State Highlights: Pa. School District Threatens Parents With Foster Care Over Unpaid Meals; Some Covered California Consumers Will See Rates Drop

The New York Times: Children Face Foster Care Over School Meal Debt, District Warns
A school district in eastern Pennsylvania faced criticism after sending letters this month to more than three dozen parents warning that if their debt for school meals was not paid, their child could be placed in foster care. “Your child has been sent to school every day without money and without a breakfast and/or lunch,” read the letter, which was signed by Joseph Muth, director of federal programs for the Wyoming Valley West School District. “This is a failure to provide your child with proper nutrition and you can be sent to Dependency Court for neglecting your child’s right to food. If you are taken to Dependency court, the result may be your child being removed from your home and placed in foster care.”A warning letter that was sent to those whose child owed $10 or more for school meals. (Taylor, 7/20)

Augusta Chronicle: Report Finds More Georgia Kids Missing Summer Meals
The number of kids in summer meal programs declined sharply in one year, according to a recent report. Golden Harvest Food Bank is doing its part by stepping up its mobile pantry program for needy families. (Corwin, 7/20)

Sacramento Bee: Covered CA: Sacramento Area To See 1.8 Percent Rate Increase
Covered California on Friday released the estimated 2020 rate changes for health insurance in each of its 19 pricing regions, and residents of the four-county Sacramento region will see average increases of 1.8 percent on the individual marketplace. That means premiums will actually drop slightly for some local consumers. (Anderson, 7/19)

The Star Tribune: Minn. Doctors Welcome Trump's Challenge On Kidney Disease 
Meeting the goal, a 25% reduction by 2030, would spare thousands of people from time-consuming dialysis and conserve the desperately short supply of donor organs that leaves transplant patients waiting for years. It also would save lives and some of the $35 billion in federal spending on this population, which makes up 1% of Medicare recipients but 7% of the program’s budget. Minnesota physicians and advocates praised last week’s challenge by President Donald Trump to improve treatment — noting that it was one of the first times a president has focused on kidney disease since the decision in 1972 to extend Medicare benefits to all kidney patients who needed dialysis or transplants. (Olson, 7/21)

San Francisco Chronicle: With Federal Help, Alameda County And SF Hope To Cut Rate Of HIV Infections
Alameda County is one of 48 counties handpicked by federal public health officials to receive extra resources to end the spread of HIV over the next decade — and getting that done will take creative, grassroots approaches, local AIDS activists said Friday at a meeting with national leaders. Under a federal strategy announced by President Trump earlier this year, the U.S. Health and Human Services department has promised to pour money and other resources into communities that continue to be hardest hit by HIV. (Allday, 7/20)

Tampa Bay Times: Debt, Lawsuits, Big Spending Led To The Death Of Laser Spine Institute
The Laser Spine Institute may have closed its doors suddenly in March, but repercussions from the surgery center's business practices continue to reverberate in the courts. Two local lawsuits provide the clearest picture yet of the forces that led the Tampa company to shut down, resulting in the loss of some 500 jobs. Documents detail a years-long legal battle among three business partners, a penchant for paying large executive salaries and bonuses, and a struggle against mounting debt. (Griffin, 7/22)

Modern Healthcare: Calif. Patients Score Victory In Nursing Home Transfer Case
California must enforce a federal law that protects patients who are transferred from skilled-nursing facilities and unable to be readmitted, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The plaintiffs—three Medi-Cal beneficiaries and the not-for-profit California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform—alleged that the state violated federal law by allowing nursing homes to transfer patients to hospitals and block their return, even after a hearing determined that the individuals must be readmitted. (Kacik, 7/19)

NH Union Leader: Now-Paralyzed School Nurse Sues Insurance Provider Over MRI 
A former Lancaster Elementary School nurse has sued her insurance provider, claiming it repeatedly refused her requests for a lumbar-spine MRI that she says would have quickly found the tumor that has left her a paraplegic. In a lawsuit filed in Coos County Superior Court, Carolyn Daigle, 50, and her husband, Roger Daigle II, of Jefferson, are seeking a jury trial. ...According to the Daigles’ lawsuit, which was filed by attorney Nick Abramson, Carolyn Daigle was an active wife and mother who in the latter part of 2017 suffered a fall while helping an elderly relative get out of the shower. Abramson said Daigle’s “bright future has been sacrificed to avoid paying for a $2,000 MRI.” Daigle “should be able to live the life she worked so hard to obtain,” he said in a statement, but, “instead, she will spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.” (Koziol, 7/21)

Reuters: CDC Links Two Deaths To Multi-State Salmonella Outbreak
Two people have died following a multi-state outbreak of salmonella infections linked to backyard poultry, U.S. health officials said on Friday. One death was reported in Ohio and the other one in Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (7/19)

Free Lance-Star: 'Such A Big Guy Was Taken Down By A Little Tick'
[Quintin] Beltran, a 60-year-old flooring contractor known to work from sunup to sundown, contracted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever from a tick bite this spring. He was pulling weeds in the yard of what she calls their “dream home” when he found the small insect, an American dog tick, on his inner thigh. Within about 10 days, he started throwing up and alternating between chills and feeling feverish. Symptoms mimicked the flu, and a doctor at an urgent care said he had a viral infection. (Dyson, 7/21)

Iowa Public Radio: Iowa Officials Launch PFAS Working Group To Address Risks To Drinking Water
Local, state and federal officials have formed a working group to address Iowa’s PFAS contamination and any impacts to drinking water. Iowa is one of a number of states to grapple with the chemicals used at military bases and manufacturing sites. ...Despite the contamination, the chemicals haven’t been found in Iowa tap water. (Payne, 7/19)

Georgia Health News: Neighborhoods Unaware Of Airborne Cancer-Causing Toxin
Ethylene oxide is used on about half the medical products in the U.S. that require sterilization, according to industry estimates. It’s also used to make other chemicals, like antifreeze. ...By 2016, the agency had rendered its decision — ethylene oxide was far more dangerous than the scientists had previously understood. The agency moved it from a list of chemicals that probably could cause cancer to a list of those that definitely caused cancer. (Goodman and Miller, 7/19)

Los Angeles Times: Desperate To Ease Homelessness, California Officials Look To New York 'Right To Shelter' Policy
Much about California’s homelessness crisis has confounded state and local officials. But what to do about the tens of thousands of people living outdoors has perhaps done so more than anything else. Searching for a solution, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, co-chairs of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Homeless and Supportive Housing Advisory Task Force, are looking to New York. They want California to enact a legal “right to shelter.” (Oreskes, 7/21)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cleveland Lead Poisoning Crisis: What Hurdles Remain For Passing, Implementing Successful Prevention Law?
For months, community leaders have worked steadfastly to build the political will to support a now-proposed lead-poisoning prevention law. The city’s proposed strategy is built around a mandate that requires landlords to get inspections and lead-safe certificates for rental properties constructed before 1978, the year lead-based paint was banned for residential use. The legislation is working its way through City Council, with additional hearings set next week, where it will be publicly discussed, debated and tweaked based on feedback received since the ordinance was introduced in June. (Dissell, 7/19)

Boston Globe: Sal DiMasi Hired By Medical Marijuana Group To Lobby City
A fledgling medical marijuana operation has tapped former House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi to lobby on its behalf at City Hall, making the convicted felon the latest ex-politician to edge into the growing industry. Geoffrey Reilinger, the founder of Compassionate Organics, hired DiMasi to help in the “siting and establishment” of its proposed dispensary on Newbury Street, according to a disclosure DiMasi filed this month under the city’s new lobbying rules. (Stout, 7/19)

Iowa Public Radio: Supporters Of Iowa's Medical Cannabis Push For Expansion
Advocates of a more comprehensive medical cannabis law in Iowa continue to push to make it a top legislative priority, and some who are enrolled in the program say it needs to be expanded. ...Assistant manager Shannon Cretizinger explained that the 300 hundred or so patients they serve have all been issued registration cards from the Iowa Department of Public Health. (Blank, 7/22)

Texas Tribune: Forensic Experts Think They Can Fix Texas' Marijuana Problem
Forensic and crime lab experts are optimistic state and local officials will support a new proposal that would allow for a faster, cheaper way to test suspected marijuana under the state’s new definition of the drug. But even if law enforcement and crime labs agree to move forward with the proposal, it would still be months before labs could start testing cases for prosecutors. (McCullough, 7/19)