The Wall Street Journal: Trump To Issue Executive Order On Health-Care Price Transparency
President Trump plans to issue an executive order Monday to compel the disclosure of prices in health care, according to people familiar with the matter. The order will direct federal agencies to initiate regulations and guidance that could require insurers, doctors, hospitals and others in the industry to provide information about the negotiated and often discounted cost of care, sources said. Consumers and employers will benefit because pulling back the secrecy around the prices will allow them to shop for lower cost care and benefits, advocates say. (Armour, 6/20)

In other news on the administration's efforts to lower costs —

The Wall Street Journal: Your Employee Health Plan Could Soon Look Like Your 401(k)
A landmark change will soon give more American workers control over their health-care coverage, but be warned: There are pitfalls. Beginning Jan. 1, 2020, companies can provide employees with tax-free dollars to purchase an individual policy rather than offer them a traditional group-health plan. The Trump administration laid out the final rules for the so-called Health Reimbursement Arrangements, or HRAs, just this month. (Saunders, 6/21)

The Washington Post: Trump Administration’s Abortion ‘Gag Rule’ Can Take Effect, Court Rules
A panel of federal appeals court judges ruled on Thursday that a Trump administration family planning “gag rule” that could cut as much as $60 million in Title X funds from Planned Parenthood could go into effect immediately. The decision is a major setback for the women’s health-care provider and for 21 state attorneys general who filed lawsuits shortly after the policy was published in March, arguing it would undermine the patient-provider relationship and endanger the health of millions of women. (Cha, 6/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Court Allows New Rules Blocking Family-Planning Funds For Abortion Providers
The court order, from the San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, hands a victory to the White House and social conservatives, and deals a blow in particular to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which has been the largest family-planning care provider under a federal program known as Title X. The Ninth Circuit generally is considered the nation’s most liberal appeals court, but the administration drew a favorable conservative panel for the case; all three judges who participated were appointed by Republican presidents. (Kendall, 6/20)

Politico: Appeals Court Says Trump Family Planning Restrictions Can Take Effect
A panel of three judges, all appointed by previous Republican presidents, said the administration will likely prevail in the legal battle over the Title X family planning program since the Supreme Court held up similar Reagan-era rules almost 30 years ago, though they were reversed by the Clinton administration before taking effect. "Absent a stay, HHS will be forced to allow taxpayer dollars to be spent in a manner that it has concluded violates the law, as well as the Government’s important policy interest in ensuring that taxpayer dollars do not go to fund or subsidize abortions," the judges wrote in a 3-0 opinion. (Ollstein, 6/20)

The Hill: Appeals Court Allows Trump Abortion Referral Ban To Take Effect
Title X grants fund clinics offering contraceptive services to low-income women and men across the country. It’s not clear when the changes will take effect. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not respond to a request for comment. “We are pleased that the Ninth Circuit has cleared the way for this important executive branch action to take effect while our appeals are pending," Department of Justice spokeswoman Kelly Laco said in a statement.  (Hellmann, 6/20)

USA Today: Trump Abortion Rules Can Take Effect, Federal Appeals Court Rules
In reversing those decisions, a three-judge panel in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco called the rules reasonable. The court, which has drawn Trump's ire in the past for blocking immigration orders, said the rules match a federal law prohibiting taxpayer funds from going to “programs where abortion is a method of family planning.” (Lam, 6/20)

Fox News: Appeals Court Lifts Injunctions On Family Planning Rules, In Win For Trump Administration
The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals -- which previously upheld separate nationwide injunctions on a range of Trump administration policies, including on immigration -- issued the order Thursday, giving a major victory to the Trump administration. “We are pleased that the Ninth Circuit has cleared the way for this important executive branch action to take effect while our appeals are pending,” Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco said. “The Department of Justice’s position is supported by long-standing Supreme Court precedent and we are confident we will ultimately prevail on appeal.” (Mears and Pappas, 6/20)

CNN: Abortion Clinic Referral Restrictions Can Take Effect, 9th Circuit Rules
"To find that the Final Rule's enactment was arbitrary and capricious, the district courts generally ignored HHS's explanations, reasoning, and predictions whenever they disagreed with the policy conclusions that flowed therefrom," the judges wrote in a 25-page opinion. "Title X is a limited grant program focused on providing pre-pregnancy family planning services -- it does not fund medical care for pregnant women," the opinion adds. "The Final Rule can reasonably be viewed as a choice to subsidize certain medical services and not others." (Berman, 6/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: Appeals Court In SF Restricts Family-Planning Funding, Abortion Referrals
The ruling was issued by a randomly selected panel made up of three of the court’s most conservative judges: Edward Leavy, Consuelo Callahan and Carlos Bea. Plaintiffs in the three lawsuits — California, 21 other states and Washington, D.C., along with medical and family-planning organizations — could ask the full appeals court for a rehearing. (Egelko, 6/20)

Modesto Bee: 9th Circuit Court Allows Trump Abortion Rule To Take Effect
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement that California would “continue our fight in court” against the rule, which he said prohibits “doctors and other medical providers from giving factual, unbiased information to patients.” Gov. Gavin Newsom also blasted the Thursday decision. (Amezcua, 6/20)

The Associated Press: Missouri Faces Deadline To Decide On Abortion Clinic License
The battle over Missouri's only abortion clinic is back in court Friday, the deadline a judge imposed for the state to decide whether to renew the clinic's license. Missouri's health department allowed the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic's abortion license to lapse effective June 1. Rulings by St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer allowed the clinic to temporarily remain open. (6/21)

The Associated Press: St. Louis Abortion Clinic To Defy State Over Pelvic Exam
Missouri's only abortion clinic, already facing the threat of losing its license, says it will defy the state by refusing to perform a required pelvic examination days before an abortion. Calling the exam requirement "disrespectful and dehumanizing," a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman confirmed that as of Thursday the St. Louis clinic no longer performs it during a consultation at least 72 hours before an abortion. Doctors do perform a pelvic exam at the time of the procedure. (6/20)

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin —

The Associated Press: Republicans Urge Wisconsin Governor To Sign Abortion Bills
Wisconsin Republican lawmakers and abortion opponents on Thursday called on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to sign four abortion bills he has promised to veto, holding a rally just a few feet outside of his Capitol office. Abortion-rights advocates dressed as characters from the dystopian novel and TV series "The Handmaid's Tale" mingled with abortion opponents on a balcony overlooking the rally, with each side holding opposing signs. Republican lawmakers turned the typically private, procedural step of signing the bills that passed the Legislature into a public ceremony to increase attention on the measures. (6/20)

The Associated Press: Migrant Children Describe Neglect At Texas Border Facility
A 2-year-old boy locked in detention wants to be held all the time. A few girls, ages 10 to 15, say they've been doing their best to feed and soothe the clingy toddler who was handed to them by a guard days ago. Lawyers warn that kids are taking care of kids, and there's inadequate food, water and sanitation for the 250 infants, children and teens at the Border Patrol station. The bleak portrait emerged Thursday after a legal team interviewed 60 children at the facility near El Paso that has become the latest place where attorneys say young migrants are describing neglect and mistreatment at the hands of the U.S. government. (Attanasio, Burke and Mendoz, 6/20)

ProPublica: Years Ago, The Border Patrol’s Discipline System Was Denounced As 'Broken.' It’s Still Not Fixed.
Perhaps the most far-reaching idea was to reclassify the more than 40,000 Border Patrol agents and customs officers as “national security employees,” just as all FBI agents and employees at a number of other Homeland Security agencies currently are. Taking away their status as civil servants, the thinking went, would make it easier to fire corrupt and abusive employees.It was, to be sure, an extreme measure. But the panel, a subcommittee of a larger Homeland Security advisory council, had been created late in President Barack Obama’s second term because U.S. Customs and Border Protection seemed in crisis, and the panel subsequently determined that the agency was plagued by a system that allowed bad actors to stay on the payroll for years after they’d engaged in egregious, even criminal, misconduct. (Thompson, 6/20)

Stat: Pharma CEOs Didn’t Show Up For A Scolding. So Progressives Shadowboxed
“Is Heather Bresch here?” The mock roll call from Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) was orchestrated largely in jest. In front of him stood six empty shares and an empty table, topped by six nameplates without faces to match. Bresch, the CEO of the generic drug maker Mylan, was not there. Nor were the other five pharmaceutical industry executives who progressive lawmakers had “invited” to testify, and whose names Pocan called out to be met by silence and snickers from a room of left-leaning drug pricing advocates. (Facher, 6/20)

Stat: After A Pharma Lobbying Blitz, Congress Softens Legislation On Drug Patents
Pharmaceutical companies appear to have succeeded in watering down legislation that would have made it harder for them to protect their medicines by accumulating patents — the latest win for the industry in Congress. The legislation was aimed at patent “thickets,” in which drug makers obtain a large number of patents to extend their pricing monopoly on any given medicine. The legislation is still in flux. (Florko, 6/21)

And in other pharmaceutical news —

Reuters: Merck CEO Sees Legal Challenge If U.S. Adopts Drug Pricing Based On Other Countries
Merck & Co Chief Executive Ken Frazier said on Thursday a rule to base the price the U.S. government pays for some prescription drugs in it Medicare program on lower prices in other countries would face legal challenges if adopted. U.S. President Donald Trump said last year that one way his administration would seek to lower drug costs to consumers could be through an international pricing index (IPI) that would determine what Medicare pays for certain medicines based on the prices set in a handful of other countries. A proposed version of the rule is expected in August. (6/20)

Stat: Europe Launches A Sweeping Effort To Study Drug Safety In Pregnancy
Drug companies, politicians, hospitals, doctors, and patients all agree that there isn’t nearly enough information about whether a given medicine is safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women to use or whether it will work. A sweeping new effort in Europe aims to change that by bringing all of those groups together to address a public health issue they say demands urgent attention. (Thielking, 6/21)

Modern Healthcare: Joint Commission Unveils Antibiotic Stewardship Programs For Outpatient Settings
The Joint Commission will now require ambulatory care centers to have antimicrobial stewardship programs to maintain accreditation. The new standards, which will go into effect Jan. 1, will impact outpatient facilities that "routinely prescribe antimicrobial medications," according to a commission report. The requirements are in line with similar standards the Joint Commission has for hospitals and nursing homes. Antimicrobial stewardship programs are used to mitigate antibiotic misuse which leads to antibiotic resistance. The CMS requires hospitals and nursing homes to have such programs for Medicare participation. (Castellucci, 6/20)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Pneumonia Signs And Treatment: New FDA Approval For Baxdela
The Food and Drug Administration has accepted a supplemental New Drug Application for pneumonia drug Baxdela. Baxdela, or delafloxacin, comes from Melinta Therapeutics, Inc. Its new priority review status from the FDA could expand treatment to include Baxdela for adult patients with community-acquired bacterial pneumonia. (Pirani, 6/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Congress Targets China’s Biotech Ambitions
Pentagon funding helped San Francisco startup Twist Bioscience Corp. get off the ground. Then the maker of synthetic DNA got a partner in China, where it now plans to expand manufacturing and set up a subsidiary with the money from its recent initial public offering. In effect, the Defense Department’s nearly $5 million in funding for Twist served as a small boost to China’s rising biotech industry, which will benefit from the firm’s presence and the manufacturing jobs it creates. (O'Keefe, 6/20)

The Hill: Democrat, Trump Nominee Have Fiery Exchange Over Abortion Rights For Rape Victims
President Trump's nominee to be the U.S. Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva sparred with the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday over whether rape victims should be allowed to have abortions. "Should victims of sexual violence be able to terminate the pregnancy where legal?," the committee's ranking member, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), asked nominee Andrew Bremberg, currently the director of the Domestic Policy Council for the White House. (Siegel, 6/20)

NPR: Regulators Resist Call For Action In Response To Black Lung Epidemic
The nation's top coal mine safety regulator told members of Congress Thursday that existing safety regulations are sufficient to protect miners from toxic dust, despite calls for change amid an epidemic of advanced black lung disease among coal miners in Appalachia. Assistant Secretary of Labor David Zatezalo, testifying before the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee, said sampling from coal mines shows a 99% compliance rate with rules designed to limit workers' exposure to silica, the dust blamed for the disease outbreak. (Berkes and Jingnan, 6/20)

The Washington Post: Luis Alvarez, 9/11 Responder Who Fought For Victim Fund With Jon Stewart, Moves To Hospice
In what he indicated was his final interview, Luis Alvarez’s message was simple: It’s time for the government to make things right. The retired New York Police Department detective and Ground Zero responder implored members of Congress last week to reauthorize funding for people injured or sickened as a result of the 9/11 attacks. His heart-wrenching testimony drew national attention, one day before what would have been his 69th chemotherapy session to treat Stage 4 cancer. He was diagnosed 16 years after he rushed to Ground Zero after the twin towers collapsed. (Brice-Saddler, 6/20)

The Washington Post: In Oklahoma, Opioid Case Windfall Starts Winners Squabbling
When Oklahoma settled a landmark lawsuit against drugmaker Purdue Pharma in March, the state and some of its cities looked on with irritation as nearly $200 million went to a new addiction treatment and research center at Oklahoma State University. The state, which Attorney General Mike Hunter was elected to represent, got nothing in the $270 million deal. Oklahoma’s more than 670 cities and counties, which have absorbed most of the emergency and health-care costs of the opioid epidemic, received just $12.5 million to divvy up. Neither had any say in the agreement, which gave about $60 million to private attorneys hired to work on the case. (Bernstein, 6/20)

CNN: OxyContin Manufacturer Purdue Pharma Maintains Its Innocence In Opioid Epidemic
David Sackler, whose family owns Purdue Pharma, is defending the company and his family against what he describes as "vitriolic hyperbole," saying they're not to blame for the opioid crisis ravaging the nation. In an extensive interview with Vanity Fair published Wednesday, Sackler insisted his family had nothing to do with the crisis even though their company unveiled and heavily marketed the drug OxyContin as a new, safe and effective opioid in the 1990s. (Karimi, 6/20)

Stat: FDA, Accused Of Being Too Lax In Approval Of Opioids, Outlines New Criteria
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday outlined the agency’s plans for weighing submissions for new opioid approvals, following criticism that the agency has been too lax in giving the green light to powerful new painkillers and calls for it to halt the approval of new opioids. In a draft guidance, the agency said that it planned to start comparing the safety and effectiveness of opioid medications up for approval against those of painkillers — both opioids and other types — already on the market. (Joseph, 6/20)

The Associated Press: US Appeals Court Says Judge Went Too Far On Drug Data Order
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a judge went too far in blocking release of federal data about how prescription opioids were distributed. A 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals three-judge panel on Thursday vacated an order by Cleveland-based U.S. District Judge Dan Polster to keep the Drug Enforcement Administration database and other case information sealed from the public. The panel wrote that Polster should follow proper legal standards in deciding what information could be withheld and why it would be harmful to release it. (6/20)

The Wall Street Journal: WHO Removes Opioid Guidelines After Report Claims Drug-Industry Influence
The World Health Organization has withdrawn two prescription guidelines for opioid painkillers after U.S. lawmakers alleged the guidance was influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. The WHO, which provides public-health policy guidance for world-wide use, said Wednesday it was discontinuing the guidelines “in light of new scientific evidence.” The move will also “address any issues of conflicts of interest of the experts that have been raised,” the organization said in a statement. (Calfas, 6/20)

North Carolina Health News: Opioid Bills At Odds With Each Other, Advocates Say
At the state General Assembly, there are two forces trying to stop opioid overdose deaths. But they seem at odds with each other. Prosecutors are concerned with stopping drug dealers and their ability to supply the drug market. Meanwhile, public health advocates are lobbying lawmakers in what they claim is the best interest of drug users’ health and safety. There are three pieces of opioid legislation moving through legislative committees right now. The first two encourage people who use opioids to call for help during an overdose and to protect themselves against infectious diseases and overdoses. (Knopf, 6/21)

Meanwhile, KHN has launched a new interactive tool in which to search individual prescribing habits by doctor name or associated hospitals —

Kaiser Health News: Surgeons’ Opioid-Prescribing Habits Hard To Kick
As opioid addiction and deadly overdoses escalated into an epidemic across the U.S., thousands of surgeons continued to hand out far more pills than needed for postoperative pain relief, according to a KHN-Johns Hopkins analysis of Medicare data. Many doctors wrote prescriptions for dozens of opioid tablets after surgeries — even for operations that cause most patients relatively little pain, according to the analysis, done in collaboration with researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. It examined almost 350,000 prescriptions written for patients operated on by nearly 20,000 surgeons from 2011 to 2016 — the latest year for which data are available. (Appleby and Lucas, 6/21)

Kaiser Health News: Opioid Operators: How Surgeons Ply Patients With Painkillers
Even as awareness of the opioid crisis grew, prescribing habits of surgeons changed very little from 2011 to 2016, found a data analysis by Kaiser Health News and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Our team looked at surgeons whose Medicare patients filled a prescription for opioids within a week of having one of seven common surgical procedures. (Lucas, 6/20)

Bloomberg: Colorado’s Ski Towns Could Fix The High Cost Of American Health Care
People who live and work 9,000 feet above sea level in Colorado’s ski-resort towns have long paid more for health care than almost anyone in the U.S. For years, local leaders from Summit County, home to the slopes of Breckenridge, decamped to Denver to plead for relief. The annual journey to the capital became a discouraging pilgrimage for Tamara Drangstveit. As executive director of a nonprofit that helped people sign up for health coverage, she watched premiums gobble up more of household budgets every year. From 2015 to 2019, the cost of a midlevel health plan for a single 40-year-old in Summit County more than doubled to $606 a month, 34% above the national average. (Tozzi and Recht, 6/21)

Modern Healthcare: Rising Prices Drive Estimated 6% Medical Cost Inflation In 2020
Medical costs are projected to rise 6% in 2020 as prices continue to swell and utilization stagnates, according to a new report. Despite employers' efforts to stem unnecessary care through high-deductible health plans, medical cost growth still outpaces general inflation, PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute's analysis of employer-sponsored healthcare spending found. The 2020 projection aligns with the average medical cost inflation over the past five years and is down from double-digit spikes in the 2000s. (Kacik, 6/20)

Modern Healthcare: AHIP Launches Social Determinants Initiative
Insurance lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans launched an initiative on Thursday to spark collaboration among health insurers to address the social factors that affect patients' health. The initiative—called Project Link—represents the health insurance industry's "commitment to addressing social determinants of health and how we can make a really important difference," AHIP CEO Matt Eyles told reporters at the annual AHIP Institute & Expo in Nashville, Tenn. (Livingston, 6/20)

Sacramento Bee: Often Lost In Health Care Debate, Lack Of Dental Insurance Impacts Millions
Although it can be tempting to skimp on dental care for those who lack insurance, untreated dental problems can lead to other health complications and higher medical costs, said Evelyn Ireland, executive director of the National Association of Dental Plans. A 2014 study by the group showed that when adult Medicaid recipients had preventive dental care, medical costs for seven chronic health conditions, such as diabetes and coronary heart disease, were lower by 31% to 67%. (Amaro and Hayden, 6/20)

Georgia Health News: Market In Pre-Owned Diabetic Strips Worries Experts
People who have strips that they don’t need may want to sell them, so those who need them can buy them.They resell them via online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Craigslist. Even a search for “diabetes test strips” on social media sites such as Facebook brings up a number of groups and posts offering to buy or sell the strips. This flourishing secondhand commerce is catching the attention of manufacturers, patients’ advocates and federal health officials. (Gu, Herbert, Jones and Thomas, 6/20)

The Associated Press: California Assembly Committee Backs Vaccine Exemption Law
A California Assembly committee backed new rules for vaccination exemptions on Thursday following a raucous, hours-long hearing in the midst of a national measles outbreak and renewed scrutiny of immunization policies. The 9-2 vote showed support among lawmakers for a modified version of legislation that has spurred heated debate. But the vote also showed division within the Assembly’s Democratic majority. (Oxford and Thompson, 6/20)

Sacramento Bee: Vaccine Bill Would Increase Oversight Of California Doctors
After facing bipartisan scrutiny in a nearly six-hour hearing, the bill passed through the Assembly Health Committee on a 9-2 vote, with four members abstaining. It now heads to Assembly Appropriations, chaired by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, a co-author of the bill. If signed into law, the proposal carries a $50.5 million total price tag for the next five years. State Sen. Richard Pan, a Sacramento Democrat who authored the bill, said SB 276 is necessary to crack down on “unscrupulous” doctors that are issuing “fraudulent” medical exemptions and would strengthen a 2015 law he also wrote that eliminated personal beliefs from a list of reasons to skip vaccinations. (Wiley, 6/20)

The Associated Press: Hundreds Likely To Weigh In On California Vaccine Measure
Hundreds of people were expected to weigh in Thursday on changes to California legislation that would give public health officials oversight of doctors who grant a high number of vaccination exemptions. The hearing of the Assembly Health Committee is likely to draw those opposed to vaccines as well as white-coated medical professionals and students voicing support for the measure. Critics shouted “we will not comply” inside the Senate last month as lawmakers voted on the legislation. (Thompson, 6/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Bill To Limit Vaccine Exemptions In California Draws Protests
[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] rallied opponents of the new California bill on the Capitol steps ahead of the hearing Thursday. He called the proposal a “momentous bill that is going to affect the lives of millions of people in this state and particularly the most vulnerable children in this state.” At the rally, children gathered on top of a large piece of paper and wrote messages in colored pens addressed to Mr. Newsom, calling on him to veto the legislation. Rebecca Goddard, who traveled from the Orange County city of Mission Viejo to attend the rally in Sacramento, said her 12-year-old son suffers impaired cognitive development that she attributed to vaccinations. (Lazo and Millman, 6/20)

CNN: Measles Outbreak: Summer Camps Requiring Vaccinations
Each summer, as Lauren Rutkowski and her husband Joel await the arrival of energized, sun-kissed children for their seven-week camp, the couple surveys the canoes and paddleboards, the arts and crafts, the food menus -- and every camper's vaccination records. Measles outbreaks in the United States continue to grow, rising to 1,044 cases nationwide so far this year. In response, more camp owners and the camping industry are urging families to follow vaccination policies. (Howard, 6/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Gun Makers Adjust Rifles To Skirt Bans
California first banned the sale of guns it calls assault weapons, including AR-15 style rifles, in 1989, then updated the restrictions in 1999 and again in 2016. An accused shooter used just such a gun last month to attack a synagogue outside San Diego, killing one and injuring three. He bought it earlier this year in California where, despite the state ban, it is legal, according to law-enforcement officials. The AR-15 style rifle that John Earnest, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, is accused by police of using was one of many models the firearms industry has come up with to skirt the regulations put in place by the seven states that outlaw semiautomatic weapons with certain features, which they refer to as assault weapons. (Elinson and McWhirter, 6/21)

In other news on gun safety —

NH Times Union: Some NH Chiefs Still Signing Gun Licenses, Police Say
Northwood Police Chief Glen Drolet’s decision to stop signing state pistol/revolver licenses when he issues them landed him in court Tuesday and raised questions about how other New Hampshire police departments handle licensing. “The way I see it, I wouldn’t want to be the officer in one of those states looking at an unsigned government-issued form trying to figure out if it’s valid,” Newfields police Lt. Michael Schwartz said Wednesday. Like other New Hampshire police chiefs, Schwartz said the Newfields chief still signs gun licenses when they’re issued. (Schreiber, 6/19)

NPR: Russian Biologist Seeks To Edit Genes Of Human Embryos With CRISPR
A Russian scientist says he wants to create more genetically modified babies, flouting international objections that such a step would be premature, unethical and irresponsible. Denis Rebrikov, a molecular biologist who heads a gene-editing lab at the Kulakov National Medical Research Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology in Moscow, claims he has developed a safe — and therefore acceptable — way to create gene-edited babies. (Stein, 6/21)

The Washington Post: Robotic Duck Helps Kids With Cancer Explain What They Are Feeling
It was hard enough that Savi Abdallah-Sinha was only a 2-year-old when he began undergoing chemotherapy treatment to rid his body of leukemia. What made his situation even more difficult, his parents say, was knowing that the little boy was so young he lacked the words to communicate the many varieties of acute pain he was experiencing. Each time a new drug was introduced or a round of treatment completed, the boy’s inner world remained largely mysterious to the adults caring for him. (Holley, 6/20)

Stat: Federally Funded Research Drives One-Third Of New Patents, Report Finds
As researchers bemoan cuts in federal funding for basic science, a new study of millions of patents indicates the value of spending tax dollars on research. Ever since the great push for technological innovation during World War II and immediately afterward, the U.S. government has played an important role in fueling scientific research and innovation. About 10% of NIH grants now directly result in patents, and some commentators have argued that some industrial breakthroughs like the iPhone owe a great deal to government-funded research. (Flaherty, 6/20)

CNN: CDC Says 2018-19 Flu Season Was Unusual If Not As Bad As The Previous Deadly Season
Lasting 21 weeks, the 2018-19 flu season was not only the longest in a decade, it was unusually marked by two separate waves of influenza A sickness, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Thursday in a new report. An H1N1 strain dominated during an initial surge between October through mid-February, followed by a groundswell of H3N2 activity beginning in mid-February and lasting through mid-May, the CDC said. The H3N2 strain is known to cause more severe symptoms than H1N1. (Scutti, 6/20)

PBS NewsHour: A Universal Flu Vaccine Could Finally Be Within Sight
Influenza is a shape-shifter virus that could spark a global pandemic. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health are working to deliver what is referred to as The Holy Grail in the fight: a universal flu vaccine that could protect against all strains of the virus. (Brangham and Kane, 6/20)

The Wall Street Journal: It’s Okay To Feel Ambivalent About Your Children
Unlike many of his friends, Paul, a divorced 43-year-old publisher in Brooklyn, wasn’t nervous about having children. But now that he has them—two daughters, ages 13 and 3—he regularly finds himself fantasizing about how great life would be without them. (Parents’ names have been changed throughout to protect privacy.) He feels terrible, he says, but he misses the freedom that he once had. He struggles with what he calls “the constant clutching and neediness and lack of ability to concentrate on anything else.” In the case of his older daughter, he finds himself unable to stop comparing her to other children that he feels he likes better, which amplifies his feelings of disconnection and guilt. (Drexler, 6/21)

Los Angeles Times: Men Are Expected To Be ‘Strong Silent Types’ — And It’s Breaking Them, Says Henry Rollins
In "The Man They Wanted Me To Be," Jared Yates Sexton explores the culture of toxic masculinity in America. To this day, toxic masculinity permeates offices, factories, highways, bars, locker rooms and pretty much anywhere else American men have taken it upon themselves to be strong, silent and seemingly impervious to the day-to-day brutalities they have invented and inured themselves to. This myth of the seemingly inalienable right to dominance and control perpetrated by men, especially by white males, has myriad catastrophic downsides. (Rollins, 6/20)

CNN: Where Ancient Herbs Are Boosting Modern Medicine
Karen Kwai-Ching Li, known as KC, has lived in fear of her osteosarcoma, a cancer of the bone, for almost 28 years. She was diagnosed in 1991, at the age of 10, but failed medication over two months resulted in her tumors spreading, leading to an amputation of her leg. After the surgery and six rounds of chemotherapy, she went into remission. Using her prosthetic leg to get around, she continues to see Dr. Godfrey Chan, a pediatric oncologist at Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong, to monitor her recovery and ensure that the cancer doesn't return. (Senthilingam, 6/19)

The New York Times: About The Idea That You’re Growing Horns From Looking Down At Your Phone … 
You may be hunched over your phone right now, worrying about reports that young people are growing horns on their skulls from spending too much time hunched over smartphones. O. K., cellphones are making us rude and inattentive, but medical experts don’t totally buy the idea that technology is also warping our skeletons. The area of concern is the back of the skull where it meets the neck, a place that already has a slight, normal bump that’s easy to feel. Two Australian researchers say they have found enlargements, or bone spurs in that region, anywhere from a third of an inch to more than an inch long. (Grady, 6/20)

NPR: Health Trainers Help Patients Stay Well In Rural Communities Far From A Doctor
Gary and Celeste Havener live 40 miles outside of Laramie in southeast Wyoming. They spend a lot of their time growing vegetables and riding horses across the prairie. A few weeks ago, Celeste fell off her horse. "[I] had a very ungraceful dismount and tweaked my knee pretty good," Celeste says. Afterwards, she lay on the ground for a while, trying to figure out how hurt she was. But she was also wondering if a visit to the closest doctor in Laramie was worth it. (Mullen, 6/20)

The New York Times: When My Mother Forgot Me
On the day my mother forgot I existed, I sat across from her in a small cafe in the Berkshires, watching her sip her cappuccino and delicately tear off a piece of the croissant we were sharing. As she looked up and met my eyes agreeably and impersonally, I worked to get my bearings in this new world. Ten minutes earlier, when we were driving here, she had told me she couldn’t remember how we’d met. This was two years after my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. (Neuman, 6/21)

Stat: The 23 Best Health And Science Books To Read This Summer
The first day of summer has arrived, and so has STAT’s annual book list of great reads in health, science, and medicine. Read on for recommendations from CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna and CDC Director Robert Redfield. Plus, STAT readers from Boston to Ireland to Australia share their picks, in addition to our staff. Enjoy! (Mupo, 6/21)

The New York Times: DNA Microscope Sees ‘Through The Eyes Of The Cell’
Peering inside cells has been an integral part of biology ever since the 17th century, when cells were discovered under a microscope. But even with advances in light and electron microscopy, researchers who want to understand where various molecules are inside a cell — and thus how cells like neurons, immune cells and tumors differ from one another — can glean only so much. Now, scientists have come up with a new way to capture what’s going on in there. (Sheikh, 6/20)

Stat: A New ‘DNA Microscope’ Peers Deep Inside Living Cells
Joshua Weinstein of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard spent the last six years almost singlehandedly working to fulfill that wish, and on Thursday he unveiled the result: a “DNA microscope” that shows not only the locations of DNA (and its cousin, RNA) in a cell but also the precise nucleotide-by-nucleotide identity of each molecule. (Begley, 6/20)

The New York Times: Would You Return This Lost Wallet?
It’s obvious: Someone finding a lost wallet is less likely to return it if money is inside, right? That’s what top economists, as well as regular people, usually predict, given what most of us assume about human nature. But according to a clever new study involving thousands of people in 40 countries, what most of us assume about human nature is wrong. The three-year study, possibly the largest real-world test of whether people behave honestly when given incentives not to, found they are actually more likely to return lost wallets containing money. And the more money, the better the chances people will return it. (Belluck, 6/20)

The Associated Press: Lost Wallet? More Cash Means You're Likelier To Get It Back
"The evidence suggests that people tend to care about the welfare of others, and they have an aversion to seeing themselves as a thief," said Alain Cohn of the University of Michigan, one author who reported the results Thursday in the journal Science. Another author, Christian Zuend of the University of Zurich, said "it suddenly feels like stealing" when there's money in the wallet. "And it feels even more like stealing when the money in the wallet increases," he added. That idea was supported by the results of polls the researchers did in the U.S., the U.K. and Poland, he told reporters. (6/20)

Los Angeles Times: Experiment With ‘Lost’ Wallets Reveals That People Are Surprisingly Honest
The findings could help shape policies that encourage conscientious behavior in a range of situations, researchers said. The Internal Revenue Service could design its forms in a way that discourages people from cheating on their taxes, for example, while insurance companies could change the way they collect information about a car accident so that lying becomes less appealing. (DeMarco, 6/20)

Stateline: Finding Foster Families For Teens Is A Challenge In Many States
Levi Zwick-Tapley first entered foster care when he was 3, after police found him rummaging through the trash at a campground in Iowa. He was adopted — briefly — when he was 10. But then his adoptive mother, struggling with issues of her own, gave him up for good. So Zwick-Tapley spent his teen years bouncing from group home to group home, ricocheting between Iowa and Colorado. After he aged out of foster care, he worked in a group home because he wanted to help kids like him. (Wiltz, 6/20)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohio House Approves Spending $11 Million To Reduce Infant Mortality, Preterm Births
With an eye on decreasing the state’s high infant mortality rate, the Ohio House passed a bipartisan bill Thursday that would expand smoking cessation, dental visits and health and lead education. House Bill 11, sponsored by Northeast Ohio Reps. Gayle Manning, a Republican from North Ridgeville, and Stephanie Howse, a Cleveland Democrat, passed unanimously. It now heads to the Senate. (Hancock, 6/20)

The Oregonian: As Mental Health Crisis Continues, Lawyers Appeal Judge’s Indecisive Contempt Ruling
Attorneys are contesting a federal judge’s decision not to hold Oregon in contempt of court over its treatment of mentally ill defendants, saying the judge’s decision to wait three months before issuing a final opinion was wrongheaded and leaves people jailed in violation of their rights. (Friedman, 6/20)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: PrEP Fights HIV But Many Gay, Black Men In Milwaukee Aren't On It.
PrEP can stop HIV from establishing itself in the body if the medicines are used as prescribed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If taken daily, the treatment is more than 90% effective at preventing the spread of HIV from sexual contact. Combined with condom usage, the odds are even better. (Causey, 6/20)

The Associated Press: Phoenix Facility Where Woman Was Raped Losing Medicaid Funds
U.S. officials have told the long-term care facility where an incapacitated woman was raped and gave birth last year that it will lose Medicaid funding. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told Hacienda HealthCare this week that its participation in the program will end July 3. It says in a letter that Hacienda corrected some practices but remains out of compliance in other areas. (6/20)

Arizona Republic: Hacienda HealthCare To Lose Its Medicaid Contract
Less than a week after a report that maggots were discovered near the surgical incision of a patient, the federal government says it will terminate Hacienda HealthCare's Medicaid contract. Hacienda HealthCare officials say they are working with government oversight officials to determine the best path forward. (Innes, 6/20)

Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Psychiatrist Not Liable In Woman's Suicide, Supreme Court Rules
Williamson County psychiatrist Jerry Wilson knew his ex-girlfriend, Christina Cotten, had attempted suicide in his home months before – and didn't disclose it to her doctor. He knew she was taking medication for anxiety and depression and that a custody battle for her child was making her mental state worse. Still, despite his expertise in psychiatry and knowing the risk of having guns around people with mental health issues, he showed her the gun he kept in his home, just weeks before Cotten killed herself with it. (Sauber, 6/20)

Health News Florida: UF To Study Kratom Effects, Safety
In the United States, kratom – marketed as a dietary or herbal supplement – is consumed in a powdered form in capsules or tea. It has grown in popularity as users swear by its effect on chronic pain, fatigue, and more. But regulators have expressed concerns about the safety of the drug since it was introduced to the U.S. in the 1990s. (Miller, 6/20)

The Associated Press: Connecticut Man Charged With Assisting Wife’s Suicide
A Westbrook man helped his cancer-stricken wife to die by suicide and now faces manslaughter charges, state police said. Kevin Conners, 65, told investigators that he held a revolver to the head of his wife, Lori, 62, who pulled the trigger on Sept. 6, according to the arrest warrant. Conners turned himself in at a state police barracks Thursday and posted $50,000 bail, authorities said. He is scheduled to make a court appearance Friday. A phone message was left at a number listed for his home address. (6/20)

The Baltimore Sun: Ambulance Company That Won Big Baltimore Contract To Pay $1.25 Million To Settle Medicaid Fraud Case
An ambulance company the city of Baltimore hired last year, despite objections that it was the subject of a federal investigation, has agreed to pay $1.25 million to resolve allegations it defrauded Medicare thousands of times, federal authorities said Thursday. Hart to Heart was first accused in 2013 by a former employee of billing for unnecessary ambulance rides. The settlement resolves a lawsuit brought by the employee and joined by the federal government. It doesn’t require Hart to Heart to admit liability. (Duncan, 6/20)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cuyahoga County Shelter Found Homes For 300 Women During First 12 Months Under YWCA Management
Cuyahoga County’s only publicly funded shelter for single women found homes for 300 women during its first 12 months under the management of the YWCA, an increase of more than 230 percent, shelter officials said.In a meeting with cleveland.com, the YWCA administrators also reported that they recently hired a staffer that will focus solely on helping the women adjust to life in their homes and avoid returning to the shelter. (Astolfi, 6/20)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento County Settles ‘Inhumane’ Jail Conditions Lawsuit
Sacramento County has settled a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by inmates who alleged “inhumane” conditions at county jails, agreeing to make millions of dollars’ worth of changes to jail staffing, facilities, mental health services and custodial practices. The lawsuit, filed last July by Prison Law Office and Disability Rights California, alleged the county’s two jails confined inmates in “dangerous, inhumane and degrading conditions” and subjected inmates “to harsh, prolonged, and undue isolation.” (Yoon-Hendricks, 6/20)

ProPublica: Their Father Speaks Spanish. Their Foster Parents Raised Them To Speak Slovak.
When his son was born in 2014, Jorge Matias held the infant in the hospital and sang him the lullabies he had learned as a child in Guatemala. He teased the boy’s mother that he would raise their son to speak Spanish, and one day the two of them would talk in secret around her. But the boy was born with heroin in his system and, when it cleared from his body, Illinois child welfare officials placed him in a foster home. To get his son back, Matias had to complete a long list of requirements, including ending his relationship with the boy’s mother, a heroin addict.Matias visited the boy at his caseworker’s office, changed diapers and learned to prepare a bottle. He documented his son’s growth with photos and videos on his cellphone. (Sanchez and Eldeib, 6/20)

Miami Herald: Where Can Growing Number Of Elderly Sex Offenders Live In FL?
Albertson is among a growing number of elderly sex offenders in Florida. People on Florida’s list of 73,000 registered offenders who are 65 and older jumped 2 percentage points between 2015 and 2016, according to the state’s legislative auditors, the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability. Florida’s registry has about 10,200 elderly offenders.The problem is sparking a national crisis of social and justice policy: How and where do we allow the most-reviled class of citizens to survive their silver years — especially those with serious age-related medical problems — after they have served their prison terms, while striving to protect children who may be living nearby? (Kornfield, 6/20)

Miami Herald: Florida Man, An RN, Admits Stealing Drugs From Employers
A former director of nursing at a St. Petersburg senior living facility admitted that all the drugs he used to satisfy his addiction were stolen from employers. That’s according to the Florida Department of Health’s Emergency Restriction Order (ERO) on 43-year-old Marc Green’s registered nurse license. (Neal, 6/20)

The Atlantic: Juul’s New Marketing Is Straight Out of Big Tobacco’s Playbook
Out of a firestorm of controversy over teen nicotine use, Juul Labs emerged in January with a newly sober and adult marketing identity. Forget the fruit-flavored vaping pods, the former colorful ads populated with young models, the viral Instagram and Facebook posts. What the Silicon Valley e-cigarette giant is really about, its $10 million television ad campaign declares, is helping cigarette smokers shake their cigarette addictions and get healthy. (Annika Neklason, 6/20)

The Cut: The Best Abortion Ever
n the rural California county where I live, there’s a decent chance of a tree falling over onto my house (this has happened to several friends), an even better one of contracting the measles (we have one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country), and, until very recently, a zero percent chance of getting an abortion. The year I was 41, I needed two of them. I was no stranger to abortions; I’d had two before, but never in the same year. In fact, 30 percent of the times I had sex in 2011, I got pregnant. So there I was in November, having already aborted 50 percent of that year’s pregnancies, hoping to make it a nice round 100 percent. I just had to decide how. (Sarah Miller, 6/19)

Vox: Abortion Laws In Maine, Rhode Island And Elsewhere Expand Access
While near-total abortion bans like those in Georgia and Alabama have captured a lot of attention, several states are moving in the opposite direction. (Anna North, 6/20)

Wired: Hospitals Aren’t Ready For A Mass Casualty Wildfire
Of all the wildfires that ravaged California in 2018, the Camp Fire was the deadliest. It tore through the mountain town of Paradise and killed at least 85 people, destroying the local Feather River Hospital along the way—so just as emergency services were trying to evacuate and tend to the injured, they also had to transport admitted patients. (Adam Rogers, 6/19)

The Washington Post: Suicides Are At An All Time High. We Need Hope More Than Ever.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a report that is the closest thing we have to the quantification of despair. Between 1999 and 2017, suicide rates in the United States rose to their highest level since World War II. The increase can be found among women and men, and in every racial and ethnic group. But the spike among people between the ages of 15 and 34 is particularly disturbing. Hopelessness among the young seems a more direct assault on hope itself. Researchers posit that the opioid epidemic may be partly to blame. Just as a family can be decimated by an overdose, a sense of general despair may take root in communities where overdose deaths are common and visible. (Michael Gerson, 6/20)

The Hill: How To Help Youth Currently In Suicide Distress
A report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicated a 30 percent increase in suicides in the U.S. between the years 2000 and 2016. While there are rising rates in all age groups, youth, between the ages of 15 and 24, are of particular concern; and the causes are likely complex. Increases in social media use, anxiety, depression, as well as the opioid epidemic are all potential and interweaving contributors. While researchers work to better identify which risk factors are contributing most to the uptick, we need to help the youth currently in suicide distress. Suicide prevention is a national public health priority. (Joan Cook, 6/20)

The Washington Post: Kids’ Anxiety Can Spike During The Summer. Here’s Why, And What Parents Can Do To Help.
An 8-year-old girl sits on my couch, squeezing a stress ball and staring out the window. She’s feeling anxious. I am a psychotherapist, and I talk her through a deep breathing exercise to help her feel less anxious, but she can’t stop thinking about her worries. She tells me that she has 18 days left of school, and that it’s not nearly enough. With the end of the school year approaching, it’s natural to think that she might be relieved. She made it through another year. (Katie Hurley, 6/20)

Stat: Toxic Stress: The Other Health Crisis Politicians Should Be Talking About
At nearly 50,000 deaths each year, the opioid epidemic is shaping up to be the central public health issue of the 2020 presidential election. From President Trump on the right with a declaration of national emergency to Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the left with a 10-year, $100 billion plan to fight addiction, the candidates are racing to outdo each other on one of the few issues that transcends our polarized politics. (Jim Hickman, 6/21)

The Wall Street Journal: What Does Beijing Want With Your Medical Records?
Why would China steal the personal medical information of nearly 80 million Americans? That’s been the question since the Justice Department unsealed an indictment of two Chinese nationals for the 2015 hacking attack on Anthem, the health-care giant. Chinese cybercriminals have stolen all sorts of trade secrets from U.S. companies over the past decade or more, ranging from weapons blueprints to details for manufacturing solar panels. The thefts have been wide-ranging, but they’ve shared a common target: technical data and records that could give Beijing an economic or military advantage over its global rivals. (Christopher Porter and Brian Finch, 6/20)

New England Journal of Medicine: Abortion Rights In Peril — What Clinicians Need To Know
This year, 2019, has become a critical time for abortion rights, with an unprecedented surge of abortion bans sweeping across the United States. Through June 1, some 26 abortion bans have been enacted in 12 states, and many more have been introduced by state legislators.Yet state efforts to undermine abortion rights and access have been under way since the 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton affirmed the constitutional right to abortion. (Elizabeth Nash, 6/19)

Austin American-Statesman: The Right Is Coming For Birth Control, Too
If you had any doubt about where the renewed state-by-state arguments over abortion will creep, take heed. Women’s access to contraception, their right to determine if and when they will have children − not to mention their sexuality in general − will be swept up in the rush to see which state can send a case to the U.S. Supreme Court first with the hope of overturning Roe v. Wade. (Mary Sanchez, 6/19)

USA Today: My Doctor Colleagues Rejected Medicare For All So I'm Rejoining The AMA
A decade ago, I publicly relinquished my membership in the American Medical Association when it came out in support of the Affordable Care Act. I felt my colleagues were blindly favoring an insurance expansion that would jeopardize quality of care and add to a physician’s growing bureaucratic burden, while not guaranteeing access to actual health care amid prohibitive deductibles and narrow care network. I was right. Don’t get me wrong, there are many things about Obamacare that I now like, including the Medicaid expansion, the funding and expansion of federally qualified health centers in undeserved areas, and a team approach to health care delivery (Accountable Care Organizations). In fact, these parts of the law have worked out better than I anticipated. (Marc Siegel, 6/19)

The Hill: Fixing Health-Care Cronyism — Intentional And Unintentional
Have you noticed Americans’ health-care choices are continuing to shrink? Hanlon’s Razor states one should “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,” but is that the case here? Over the past several decades, a combination of laws and exemptions from existing laws have effectively crushed consumer freedom in the health-care industry. One of the biggest culprits is a kind of state-based regulatory scheme known as “certificate of need” (CON). (Dr. Chad Savag, 6/20)

JAMA: Putting The New Alzheimer Disease Amyloid, Tau, Neurodegeneration (AT[N]) Diagnostic System To The Test
The field of neurodegenerative dementias, particularly Alzheimer disease (AD), has been limited by challenges in accurate diagnosis, but has recently been potentially revolutionized by the development of imaging and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers. These biomarkers have influenced the diagnostic evaluation of symptomatic patients with cognitive impairment or dementia, particularly in dementia subspecialty practice. The primary biomarker modalities include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and CSF. (David Wolk, Stephen Salloway,  and Brad Dickerson, 6/18)

Miami Herald: High-Capacity Magazines Hold More Than 100 Cartridges. A Gunman Would Have To Switch Magazines As Often.
As bad as the pace and scope of the nation’s mass shootings have become, with death tallies sometimes counted in the dozens, chances are good that they are only going to get worse. And you can blame gun manufacturers and firearms enthusiasts who are driving a market for ever-larger high-capacity gun magazines. The Trace reports that firearms accessory manufacturers “have developed a new generation of high-capacity magazines,” some holding 100 or more cartridges, meaning a gunman can more easily fire that many bullets before having to switch magazines. (Scott Martelle, 6/18)