Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
After Long Wait, Texas Is Training Doctors On Permitted Abortions
ProPublica: Texas Medical Board Issues Training For Doctors On Legally Providing Abortions
For the first time since Texas criminalized abortion, the state’s medical regulator is instructing doctors on when they can legally terminate a pregnancy to protect the life of the patient — guidance physicians have long sought as women died and doctors feared imprisonment for intervening. The new training from the Texas Medical Board comes nearly five years after the state passed its strict abortion ban in 2021, threatening doctors with severe penalties. (Jaramillo, Surana and Presser, 2/5)
More health news from across the U.S. —
The Washington Post: They Ushered Their States Through Covid. Now They Want To Lead Them.
Why doctors who led the pandemic response in their states are running for office. (Merica, 2/6)
Verite News New Orleans: St. Tammany Illegally Shortened School Days For Student With Disabilities, Lawsuit Claims
The family of a special needs student in St. Tammany Parish has filed a federal lawsuit against the parish school board and the school district’s superintendent, Frank Jabbia, saying that the district inappropriately shortened the child’s school days to two hours, depriving him of more than two-thirds of instructional time during the 2024-2025 school year compared to other students. The lawsuit alleges that the decision prevented the child — who for months spent his shortened school days in a specialty classroom isolated from other students — from access to equal education, violating longstanding federal special education laws. (Syed, 2/5)
San Francisco Chronicle: Death Cap Mushroom 'Superbloom' Leads To Record CA Poisonings
Laura Marcelino and her husband were out for a walk in late November with five of their children at Toro Park, a hillside hiking spot near their home in Salinas, when they stumbled upon some mushrooms with yellowish caps. Thinking they recognized them as an edible variation from their native Mexico, they gathered a handful to bring home. (Bauman, Ho, and Hernandez, 2/5)
AP: Jurors Award $8.3M To Kansas Foster Teen's Family After Mental Health Crisis Death
Jurors have awarded $8.3 million to the family of a Kansas foster teen who died in 2021 after he was held facedown for 39 minutes in a juvenile intake center while in the throes of a mental health crisis. Five juvenile officers in Sedgwick County either used excessive force on Cedric “C.J.” Lofton or failed to intervene, the jurors decided Wednesday after a trial in federal court in Wichita. (Hollingsworth, 2/5)
The New York Times: Nancy Guthrie Kidnapping Shows Limits Of Tracking Pacemakers In Police Work
Like an estimated three million Americans, Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of the NBC News anchor Savannah Guthrie, has a pacemaker implanted in her chest. Law enforcement officials who are investigating her kidnapping are reported to have contacted the company that made Ms. Guthrie’s device to find out what they can learn from the information it yields. Experts in heart health and digital forensics say the answer may be “not much.” (Kolata, 2/5)
On the spread of tuberculosis and avian flu —
CBS News: Tuberculosis Warning Sent To Long Island School District After Students Possibly Exposed
A Long Island school district is warning parents their kids may have been exposed to tuberculosis after learning that "an individual in the school community" was being treated for the highly contagious and possibly fatal disease. The Patchogue-Medford School District said in a letter to some parents in January that the Suffolk County Department of Health first alerted them about the infectious person. (Prussin, 2/5)
CIDRAP: More Avian Flu Outbreaks In Pennsylvania, Colorado
Millions of birds, including 1.3 million commercial table egg layers in Weld County, Colorado, have been sickened with highly pathogenic avian influenza, per this week’s notifications from the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS). In addition to the major outbreak in Colorado, 722,000 birds on a commercial table egg layer farm facility in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, were also sickened. (Soucheray, 2/5)
CIDRAP: Federal Testing Improves Detection Of H5N1 Avian Flu In US Dairy Herds
Influenza A(H5N1) viral RNA was widely present in US retail milk during the spring 2024–25 outbreak among dairy cattle, according to a report published late last week in Emerging Infectious Diseases. In milk samples collected from April 13 to May 3, 2024, researchers detected influenza A viral RNA in 36% of samples from 13 states, including in five states (Arkansas, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, and Oklahoma) that had no reported outbreaks at the time. Across the country, only 29 infected herds had been reported as of April 12, a total that was inconsistent with the number of positive samples. (Bergeson, 2/5)
On measles in Pennsylvania and potentially at the World Cup —
CBS News: Person Infected With Measles Visited Montgomery County Urgent Care, Pennsylvania Health Officials Say
A person with a confirmed case of measles visited an urgent care center in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, last month, health officials said. The Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services and Office of Public Health said Thursday that the infected person was at the Patient First Primary and Urgent Care on Collegeville Road on Thursday, Jan. 29. Officials said anyone at the center from 1:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. on that date could have been exposed to measles and should monitor themselves for symptoms for the next 21 days. (Simon, 2/5)
AP: Jalisco Issues Health Alert Over Measles Outbreak In World Cup Host
The Mexican state of Jalisco on Thursday issued a health alert and mandated the use of face masks in schools as a measles outbreak hit the state capital, a key host city for the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup. The measures come on the heels of an epidemiological alert issued by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) earlier this week over the spread of the preventable disease across the Americas, particularly in Mexico, which leads the region with 1,981 cases confirmed by authorities this year and more than 5,200 suspected cases. (Llano and Pesce, 2/6)
