The New York Times: On Health Care, 2020 Democrats Find Their First Real Fault Lines
The debate unfolded over a period of days, on multiple televised stages in different states. There were no direct clashes between the candidates, no traces of personal animus — but a debate it was, the first vivid disputation over policy in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. The subject, perhaps predictably, was health care. At issue was just how drastically to transform the American system, and how comprehensive the role of government should be. (Burns, 2/20)

The Washington Post: Caught Between Trump And The Left, Democratic Candidates Seek To Avoid The Socialism Squeeze
Democratic presidential hopeful Cory Booker on Sunday delivered what he called the “hard truth” about Medicare-for-all: It will be difficult to pass, so the party should also ready more incremental changes. His rival Sen. Kamala D. Harris the next day championed the Green New Deal, a sweeping climate proposal — before adding: “Some of it we’ll achieve, some of it we won’t.” (Sullivan and Linskey, 2/19)

The Hill: Harris: 'Medicare For All' Is Not Socialism
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) on Tuesday defended her support for “Medicare for all,” saying it is not a socialist idea. "No, no. It’s about providing health care to all people," Harris said in an interview with NBC News's Kasie Hunt after being asked if what she supported was socialism. Harris, a progressive Democratic presidential candidate who has embraced Medicare for all, told NBC that rising costs are making health care unaffordable. (Weixel, 2/19)

The New York Times: The Difference Between A ‘Public Option’ And ‘Medicare For All’? Let’s Define Our Terms
Democrats, the many running for president as well as energized members of Congress, are talking big about health care again. Among other things, that means brace yourself for some jargon. Here’s your neighborhood health care nerd to help define some terms. Various proposals are floating around, each of which would change the health care system in distinct ways. Some, like one from Senator Bernie Sanders, would do away with all private health insurance. Some would make small expansions in existing public programs. Some would try to cover all Americans through a mix of different insurance types. (Sanger-Katz, 2/19)

The Associated Press: Sen. Bernie Sanders Says He’s Running For President In 2020
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination again, a decision that will test whether he can still generate the progressive energy that fueled his insurgent 2016 campaign. ... An enthusiastic progressive who embraces proposals such as “Medicare-for-all” and free college tuition, Sanders stunned the Democratic establishment in 2016 with his spirited challenge to Hillary Clinton. While she ultimately became the party’s nominee, his campaign helped lay the groundwork for the leftward lurch that has dominated Democratic politics in the Trump era. (Summers, 2/19)

The New York Times: Bernie Sanders On The Issues: Where He Stands And What Could Derail Him
Mr. Sanders, now in his third term representing Vermont in the Senate, drafted a Medicare-for-all bill in 2017 that has since been endorsed by several other Democratic senators, including the presidential candidates Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. “Medicare for all” has become a rallying cry for progressive Democrats, though it means different things to different people, and exactly which version candidates embrace has become something of an early policy test. (Stevens, 2/19)

Politico: Sanders Launches Second Bid For Presidency
Sanders’ team is making the bet that his long-held beliefs on progressive issues will set him apart. "People in many ways are rightfully cynical about politics,” Weaver said. “And the fact that somebody has been consistent, including when it was not easy and including when it was perceived by many in the establishment to be politically disadvantageous to have stood for those issues, I think signals to voters that one is truly committed to those issues and that the person will aggressively pursue those policies and not trade them away when it’s hard.” (Otterbein, 2/19)

Politico: From Moonshot To HIV Eradication
Moonshots have to start on earth. Extensive groundwork went into President Barack Obama’s cancer moonshot, announced during his final State of the Union. And the ambitious project is still blazing ahead, albeit in a different form than it might have under a Democratic administration, with broad bipartisan and science community support. (Owermohle, 2/19)

NPR: White House Plan To Stop HIV Faces A Tough Road In Oklahoma
One of the goals President Trump announced in his State of the Union address was to stop the spread of HIV in the U.S. within 10 years. In addition to sending extra money to 48 mainly urban counties, Washington, D.C., and San Juan, Puerto Rico, Trump's plan targets seven states where rural transmission of HIV is especially high. Health officials and doctors treating patients with HIV in those states say any extra funding would be welcome. But they say that strategies that work in progressive cities like Seattle won't necessarily work in rural areas of Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Carolina. (Fortier, 2/19)

The Washington Post: FDA Warns Consumers Against ‘Young Blood’ Plasma Infusions For Dementia, PTSD And Other Conditions
Federal health regulators on Tuesday warned consumers against controversial “young blood” treatments — plasma infusions from young donors marketed for conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and post-traumatic stress disorder. “There is no proven clinical benefit of infusion of plasma from young donors to cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent these conditions, and there are risks associated with the use of any plasma product,” Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Peter Marks, director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. (McGinley, 2/19)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA Warns On Services Offering Injections Of Young Blood Plasma
Plasma is the liquid portion of blood. Because it contains proteins and can be used to treat bleeding and clotting abnormalities, it has potential benefits in trauma care and other settings. Nevertheless, said Drs. Gottlieb and Marks in a statement, “We’re concerned that some patients are being preyed upon by unscrupulous actors touting treatments of plasma from young donors as cures and remedies.” The two FDA officials said the agency had received reports of “bad actors” charging thousands of dollars for infusions. (Burton, 2/19)

CNN: FDA Warns Against Using Young Blood As Medical Treatment
"There is no proven clinical benefit of infusion of plasma from young donors to cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent these conditions, and there are risks associated with the use of any plasma product," FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb wrote in a statement Tuesday. "The reported uses of these products should not be assumed to be safe or effective," he added, noting that the FDA "strongly" discourages consumers from using this therapy "outside of clinical trials under appropriate institutional review board and regulatory oversight." (Scutti, 2/19)

The Hill: FDA Warns Against Infusing Young People's Blood To Fight Aging 
The FDA referenced reports of young people’s blood plasma being touted as a treatment for conditions ranging from “normal aging and memory loss to serious diseases like dementia, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease or post-traumatic stress disorder.” (Sullivan, 2/19)

Bloomberg: Infusing Young Blood To Prevent Aging No Proven Benefit, FDA Says 
The idea of infusing young blood to fight aging has attracted technology entrepreneurs like billionaire Peter Thiel and was lampooned in a 2017 episode of the HBO show “Silicon Valley.” Thiel’s reported interest was sparked by a company called Ambrosia, which has locations in five states across the U.S. and sells one liter of blood plasma from donors between the ages of 16 and 25 for $8,000, according to its website. (Edney, 2/19)

Stat: FDA Warns Against Young-Blood Transfusions For Aging, Alzheimer's
A startup called Ambrosia claims that it is now offering young-blood transfusions — at a cost of $8,000 for 1 liter of young blood, or $12,000 for 2 liters — in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Tampa, Fla., and Omaha, Neb., Business Insider reported last month. The entrepreneur behind that company, Jesse Karmazin, has yet to report the results of a clinical trial he ran testing the procedure, which involves an off-label use of an approved product. On Tuesday, however, following the release of the FDA statement, a notice on Ambrosia’s site said it would no longer offer the transfusions. (Robbins, 2/19)

Houston Chronicle: Houston Business Peddling Young Blood Ceasing Treatment 
The startup company selling young donors’ blood in Houston has apparently shut down in response to a Food and Drug Administration statement Tuesday that such infusions provide no clinical benefit. In the statement, the FDA said it is alerting consumers and health-care providers to its concerns about “the promotion and use of young donor blood” purporting to treat the effects of conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and heart disease. The statement said it recently became aware of the business model in some states. (Ackerman, 2/19)

The Washington Post: Border Crisis: Surge Of Families Crossing Shifts Focus To Medical, Humanitarian Needs
This cactus forest on the U.S.-Mexico border was quiet one recent day. No mass crossings of migrant families. No sprinters. Just two men caught sneaking into the Arizona desert. Then U.S. Border Patrol Agent Daniel Hernandez spotted a youth alone under a juniper tree, dressed as if he were headed to church. When the agent approached, the teen quickly surrendered. (Sacchetti, 2/19)

The Associated Press: Lawmakers Tour Florida Migrant Teen Camp, Want Policy Shift
Congressional Democrats from Florida and Texas on Tuesday toured a migrant camp, where they said children are being held for too long in a place that has a "prison-like" feeling. The lawmakers held a news conference after visiting a facility in Homestead, Florida. They pledged to work for children who cross the U.S.-Mexico border to reunite with their families already in the U.S. The Democrats say those who cross with siblings, aunts or uncles should remain together. (2/19)

The Associated Press: Lawmakers Seek Probe Of ICE Force-Feeding Of Immigrants
Nearly 50 Democratic lawmakers called for a watchdog investigation of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday after the agency confirmed it had been force-feeding immigrant detainees on a hunger strike. Reporting by The Associated Press revealed late last month that nine Indian men who were refusing food at a Texas detention facility were being force-fed through nasal tubes against their will. (Burke and Mendoza, 2/19)

The Washington Post: FDA, Drug Companies, Doctors Mishandled Use Of Powerful Fentanyl Painkiller
The Food and Drug Administration, drug companies and doctors mishandled distribution of a powerful fentanyl painkiller, allowing widespread prescribing to ineligible patients despite special measures designed to safeguard its use, according to a report released Tuesday. The unusual paper in the medical journal JAMA relies on nearly 5,000 pages of documents that researchers obtained from the government via the Freedom of Information Act, rather than a more typical controlled scientific study. (Bernstein, 2/19)

CNN: 'Alarming' Number Of People Received Restricted Fentanyl, Study Says
An "alarming" number of US patients received a highly potent form of opioid that is 100 times more powerful than morphine and that they never should have been prescribed, according to a new study. The research, published Tuesday in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the US Food and Drug Administration and opioid manufacturers failed at multiple levels to adequately monitor the restricted use of these types of fentanyl as part of a federal program -- and that few substantive changes were made even after officials discovered problems. (Drash, 2/19)

The Washington Post: Opioid Crisis: Oklahoma Could Provide Test Of Who Will Pay For The Opioid Epidemic, And How Much
Big pharma is facing a major test in a small courthouse 20 miles south of here: the first trial at which a jury could decide whether drug companies bear responsibility for the nation’s opioid crisis. Thousands of cities, counties, Native American tribes and others have filed lawsuits up and down the opioid supply chain, alleging various claims of culpability for the crisis that began with widespread abuse of powerful painkillers. (Bernstein and Zezima, 2/19)

Reuters: U.S. Top Court Rejects Bid To Block Indivior Opioid Drug Copycat
The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to Indivior Plc on Tuesday, clearing the way for a copycat version of the British pharmaceutical firm's lucrative opioid addiction treatment Suboxone Film in a victory for India-based generic drug maker Dr. Reddy's Laboratories. Chief Justice John Roberts, in a brief order, denied Indivior's request to put on hold a lower court's ruling that had opened the door to cheaper generic versions of Suboxone while the company prepares an appeal to the high court. (Chung, 2/19)

The New York Times: Legalize Pot? Amid Opioid Crisis, Some New Hampshire Leaders Say No Way
The push to legalize recreational marijuana is sweeping the Northeast: Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine have done it, and the governors of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey say they want their states to do it, too. But in New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu and some other state leaders are opposed. The problem, they say, is not just about pot. (Taylor, 2/20)

The Washington Post: Opioid Use Rising In Maryland, But Fatal Car Crashes Involving Drivers With The Drug In Their Systems Have Not Increased
While Maryland is facing a growing epidemic of opioid addiction, there has not been a corresponding increase in traffic fatalities involving drivers who have the drug in their systems, a new report examining data from the state medical examiner found. “The fact that opioid crashes in Maryland over the last 10 years have been more or less steady was a surprise,” said Johnathon P. Ehsani,one of the report’s authors. “That is striking, because Maryland is one of those states that has been quite severely affected by the overall opioid epidemic.” (Halsey, 2/19)

ProPublica: Behind the Scenes, Health Insurers Use Cash and Gifts to Sway Which Benefits Employers Choose
The pitches to the health insurance brokers are tantalizing. “Set sail for Bermuda,” says insurance giant Cigna, offering top-selling brokers five days at one of the island’s luxury resorts. Health Net of California’s pitch is not subtle: A smiling woman in a business suit rides a giant $100 bill like it’s a surfboard. “Sell more, enroll more, get paid more!” In some cases, its ad says, a broker can “power up” the bonus to $150,000 per employer group. (Allen, 2/20)

Dallas Morning News: 'Still The Prices, Stupid': Why High Health Costs Matter In Dallas-Fort Worth 
Health care prices are garnering attention again, and for good reason. America spends more on health than any country and generally doesn't get better outcomes. In Dallas-Fort Worth, health spending is among the highest anywhere. In January, hospitals were required to start posting their list prices. While a positive step, the numbers don't reflect negotiated rates with insurers or deductibles and other cost-sharing. (Schnurman and Joseph, 2/19)

Dallas Morning News: Doctors Go On Trial To Defend Payments For Bringing Lucrative Surgeries To Controversial Dallas Hospital
It was hailed as a new and innovative model for doctor-owned hospitals, but the Forest Park Medical Center miracle ended in bankruptcy and federal fraud indictments. The once-successful Dallas-based hospital chain that earned tens of millions of dollars from specialty surgeries is now linked in federal court documents to numerous allegations of criminality, involving multiple hospitals, physicians, pharmacies and medical businesses. (Krause, 2/19)

The Star Tribune: Mayo Clinic Income Steady Despite Health Record Costs 
Mayo Clinic’s operating income held steady in 2018 despite higher expenses with the switch to a new computer system for electronic health records at its largest medical centers. The Rochester-based clinic released 2018 financial results on Tuesday that featured operating income of $706 million, comparable to the 2017 earnings, on $12.6 billion in revenue. (Snowbeck, 2/19)

Modern Healthcare: CommonSpirit Health's CHI Posts $424 Million Loss In Latest Quarter 
Catholic Health Initiatives was hit by the sharp year-end downturn in the stock market in 2018, posting a bottom line loss of $424.3 million, a $627 million swing from the year-earlier quarterly profit of $203.6 million. CHI, which just merged with Dignity Health to form CommonSpirit Health based in Chicago, posted a non-operating loss of $362.8 million driven by $331 million in investment losses and $29.8 million in losses tied to interest rate swap agreements, according to the system's fiscal second-quarter earnings report. (Barr, 2/19)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Families Grieving A Pregnancy Loss Hit Especially Hard By Medical Bills: ‘I Wasn’t Prepared At All’
Health insurance plans are required to cover pregnancy and childbirth to a certain extent. But families can easily rack up thousands of dollars in medical bills for extra ultrasounds, tests, and procedures that aren’t covered in full by their plan. Similarly, the procedure Collier had after her miscarriage, a dilation and curettage (D&C), was covered by insurance — but not entirely. (Grantz, 2/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Next Front In Tech Firms’ War On Misinformation: Bad Medical Advice
Pinterest has stopped returning search results for terms relating to vaccinations, a drastic step aimed at curbing the spread of misinformation but one that also reflects the challenge facing social-media companies in monitoring hot-button health issues. Most shared images on Pinterest relating to vaccination cautioned against it, contradicting established medical guidelines and research showing that vaccines are safe, Pinterest said. The image-searching platform tried to remove the antivaccination content, a Pinterest spokeswoman said, but has been unable to remove it completely. (McMillan and Hernandez, 2/20)

Stat: Amazon Leader: AI Can Help Health, But ‘We Need To Ground That In Truth’
In health care, he is known for his work on President Obama’s precision medicine initiative and as the first-ever chief informatics officer at the Food and Drug Administration. Now a senior leader of artificial intelligence at Amazon, Dr. Taha Kass-Hout is working to implement many of his ideas for disrupting health care at one of the world’s largest technology companies. During an interview with STAT at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s meeting in Orlando, Fla., Kass-Hout spoke passionately about the increasing power and utility of AI in health care. (Ross, 2/20)

The Hill: Patients, Health Data Experts Accuse Facebook Of Exposing Personal Info 
A group of patients and health data experts is accusing Facebook of misleading users about how their personal health information can be manipulated and exposed without patients' explicit permission. In a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint released publicly on Tuesday, the group alleges that Facebook prompts its users to join online medical support groups under the guise that they are "private" – but does not make clear that users could expose their health data when they join those groups. (Birnbaum, 2/19)

The New York Times: Loneliness Is Bad For Your Health. An App May Help. 
Loneliness is bad for your health. Social isolation is associated with a significantly increased risk of premature death. And the problem resists fixing; solitary people who participate in experiments meant to nudge them into joining groups tend to have high rates of recidivism. According to a study published this month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, however, it might be possible to reduce loneliness by using cellphones to teach a particular type of meditation. (Reynolds, 2/20)

The New York Times: Measles Outbreak: Your Questions Answered
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, but scattered outbreaks have occurred in recent years. This year there have been five — in New York, Texas, and Washington State — for a total of more than 120 cases. Here’s what you need to know about the disease and the risk of getting it. (Belluck and Hassan, 2/20)

The Hill: Iowa State Senate Rejects Anti-Vaccine Bills 
The Iowa state Senate Tuesday rejected a bill Tuesday that would have prohibited health insurance providers and insurance companies from discriminating against people who refuse to get vaccinated. The Associated Press reported that a Human Resources subcommittee voted down the bill that would have created the Vaccination Safety and Right of Refusal Act. The vote was 2-1, with a Democrat and a Republican teaming up to defeat the bill. (Axelrod, 2/19)

The Oregonian: Vancouver-Area School, Hospital Added To Possible Measles Exposure Sites
The number of people with measles held steady at 67 on Tuesday, but Clark County Public Health has identified more potential locations where people might have been exposed to measles. There is also one person suspected of having measles, but bloodwork has not yet confirmed the diagnosis. ...In little more than a week, nearly 10 more people have been diagnosed with measles, breaking a weeklong lull in new cases. (Harbarger, 2/19)

California Healthline: The Measles Success Story In California Is Showing Signs Of Fading
A rash of recent measles outbreaks in New York, Texas and Washington state shines a light on California’s largely successful effort in recent years to suppress the disease — though some of the shine might be fading. A serious measles outbreak that started at Disneyland in December 2014 and carried over into 2015 contributed to a steep increase in vaccination rates among California kindergartners over the following three years. But the gains stopped last year, according to the most recent available data. (Rowan, 2/19)

Sacramento Bee: Surgeon General Should Fight Anti-Vaccine Claims, CA Lawmaker
A California lawmaker and vaccine-advocate has written a letter to the U.S. surgeon general, Vice Adm. Jerome Adams, urging him to make vaccination a public health priority. Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, who also is a pediatrician, has been a champion of vaccination laws, including the 2015 California law mandating that parents vaccinate their school-age children. (Sheeler, 2/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Armed And Dangerous: How The ATF Retrieves Guns From Banned Buyers
Michael Alan Chance Green, who worked on a ranch as a cowboy, was obsessed with professional wrestler and entertainer Terry Funk. He believed he had to warn him of imminent danger and delivered bizarre handwritten letters to Mr. Funk’s mailbox, until he was charged with stalking. A Texas judge hearing the case declared Mr. Green mentally incompetent and committed him to a state hospital. More than a decade later, in 2016, Mr. Green bought a single-shot rifle at a North Texas gun store. A mandatory federal background check failed to discover in time that he was barred from buying or owning a firearm because of his mental-health troubles. (Frosch and Elinson, 2/19)

The San Francisco Chronicle: California Struggles To Seize Guns From People Who Shouldn’t Have Them
California has struggled to enforce a unique state law that allows officials to seize guns from people with criminal convictions or mental health problems, leaving firearms in the hands of thousands of people legally barred from owning them. Legislators first took notice of the problem in 2013, after the gun massacre of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school, and set aside $24 million to reinvigorate the firearms-seizure program. (Koseff, 2/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Companies Roll Out Gunshot Detectors At The Office
Corporate executives worried about workplace shootings are quietly installing gunfire-detection systems in U.S. offices and factories. Most don’t tell employees what the sensors are, for fear of alarming them. The rapid uptick in adoption of gunshot sensors follows a wave of workplace shootings in the past year. The latest occurred Friday when a man opened fire at an Aurora, Ill., factory following his termination, killing five co-workers and injuring five police officers. Deadly incidents in recent months include shootings at the California headquarters of YouTube, in the lobby of Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati, at a Maryland newspaper and in a Florida hot-yoga studio. (Cutter, 2/19)

The Wall Street Journal: For Parents Of Ill Children, A Growing Recognition Of PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder in combat soldiers is receiving greater attention and wider societal recognition. Now doctors and researchers are trying to do the same for a group that has similar symptoms: parents of children with life-threatening medical conditions. Shelly Miller of Bridgetown, Ohio, has a teenage son named Dylan who can’t walk or talk due to a rare genetic disorder. One day more than five years ago, after her husband picked him up at a summer camp, Dylan suddenly began vomiting and seizing. They raced to the emergency room, where doctors told them Dylan had suffered a concussion; the parents didn’t know how it had happened. (Marcus, 2/19)

Stat: Psychiatrists Await Esketamine With Anticipation — And Hesitation 
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide in the coming weeks whether to approve esketamine, which would become the first major depression treatment to hit the market in decades. The psychiatry field is buzzing with excitement — and hesitation. Esketamine — developed by Johnson & Johnson and delivered as a nasal spray — would be used in combination with oral antidepressants in patients with depression that haven’t responded to other drugs. Many experts have lauded esketamine as an important option for patients in dire need of new treatments — particularly because it could work faster than existing antidepressants. (Thielking, 2/20)

CNN: New Recommendations Say Not All Women Need Genetic Testing For Cancer. Critics Say It Could Cost Lives
Primary care providers should screen women for personal, family and/or ethnic history of breast, ovarian, tubal or peritoneal cancer to decide who should undergo genetic counseling for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, the US Preventive Services Task Force recommended Tuesday. The mutations increase a woman's cancer risk. The draft guidance, which is open to a month of public comment, is likely to stir a simmering medical debate over how widely genetic testing should be used to screen women for the BRCA mutations. (Scutti, 2/19)

The New York Times: How Many Push-Ups Can You Do? It May Be A Good Predictor Of Heart Health
Could push-ups foretell the future and the state of a person’s heart? A new study in JAMA Network Open hints that this might be the case. It finds that men who can breeze through 40 push-ups in a single exercise session are substantially less likely to experience a heart attack or other cardiovascular problem in subsequent years than men who can complete 10 or fewer. The results suggest that push-up ability might be a simple, reliable and D.I.Y.-in-your-living-room method of assessing heart health, while at the same time helpfully strengthening the triceps and pectorals. (Reynolds, 2/20)

Kaiser Health News: ‘These Women’s Lives Mattered’: Nurse Builds Database Of Women Murdered By Men
In February 2017, a school nurse in this Dallas suburb began counting women murdered by men. Seated at her desk, beside shelves of cookbooks, novels and books on violence against women, Dawn Wilcox, 54, scours the internet for news stories of women killed by men in the U.S. For dozens of hours each week, she digs through online news reports and obituaries to tell the stories of women killed by lovers, strangers, fathers, sons and stepbrothers, neighbors and tenants. (Schreyer, 2/20)

Boston Globe: How To Eat Healthier In The Workplace
According to a recent study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, approximately 25 percent of adults are chowing down about 1,300 calories weekly on beverages, meals, and snacks that they purchase or get free at work. The researchers of this study found that coffee, soft drinks, sandwiches, pizza, cookies, brownies, salad, french fries, and potato chips top the list. (Blake, 2/19)

The Associated Press: Maryland May Give Minors Consent For Preventative HIV Care
State legislation could allow minors to consent to preventative treatment for human immunodeficiency virus or HIV. Pre-exposure prophylaxis - commonly referred to as “PrEP”- consists of a single pill of a medicine called Truvada taken every day. This can reduce the risk of becoming infected with HIV from sex by 90 percent and among intravenous drug users by 70 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control. (Youngmann, 2/19)

Arizona Republic: Hacienda HealthCare Board Has History Of Questionable Deals, Nepotism
An investigation by The Arizona Republic found Hacienda HealthCare board members and their relatives benefited financially from their positions. Some board members do business directly with Hacienda, and some board members have business dealings with each other. Some of their children were hired at Hacienda. (Anglen, 2/19)

The Wall Street Journal: NYU To Open New Medical School On Long Island
New York University will open a three-year medical school on Long Island next fall, aimed at increasing the number of primary care physicians in the region. The new NYU Long Island School of Medicine will be based at NYU Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, with the first crop of students beginning this summer. They will be selected based in part on their commitment to training and practicing as primary care clinicians in the New York metropolitan area, and will receive full-tuition scholarships to pursue those careers regardless of financial need. (Korn, 2/19)

Chicago Tribune: The State Can't Stop The New Owners Of Westlake Hospital From Closing It. That Wasn't Always The Case. 
Despite community outrage over plans to close Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park, there’s little the state can do to stop it, because of a change in the law several years ago. The mayor of Melrose Park and area lawmakers revealed Friday night that the new owner of Westlake planned to close the hospital. Los Angeles-based Pipeline Health, which bought Westlake late last month, confirmed those plans Saturday, saying it intends to shutter the 230-bed hospital in the second quarter of this year. (Schencker, 2/19)

Iowa Public Radio: Advocates At Statehouse Disagree On Path To Prevent Female Genital Cutting
A Senate panel advanced a proposal Monday to make female genital cutting a crime in Iowa. The bill would also make it a felony to transport a minor out of the state for the procedure, which is performed in Africa and some parts of the Middle East and Asia. A House panel advanced the proposal last week.Everyone at Monday’s meeting agreed female genital cutting should be stopped, but advocates are divided on whether it should be criminalized. (Sostaric, 2/19)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Bill Would Create Massive Statewide DNA Database
Under Senate Bill 1475, which Sen. David Livingston, R-Peoria, introduced, DNA must be collected from anyone who has to be fingerprinted by the state for a job, to volunteer in certain positions or for a myriad of other reasons. The bill would even authorize the medical examiner's office in each county to take DNA from any bodies that come into their possession. (Burkitt, 2/19)

Arizona Republic: Controversial DNA Database Bill Scaled Back
A controversial bill that would have created a massive statewide database of DNA from a myriad of professionals, volunteers and even dead people has been scaled back. Sen. David Livingston, R-Peoria, the bill sponsor, has introduced an amendment to Senate Bill 1475 that would require DNA only from professionals who care for patients with intellectual disabilities in an intermediate care facility. (Burkitt, 2/19)

Denver Post: Denver Police Program To Help Addicts, Prostitutes Find Services Rather Than Arrest Them
Denver has launched a new program that aims to connect people accused of low-level drug possession and prostitution crimes with support services, rather than arrest them. Officials introduced the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion pilot program at a news conference Tuesday morning and they expect to serve 200 people over the next two years. It started on Jan. 22. (Hindi, 2/19)

Tampa Bay Times: Bill To Allow Overnight Ambulatory Surgical Center Stays Moves Forward In The Senate
A proposal to allow patients at ambulatory surgical centers to stay overnight was approved by the Senate Health Policy committee Tuesday, with a promise from its sponsor that she would not seek to further extend how long patients can remain at those facilities. Patients at ambulatory surgical centers can currently only stay for the duration of the day but SB 434, which was passed unanimously, would allow patients to stay at such centers up to 24 hours, enabling them to remain overnight. (Koh, 2/19)

Texas Tribune: Texas Prison Officials Contest Report That Says Heat Killed An Inmate Last Year
Last summer, Texas officials repeatedly asserted that sweltering temperatures inside uncooled prisons were being handled adequately and that all heat-related illnesses were minor. A recent state report on one inmate's death, however, says that he died from the heat. The prison system is contesting that report, claiming the cause of death is based on a preliminary autopsy finding by the medical examiner and that the inmate was housed in an air-conditioned cell. (McCullough, 2/19)

Boston Globe: Cambridge Health Alliance CEO Will Retire
The chief executive of Cambridge Health Alliance, Patrick Wardell, said Tuesday that he will retire this summer after more than 40 years of working in health care. Wardell announced his departure as Cambridge Health Alliance investigates the tragic death of Laura Levis, a 34-year-old woman who had an asthma attack and collapsed outside its hospital in Somerville in 2016. (Dayal McCluskey, 2/19)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: After Years Of Finding Cuyahoga County Jail In Compliance, State Inspectors Suddenly Find Jail Mostly Out Of Compliance
State inspectors, whose laudatory inspection reports of the Cuyahoga County Jail were called into question when a U.S. Marshals investigation uncovered “inhumane” conditions in December, suddenly found the jail out of compliance with numerous state regulations in the latest report this month. In the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections report, completed Feb. 11, state Jail Inspector Joel Commins found the jail non-compliant in 84 different aspects examined in the downtown facility, including 35 of the standards considered to be the most serious and another 49 that are rated as “important.” (Ferrise, 2/20)

Arizona Republic: Inmate Accused Prison Of Poor Treatment A Month Before Dying
Inmate Richard Washington, 64, sent a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit a month before he died, claiming he wasn't getting adequate medical treatment and worrying that it may kill him. The state’s Department of Corrections has faced criticism for more than a decade after being hit with a lawsuit over the health-care treatment of inmates. (Castle, 2/19)

New Hampshire Public Radio: N.H. Death Penalty Repeal Advocates Aim To Overcome Sununu’s Promised Veto
New Hampshire is again debating whether to repeal its death penalty. Dozens of people spoke in favor of the change at a lengthy legislative hearing Tuesday. The Granite State’s is the only death penalty left in New England. (Ropeik, 2/19)

The Baltimore Sun: AFL-CIO Opposes Johns Hopkins Bayview Expansion 
The AFL-CIO is opposing an expansion of the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center that would add another building to its campus and renovate existing structures. In a 25-page letter, the union organization called on the Maryland Health Care Commission to reject a Certificate of Need for the expansion for the project, which is required under state law to move forward. The group cited a number of problems it claims Bayview has, including a failure to comply with charity care requirements for low-income patients, proposed rate hikes to support the project, and quality of care issues. The AFL-CIO said Hopkins brought thousands of lawsuits against patients to collect medical debts. (Meehan, 2/19)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Marijuana: Most Top Ohio Officials Say They Haven't Tried It, Don't Want It Legalized For Personal Use
Four of Ohio’s six statewide officeholders say they’ve never smoked marijuana and all have concerns about legalizing marijuana here for recreational use. New Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague, Auditor Keith Faber and Secretary of State Frank LaRose said they have never used marijuana in response to a question at a Tuesday event sponsored by the Associated Press. Gov. Mike DeWine said last year he had never smoked marijuana. (Borchardt, 2/19)

Stat: With Insulin Prices Skyrocketing, There’s Plenty Of Blame To Go Around
But a thorough review of the drug’s nearly 100-year history reveals a much more complicated story: one that makes it clear that the drug makers, their generic counterparts, doctors, and, increasingly, the Food and Drug Administration itself all share blame for the broken insulin market. And while there are a slew of ideas being floated for solving this problem — everything from seizing drug patents to capping how much people with diabetes can pay out of pocket for insulin — multiple policy experts told STAT that creating generic competition is likely the key to bringing costs down for the more than 7.5 million Americans who rely on the drug. (Florko, 2/19)

The Hill: Drug Pricing Fight Centers On Insulin
Lawmakers are zeroing in on the skyrocketing cost of insulin and putting pressure on manufacturers as they work to address high drug prices. Congressional Democrats, Republicans and the Trump administration say that lowering drug prices is a priority, and drugmakers are on the hot seat. Insulin could prove an easy target in that push. The drug hasn’t changed much since it was first discovered nearly 100 years ago, and as newer forms of the drug have been introduced, the price has climbed. (Weixel, 2/20)

The Wall Street Journal: King Of Generics Pushes Into Biotech Drugs
The world’s largest maker of generic drugs is looking for growth in an unlikely place: high-price biotech medicines. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., which supplies more than one in 10 drugs taken in the U.S., has struggled in recent years with slumping generics prices and heavy debt. Forced to cut thousands of jobs and shut research facilities, the Israeli company is now turning to biotech drugs to revive its fortunes. (Roland, 2/13)

The Hill: High Stakes As Trump, Dems Open Drug Price Talks
Democrats and the Trump administration are beginning to hold talks on lowering drug prices as they look for a rare area of common ground. Both President Trump and congressional Democrats say that lowering drug prices is a priority, providing a potential area for bipartisan action in a government that is otherwise bitterly divided after a months-long fight over border security. But the political risks are high for both sides in a politically polarized atmosphere and with the 2020 elections rapidly approaching. (Sullivan, 2/16)

Stat: Here's How Prosecutors Say Generic Drug Makers Schemed To Fix Prices
In one case, an executive at a pharmaceutical company had an employee email a competitor to discuss strategy. In another, a drug maker allegedly struck a bargain with another so that each company could maintain its respective market share. And in yet another, prosecutors say, two pharma companies compared notes while simultaneously boosting prices of their drugs. Those details, and many others, are laid out in the unredacted complaint of a lawsuit filed by several states that alleged generic drug makers schemed to fix prices, according to a copy we obtained. (Silverman, 2/19)

Stat: Drug Company Payments For Consulting And Speaking Influence Oncologists’ Prescribing
As the pharmaceutical industry churns out more cancer treatments, a new analysis finds that oncologists who receive payments over an extended period of time — mostly for speaking or consulting — are much more likely to prescribe a medicine made by the company that writes them a check. The physicians treating kidney and lung cancer as well as chronic myeloid leukemia typically wrote more prescriptions for drugs made by a company that paid them over a three-year period, according to the findings, which were published in The Oncologist. However, a cause-and-effect relationship was not established and the same sort of association was not found among doctors who treated prostate cancer. (Silverman, 2/13)

Bloomberg: Novo Nordisk, Lilly, Sanofi Must Face Insulin Drug Pricing Suit
Novo Nordisk A/S and two other insulin makers must face claims they gouged diabetes patients through deceptive price lists for their life-saving drugs. U.S. District Judge Brian Martinotti in New Jersey on Friday allowed a proposed class-action lawsuit filed by 67 diabetics against Novo, Eli Lilly & Co. and the U.S. unit of French drugmaker Sanofi to proceed on consumer-fraud allegations tied to skyrocketing insulin prices. The judge threw out the plaintiffs’ racketeering claims. (Feeley and Langreth, 2/15)

FiercePharma: Under-Pressure Allergan Backs A CEO-Chairman Job Split—Just Not Right Now
Amid investor pressure to split up its CEO and chairman roles, embattled Allergan is giving in—but only a bit. Allergan will support an investor resolution to split up the jobs, the company said on Tuesday, shortly after hedge fund manager David Tepper renewed his demand that it do so. The catch? The split wouldn't happen until Allergan's next CEO rotation—meaning current CEO and Chairman Brent Saunders would keep wearing both hats. (Sagonowsky, 2/19)

Stat: Medicare Would Provide National Coverage For CAR-T Under New Proposal
Under a new proposal, the Medicare program would pay for expensive new cancer therapies known as CAR-T for patients across the country. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Friday released a so-called national coverage determination for the therapies that lays out exactly when, and for whom, Medicare will cover a given drug. The proposal specifies that Medicare will cover all FDA-approved CAR-T therapies as long as data is collected about how the patients fare, which could inform the government’s policies about paying for the therapy in the future. (Swetlitz, 2/15)

Stat: With One Manufacturer And Little Money To Be Made, Supplies Of A Critical Cancer Drug Are Dwindling
Drug shortages are alarmingly common in the U.S., with health care providers often scrambling to make do without sufficient supplies. Those shortages occur for any number of reasons — natural disasters at productions plants or surging demand caused by an outbreak, for instance. But there are also commercial forces at work. Companies have very little incentive to manufacture a drug like BCG. Although it’s been used to fight cancer since the 1970s, it isn’t easy to produce. And priced at a relatively modest $100-$200 a dose, it’s not a drug that companies are rushing to make, even if it’s no longer patented; right now, Merck is the only manufacturer for the U.S. and European markets. (Keshavan, 2/20)

Kaiser Health News: The High Cost Of Sex: Insurers Often Don’t Pay For Drugs To Treat Problems
For some older people, the joy of sex may be tempered by financial concerns: Can they afford the medications they need to improve their experience between the sheets? Medicare and many private insurers don’t cover drugs that are prescribed to treat problems people have engaging in sex. Recent developments, including the approval of generic versions of popular drugs Viagra and Cialis, help consumers afford the treatments. Still, for many people, paying for pricey medications may be their only option. (Andrews, 2/19)

Modern Healthcare: Gilead Accused Of Funneling Kickbacks To Providers To Boost Sales
The drugmaker Gilead Sciences has been hit with a whistle-blower suit accusing it of paying healthcare providers, government agencies and others organizations to boost sales of its hepatitis and HIV drugs. In an unsealed False Claims Act case in California federal court, a whistle-blower claimed Gilead's Frontlines of Communities in the United States program, which partners with other institutions to facilitate hepatitis and HIV screenings, resulted in billions of dollars in excess government spending. (Kacik, 2/14)

Stat: Alexion Agrees To Pay $13 Million For Illegally Using Charities To Pay Kickbacks To Medicare Patients
As federal authorities scrutinize relationships between drug makers and patient charities, Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN) is the latest company to agree to settle allegations that donations amounted to kickbacks paid to Medicare patients as a way to cover their out-of-pocket costs. In a recent regulatory filing, Alexion disclosed that it agreed last December to pay $13 million to resolve civil claims concerning payments made to Patient Services and the National Organization of Rare Disorders, which provide financial assistance to Medicare patients taking its medicines. (Silverman, 2/19)

Stat: NAFTA 2.0’s Impact On Drug Prices Is More Complicated Than Some Democrats Are Implying
At least two Democrats are concerned with a provision in a new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, that grants 10 years of exclusivity to biologic drugs, the AP reported Tuesday. The provision would bar companies from selling copycat biosimilar drugs in Mexico and Canada for a full decade after a drug company launches a branded biologic drug. Right now, biologics only get 5 and 8 years of exclusivity in Mexico and Canada. In the U.S., biologics already get 12 years of exclusivity. (Swetlitz, 2/15)

Stat: Hurricanes, Droughts, And Wildfires: How Biopharma Is Girding For Climate Change
Takeda predicts that climate change will help its Zika and Dengue fever vaccines find a larger market. Roche says it could ultimately make it attractive for the company to develop treatments for diseases like malaria. And AbbVie says extreme weather events might boost its immunology products. But the potential risks of climate change — and the attendant increase in natural disasters — stand to outstrip any of those incremental gains, as the companies described in recent risk assessment reports to the British nonprofit CDP. (Sheridan, 2/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Europe’s Pharmacies, Long Protected, Face Shake-Up
A drug war is raging in the heart of Europe—over pharmacies. Few businesses capture differences between Europe and the U.S. better than the humble drugstore. Today, people on both sides of the Atlantic are wired into U.S. giants Apple, Google and Netflix, and shop at European chains such as IKEA, H&M and Zara. But when it comes to personal care, contrasts abound, giving rise to an insurgency that is out to change Europe’s drugstore sector. (Michaels, 2/18)

Reuters: Mexico's Ruling Party Lawmakers Urge Capping Drug Prices
Lawmakers from Mexico’s ruling party plan to send a bill to Congress that would set maximum drug prices, aiming to improve accessibility for poor patients and bring costs in line with cheaper countries in the region. The proposal for new pharmaceutical regulations, which MORENA lawmakers announced on Sunday, says it seeks to ensure “affordable prices that are in touch with the economic reality” of Mexico. A source at the party said the bill will be introduced this week. (2/18)

Reuters: As Medical Costs Mount, Japan To Weigh Cost-Effectiveness In Setting Drug Prices
Japanese doctor Yasushi Goto remembers prescribing the cancer drug Opdivo to an octogenarian and wondering whether taxpayers might object to helping fund treatment, which at the time cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, for patients in their twilight years. (Umekawa, 2/18)

The Washington Post: Drug Prices Are Killing Diabetics. ‘Walmart Insulin’ Isn’t The Solution.
Insulin prices are killing people. A single vial, which lasts some users between one and two weeks, is priced over $300 — roughly triple what it cost in 2002. One in 4 diabetes patients have admitted to rationing the drug because of costs, and several have died after doing so. Much to the relief of insulin affordability advocates, who have been raising awareness about costs and pushing for policy changes, the public is increasingly aware of this crisis. But instead of working with advocates to rectify the situation, too many people are simply promoting older, cheaper insulin. This was evident in early February when a Facebook post touting “Walmart insulin” went viral. Such gestures come from a good place, but they put insulin-dependent people at greater risk and threaten to exacerbate the larger problem. (Audrey Farley, 2/19)

USA Today: On Insulin, Don’t Blame Drug Companies For High Prices
Today, Type 1 diabetes patients pay twice as much for insulin as they did in 2012. This is outrageous — but drug companies aren’t to blame. The problem is a dysfunctional supply chain that benefits everyone except patients. In today’s system, insurers hire third-party firms, known as pharmacy benefit managers, to manage drug plans. These PBMs negotiate with drugmakers and have the power to decide which drugs are covered by each plan. Each year, manufacturers dole out  $150 billion in rebates and discounts as a result of these negotiations. But patients rarely see these savings at the pharmacy counter. (Sally C. Pipes, 2/18)

The Wall Street Journal: How To Reduce Prescription-Drug Prices: First, Do No Harm
Everyone wants to reduce prescription drug prices, but how? First, do no harm. It’s true that Americans pay more for medication than just about anyone else: A 2018 report from the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers found that, as of 2009, the price per dose of patented drugs was five times as high in the U.S. as in foreign markets.Yet Americans get something in return—early access to lifesaving medications. (Scott W. Atlas, 2/13)

Bloomberg: Pharmaceutical Ads Should Be Required To Disclose Efficacy, Risks
President Donald Trump has proposed that drug ads on television disclose prices, and last week Johnson and Johnson declared that it would voluntarily do this for some ads. But that’s like treating a malignant growth with a Band-Aid. What consumers really need is usable information on whether drugs work. Instead television drug ads appeal to the emotions, playing on hope of relief from pain or other symptoms, fear of illness, or desire for youthful energy. Though the Food and Drug Administration is supposed to ensure that drugs show some efficacy, many approved drugs that seem to work miracles on TV performed only marginally better than placebos in clinical trials. Some are indirectly marketed for unapproved uses through awareness campaigns. Some come with a risk of serious side effects that television commercials bury amid long lists of minor ones. Also, what is the likelihood of each of these side effects? (Faye Flam, 2/13)

Stat: We Need A Public Domain Day For Drug Patent Expirations 
This Jan. 1, readers, archivists, and creatives in the United States celebrated a special holiday: the largest Public Domain Day in 21 years. The legal ownership of hundreds of works of classic literature — this year including well-loved Robert Frost poems like “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” — was transferred into the hands of the people. We suggest a plot twist: Let’s celebrate the same way when drug patents expire. (Peter Kochinsky and Jessica Sagers, 2/14)

Bloomberg: Drug Giants Can Save America Billions But Will They
Pharma and its drug-pricing practices have come under fire from critics on the right and left, and from lawmakers on Capitol Hill to Donald Trump’s White House. But amid the political bashing, here’s something that may come as a surprise: The industry managed to save taxpayers some money. That conclusion comes out of a recent study in Health Affairs from Harvard economist and Obamacare architect David Cutler, which sought to identify the reasons behind a mysterious slowdown in health-care spending among older Americans in recent years. He calculates that Medicare spending per beneficiary grew by 3.8 percent annually between 1992 and 2004 on an inflated-adjusted basis; since 2005, though, the growth rate has slowed to just 1.1 percent. In 2012 alone, spending was nearly $3,000 lower than expected. (Max Nisen, 2/15)

USA Today: Measles Outbreaks Underscore Risks Of Allowing Nonmedical Exemptions
Measles outbreaks continue to lacerate communities from coast to coast, and there's absolutely no reason for it. The latest involve dozens of new cases in New York and in Clark County, Washington, across the Columbia River from Portland.These shouldn't be happening. The highly contagious disease — which can lead to pneumonia and, in uncommon cases, to encephalitis or even death — was all but eradicated in 2000. (2/19)

The Washington Post: Darla Shine Doesn’t Get It. Childhood Illnesses Of Old Are No Joke.
Everyone has nostalgia for parts of our childhoods: spending summer days from sunrise to sunset outside playing with neighborhood kids, grandma’s cooking, television shows and movies. But last week Darla Shine, the wife of the White House communications director, expressed nostalgia for a strange part of her childhood: the diseases we now have vaccines for. (Bethany Mandel, 2/19)

Stat: Don't Villainize The Biopharma Industry. It Offers Hope To People Like Me
From my perspective as someone with a rare disease, the conversation about the biopharma industry — which is essentially “bad pharma” — appears scarily without nuance. I am not advocating on behalf of companies that act immorally, unethically, or illegally. But I don’t believe that the industry is villainous, as media coverage suggests. (Jean Walsh, 2/20)

The Washington Post: We Don’t Need Government-Run Health Care To Get To Affordable, Universal Coverage 
America can insure everyone without changing anyone’s existing health coverage. It won’t require replacing Obamacare with a single-payer, government-run system. Instead, we can build upon Obamacare with two simple, game-changing features: a universal cap on premiums and out-of-pocket expenses, and an automatic coverage system that places the uninsured in a plan they can depend on and afford. (David Kendall and Jim Kessler, 2/19)

Seattle Times: Single-Payer Health Care Is The Only Moral Prescription For America 
I am growing tired of practicing two versions of medicine: one for well-insured patients who receive all the doctor visits and prescriptions they want, and another for poorly insured patients who pay more out-of-pocket and work harder to get health care. If we want to address the moral crisis in our health-care system, it’s time we sign America’s much-needed prescription: single-payer now. (Devesh Madhav Vashishtha, 2/19)

The Washington Post: I Was Hospitalized For Depression. Faith Helped Me Remember How To Live. 
When the Dean of the Washington National Cathedral and I were conspiring about when I might speak, I think he mentioned Feb. 3 as a possibility. A sermon by me on that date would have been considerably less interesting because I was, at that point, hospitalized for depression. Or maybe it would have been more interesting, though less coherent.Like nearly one in 10 Americans — and like many of you — I live with this insidious, chronic disease. (Michael Gerson, 2/18)

The Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly.com: Hold EPA To Its Promise To Address Dangerous Threats To Drinking Water
Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s promise last week to attack a dangerous threat to drinking water may have sounded soothing to thousands of residents of Bucks and Montgomery Counties, who have lived with contaminated groundwater for decades. But as U.S. Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.) pointed out, Wheeler’s words cynically masked just another federal government dodge on cleaning up the toxic chemicals because he didn’t have a timeline and worse, the EPA did not even commit to actually setting safe standards for the toxic family of chemicals known as PFAS. (2/19)

The Washington Post: How Often Do You See Fruits And Veggies On Billboards? The Answer Depends On Who You Are And Where You Live.
Eric O’Grey, who lives in Rockville, gave me some advice for sticking with the new healthy eating plan I’ve started. Go all in on a whole-food, plant-based diet. And get a dog. That’s what he’d done: changed his diet, adopted a dog from a shelter and begun walking the new companion. He’d made the change in 2010, at age 51. At the time, he weighed 340 pounds. That’s considered morbidly obese for a man who stands 5-foot-10. “Tying my shoes would leave me out of breath,” he recalled. (Courtland Milloy, 2/19)

The Star Tribune: Minnesota Bill Would Counter Dangerous Vaccine Disinformation
Why are so many parents in Wadena and Renville counties putting their children at risk of contracting measles, polio and other serious but vaccine-preventable illnesses? With measles cases now confirmed in 10 states, there’s an urgency to ensuring that as many Minnesota kids as possible get potentially lifesaving childhood immunizations. Drilling down into county-by-county data provided by the state Department of Health is an alarming exercise. While 100 percent of kindergartners in three counties are fully vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella, others fall far short in protecting kids. (2/20)