State Highlights: Parents Allege Michigan Illegally Took And Stored Newborns’ Blood; Georgia Governor Sets Talks With Blue Cross, Piedmont

The Associated Press: Lawsuit Alleges Michigan Illegally Obtains Newborns' Blood
A group of Michigan parents have filed a lawsuit alleging that the state didn't obtain proper consent to draw or store their newborns' blood for medical research. Philip Ellison filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of the parents, saying Michigan's practice of drawing infant blood is unconstitutional, MLive.com reported. The lawsuit also alleges that there aren't protections in place to stop police or others from accessing information that can be derived from the stored blood samples. (4/12)

Georgia Health News: Gov. Deal Sets Meeting With Blue Cross, Piedmont As Contract Obstacles Remain
State health officials said Thursday that they believe Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia and Piedmont Healthcare — which are deadlocked without a new contract — have moved closer to agreement on reimbursement rates. But Department of Community Health leaders say other issues have emerged as important obstacles to striking a deal. (Miller, 4/12)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: State Health Agencies Sued For ‘Secretly’ Cutting Aid To The Disabled
Four nonprofit organizations are suing two state health departments, alleging that caregivers have been denied compensation for providing services to disabled Georgians. ... The lawsuit claims the departments did not grant caregivers the money they should have received for caring for patients even though the caregivers were still obligated to provide the services. (Elassar, 4/12)

Cincinnati Enquirer: E. Coli Outbreak: CDC Investigating Cases In Ohio, 6 Other States
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating a multistate outbreak of E. coli infections, which includes a case in Ohio. As of April 9, 17 people infected with a strain of E. coli have been reported from seven states. (Brookbank, 4/12)

Bloomberg: McDonald's Hepatitis Case Probed By Officials In Kentucky 
A McDonald’s Corp. employee in Kentucky could have potentially spread hepatitis A to customers, according to local health officials, igniting a new health scare for the fast-food giant. Officials at the Madison County health department are warning people that they may have been infected by the food handler, who was working at a restaurant in the town of Berea, south of Lexington, on March 23. McDonald’s is fully cooperating with local and state agencies on the investigation, the health department said on its website. (Patton, 4/12)

Boston Globe: Mass. Business Groups Oppose Nurses’ Ballot Question
Four of the state’s largest business groups have united in opposition to a proposed ballot initiative that would mandate nurse staffing levels for all Massachusetts hospitals. ...The groups, which include the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, say the measure would raise health-care costs that would be passed on to patients, through higher insurance rates. (Sippell, 4/12)

Houston Chronicle: Galveston Dental Clinic That May Have Exposed Patients To Diseases Is Re-Opening 
The Galveston County dental clinic that may have exposed thousands of patients to serious diseases will reopen on Monday, the county Health District announced in a press release. In a special meeting called on Thursday, members of the Coastal Health & Wellness governing board voted to reopen the Texas City dental clinic that was found to have had numerous sterilization breaches in a February accreditation review. (Powell, 4/12)

Houston Chronicle: Health-Care Companies Got Most Venture Funds In Houston In Q1 
Venture-capital funding in Houston largely went to health-care companies in the first quarter of 2018, with the Procyrion deal ranked as the second-largest investment, a new report by the PricewaterhouseCooper and CB Insights firms shows. Houston companies claimed a total of $47.8 million in venture funds in the first quarter, a 47 percent increase from the same period a year earlier. There were a nine local deals in each of those two quarters. (Najarro, 4/12)

Austin American-Statesman: Texas Millennials Are The Least Depressed In The Nation, Study Says
Millennials, that hard-to-pin-down generation that is now defined by the Pew Research Center as “anyone born between 1981 and 1996,” have long been subject to stereotypes in the media while simultaneously being courted by advertisers. ...But the statistic that jumps out here is that Texas ranks first in the percentage of millennials who have depression — meaning, by this study’s metrics, Texas is home to the least-depressed millennials in America. (Harria, 4/12)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Questions About Willow Terrace Owner After Nursing Home Collapse In Nebraska And Kansas
The nursing home industry in recent years has been engulfed in wholesale changes in operators as Golden Living and other large companies, often under regulatory and financial pressure, abandon the business and lease bunches of facilities over to firms that emerge from nowhere. (Brubaker, 4/12)

Austin Statesman: Austin ISD Seeks New School Nurse Contract, But Money Is Tight
Months after an advisory committee recommended the Austin district put a licensed medical professional on every campus, school officials now are seeking a new provider to offer such comprehensive student health care services. (Taboada, 4/12)

Kaiser Health News: PrEP Campaign Aims To Block HIV Infection And Save Lives In D.C.
A big part of Washington, D.C.’s plan to get its HIV rate down is to get more uninfected people on PrEP, a two-medicine combination pill that’s sold under the brand name Truvada. When taken daily by people who are at high risk for contracting HIV via sex or shared needles with someone who is infected, this pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, can cut the risk of HIV infection by 92 percent, studies show. (Simmons-Duffin, 4/13)