First Edition: August 28, 2018

Kaiser Health News: Parent Alert! Your Kid May Be Vaping More Than Tobacco
By now, many parents know kids are vaping sweet-smelling tobacco — often using devices that look deceptively like pens or flash drives. And most parents are hip to the prevalence of underage marijuana use. Now comes a combo of the two: vaping pot. Experts and educators say young people are — once again — one step ahead of the adults in their lives, experimenting with this new and more heady way to consume weed. (Ibarra, 8/28)

Kaiser Health News: Shifting Gears: Insuring Your Health Column — Born With The ACA — Draws To A Close 
Until I started writing the Insuring Your Health column eight years ago, I had no idea what a medical loss ratio was, and I’d surely never used the words “benchmark silver plan” in a story. If asked, I would have guessed that “ACA” stood for the American Canoe Association (which is actually a thing, by the way). Now I know better. Way better, having written once or twice a week for several years about how the Affordable Care Act has affected consumers’ health care coverage and costs. (Andrews, 8/28)

The Hill: Manchin Uses New GOP ObamaCare Bill To Hit Opponent On Pre-Existing Conditions 
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) is using a new bill from Senate Republicans to attack his opponent over ObamaCare’s pre-existing condition protections. Manchin, facing a tough reelection race this year against West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R), is pointing to a new Senate GOP bill that aims to preserve ObamaCare’s pre-existing condition protections as a rebuke to Morrisey’s position in court against those provisions. (Sullivan, 8/27)

The Associated Press: Despite Strong Economy, Many Americans Struggling To Get By
Despite a strong economy, about 40 percent of American families struggled to meet at least one of their basic needs last year, including paying for food, health care, housing or utilities. That's according to an Urban Institute survey of nearly 7,600 adults that found that the difficulties were most prevalent among adults with lower incomes or health issues. But it also revealed that people from all walks of life were running into similar hardships. (Skidmore Sell, 8/28)

Politico: Did Patrick Soon-Shiong’s High-Tech Gamble Help Bring 6 Hospitals To The Brink?
In the year since Los Angeles billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong took control of a deeply indebted California hospital system, it invested millions in technology that advanced his for-profit interests while cutting charity care and neglecting earthquake preparedness. Now, it stands at the brink of sale or, possibly, bankruptcy. Soon-Shiong, the Los Angeles surgeon and entrepreneur whose empire includes health technology firms and foundations, part of the L.A. Lakers and, most recently, ownership of the Los Angeles Times, bought a controlling stake in the firm that operates the struggling Verity Health System hospital chain in July 2017. Soon-Shiong saw Verity as a place to fulfill his longtime dream of advancing high-tech approaches to cancer treatment, and promised to provide “the highest level of care with the best outcomes at lowest cost for all Californians.” (Tahir, 8/28)

The Associated Press: Law Firm Criticizes ICE For Toddler's Death After Release
A law firm representing the family of a toddler reported to have died after being released from an immigration detention facility issued new information Monday about what it called a "needless and devastating loss." Washington-based Arnold & Porter's statement Monday identifies the child by her first name, Mariee, and says she was 21 months old when she died in May. A Vice News story also released Monday said Mariee arrived with her mother, Yazmin Juarez, at the detention center in Dilley, Texas, in March, and died about six weeks after her release. (8/27)

CNN: Law Firm Alleges Neglectful Medical Care After Child Dies Weeks After ICE Custody
Shortly after they arrived at the South Texas Family Residential Center in March, Mariee contracted a respiratory infection that her lawyers at the firm of Arnold & Porter allege "went woefully under-treated for nearly a month." Officials in Texas say they are investigating the case, and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials did not respond to specific allegations made by Juarez and her lawyers. (Lynch, Alsup and Park, 8/28)

Stat: FDA Rejects Akcea Rare-Disease Drug That Uses Gene-Blocking Technology 
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday rejected Akcea Therapeutics’ application to market Waylivra, its drug for familial chylomicronemia syndrome, in the United States. Akcea didn’t give a reason for the rejection. Waylivra, also known as volanesorsen, would have been Akcea’s first drug in the U.S. market. The condition it treats, FCS, leads to a buildup of fat in organs. (Sheridan, 8/27)

Virginian-Pilot: Horrific Deaths, Brutal Treatment: Mental Illness In America’s Jails
David O'Quin was arrested for disturbing the peace in Louisiana. His father pleaded in vain to jail officials for him to be given his medications for severe mental disorders. Less than two weeks later, O'Quin died from a bacterial infection after his own excrement got into cuts that he received from being beaten and put in a restraint chair. Jennifer Towle was suffering from depression so severe she started eating a nail clipper, milk cartons and other objects while jailed in New Jersey. After she died, an autopsy found about three liters of such material in her stomach. People with mental illnesses in jails around the country are routinely dying in horrific ways and under preventable circumstances, a Virginian-Pilot investigation has found. The country’s 3,000-plus jails are the default treatment center for many. There is often nowhere else to take them. (Harki, 8/23)

Politico: How The Opioid Crackdown Is Backfiring
Last August, Jon Fowlkes told his wife he planned to kill himself. The former law enforcement officer was in constant pain after his doctor had abruptly cut off the twice-a-day OxyContin that had helped him endure excruciating back pain from a motorcycle crash almost two decades ago that had left him nearly paralyzed despite multiple surgeries. (Ehley, 8/28)

Politico: How Some Patients Successfully Tapered Off Opioids
America is facing what is arguably its biggest public health crisis since AIDS: the opioid epidemic. As lawmakers struggle to address the crisis, POLITICO is following the unintended consequences patients are facing, from doctors who aren’t trained to safely taper patients off opioids to non-drug alternatives that aren’t covered by insurance. We asked for your stories, and more than 500 of you responded. Many of you shared how you tapered off opioids and ideas for others to transition off their prescription painkillers and cope with withdrawal symptoms. (Yu, 8/28)

Bloomberg: As More Kids Take Drugs, Risk From Dangerous Pairings Climbs 
About 20 percent of kids in the U.S. use prescription drugs and many take more than one at a time, putting them at risk of harmful interactions, new research finds. Nearly one in five children and teenagers use prescription medicines, with 7.5 percent taking multiple medications, according to a study of 23,152 kids under the age of 19 in the journal Pediatrics. Of those taking more than one medication, 1 in 12 were at risk for a potentially major interaction. (Hopkins, 8/27)

The New York Times: Women Struggling To Get Pregnant Turn To Fertility Apps
When Nicole and Christopher Roberts of North Stonington, Conn., decided to start a family in 2016, Nicole quickly became pregnant, but then miscarried three months later. Getting pregnant a second time became far tougher than they expected. Mrs. Roberts, 32, started taking neonatal vitamins, tracking her menstrual cycle carefully, taking over-the-counterovulation tests, and even trying a few wacky internet suggestions, such as putting her legs up in the air after sex and not moving for half an hour. (Morrissey, 8/27)

NPR: Big Study Of Sepsis Is Risky For Patients, Says Consumer Group Trying To Stop It
A consumer advocacy organization is asking federal health officials Tuesday to halt a large medical study being conducted at major universities nationwide. Public Citizen says that the study, involving treatment for sepsis, puts patients at risk and will at best produce confusing results. (Harris, 8/28)

Stat: Watchdog Group Calls For NIH To Halt 'Dangerous' Study Of Sepsis Treatment 
The problems with the “CLOVERS” study are so serious that “it is difficult to imagine any reasonable person agreeing to enroll … if he or she were fully informed of [its] true nature and risks,” wrote Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Dr. Michael Carome of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. They contended that patients in the trial are “unwitting guinea pigs in a physiology experiment that will not advance medical care for sepsis,” and that other lapses are “stunning in their breadth and scope.” (Begley, 8/28)

The New York Times: Feeling Suicidal, Students Turned To Their College. They Were Told To Go Home.
When Harrison Fowler heard about the counseling center at Stanford, where he enrolled as a freshman last fall, he decided to finally do something about the angst he had been struggling with for a long time. The results were not what he had expected. Asked if he had ever considered suicide, he said yes. The center advised him to check himself into the hospital. From there, he was sent to a private outpatient treatment center, where he was prescribed an antidepressant that he said triggered horrible suicidal fantasies. It wasn’t long before he was back in the hospital, being urged to go home to Texas. (Hartocollis, 8/28)

The Washington Post: ‘Survival Of The Laziest’: Finally, There’s A Scientific Reason To Not Get Off The Couch
No one is questioning whether leaving the couch to go for a walk or run or to lift heavy objects would personally do you some good — accelerating your heart rate, burning some calories, maybe even adding a few years to your life. But consider this: All that exercise may be a selfish act, a shortsighted game of checkers in an evolutionary chess match that’s been going on for eons. And by not stepping, you may have already taken the first step toward saving the species. (Wootson, 8/27)

The New York Times: China Has Withheld Samples Of A Dangerous Flu Virus
For over a year, the Chinese government has withheld lab samples of a rapidly evolving influenza virus from the United States — specimens needed to develop vaccines and treatments, according to federal health officials. Despite persistent requests from government officials and research institutions, China has not provided samples of the dangerous virus, a type of bird flu called H7N9. In the past, such exchanges have been mostly routine under rules established by the World Health Organization. (Baumgaertner, 8/27)

NPR: Newly Discovered 'Rose Hip' Neurons May Be Unique To Humans
Scientists have taken another step toward understanding what makes the human brain unique. An international team has identified a kind of brain cell that exists in people but not mice, the team reported Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience. "This particular type of cell had properties that had never actually been described in another species," says Ed Lein, one of the study's authors and an investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. (Hamilton, 8/27)

The Washington Post: This Is Why Your Eye Won't Stop Twitching
After a day of mainlining coffee and staring at the computer, “relaxing” at happy hour then staying up late glued to the television, getting in bed only to consume the infinite scroll of news and takes on your mobile instead of sleeping like you know you should, an eye twitch begins. You go to sleep, thinking by the time you wake up the twitch will be gone. But it's not. It's there for days, maybe even weeks. (Furby, 8/27)

CNN: A Cystic Fibrosis Patient Expected To Die Young -- Then Came The Call
Having spent a quarter of her life in the hospital, she knows how to sleep through noise. She's so good at it that she worried the phone call wouldn't wake her. But when her cell rang at about 5:30 a.m. Sunday, she was ready. On the other end was the news Claire Wineland had been waiting for: Doctors had found a pair of donor lungs. She'd been on the transplant list for just over two weeks after months of uncertainty. Now she was getting her chance at an extended life. (Ravitz, 8/28)

NPR: Toddlers Prefer High-Status Winners Who Aren't Bullies
Everybody loves a winner — even toddlers, according to a study published Monday. But even though kiddos tend to like high-status individuals, they don't like those who win conflicts by using force. "It seems like toddlers care about who wins, but they also care about how they win," says Ashley Thomas, now a researcher in cognitive development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard. (Greenfieldboyce, 8/27)

CNN: 'Conversion Therapy' Hits The Big Screen While Laws Play Out In States
A therapist forbade 16-year-old Mathew Shurka from speaking to his mother and sisters for three years. The youngest child and only son in a tight-knit Long Island family, Shurka said that his mom wasn't physically or emotionally abusive. Instead, the therapist told the teen to give the women the silent treatment because it would help make him straight. "When I first came out to my dad when I was 16, I was looking for his acceptance and approval about being gay. He was loving in that moment and said he cared and he'd be there for me, but he thought it was a phase, and he wanted to get me help," said Shurka, now 30. "He didn't raise us religious or anything. He just didn't think I'd be successful if I was a gay man." (Christensen, 8/27)

The New York Times: Airport Meals That Are, Yes, Healthy
Is it really possible to find healthy food at an airport? When it comes to airports in the United States, at least, the answer is yes, increasingly so. In recent years, airports around the country have amped up their availability of healthy snacks, meals and drinks to cater travelers who want to follow a balanced diet when they are away from home. (Vora, 8/28)

The Associated Press: Shooting Suspect Was Twice Hospitalized For Mental Illness
The suspect in a deadly shooting at a Florida video game tournament had previously been hospitalized for mental illness, according to court records in his home state of Maryland reviewed by The Associated Press. Divorce filings from the parents of 24-year-old David Katz of Baltimore say that as an adolescent he was twice hospitalized in psychiatric facilities and was prescribed antipsychotic and antidepressant medications. (8/28)

Los Angeles Times: California Lawmakers Approve New Restrictions On Who Can Possess Firearms
California lawmakers on Monday approved a trio of bills that would reduce the number of people with access to firearms, including lifetime bans on owning guns for people convicted of domestic violence and individuals placed on involuntary psychiatric holds twice in a year by the courts. The three bills now head to the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown for consideration. (McGreevy, 8/28)

The Washington Post: Researchers Replicate Just 13 Of 21 Social Science Experiments Published In Top Journals
The “reproducibility crisis” in science is erupting again. A research project attempted to replicate 21 social science experiments published between 2010 and 2015 in the prestigious journals Science and Nature. Only 13 replication attempts succeeded. The other eight were duds, with no observed effects consistent with the original findings. The failures do not necessarily mean the original results were erroneous, as the authors of this latest replication effort note. (Achenbach, 8/27)

NPR: Psychology Studies Often Can't Be Reproduced
As part of the reproducibility study, about 200 social scientists were surveyed and asked to predict which results would stand up to the re-test and which would not. Scientists filled out a survey in which they predicted the winners and losers. They also took part in a "prediction market," where they could buy or sell tokens that represented their views. "They're taking bets with each other, against us," says Anna Dreber, an economics professor at the Stockholm School of Economics, and coauthor of the new study. It turns out, "these researchers were very good at predicting which studies would replicate," she says. "I think that's great news for science." (Harris, 8/27)

Los Angeles Times: Wrongful Death Lawsuits Filed Against NCAA On Behalf Of Former USC And UCLA Football Players
Family members of former USC fullback Douglas MacKenzie and former UCLA running back Rodney Stensrud have filed wrongful death lawsuits against the NCAA in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The complaints are among the first in a wave of suits expected to be filed against the NCAA and its conferences and universities in the coming months, that allege the sport’s governing body did not properly inform college football players of the risks of head injuries and the impact that traumatic brain injury could have on their long-term quality of life. (McCollough, 8/27)

Los Angeles Times: California Lawmakers Want The State To Collect Data On Drivers Under The Influence Of Pot
After she was injured in a car accident allegedly caused by a driver impaired by pot, state Controller Betty Yee is backing a bill approved Monday by the Legislature that aims to begin addressing the problem of drugged driving on California roads. The measure sent to Gov. Jerry Brown would require the California Highway Patrol to report on how many motorists stopped for impaired driving are allegedly under the influence of marijuana. (McGreevy, 8/28)