First Edition: September 21, 2018
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
As States Try To Rein In Drug Spending, Feds Slap Down One Bold Medicaid Move
States serve as “laboratories of democracy,” as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said. And states are also labs for health policy, launching all kinds of experiments lately to temper spending on pharmaceuticals. No wonder. Drugs are among the fastest-rising health care costs for many consumers and are a key reason health care spending dominates many state budgets — crowding out roads, schools and other priorities. (Bebinger, 9/21)
The New York Times:
Christine Blasey Ford Opens Negotiations On Testimony Next Week
Meantime, Gov. Bill Walker of Alaska, an independent, and his lieutenant governor, Byron Mallott, a Democrat, came out on Thursday against Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. They said they worry that Judge Kavanaugh would jeopardize Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, adding that his “record does not demonstrate a commitment to legal precedent that protects working families.” They also said that he has been hostile to laws that are favorable to Alaskan Natives. And, they added, “We believe a thorough review of past allegations against Mr. Kavanaugh is needed before a confirmation vote takes place.” The statement from the governor and his lieutenant governor increased the pressure on Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska and a key undecided vote in the narrowly divided Senate. (Stolberg, 9/20)
The Washington Post:
Kavanaugh Accuser Christine Blasey Ford Won’t Testify Monday But Open To Doing So Later Next Week
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), said through a spokesman late Thursday that he would be consulting with colleagues on how to proceed. Kavanaugh wrote to Grassley in a letter released by the White House that he looks forward to testifying. “I continue to want a hearing as soon as possible, so that I can clear my name,” Kavanaugh said in the letter. “Since the moment I first heard this allegation, I have categorically and unequivocally denied it. I remain committed to defending my integrity.” Amid the maneuvering, the nomination was roiled further late Thursday by incendiary tweets from a prominent Kavanaugh friend and supporter who publicly identified another high school classmate of Kavanaugh’s as Ford’s possible attacker. (Kim, Dawsey and Brown, 9/20)
The Wall Street Journal:
Kavanaugh Accuser Open To Negotiations To Testify Before Senate Panel
An attorney for the California college professor who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers said she would be willing to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, an offer that could break a partisan logjam over whether the FBI should investigate her allegations. Christine Blasey Ford isn’t willing, however, to go before the panel by Monday, when a hearing is now scheduled, her lawyer wrote in an email Thursday to committee staff members. “She wishes to testify, provided that we can agree on terms that are fair and which ensure her safety,” wrote the lawyer, Debra Katz, who added that Dr. Ford had been receiving death threats. (Peterson, Nicholas and Andrews, 9/20)
The Associated Press:
Memory's Frailty May Be Playing Role In Kavanaugh Matter
She says he sexually assaulted her; he denies it. Is somebody deliberately lying? Not necessarily. Experts say that because of how memory works, it's possible that both Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford — the woman who says a drunken Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and groped her at a party when they were teenagers in the early 1980s — believe what they say. And which one of them believes his or her version more strongly is no tipoff to what really happened. (Ritter, 9/21)
The Washington Post:
Health And Human Services Secretary Confronts Migrant Child Crisis
Midnight had passed, and Alex Azar was still in a coat and tie as he looked into a computer monitor inside the Department of Health and Human Services emergency-operations hub. It was a room built for managing responses to hurricanes and disease outbreaks, but the HHS secretary was, instead, scrambling to deal with a disaster instigated by his own boss — a “zero tolerance” immigration policy that led thousands of children to be separated from their parents. Azar was not consulted on the zero tolerance policy before it was announced in early May, according to people familiar with the events, even though his department is responsible for housing migrant children who are on their own. (Goldstein, 9/20)
The Hill:
Trump Health Official Defends Funding Shifts To Pay For Detained Migrant Children
A top White House health official on Thursday defended a decision to shift money from health efforts in order to help pay to house detained migrant children. Joe Grogan, director of health programs at the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters the administration will not divert money from anti-opioid efforts. (Weixel, 9/20)
The Associated Press:
Arizona Licenses For Nonprofit Housing Migrant Kids At Risk
Arizona officials have moved to revoke the licenses for a nonprofit that houses immigrant children after it missed a deadline to show that all its employees passed background checks. Texas-based Southwest Key demonstrated an "astonishingly flippant attitude" toward the state's concerns about delayed background checks for workers at its eight Arizona shelters, the state Department of Health said in a scathing letter Wednesday. (Galvan, 9/20)
The Hill:
Lawmakers Consider Easing Costs On Drug Companies As Part Of Opioids Deal
Lawmakers are considering adding a provision easing costs on drug companies to an opioid package currently being negotiated. The powerful pharmaceutical industry has been pushing for months to roll back a provision from February’s budget deal that shifted more costs onto drug companies, and they sense they have a chance to attach the change to the bipartisan opioid package currently moving through Congress. (Sullivan, 9/20)
Stat:
GOP Lawmakers Seeking To Use Opioids Bill To Deliver Drug Industry Major Victory
The provisions that made it into law in February leave drug makers on the hook for 70 percent of prescription costs for seniors who reach the so-called donut hole in 2019 — that is, after they’ve spent $3,750 a year on drugs. The figure was previously 50 percent. Republicans are negotiating the deal without Democrats, according to multiple lobbyists, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. But a good chunk of the Democratic Party is likely to support the change, particularly if it includes the CREATES Act to offset the cost. (Facher and Florko, 9/20)
Stat:
AMA Urges Congress: Don't Loosen Privacy Restrictions For Patients With Addiction
The American Medical Association is opposing a change to patient privacy laws that would allow doctors to more freely share information about a patient’s history of substance use, a proposal that has divided the health care community and highlighted some of the challenges of addressing the opioid epidemic. In a letter to lawmakers obtained by STAT, the AMA said it believed there was a “fundamental misunderstanding” among groups working to incorporate the proposal into a sprawling opioids bill. Relaxing restrictions on patient privacy, the AMA wrote, could prevent individuals with addiction from seeking medical treatment in the first place. (Facher, 9/21)
The New York Times:
Biosafety Reforms Still Lagging At Military Labs
Three years after discovering that a military laboratory had shipped live anthrax to facilities around the world, the Department of Defense still has not developed a plan to evaluate its biological security practices, the federal Government Accountability Office reported on Thursday. The department has implemented about half of the procedural changes that had been recommended, the G.A.O. said. But the Pentagon still has not established a way to measure the effectiveness of these reforms, making it difficult for experts to determine whether safety has improved. (Baumgaertner, 9/20)
ProPublica/The New York Times:
Sloan Kettering’s Cozy Deal With Start-Up Ignites A New
An artificial intelligence start-up founded by three insiders at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center debuted with great fanfare in February, with $25 million in venture capital and the promise that it might one day transform how cancer is diagnosed. The company, Paige.AI, is one in a burgeoning field of start-ups that are applying artificial intelligence to health care, yet it has an advantage over many competitors: The company has an exclusive deal to use the cancer center’s vast archive of 25 million patient tissue slides, along with decades of work by its world-renowned pathologists. (Ornstein and Thomas, 9/20)
The Washington Post:
Cornell Professor Brian Wansink Resigns, The School Says
A Cornell professor whose buzzy and accessible food studies made him a media darling has submitted his resignation, the school said Thursday, a dramatic fall for a scholar whose work increasingly came under question in recent years. The university said in a statement that a year-long review found that Brian Wansink “committed academic misconduct in his research and scholarship, including misreporting of research data, problematic statistical techniques, failure to properly document and preserve research results, and inappropriate authorship.” (Rosenberg and Wong, 9/20)
Stat:
Scientific Leaders Urge New Efforts To Curb Sexual Harassment In The Field
Leaders of one of the nation’s most prominent scientific groups are calling for the research community to “act with urgency” to address sexual and gender-based harassment in the field. “It’s time for systemic change,” three leaders of the American Association for the Advancement of Science wrote in an editorial published Thursday in Science. The editorial — penned by AAAS president Dr. Margaret Hamburg, chair of the board Susan Hockfield, and president-elect Steven Chu — follows on the heels of a new policy on harassment adopted by the organization last weekend. (Thielking, 9/20)
The Wall Street Journal:
Cocaine, Meth, Opioids All Fuel Rise In Drug-Overdose Deaths
It isn’t just opioids behind a surge in deaths from drug overdoses in the U.S. Death rates from overdoses have been on an exponential-growth curve for nearly 40 years, involving methamphetamines, cocaine and other drugs in shifting patterns around the country and involving different age groups, a new analysis of federal data shows. When use of one drug has declined, another has moved in to fill the void, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health found in the analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science. (Ulick and McKay, 9/20)
Los Angeles Times:
Over Four Decades, An 'Inexorable' Epidemic Of Drug Overdoses Reveals Its Inner Secrets
Americans have long construed drugs of abuse as choices. Poor choices that can cost users their lives, to be sure, but choices nonetheless. But what if drugs of abuse are more like predators atop a nationwide ecosystem of potential prey? Or like shape-shifting viruses that seek defenseless people to infect? If public health experts could detect a recognizable pattern, perhaps they could find ways to immunize the uninfected, or protect those most vulnerable to the whims of predators’ appetites. (Healy, 9/20)
The New York Times:
Mark Bertolini Of Aetna On Yoga, Meditation And Darth Vader
Not long after joining Aetna, the health insurance giant, Mark Bertolini almost died. A skiing accident in 2004 left his body broken and his prospects dimmed. He was in his late 40s and considered early retirement. When conventional Western medicine didn’t help him recover, Mr. Bertolini turned to Craniosacral therapy, yoga and meditation. Soon he was back at work, and was made chief executive of the company in 2010. (Gelles, 9/21)
The Washington Post:
The 'Game-Changing’ Technique To Create Babies From Skin Cells Just Stepped Forward
Scientists in Japan made progress recently in the quest to combat infertility, creating the precursor to a human egg cell in a dish from nothing but a woman’s blood cells. The research is an important step toward what scientists call a “game-changing” technology that has the potential to transform reproduction. The primitive reproductive cell the scientists created is not a mature egg, and it cannot be fertilized to create an embryo. But researchers have already created eggs out of mouse tail cells and fertilized them to produce viable pups, so outside scientists said the research is on track to one day achieve human “in vitro gametogenesis” — a method of creating eggs and sperm in a dish. (Johnson, 9/20)
NPR:
Japanese Researchers Create Immature Human Eggs From Stem Cells
"For the first time, scientists have been able to convincingly demonstrate that we are able to make eggs — very immature eggs," says Amanda Clark, a developmental biologist at UCLA who wasn't involved in the research. The technique might someday help millions of people suffering from infertility because of cancer treatments or other reasons, Clark says.But the prospect of being able to mass-produce human eggs in labs raises a host of societal and ethical issues. (Stein, 9/20)
The Washington Post:
This Is What Happens To A Shy Octopus On Ecstasy
If you give an octopus MDMA, it will get touchy and want to mingle. What sounds like the premise of a children’s book set at Burning Man is, in fact, the conclusion of a study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology. Neuroscientist Gül Dölen, who studies social behavior at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and octopus expert Eric Edsinger, a research fellow at Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., bathed octopuses in the psychedelic drug and observed the result. (Guarino, 9/20)
NPR:
Mood Drug MDMA Makes Antisocial Octopuses Almost Cuddly
Octopuses are almost entirely antisocial, except when they're mating, and scientists who study them have to house them separately so they don't kill or eat each other. However, octopuses given the drug known as MDMA (or ecstasy, E, Molly or a number of other slang terms) wanted to spend more time close to other octopuses and even hugged them. "I was absolutely shocked that it had this effect," says Judit Pungor, a neuroscientist at the University of Oregon who studies octopuses but wasn't part of the research team. (Greenfieldboyce, 9/20)
NPR:
Gambling Monkeys' Risk-Taking Decisions Influenced By Area In Prefrontal Cortex
Experiments with two gambling monkeys have revealed a small area in the brain that plays a big role in risky decisions. When researchers inactivated this region in the prefrontal cortex, the rhesus monkeys became less inclined to choose a long shot over a sure thing, the team reported Thursday in the journal Current Biology. (Hamilton, 9/20)
Stat:
Puppies Are Making People Sick — And It's People's Fault
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria that have infected more than 100 people and that have been linked to pet store puppies appear to have spread at least in part because healthy dogs were given antibiotics — a decision that all but surely fostered antibiotic resistance. ... More than half of the puppies in a sample of roughly 150 dogs studied as part of the outbreak investigation were given antibiotics not because they were sick, but to keep them from becoming so, according to a new study published Thursday. The technique, called prophylaxis, has been widely used in food animal production and is blamed for fueling antibiotic resistance. (Branswell, 9/20)
The New York Times:
Daytime Sleepiness Tied To Brain Changes Of Alzheimer’s
A new study links daytime sleepiness with the accumulation of the plaques in the brain that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. The study, published in Sleep, included 124 mentally healthy men and women, average age 60, who reported on their own daytime sleepiness and napping habits. An average of 15 years later, researchers administered PET and M.R.I. scans to detect the presence of beta-amyloid, the protein that clumps together to form plaques. (Bakalar, 9/20)
The Associated Press:
California Makes People Ask For Straws, Sodas With Kid Meals
If you want a straw with your drink or a soda with a kids' meal at a California restaurant, you'll need to ask for them starting next year. A law signed Thursday by Gov. Jerry Brown makes California the first state to bar full-service restaurants from automatically giving out single-use plastic straws. Another law he approved requires milk or water to be the default drink sold with kids' meals at fast-food and full-service restaurants. (Bollag, 9/20)
Los Angeles Times:
Milk And Water Will Be Default Drink Options For California Kids' Meals Starting In 2019
“Our state is in the midst of a public health crisis where rates of preventable health conditions like obesity and Type-2 Diabetes are skyrocketing, due in large part to increased consumption of sugary beverages,” state Sen. Bill Monning (D-Carmel), the law’s author, said in a written statement. “This bill is an important part of a statewide public health strategy that will better inform consumers about the unique impacts that sugary beverages have on their health and that of their children.” (Myers, 9/20)
NPR:
Puerto Ricans Fear Contaminants In Their Tap Water
Carmen Lugo has lived in Puerto Rico her whole life, and her whole life she has feared the water that comes out of her tap. "When I was a child, we used filters," she says, leaning on the doorjamb with her 11-year-old in front of her and two teenage sons sleepy-eyed behind her on a morning in July." The water here," she says, pausing as she purses her lips in a tight smile. She chooses her words carefully. "We want to be in good health," she finally says. "My husband, he buys water from the Supermax," referring to a local grocery store. (Hersher, 9/20)
The Associated Press:
Unsafe Lead, Copper Levels In Water At Half Detroit Schools
Unsafe levels of lead or copper have been found in drinking water fountains and other fixtures at more than half of Detroit Public Schools Community District buildings. Tests show elevated levels in 57 schools. The 106-school district relies on federal protocols to determine water safety. Results are pending for 17 more. (9/20)
The Washington Post:
STDs Such As Syphilis And Gonorrhea Rising Rapidly In Maryland
The number of people with sexually transmitted diseases in Maryland is growing rapidly and many might not even know they are infected, fueling the spread. The rise in STDs is happening across the state and not just in trouble spots such as Baltimore, which has a history of high rates. The spread of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia are of particular concern to public health officials and doctors, who say they are treating many more cases. (McDaniels, 9/20)
NPR:
Florida's Requirement Of 'Mental Health' Disclosures By Students Worries Parents
Children registering for school in Florida this year were asked to reveal some history about their mental health. The new requirement is part of a law rushed through the state legislature after the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. The state's school districts now must ask whether a child has ever been referred for mental health services on registration forms for new students. (Ochoa, 9/21)
Los Angeles Times:
California Gov. Jerry Brown Rejects Bill To Prohibit Schools From Starting Before 8:30 A.M.
Under Senate Bill 328, public and charter schools would have had to adhere to the start time rule by Jan. 1, 2021, a change researchers believe would have decreased students’ risk of depression, suicide and car accidents while increasing their attendance rates, grade-point averages and test scores. “This is a one-size-fits-all approach that is opposed by teachers and school boards,” Brown said in a veto message. “Several schools have already moved to later start times. Others prefer beginning the school day earlier. These are the types of decisions best handled in the local community.” (Racker, 9/20)