $408,728 over the same period, some of it for an ad that features the mother of a diabetic son who criticizes Brat, saying he voted against protections for people with preexisting medical conditions. (Vozzella, 10/8)
The Hill:
NARAL To Launch $1M Ad Campaign Targeting GOP Over Kavanaugh
Pro-abortion rights advocacy group NARAL is launching a $1 million ad campaign hitting vulnerable House Republicans over the GOP's support for newly-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The NARAL campaign is seeking to turn Democratic anger over Kavanaugh into votes during the midterm elections. (Birnbaum, 10/8)
The Hill:
Ryan Says 'Medicare For All' Shows Democratic Party Has 'Gone Off The Rails'
The embrace of “Medicare for all” shows that the Democratic party has “gone off the rails,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Monday. In a speech at the National Press Club, Ryan warned that the plan favored by “the Left” would result in Americans having no choice about the cost or coverage of their health insurance. (Weixel, 10/8)
The Associated Press Fact Check:
Trump Distorts Democrats' Health Care Ideas
Forget "Obamacare." President Donald Trump has found a new target when it comes to ideas from the Democrats for the nation's health care system. In rallies for the November midterm elections, Trump is going after "Medicare for All," the rallying cry of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats. Trump is trying out attack lines echoed by other Republicans that a government-run system would wreck the existing and enormously popular Medicare program for seniors and disabled people. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 10/9)
Politico:
House Republicans Distort And Dissemble In Slashing TV Ads
Attacks ads have always been a staple of campaign season. But Republicans have twisted facts in some ads to an extraordinary degree as they fight to save their House majority, weaving narratives about Democratic candidates that are misleading at best — or blatantly false at worst. ... Some Republican candidates have launched similar attacks impugning the motives or patriotism of their opponents. West Virginia Republican candidate Carol Miller ran a clip of her Democratic rival, Richard Ojeda, saying “the United States of America is not the greatest country.” One vet in the spot accuses Ojeda, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, of “stepping on the graves of every dead soldier.” What Ojeda actually said is that U.S. isn't the greatest country because homelessness is rampant, the health care system is lacking and the opioid epidemic has been allowed to fester. Ojeda issued his own ad in response, talking about the names of fallen soldiers tattooed his back. (Bade, 10/9)
The Associated Press Fact Check:
Indiana Candidates Make Misleading Claims
The Associated Press fact checked the first Indiana U.S. Senate debate Monday evening among Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly and his challengers Republican Mike Braun and Libertarian Lucy Brenton. Donnelly, a moderate Democrat who has been in Congress since 2006, is considered one of the country's most vulnerable incumbents in his race against Braun, a Republican who's modeled his campaign as a political outsider and businessman after President Donald Trump. ... Braun has suggested otherwise. He has previously called for Congress to scrap the entire Affordable Care Act, which would wipe away protections that prohibit insurers from denying coverage or charging more in premiums to people with pre-existing conditions. An estimated 1.1 million people under the age of 65, in Indiana have a pre-existing condition, according to a 2015 report from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. (Seitz, 10/9)
The Washington Post Fact Checker:
Susan Collins’s Wrong Claim On Planned Parenthood And Supreme Court Justices
Collins is a prominent Republican supporter of abortion rights. In defending her vote to confirm Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, she argued that she believed he would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that made abortion legal across the United States. After CNN’s Dana Bash noted that Planned Parenthood had once given her an award but that its political arm denounced her siding with “those who disbelieve, disrespect and even mock survivors,” Collins became upset. (Kessler, 10/9)
The Hill:
New Ads Target Collins For Supporting Kavanaugh
A pro-ObamaCare group is targeting Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in new TV and digital ads for voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The ad imitates a breaking news alert, with a narrator saying that the Supreme Court has voted to overturn ObamaCare and its protections for people with pre-existing conditions. (Hellmann, 10/8)
The Hill:
Senate Dems To Force Vote This Week To Overrule Trump ObamaCare Change
Democrats are planning to force a vote in the Senate this week on overturning a Trump administration rule expanding non-ObamaCare insurance plans. The Democratic resolution, which will likely get a vote on Wednesday, would overturn a rule finalized in August that expanded the availability of short-term health insurance plans. (Sullivan, 10/8)
The Associated Press:
Deported Parents May Lose Kids To Adoption
As the deportees were led off the plane onto the steamy San Salvador tarmac, an anguished Araceli Ramos Bonilla burst into tears, her face contorted with pain: "They want to steal my daughter!" It had been 10 weeks since Ramos had last held her 2-year-old, Alexa. Ten weeks since she was arrested crossing the border into Texas and U.S. immigration authorities seized her daughter and told her she would never see the girl again. (Burke and Mendoza, 10/9)
The New York Times:
Migrant Children In Search Of Justice: A 2-Year-Old’s Day In Immigration Court
The youngest child to come before the bench in federal immigration courtroom No. 14 was so small she had to be lifted into the chair. Even the judge in her black robes breathed a soft “aww” as her latest case perched on the brown leather. Her feet stuck out from the seat in small gray sneakers, her legs too short to dangle. Her fists were stuffed under her knees. As soon as the caseworker who had sat her there turned to go, she let out a whimper that rose to a thin howl, her crumpled face a bursting dam. (Yee and Jordan, 10/8)
Los Angeles Times:
L.A. Immigrant Who Spent Six Months In Detention Describes Harsh Conditions At Adelanto Facility
From his cell at the Adelanto immigration detention facility on July 11, 2017, Romulo Avelica Gonzalez scrawled out a journal entry on lined notebook paper. “Another person hanged himself,” he wrote in Spanish. “Lost asylum.” It was one of five suicide attempts over the course of eight months at the facility that houses nearly 2,000 detainees. Four months earlier, a Nicaraguan man had been found hanging in his cell from his bed sheets. (Castillo, 10/8)
Stat:
Questions About Funding, Purpose Loom Over An FDA-Affiliated Foundation
A little-known nonprofit established by Congress over 10 years ago to help the Food and Drug Administration work with the private sector is still struggling with a basic question: Where is the cash? The Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA is supposed to act as a liaison between the FDA itself and drug companies, researchers, nonprofits, or other businesses with regulated products who might want to support a project to make the agency’s job easier. It has raised just under $15 million during its first decade, according to the foundation. (Swetlitz, 10/8)
Stat:
Meet The 2018 STAT Wunderkinds
Over the past several months, a team of STAT editors and reporters pored through hundreds of nominations from across North America. We didn’t set an age limit; we were on the hunt for the most impressive doctors and researchers on the cusp of launching their careers but not yet fully independent. Most were postdocs, fellows, and biopharma employees working with more senior scientists. All are blazing new trails as they attempt to answer some of the biggest questions in science and medicine. (10/8)
The Wall Street Journal:
The Uphill Fight Against Fake Prescription Drugs
Tosh Ackerman took part of what he thought was a Xanax pill to help him sleep one night three years ago. His girlfriend found the 29-year-old dead the next day. The Xanax he obtained from an acquaintance was counterfeit, says his mother, Carrie Luther, who lives in Mount Hermon, Calif. Toxicology reports found it contained a fatal dose of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid often produced illicitly for the black market. “It looked like Xanax to the untrained eye,” says Ms. Luther, who now regularly speaks about the dangers of counterfeit drugs. (Reddy, 10/8)
The Associated Press:
Recovering Addicts Sue Rehab Boss For Unpaid Labor
A federal lawsuit contends the operators of a North Carolina drug rehab program farmed out recovering addicts to work in adult care homes and restaurants and pocketed the wages for the labor they performed. The lawsuit filed by Andrew Presson of Olney, Maryland, and Kimberly Myris of Pinehurst, North Carolina, contends they enrolled in a residential substance abuse recovery program run by Recovery Connections Community. (Dalesio, 10/8)
Los Angeles Times:
Study Gives Depressing Look At How Climate Change Puts Americans’ Mental Health At Risk
Is climate change stressing you out? A new study linking weather and mental health in the United States suggests things could get much worse. The study outlines three separate ways that hotter and more extreme weather stand to undermine the mental well-being of the people forced to experience it. The effects will be most pronounced for women and for low-income Americans, the findings indicate. “Ultimately, if observed relationships from the recent past persist, added climate change may amplify the society-wide mental health burden,” the study authors wrote Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Kaplan, 10/8)
The Associated Press:
Genetic Glitch Increases Men's Risk Of Impotence, Study Says
Scientists say they've located the first well-documented genetic glitch that increases a man's risk of impotence, a step that might someday lead to new treatments. Most impotence isn't caused by genetics but rather things like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, smoking, drug and alcohol use, stress or anxiety. (Ritter, 10/8)
The Washington Post:
More Cellphone Use By Children Could Mean More Bullying — Online And Offline
Each year, more parents send their young child to elementary school equipped with a smartphone. For instance, the percentage of third-graders who reported having their own cellphone more than doubled from 19 percent in 2013 to 45 percent in 2017. Similar increases took place for fourth-graders and fifth-graders. About 50 percent of fourth-graders and 70 percent of fifth-graders went to school with a phone in 2017. (Englander, 10/8)
NPR:
One Reason Breast Cancer Is More Lethal For Black Women
When she was in graduate school for public health, Niasha Fray found a job she loved: counseling women with breast cancer about sticking to their treatment. She offered what's called "motivational interviewing," a type of therapy intended to help women overcome obstacles keeping them from taking their medications — which can have unpleasant side effects. (Gordon, 10/9)
The Washington Post:
Acute Flaccid Myelitis: 4-Year-Old Orville Young Battled Rare, Polio-Like Disorder In Minnesota
When Orville Young ran up to his mother, Elaine Young, to give her the mail, she noticed he was using his non-dominant hand. Although a seemingly insignificant detail, it made the Minnesota mom stop and think — her then-3-year-old son had developed a cough and a runny nose over the Fourth of July holiday, but she and Orville’s then-6-year-old sister were sick, too, so she assumed that Orville had simply caught their cold. It was not until nearly two weeks later — when everyone else was on the mend and Orville had come down with a fever — that she started to worry. (Bever, 10/8)
The Wall Street Journal:
Churches Can Help Reduce Heart Disease, Study Says
The path to reducing rates of hypertension in black communities may start in the church pews, according to a new study by New York City researchers. Specially trained community health workers operating within faith communities in New York City were able to significantly reduce and manage hypertension in black communities, compared with health education alone, according to researchers at the NYU School of Medicine. (West, 10/9)
Reuters:
Southern Diet Helps Explain Extra High Blood Pressure Risk For Black Men
High blood pressure is widespread among African American men at least in part because they’re more likely than other people to eat a traditional Southern diet with lots of fried and fatty foods, a new study suggests. Researchers followed 6,897 people in the South who didn’t have high blood pressure in 2003-2007, including 1,807 African American men and women. After about nine years, 46 percent of black participants and 33 percent of white participants developed high blood pressure. (Rapaport, 10/8)
The Washington Post:
Johns Hopkins Names Building To Honor Henrietta Lacks And Her ‘Immortal’ Cells
Johns Hopkins University announced it will name a new research building on campus in honor of Henrietta Lacks, whose “immortal cells” led to the development of the polio vaccine, studies of leukemia and AIDS, chemotherapy and in vitro fertilization research as well as the effects of zero gravity in space. “This building will be a place that stands as an enduring and powerful testament to a woman who not only was the beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother to generations of the Lacks family, but the genesis of generations of miraculous discoveries that have changed the landscape of modern medicine and that have benefited, in truth, the much larger family of humanity,” Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels said Saturday during the university’s ninth annual Henrietta Lacks Memorial lecture series. (Brown, 10/8)