The New York Times: Justices Back Pregnancy Centers That Oppose Abortion, In Free Speech Case
Ruling for opponents of abortion on free speech grounds, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday that the State of California may not require religiously oriented “crisis pregnancy centers” to supply women with information about how to end their pregnancies. The case was a clash between state efforts to provide women with facts about their medical options and First Amendment rulings that place limits on the government’s ability to compel people to say things at odds with their beliefs. (Liptak, 6/26)

Reuters: Supreme Court Blocks California Law On Anti-Abortion Centers
The justices reversed a 2016 ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that refused to block the law because it likely did not violate free speech rights. California's Reproductive FACT Act, passed by a Democratic-led legislature and signed by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown in 2015, required centers licensed by the state as family planning facilities to post or distribute notices that the state has programs offering free or low-cost birth control, prenatal care and abortion services. The law also mandated unlicensed centers that may have no medical provider on staff to disclose that fact. (Chung, 6/26)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Says Crisis Pregnancy Centers Do Not Have To Provide Women Abortion Information
[Thomas] said that the “government-drafted script” specifically mentions abortion — “the very practice that petitioners are devoted to opposing.” “By requiring petitioners to inform women how they can obtain state-subsidized abortions, at the same time petitioners try to dissuade women from choosing that option ... plainly alters the content of petitioners’speech,” Thomas wrote. (Barnes, 6/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Supreme Court Casts Doubt On California Disclosure Law On Abortion Availability
Liberals, in a dissent by Justice Stephen Breyer, accused the majority of a double standard, in light of the court’s rulings upholding laws in other states that require abortion clinics to advise pregnant women of alternatives to the procedure, including adoption services and programs to assist with childbirth costs. Justice Thomas rejected that argument. States can impose such requirements because abortion is a medical procedure subject to a patient’s “informed consent,” while the notice California required “is not tied to a procedure at all,” he wrote, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch. (Bravin and Kendall, 6/26)

The Associated Press: Pregnancy Center Ruling A Blow For Abortion-Rights Advocates
Despite the court's 5-4 decision Tuesday, abortion-rights advocates pledged to keep fighting what they call "fake health centers," but their next steps weren't immediately clear. Some saw potential to use the ruling to push back against laws in conservative states such as Wisconsin and Texas that require abortion providers to share information about adoption or to combat the federal push to ban U.S.-funded family planning clinics from referring women for abortions. (6/27)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Decision On Crisis Pregnancy Centers Draws Strong Reaction From All Sides
“Today's decision will harm women, full stop. The Supreme Court's ruling will allow fake health clinics to continue peddling anti-choice propaganda and misinformation. It will let them lie to vulnerable women, pretend to ​offer licensed ​medical providers and withhold potentially lifesaving medical care, ” said Stephanie Schriock, president, Emily's List. (Cha, 6/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Supreme Court Rules CA Can’t Force Antiabortion Clinics To Disclose Options
Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, sponsor of the California law, said the court “gave in to extreme, anti-choice groups that have spent millions of dollars to control the lives of women.” But attorney Michael Farris of Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian organization representing the clinics, said the ruling recognized that “no one should be forced by the government to express a message that violates their conviction.” (Egelko, 6/26)

The Hill: Supreme Court Ruling May Pave Way For More Faith-Based Pregnancy Centers
The Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday in favor of anti-abortion clinics in California will make it easier for similar facilities in other states to dissuade women from getting abortions. (Wheeler and Hellmann, 6/26)

San Jose Mercury News: Two Doors Apart, Planned Parenthood, Pro-Life Pregnancy Center React To Supreme Court Ruling
In what activists saw as a setback to California’s efforts to ensure a woman’s right to choose, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled the Golden State cannot force pro-life pregnancy clinics to inform women about low-cost abortion options available elsewhere. ​Abortion opponents celebrated the 5-4 ruling supported by the court’s conservative majority. (Prodis Sulek, 6/26)

The Washington Post: Robert Wilkie, Trump’s VA Nominee, Built A Career Working With Polarizing Figures In American Politics
Robert Wilkie, President Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, is a conservative Washington insider who would bring three decades of military policymaking and a deep list of Capitol Hill connections to a Cabinet post responsible for serving one of the administration’s most crucial constituencies. But when he appears Wednesday for his Senate confirmation hearing, Wilkie will also draw on a career spent working shoulder to shoulder with polarizing figures in American politics and often defending their most divisive views. (Sonne and Rein, 6/26)

The Associated Press: Low-Key Washington Insider Makes A Bid To Fix Struggling VA
Wilkie wasn't Trump's first choice to replace Shulkin; his nomination of White House doctor Ronny Jackson withered in the face of late-surfacing allegations of workplace misconduct. All the while, Wilkie was quietly working at the VA, signing a major $10 billion deal to overhaul veterans' electronic medical records. He was taken aback when Trump made an impromptu offer of the permanent job at a public event in mid-May. (6/26)

Meanwhile —

CQ: VA Official Absent At First House Oversight Hearing On Records
The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee convened its first oversight hearing on a 10-year, $10 billion electronic health records overhaul without the Department of Veterans Affairs official in charge of the project. The department’s acting chief information officer, Camilo Sandoval, was absent from the hearing Tuesday after the committee declined to invite him to testify. Sandoval is being sued for sexual harassment over his treatment of a colleague during their time on the Trump campaign, and was reportedly involved in the ouster of former VA Secretary David Shulkin. (Clason, 6/26)

The New York Times: Veteran Sets Himself On Fire Outside State Capitol In Atlanta
A man who said he was an Air Force veteran upset with the Department of Veterans Affairs set himself on fire outside the state Capitol in Atlanta on Tuesday morning. Capt. Mark Perry of the Georgia State Patrol said that the man parked a passenger vehicle around 10:45 a.m. and began walking toward the Capitol. (Zraick, 6/26)

In other news from the administration —

The New York Times: ‘Brain Performance’ Firm DeVos Invested In Is Hit For Misleading Claims
A “brain-performance” business backed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has agreed to stop advertising success rates for children and adults suffering from maladies such as attention deficit disorder, depression and autism after a review found the company could not support the outcomes it was promoting. The company, Neurocore, which has received more than $5 million from Ms. DeVos and her husband, Richard DeVos Jr., to run “brain performance centers” in Michigan and Florida, lost an appeal before an advertising-industry review board, which found that the company’s claims of curbing and curing a range of afflictions without medication were based on mixed research and unscientific internal studies. (Green, 6/26)

The Wall Street Journal: HHS Secretary Seeks To Reassure Lawmakers On Family Separation Policy
Hundreds of children separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy have been reunited with relatives and every parent has access to information on where their children are, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday. Mr. Azar sought to reassure lawmakers about the reunification process at a drug-pricing hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. He said his agency has received more than 2,300 children separated from family members along the border with about 2,047 now under the agency’s care. (Armour, 6/26)

The Hill: Top Official Says Government Can't Reunite Migrant Families Under Current Law 
Under questioning from Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, HHS Secretary Alex Azar indicated it's the responsibility of Congress or the courts to reunite the 2,047 migrant children still in the agency's custody. “We are working to get all these kids ready to be placed back with their parents as soon as Congress passes a change, or if those parents complete their immigration proceedings,” Azar said. “We do not want any children separated from their parents any longer than necessary under the law.” (Weixel, 6/26)

CQ: Azar: No Reason Parents Could Not Locate Children Held By HHS
Azar said there was no reason why parents could not find out where their child was, contrary to numerous recent media reports. As of Monday night, HHS was caring for 2,047 immigrant children because of the administration's practice of dividing families who cross into the United States, down from a high of more than 2,300 children, Azar said at a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. “Every parent has access to know where their child is,” Azar said. (McIntire, 6/26)

Reuters: States Sue Trump Over Immigrant Families As Congress Quarrels
More than a dozen states sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its separation of migrant children and parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, saying President Donald Trump's order last week ending the breakups was illusory. In a complaint filed with U.S. District Court in Seattle, 17 states and the District of Columbia argued the administration's policy was unconstitutional in part because it was "motivated by animus and a desire to harm" immigrants arriving from Latin America. (Cowan and Stempel, 6/26)

The Hill: HHS Sued For Documents Related To Child Separation Policy 
A government watchdog on Tuesday sued the Trump administration for documents related to migrant children being separated from their families at the U.S. border. Equity Forward, which describes itself as a reproductive health watchdog group, filed a lawsuit after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) failed to respond to four Freedom of Information Act requests, the first being filed in January. (Hellmann, 6/26)

The New York Times: Federal Judge In California Halts Splitting Of Migrant Families At Border
A federal judge in California issued a nationwide injunction late Tuesday temporarily stopping the Trump administration from separating children from their parents at the border and ordered that all families already separated be reunited within 30 days. Judge Dana M. Sabraw of the Federal District Court in San Diego said children under 5 must be reunited with their parents within 14 days, and he ordered that all children must be allowed to talk to their parents within 10 days. (Shear, Hirschfeld Davis, Kaplan and Pear, 6/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Judge Orders Migrant Families Separated At Border To Be Reunited Within 30 Days
The nationwide preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw late Tuesday comes in a class action brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of parents who had been separated from children after crossing the border and detained in immigration custody. The order requires the federal government to reunite all children within 30 days and those younger than 5 within two weeks. Judge Sabraw said that for now, parents can no longer be detained or deported without their children unless the minors are found to be in danger or the parents have consented. (Randazzo, 6/27)

Los Angeles Times: California Federal Judge Orders Separated Children Reunited With Parents Within 30 Days
In a strongly worded opinion, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw wrote “the facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance — responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government’s own making. They belie measured and ordered governance, which is central to the concept of due process enshrined in our Constitution. ”Under the order, children younger than 5 years old must be reunited with their parents within 14 days, while older children must be reunited with their parents within 30 days. Within 10 days, federal authorities must allow parents to call their children if they're not already in contact with them. (Tchekmedyian and Davis, 6/27)

The Associated Press: Unclear Math: HHS Has 2,047 Children; Full US Count Lacking
The number of migrant children in custody after being separated from their parents barely dropped since last week, even as Trump administration said it's doing everything possible to expedite family reunification. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told senators at a hearing Tuesday that his agency currently has 2,047 migrant children — or six fewer than the total HHS count last week. (6/26)

Politico: Doctors Say Migrant Children Separated From Their Parents Will Face Lasting Ills
Lawyers challenging the Trump administration’s family separation policies are getting strong backing from the medical community. In several recent lawsuits, legal advocates are using statements signed by hundreds of physicians and medical experts warning that migrant children separated from their parents will face years of mental and physical illnesses. (Rayasam, 6/26)

Politico: Pulse Check: The Courts, Congress And The Migrant Crisis With Bob Carey
Bob Carey, who ran the HHS refugee office during the Obama administration, debunks myths about the migrant crisis. POLITICO reporters analyze the latest Supreme Court decisions and Congress' rush to pass opioid legislation. (6/26)

The Hill: Poll: Pre-Existing Condition Protections A Top Health Issue
The majority of people in a new poll say it’s important to them that ObamaCare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions aren’t endangered. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s latest tracking poll, majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents surveyed said it is “very important” to them that ObamaCare’s provisions protecting those with preexisting conditions remain law. (Weixel, 6/27)

Kaiser Health News: ACA Protections For Sick Patients Still Popular Despite GOP’s Efforts To End Them 
As the 2018 congressional elections near, Democratic and independent voters identify health care as “the most important issue” for candidates to discuss. Support for the provision is especially strong among households where someone has a preexisting condition. But it remains a second-tier priority for Republican voters, according to the poll, nearly tied with immigration and behind the economy and jobs. Nearly 6 in 10 Republican voters place a priority on a candidate’s support for repealing the health law. (Rau, 6/27)

Kaiser Health News: ‘You Can’t Have Perfection’: Lawmakers Who Forged ACA Look Back
Former Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and former Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and George Miller (D-Calif.) and retiring Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) led the five key committees that pushed the Affordable Care Act toward its passage in 2010. They joined Kaiser Health News’ Julie Rovner during a session at the annual Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado to discuss the partisan battles over the ACA, how their efforts in Congress differed from an earlier effort by the Clinton administration to revamp health care, and the problems that arose because they couldn’t get a bill through Congress to make corrections to the ACA. (6/27)

Reuters: Notre Dame Students Sue School, White House Over Birth Control Policy
Students at the University of Notre Dame on Tuesday sued the Indiana school and the Trump administration over a move this year to drop coverage for some forms of birth control from the university's health insurance plan, citing religious objections. The suit touches on two hot-button issues that have been key parts of President Donald Trump's agenda - scaling back the 2010 U.S. healthcare reform law known as Obamacare and promoting the rights of organizations with religious affiliations. Notre Dame was founded by a Roman Catholic religious order, and Catholic teaching prohibits most forms of birth control. (Cherelus, 6/26)

And in Kansas —

KCUR: Medica Becomes Third Insurer To Join Kansas City Affordable Care Act Exchange In 2019 
Insurance customers in Kansas City will have an additional option on the Affordable Care Act marketplace starting in 2019. Medica, an insurance company based in Minneapolis, announced Monday it will sell individual plans on the exchange to customers in Cass, Clay, Jackson and Platte counties in Missouri. It began selling insurance plans on the exchange last year to Kansas customers in Johnson and Wyandotte counties. The insurer's coverage is mainly limited to providers in the Saint Luke's Health System. (Smith, 6/26)

Kansas City Star: Medica To Sell Obamacare Plans In Kansas City, Mo.
“We’re really excited to be able to expand our service area and expand that partnership with St. Luke’s," said Geoff Bartsh, Medica's vice president and general manager of individual and family business. "We think we’re going to have a competitive product out there and our goal is to get to know the folks in Missouri and begin building trust with them.” (Marso, 6/26)

Stat: Ariadne Labs: Atul Gawande's Testing Ground For New Ideas In Health Care
Dr. Atul Gawande is best known as a surgeon and a writer, but it’s his experience running a Boston-based health research program that may be most relevant to his new role as chief executive of the health care venture spun out of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase. Ariadne Labs, a partnership between a major Boston hospital and Harvard University, has since 2012 served as a testing ground for projects to improve the quality of health care around the world. The project’s track record, and how Gawande has run it, may be indicative of what’s in store for the company he’ll be heading up starting July 9. (Swetlitz, 6/27)

In other health industry news —

Bloomberg: GE's Profitable Health-Care Unit Is Getting New Life As Standalone 
General Electric Co. announced Tuesday that it plans to spin off its medical division into a separate company. Based on the valuation of peer companies, the new entity could have a enterprise value, which includes debt, of between $65 billion and $70 billion, according to Karen Ubelhart, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. That would rank it among the biggest health-care companies in the world. Over the next 12 to 18 months, GE said it will sell 20 percent of its GE Healthcare unit and spin off the rest to its shareholders tax-free. The unit, which generated $19.2 billion in revenue last year, is involved in everything from medical-imaging and monitoring devices to biomanufacturing and cell therapy. (Kasumov, 6/26)

Stat: New York State May Force Drug Makers To Pay For Drug Take-Back Programs 
New York appears poised to become the latest state to adopt a drug take-back law, a slow-but-steady notion moving across the country as local governments grapple with budget constraints caused by unwanted or unused medicines and the opioid crisis. And the financial burden would, once again, fall on the pharmaceutical industry. The New York state legislature last week unanimously passed a bill that would require drug makers to underwrite the cost of collecting and disposing of medicines. The measure must now be sent to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. We asked his office for comment and will pass along any reply. Last year, Cuomo vetoed a bill that would have required pharmacy chains — not drug makers — to largely pay for a statewide program. (Silverman, 6/26)

CNN: China Lectures The United States On Opioid Crisis
A top official in China's drug control agency has hit back at accusations that Chinese suppliers are fueling the ongoing opioid crisis in the United States, arguing that Washington should pay more attention to domestic factors before pointing fingers at others. "It's common knowledge that most new psychoactive substances (NPS) have been designed in laboratories in the United States and Europe, and their deep-processing and consumption also mostly take place there," said Liu Yuejin, deputy chief of China's National Narcotics Control Commission, during a press conference Monday. (Jiang, 6/26)

Politico Pro: Tech Tries To Get Ahead Of Opioids As Washington Gets A Taste For Regulation
The American internet industry is maneuvering this week to get ahead of brightening prospects for federal policies that would combat the country's raging opioid epidemic by targeting web platforms and other digital services used in the sale of drugs. "America's leading internet companies are committed to helping society win this fight," an official with the industry lobbying group Internet Association said on a briefing call with reporters Tuesday. Internet companies, the official said, are willing to take on an "outsize role" in that fight. IA's members include Google, Facebook, PayPal and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. (Scola, 6/26)

And in news from the states —

St. Louis Public Radio: County Council Jumping Into Battle Against Opioid Abuse
The St. Louis County Council is planning to set up a special task force to tackle the region’s opioid problem, and is offering up to $1 million in grants to encourage people to come up with solutions. In a rare show of solidarity, the council voted unanimously Tuesday in favor of the plan. (Mannies, 6/27)

Austin American-Statesman: Police, Health Officials Testify At Texas Capitol On Opioid Crisis
The 13-member Texas House of Representatives select committee on opioids and substance abuse will hear from police chiefs, sheriffs, first responders and emergency department personnel on how opioids and other substances in their communities are changing the scope of their normal work. Police chiefs and sheriffs from Nacogdoches, Kerrville, Val Verde and Hardin counties are scheduled to speak, as well as first responders from Houston. (Huber, 6/26)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Medicaid Spending On Opioid Treatment Soars In Ohio, Auditor Reports
The number of Ohio Medicaid recipients who have an opioid addiction has quadrupled since 2010, a state auditor's report shows. Ohio Auditor Dave Yost also noted Tuesday that the Medicaid system has seen an increase in medication-assisted treatment, which is the recommended treatment for opioid addiction. (Knight and DeMio, 6/26)

Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Yet To OK Federal Money For Syringe Programs
The president of an Ohio drug-policy advocacy group says state officials are dragging their feet on a simple move that would open certain federal grant money to local syringe programs aimed at preventing the spread of disease among intravenous drug users. Dennis Cauchon, who leads Harm Reduction Ohio, said in a post on the group’s website Monday that the Ohio Department of Health is using a “bureaucratic tactic” — failing to submit a form to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — to prevent such programs from accessing any of the roughly $7.6 million in annual funding the state is expected to receive for HIV surveillance and prevention through mid-2022. (Viviano, 6/27)

Boston Globe: Anti-Motion Detector Aims To Prevent Overdoses In Public Bathrooms
The alarms are an example of the creative ways health care professionals are using technology to combat the opioid crisis, as overdose deaths continue to plague the region. The system is relatively simple: As soon as someone enters one of the public bathrooms and locks the door, a motion detector turns on. (Capelouto, 6/26)

The Hill: Starbucks Expands Health Benefits For Transgender Employees
Starbucks announced Monday that it will expand health benefits for transgender employees, including covering surgeries that were previously considered cosmetic. The company has covered gender reassignment surgery since 2012, but will now cover services like breast reduction or augmentation, hair transplants, voice therapy and facial feminization surgery. (Anapol, 6/26)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Starbucks Expanding Health Benefits For Transgender Employees 
Ron Crawford, the vice-president of benefits at Starbucks said in a statement published on the company website Monday (June 25) that the approach was driven by the company's desire to provide "truly inclusive coverage." The company reach out to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) last year to translate their recommended standards of care into a medical benefits policy. (Clark, 6/26)

Cincinnati Enquirer: This Bill Would Force Schools To Report Trans And Gender Nonconforming Kids
Teachers would be required to "out" transgender kids to their parents under a new GOP bill introduced in the house. House Bill 658 requires any government agent (which includes teachers) immediately report to all parents or guardians if a child "demonstrates a desire to be treated in a manner opposite the child's biological sex" or exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria, which is when someone identifies with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth. (Icsman, 6/26)

Stat: Flu Drug, Taken In Single Dose, Could Upend Treatment If Approved In U.S.
Next winter, there may be a new drug for people who contract influenza — one that appears to be able to shut down infection quickly and, unlike anything else on the market, can be taken as a single pill. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday said that it would give the drug, baloxavir morboxil, a priority review, and approval has the potential to upend the way influenza is treated. (Branswell, 6/27)

The Washington Post: Why Are We Being So Rude To Each Other? Research Shows Incivility Often Spreads Like A Contagious Cold
These are rude times we live in. And many people find themselves struggling with how to respond. Do they fight fire with fire or try somehow to take the moral high ground? Scientific research has surprisingly quite a lot to say about it all. (Wan, 6/26)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Updated Osteoporosis Screening Guidelines Cover Only Women. That Could Hurt Men
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended, as it has for years, that women 65 and older and younger women with risk factors such as smoking be screened for osteoporosis with bone density scans, called DEXA. But not men. Even though the task force found “convincing evidence” that the scans detect osteoporosis and predict fractures in both men and women, it said there is “inadequate” evidence that treatment reduces fracture rates in men. (McCullough, 6/26)

The New York Times: High-Resolution Snapshot Of Zika Virus Reveals Clues To Fighting It
Scientists have captured the clearest and most detailed image yet of Zika, the virus that set off a global health crisis in 2015 and 2016 and left thousands of babies with serious birth defects. The work could contribute to the development of more effective vaccines and treatments to combat the virus. The research, published Tuesday in the journal Structure, combined tens of thousands of two-dimensional images to construct a three-dimensional model of the virus’s structure. (Baumgaertner, 6/26)

Los Angeles Times: Fewer Americans Are Spending Their Final Days In The Hospital And More Are Dying At Home
The American way of dying seems to have become less frantic, desperate and expensive. That’s the upshot of a new study that finds that seniors insured by Medicare who died in 2015 were less likely to do so in a hospital and more likely to pass away in a home or other community setting than those who died in 2000. The new research also showed that the proportion of American seniors who were admitted to the intensive care unit during their final month of life has stabilized after rising between 2000 and 2009. By 2015, 29% of dying patients insured by Medicare spent part of their final month of life in the ICU. (Healy, 6/27)

The New York Times: Walk Briskly For Your Health. About 100 Steps A Minute.
Most of us know that we should walk briskly for the sake of our health. But how fast is brisk? A helpful new study of walking speed and health concludes that the answer seems to be about 100 steps per minute, a number that is probably lower than many of us might expect. Current exercise guidelines almost always state that we should walk at a brisk pace rather than stroll leisurely. But the recommendations do not always define what brisk walking means and, when they do, can deploy daunting terminology or technicalities. (Reynolds, 6/27)

The Associated Press: Enemy Turned Ally: Poliovirus Is Used To Fight Brain Tumors
One of the world's most dreaded viruses has been turned into a treatment to fight deadly brain tumors. Survival was better than expected for patients in a small study who were given genetically modified poliovirus, which helped their bodies attack the cancer, doctors report. It was the first human test of this and it didn't help most patients or improve median survival. But many who did respond seemed to have long-lasting benefit: About 21 percent were alive at three years versus 4 percent in a comparison group of previous brain tumor patients. (6/26)

The Washington Post: Polio Virus Treatment Increased Survival In Patients With Deadly Brain Tumors, Study Shows
A genetically modified polio virus improved the longer-term survival of patients with a lethal type of brain tumor, according to the results of an early-stage clinical trial published Tuesday. Twenty-one percent of the patients treated with the virus — all with disease that had recurred — were alive after three years, compared with just 4 percent of those who had undergone standard chemotherapy. The trial at the Duke Cancer Institute involved patients with glioblastoma, the kind of tumor that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is battling. The results were published online in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented Tuesday at an international brain tumor conference in Norway. (McGinley, 6/26)

NPR: Study: Genetically Modified Poliovirus To Treat Brain Cancer
"I've been doing this for 50 years and I've never seen results like this," says Dr. Darell Bigner, the director emeritus of the The Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at the Duke Cancer Institute, who is helping develop the treatment. But the researchers and other brain-cancer doctors caution the research is at a very early stage. In the study, only 21 percent of patients experienced a prolonged survival. Much more follow-up research is needed to better assess and hopefully improve the treatment's effectiveness, the researchers say. (Stein, 6/26)

The Associated Press: California Lead Paint Liability Initiative Heads To Ballot
California voters will likely see an initiative on the November ballot that limits the liability of lead paint companies by authorizing bond funding to clean up the paint and other health hazards in buildings in the state. The California Secretary of State announced Tuesday that backers of the measure collected enough signatures to make the ballot. (6/26)

The Associated Press: Hospital Suspends Trial Of Paramedics Administering Ketamine
Hennepin Healthcare is suspending a clinical trial of the sedative ketamine in emergency situations following criticism that its hospital, Hennepin County Medical Center, enrolled patients in the study without their knowledge. Paramedics’ use of the sedative on agitated people during emergency calls is already the subject of an independent investigation commissioned by the City of Minneapolis. The number of documented ketamine injections during police calls increased from three in 2012 to 62 last year, according to an investigation by the Minneapolis Office of Police Conduct. (6/26)

The Star Tribune: More Hennepin Healthcare Studies To Be Suspended In Sedation Debate
A day after suspending its study of the use of ketamine on agitated people by paramedics, Hennepin Healthcare said it would halt similar clinical trials that seek consent from patients only after treatment. Dr. William Heegaard, chief medical officer for the hospital system, appeared before the Hennepin County Board Tuesday to respond to ethical concerns over a ketamine study in which patients are enrolled without their consent. (Mannix, 6/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Bill Aimed At Lowering Health Care Costs Gets Shelved
A bill aimed at banning a hospital contracting practice that patient advocates say leads to higher health care prices for consumers has been withdrawn by its author, state Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel. The proposed legislation, SB538, sought to end so-called “all or nothing” contracting — a practice used by large health systems to require health insurers to contract with all their hospitals and affiliates, or none at all. (Ho, 6/26)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Federal Officials 'Disappointed' In Milwaukee's Lead Crisis Response
An official with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development voiced his frustration with the city's response to the crisis in a recent letter to U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee), prompting her to criticize the city's lead poisoning prevention efforts. ...Moore, who requested the federal review, stopped short of directing criticism at Mayor Tom Barrett and interim Health Commissioner Patricia McManus, saying she knows that both care "very deeply" about the issue. (Spicuzza and Bice, 6/27)

The Washington Post: Oklahoma Voters Just Approved One Of The Most Progressive Medical Marijuana Bills In The Country
Oklahoma voters approved a medical marijuana bill on Tuesday, making the state the 30th in the nation to permit the use of marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation. The measure is notable for reflecting one of the most permissive medical cannabis policies in the country. While most states specify a narrow list of medical conditions for which doctors can recommend the plant, in Oklahoma doctors will be able to recommend it for any condition. (Ingraham, 6/27)

Nashville Tennessean: KIDS COUNT Report: Tennessee Improves In Education, Health
Tennessee children saw improvements in education and health this past year, although they still struggle with economic well-being and family and community, according to the 2018 KIDS COUNT report. The report ranked Tennessee 27th overall in health, 33rd in economic well-being, 35th in education and 38th in family and community. The state maintained its overall national rank of 35.  (Pair, 6/26)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Supervisors Call For Review Of Child Protection System In Wake Of Anthony Avalos' Death
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday ordered officials in charge of child protection to examine shortcomings in the system in the wake of a 10-year-old boy’s death last week. Anthony Avalos was found unresponsive at his family’s home in Lancaster on June 20 with severe head injuries and cigarette burns covering his body. He died Thursday. The Times reported Sunday that at least 16 calls had been made to the county’s child abuse hotline and to police before Anthony died. Callers alleged that he or his six siblings had been denied food and water, beaten, sexually abused, dangled upside-down from a staircase, forced to crouch for hours, locked in small spaces with no access to the bathroom, and forced to eat from the trash. (Agrawal, 6/26)

Dallas Morning News: New $250 Million Medical Center Could Bring 1,800 Jobs To Mesquite 
A new 60-acre medical campus being planned in the city of Mesquite is perhaps the latest sign of economic growth for an area some feared had been left behind North Texas’ development boom. The $250 million Verde Center at Peachtree will be located on an undeveloped property at the southwest corner of the Gross Road exit off Interstate 635, around the South Mesquite Creek between Gross and Peachtree roads and the LBJ Freeway. (Rice, 6/26)

Kansas City Star: KCU Breaks Ground On New Simulation Center For Medical Ed
It was him, in the flesh, speaking, but holograms are being used in medical education now, and when the $33 million, 56,000-square-foot KCUMB simulation center opens next year, it will be equipped with virtual reality and haptic technology, which recreates the sense of touch. ...KCUMB is joining medical schools in Kansas City and across the country in moving to more training through simulation before students ever put their hands on an actual patient. (Marso, 6/27)

Boston Globe: Partners HealthCare Shifting 100,000 Employees, Families To Company-Owned Insurer
Partners HealthCare, the state’s largest private employer, plans to shift health coverage for all of its employees and their families to the company’s own insurance business, Neighborhood Health Plan, in a move aimed at containing costs. The company’s decision — which affects about 100,000 people — is a boon to Neighborhood Health Plan and a blow to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, which counted Partners as one of its biggest accounts and has administered Partners employee health benefits for more than two decades. (Dayal McCluskey, 6/27)

California Healthline: At L.A. Clinic, Free Showers Can Get Homeless People In To See A Doctor
Gregory Andrews, 60, sleeps in his Chevy Malibu just outside a health clinic on the west side of Los Angeles. In the morning, he lines up there for a free shower. “Besides trying to find something healthy to eat, the next most important thing is to take a shower,” Andrews said. “It keeps your self-esteem up.” Not many health clinics offer showers, but Saban Community Clinic, where Andrews goes, has been doing it for about three decades. The clinic serves an urgent need, given L.A. County’s growing homeless population, which is up almost 50 percent in the past six years to roughly 53,000, though it dipped slightly this year, according to the annual homeless count. (Gorman, 6/26)

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Northam Grants Up To 8 Weeks Parental Leave To State Workers, Plans Study Of Child Care Options
Gov. Ralph Northam is moving to bolster Virginia’s state workforce with a pair of executive orders that will grant up to eight weeks of paid parental leave to state employees and create an advisory panel to recommend ways to help state workers with child care and early childhood education. ...The governor said the order creating paid parental leave will help state employees with young families who previously have relied on federal law that protects their jobs while on family leave but doesn’t require employers to pay them. (Martz, 6/26)

WBUR: Why Boston Medical Center Is Investing In Housing
A third of the units in Waldeck are uninhabitable, according to Codman NDC. But now, thanks to an $800,000 investment from Boston Medical Center, Codman says it wants to turn the row of downtrodden buildings into a paragon of well-being. (Rios, 6/27)

Texas Tribune: Danny Bible Faces Execution In A 1979 Texas Rape And Murder. He Says He's Too Sick For Lethal Injection.
[Danny] Bible and his attorneys are fighting his execution, in part claiming that he is too sick to be put to death by lethal injection — that his veins are too weak and he will likely choke laying on his back on the gurney. ...They’ve argued that since courts require inmates to propose an alternative when generally challenging a state’s execution method, Texas could consider killing him using a firing squad or nitrogen gas. (Jolie McCullough,6/27)

The New York Times: A Drug Costs $272,000 A Year. Not So Fast, Says New York State.
A wave of breakthrough drugs is transforming the medical world, offering hope for people with deadly diseases despite their dizzying price tags. But what if it turns out that some of these expensive new drugs don’t work that well? That’s the quandary over Orkambi, a drug that was approved in 2015 for cystic fibrosis and was only the second ever to address the underlying cause of the genetic disease. Orkambi, which is sold by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, costs $272,000 a year, but has been shown to only modestly help patients. (Thomas, 6/24)

ProPublica: FDA Repays Industry By Rushing Risky Drugs To Market
The FDA is increasingly green-lighting expensive drugs despite dangerous or little-known side effects and inconclusive evidence that they curb or cure disease. Once widely assailed for moving slowly, today the FDA reviews and approves drugs faster than any other regulatory agency in the world. (Chen, 6/26)

Modern Healthcare: Senate Pushes For Stronger Drug-Pricing Policy Than Trump Proposal
Members of the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday called on the Trump administration to use stronger tactics to curb high drug prices than its tempered strategy unveiled last month. In its first hearing on the White House's drug pricing blueprint, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pushed for price controls and broad-strokes negotiation. The central focus of the White House's proposal is moving Medicare Part B drug purchasing to the Medicare Part D model, in which prices are negotiated by pharmacy benefit managers. (Luthi, 6/26)

Stat: Most Americans Buy Trump's Idea To Force Pharma To Advertise Drug Prices
When the Trump administration released its blueprint for coping with high drug costs last month, one particular idea was widely derided — requiring drug makers to include list prices in consumer advertising. That’s because drug pricing is highly confusing and few people actually pay list prices. Nonetheless, the White House seems to believe that such transparency could force companies to compete on price. Whether or not this is correct remains to be seen, but for the moment, most Americans like the idea. (Silverman, 6/27)

Stat: As Pharma Eyes The Biosimilar Market, Its United Front Is Starting To Crack
The pharmaceutical industry’s massive lobbying operation has a well-earned reputation for maintaining a united front on most of the major policy proposals that could affect drug makers and their bottom lines. But as the industry eyes the burgeoning biosimilar market, that united front is starting to crack. For years, branded pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers — largely represented by PhRMA and BIO — have clashed most often with generic manufacturers, largely represented by their own Association for Accessible Medicines. (Mershon, 6/25)

The New York Times: Diabetes Patients At Risk From Rising Insulin Prices
A surprisingly large number of people with diabetes are using less insulin than prescribed because of the rising cost of the drug, putting themselves in danger of serious complications. Those are the findings of a small new study by researchers at Yale University, who found that at one clinic in New Haven, Conn., one in four patients admitted to cutting back on insulin use because of cost. Everyone with Type 1 diabetes needs to take insulin, while about a third of those with Type 2 diabetes do. Not getting enough insulin can have severe consequences for someone with diabetes who does not produce enough of the hormone, which regulates levels of glucose in the blood. Within a week or so without insulin, people with Type 1 diabetes die. (Epstein and Strodel, 6/22)

Stat: Maine May Not Wait For Congress To Boost Generic Drug Development
As Congress considers a bill that would prevent brand-name drug makers from thwarting generic competition, Maine lawmakers are refusing to wait. The legislature recently passed a bill of its own and is now hoping the governor will sign the legislation into law. The bill attempts to address an issue that has frustrated generic drug makers for years — tactics by brand-name companies that make it difficult, if not impossible for generic companies to obtain needed samples for developing equivalent versions. (Silverman, 6/25)

The Washington Post: In May, Trump Predicted The Pharmaceutical Industry Would Cut Prices In Two Weeks. It Hasn’t Happened Yet.
President Trump said at the end of May that drug companies were about to make “voluntary, massive drops in prices” in two weeks. Two weeks later, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar backed down from that timeline, testifying to Congress that drug companies “want to execute substantial material reductions in their drug prices” but were facing hurdles. Nearly four weeks out, the White House has not explained why nothing has happened on that front, but it continues to hint that news could be imminent. “We’re not going to get ahead of any forthcoming announcements,” deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley said in an email last week. (Johnson, 6/26)

Bloomberg: Finding Cancer Patients Is The Pharma Industry’s Unlikely Challenge
The world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, looking to sell a new type of cancer drug that could transform treatment, are grappling with an unusual challenge: finding patients. The new medicines aim to shrink tumors by targeting a rare genetic anomaly -- appearing in 1,500 to 5,000 patients’ tumors in the U.S. annually -- that can spur cancer’s growth. Bayer AG is out in front with a drug that could go on sale by the end of the year. Roche Holding AG is pursuing the same target. (Kresge and Cortez, 6/20)

Stat: Scientists, Drug Makers Reach For 'Holy Grail' Of Diabetes Treatment
For decades, Americans living with diabetes have been relying on injections of insulin to manage their illness. Those injections can be painful — and inconvenient. Two new developments — one a newly released study and the other the publication of new clinical trial data — describe advances toward an alternative approach: the delivery of blood-sugar-regulating hormones in a pill, long regarded as the “holy grail” of diabetes treatment. (Chen, 6/25)

The Wall Street Journal: What Is Ailing The Drug Industry?
It’s a golden age for drug development, but the major pharmaceutical companies aren’t enjoying the good times. U.S. health-care spending regularly grows faster than inflation and has reached about 18% of gross domestic product. Prescription drugs are a major component of that sum. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects that total U.S. drug spending will rise by 68% to $600 billion by 2026. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration is approving new medicines at a brisk rate and venture capitalists have poured billions into biotech startups. (Grant, 6/22)

Stat: Ohio Peels Back The Curtain On A Lucrative PBM Profit Center 
As the debate over prescription drug costs accelerates, a new report shows two pharmacy benefit managers reaped more than $223 million by working on behalf of Ohio Medicaid plans during a recent 12-month period. And the findings are likely to intensify scrutiny of the roles these companies play in shaping pharmaceutical costs nationwide. From April 2017 through March 2018, CVS Caremark (CVS) and OptumRx billed $2.55 billion to a handful of managed care plans that administer Medicaid plans for Ohio residents. At the same time, the pharmacy benefit managers spent $2.3 billion for prescription medicines and services performed by pharmacies. This amounted to an 8.8 percent gain, or spread, of $223 million from a key profit center, according to the report. (Silverman, 6/22)

FiercePharma: Pfizer Doubles Price Of Smoking-Cessation Drug Chantix In Just 5 Years: Report
Pfizer’s smoking-cessation drug Chantix nudged closer to blockbuster status last year, bringing in $997 million in sales—up 18% from 2016. But some portion of that may have come from price hikes, judging from a new report released by GoodRx, an aggregator of pricing and discount information on prescription drugs. The price of a 30-day supply of Chantix has more than doubled to $485 since 2013, according to GoodRx. Sure, a big proportion of patients do get help paying for the drug from their health plans, but that assistance may not be so generous: Many insurers have relegated the drug to tier 3 status on their formularies, putting patients on the hook for high out-of-pocket costs, GoodRx reports. (Weintraub, 6/26)

Stat: Lawmakers Ask FTC To See If Pay-To-Delay Deals Are Thwarting Biosimilars
Two Washington lawmakers want the Federal Trade Commission to examine whether so-called pay-to-delay deals are preventing biosimilars from reaching Americans sooner than the drugs would otherwise and, consequently, are increasing costs for the health care system. In a letter to the FTC, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) argued there is reason for concern that the same controversial tactic used to thwart the arrival of lower-cost generics is being extended to biosimilars. (Silverman, 6/22)

Boston Globe: Roche Will Pay $2.4 Billion To Complete Its Takeover Of Foundation Medicine
The giant Swiss drug maker Roche is ponying up $2.4 billion for the rest of Cambridge-based Foundation Medicine, a cancer-focused gene-sequencing company that recently won approval for a diagnostic test aimed at personalizing cancer care. ...In November, federal regulators approved a diagnostic test by Foundation called FoundationOne CDx that can detect all four classes of alterations in 324 cancer-related genes that cause solid tumors. (Saltzman, 6/20)

The New York Times: How The Government Can Lower Drug Prices
In Baltimore, the health commissioner, Dr. Leana Wen, uses a need-based algorithm to decide which emergency rooms, needle-exchange vans, E.M.T.s and opioid outreach workers receive the city’s limited supply of naloxone — and which don’t. The drug, which reverses overdoses, has saved some 14,000 Baltimore residents since 2015. But its price has increased in recent years, by between 95 and 500 percent, depending on which version of the medication is being considered. Even with donations and discounts from drug makers, Dr. Wen says the city can’t afford all the naloxone it needs. (6/20)

Roll Call: To Keep Drug Costs Low, Think Competition, Not Price Controls
Even in today’s highly partisan environment, there’s one thing nearly all Americans agree on: The soaring cost of prescription drugs is alarming. In fact, 80 percent of Americans consider the cost of prescription drugs unreasonable. At the same time, a majority of Americans recognize that prescription drugs have improved countless lives. The president’s recently unveiled comprehensive blueprint to lower prescription drug costs has many ideas worthy of exploration. However, if we truly want to reduce costs and make life-changing and life-saving medications accessible to all Americans, we must increase competition among prescription drugs — particularly new drugs that have the ability to cure diseases, but face limited competition. (Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, 6/25)

Vox: A Plan To Reduce Drug Prices That Could Unite Libertarians And Socialists
President Donald Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar recently introduced American Patients First, a complicated plan intended to make prescription drugs more affordable. It includes many ideas and suggestions, such as requiring drug makers to put the list prices of their products in their advertisements and “working across the administration to assess the problem of foreign free-riding.” A few commentators think the plan will materially reduce prices, but we are skeptical. (Charles Silver and David A. Hyman, 6/21)

Forbes: Sticker Shock: The Real Cost Of America's 10 Most Expensive Drugs
The high price of pharmaceuticals has become a constant topic of conversation in the U.S. As medical costs rise, consumers face greater financial uncertainty. And day after day, both the White House and Congress make promises that they will lower prescription costs to alleviate constituent concerns, but few changes have backed up their words. That said, time and again we are reminded that despite the rising costs of pharma, the medical industry is exceptionally complex and very rarely do patients see the real price tag of their drugs. And that lack of information – not to mention the number of third-party entities that get involved – creates a confusing and frustrating, and often bloated, price structure. (Nicole Fisher, 6/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Supreme Court Protects Lying To Women
If you want to understand the real-world effect of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning a California law requiring faith-based crisis pregnancy centers to fully inform patients, just look at how each justice voted. The three women on the high bench — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — all joined Justice Stephen Breyer in the dissent. The ruling is another step toward overturning legal abortion, which the court established a generation ago with its ruling in Roe vs. Wade that the constitutional right to privacy extends to a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions. The highest court in the land blocked enforcement of California’s 3-year-old Reproductive FACT Act that required patients be fully informed that the state offers subsidized medical care, including prenatal care, family planning and abortions. The court’s majority ruled that the California law violated First Amendment rights to free speech. (6/26)

Los Angeles Times: Tuesday Was A Bad Day For Getting Truthful Information Out To Pregnant Women In Crisis
It’s troubling that a divided Supreme Court ruled against a California law requiring licensed pregnancy counseling centers — which typically exist to steer women away from abortions — to hand out information telling women that there are state-funded clinics offering them various options for pregnancy, family planning and abortion. The point of the disclosure requirement in the Reproductive FACT Act was to give women factual, straightforward information about their options, which most of these so-called pregnancy counseling centers are not in the business of doing. ...Abortion, after all, is a woman’s constitutionally protected right. (6/27)

USA Today: Patronizing Abortion Case Ruling Perverts First Amendment
In NIFLA v. Becerra, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has, once again, perverted the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. The Roberts court is infamous for rulings such as Citizens United v. FEC, which gave corporations a right to spend unlimited sums of money and gutted campaign-finance law. What Citizens United did to finance law, NIFLA threatens to do to disclosure law. The court’s 5-4 ruling blocks a California law requiring clinics to inform women of their right to state-funded reproductive health care, a common-sense measure ensuring that women know such care is available. It also invalidates a requirement that unlicensed clinics disclose that they do not offer medical services. These modest rules should have been upheld. (David H. Gans, 6/26)

USA Today: Abortion Case Ruling Boosts Free Speech
Many people hailed a Supreme Court ruling, which dealt a decisive blow Tuesday to a California law requiring anti-abortion pregnancy centers to post signs about low-cost birth control and abortions, as a huge victory for abortion opponents. Actually, it's a victory for freedom of speech, with implications that abortion foes might end up not liking. The majority's 5-4 decision made clear that the government cannot regulate your speech just because it disapproves of what you say and compel you to make statements that go against your beliefs. That is as it should be. (6/26)

USA Today: Don't Harm Women With Abortion Laws That Ignore The Evidence We Found
Policymakers tout women’s health and safety when creating restrictive abortion laws, but new research from me and my colleagues unequivocally shows that restricting abortions to one type of facility makes no public health sense. Our work, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, finds that abortion is no safer in an ambulatory surgical center than it is in a clinic or doctor’s office. (Sarah Roberts, 6/26)

The Wall Street Journal: The VA Continues A Centuries-Long History Of Scandal
When Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin was ousted earlier this year, most of Washington wrote it off as another result of President Trump’s chaotic management style. Perhaps, but the change also reflects the state of pandemonium long associated with the VA. Caring for veterans has never been a straightforward task in the U.S. (Rebecca Burgess, 6/26)

The Wall Street Journal: ObamaCare Can Be Worse Than Medicaid
This year will be the last in which uninsured Americans are forced to pay ObamaCare’s penalty for lack of coverage. The change—part of the GOP’s tax reform—comes as relief on the demand side of health insurance. Yet nothing has changed on the market’s supply side. Without additional reforms to ObamaCare’s restrictions on insurers, millions of Americans will continue to choose from a limited range of lackluster plans. (John C. Goodman, 6/26)

Stat: It's Time To Reform The Process For Determining What Medicare Covers
If your health care is covered by Medicare, like more than 55 million of your fellow Americans, where you live partly determines what Medicare will pay for. The process for deciding what items and services are covered from region to region needs reform. (Scott Whitaker, Jack Richmond and Bruce Williams, 6/27)

The Hill: A Solution To The Opioid Epidemic From The Urban And Rural America Perspective
Each year, more Americans are dying of overdose than have ever been killed from car accidents, guns, or HIV/AIDS. An American under 50 is now more likely to die of an overdose than from any other cause. And the numbers continue to climb. In fact, in the next 12 minutes, another American will fall victim. Not only this constitutes a public health emergency but is also unweaving the very fabric of our society. It is hard to accept that this has happened to our country, especially to family, friends, neighbors and community members that we love. It does not have to be this way. One bill in particular could put us, finally, on the path out of this crisis: the Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, introduced by Elizabeth Warren in the Senate and Elijah Cummings in the House. (Leana S. Wen and Rahul Gupta, 6/26)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Seniors Needlessly Exposed To Health Risks, Addiction
The lack of transparency and communication significantly undermines each’s ability to combat fraud and abuse within the Part D program, as well as to reduce overprescribing. That’s why I introduced the Strengthening Partnerships to Prevent Opioid Abuse Act, which will make common-sense changes to encourage greater data sharing and coordination between CMS and insurers. (Jim Renacci, 6/26)

Stat: Police Killings Of Unarmed Blacks Affects Mental Health Across The Country
This week, our nation’s psyche was rocked yet again with news — and video — of how Antwon Rose, a 17 year-old black American teenager, was fatally shot in the back by police while fleeing a traffic stop. His tragic death, and the responses now reverberating throughout the country, casts a deeply disturbing shadow over our research results, reported this week in The Lancet, which shed light on this grim fact: police killings of unarmed black Americans lead to poorer mental health among black Americans across the country. (Alexander Tsai, Jacob Bor and Atheendar Venkataramani, 6/27)

Seattle Times: For Native People, The Trauma Of Family Separation Is Nothing New
America has a long history of removing indigenous children from their families — and often, it came with the “best of intentions. After the Indian wars — when active genocide became passé — the first Indian Boarding School was built. Even after the Native societies were struck down and penned-in within reservation borders, something about our people’s continued existence remained a threat. (Colleen Echohawk, 6/26)

The Washington Post: How A Flood Of Corporate Funding Can Distort NIH Research
This month, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins seemed to shut down a noxious ethical problem. The agency released a 165-page internal investigation of an alcohol consumption study that had been funded mostly by beer and liquor companies. The study’s lead investigator and NIH officials were in frequent contact with the alcohol industry while designing the study, which, according to the postmortem, seemed predetermined to find alcohol’s benefits but not potential harms, such as cancer. In several email exchanges published in the report, NIH scientists seemed to joke about taking a drink every time somebody said “cheers,” which was a proposed acronym for their study. Collins ended the trial and promised to create new ethical boundaries for how NIH officials deal with industry. But the intellectual corruption at our government research agencies runs much deeper, and this was only the latest scandal involving hidden corporate influence. (Paul D. Thacker, 6/22)

Detroit News: Reversing Medicaid Expansion Would Benefit Everyone
In recent years, a growing number of states have expanded Medicaid to able-bodied adults to help more families access health care. Instead of achieving that goal, Medicaid expansion has pushed millions of newly eligible individuals into the program’s substandard insurance rolls and denied health care to the truly needy. Fortunately, Michigan recently passed sweeping reforms that will help sick and able-bodied Medicaid recipients obtain quality health care. In June, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill that requires able-bodied adults to work, volunteer, or attend job training for 80 hours per month to remain eligible for Medicaid. The Medicaid rules would apply to healthy individuals aged 18 to 62. Those who fail to meet these requirements will be shifted out of the program. Michigan’s reforms are part of a national effort to refocus Medicaid back to helping the truly needy. (Charlie Kateb, 6/26)

Dallas Morning News: If You Want To Fix Texas' Medicaid Managed Care, Listen To Those Suffering In The System
After the horror stories revealed in this newspaper about how for-profit companies are failing tens of thousands of Texans in the state's managed-care Medicaid system, we had hoped to hear a little contrition in a recent Austin hearing. Instead, what we got was a whole lot of defensiveness and shocking refusals by company execs to take responsibility for shortcomings in the care they provide for some of the state's most chronically ill children, as well as the disabled and elderly. What seems clear is that it'll be up to lawmakers to fix the gaping holes in this system, starting with holding these companies accountable for doing the job they're being paid billions to do. (6/26)

Des Moines Register: GOP Pushes Health Plans That Undermine Progress On Mental Health
Iowa lawmakers took great pride last legislative session in passing a bill aimed at improving access to mental health services, and deservedly so. Gov. Kim Reynolds was also pleased.“This legislation was pushed over the finish line by individuals and families who knew firsthand the importance of having a robust mental health system and the pain caused when services they or a loved one needed weren’t there,” she said at the bill-signing ceremony. But most people need health insurance to access those services. That reality is apparently lost on the GOP-controlled Iowa Legislature and Reynolds. (6/26)