Politico: HHS Overstepped With Web Tracking Guidance, Judge Rules
The Department of Health and Human Services overstepped its authority when it issued a guidance last year warning hospitals that tracking visitors to their websites was a violation of health privacy rules, a federal district court in Fort Worth, Texas, ruled today. The decision, by Judge Mark T. Pittman, is a victory for the American Hospital Association, which sued in November. “HHS tried to tweak the definition [of “individually identifiable health information to include web visits] and got caught,” he wrote in his decision. (Reader, 6/20)

On health care cyberattacks —

The Hill: Biden Administration Bans Kaspersky Software Over Russian Ties
The Biden administration is issuing a total ban on the use of Kaspersky Lab’s software over its ties to Russia. The company’s software has been a concern of the U.S. government since at least 2017 because of the Russian government’s alleged influence over the software. The Russian government has total access to Kaspersky systems and access to all its customer’s data, ABC News reported. (Irwin, 6/20)

Hawaii News Now: Maui Health Center Allegedly Attacked By Russian Hackers
Hawaii News Now has learned a Maui health center faced an alleged ransomware attack by one of the largest groups in the world — and whose leaders are based in Russia. Last month, the center was shut down for more than two weeks but now says its systems are “fully operational.” On June 7, FalconFeeds, a cyber security firm based in India, posted on its X social media page. “Lockbit has targeted the Community Clinic of Maui, also known as Malama I Ke Ola Health Center, as their latest victim,” said FalconFeeds. (Richardson, 6/19)

AFP: Data From London Hospitals Cyberattack Published Online
Sensitive data from a ransomware attack that led to major disruption at London hospitals has been published online, UK health authorities said on Friday. ... According to the BBC, Russian cyber criminal group Qilin shared almost 400 gigabytes of data — including patient names, dates of birth, NHS numbers and descriptions of blood tests — on their darknet site and Telegram channel. (6/21)

The Register: Crooks Get Their Hands On 500K+ Radiology Patients' Records In Cyber-Attack
Consulting Radiologists has notified almost 512,000 patients that digital intruders accessed their personal and medical information during a February cyberattack. The 90-year-old Minnesota-based healthcare biz provides on-site radiology services for 22 hospitals and clinics, plus remote teleradiology for more than 100 facilities in upper Midwest America. (Lyons, 6/20)

AP: Change Healthcare To Start Notifying Customers Who Had Data Exposed In Cyberattack
Change Healthcare is starting to notify hospitals, insurers and other customers that they may have had patient information exposed in a massive cyberattack. The company also said Thursday that it expects to begin notifying individuals or patients in late July. (6/20)

Modern Healthcare: International Nurse Visa Pause Extended Despite Staffing Gaps
The government paused its processing of new visa applications until fiscal 2025, leaving thousands of international nurses in limbo as they look to fill health systems’ pervasive staffing gaps. Each year, a pool of around 8,600 eligible, internationally educated nurses compete with other professionals that have bachelor’s-level degrees for 40,000 employment-based visa slots. (Devereaux, 6/20)

Modern Healthcare: How Apprenticeships, Float Pools Help Providers Fight Labor Costs
Providers are relying on out-of-the-box thinking to navigate historically high labor costs that show no sign of easing. Hospitals, health systems and other providers are investing billions of dollars to attract and retain the talent they need. Inflation and higher wage expectations are driving up costs, and contract workers remain necessary in some markets to fill care gaps. Meanwhile, a limited supply of workers is stoking fierce competition between healthcare organizations and with other industries. (Hudson, 6/20)

CNN: Emergency Medical Service Encounters For Firearm Injuries Spiked During Pandemic And Remained Elevated Last Year, Study Finds 
Rates of emergency medical services encounters for firearm injuries spiked in 2021 to more than 25% over 2019 levels, but they began to fall in the following years. However, rates were still higher in 2023 than before the Covid-19 pandemic began, a new study says. (Christensen, 6/20)

Politico: When AI Predicts Trouble, Doctors Take Note
AI-powered alerts that warn doctors when their patients’ conditions are in danger of deteriorating could save lives, according to researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. How so? Researchers divided 2,740 Mount Sinai medical-surgical unit patients into two groups. ... Patients in the AI intervention group were 43 percent more likely to receive a more rapid response and care, including medicine to support their hearts and blood circulation, and were less likely to die within 30 days compared with the control group. (Svirnovskiy, Schumaker, Payne and Reader, 6/20)

Roll Call: Should Doctors In Congress Earn Money For Their Side Job? 
Andy Harris has a line he likes to give his House colleagues when the issue of outside employment is raised. “I tell members, tongue-in-cheek, that I could flip burgers at McDonald’s and earn additional income. But I can’t do it practicing my profession,” said the Maryland Republican, an anesthesiologist by training, in a recent interview. He’s mostly right. (Papp, 6/20)

Stat: Top FDA Official Peter Marks Overruled Staff To Approve Sarepta Gene Therapy
For a third time, Sarepta Therapeutics has convinced a top Food and Drug Administration official to overrule the prevailing view of their staff and approve a drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. (Mast and Herper, 6/20)

AP: Gene Therapy May Cure Rare Diseases. But Drugmakers Have Few Incentives, Leaving Families Desperate 
Robin Alderman faces an agonizing reality: Gene therapy might cure her son Camden’s rare, inherited immune deficiency. But it’s not available to him. ... Collectively, about 350 million people worldwide suffer from rare diseases, most of which are genetic. But each of the 7,000 individual disorders affects perhaps a few in a million people or less. There’s little commercial incentive to develop or bring to market these one-time therapies to fix faulty genes or replace them with healthy ones. (Ungar, 6/21)

In other pharmaceutical news —

Reuters: US FDA Proposes To Remove Switching Study Requirement For Biosimilars 
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed that biosimilar drugs seeking agency's interchangeable designation will no longer need studies showing the impact of switching between them and the branded drug. (6/20)

Reuters: Industry Groups Back Drugmakers' Appeal In Zantac Cancer Lawsuits
A bid by GSK and other drugmakers to stop more than 70,000 lawsuits in Delaware over discontinued heartburn drug Zantac has received the backing of leading U.S. industry groups, including the United States Chamber of Commerce and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. (Pierson, 6/20)

CIDRAP: Study Suggests Cancer Patients Should Stay Current On COVID-19 Boosters
Yesterday in Nature Communications a study shows cancer that patients who are up to date on vaccines and have received COVID-19 boosters are more protected against death and serious complications than unvaccinated patients. Cancer patients were not included in key randomized clinical trials on vaccine efficacy (VE), the authors of the study write, but they are at increased risk of death and serious illness from COVID-19 infections. (Soucheray, 6/20)

CIDRAP: Rebyota Fecal Transplant Offers Durable Protection After Antibiotic Exposure, Study Finds
A microbiota-based live biotherapeutic for treating recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (rCDI) remained effective after subsequent antibiotic exposure, researchers reported this week in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. In a post-hoc analysis of a phase 2 trial evaluating the safety, efficacy, and durability of Rebyota fecal microbiota transplantation for preventing rCDI, the researchers evaluated patients who received non-CDI antibiotics for up to 2 years after Rebyota administration. (Dall, 6/20)

Los Angeles Times: Antibiotics Wreak Havoc On The Gut. Can We Kill The Bad Bugs And Spare The Good Ones? 
Inside every human is a thriving zoo of bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microscopic organisms collectively known as the microbiome. Trillions of microbes live in the digestive tract alone, a menagerie estimated to contain more than 1,000 species. This ecosystem of tiny stuff affects our health in ways science is only beginning to understand, facilitating digestion, metabolism, the immune response and more. But when serious infection sets in, the most powerful antibiotics take a merciless approach, wiping out colonies of beneficial bacteria in the digestive tract and often prompting secondary health problems. (Purtill, 6/20)

Also —

Reuters: US, China Hold High-Level Talks On Anti-Narcotics Cooperation
The United States and China held high-level talks on anti-narcotics cooperation on Thursday, following a breakthrough in bilateral work this week that saw them jointly go after a major drug-linked money laundering operation. The U.S. and China restarted talks on counter-narcotics and law enforcement cooperation at the start of the year and China's public security department has lauded the case as a successful example of anti-drug cooperation between the two superpowers. (Slodkowski, 6/20)

AP: WHO, Eli Lilly Caution Patients Against Fake Versions Of Weight-Loss Drugs
The World Health Organization and drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. are warning people to be wary of fake versions of popular weight-loss and diabetes medicines. WHO said Thursday that it has fielded several reports of fake semaglutide — the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Ozempic — in all geographic regions of the world since 2022. (6/20)

Reuters: Lilly Files More Lawsuits To Curb Sales Of Counterfeit Mounjaro
U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly said on Thursday it was suing six more entities including medical spas and wellness centers for selling products claiming to contain tirzepatide, the active ingredient in its popular diabetes drug, Mounjaro. Tirzepatide was approved late last year as Zepbound for weight loss, and Lilly is the only company that has the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell the drug. (6/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Why Wall Street Is Chasing Ozempic Wannabes
Gilead Sciences, a biotech company focused on treatments for cancer and HIV, isn’t pitching itself as an obesity-drug developer. But that hasn’t stopped some Wall Street analysts from trying to do that on its behalf. Seasoned Jefferies analyst Michael Yee published a market-moving note to investors last week: He dug up recent patents and cross-referenced them with prior data to unearth what looked like the makings of an early-stage metabolic program that could one day become an obesity program. (Wainer, 6/20)

CNN: Researchers Have Found A ‘Clear Genetic Trigger For Obesity’ That Applies To Some People
Obesity isn’t just a matter of food and exercise — it may be in your genetic code, according to new research. (Holcombe, 6/20)

Missouri Independent: Missouri Violates Law By Placing Mentally Ill In Nursing Homes
Missouri is violating federal disability law by unnecessarily institutionalizing thousands of adults with mental illness in nursing homes, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a scathing report published Tuesday. The report, which is based on a year-and-a-half of investigation, determined that those suffering with mental illness are “subjected to unnecessary stays in nursing facilities, generally because of a series of systemic failures by the state.” (Bates, 6/20)

Modern Healthcare: Medicaid Fraud Suit: NY Nursing Home Owners Lose 2 NJ Operations
Troubles are mounting for a trio of nursing home owners facing an ongoing $83 million fraud lawsuit brought last year by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). A New Jersey superior court judge Monday appointed an independent receiver to run two nursing homes in the state owned by Kenneth Rozenberg, Beth Rozenberg and Daryl Hagler. The three are collectively associated with approximately 40 nursing homes, mostly in New York and New Jersey. (Eastabrook, 6/20)

The Washington Post: Weeks After Nursing Home Lawsuit, Maryland Health Official Resigns
The head of the Maryland agency tasked with regulating nursing home and hospital safety will resign effective June 27, several weeks after a lawsuit revealed a substantial backlog in inspections and complaint investigations. ... The Health Department did not provide a reason for her resignation in a news release Thursday afternoon. (Shepherd, 6/20)

More health news from across the U.S. —

NPR: California Will Protect Indoor Workers From Dangerous Heat
California’s Occupational Health and Safety (Cal/OSHA) Standards Board voted Thursday afternoon to implement rules protecting indoor workers from extreme heat. California now joins just a few other states, including Oregon and Minnesota, to protect people who work indoors in facilities like warehouses, restaurants and refineries. The state estimates the new rule will apply to about 1.4 million people who work indoors in conditions that can easily become dangerously hot. (Borunda, 6/21)

KFF Health News: California Leaders Tussle With Health Industry Over Billions Of New Dollars For Medi-Cal 
Gov. Gavin Newsom, state lawmakers, and health industry leaders have a small window to reach an agreement on billions of new dollars for Medi-Cal before it’s put to voters in November. An initiative, supported by virtually every sector of the state’s health care industry as well as the local Republican and Democratic parties, would lock in the money for Medi-Cal, California’s version of the Medicaid health insurance program for low-income residents. The funds would be used primarily to increase payment rates for health care professionals who serve Medi-Cal patients. (Wolfson, 6/20)

AP: Bill Allowing Doctor-Assisted Suicide In Delaware Fails In Senate 
A bill allowing doctor-assisted suicide in Delaware failed to win approval in the state Senate on Thursday after narrowly clearing the House earlier this year, but it could come back next week. The legislation failed in the Democrat-led Senate in a 9-9 tie after three members of the Democratic caucus spoke against the measure. No Republican lawmakers voted for it. (Chase, 6/20)

The Washington Post: Amid Backlog Of Untested Rape Kits, Maryland Launches New Tracking System 
In Angela D. Wharton’s long journey as a sexual assault survivor, Thursday was a day that signaled there should be no more cases like hers in Maryland. In 1996, Wharton was raped at gunpoint outside her apartment building in Baltimore. Two years later, her untested sexual assault kit and other evidence were destroyed by police — an act she didn’t discover until 20 years later. (Jackman, 6/20)

The Texas Tribune: Texas To Build Or Renovate Seven State Psychiatric Hospitals 
Texas will begin building seven new state psychiatric hospital projects this year as it continues to attempt to address the mental health crisis. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission projects are funded by $1.5 billion, which lawmakers approved in 2023 to expand, renovate and build new facilities across the state. The agency owns and operates nine state hospitals and one residential treatment center for youth. (Simpson, 6/20)

AP: North Carolina Senate Gives Initial Approval To Legalizing Medical Marijuana
North Carolina got a step closer to legalizing medical marijuana on Thursday when the state Senate gave it its initial approval. The Senate approved a measure legalizing medical marijuana in its first of two votes, 33-9, with nine Republicans breaking from the rest of the party to oppose it. If approved a second time, the bill will go to the state House, which has historically blocked Senate attempts to legalize the drug’s medical use. (Seminera, 6/20)

KFF Health News: Super Bowl Parade Shooting Survivors Await Promised Donations While Bills Pile Up
Abigail Arellano keeps her son Samuel’s medical bills in a blue folder in a cabinet above the microwave. Even now, four months after the 11-year-old was shot at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade, the bills keep coming. There’s one for $1,040 for the ambulance ride to the hospital that February afternoon. Another for $2,841.17 from an emergency room visit they made three days after the shooting because his bullet wound looked infected. More follow-ups and counseling in March added another $1,500. (Lowe and Sable-Smith, 6/21)

Reuters: UnitedHealth To Pay $1 Mln For Violating New York's Birth Control Coverage Mandate
A UnitedHealth Group unit has agreed to pay a $1 million penalty to New York for failing to cover all federally approved birth control without restriction as required by state law, and to refund people who were wrongly denied coverage, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Thursday. The settlement with UnitedHealthcare of New York resolves a probe that began with a complaint from a patient in Brooklyn who said that the insurer denied coverage of her prescribed oral contraceptive, requiring her to obtain prior authorization or try other treatments, according to James' office. (Pierson, 6/20)

More on reproductive health  —

Stat: Gestational Diabetes Needs Earlier Intervention, Experts Say
Gestational diabetes has long been diagnosed between weeks 24 and 28 of pregnancy. But a recent randomized control study called Treatment of Booking Gestational Diabetes Mellitus, or TOBOGM, which was started in 2018 and whose results were published earlier this year, found that treating gestational diabetes before week 20 reduced the risk of severe perinatal complications, including preterm birth, low birthweight, stillbirth, and respiratory distress. (Merelli, 6/20)

The New York Times: Pregnant Women Are Particularly Vulnerable To The Heat, Doctors Warn
The heat wave sweeping through the United States poses a particular threat to pregnant women, especially those in their third trimester, doctors are warning. “Heat is an underappreciated risk for the health of the pregnancy,” said Dr. Nathaniel DeNicola, an environmental health expert at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Of all the associations that we hear about connecting environmental factors like what you eat or what you drink to risks, this one has quite a bit of science behind it,” he said. (Caryn Rabin, 6/20)

USA Today: Hypertension Is Up Among Pregnant Women. Why Is Treatment Lagging?
Far more women are experiencing a life-threatening condition during pregnancy but they aren't being treated for it, according to a study published this week. This problem is largely avoidable and experts have urged providers to take action, with one official calling it a "missed opportunity" to protect heart health. The study found the rate of chronic high blood pressure in pregnant women doubled over a 14-year period. (Cuevas, 6/21)

CIDRAP: Study: Babies Whose Moms Had High Pandemic Stress Had Altered Brain Growth
The infants of mothers with high anxiety and stress levels amid the COVID-19 pandemic showed differences in brain development, suggests a study posted today in JAMA Network Open. ... Newborns of mothers with elevated distress showed median reductions in brain volumes of white matter (−0.36 cubic centimeters [cm3]), right hippocampus (−0.35 cm3), and left amygdala (−0.49 cm3) compared with infants of women with low distress. (Van Beusekom, 6/20)

Reuters: Birth Rates Halve In Richer Countries As Costs Weigh, OECD Report Says
Birth rates have dropped sharply in some of the world's richest states and are likely to stay low as economic worries leave people weighing the costs of having children, a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said. Many in OECD member countries were now choosing to have children later in life or not at all, it said in a paper released on Thursday. "Both young men and women increasingly find meaning in life outside of parenthood," it added. (Allievi, 6/20)

Newsweek: Brain May Shrink After Surgical Menopause, Doctors Warn
Removing both of a woman's ovaries before natural menopause may reduce the integrity of white matter in their brains, scientists have found. For most women this operation, known as surgical menopause, can be lifesaving or at least life-changing. In many cases, it is performed as a preventative measure in those who are at an increased risk of ovarian or breast cancer. For others, it is used to reduce the pain caused by endometriosis, a condition where womb tissues grow outside of the uterus. (Dewan, 6/20)

The New York Times: Can Women Benefit From Viagra? 
Could the drug used to treat erectile dysfunction help women who have difficulties with arousal? ... Daré, a pharmaceutical company, is in the process of seeking approval from the F.D.A. for its topical sildenafil cream, which it plans to market specifically to women. Yet the research, including a study from Daré out today, suggests that if the drug is at all effective at increasing arousal in women, it’s only likely to do so for a small subset. (Haridasani Gupta, 6/20)

NBC News: Democrats Target 150-Year-Old 'Zombie Law,' Warning The GOP Could Use It To Ban Abortion
A group of Senate Democrats is pushing to repeal a 150-year-old law that reproductive rights advocates fear could be used to further curb access to abortion, specifically abortion pills. The Comstock Act of 1873, which has not been widely enforced for decades, bans lewd, obscene or abortion-producing materials from being sent through the mail. As the abortion pill mifepristone faces legal challenges, its defenders fear a future president could use the Comstock Act as a tool to curtail abortion access nationwide, including in states where it is legal. (Vitali and Kapur, 6/20)

NPR: Abortion Is Becoming More Common In Primary Care Clinics
It’s a typical Tuesday at Seven Hills Family Medicine in Richmond, Va. The team — which consists of Dr. Stephanie Arnold, registered nurse Caci Young and several medical assistants — huddles to prepare for the day. Arnold, a primary care physician, runs through the schedule. The 9 a.m. telemed appointment is for chronic condition management. At 10 a.m. there’s a diabetes follow-up. The 11 a.m. appointment is to go over lab results for potential sleep apnea, then there are appointments for knee pain and one for ADHD results review. The schedulers fit in a walk-in patient who has a suspected yeast infection. (Simmons-Duffin and Nadworny, 6/21)

In related news about the Supreme Court —

The Hill: Supreme Court Abortion Pill Decision Ties Issue To Trump-Biden Race
The Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss a challenge to the abortion pill mifepristone means the drug’s future is now firmly tied to the 2024 presidential election. Anti-abortion groups said they were dealt only a temporary setback by last week’s ruling and are planning the path forward on how best to restrict access or get the drug removed from the market completely. (Weixel, 6/20)

AP: Here’s The Landscape 2 Years After The Supreme Court Overturned A National Right To Abortion
Abortion is now banned at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, in 14 Republican-controlled states. In three other states, it’s barred after about the first six weeks, which is before many know they are pregnant. Most Democratic-led states have taken actions to protect abortion rights, and become sanctuaries for out-of-state patients seeking care. That’s changed the landscape of abortion access, making it more of a logistical and financial ordeal for many in conservative states. But it has not reduced the overall number of procedures done each month across the U.S. (Mulvihill, 6/21)

USA Today: Supreme Court Dropping Decisions On Guns, Abortion, Trump Immunity And More In Coming Days
Buckle up. The Supreme Court in the coming days will issue a flurry of potentially blockbuster decisions on gun rights, abortion access, social media content, homelessness, federal regulatory authority, the opioid crisis and whether former President Donald Trump – and others – can be prosecuted for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The high court, which tries to dispense of pending cases by the end of June, has an unusually large number of decisions pending, particularly on hot button issues. Given the current pace of opinions, the term could slip into early July, something that has not happened since the height of the pandemic. (Groppe and Jansen, 6/20)

On IVF restrictions —

The Hill: Mark Kelly, Gabby Giffords Share IVF Journey To Highlight Challenges To Reproductive Rights
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), opened up about their past fertility struggles to stress the importance of alternative pregnancy options, which they argued are under threat by politicians. In a personal essay published Thursday in People magazine, Kelly and Giffords described how a gunman in 2011 took away their dreams of having a child together, and their concern politicians will do the same for Americans. (Nazzaro, 6/20)

NPR: Gen X Cancer Rates Projected To Outpace Boomers
As they head into their golden years, Gen-Xers are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than the generation born before them, the Baby Boomers, a new National Cancer Institute study finds. If current cancer trends continue, the paper published this month in JAMA Network Open concludes, “cancer incidence in the U.S. could remain unacceptably high for decades to come.” What’s driving the projected rise in rates of invasive cancer remains an open question. (Cohen, 6/20)

CNN: 6 Types Of Depression Identified In Stanford Study
For some people with depression, finding the right medication can be a process of trial and error lasting for months or even years, which can worsen symptoms. But what if doctors, when diagnosing someone with depression, could assess exactly how depression is affecting a patient’s brain and prescribe a treatment that gets it right the first time? (Rogers, 6/20)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A Sizzling Summer May Be Even More Painful For Migraine Sufferers 
As temperatures continue to rise, so will cases of migraine headaches. That’s the latest from a new study helmed by University of Cincinnati College of Medicine researchers. (Boyce, 6/20)

Fortune Well: America's Kids Are Going Hungry Over The Summer
Classes ending in June means boundless joy for kids, right? Not if they’re among the 30 million students who qualify for the federally-assisted meal program and who now likely face “summer hunger”—the result of food-insecure families losing access to the free breakfasts and lunches their children rely on at school throughout the rest of the year, bringing more anxiety, health issues, and academic decline. (Greenfield, 6/21)

The New York Times: How PBMs Are Driving Up Prescription Drug Costs
Pharmacy benefit managers are driving up drug costs for millions of people, employers and the government. (Robbins and Abelson, 6/21)

The Wall Street Journal: A Record Number Of Kids Are In Special Education, But Teachers Are In Short Supply 
More American children than ever are qualifying for special education, but schools are struggling to find enough teachers to meet their needs. A record 7.5 million students accessed special-education services in U.S. schools as of 2022-2023. (Randazzo and Barnum, 6/20)

Stat: 25 Years Ago, SCOTUS Outlawed Segregation Of Disabled People
This landmark ruling, known as the Olmstead decision, augured a shift away from institutional care for long-term services and towards the most integrated setting possible — treating people with disabilities not as outcasts but as community members who can make choices and decide their own futures. (Broderick, 6/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Inside CVS’s Strategy To Improve The Pharmacy Experience 
When it comes to customer experience at the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chains, there is plenty of room for improvement, according to Tilak Mandadi, the chief digital, data, analytics and technology officer at CVS Health CVS. (Bousquette, 6/20)

AP: Can A Marriage Survive A Gender Transition? Yes, And Even Thrive. How These Couples Make It Work 
Marriages in which a partner undergoes a gender transition can not only survive, but also thrive under the light of new honesty. (McMillan, 6/20)

The New York Times: In Japan, These Women Want To Opt Out Of Motherhood More Easily 
in Japan, women who seek sterilization procedures like tubal ligation or hysterectomies must meet conditions that are among the most onerous in the world. (Rich and Notoya, 6/21)

The Washington Post: Chimpanzees Found To Self-Medicate With Healing Plants When Sick 
The chimpanzee was sick. What intrigued the watching research team was what the ape did about it. (Vinall, 6/21)

The New York Times: How Our Brain Produces Language And Thought, According To Neuroscientists
For thousands of years, philosophers have argued about the purpose of language. Plato believed it was essential for thinking. Thought “is a silent inner conversation of the soul with itself,” he wrote. Many modern scholars have advanced similar views. (Zimmer, 6/19)

Newsweek: Your Love Of Coffee May Be In Your Genes, Study Reveals 
Are you a coffee lover? It might be down to your DNA. (Dewan, 6/20)

The New York Times: Workers Shouldn't Have To Risk Their Lives In Heat Waves
A record-breaking heat wave is cresting across the United States, with about 100 million people under extreme heat alerts. Local TV news stations, governors and health officials advise to plan accordingly, drink water, go to cooling centers if needed and above all, refrain from excess outdoor exertion. (Terri Gerstein, 6/21)

The Washington Post: How To Encourage Safe Sex Practices Among Boomers 
Many readers were shocked to learn from my latest column that sexually transmitted infections are surging among older adults. But not everyone was surprised. (Leana S. Wen, 6/20)

Stat: Shaken Baby Cases Tested By Defense Medical Expert Witnesses
Danyel Smith has served 21 years of a life sentence at Dooly Correctional Facility in Unadilla, Georgia, for the 2003 murder of his two-month-old son, Chandler. The sole evidence against him at trial was the testimony of three physicians who said that child abuse — in this case shaken baby syndrome — was the only explanation for his son’s symptoms. That testimony went unchallenged; no physician testified on Smith’s behalf. (Zoe Adams and Asher Levinthal, 6/21)

Stat: Journals Should Retract Richard Lynn's Racist 'Research' Articles
In 2012, the Elsevier journal Personality and Individual Differences published a special issue that included articles with titles like “Life history theory and race differences: An appreciation of Richard Lynn’s contribution to science” and “National IQs and economic outcomes.” At a celebratory dinner at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London, contributors to the issue awarded Lynn a ceremonial sword and a pair of horns. Lynn, an academic psychologist, was being honored “for his long-standing contributions to Eugenics and Psychometrics.” (Dan Samorodnitsky, Kevin Bird, Jedidiah Carlson, James Lingford, Jon Phillips, Rebecca Sear and Cathryn Townsend, 6/20)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Missouri Fails When It Comes To Healthcare For The Poor
Missouri is winning another race to the bottom. The latest issue is the failure of state government to provide health insurance in a timely fashion to children living in poverty. This is a basic government function. The health insurance is funded by the federal government. All Missouri has to do is sign up kids who qualify. (Tony Messenger, 6/19)