First Edition: December 20, 2018

Kaiser Health News: 5 Ways Nixing The Affordable Care Act Could Upend The Entire Health System 
If Friday night’s district court ruling that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional were to be upheld, far more than the law’s most high-profile provisions would be at stake. In fact, canceling the law in full — as Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, ordered in his 55-page decision — could thrust the entire health care system into chaos. “To erase a law that is so interwoven into the health care system blows up every part of it,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a health law professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. “In law they have names for these — they are called super statutes,” she said. “And [the ACA] is a super statute. It has changed everything about how we get health care.” (Rovner, 12/20)

Kaiser Health News: Why The U.S. Remains The World’s Most Expensive Market For ‘Biologic’ Drugs
Europeans have found the secret to making some of the world’s costliest medicines much more affordable, as much as 80 percent cheaper than in the U.S. Governments in Europe have compelled drugmakers to bend on prices and have thrown open the market for so-called biosimilars, which are cheaper copies of biologic drugs made from living organisms. The brand-name products — ranging from Humira for rheumatoid arthritis to Avastin for cancer — are high-priced drugs that account for 40 percent of U.S. pharmaceutical sales. (Tribble, 12/20)

Kaiser Health News: When Needs Arise, These Older Women Have One Another’s Backs 
Like many women aging alone, Eileen Kobrin worried that an accident could compromise her independence. Then, two years ago at age 71, the New Yorker fell while on vacation, breaking her left ankle, and her Caring Collaborative network sprang into action. One member recommended an ankle surgeon at the nearby Hospital for Special Surgery, who operated successfully. Others brought over a wheelchair, a bath chair and an elevated toilet seat after Kobrin returned to her apartment with instructions to stay off her feet for several months. (Graham, 12/20)

The Associated Press: Obama Health Law Sign-Ups Beat Forecast Despite Headwinds
The Affordable Care Act has yet again beaten predictions of its downfall, as government figures released Wednesday showed unexpectedly solid sign-ups for health coverage next year. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said nearly 8.5 million people had enrolled as of last Saturday's deadline, with about a dozen states, including California and New York, still left to report. The preliminary number was down about 4 percent, when a much bigger loss had been expected. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 12/19)

The New York Times: Despite Challenges, Health Exchange Enrollment Falls Only Slightly
In the open enrollment period that ended on Saturday, the number of sign-ups totaled 8.45 million, down from 8.82 million at the same point last year, a drop of about 367,000, or 4 percent, despite warnings that a more precipitous drop could be in the offing. Democrats have repeatedly accused President Trump of sabotaging the Affordable Care Act and its marketplace by promoting short-term health policies with skimpier coverage, substantially cutting enrollment promotion efforts and nearly eliminating funds for “navigators” who help potential enrollees through the process. Congress also zeroed out the health law’s penalty for not being covered, starting in 2019. But Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that “enrollment remained steady through HealthCare.gov.” (Pear, 12/19)

Reuters: Sign-Ups For 2019 Obamacare Insurance Fall To 8.5 Million People
Enrollment had been running about 10 percent lower but picked up during the past week, reflecting a typical trend of last-minute shopping, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma said in a call with reporters. Verma said the decrease was due to increased employment, which typically means more people had employer-based health insurance, and that about 100,000 people with Obamacare insurance in Virginia became eligible for the expanded Medicaid program there. (Humer, 12/19)

The Washington Post: Last-Minute Scramble For ACA Plans Appears Unaffected By Court Ruling
After just completing its sixth annual enrollment season, the federal insurance marketplace created under the ACA “is far from dead and remarkably resilient,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy group. He noted, however, that the number of first-time enrollees dropped by 15 percent from last year. The number of returning customers was marginally higher than last year. (Goldstein, 12/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Affordable Care Act Sign-Ups Lag Behind Last Year’s
Analysts say many factors are behind the enrollment slowdown. They cite a general lack of public awareness about open enrollment; repeal of the federal penalty on people who don’t have health insurance; and the proliferation of health plans that don’t comply with the ACA. In addition, last week’s ruling by a Texas federal judge in Texas invalidating the ACA, at least for now—which came just before the busiest enrollment days—may have affected sign-ups. (Armour, 12/19)

Politico: Obamacare Sign-Ups See Late Surge
Though the federal judge's ruling against the health care law appears not to have dampened interest in the final day of open enrollment, Democratic lawmakers say it may have ramifications in the coming weeks. “Right now, a single mother who signed up for coverage during the open enrollment period is trying to make a decision about whether or not she ought to pay her premium," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Finance Committee. (Ollstein and Demko, 12/19)

The Associated Press: Northam: 182K Enrolled In New Health Coverage
More than 182,000 Virginians have enrolled in new health coverage that begins in the new year. Gov. Ralph Northam announced the enrollment in the new coverage under Medicaid expansion on Wednesday. The coverage is available to 19- to 64-year-olds who are not eligible for Medicare and meet income requirements, which vary by family size. SNAP recipients and parents whose children receive Medicaid coverage can use a short-form application to sign up by Jan. 4. (12/19)

The Washington Post: Why Republicans (Secretly) Want The ACA To Survive
A Texas judge’s decision to declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional has spooked Republicans who are unsure whether they have realized the long-sought victory celebrated by President Trump or stumbled into a nightmare that will haunt them through the next election cycle. They had already killed or softened its most loathed sections: The reviled penalty for not having health insurance was zeroed out as part of last year’s tax overhaul. The Trump administration had expanded access to far less robust — and much cheaper — insurance than the law mandated. It even allowed states to impose work rules on those eligible for expanded Medicaid benefits. (Johnson, 12/19)

The Hill: Senate GOP Blocks Bid To Intervene In ObamaCare Case 
Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a vote on a resolution that would have allowed the Senate to intervene in a federal lawsuit against ObamaCare. Democrats asked for unanimous consent to authorize the Senate legal counsel to defend ObamaCare in court after a district judge in Texas declared the entire law unconstitutional last week. The case is almost certainly headed for an appeal. (Hellmann, 12/19)

NPR: Texas Judge's Decision To Overturn Obamacare Fits With His Past Rulings
U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor has a history of siding with Republicans on ideologically motivated lawsuits. His ruling last week, in which he sided with the GOP on a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, was not a one-off. In fact, critics say, his history is ultimately why that case was before him in the first place. (Lopez, 12/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Maryland Asks Judge To Affirm Obamacare, Nix Whitaker’s Appointment
A federal judge on Wednesday grappled with the most significant challenge so far to President Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general in a case that also raises questions about the Affordable Care Act. U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander spent nearly three hours considering a lawsuit by the state of Maryland that presents a rare combination of hot-button legal issues. Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, filed the suit in September against then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other Trump administration officials, seeking a declaration that the ACA, also known as Obamacare, was constitutional and must be enforced by the administration even if it opposed the law. (Kendall, 12/19)

Reuters: Judge Signals Skepticism In Trump Team's Bid To Block Obamacare Suit
Whitaker, a Trump political loyalist named after the Republican president ousted Jeff Sessions as attorney general last month, is facing a series of legal challenges to the legality of his appointment. The lawsuit by Democratic Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh asks Hollander to declare Obamacare constitutional and to find that Whitaker was unlawfully appointed. Trump's administration has worked to undermine Obamacare after Congress failed in a Republican effort to repeal the law. (12/19)

The New York Times: Congress Grills Head Of V.A. Over New Health Care Law
Foreshadowing a likely partisan battle next year, Robert L. Wilkie, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, faced sharp questioning from Democrats on Wednesday over how the department will carry out a new expansion of private-sector medical care for veterans. Lawmakers attending a joint House-Senate hearing scrutinized evolving standards at the V.A. that dictate how and when veterans can get care outside of the system’s 1,300 government hospitals and clinics. The Trump administration is expected to better define the standards next year, but some at the hearing were not satisfied. (Steinhauer, 12/19)

Modern Healthcare: VA Has Yet To Detail Criteria For Community Care 
Six months after Congress passed a sweeping bill aimed at streamlining and expanding the private sector's role in veterans' healthcare, the Veterans Affairs Department has yet to disclose the criteria it will use to send a veteran out to a community physician or hospital. These criteria, or "designated access standards" in VA and congressional parlance, will determine how expansive the community program will be. As a result, debate over what they should be is a political linchpin, driving sharp warnings from key Democrats that the Trump administration's handling of them will lead to a privatizing of the VA. (Luthi, 12/19)

The Washington Post: They Tested Positive For HIV. Then The Military Kicked Them Out.
Testing positive for HIV was difficult enough. Getting forced out of the military by the Air Force because of the diagnosis proved even harder. So say two U.S. airmen who filed suit on Wednesday against Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, arguing that the Pentagon’s decision last month to discharge them from the military owing to their HIV status violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause and federal law. They have asked the court to strike down the decision. (Sonne, 12/19)

The Associated Press: 'A Moral Disaster': AP Reveals Scope Of Migrant Kids Program
Decades after the U.S. stopped institutionalizing kids because large and crowded orphanages were causing lasting trauma, it is happening again. The federal government has placed most of the 14,300 migrant toddlers, children and teens in its care in detention centers and residential facilities packed with hundreds, or thousands, of children. As the year draws to a close, some 5,400 detained migrant children in the U.S. are sleeping in shelters with more than 1,000 other children. Some 9,800 are in facilities with 100-plus total kids, according to confidential government data obtained and cross-checked by The Associated Press. (Burke and Mendoza, 12/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Homeland Security Chief Set To Testify On Child’s Death At Border
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s scheduled testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday is set to offer a glimpse of the strict oversight to come from Democrats still fuming over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy along the Southern border. Ms. Nielsen is expected to answer questions from lawmakers about the recent death of a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl, Jakelin Caal Maquin, who died this month at a hospital in El Paso, Texas. She died a little more than a day after she and her father were arrested with a group of about 160 people on Dec. 6 in Antelope Wells, N.M., a remote border crossing in southern New Mexico. (Jamerson, 12/20)

Politico: Trump Administration To Notify Congress And Media About Border Deaths Within 24 Hours
U.S. Customs and Border Protection this week said that Congress and the media will be notified within 24 hours of any death that happens in custody following criticisms of the agency's delayed announcement of the death of a 7-year-old girl. "To secure and maintain the public trust, CBP's intent is to be accessible and transparent by providing appropriate information to the Congress and the public regarding any death occurring in custody," according to the guidelines. "Maintaining this trust is, in part, dependent on timely and sufficient notification to the extent permitted by law and CBP policy." (Morin, 12/19)

ProPublica and The New York Times: Top Cancer Doctor Resigns As Editor Of Medical Journal
Dr. José Baselga, the former chief medical officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, resigned under pressure on Wednesday as one of the editors in chief of Cancer Discovery, a prominent scientific journal, after he failed to accurately disclose his conflicts of interest in dozens of articles in medical journals. The American Association for Cancer Research, which publishes the journal, said a panel of experts and the group’s board of directors had concluded that “Dr. Baselga did not adhere to the high standards pertaining to conflict of interest disclosures that the AACR expects of its leadership.” (Ornstein and Thomas, 12/19)

Stat: University Of California Squares Off Against Major Publisher Elsevier
There’s a high-stakes fight in California that could shape the way that academic research gets read and published far beyond the West Coast. The battle is pitting the University of California system against Elsevier, the Netherlands-based publisher of academic journals. At issue is how open-access research gets paid for. (Robbins, 12/19)

Reuters: Exclusive: Big Pharma Returning To U.S. Price Hikes In January After Pause
Novartis AG and Bayer AG are among nearly 30 drugmakers that have taken steps to raise the U.S. prices of their medicines in January, ending a self-declared halt to increases made by a pharma industry under pressure from the Trump administration, according to documents seen by Reuters. Other drugmakers set to raise prices at the start of 2019 include Allergan Plc, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Amgen Inc, AstraZeneca Plc and Biogen Inc, the documents show. (12/19)

Stat: Trump Report Would Preclude Patent Seizures To Lower Drug Prices 
In a rebuke to Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups, the U.S. Department of Commerce released a report earlier this month saying the federal government should not use so-called march-in rights, which involve seizing patents, as a tool to address high prices for prescription medicines. Under federal law, a government agency that funds private research — such as the National Institute of Health — can require a drug maker to license its patent to another party in order to “alleviate health and safety needs which are not being reasonably satisfied.” An agency can also do so when the benefits of a product, such as a medicine, are not available on “reasonable terms.” (Silverman, 12/19)

Modern Healthcare: Providers, Insurers Call For Strong Enforcement Of Drug Price Transparency
Providers and insurers want the CMS to put some real teeth—including financial penalties—into any plan requiring greater price transparency from drugmakers. In comments on a proposed rule to require drugmakers to list a drug's wholesale price in TV ads, several provider and insurers groups told the agency that a stick is needed to ensure pharmaceutical companies follow through. (Meyer, 12/19)

The New York Times: Juul May Get Billions In Deal With One Of World’s Largest Tobacco Companies
E-cigarette maker Juul, which has vowed to make cigarettes obsolete, is near to inking a deal to become business partners with Altria, one of the world’s largest tobacco companies. The union — which would create an alliance between one of public health’s greatest villains and the start-up that would upend it — entails cigarette giant Altria investing $12.8 billion for a 35 percent stake in Juul, at a $38 billion valuation, according to two people briefed on the negotiations. (Richtel and Kaplan, 12/19)

The Associated Press: Do's And Don'ts Of Helping Loved Ones Pay Medical Bills
Relief from medical debt doesn't top the typical holiday wish list. But help with unexpected medical bills could be a welcome gift for millions of Americans. Four in 10 U.S. adults received a surprisingly high medical invoice within the last year, according to a September survey from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. And medical bills topped the list of financial commitments that Americans are afraid they won't be able to afford, ahead of prescription drugs, rent or gas, according to the results. (Perrone, 12/19)

The New York Times: Heroin Addiction Explained: How Opioids Hijack The Brain
Getting hooked is nobody’s plan. Some turn to heroin because prescription painkillers are tough to get. Fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, has snaked its way into other drugs like cocaine, Xanax and MDMA, widening the epidemic. To understand what goes through the minds and bodies of opioid users, The New York Times spent months interviewing users, family members and addiction experts. Using their insights, we created a visual representation of how the strong lure of these powerful drugs can hijack the brain. Dr. Pedro Mateu-Gelabert, one of the nation’s top opioid researchers, said this work brings “an emotional understanding” to the epidemic but “without glamorizing or oversimplifying.” (Sinha, 12/18)

The Associated Press: US Urges Doctors To Write More Rx For Overdose Antidote
The U.S. government told doctors Wednesday to consider prescribing medications that reverse overdoses to many more patients who take opioid painkillers in a move that could add more than $1 billion in health care costs. Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir, a doctor appointed by President Donald Trump, announced the guidance, saying it's important for doctors to discuss overdose dangers with patients. (Johnson, 12/19)

The Washington Post: African American Heroin Users Are Dying Rapidly In An Opioid Epidemic Nobody Talks About
Spoon, whose product could be trusted, wasn’t answering his phone. So just after 9 a.m. on a fetid August morning, Sam Rogers had trekked to a corner two miles east of the U.S. Capitol on Pennsylvania Avenue, hoping to find heroin that wouldn’t kill him. Now Rogers, 53, was back in his bedroom at the hot, dark house on R Street SE. Sitting in a worn swivel chair, he cued a Rob Thomas song on his cellphone and bent over his cooker and syringe. The heroin — a tan powder sold for $10 a bag — simmered into a cloudy liquid with the amber hue of ginger ale. Palliative or poison: He would know soon enough. (Jamison, 12/19)

The Washington Post: D.C.’s Opioid Epidemic: As African American Heroin Overdoses Skyrocketed The City Ignored Life-Saving Strategies
For the past four years, the nation’s capital has undergone its worst public-health crisis since the arrival of AIDS: an explosion of fatal drug overdoses among African Americans. The rate of death, caused by heroin cut with the lethal synthetic opioid fentanyl, is comparable to the opioid epidemic’s worst ravages in rural and suburban parts of the United States. More people died of opioid overdoses than homicides last year in the District. But the city’s overdose victims are different from those in areas of the country more commonly associated with opioid abuse. Many are black men who have been addicted to heroin for decades. And unlike drug users elsewhere, they have often been left by their government without basic help. (Jamison, 12/19)

Reuters: Judge Blocks New York From Enforcing Opioid Surcharge On Companies
A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday blocked New York state from enforcing a recently enacted law that aimed to collect $600 million from drug manufacturers and distributors to defray the costs of combating the opioid addiction epidemic. U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that while the concerns driving New York's decision to adopt the law were valid, the means by which the state would extract payments from the companies violated the U.S. Constitution. (12/19)

The New York Times: Fewer Births, More Deaths Result In Lowest U.S. Growth Rate In Generations
The population of the United States grew at its slowest pace in more than eight decades, the Census Bureau said Wednesday, as the number of deaths increased and the number of births declined. Not since 1937, when the country was in the grips of the Great Depression and birthrates were down substantially, has it grown so slowly, with just a 0.62 percent gain between July 2017 and July 2018. With Americans getting older, fewer babies are being born and more people are dying, demographers said. (Tavernise, 12/19)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Population Grew At Slowest Pace In More Than 80 Years
The numbers, which cover the year ended July 1, show the country’s population rose by 0.6% to 327.2 million people. That was the lowest rate since 1937 in data going back to 1901, according to William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. The figures offer fresh clues to which states are likely to gain or lose congressional seats after the 2020 census. If the House of Representatives were apportioned based on this year’s data, Texas would gain two seats, while Arizona, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Oregon would each gain one. (Adamy and Overberg, 12/19)

Politico: Population Boom Could Remake 2020 Map
A handful of presidential battleground states experienced a population explosion over the past year, altering the landscape in at least three key states that stand to play a pivotal role in the 2020 election. Those population shifts are poised to have a tangible impact in 2020 — with demographic shifts cementing Florida’s premier swing-state status, vaulting Arizona onto the list of 2020 swing states and perhaps putting Nevada further out of reach for President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. (Caputo, Shepard and Bland, 12/19)

The Associated Press: US Debuts Childhood-Lead Plan That Critics Say Falls Short
The Trump administration released an "action plan" Wednesday against devastating childhood exposure to lead, but critics said it held little new to protect millions of American children living with high levels of the metal. Children in at least 4 million American households are exposed to high levels of lead, including through old, chipped lead-based paint, or contaminated dust and soil, water and air, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A half-million children ages 5 or younger have blood-borne lead at levels that should trigger public-health intervention, the CDC said. (Knickmeyer, 12/19)

The Washington Post: In Detroit, One School Leader’s Reaction To Lead In The Water: Shut Off The Taps
The results landed on Nikolai Vitti’s desk on a late summer afternoon, days before Detroit’s nearly 50,000 public school students would return to class. The findings were definitive and disturbing: In initial tests, two-thirds of schools showed alarming levels of lead in the water. It was the latest in a growing list of crises for Detroit’s new schools superintendent, barely a year into his job. (Dennis, 12/19)

The New York Times: What We Learned In 2018: Science
It’s not easy to say that any particular scientific development was the most important in a given year. But if we had to choose some highlights, we’d opt for these unforgettable events and findings. (12/20)

The New York Times Podcast: The Ethics Of Genetically Editing Babies
Ever since scientists created the powerful gene-editing technique Crispr, they have braced for the day when it would be used to produce a genetically altered human being. Now, the moment they feared may have come. What’s likely to happen next? (Barbaro, 12/19)

The Washington Post: As Teens Grapple With Me Too, Jayden Castillo Just Wants To Be A ‘Good Guy’
On a sunny autumn afternoon, Jayden Castillo and Janelle Moore sit at a suburban Wendy’s, sipping strawberry lemonades and talking about the realities of sex for American teens. The old friends, both seniors at Oxon Hill High School in Maryland, believe access to porn has warped their generation’s concept of sex — especially in the minds of boys. “They learn everything from online,” Janelle explains. (McCarthy, 12/19)

Los Angeles Times: More Than 15% Of Childhood Deaths In America Are Due To Guns, Study Says
More than 3,000 children and adolescents died of a gunshot wound in the United States in 2016, a new tally of childhood deaths finds. These episodes accounted for 15.4% of all Americans between the ages of 1 and 19 who died in 2016, and a quarter of those killed by injury rather than disease. As they inch their way back to rates last seen in 1999, childhood deaths attributed to firearms — 3,143 — generated 70% more grieving families than those produced by pediatric cancer — 1,853. Guns also broke the hearts of more than three times as many families than did childhood drownings — 995 — or the combined category of poisoning deaths and fatal drug overdoses — 982. (Healy, 12/19)

The Associated Press: US Adults Aren't Getting Taller, But Still Putting On Pounds
You don't need to hang the mistletoe higher but you might want to skip the holiday cookies. A new report released Thursday shows U.S. adults aren't getting any taller but they are still getting fatter. The average U.S. adult is overweight and just a few pounds from obese, thanks to average weight increases in all groups — but particularly whites and Hispanics. (Stobbe, 12/20)

The New York Times: The Bullet Lodged In His Knee. Then The Injuries Really Began.
The 46-year-old man showed up at hospital emergency room in Chicago, complaining that his left knee hurt. The X-rays above showed why. Fourteen years earlier, he’d been shot in the knee. That’s the image on the left. The bullet was not removed, and over the years his knee had ground it into tiny pieces, as shown on the right. (Kolata, 12/19)

The New York Times: More Pets, Fewer Allergies
Children who live with cats and dogs when they are infants are less likely to develop allergies later in childhood — and the more pets they have, the better, a Swedish study of 1,278 children has found. Researchers interviewed the parents of 249 of the children when they were 6 to 12 months old, gathering information on pet ownership, and had clinical evaluations done at 18 months, 3 years and 8 to 9 years. (Bakalar, 12/19)

Los Angeles Times: How George Tyndall Went From USC Gynecologist To The Center Of LAPD’s Largest-Ever Sex Abuse Investigation
Dr. George Tyndall arrived on the USC campus in the summer of 1989. The university had advertised for a full-time gynecologist for the student health center, and Tyndall, then 42, was an enthusiastic candidate. “My mission will be to do everything I can to help Trojan women avoid the many preventable catastrophes that I have seen,” Tyndall declared during the job interview, according to a written account he provided to The Times. “And I will do so for as long as I am mentally and physically able, hopefully well into my 80s.” (Hamilton and Ryan, 12/19)

The Washington Post: Virginia Jail’s Lack Of Medical And Mental Health Care Probably Violates Constitution, Justice Department Report Finds
A major Virginia jail probably violates the constitutional rights of prisoners by failing to provide adequate medical and mental-health care, according to a report released Wednesday by the Justice Department. The Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth does not provide proper emergency care for sick inmates, risks harm to mentally ill prisoners by placing them in solitary confinement for long periods, and fails to adequately screen or administer medicine for those needing psychological treatment, the report found. (Jouvenal, 12/19)

Reuters: Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder Verdict Stands, Missouri Judge Rules
Johnson & Johnson failed to persuade a Missouri trial judge to set aside a July verdict awarding a record $4.69 billion to 22 women who blamed their ovarian cancer on asbestos in the company’s Baby Powder and other talc products. The health-care company faces thousands of lawsuits over the safety of talc in its Baby Powder. The trial was the first in which plaintiffs claimed that asbestos fibers in J&J’s talc caused ovarian cancer. It relied on unsealed internal company documents detailing J&J’s alleged knowledge of asbestos contamination since at least the 1970s. (12/19)

The Washington Post: Barack Obama Dons A Santa Hat And Hands Out Gifts In Surprise Visit To D.C. Children’s Hospital
Watch out, Santa: Former president Barack Obama is coming for your sleigh. With a fluffy red cap and a bulging bag slung over his shoulder, Obama delivered presents (and more than a few gasps) to the young patients at Children’s National hospital in Northwest Washington on Wednesday. (Andrews-Dyer, 12/19)

Stat: Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Accusing Craig Venter Of Stealing Trade Secrets
A California judge has dismissed a suit in which genomics pioneer Craig Venter’s old company accused him of stealing trade secrets. The decision on Tuesday brings to a close a messy breakup between Venter, the 72-year-old celebrity scientist who helped sequence the human genome, and Human Longevity, the struggling San Diego genomics company that Venter founded in 2013 and departed this past spring. (Robbins, 12/19)

The Associated Press: Missouri Begins To Process Toward Medical Marijuana
Missouri has begun the move toward legalized medical marijuana by naming an outgoing lawmaker to a leadership role and announcing the start of the process for those who want to grow, make or sell marijuana products. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said Wednesday it will begin accepting application fees for cultivation, infused product manufacturing and dispensaries on Jan. 5. Forms are available on the health department website. Application fees are non-refundable. (12/19)