First Edition: August 24, 2017

Kaiser Health News: McConnell’s Kentucky Loses Big If Repeal Revives. Will He Keep Trying?
Tricia Petrucci hasn’t quite reached the point where she regrets her vote for President Donald Trump. It would be understandable if she did, because Trump — and her senator, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — are trying to curb the medical services that sustain her 11-year-old stepson, who battles severe cerebral palsy. She is aware of the irony when she chats with her Louisville neighbor, Ann Pipes, a Democrat whose own son is 11 and struggles with a disability. (McAuliff and Gillespie, 8/24)

California Healthline: To Ensure The Doctor Is Always In, New Panel Tackles Health Worker Shortage
Health and education leaders across California have joined forces with business and labor leaders to address workforce shortages in health care. The new group aims to create a blueprint for policymakers. The California Future Health Workforce Commission, unveiled Wednesday, includes two dozen representatives from businesses, organized labor, schools and hospitals. (Gorman, 8/23)

Kaiser Health News: Childhood Torment, Social Isolation Can Turn Minds Toward Hate
Cries of “Nazis, go home!” and “Shame! Shame!” filled the air as Angela King and Tony McAleer stood with other counterprotesters at the “free speech” rally in Boston last weekend. They didn’t join the shouting. Their sign spoke for them: “There is life after hate.” (Jayson, 8/24)

The Associated Press: McConnell Says He And Trump Are United On 'Shared Goals'
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he and President Donald Trump are in regular contact about "shared goals" and working together to advance them. He says people suggesting otherwise are "clearly not part of the conversation." ... Trump has criticized McConnell for the Senate's rejection of the GOP push to repeal President Barack Obama's health law. He suggested McConnell might need to step aside as leader if he can't push top bills through the chamber. (8/23)

The Wall Street Journal: White House Sets Rules For Military Transgender Ban
The White House is expected to send guidance to the Pentagon in coming days on how to implement a new administration ban on transgender people in the military, issuing a policy that will allow Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to consider a service member’s ability to deploy in deciding whether to kick them out of the military. (Lubold, 8/23)

The New York Times: Military Transgender Ban To Begin Within 6 Months, Memo Says
A White House memo that is expected to be sent to the Pentagon in coming days gives Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense, six months to enforce the transgender ban that Mr. Trump announced abruptly last month in a series of tweets. The directive was confirmed Wednesday by a person familiar with its contents but who was not authorized to discuss its details and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The authority has not yet been finalized. Once it is approved, it would allow Mr. Mattis to force out transgender service members by setting a legal standard of whether they would be able to deploy to war zones or for other lengthy military missions. (Hirschfeld Davis, 8/23)

Politico: White House Said To Be Close On Transgender Military Ban
The American Military Partner Association, a group that represents LGBT military spouses, called the the new proposal a “vicious assault on transgender service members.” “Despite the overwhelming bipartisan condemnation of his reckless tweets, President Trump is still pushing forward with his vicious assault on transgender service members,” said Ashley Broadway-Mack, the group’s president. “His foolhardy assertion that transgender service members are not able to deploy is simply not rooted in fact. Transgender service members are just as deployable as any other service member.” (Dawsey and Jackson, 8/23)

Politico: California Democrats Lead Attack Over Trump's Mental Health
California Democrats are stoking a debate over Donald Trump’s mental health and fitness for office, opening a new front in the resistance to the president but raising fears that the line of criticism could backfire. As early talk of impeachment wanes and questions about Trump’s stability have surfaced after his volatile responses to the violence in Charlottesville — most recently by GOP Sen. Bob Corker and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — California’s Democratic House delegation has seized on an issue that until recently was limited to the Internet fever swamps. (Marinucci, 8/23)

USA Today: Debating The President's Mental Health More Complicated Than Just Saying 'That's Crazy'
When Republican Sen. Bob Corker said last week  that President Trump hasn't "been able to demonstrate the stability" needed for success and recommended he "move way beyond himself," it was news mostly because Corker has been one of Trump's key supporters in Congress. Then James Clapper, who served in top intelligence jobs under former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Wednesday morning questioned Trump's "fitness to be in this office" and said he was worried about the president's access to the nuclear codes. Clapper, who had a long military career, is a close friend and longtime colleague of Trump's Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, a former Marine Corps general. (O'Donnell, 8/23)

USA Today: What Stresses Out Trump: Not Russia, But ISIS, Family Attacks
Being the leader of the Free World is no doubt one of the most stressful jobs possible, but how much stress affects President Trump is open to debate. Still, psychiatrists including Bandy Lee, editor of the upcoming book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, worry about how Trump responds to what are likely stressful crises with fiery rhetoric that could provoke violence. (O'Donnell, 8/23)

Politico: Pulse Check: Former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
Kathleen Sebelius, the former HHS secretary who oversaw the rollout of Obamacare, is worried that HHS’s current leaders are steering the ACA the wrong direction. "They have done a lot to sabotage the health care law," Sebelius told POLITICO’s Dan Diamond. The former HHS secretary shares her thoughts on the current administration’s strategy, what she thinks HHS should be prioritizing and what’s been overlooked because of the intense focus on the ACA. (Diamond, 8/24)

The Associated Press: Report Highlights Growing Health Disparities In Appalachia
The 25 million people who live among the Appalachian mountains have struggled to keep up with health gains of the rest of the nation, falling behind in most major public health indicators, according to a study released Thursday. (Beam, 8/24)

The New York Times: Hunting A Killer: Sex, Drugs And The Return Of Syphilis
For months, health officials in [Oklahoma City] ... have been staggered by a fast-spreading outbreak of a disease that, for nearly two decades, was considered all but extinguished. Syphilis, the deadly sexually transmitted infection that can lead to blindness, paralysis and dementia, is returning here and around the country, another consequence of the heroin and methamphetamine epidemics, as users trade sex for drugs. (Hoffman, 8/24)

The New York Times: Pregnant And Far From Home, A Sisterhood Of The Expecting
The contractions were coming eight minutes apart, and Billie Jo Yupanik was breathing into them, her gaze down, hands cradling her abdomen. Around her, other pregnant women padded around the open, airy rooms of the Yukon-Kuskokwim prematernal home, chatting on phones or grabbing coffee from the pot. They mostly smiled and nodded at Ms. Yupanik as they passed, but otherwise seemed to pay her little mind. Going into labor, after all, is hardly remarkable in this place. (Johnson, 8/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Indiana University Spars With State Over Aborted Fetal Tissue
A legal challenge to an Indiana law that criminalizes research using the remains of aborted fetuses could determine how much power states have to restrict scientific access to fetal tissue. The unusual case pits Indiana’s government against the state’s flagship research university, which is asking a federal court to declare Indiana’s fetal-tissue statute unconstitutional. (Gershman, 8/23)

NPR: Abstinence Programs Don't Stop Teen Pregnancies Or STDs
Abstaining from sexual activity is a surefire way to prevent pregnancy and avoid sexually transmitted diseases. But programs advocating abstinence often fail to prevent young people from having sex, researchers write in the September issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. Such programs, sometimes referred to as "abstinence only until marriage" programs, typically advocate monogamous, heterosexual marriage as the only appropriate context for sexual intercourse and as the only certain way to avoid unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. (McCammon, 8/23)

The Associated Press: Many Addicts Seeking Opioid Recovery Find Relapse And Fraud
The Reflections treatment center looked like just the place for Michelle Holley's youngest daughter to kick heroin. Instead, as with dozens of other Florida substance abuse treatment facilities, the owner was more interested in defrauding insurance companies by keeping addicts hooked, her family says. "It looked fine. They were saying all the right things to me. I could not help my child so I trusted them to help my child," Holley said. (Anderson, 8/24)

NPR: State Law Pushes Doctors To Taper Most Patients' Opioid Doses
A year ago, Maine was one of the first states to set limits on opioid prescriptions. The goal in capping the dose of prescription painkillers a patient could get was to stem the flow of opioids that are fueling a nationwide epidemic of abuse. Maine's law, considered the toughest in the U.S., is largely viewed as a success. But it has also been controversial — particularly among chronic pain patients who are reluctant to lose the medicine they say helps them function. (Wight, 8/23)

The Washington Post: New Ads Accuse Big Tobacco Of Targeting Soldiers And People With Mental Illness
Truth Initiative, a leading tobacco-control nonprofit, has bought TV ads to run this Sunday during MTV’s Music Awards that accuse tobacco companies of purposely targeting mentally ill people and U.S. soldiers. The ads focus on this stark but little known fact: Roughly 40 percent of cigarettes sold in the U.S. are smoked by people with mental health issues, including depression, anxiety or substance-abuse problems. (Wan, 8/24)

The New York Times: 20 Percent More Smokers Quit After $1 Price Increase
When the price of a pack of cigarette increases by $1, there is a 20 percent increase in rates of quitting smoking. Researchers linked data on the smoking habits of 632 smokers, average age 58, to neighborhood cigarette prices in 896 chain grocery and drugstores in 19 states. They gathered data on local laws on indoor smoking in public places, and followed changes in prices, laws and smoking habits over 10 years. (Bakalar, 8/23)

The New York Times: Should Kids Be Sedated For Dental Work?
In dental offices nationwide, children who need cavities filled or teeth pulled are sometimes sedated. Ideally, it makes them less anxious and more cooperative. They may swallow a liquid sedative or inhale laughing gas and once it kicks in, they will be conscious but calmer, so the dentist can do extensive work. (Saint Louis, 8/24)

The Washington Post: Pediatricians Say Teens Should Sleep In. Schools Won’t Let Them.
Pediatricians have been clear: Early bell times can spell sleep deprivation for teens and, in turn, a decline in academic performance, an increased risk of car accidents and physical and mental health issues. But according to a recent report by the National Center for Education Statistics, only a fraction of high schools are starting later than 8:30 a.m., which is what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends. (Balingit, 8/23)

The New York Times: Oral Contraceptives Tied To Lower Rheumatoid Arthritis Risk
Taking oral contraceptives may reduce the risk for rheumatoid arthritis, a new study has found. The exact cause of rheumatoid arthritis is unclear, but since it is about three times more common in women than in men, some have suggested hormonal factors might be involved. (Bakalar, 8/23)

USA Today: Risk Of Lung Cancer Increases With Vitamin B, Study Says
Taking too much vitamin B6 and B12 could dramatically increase lung cancer in men, according to a new study. By looking at more than 77,000 patients over 10 years, researchers found men who consumed high doses of B6 and B12 (often advertised as an energy-booster) doubled their risk of developing lung cancer. In men who smoked, the risk increased four times, according to results published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology Tuesday. Women who took the same amount of vitamin B didn't see an increased risk. (May, 8/23)

The Wall Street Journal: AbleTo Raises $36.6 Million For Digital Behavioral Health Platform
New York City-based AbleTo Inc., which makes a digital platform to connect individuals with licensed therapists and coaches, has closed $36.6 million in Series D funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. The company, which was founded in 2008, works with employers and health plans to offer support to employees who have medical conditions that may be associated with—or exacerbated by—underlying behavioral health issues. (Mack, 8/23)

Los Angeles Times: Under State Mandate, Glendale Unified Adopts Policy On Suicide Prevention
Secondary teachers in the Glendale Unified School District must take part in mandatory training about suicide awareness this school year, specifically addressing youth with mental disabilities, those facing homelessness or those who are part of the LGBTQ community. The training comes after Assembly Bill 2246 put forth a mandate requiring school districts adopt a policy on suicide prevention for students in seventh through 12th grades, local school officials said last week. (Vega, 8/23)