State Highlights: Renowned Texas Heart Transplant Center Being Sued Over Patient’s Brain Damage; Health Care Lobbying Ramps Up In California

ProPublica: He Went In For A Heart Transplant. He Suffered Severe Brain Damage. Now His Family Is Suing St. Luke’s.
In June 2016, Ernest “Chris” Keys received a heart transplant at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston, giving him and his family hope he would finally return home after months in the hospital battling chronic heart failure. ...After several follow-up surgeries, Keys, then 44, left St. Luke’s in August 2016 with a new heart — but also a severe brain injury that left him unable to speak or walk. (Hixenbaugh and Ornstein, 7/5)

Sacramento Bee: Health Care Industry Pumping Money Into California
Major health industry groups have spent more than $18 million on lobbying, according to an analysis by The Sacramento Bee, in an effort to kill or water down bills proposed to rein in rising health care costs and impose new regulatory requirements for insurers and health plans. The spending, similar to levels in the prior legislative session, foreshadows a costly and thorny political debate in the years ahead. (Hart, 7/6)

The Associated Press: Health Network Denies Liability In Fertility Clinic Lawsuits
A health care network responding to lawsuits says it wasn't liable for a storage tank malfunction that destroyed more than 4,000 eggs and embryos at its fertility clinic near Cleveland. In court filings made public this week, attorneys for University Hospitals say patients were advised about risks involved with frozen specimens and signed related consent forms. The network says the problem wasn't caused by hospital negligence and suggests others might be responsible for what happened. (7/5)

The Associated Press: New York Agency To Protect Disabled Vows More Transparency
New York's agency tasked with investigating accusations of abuse and neglect against disabled people in state care is promising to improve transparency following years of complaints about conducting nearly all of its work in secret. Denise Miranda took over last year as executive director of the Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs. (7/5)

The Washington Post: Mosquitoes Are At Three Times Their Normal Number In Maryland This Summer
First came the rains. Now come the mosquitoes. Populations of the itch-inducing insects have multiplied across Maryland — in many areas up to three times their normal early summer numbers — because of recent storms and flooding that have given them an abundance of water to breed in. That means the ankle-biters are even more of a nuisance than normal and, potentially, a bigger public health threat, too. (Dance, 7/5)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Dialysis To Duels: Why Ohio Keeps Voting On Odd, Complicated Issues
Ohioans have been asked to vote on a slew of complicated – and sometimes oddly specific – ballot initiatives in recent years. This November could be no exception. One group submitted signatures Wednesday to limit the amount charged at kidney dialysis clinics and inspect them more frequently. (Balmert, 7/5)

Dallas Morning News: Dallas-Based American Heart Association To Spin Off A CPR Training Company 
The Dallas-based nonprofit American Heart Association is seeking to spin off a business that trains health care providers on best practices in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other lifesaving techniques. The charity organization launched a project in 2015 called the Resuscitation Quality Improvement program, which goes into hospitals and gives medical professionals hands-on training at the site of care. (Rice, 7/6)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Live In Pa. And Don't Have Your New Medicare Card? Call The Agency Right Away
Now that Medicare has completed mailing its new card to people 65 or older in Pennsylvania and Delaware, folks who haven’t gotten one should call the agency to make sure one arrives. The federal program has set out to blanket the nation with the new cards by April 2019. (Arvedlund, 7/5)

The Star Tribune: Lack Of Beds For Those With Mental Illness Keeps Man At Hennepin County Jail For 3 Months
A man suffering from severe mental illness was held for 92 days at the Hennepin County jail without access to proper medical treatment because of a severe and worsening shortage of beds in state psychiatric facilities. The prolonged detention of Raymond Traylor Jr., 28, has become the latest flash point in a long-running struggle between county and state officials over how to accommodate a growing number of jail inmates with serious mental illnesses. (Serres,7/5)

The Star Tribune: Sanford Health Continues To Expand Its Reach Beyond South Dakota 
The growth story continues at Sanford Health with the Sioux Falls, S.D.-based hospital and clinic operator announcing plans last week to combine with Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, a nonprofit group based in South Dakota that operates senior-care facilities in 24 states including Minnesota. Sanford Health, which is a nonprofit that already operates a number of hospitals in western Minnesota, said it might enter the Chicago market by way of the deal. (Snowbeck, 7/5)

Georgia Health News: Report Provides No Answers In Waycross Child Cancer Cases
Questions from residents about environmental contamination and childhood cancers have dogged this city of 14,000 in southeast Georgia since four children fell ill with rare sarcoma cancers within two months of each other in 2015. The cancers made local and national headlines. In March 2017, the well-known environmental activist Erin Brockovich announced that she was also looking into the situation. (Goodman and Miller, 7/5)

Arizona Republic: Phoenix Police To Get $450K Implicit Bias Training
The Phoenix Police Department on Thursday got the OK to work with an expert in racial and cultural sensitivity to train each of the agency's nearly 3,000 officers about implicit bias in law enforcement. Police plan to partner with the National Training Institute on Race and Equity, a group that uses experts in psychology and sociology to work with police officers, educators, and health care workers. (Pohl, 7/5)

KQED: Workers In Central Coast Pesticide Drift Tied To Dole, Driscoll's Were Sick For Days
A group of raspberry pickers, sickened by several chemicals that drifted onto the Watsonville field where they were working close to a year ago, felt sick for longer than previously known, according to newly revealed investigative findings. Last month, Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner Juan Hidalgo announced that he issued his largest fine ever, penalizing several companies tied to a pesticide drift near State Route 152 that made 15 agricultural employees sick the morning of June 29, 2017. (Goldberg, 7/5)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Mother Opposes Father's Share Of Settlement In Son's Death
Milwaukee County agreed back in January to pay $1.4 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit over the death of a 25-year-old man at the Mental Health Complex in 2012. Now, the fight is over who gets the money: Brandon Johnson's mother, who raised him alone and sued over his mistreatment? Or must she share it with his father, whom she says raped her when she was 15 and had little to do with Brandon until his death? (Vielmetti, 7/6)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: In An Emergency, What Will You Pay For An Ambulance Ride?
Here at Philly Health Costs, we see a lot of outrageous bills and get a lot of questions about infuriating insurance practices. ... Providers that aren’t part of an insurer’s network are sometimes allowed to “balance bill” patients for whatever their health plan doesn’t pay, a practice that results in surprise bills. Ambulances, especially those that respond in an emergency, are often not part of insurance networks. (Gantz, 7/5)