First Edition: September 11, 2018

Kaiser Health News: Unwitting Patients, Copycat Comments Play Hidden Role In Federal Rule-Making
A proposal to sharply cut a drug discount program that many hospitals rely on drew some 1,400 comments when the Trump administration announced its plan last year. Hundreds appeared to come from patients across the country — pleas from average Americans whose treatments for diseases such as cancer depend on costly medicines. But a review of the responses found that some individuals were not aware they apparently had become part of an organized campaign to oppose what’s known as the “340B” program. (Tribble, 9/11)

California Healthline: Confusion Leaves Low-Income Children In Health Care Limbo
Tania Alvarado’s 13-year-old daughter doesn’t smile much anymore. She doesn’t want anyone to see her front teeth, which are so crowded they’re nearly growing atop one another. The crowding makes it painful to eat; it also embarrasses her. “Am I going to get those braces this year?” the Los Angeles eighth-grader asks her mom, again and again. Alvarado always answers her the same way: “It’s still not happening.” (Wiener, 9/10)

The Associated Press: Republicans Lack Votes, And Appetite, To End 'Obamacare'
Arizona's new senator says he'd vote to repeal the nation's health care law. That's one additional Republican ready to obliterate the statute because his predecessor, the late Sen. John McCain, helped derail the party's drive with his fabled thumbs-down vote last year. It could well be too little, too late. After years of trying to demolish former President Barack Obama's prized law, GOP leaders still lack the votes to succeed. Along with the law's growing popularity and easing premium increases, that's left top Republicans showing no appetite to quickly refight the repeal battle. (Fram, 9/11)

The Hill: Manchin Shoots Anti-ObamaCare Lawsuit With A Gun In New Ad
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) shoots an anti-ObamaCare lawsuit backed by his opponent in a new ad playing off his well-known 2010 spot shooting a climate change bill. The ad from Manchin, who is facing a competitive reelection race in a deep-red state, shows a shift in the politics of ObamaCare. (Sullivan, 9/10)

The Hill: More Dems Come Out In Public Opposition To Kavanaugh
Several Democratic senators are coming off the fence to announce they will oppose President Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) became the latest Democrats to say they will vote against Kavanaugh. Both senators announced their opposition on Monday. "While much of Judge Kavanaugh’s record remains a mystery, what we do know is extremely troubling and dangerously out of step with the American people, particularly on critical issues including executive power, abortion rights and pre-existing conditions," Shaheen said in a statement. (Carney, 9/10)

The Washington Post Fact Check: Did Brett Kavanaugh Signal He Supports ‘Going After Birth Control’? 
[California Sen. Kamala] Harris took aim at Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh for comments he made regarding “abortion-inducing drugs” when discussing a case brought by an anti-abortion religious group challenging Obamacare rules on providing employees health coverage for contraception. She is not the only Senate Democrat to claim that Kavanaugh might undermine access to birth control if he wins a seat on the court – here’s Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, and Dianne Feinstein – but we will focus on Harris because she tweeted out a video that snipped out a key part of his statement. (Kessler, 9/11)

The Hill: Michigan Asks Trump Administration To Approve Medicaid Work Requirements
Michigan is asking the Trump administration to approve work requirements for thousands of low-income adults who gained health care under ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion. Under the proposal, beneficiaries between the ages of 19 to 62 will have to work, volunteer or attend job training for at least 80 hours a month to keep their benefits. (Hellmann, 9/10)

The Hill: Federal Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of Missouri Abortion Restrictions
A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that the state of Missouri could enforce laws that abortion rights groups argue will curb access to the procedure. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2017 ruling that blocked enforcement of the laws, which require doctors who perform abortions to be affiliated with hospitals and abortion clinics to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers. (Hellmann, 9/10)

Reuters: U.S. Appeals Court Says Missouri Can Enforce Abortion Laws
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis overturned a 2017 ruling that blocked enforcement of those laws and opened the door for more abortion providers to operate in the state, which at the time had only one. Monday's decision comes in a 2016 lawsuit filed by affiliates of the women's health organization Planned Parenthood in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that year that struck down similar abortion restrictions in Texas. (Raymond, 9/10)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Wants To Make It Easier To Release Methane Into Air
The Trump administration, taking its third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change, is preparing to make it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere. Methane, which is among the most powerful greenhouse gases, routinely leaks from oil and gas wells, and energy companies have long said that the rules requiring them to test for emissions were costly and burdensome. (Davenport, 9/10)

The Associated Press: Lasker Awards Honor Four Scientists For Genetic Research And Developing Anesthetic
Four scientists have won prestigious medical awards for genetics research and development of a widely used anesthetic nicknamed “milk of amnesia. ”Winners of the $250,000 awards from the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation were announced Tuesday. The prizes will be presented later this month in New York. (Ritter, 9/11)

The New York Times: Lasker Awards Given For Work In Genetics, Anesthesia And Promoting Women In Science
Dr. Glen, the recipient of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, is only the second veterinarian to win a Lasker in 73 years, according to the foundation. A pharmaceutical career was an unlikely path for Dr. Glen, but the fact that he was interested in anesthesia was no surprise: for years, he had taught the subject to students at Glasgow University’s veterinary school. “I was anesthetizing dogs, cats, horses — whatever animals came around,” Dr. Glen said in an interview. Once he used anesthesia on a pelican to fix its beak. (Thomas, 9/11)

CNN: When Someone Is Thinking Of Suicide, These Are The People Who Talk Them Out Of It
The caller on the line is agitated. Minutes earlier, he'd grabbed a knife and held it to his body, threatening to kill himself. Staffers at the group home where he lives wrestled it away, but he still feels like he wants to do himself harm. So he calls a suicide hotline. A crisis counselor named Aaron answers. He listens intently. "Hey, you feeling any better?" Aaron asks after a minute. "Well, just try to hang out with the staff there, OK? Can you stay there with them?" (Criss, 9/10)

USA Today: World Suicide Prevention Day: Child Suicides Rising; Reasons Unclear
Samantha Kuberski hanged herself with a belt from a crib. She was 6.Razy Sellars was 11 when he took his life. Gabriel Taye was 8. Jamel Myles was 9. Suicide in elementary school-aged children remains rare: 53 children aged 11 and younger took their lives in 2016, the last year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has data. But medical professionals and researchers have noted alarming increases in the last decade – deaths more than doubled from 2008 to 2016 – and rising numbers of young children visiting emergency rooms for suicidal thoughts and attempts. (O'Donnell, 9/10)

CNN: Among Teens, Transgender Males Are Most Likely To Attempt Suicide, Study Says
Gender identity strongly influences the likelihood a teen will attempt suicide, a new study finds. Nearly 14% of teens who participated in a survey reported trying to kill themselves, with transgender teens reporting the highest rates of suicide attempts. Among female to male teens, the language the study uses for transgender male teens, more than half (50.8%) said they'd tried to take their lives, according to the study, published Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics. (Scutti, 9/11)

CBS News: 1 In 5 College Students So Stressed They Consider Suicide
College can be so stressful that many students think about killing themselves, and some even try, a new study suggests. Among more than 67,000 students surveyed, over 20 percent said they experienced stressful events in the last year that were strongly associated with mental health problems, including harming themselves and suicidal thoughts or attempts, researchers found. (Reinberg, 9/10)

The New York Times: Senate Poised To Pass Bill To Stop Flow Of Opioids Through The Mail
The Senate appears poised this week to pass a bill intended to shut a window through which fentanyl and other opioids pour into the United States from China through the mail, as lawmakers search desperately for ways to combat an epidemic affecting people of all ages and income levels across the country. The measure, part of a bipartisan package of legislation to fight the opioid crisis, requires the United States Postal Service to collect electronic information on merchandise arriving in this country, so customs inspectors can screen parcels for fentanyl and other contraband. (Pear, 9/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Congress Unveils Funding Deal In Race To Avoid Shutdown
Lawmakers struck a bipartisan deal Monday on a trio of spending bills they hope to pass this week in a rare example of Congress reaching an agreement over funding part of the federal government weeks before the next fiscal year begins. House and Senate negotiators announced Monday afternoon they had hammered out an agreement on three spending bills totaling almost $147 billion, including funding for the Energy Department, Veterans Affairs and the legislative branch of government. (Peterson, 9/10)

The New York Times: Most Doctors Are Ill-Equipped To Deal With The Opioid Epidemic. Few Medical Schools Teach Addiction.
To the medical students, the patient was a conundrum. According to his chart, he had residual pain from a leg injury sustained while working on a train track. Now he wanted an opioid stronger than the Percocet he’d been prescribed. So why did his urine test positive for two other drugs — cocaine and hydromorphone, a powerful opioid that doctors had not ordered? (Hoffman, 9/10)

CNN: Nearly 30% Of All Opioid Prescriptions Lack Medical Explanation
How large a role do doctors play in the opioid crisis? Nearly 30% of all opioids prescribed in US clinics or doctors' offices lack a documented reason -- such as severe back pain -- to justify a script for these addictive drugs, new research finds. In total, opioids were prescribed in almost 809 million outpatient visits over a 10-year period, with 66.4% of these prescriptions intended to treat non-cancer pain and 5.1% for cancer-related pain, according to a study published Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. (Scutti, 9/10)

Reuters: Orexo Soars After Winning Opioid Drug Appeal Against Teva
A U.S. appeals court on Monday revived Swedish pharmaceutical company Orexo AB's lawsuit accusing a unit of Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd of infringing a patent for its opioid addiction drug Zubsolv. Shares of Orexo closed 30.9 percent higher in Stockholm after the decision by the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., which handles intellectual property cases. (Stempel, 9/10)

The Tennessean: Tennessee’s Pill Addiction Is Improving, But Fentanyl Looms
It’s a little hard to tell, but Tennessee may be turning a corner on prescription pill abuse. Although fatal opioid overdoses continue to rise throughout the state, deaths attributed specifically to prescription painkillers dropped for the first time in five years. The 12 percent decrease in 2017 is a rare sign of progress in a state ravaged by addiction. (Kelman, 9/10)

The Associated Press: Meth Use Makes Comeback In Colorado As Opioid Epidemic Worsens
Recent data shows methamphetamine use made a deadly comeback across Colorado last year. Figures from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment show meth ranked among the fastest-growing drugs in fatalities in the state from 2016 to 2017. (9/10)

Stat: CRISPR's Hedgehog Problem: Rolled-Up Genes Can't Be Edited, Study Finds
Sowbugs, armadillos, hedgehogs … and DNA? The same strategy that some animals use to avoid being attacked — roll into a ball and keep your vulnerable bits beyond predators’ reach — turns out to let genes avoid being sliced up by the genome-editing molecules of CRISPR, scientists reported on Monday. When a segment of DNA wraps itself around a protein into what’s called a nucleosome, CRISPR-Cas9 can no more cut it than a hungry hawk can bite a rolled-up hedgehog. (Begley, 9/10)

Stat: Appeals Court Upholds CRISPR Patents Awarded The Broad Institute
A federal appeals court on Monday struck another blow against the University of California’s hopes of invalidating key CRISPR patents held by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, ruling unanimously that a U.S. patent board correctly concluded that the Broad’s patents did not “interfere” with those that UC had applied for. Barring an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is highly unlikely to accept the case, or a request for the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to consider the case, the long and bitter legal saga is largely over, at least in the U.S. (The fight over CRISPR patents in Europe continues.) (Begley, 9/10)

Stat: Controversial Contraception App Natural Cycles Drawing Scrutiny Overseas
European regulators are ramping up their scrutiny of a controversial app that its backers hail as a side-effect-free alternative to hormonal birth control pills — and which the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. just cleared last month. The Swedish Medical Products Agency is set to release the findings of a monthslong investigation into the app, Natural Cycles, as soon as this week. (Sheridan, 9/11)

CNN: Premature Birth Study Highlights Disparities In Health
A new study suggests that black and Hispanic premature babies, compared with white premature babies, had a two- to four-fold increased risk of four severe neonatal health problems. Those health problems included necrotizing enterocolitis, which impacts tissue in the intestine, and intraventricular hemorrhage, which is bleeding in certain areas of the brain, both of which can be deadly; bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a lung condition that might result in long-term breathing difficulty for some; and retinopathy of prematurity, an eye disorder that can be potentially blinding. (Howard, 9/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Brain Data Could Read Moods, Potentially Treat Depression
Can mood be decoded from brain data? The work is part of a larger movement aimed at developing better, more personalized therapies for psychiatric conditions like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder using deep brain stimulation, a procedure that requires surgery and is highly invasive. The approach is similar to treatments already in use for movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy. (Hernandez, 9/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Most Teens Prefer To Chat Online, Rather Than In Person
More than two-thirds of teens say they would rather communicate with their friends online than in person, according to a new study that comes as tech companies are trying to help parents and children monitor the time spent online. The study, from the nonprofit Common Sense Media, is an update of a similar survey conducted in 2012 that was one of the first to document the influence of digital media on teens. It lands as Silicon Valley’s technology titans—including Facebook Inc., Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google—are trying to address rising parental concerns about whether too much screen time can be hurtful. (Morris, 9/10)

NPR: Why Do Kids Vomit So Much? (And When Should You Be Worried?)
When Linda Tock heard her 5-year-old telling her he was going to be sick, she moved quickly. She sprinted for a trash can, ready to run upstairs to help her son, with her husband, Simon, close behind her. Then it happened: a rain of vomit from the balcony above. "I put the trash can over my head," Tock recalls. "We just got showered." Puke splashed onto every surface — and even into her unlucky husband's open mouth. (Blakemore, 9/10)

The Associated Press: Records: Behavioral Health Centers Deal With Staff Shortages
Complaints filed with a West Virginia state agency say ResCare Agency facilities are struggling with staffing shortages, causing problems such as missed doctors' appointments and incorrectly administered medication. The company provides care for people with extreme physical and mental disabilities, among other services. (9/10)

The Associated Press: Many California Marijuana Products Failing Safety Tests
Nearly 20 percent of marijuana products in California have failed tests for potency and purity since the state started requiring the checks on July 1, a failure rate some in the industry say has more to do with unrealistic standards and technical glitches than protecting consumer safety. The testing has been especially tough on cannabis-infused cookies, candies and tinctures: about one-third have been blocked from store shelves. (9/11)

The Associated Press: Stem Cell Transplant Cements Arizona Men’s Father-Son Bond
Thirty-five years after an Arizona man cared for his son when he was shot in their native Lebanon, the son is returning that devotion. Both the Rev. John Ibraham Sabbagh and his 54-year-old son, Ebby Sabbagh, are celebrating one year of going strong since the elder Sabbagh received a crucial stem cell transplant. After undergoing chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia, the 88-year-old opted to undergo the transplant in September, 2017, at Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center in Gilbert, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Phoenix. (Tang, 9/10)