The New York Times: As The Supreme Court Gets Back To Work, Five Big Cases To Watch
The Supreme Court returns to the bench on Monday to start a term that will be studded with major cases on gay and transgender rights, immigration, abortion, guns and religion. The rulings will arrive by June, in the midst of an already divisive presidential campaign. That will thrust a court that has tried to keep a low profile back into the center of public attention. “It’s a very exciting term,” Lisa S. Blatt, a lawyer with Williams & Connolly, said. “Although the court will carry on with a sense of normalcy, it will be hard for them to ignore the polarization in the country on the issues of abortion, L.G.B.T. rights, guns and ‘Dreamers.’” (Liptak, 10/6)

The Associated Press: Abortion, Immigrants, LGBT Rights Top High Court's New Term
Abortion rights as well as protections for young immigrants and LGBT people top an election-year agenda for the Supreme Court. Its conservative majority will have ample opportunity to flex its muscle, testing Chief Justice John Roberts' attempts to keep the court clear of Washington partisan politics. Guns could be part of a term with plenty of high-profile cases and at least the prospect of the court's involvement in issues revolving around the possible impeachment of President Donald Trump and related disputes between the White House and congressional Democrats. (10/5)

The Washington Post: One Of The Most Politically Volatile Terms In Years Tests John Roberts And The Supreme Court
Two unknowns — the health of the court’s oldest member, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and whether the court will be drawn into legal controversies arising from the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into President Trump — add to the uncertainty. Resolution of the most contentious cases could happen in June, in the heat of a presidential campaign in which the future of the court has emerged as a galvanizing issue for conservatives and liberals. (Barnes, 10/6)

NPR: Supreme Court's New Term: Abortion, Guns, Gay Rights On The Table
The Supreme Court, by tradition, has tried to stay out of big controversies in an election year. But the justices, even if reticent, don't always have control over their docket. When the lower courts are divided on major questions, the justices cannot always escape their responsibility to be the final decider. (Totenberg, 10/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Supreme Court To Weigh Hot-Button Issues Against Tense Political Backdrop
At the center sits Chief Justice Roberts, a thoroughly conservative jurist who heads perhaps the most conservative Supreme Court in 80 years. He is dealing with competing pressures: seizing the opportunity to implement the rightward legal vision that animated his career versus exercising the restraint many believe necessary to preserve the court’s credibility. The chief justice also is facing the prospect of presiding over any Senate impeachment trial of Mr. Trump. It is a “misperception” to view the court as a political body, Chief Justice Roberts said last month in New York. Of 19 cases resolved by 5-4 votes last term, only seven fell along perceived ideological lines, he noted. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise because we don’t go about our work in a political manner,” he said. (Kendall and Bravin, 10/6)

Reuters: U.S. Supreme Court Takes Major Case That Could Curb Abortion Access
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up a major abortion case that could lead to new curbs on access to the procedure as it considers the legality of a Republican-backed Louisiana law that imposes restrictions on abortion doctors. The justices will hear an appeal by abortion provider Hope Medical Group for Women, which sued to try to block the law, of a lower court ruling upholding the measure. (Hurley, 10/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Supreme Court Agrees To Review Louisiana Abortion Restrictions
The Louisiana law, enacted in 2014, says physicians performing abortions must hold admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. Abortion-rights proponents who challenged the law say the restrictions provide no actual health and safety benefits for women seeking abortions and would leave the state with only one operating abortion clinic. The state disputes that claim, saying the law wouldn’t force the closure of any of the three clinics that operate within Louisiana, though it could cause short delays at one of them. (Kendall, 10/4)

Democrat-Gazette: High Court To Hear Challenge To Louisiana Abortion Law
The law is almost identical to a Texas law struck down by the Supreme Court in 2016. The vote in the 2016 decision was 5-3, with Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the court's four liberal-leaning justices to form a majority. It was decided by an eight-member court after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia that February. Since then, Justice Neil Gorsuch has replaced Scalia and Justice Brett Kavanaugh has replaced Kennedy. The federal appeals court in New Orleans upheld the Louisiana law last year notwithstanding the 2016 decision. (10/5)

The Hill: Supreme Court Abortion Case Poses Major Test For Trump Picks
It’s not clear where Kavanaugh and Gorsuch — both former circuit court judges — will land on the abortion issue; neither has ruled on such a case before. But the other conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas — dissented in the Texas case. (Hellmann, 10/5)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Agrees To Review Louisiana’s Abortion Law That Could Limit Women’s Access
Leaders on both sides of the issue took news of the court’s action as momentous, even if the questions in the case are narrow. “The Supreme Court now has a chance in this case to reconsider, reverse, and return Roe v. Wade and the issue of abortion to the American people, which is long overdue,” Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins said in a statement. “States should absolutely have the right to pass their own health and safety standards designed to protect women inside abortion vendors.” (Barnes, 10/4)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Upcoming U.S. Supreme Court Abortion Case Could Affect Ohio
Abortion rights advocates say laws that require abortion performers to have hospital transfer agreements and that require doctors to who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals are meant to to shut down clinics by requiring that they have unneeded credentials that they won’t be able to secure. They say hospitals frequently deny admitting privileges to doctors who provide abortions, for reasons ranging from ideological opposition, fear of backlash, or the fact that their patients rarely need emergency care. (Eaton, 10/4)

NBC News: Supreme Court To Take Up Gay Rights, DACA, Religious Freedom In New Term
The court is also scheduled to hear its first case on gun rights in nearly a decade, a development that advocates of gun rights are hoping will lead to an expansion of Second Amendment freedoms. The legal dispute involves an ordinance unique to New York City that allowed residents with a handgun permit to transport the gun, but only to shooting ranges within city limits. Gun owners who wanted to practice at ranges outside the city sued and lost, so they appealed to the Supreme Court. But after the high court agreed to hear the case, New York promptly rescinded the law, taking it off the books. (Wililams, 10/7)

USA Today: Abortion, Immigration, Gays, Guns: Supreme Court Has Blockbuster Term
The justices will waste no time diving into a divisive issue: Gay rights. Three cases will test whether the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans job discrimination on the basis of sex, applies to gay and transgender workers. The answer will be particularly important in 28 states that do not have their own protections. The cases pick up from where the same-sex marriage battle left off in 2015, when the court ruled 5-4 that states cannot ban gays and lesbians from getting married. But the author of that decision and others favoring gay rights, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, retired last year and was succeeded by Kavanaugh, whose vote will be key. (Wolf, 10/7)

The Associated Press: US Supreme Court To Review Kansas' Lack Of Insanity Defense
The U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to consider how far states can go toward eliminating the insanity defense in criminal trials as it reviews the case of a Kansas man sentenced to die for killing four relatives. The high court planned to hear arguments Monday in James Kraig Kahler's case. He went to the home of his estranged wife's grandmother about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Topeka the weekend after Thanksgiving 2009 and fatally shot the two women and his two teenage daughters. (Hanna, 10/6)

And in the lower courts —

The Associated Press: US Appeals Court To Hear Mississippi 15-Week Abortion Ban
Federal appeals court judges are set to hear arguments Monday over a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It is one of many laws pushed by conservative states in recent years, ultimately aimed at trying to persuade the increasingly conservative Supreme Court to further restrict the time abortion is legally available. (10/5)

Stat: Buttigieg Unveils An Aggressive Plan For Lowering Drug Prices
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Monday unveiled a sweeping plan aimed at lowering prescription drug prices — and though he’s one of the most moderate Democrats in the 2020 presidential race, the plan is anything but. Buttigieg’s proposal includes a number of drug pricing ideas once seen as radical, including a policy change that would force pharmaceutical manufacturers to forfeit as much as 95% of a drug’s revenue if the company refuses to negotiate prices. “Worst offender” drug companies could also forfeit their patent rights. (Florko and Facher, 10/7)

Reuters: Democrat Buttigieg Floats Plan To Slash Rising Drug Costs
Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said his plan would cut out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors on the Medicare government insurance program by at least 50% by the end of his first term and cap costs for out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for anyone who chooses his public insurance plan at under $250 per month. The plan would also go after pharmaceutical companies by penalizing those that raise drug prices by more than inflation, threatening to take patents away from companies that refuse to lower essential drug prices and allowing the federal government to negotiate with companies to make drugs more affordable. (Volcovici, 10/7)

CNN: Pete Buttigieg Proposes Seizing Patents And Steep Taxes On Pharmaceutical Companies Who Won't Negotiate Drug Prices
The plan, titled "Affordable Medicine for All," would offset $100 to 200 billion in spending by penalizing pharmaceutical companies that raise prices by more than inflation and by increasing the annual Branded Prescription Drug Fee, a section of the Affordable Care Act that sets an annual fee according to each manufacturers share of drug sales to government programs like Medicare Part D and the VA. Buttigieg's plan, which CNN obtained Sunday afternoon, echoes proposals from fellow 2020 hopefuls, including California Sen. Kamala Harris and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, in capping out-of-pocket drug spending, setting a limit at 50% for seniors on Medicare and at $250 per month for those choosing a public health insurance option under Buttigieg's newly released "Medicare for All Who Want It" plan. (Judd, 10/7)

Politico: How Pete Buttigieg Would Lower Drug Prices
The plan would be funded by significantly increasing an Obamacare-mandated fee on branded prescription drug companies to at least $8 billion per year, indexed to inflation. That’s about $5 billion more annually than drugmakers pay now. The pharmaceutical industry would also be on the hook for more of the costs of drugs when seniors with large out-of-pocket spending enter the “catastrophic” phase of the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Drugmakers would also be penalized if the cost of their branded medicines increased faster than inflation. (Karlin-Smith, 10/7)

In other news —

Stat: Congress Just Quietly Passed A Bill That Will Cost Drug Makers $3 Billion
It’s on the lips of every presidential candidate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and even President Trump: It’s time to lower drug prices. And yet when Congress passed a drug pricing bill last week that will save the government $3 billion — the first it’s passed in nearly a year — no one really noticed. You can’t blame them: There was no press conference from the bill sponsors, no snarky reaction from the drug industry, virtually no press release from any of the advocacy organizations that champ at the bit to weigh in on every twist and turn of the ongoing drug pricing debate in Washington. Even Trump, who has been eager to show his progress on lowering the costs of drugs, didn’t hold a signing ceremony for the bill. (Florko, 10/4)

Bloomberg: Heart Attack Forces Sanders To Reset Campaign At Pivotal Moment
Few audiences are more welcoming to Bernie Sanders than a pro-labor gathering. So his absence from a union forum in Los Angeles after a heart attack cast a shadow over his 2020 presidential bid. As his rivals made a pitch for the influential Service Employees International Union’s support, Sanders was being discharged from a hospital in Las Vegas on Friday after experiencing chest pains on Tuesday night. Doctors inserted two stents into a blocked artery. (Kapur, 10/6)

The Hill: Sanders At Home In Vermont After Release From Hospital 
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has returned to Burlington, Vt., after suffering a heart attack in Las Vegas. Sanders tweeted of his homecoming Sunday, saying he is "recovering well and feeling much better." "I am more determined than ever to fight alongside you to make health care a human right," he said. (Coleman, 10/6)

ABC News: Bernie Sanders' Health Incident Diagnosed As Heart Attack
"I want to thank the doctors, nurses, and staff at the Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center for the excellent care that they provided," Sanders said in the statement. "After two and a half days in the hospital, I feel great, and after taking a short time off, I look forward to getting back to work." (Kelsey, Harper and Doom, 10/4)

NBC News: Bernie Sanders Returns Home To Vermont As He Recovers From Heart Attack
Sanders' medical team said in the statement that he was taken to the cardiac catheterization laboratory and "two stents were placed in a blocked coronary artery." The other arteries were normal, the statement said. (Burke and Brewster, 10/5)

The New York Times: Bernie Sanders Had Heart Attack, His Doctors Say As He Leaves Hospital
Mr. Sanders, 78, had entered the hospital on Tuesday night after experiencing chest pain at a campaign event, and doctors had inserted two stents in a blocked artery, a relatively common procedure. But the campaign did not confirm that Mr. Sanders had had a heart attack until Friday, inviting questions about his condition, and his campaign’s transparency, as he remained off the campaign trail this week. (Ember, 10/4)

The Washington Post: Will Medicare-For-All Hurt The Middle Class? Elizabeth Warren And Bernie Sanders Struggle With Questions About Its Impact.
The two presidential candidates who have most strenuously backed Medicare-for-all are scrambling to ease concerns that it would create higher costs for many middle-class Americans. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are running on a multitrillion-dollar plan Sanders wrote to provide health insurance coverage to all Americans through the federal government, rather than from private insurers. Although they have frequently stressed that the middle class would see overall costs go down, a wide range of experts — including one whom Sanders has relied upon — say it is impossible to make those guarantees based on the plans that the candidates have outlined so far. (Viser and Sullivan, 10/5)

Bloomberg: Warren Has A Plan For Everything. But On Health Care She’s ‘With Bernie’
Elizabeth Warren has a plan for everything — but on the crucial 2020 issue of health care, she’s borrowing from a rival and fellow progressive -- Bernie Sanders. The presidential candidate who made a mark with her signature “I have a plan for that!” is the only one of the five top-polling Democrats without a sweeping proposal of her own to remake the health care system. She has instead championed Sanders’ legislation to replace private insurance by putting every American in an expanded Medicare program. (Kapur, 10/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Doctors, Once GOP Stalwarts, Now More Likely To Be Democrats
Doctors used to be America’s quintessential Republicans. During the 20th century, most were high-earning men who owned their own practices. They liked Republicans’ support for curbing medical malpractice lawsuits and limiting government’s role in health care. When Democrats proposed creating Medicare in the 1960s, the American Medical Association, the largest physician group then and now, opposed the idea with a campaign starring then-actor Ronald Reagan. In the decades that followed, medical schools started accepting greater numbers of women, who are more likely to be Democrats (women today account for nearly half of U.S. medical students). (Adamy and Overberg, 10/6)

The Washington Post: Trump Administration Plans To Delay Any Changes If The ACA Loses In Court
The Trump administration, with no viable plan for replacing critical health benefits for millions of Americans, plans to seek a stay if a federal appeals court invalidates all or part of the Affordable Care Act in the coming weeks — and may try to delay a potential Supreme Court hearing on the matter until after the 2020 presidential election, according to current and former administration officials. Senior administration officials say they have some ideas for replacing parts of the 2010 health-care law, “principles” crafted in part by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid administrator Seema Verma. (Cunningham and Abutaleb, 10/6)

The Washington Post: Republicans Make Mental Health A Platform Issue As Trump Calls For More Institutions
Wisconsin state Rep. Paul Tittl always thought mental illness was something that afflicted other families. But one year, the Republican lawmaker got what he called a triple “smack dab, slap in the face.” In 2013, the maid of honor in Tittl’s wedding committed suicide. Then his cousin committed suicide. Another relative was institutionalized with a serious mental illness that year. Now Tittl has joined the ranks of Republican lawmakers nationwide pushing to expand mental health treatment, a remarkable turnaround for a party that a few years ago was staking its reputation on cutting taxes and starving government budgets. (Craig, 10/6)

The Associated Press: Trump Signs Proclamation Restricting Visas For Uninsured
Immigrants applying for U.S. visas will be denied entry into the country unless they can prove they can afford health care, according to a proclamation signed Friday by President Donald Trump. The new rule applies to people seeking immigrant visas from abroad — not those in the U.S. already. It does not affect lawful permanent residents. It does not apply to asylum seekers, refugees or children. (Long, 10/4)

The Wall Street Journal: Immigrant-Visa Applicants Required To Show They Can Afford Health Care
The action, which is set to take effect in 30 days, would require applicants, including people with ties to family members in the U.S., to show they have health insurance or prove their financial ability to pay for medical care before being issued a visa that could lead to a green card. The proclamation wouldn’t apply to noncitizen children of U.S. citizens. Refugees and immigrants who won asylum are also excluded from the new requirement. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the proclamation shortly before it was released. (Hackman and Restuccia, 10/4)

Reuters: Trump Suspends Entry Of Immigrants Who Cannot Pay For Healthcare
Trump has made cutting legal and illegal immigration a centerpiece of his presidency. The Trump administration said last month that it planned to allow only 18,000 refugees to resettle in the United States in the 2020 fiscal year, the lowest number in the history of the modern refugee program. "While our healthcare system grapples with the challenges caused by uncompensated care, the United States Government is making the problem worse by admitting thousands of aliens who have not demonstrated any ability to pay for their healthcare costs," Trump said in the proclamation. (10/4)

Politico: Trump Moves To Suspend Visas For Uninsured Immigrants
The White House touted the proclamation as "protecting health care benefits for American citizens," arguing that uninsured immigrants create a financial burden for hospitals and doctors, forcing them to charge higher fees for Americans to cover the cost. "People who come here shouldn’t immediately be on public assistance," a senior administration official told POLITICO. "We should bring people here who contribute and not drain resources." (Hesson and Diamond, 10/4)

The New York Times: Trump Will Deny Immigrant Visas To Those Who Can’t Pay For Health Care
Immigration advocates were taken aback by the proclamation, noting there are already several steps that applicants for a green card must take to qualify, including passing background checks and health examinations. Elizabeth Jamae, an immigration lawyer at Pearl Law Group in San Francisco, said she doubted the assertion in the proclamation that lawful immigrants were about three times as likely as United States citizens to lack health insurance. (Shear and Jordan, 10/4)

CNN: President Trump Issues Proclamation To Deny Visas To Immigrants Who Can't Pay For Health Care
Doug Rand, a former Obama official who worked on immigration policy, told CNN on Saturday that the policy would apply to some half a million people seeking green cards from abroad -- most of whom will be the parents and spouses of US citizens. The proclamation sidesteps Congress, along with the normal executive branch regulatory process, and does not provide an opportunity for public comment, according to Rand. (Stracqualursi, 10/5)

Vox: The Trump Administration Will Deny Visas To Uninsured, Low-Income Immigrants
Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, tweeted Friday that immigrants with legal status do qualify for health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. But under the proclamation, subsidized insurance does not qualify as sufficient coverage. “They’ll be stuck in a catch 22,” he said. (Narea, 10/4)

The Hill: Immigrant Rights Groups Slam Trump Policy Requiring Migrant Health Insurance
The immigrant advocacy group United We Dream called it an "economic and racist attack." "Health insurance is hard enough for immigrants to access in this county; it's hard enough for citizens too. Our healthcare system is shot and the Trump Administration knows this. This is another economic and racist attack on a community who deserves healthcare in the first place," the group wrote. (Frazin, 10/5)

Bloomberg: Trump Orders Ban On Immigrants Who Can’t Pay For Health Care
The move effectively creates a mandate for immigrants to have health care insurance, after the administration overturned the Obama-era rule for all Americans to have coverage, which was a setback for efforts to reduce the level of uninsured in the U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, tweeted that the move was “hypocrisy, xenophobia, and barbarism.” (Davis and Shields, 10/5)

NPR: How Immigrants Use Health Care
NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Anne Dunkelberg of the Center for Public Policy Priorities about the new rule denying visas to immigrants without health insurance or funds to pay for health care. (10/6)

In other immigration news —

WBUR: ACLU Calls On Homeland Security To Stop Turning Away Pregnant Asylum-Seekers
To stem the flow of migrants across the southern border, the Trump administration is sending tens of thousands of asylum-seekers back to Mexico to await their day in U.S. immigration court — including some pregnant women. On the Mexican side of the international bridge that leads to Brownsville, Texas, immigration attorney Jodi Goodwin prepares her client, an asylum-seeker named Yulisa, for what happens next. (Leaños Jr., 10/5)

The Associated Press: Victims Gain A Voice To Help Guide Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy
Victims of opioid addiction weren't in the room when OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma persuaded half the state attorneys general to settle claims over the company's role in the nationwide overdose epidemic. Now that Purdue is in federal bankruptcy court, four people whose lives were touched by addiction have important seats at the table — and could force fundamental changes to the tentative deal. They are part of a bankruptcy committee that will play a major role in deciding how much Purdue will pay and potentially how that money is to be spent. (10/6)

The Associated Press: Purdue Opioid Deal Blasted As Records Show $13B To Sacklers
Attorneys general representing nearly half the states and lawyers for more than 500 local governments on Friday blasted the terms of Purdue Pharma's offer to settle thousands of lawsuits over the nation's opioid crisis in court filings that also said the company had funneled up to $13 billion to its controlling family. Their legal filings said the tentative deal does not contain an admission of wrongdoing from members of the Sackler family, would not stop family members from future misconduct and wouldn't force them to repay money "they pocketed from their illegal conduct." (10/4)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Drug Companies May Probe Cuyahoga County Jail Problems, Mother’s Murder Of 4-Year-Old Daughter At Federal Opioid Trial
Drug companies set to defend themselves from accusations that they fueled the opioid crisis have several witnesses on their list that have may little to do with drugs but everything to do with problems within Cuyahoga County. Witnesses included on a list by all the defendants include two key players in an ongoing investigation into problems in the County Jail. They also listed the father of Aniya Day-Garrett, a 4-year-old girl who died from abuse carried out by her mother and her boyfriend. (Heisig, 10/4)

Cincinnati Enquirer: What If Genetic Test Could Alert You To Future Addiction To Opioids?
A doctor faces an impossible choice every time she must decide whether to give an emergency room patient a painkiller. "I'm faced with this battle. How do I decide how much pain medication to give someone?" asked Caroline Freiermuth of the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Freiermuth wants to treat their pain. She doesn't want them to suffer or purchase illicit opioids or heroin on the street. But she doesn't want to contribute to an opioid addiction. (Balmert, 10/4)

Stateline: Opioid Treatment Scam May Be Coming To Your State 
Here’s how the scam works: Seemingly caring people join recovery-related online chat groups, answer addiction hotlines advertised online or show up at fundraisers for addiction recovery. They typically say they’re in recovery themselves and are therefore uniquely qualified to help. People with addiction and their families often don’t want to ask their doctors or pastors for help because they’re ashamed and want to hide their illness. So, turning to a stranger can be appealing. To attract victims, “patient brokers,” as the scammers are known, typically offer free airline tickets and pocket money, according to prosecutors. (Vestal, 10/7)

The Associated Press: 6 Plead Guilty In $48M Drug Treatment Fraud Scheme
Federal authorities say six people have pleaded guilty to charges involving a $48 million Medicaid fraud scheme involving an Ohio addiction services company. Among those who entered pleas Friday in Youngstown was 39-year-old Ryan Sheridan, of Leetonia, the owner of Braking Point Recovery Center, which operated drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities outside Youngstown and Columbus. (10/5)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Six Plead Guilty In $48 Million Health-Care Fraud Case Involving Northeast Ohio Addiction Treatment Company
The owner of a now-defunct for-profit addiction treatment company pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges, following a week where his five co-defendants also admitted to charges in a scheme prosecutors said led to $48 million in fraudulent billing of Medicaid. Ryan Sheridan, 39, of Leetonia admitted that he and others worked together to defraud the federal government through Braking Point Recovery Center, which provided detox, outpatient treatment, day treatment and sober-living services. (Heisig, 10/5)

Seattle Times: Warning Issued After At Least 3 High Schoolers In King County Die From Fentanyl-Laced Pills
Parents, school administrators and public-health officials are sounding the alarm as fentanyl-laced pills have claimed the lives of at least three King County high-school students in recent weeks, part of a significant increase in overdose deaths since June. Students at Ballard High School in Seattle and Skyline High in Sammamish died after taking what they thought were oxycodone or OxyContin pills. The pills, some stamped with “M” and “30,” were laced with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, which can be deadly in even minuscule doses – but the quantities in counterfeit pills can’t be discerned. (Romano and Kiley, 10/5)

CNN: It's Not Just Opioids: What Doctors Want You To Know About Benzos
There's no understating the extent of America's opioid crisis. In 2017, the same year it became a public health emergency, an estimated 1.7 million people in the US had substance abuse disorders related to prescription opioids. And this year, the National Safety Council found that the odds of dying from an accidental opioid overdose are greater than those of dying in a car crash. But there's another prescription drug concern that experts say has grown in the shadow of the opioid epidemic: the rise in use of benzodiazepines. (Hare, 10/4)

ProPublica: Pharmaceutical Companies Are Luring Mexicans Across The U.S. Border To Donate Blood Plasma
Every week, thousands of Mexicans cross the border into the U.S. on temporary visas to sell their blood plasma to profit-making pharmaceutical companies that lure them with Facebook ads and colorful flyers promising hefty cash rewards. The donors, including some who say the payments are their only income, may take home up to $400 a month if they donate twice a week and earn various incentives, including “buddy bonuses” for recruiting friends or family. Unlike other nations that limit or forbid paid plasma donations at a high frequency out of concern for donor health and quality control, the U.S. allows companies to pay donors and has comparatively loose standards for monitoring their health. (Dodt, Strozyk and Lind, 10/4)

In other pharmaceutical news —

The New York Times: F.D.A. Approves New H.I.V.-Prevention Drug, But Not For Women
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a new drug, Descovy, for prevention of infection with H.I.V., only the second drug approved for this purpose. The first, Truvada, has become a mainstay of government efforts to turn back the H.I.V. epidemic. But the F.D.A. approved Descovy for use only in men and transgender women, because its maker, Gilead Sciences, tested it only in those groups. (Mandavilli, 10/4)

Modern Healthcare: Johnson & Johnson Pledges $500 Million Toward Ending HIV And TB
Johnson & Johnson said Friday it will invest more than $500 million over the next four years toward eradicating HIV and tuberculosis. J&J will dedicate a team of researchers toward accelerating the development of next generation medicines and vaccines for HIV and tuberculosis, and they hope to complement governmental efforts to eliminate the diseases by 2030. (Johnson, 10/4)

The New York Times: Nobel Prize In Medicine Awarded To 3 For Work On Cells
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was jointly awarded to three scientists — William G. Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza — for their work on how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. The Nobel Assembly announced the prize at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday. (Specia and Wolgelenter, 10/7)

The Washington Post: Nobel Prize In Medicine Awarded For Discovery Of How Cells Sense Oxygen
The fundamental discoveries by the trio illuminated what the Nobel committee called “one of life’s most essential adaptive processes” — how cells detect and respond to changes in oxygen levels, which is necessary for life and used to convert food into energy. Their work helps explain how, at high altitudes, the body adapts to thinner air by sending signals to generate more red blood cells to carry oxygen. (Johnson, 10/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Nobel Prize In Medicine Awarded To U.S. And British Scientists
Oxygen sensing plays a key role in a large number of diseases. “The discoveries made by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates have fundamental importance for physiology and have paved the way for promising new strategies to fight anaemia, cancer and many other diseases,” the Nobel Prize committee said. Last year’s prize was shared by James P. Allison, professor at the University of Texas and Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University, Japan, for discoveries that led to a new cancer therapy that uses the body’s immune system to attack tumors. (Chopping and Sugden, 10/7)

The Guardian: Nobel Prize In Medicine Awarded To Hypoxia Researchers
In work that spanned more than two decades, the researchers teased apart different aspects of how cells in the body first sense and then respond to low oxygen, a gas that is crucial for converting food into useful energy. When the amount of oxygen available to cells drops, levels of a protein complex named HIF rise. This ramps up the activity of a gene used in the production of erythropoietin (EPO), a hormone that in turn boosts the creation of red blood cells. (Sample, 10/7)

CNN: Nobel Prize For Medicine Jointly Awarded To William Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter Ratcliffe And Gregg Semenza
New York-born Kaelin established his own research laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and became a full professor at Harvard Medical School in 2002. Semenza, also born in New York, became a full-time professor at Johns Hopkins University in 1999 and since 2003 has been the Director of the Vascular Research Program at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering. Ratcliffe, who was born in Lancashire, England, studied medicine at Cambridge University and established an independent research group at Oxford University, becoming a full professor in 1996. (Lewis, 10/7)

The Associated Press: 3 Get Nobel Medicine Prize For Learning How Cells Use Oxygen
Nobel glory this year comes with a 9-million kronor ($918,000) cash award, a gold medal and a diploma. The laureates receive them at elegant ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on Dec. 10 — the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896. (Olsen, Cheng and Keyton, 10/7)

Meanwhile —

Stat: These 4 Biotechs Already Brag About Their 'Nobel Prize-Winning' Bona Fides
Though the prizes in the scientific field always go to basic researchers, scientists have won the Nobel Prize for some obviously translatable discoveries. Some have won for discovering specific treatments, like penicillin and artemisinin and insulin. ... But building a bona-fide biotech company around a single, specific Nobel Prize-winning discovery is still — necessarily — statistically rare. Companies that can emphasize that connection always do, both to their backers and their employees. (Sheridan, 10/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Teens Ignored Vaping Warnings For Years. Now, Some Are Scared.
For years at Buffalo High School here outside Minneapolis, many students were defiant about vaping. Now, some of them are starting to get scared. Mounting deaths and mystery illnesses are beginning to raise new fears among kids. “I think it was supposed to be a healthier alternative to smoking cigarettes. That’s like not the case anymore,” said Nicole Odeen, a 17-year-old senior at Buffalo High in this town of nearly 16,000 located about 40 miles northwest of Minneapolis. “Hundreds are in the hospital. With anything you’re putting into your lungs, you’ve gotta know there’s got to be some downsides to it,” said junior Elle Kaiser, 16. (Petersen, 10/7)

NPR: Worried Your Teen Is Vaping? How To Have A Tough Conversation
Vape pens are easy to conceal, they're easy to confuse with other electronic gadgets like USB flash drives, and they generally don't leave lingering smells on clothes. All these things make them appealing to underage users, and confounding to parents. Gone are the days when sniffing a teenager's jacket or gym bag counted as passive drug screening. Now if parents want to know if their teens are vaping nicotine or cannabis, their best bet is a good old fashioned conversation. (Vaughn, 10/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Vaping’s Black Market Complicates Efforts To Combat Crises
U.S. health officials are confronting a sprawling black market for vaping products as they seek to combat two health crises, a mysterious lung illness and a surge in teen vaping. While the market-leading startup Juul Labs Inc. has become synonymous with vaping, it sells only nicotine liquids. There are hundreds of other vaping brands—containing nicotine, compounds derived from cannabis or other substances—sold online, in vape shops, convenience stores and marijuana dispensaries. Many of them are compatible with Juul vaporizers, though they haven’t been authorized by Juul. (Maloney and Hernandez, 10/6)

The Hill: Trump Takes Heat From Right Over Vaping Crackdown 
The Trump administration is under fire from conservative groups and some GOP lawmakers, who are pushing back over its planned crackdown on e-cigarette flavors. They say the administration is overreaching, and the flavor ban will harm small businesses, a violation of core Republican free market principles. (Weixel, 10/6)

The Wall Street Journal: What Adult Vapers Should Do Now
As vaping-related illnesses and deaths mount, adults who vape are asking: What should I do now? The question is especially difficult for people who switched to vaping as a way to quit smoking. Once widely seen as safer than regular cigarettes, vaping is now spurring new worries. The number of confirmed and probable cases of vaping-associated illness has risen to 1,080 across 48 states and one U.S. territory, according to the CDC. Nineteen people have died. (Chaker, 10/5)

The Associated Press: Clampdown On Vaping Could Send Users Back Toward Cigarettes
Only two years ago, electronic cigarettes were viewed as a small industry with big potential to improve public health by offering a path to steer millions of smokers away from deadly cigarettes. That promise led U.S. regulators to take a hands-off approach to e-cigarette makers, including a Silicon Valley startup named Juul Labs, which was being praised for creating "the iPhone of e-cigarettes." (Perrone, 10/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: Vaping Crackdown Leaves Deadlier Cigarettes Untouched
As states and cities race to impose new sales restrictions on e-cigarettes — now linked to more than 1,000 lung-related illnesses and close to two dozen deaths nationwide — almost none is taking action against traditional tobacco cigarettes, which have killed far more people. Why? (Ho, 10/6)

The Associated Press: Judge Upholds State's Vaping Products Ban For Now
A federal judge upheld Massachusetts' four-month ban on the sale of vaping products on Friday, at least for now. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani denied the vaping industry's request for a temporary reprieve from the ban while their legal challenge plays out in Boston federal court, saying the plaintiffs did not show they would likely succeed on the merits of the case or that the "balance of hardships" weighs in their favor. (Marcelo, 10/4)

USA Today: Massachusetts Vaping Ban Allowed To Stand For Now Amid Court Challenge
But a broader legal challenge to the ban won't be decided until later this month. The judge set a hearing for Oct. 15 to take up the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction to stop the ban, which Republican Gov. Charlie Baker announced Sept. 24. The judge's decision followed a morning hearing on the lawsuit brought by vape shops and vaping companies against Baker and the commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Garrison, 10/4)

CNN: Vape Store Owners Are Suing To Stop The Product Bans In New York And Massachusetts
New York and Massachusetts officials are grappling with the economic effects of the vaping ban this week, facing lawsuits from local vape shop owners who say the ban will close their stores. Vape store owners in both states filed lawsuits requesting preliminary injunctions to put a pause on the statewide bans that halted sales of vaping products. (Del Valle, 10/5)

The Oregonian: Gov. Kate Brown Bans All Flavored Vape Products Amid Vaping-Related Lung Illness Epidemic 
Gov. Kate Brown on Friday ordered a six-month ban on sales of all flavored vaping products with nicotine or THC amid an escalating vaping-related lung illness epidemic. It’s unclear exactly when the ban will start. The governor told state agencies to “immediately” pass emergency rules to ban the products. ...Sales of unflavored vaping products would continue. But if in the coming weeks or months investigators connect ingredients in those products to lung injuries, the state will have to immediately ban them, too, the governor’s order says. (Zarkhin, 10/4)

The Associated Press: Oregon Imposes Temporary Ban On Some Vaping Products
"The safest option for Oregonians right now is to not use vaping products of any kind. Until we know more about what is causing this illness, please, do not vape," Brown said. The Oregon Health Authority had asked Brown for a six-month ban on sale and display of all vaping products, including tobacco, nicotine and cannabis. The agency also urged Oregonians to stop using all vaping products until federal and state officials have determined the cause of the illnesses. (Selsky, 10/4)

Los Angeles Times: Vape Shops In Los Angeles Fear Sales Declines Amid Health Crisis
The Ace Smoke Shop on a gentrifying strip of Lake Avenue in Altadena is a small business in every sense of the word — a tiny shack crammed with a variety of tobacco products that attracts a steady stream of customers in need of their nicotine fix. Local residents and workers stop in and grab a pack of Marlboros or a cigarillo, but what largely draws them these days is the bewildering array of e-liquids in flavors such as butterscotch, kiwi-strawberry, vanilla bean and variety of tropical fruits, as well as no-muss, no-fuss disposable e-cigarettes in mango and other varieties. (Darmiento, 10/6)

San Diego Union-Times: 'Vaping In The Boys' Room'; Schools Grapple With Surge In Teen's Use Of E-Cigarettes
More than a quarter of high school juniors in San Diego County have tried vaping, and experts warn that teen vaping is erasing the gains from decades of smoking prevention. “We’ve come so far in reducing the use of traditional cigarettes, this is a battle we feel we’re re-fighting after all the years of getting cigarettes to declie so much,” said Jim Crittenden, a program specialist with the County Office of Education, who works on tobacco prevention. (Brennan, 10/6)

The New York Times: Australia Just Had A Bad Flu Season. That May Be A Warning For The U.S.
Australia had an unusually early and fairly severe flu season this year. Since that may foretell a serious outbreak on its way in the United States, public health experts now are urging Americans to get their flu shots as soon as possible. “It’s too early to tell for sure, because sometimes Australia is predictive and sometimes it’s not,” said Dr. Daniel B. Jernigan, director of the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But the best move is to get the vaccine right now.” (McNeil, 10/4)

The New York Times: Brain Stimulation Shows Promise In Treating Severe Depression
For more than a decade, doctors have been using brain-stimulating implants to treat severe depression in people who do not benefit from medication, talk therapy or electroshock sessions. The treatment is controversial — any psychosurgery is, given its checkered history — and the results have been mixed. Two major trials testing stimulating implant for depression were halted because of disappointing results, and the approach is not approved by federal health regulators. (Carey, 10/4)

The New York Times: Scientist Who Discredited Meat Guidelines Didn’t Report Past Food Industry Ties
A surprising new study challenged decades of nutrition advice and gave consumers the green light to eat more red and processed meat. But what the study didn’t say is that its lead author has past research ties to the meat and food industry. The new report, published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, stunned scientists and public health officials because it contradicted longstanding nutrition guidelines about limiting consumption of red and processed meats. (Parker-Pope and O'Connor, 10/4)

The Washington Post: The Climate Is Changing, But Our Disaster-Response System Isn’t Keeping Up, Experts Say
After a fire killed 34 people in a dive boat off the coast of California last month, the National Transportation Safety Board began an immediate investigation. Within 10 days, the NTSB published a key finding — that all six crew members were asleep with nobody on watch when the fire broke out — and promised an in-depth inquiry and safety recommendations. Eleven months after fire obliterated Paradise, Calif., and left 85 people dead, there has been no such independent investigation. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, tasked with managing the government’s response, has not completed its after-action report. FEMA’s reports, designed to assess its own performance rather than make safety recommendations, are rarely made public. (Sellers, 10/5)

The New York Times: Is Your Child Struggling In School? Talk To Your Pediatrician
The American Academy of Pediatrics has just issued a report on what pediatricians can — and should — do to help “school-aged children who are not progressing academically.” Dr. Arthur Lavin, one of the lead authors of the report and the chairman of the A.A.P. committee on the psychosocial aspects of child and family health, said that pediatricians can play an important role in working with children who are struggling in school. He does so in his own practice in the Cleveland area and said it has emerged as a high priority among his patients because it is so common. (Klass, 10/7)

The Washington Post: On YouTube, People With Disabilities Create Content To Show And Normalize Their Experiences
Ruby Ardolf, 14, has her own YouTube channel, featuring familiar aspects of a teen’s daily life and merchandise with messages of kindness and inclusion. But Ruby is not a typical teen vlogger. She is disabled — one of 12 people worldwide with a genetic condition called Stromme syndrome, which results in microcephaly (small brain), and impaired vision and motor functioning. (Chiu, 10/6)

Iowa Public Radio: When Efforts To Eat 'Clean' Become An Unhealthy Obsession
Whether its gluten-free, dairy-free, raw food, or all-organic, many people these days are committed to so-called "clean eating" — the idea that choosing only whole foods in their natural state and avoiding processed ones can improve health. It's not necessarily a bad thing to eat this way, but sometimes, these kinds of food preferences can begin take over people's lives, making them fear social events where they won't be able to find the "right" foods. When a healthful eating pattern goes too far, it may turn into an eating disorder that scientists are just beginning to study. (Fulton, 10/7)

The New York Times: Relief For Children’s Migraine Headaches
My grandson Stefan was about 8 years old when he began to get migraine headaches. As soon as he could after getting home from school, he would lie down and go to sleep, awakening an hour or two later, usually with the headache gone. But before the pain abated, he sometimes vomited, prompting him and his relatives to keep barf bags handy at all times. Then as Stefan approached puberty, these debilitating headaches stopped as mysteriously as they had begun. (Brody, 10/7)

The New York Times: Addicted To Screens? That’s Really A You Problem
Nir Eyal does not for a second regret writing Silicon Valley’s tech engagement how-to, “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products,” even as he now has a new book out on how to free ourselves of that same addiction. In his original manual for building enthralling smartphone apps, Mr. Eyal laid out the tricks “to subtly encourage customer behavior” and “bring users back again and again.” He toured tech companies speaking about the Hook Model, his four-step plan to grab and keep people with enticements like variable rewards, or pleasures that come at unpredictable intervals. (Bowles, 10/6)

The Associated Press: Verbal Autopsies Used In Push To Better Track Global Deaths
One afternoon last month, a young woman with a tablet computer sat next to Alphonsine Umurerwa on the living room couch, asking questions, listening carefully. She learned that the woman’s 23-year-old daughter, Sandrine Umwungeri, had been very sick for about a year, gradually becoming so weak she stopped leaving their tin-roofed home in a hilly section of Rwanda’s capital city. The family thought she had malaria. Medicines from a local pharmacy didn’t help. In March, she died. (Larson and Stobbe, 10/6)

The Washington Post: Worried You Ingested Something Deadly? This Virtual Poison Control Website Can Be A Lifesaving Tool.
You swallowed. You were splashed. You got stung. But was it harmful? If you aren’t sure, head to Webpoisoncontrol.org. That’s the online home of a project supported by 18 accredited poison control centers nationwide and operated under the auspices of the National Capital Poison Center in Washington. (Blakemore, 10/5)

The Washington Post: Suspicious Insulin Injections, Nearly A Dozen Deaths: Inside An Unfolding Investigation At A VA Hospital In West Virginia
Four months after Melanie Proctor’s father was buried with military honors for his combat service in Vietnam, she came home to her farm to find an unfamiliar tan SUV in the driveway. Two federal agents stepped out into the hot sun in August 2018. Proctor, a tax preparer, wondered whether one of her clients was in trouble. “We’re here about your father,” the FBI agent said. “We don’t believe he died of natural causes.” (Rein, 10/5)

Modern Healthcare: Medicare Advantage Plans Tout Pest Control, Acupuncture Among New Benefits
Medicare Advantage plans this year were slow to take advantage of new flexibility to offer different kinds of supplemental benefits, but some are making up for lost time. This week, several health plans advertised benefits for seniors that go well beyond the traditional gym membership or prescription eyeglasses. In 2020, some Advantage plans will be paying for seniors' rides to the grocery store or church, a new air conditioner or and even in-home pest control. Others are reducing co-payments for medications to treat chronic conditions, such as diabetes. (Livingston, 10/4)

The Advocate: Pest Control, Service Dog's Food -- Host Of New Benefits Await Medicare Advantage Customers
Medicare Advantage customers will soon be able to choose from new insurance benefits that go well beyond the usual coverage of doctor visits and other care in an effort to improve their health and prevent costly medical problems. Pest control, food for a service dog, pharmacy staples such as aspirin and toothpaste, in-home personal care to help with dressing and bathing, acupuncture and therapeutic massage treatments, sessions with nutritionists and assistive devices such as shower stools are among the new supplemental health benefits that privately run versions of the government’s Medicare program could be offering starting in 2020. Enrollment for plans runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7. (Boone, 10/6)

In other news from CMS —

Modern Healthcare: Therapists Look To CMS For Aid As SNFs Restructure
Associations representing therapists have urged the CMS to intervene as skilled-nursing facilities lay off and cut the pay of thousands of therapists nationwide in response to the new patient-driven payment model. The CMS scrapped the resource-utilization group model, which reimbursed SNFs according to the number of therapy hours and encouraged potentially unnecessary therapy services, the agency said, and replaced it with PDPM on Oct. 1. (Kacik, 10/4)

The New York Times: How A Murderous Rampage Reveals Perils For City’s Street Homeless
A 24-year-old homeless man, Randy Santos, was charged on Sunday with four counts of murder. Mr. Santos’s criminal history suggests he had been caught in a downward spiral for months before the attacks, accused of biting a worker at an employment agency in the garment district in Manhattan last October and punching a stranger in the eye on a Q subway train four days later, the police said. The deaths of the four men brought the dangers of living on the street into full public view, renewing attention on the unsheltered homeless, who make up only about 5 percent of the estimated 79,000 homeless people in New York City. (Stewart and Van Syckle, 10/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Homeless Man Charged In Killing Of Four Others
Advocates for the homeless said the incident serves as a reminder of dangerous conditions faced by homeless people in New York City. According to a report published by the nonprofit Coalition for the Homeless, there were 61,674 homeless people in New York City in August. Coalition for the Homeless Policy Director Giselle Routhier said in an interview that a shortage of affordable housing is behind the problem. “We’re not addressing the root causes,” Ms. Routhier said. “The government needs to provide people with homes because the housing market isn’t doing it.” (Chapman, 10/6)

Meanwhile, in California —

Los Angeles Times: Are Many Homeless People In L.A. Mentally Ill? New Findings Back The Public’s Perception
Mental illness, substance abuse and physical disabilities are much more pervasive in Los Angeles County’s homeless population than officials have previously reported, a Times analysis has found. The Times examined more than 4,000 questionnaires taken as part of this year’s point-in-time count and found that about 76% of individuals living outside on the streets reported being, or were observed to be, affected by mental illness, substance abuse, poor health or a physical disability. (Smith and Oreskes, 10/7)

The CT Mirror: With Outlook Bleak For Public Option, Lawmakers Shift To New 2020 Health Care Agenda
A day after the legislative session ended and still reeling from the defeat of a sweeping public option bill, lawmakers and Gov. Ned Lamont vowed in June to revive the health care overhaul next year. But as the General Assembly gets closer to reconvening, prospects for a resurrected public option measure are looking dim, and the debate around health care reform has shifted to cost containment, prescription drugs and reinsurance proposals that have bipartisan support. (Carlesso, 10/7)

The Star Tribune: High-Stakes Assessments Upend Lives Of Families With Disabilities 
Each year, tens of thousands of Minnesotans with disabilities and their families undergo this agonizing, high-stakes ritual, known as a comprehensive needs assessment. A stranger with a laptop comes to their home and asks hundreds of questions about the medical needs and care of their loved ones. ... A few careless answers about medications, or a forgotten detail about an emergency room visit, could spell disaster for these families. The right response could bring thousands of dollars in assistance to pay for nursing care, physical therapy and medical equipment; the wrong answer could consign the family to a life of sleep deprivation, medical emergencies and isolation. (Serres and Howatt, 10/6)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Nearly 2 Million Ohioans Could Lose Insurance Because Of Pre-Existing Conditions
Twenty-nine percent of non-elderly adult Ohioans are at risk of losing their insurance because of pre-existing conditions – if a federal appeals court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, according to new research. The Kaiser Family Foundation released estimates Friday showing 53.9 million Americans and just under 2 million Ohioans had a host of deniable conditions – from most forms of cancer in the past decade to mental health disorders, pregnancy, sleep apnea and arthritis. (Hancock, 10/4)

Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Health Care Modernization Task Force Being Announced By Gov. Bill Lee's Administration
Seven months after Gov. Bill Lee announced he would assemble a task force to advise the state on how to improve its approach to health care, his administration says it has now done so. Membership on the long-awaited "Health Care Modernization Task Force" will be announced this week, wrote Stuart McWhorter, Lee's finance and administration commissioner, in an op-ed in the Tennessean. (Allison, 10/6)

Boston Globe: Statewide Initiative Launched To Prevent Suicides Among People Of Color
A new statewide initiative seeks to reduce suicides among people of color by expanding outreach, providing more culturally relevant resources, and initiating potentially uncomfortable conversations about race, privilege, and how they affect access to mental health services. The project, which grew out of the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention’s Alliance for Equity, includes a range of actions to engage communities and spur dialogue. (Cox, 10/5)

The Associated Press: Report: Alabama Hospitals Pay Hackers In Ransomware Attack
An Alabama hospital system that quit accepting new patients after a ransomware attack said Saturday it had gotten a key to unlock its computer systems. A statement from DCH Health Systems didn't say how the three-hospital system got the information needed to unlock its data. But The Tuscaloosa News quoted spokesman Brad Fisher as saying the hospital system paid the attackers. (10/5)

The New York Times: Hot Tub Displays At State Fair Eyed As Link To Legionnaires’ Disease Outbreak
The hot tub exhibits at a state fair might be to blame for North Carolina’s recent outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease and Pontiac fever, which sickened more than 100 people and killed at least one, health officials said. Visitors to the N.C. Mountain State Fair who developed the lung infections were more likely to have walked past the hot tub displays inside the Davis Event Center, where several vendor displays were housed, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said in a news release on Thursday. (Ortiz, 10/6)

New Hampshire Union Leader: NH Health Officials Warn EEE Threat Remains Across State 
State health officials are warning residents the risk of contracting diseases from mosquitoes remains until a hard frost — when temperatures drop below freezing for several hours — occurs statewide. “Fall is the riskiest time of year for contracting diseases from mosquitoes,” said Lisa Morris, director of the Division of Public Health Services, in a statement. (Feely, 10/6)

MPR: In Minnesota, 4 Out Of 5 Gun Deaths Are Suicides
Most Americans are unaware that suicides — not mass shootings, other murders or accidental gun discharges — account for the majority of gun deaths in the United States, according to a recent survey from APM Research Lab. As many as three-fifths of gun deaths in the U.S. are the result of people intentionally killing themselves. (Roth, 10/7)

St. Louis Public Radio: 'Now It's Normal': Many St. Louis Students Live In The Shadow Of Gun Violence
The fear of pain or death from gun violence is crippling for some students at Emerson Academy. Many say the violence has stripped away their childhood freedoms. Smith says he tries to stay out of harm’s way. (Henderson, 10/7)

Seattle Times: Free To Check In, But Not To Leave: Patients Seeking Mental-Health Treatment In Washington Have Been Held Against Their Will 
The question of discharging patients from a psychiatric hospital is exceedingly fraught. Doctors are only supposed to admit patients with serious mental-health conditions, and have to balance patients’ right to leave against concerns about their welfare. Washington is one of just a few states where patients who check in to a hospital must be “released immediately” upon their request, with no additional time for observation, according to state law. Yet many patients don’t realize that even if they check in voluntarily, a hospital can legally hold them against their will. (Gilbert, 10/6)

Texas Tribune: Texas State University's Safety Questioned After Broken Emergency Phones
Long before federal authorities began scrutinizing Texas State University's campus crime data, the police department was hampered by lack of resources, former employees say. Surveillance camera feeds were broken. Emergency phones malfunctioned. And a thinly staffed dispatch system sometimes relied on trained students. (Najmabadi, 10/7)

Cincinnati Enquirer: After Dayton Shooting, Gov. DeWine Wants To 'Do Something' On Guns. But Can He Do Anything?
Two months ago, mourners in Dayton interrupted Gov. Mike DeWine with chants of "do something." But as DeWine tries to balance the interests of gun owners, domestic violence victims, mental health advocates, GOP lawmakers, judges and prosecutors, perhaps the better call would have been: "do anything." (Balmert, 10/4)

Health News Florida: Report: State Funding Favors Students In Poverty, But Majority Nonwhite Schools Still Suffer
The Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach county school districts spend more per student in schools with a majority of white students, the report from the nonprofit Education Reform Now found. However, all three districts spend significantly more on high-poverty schools than low-poverty schools. The trend was consistent in most urban districts statewide. (Bakeman, 10/4)

Modern Healthcare: CommonSpirit Reports $600 Million Operating Loss In Fiscal 2019
A perfect storm of operating declines, merger costs and impairment charges culminated in a $602 million operating loss in CommonSpirit Health's first annual financial report as a merged health system. The 142-hospital, Chicago-based system, formed through a February 1 merger, is currently working through the gargantuan task of combining two already large health systems, Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health, in parallel with a performance improvement plan designed to save $2 billion over four years. (Bannow, 10/4)

Kaiser Health News: Extent Of Health Coverage Gains From California Gig Worker Law Uncertain
A new California law that reclassifies some independent contractors as employees, requiring they be offered a range of benefits and worker protections, will likely expand health insurance coverage in the state, health policy experts say. But it might end up harming some workers. That’s in part because the law, which takes effect Jan. 1, could cut two ways. While inducing many employers to extend health insurance to newly reclassified employees, it might prompt others to shift some workers from full-time to part-time status to avoid offering them health coverage, or — in the case of some small firms — to drop such benefits altogether. (Findlay, 10/7)

The Associated Press: DC Public Psychiatric Hospital To Get Drinking Water Fixed
A public psychiatric hospital in the nation’s capital may soon have running water again. The district’s deputy mayor for health and human services, Wayne Turnage, tells WTOP-FM that St. Elizabeths Hospital’s water operations should be fully operational by Friday. The district-owned facility has been without running water since Sept. 26 when the bacteria that can cause Legionnaires’ disease were found in its water system. (10/7)

The Advocate: New Our Lady Of The Lake Children's Hospital To Enhance Access For Patients In Acadiana 
The $230 million Our Lady of the Lake children’s hospital that opened this week in Baton Rouge will enhance services offered at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Lafayette, hospital officials said Friday. The new children's hospital, part of Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady of the Lake Health System, which operates Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Our Lady of Lourdes, opened its doors at 6 a.m. Friday, beginning a new chapter in the hospital’s 105-year history. (Daigle, 10/4)

Austin American-Statesman: Map Shows Disparity In Life Expectancy Along East, West Line In Austin
A new map by a Houston-based nonprofit shows clear disparities in life expectancy on either side of a line along Interstate 35 in Travis County, with those in the west living often more than a decade longer than in areas in the east. The map, released Monday by the Episcopal Health Foundation, relied on six years of mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics and drills down to the neighborhood-level by looking at census tracts. It found huge differences in life expectancy in neighborhoods sometimes only a few miles apart. (Huber, 10/4)

The Washington Post: University Of Maryland Professors Complain Of Mold, Mildew In Campus Offices
Thurka Sangaramoorthy, a medical anthropologist and associate professor at the University of Maryland’s flagship campus, had to throw away her furniture, her collection of about 1,000 books, invaluable documents and personal mementos collected since she started teaching at the school in 2012. The reason? A combination of mold, mildew and moisture that have plagued her office in Woods Hall, which houses the university’s anthropology department on the College Park campus, Sangaramoorthy said. (Lumpkin, 10/6)

The Associated Press: Maine On Track For Legal Marijuana Sales By Spring 2020
Maine marijuana enthusiasts will probably be able to purchase their preferred products in retail stores by March 2020 after years of waiting. Voters approved legal adult-use marijuana at the polls in November 2016, and the road to legal sales has been long and bumpy. (10/6)

Boston Globe: Pete Buttigieg: My Bold Plan For Affordable Prescription Drugs
Campaigning recently in Berlin, N.H., I met a man who described being in line behind a woman at the pharmacy who was five dollars short to buy her prescription drugs. He spotted her the five dollars. But he told me, “I’m just worried about what’s going to happen to her next time.” That shouldn’t be possible in this country. And yet we know that even for people who have insurance, the cost of health care and prescription drugs is out of control. (Pete Buttigieg, 10/7)

Stat: Solve Surprise Medical Bills With Benchmarking, Not Arbitration
Surprise medical bills expose Americans to the high prices and occasional greed lurking in the heart of our health care system. Medical insurers typically provide some insulation from these bills by negotiating prices for their in-network patients. In its effort to fix surprise bills, Congress must not undermine this key lever for controlling hospital and doctor bills by instituting an arbitration solution, which is strongly backed by organized medicine, that is now working its way through several Congressional committees. (James Rickert, 10/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Pelosi’s Expensive Drug Bill
With impeachment in high gear, Democrats may not have time or interest to legislate. This is just as well on drug prices, where Nancy Pelosi has proposed price controls and President Trump cheered her on. Mrs. Pelosi’s legislation would direct the secretary of Health and Human Services to “negotiate” a “fair price” with drug manufacturers for the most expensive 250 patent-protected brand drugs. The government would issue a take-or-leave-it offer with a tax sword hanging over drug makers. (10/4)

The Hill: Trump Scores Political Win With Vow To Protect Medicare
Every time President Trump appears intent on self-destruction, he scores a political win that reminds us that his election in 2016 was no accident. With the impeachment inferno consuming all political discourse and scorching those closest to the flames, Trump traveled to Florida recently to warn seniors that “Medicare for All” would destroy Medicare as we know it. (Liz Peek, 10/4)

Fox News: I'm Terrified At The Thought Of What Government-Run Health Care Means For My Children 
I'm a mom, two of my four children have a lifetime medical condition. I’ve watched how children like mine suffer in other countries with similar government-run health care schemes. And it terrifies me. (Kristan Hawkins,10/7)

Louisville Courier Journal: Pediatric Emergency Doctors Plead For Gun Violence Research
As doctors who take care of children who are shot, we implore you to support federal funding for gun violence research. After accounting for suicides, homicides and unintentional injuries, firearm injuries kill more children aged 1 to 19 than cancer. Can you imagine not doing research on childhood cancer? (Kerry Caperell and Brit Anderson, 10/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Cancer Is Still Beating Us—We Need A New Start
I have been studying and treating cancer for 35 years, and here’s what I know about the progress made in that time: There has been far less than it appears. Despite some advances, the treatments for most kinds of cancer continue to be too painful, too damaging, too expensive and too ineffective. The same three methods—surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy—have prevailed for a half-century. Consider acute myeloid leukemia, the bone-marrow malignancy that is my specialty. AML accounts for a third of all leukemia cases. (Azra Raza, 10/4)

The Washington Post: I’m A Female Doctor. I Often Face Sexual Harassment At The Hospital. And I’m Not The Only One.
We had spent only a few minutes together, but in that short time my patient had already assembled several lewd comments about how my body looked in loose blue scrubs, speculated about my sexual proclivities and compared me to women he had previously “enjoyed.” He asked if I had a boyfriend, if I liked to have fun. The last thing I wanted to do was check for sensation around his testicles. It was a necessary piece of information. The patient had arrived in the Emergency Department complaining of back pain. (Jennifer Tsai, 10/5)

The Hill: How We Can Empower Biomedical Engineers To Combat Superbugs
At an almost alarming rate, news stories about new “superbugs” are popping up around the world. Earlier this year, a patient in New York died from a drug-resistant salmonella infection. Two years ago, a woman in Nevada died of an incurable infection, resistant to all 26 antibiotics available to treat that infection. And recent reports from India reveal that superbugs have become the leading cause of death for leukemia patients. Every year, 700,000 people die from incurable drug-resistant infections, a rate that some project will skyrocket to 10 million individuals per year in just 30 years. The United Nations has likened it to a crisis on par with HIV and Ebola. (Jason Papin, 10/5)

The Washington Post: Virginians Have A Chance To Improve Abortion Rights In November
To have an abortion in Virginia, a woman by law must undergo an ultrasound and listen to state-mandated information designed to shame her. She must then wait 24 hours before having the abortion. There is no medical reason — absolutely none — for this requirement. It just makes it harder and more costly to have an abortion. That is exactly what Republican lawmakers had in mind when they imposed this and other abortion restrictions, so it’s more than a little distressing that a federal judge has let them get away with it. (10/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Kentucky’s Ambulance Cartel Is Afraid Of Phillip Truesdell
Phillip Truesdell is in the nonemergency ambulance business. When people are confined to a stretcher, need an intravenous bag, or are undergoing dialysis, they can’t simply hop into an Uber. They need an ambulance to get around. It’s an essential service, and running the business, Legacy Medical Transport, has allowed Mr. Truesdell to keep his son and daughter employed and close to home in Aberdeen, Ohio. Legacy started in 2017 with one ambulance. Today they have seven trucks making more than 1,500 trips a year. (Anastasia Boden, 10/4)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Steps To Help Ensure Quality Assisted Living Care
The new investigative series in the AJC, “Unprotected,” highlights all-too-common problems experienced by those needing long-term care and services. How can individuals and families know that the place they select will be a good fit for their needs? (Lori Smetanka, 10/5)

Boston Globe: Another Set Of Eyes On DCF
Those heartbreaking stories of children who fell through the cracks of the Department of Children and Families prompted Governor Charlie Baker to promise major agency reform. With support from the Legislature, funding for the Department of Children and Families has increased. To reduce caseloads, there are more social workers, and virtually all are licensed. But DCF still faces challenges, from glitchy computers to poor retention of foster families. (10/5)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Rising Poverty Ensnares Many Cleveland-Area Children In Want. What To Do About It?
More than half all Cleveland children now live in poverty. That is among shocking figures in new Census Bureau estimates showing rising poverty in Cleveland, its suburbs and elsewhere in Ohio and the Midwest. Cleveland.com data analyst Rich Exner found that about 216,000 people in Cuyahoga County remain entrapped in poverty - roughly 124,000 in Cleveland and 92,000 in the suburbs. (10/5)

Los Angeles Times: San Francisco's E-Cigarette Ban Was Bad. The Industry's Fix Is Worse.
After San Francisco County supervisors voted to ban electronic-cigarette sales earlier this year, the nation’s largest seller of e-cigarettes, Juul Labs, financed a local ballot measure to try to overturn the ban in the Nov. 5 municipal election.The original prohibition on sales of electronic-cigarette products in stores and online, which is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, is an overreach and generally bad policy. Although intended as an effort to curb teen vaping, which is all too common despite being illegal under California law, it penalizes legal adult users as well by forcing them to travel to other cities to buy electronic cigarettes, while leaving indisputably unsafe conventional cigarettes on store shelves. Nevertheless, Juul’s repeal-and-replace measure, Proposition C, is even worse. (10/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: Mayor Breed Needs To Tackle SF Sidewalk Misery With The Same Energy She Brings To Housing
Mayor London Breed visited The Chronicle the other day to explain why she should be elected to her first four-year term. My eyes told me there was just one of her sitting at the head of the conference table, but my ears told me there were two. On housing, Breed knew her stuff, laid out big plans and clearly explained her vision. On the devastating trifecta of homelessness, drug addiction and untreated mental illness? Not so much. (Heather Knight, 10/4)