First Edition: February 14, 2019

California Healthline: Can California Beat The Federal Government In Lowering Drug Prices?
California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he’s done waiting for the federal government to curtail the rising cost of prescription drugs. Newsom has his own plan to ease that financial burden — one he hopes other states can join or replicate. The Democratic governor said he intends to use California’s might as the world’s fifth-largest economy to demand lower prices directly from drug companies for millions of Medicaid enrollees, state government workers and, eventually, Californians in the private sector. (Young, 2/14)

Kaiser Health News: Utah’s Novel Plan For Medicaid Expansion Opens Door To Spending Caps Sought By GOP
Utah this week became the 35th state to approve expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, but advocates for the poor worry its unusual financing could set a dangerous precedent and lead to millions of people losing coverage across the country. That’s because the plan includes unprecedented annual limits on federal and state spending. Those restrictions would be a radical change for Medicaid. Since it began in 1966, the state-federal health program for low-income residents has been an open-ended entitlement for anyone who meets eligibility criteria. State and federal spending must keep pace with enrollment. (Galewitz, 2/14)

Kaiser Health News: Seniors Aging In Place Turn To Devices And Helpers, But Unmet Needs Are Common
About 25 million Americans who are aging in place rely on help from other people and devices such as canes, raised toilets or shower seats to perform essential daily activities, according to a new study documenting how older adults adapt to their changing physical abilities. But a substantial number don’t get adequate assistance. Nearly 60 percent of seniors with seriously compromised mobility reported staying inside their homes or apartments instead of getting out of the house. (Graham, 2/14)

The New York Times: Parkland: A Year After The School Shooting That Was Supposed To Change Everything
The name “Parkland” has become a shorthand for the tragedy that many hoped would mark the beginning of the end of school massacres. But ask the survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in more quiet moments about the awful year since last Feb. 14, and they tell you a different, more personal story. About innocence lost. Dreams undone. Grief delayed. (Mazzei, 2/13)

The Associated Press: School Massacre 1 Year Later: A Time To Remember The Victims
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre a year ago renewed the national debate on guns and school safety, turned some victims' parents and surviving students into political activists and at least temporarily ended the local sheriff's career. But Thursday's anniversary will primarily be about remembering the 14 students and three staff members who died in the third high-profile mass shooting in Florida since 2016. (Spencer, 2/14)

Politico: A Year After Parkland, A Family Searches For Closure
For a few weeks after their daughter Carmen was murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018, a week shy of her 17th birthday, April and Phil Schentrup could barely leave the house. They didn’t go to the vigils; they didn’t watch the CNN town hall on U.S. gun policy; they couldn’t even go to work. “We were just trying to get through a normal day, trying to get out of bed,” April told me when I spoke to her over the phone in January. (Deutch, 2/13)

USA Today: Parkland Year After Shooting: Grieving Mother Fights For School Safety
In the despair after the Parkland school shooting, a single devastating moment shook so many Americans – when grieving mom Lori Alhadeff took a reporter’s microphone, looked at the camera and shared her pain with the world. “The gunman, a crazy person, just walks into the school, knocks down the window of my child’s door and starts shooting, shooting her and killing her,” Alhadeff said, her outrage growing with each word. (Adely, 2/13)

The Wall Street Journal: A Year After Parkland Shooting, Communities Reflect
Events on Thursday, including art displays, tree plantings and candlelight vigils, will honor those who died. In Broward County, schools plan to observe a moment of silence at 10:17 a.m., the 17 representing the victims who were killed and the additional 17 people wounded. Some cities in the area plan the moment of silence at 2:21 p.m., the time the gunman first fired bullets in the rampage. Members of March For Our Lives, the student-led group that organized demonstrations after the shooting, said they planned to go dark—online and offline—for four days starting Thursday. “Like many in the Parkland community, March For Our Lives will be spending time with friends and family, remembering those we lost,” the group said in a statement. (Campo-Flores, 2/14)

The Washington Post: The Parkland School Shooting Is Bringing New Surveillance Tech To Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. But Will It Work?
Kimberly Krawczyk says she would do anything to keep her students safe. A year ago Thursday, the Parkland, Fla., high school math teacher barricaded students behind her classroom door during one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. But one of the unconventional responses that Broward County Public Schools said could stop another tragedy has left her deeply unnerved: an experimental artificial-intelligence system that would surveil her students closer than ever before. (Harwell, 2/13)

The Associated Press: Parkland Massacre Reshapes K-12 In Florida
Some students have difficulty trusting classmates outside their circle. Parents say interactions with school staff are more impersonal. Teachers worry that added security detracts from learning. The Parkland massacre a year ago upended school life in Florida. In the year since a gunman fatally shot 14 students and three school staffers, the state's districts have reshaped the K-12 experience, adopting new rules for entering campus, hiring more police and holding frequent safety drills. Some schools trained teams of armed employees to confront attackers. (Gomez Licon, 2/14)

NPR: How Schools Are Working To Stop Gun Violence And Save Kids
Psychologist John Van Dreal has spent almost 30 years working with troubled kids. Still, it's always unsettling to get the kind of phone call he received one morning eight years ago as he was on his way to a meeting. "I got a call from the assistant principal at North [Salem] High, reporting that a student had made some threats on the Internet," remembers Van Dreal, the director of safety and risk management for Salem-Keizer Public Schools in Salem, Ore. (Chatterjee and Davis, 2/13)

The Washington Post: At Parkland Anniversary, Congress Moves To Act On Gun Control Amid Partisan Debate
The House Judiciary Committee passed a measure Wednesday that would require background checks for all gun sales and most gun transfers within the United States, the most significant gun-control legislation to advance this far in Congress in years. The committee spent more than nine hours debating the bill before voting 21 to 14 to advance it Wednesday night. Next, it will face a vote on the House floor. The measure was among the first actions taken by the newly elected Democratic majority, which pledged to make gun control a top issue. The bill also has the support of at least five Republicans, a rare feat given the issue often has cleaved along party lines. (Zezima, 2/13)

Politico: House Democrats Make First Major Move To Tighten Gun Laws
The Judiciary Committee approved two bills that would expand federal background checks for firearm purchases. The legislation, which now heads to the House floor but stands virtually no chance in the Senate, makes good on Democrats’ promises to move swiftly to combat gun violence since taking control of the chamber this year. “There is a clear consensus among academics, public health experts and law enforcement personnel that universal background checks would greatly enhance public safety,” said Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). “Despite the obvious need to take action, however, Congress, for too long has done virtually nothing.” (Stratford, 2/13)

The New York Times: Parkland Shooting: Where Gun Control And School Safety Stand Today
On Feb. 14, 2018, a former student slaughtered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. The next day, David Hogg, a student who survived the attack, expressed his frustration at the pattern of political inaction that seems to follow mass shootings in the United States. He was not surprised that there had been another school shooting, he said, and that fact alone “says so much about the current state that our country is in, and how much has to be done.” “We need to do something,” he said. In the course of the next year, students would change the way the nation handles mass shootings, spurring new gun legislation and school safety measures, and holding to account the adults they felt had failed them. (Kramer and Harlan, 2/13)

Politico: Push For Medicare Buy-In Picks Up With '50 And Over' Bill
House and Senate Democrats unveiled a plan Wednesday that would allow anyone over age 50 to buy into Medicare — an incremental step to expand health coverage beyond Obamacare's gains that offers an alternative to the ambitious restructuring progressives envision in their push for Medicare for All. "I have always supported universal health care but we are not there yet," said Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), one of the co-sponsors. "Medicare at 50 is a very bold step in the right direction." (Ollstein, 2/13)

The Hill: Dems Offer Smaller Step Toward ‘Medicare For All'
“This is something that is not pie in the sky or aspirational,” said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), a co-sponsor of the buy-in bill. “This is a piece of legislation where you could turn the switch on overnight.” The measure was introduced by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) and Reps. Courtney, Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) and John Larson (D-Conn.). Meanwhile, progressive House Democrats are preparing their Medicare for all bill, which would largely eliminate the private insurance industry and move everyone into a single-payer, government-run system. (Hellmann, 2/13)

Reuters: Senators Vow Urgent Reform To Correct 'Unacceptable' Military Housing Conditions
U.S. Senators scolded real estate executives and Pentagon leadership over "unacceptable" conditions in privatized military housing on Wednesday, vowing urgent reform to protect service families from widespread health and safety hazards in base homes. At Senate Armed Services Committee hearings in response to Reuters reports describing U.S. military families facing squalid living conditions, lawmakers proposed fixes to hold private landlords and military branches accountable for hazards including peeling lead paint, mold and vermin infestations. (2/13)

Reuters: Military Survey Finds Deep Dissatisfaction With Family Housing On U.S. Bases
A new survey of military families living on U.S. bases found most are dissatisfied with their housing, often citing serious health and safety hazards – results that counter years of Pentagon reports claiming soaring satisfaction rates among military housing tenants. The survey results, collected from nearly 15,000 families currently or recently living in privatized military housing, were released hours before Senate hearings called to probe living conditions on U.S. bases. (Pell and Schneyer, 2/13)

The Wall Street Journal: HHS To Review Indian Health Service After Revelations On Pedophile Doctor
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called for a review of the Indian Health Service following an investigation that revealed the agency’s mishandling of a pedophile doctor. The investigation, by The Wall Street Journal and the PBS series Frontline, detailed the career of Stanley Patrick Weber, a pediatrician who in 2018 was convicted of sexually assaulting Native American boys. The IHS transferred him from one agency-run hospital to another after officials concluded he was molesting children in 1995, and he continued working for the federal agency for 21 years. (Weaver and Frosch, 2/13)

NPR: Migrant Children: Inside The Homestead, Fla. Shelter Facility
Thousands of migrant children continue to arrive at the Southern border every month, without their parents, to ask for asylum. The government sends many of them to an emergency intake shelter in South Florida. That facility has come under intense scrutiny because it's the only child shelter for immigrants that's run by a for-profit corporation and the only one that isn't overseen by state regulators. The Homestead "temporary influx facility" is the biggest and most controversial shelter for migrant children in the country. Critics say the government is warehousing kids in a makeshift prison camp. But on a recent tour, the shelter director took pains to show a different perspective. (Burnett, 2/13)

The Associated Press: Teen Migrant Detention Facility Allows A Glimpse Inside Gate
Journalists were given a glimpse Wednesday of a newly expanded south-Florida detention facility where nearly 150 teenage migrants sleep in rows of bunk beds in a large windowless room and use portable toilets housed in adjacent tents. The sleeping area in a converted Job Corps building in Homestead, Florida, is just part of the growing detention center operated by a private company for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (Gomez Licon, 2/13)

Reuters: EPA To Limit Manmade Chemicals In Drinking Water
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will announce on Thursdays limits on how much toxic chemicals from cookware and carpeting are allowed in drinking water. The agency will announce a plan to control a group of chemicals known as PFAS that are linked to cancer, liver and thyroid damage, and other health and fetal effects. The substances, which include PFOA and PFOS, are found in non-stick cookware, stain-resistant carpeting and other manmade materials. (2/13)

The Associated Press: EPA Sets Toxins Response Plan Amid Criticism From Lawmakers
So-called forever chemicals, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl compounds, or PFAS, pose “a very important threat,” acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in an interview with ABC News Live ahead of a scheduled briefing Thursday in Philadelphia. Wheeler said the agency was moving forward with the process under the Safe Drinking Water Act that could lead to new safety thresholds for the presence of the chemicals in water, but he did not commit in the interview to setting standards. (Knickmeyer and Flesher, 2/14)

The Associated Press: Now's Your Chance To Change Your Medicare Advantage Plan
Medicare Advantage enrollees get a new, second chance to find the right health coverage this year. The government added another enrollment window that started Jan. 1 and lasts until March 31. It gives people with privately run versions of the federal Medicare program a chance to change plans or switch to regular Medicare. Until now, Medicare Advantage customers who wanted to make a big switch outside the program's annual fall sign-up period had to rely on a shorter, more limited window. (2/13)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Hospital Owner Columbia Pacific Starts Sale Of Asia Business
Columbia Pacific Management Inc. is trying to sell a collection of hospitals in Asia for close to $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The Seattle-based owner of hospitals and health-care facilities in the U.S. and around the world recently started a formal sale process for its Columbia Asia business, the people said. The first round of bids is due by the end of March, they added. Morgan Stanley is advising Columbia Pacific. (Venkat, 2/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Johnson & Johnson To Buy Surgical Robotics Maker
Johnson & Johnson ’s Ethicon unit has reached a deal to buy medical technology firm Auris Health Inc. for about $3.4 billion in cash, expanding J&J’s push into the use of robotic technology for medical procedures and surgery. J&J said Wednesday that Auris’s technology will help it develop a digital solution addressing different parts of patients’ lung-cancer treatment. If certain milestones are reached, Auris could also receive as much as $2.35 billion more in the deal. (Prang and Loftus, 2/13)

The Hill: Trump Got In Dem’s Face Over Abortion At Private Meeting: Report 
President Trump reportedly fumed at Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) last week at a private event before the National Prayer Breakfast, tearing into him over bills in New York and Virginia to extend abortion rights. Politico, citing three sources, reported that Trump "leaned in close" to Coons during the exchange. ... A White House official told Politico that the exchange shows how Trump “genuinely views abortion … and isn’t afraid to make the Democrats defend their extreme positions.” The official did not witness the interaction, and the White House declined to comment further, according to Politico. (Burke, 2/13)

Politico: 'He Was In His Face': Trump Fumes Over Abortion, Courts Evangelicals
The private episode underscored Trump’s recent public focus on abortion, which has delighted his evangelical Christian supporters. During his State of the Union address last Tuesday, Trump used vivid imagery to claim that New York’s new abortion law would “allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.” And he accused Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who’s backed similar legislation in his state, of wanting to allow medical providers to “execute” babies after birth. Abortion is a somewhat unlikely new cause for a president who years ago called himself “very pro-choice” and did not make the issue a central theme of his 2016 campaign. But people close to Trump say that he has developed an increasingly sincere passion for the cause. (Orr, 2/13)

The Associated Press: Arkansas Lawmaker's Plan Tightens Abortion Ban To 18 Weeks
A Republican lawmaker in Arkansas, which has some of the strictest abortion prohibitions in the country, wants the state to go even further with a measure that would prohibit the procedure 18 weeks into a pregnancy. The proposed 18-week ban filed this week would further prohibit abortions in a state where the procedure is already banned at 20 weeks. The latest measure includes an exception for medical emergencies, but not for rape or incest. (DeMillo, 2/13)

The Associated Press: Mississippi Advances Ban On Abortion After Fetal Heartbeat
Mississippi is working toward enacting one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation, in a race with other states to push a legal challenge to the more conservative U.S. Supreme Court. The Republican-controlled Mississippi House and Senate passed separate bills Wednesday to ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, about six weeks into pregnancy. Efforts to pass similar bills are underway in Florida, Kentucky, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee. (Wagster Pettus, 2/13)

NPR: Vaccine Hesitancy Tied To Community Norms
Distrust of vaccines may be almost as contagious as measles, according to medical anthropologist Elisa Sobo. More than 100 people have been infected with measles this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Over 50 of those cases have occurred in southwest Washington state and northwest Oregon in an outbreak that led Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to declare a state of emergency on Jan. 25. Some public health officials blame the surge of cases on low vaccination rates for this highly infectious disease. (Gordon, 2/13)

The Washington Post: Anti-Vaxxers Are Spreading Conspiracy Theories On Facebook, And The Company Is Struggling To Stop Them
As a disturbing number of measles outbreaks crop up across the United States, Facebook is facing challenges combating widespread misinformation about vaccinations on its platform, which has become a haven for the anti-vaccination movement. The World Health Organization recently named “vaccine hesitancy” as one of the biggest global health threats of 2019. But on Facebook, in public pages and private groups with tens of thousands of members, false information about vaccines — largely stemming from a debunked 1998 study that tied immunizations to autism — is rampant and tough to pin down. In the bubble of closed groups, users warn about alleged dangers of vaccinations, citing pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. (Telford, 2/13)

The Washington Post: Measles Outbreak: As Americans Reject Vaccines, Health Workers Abroad Risk Death To Deliver Them
In early October, three cases of measles were confirmed in Antanarivo, the capital of Madagascar. The highly contagious virus quickly spread across the island nation; by the next month, thousands of cases had been confirmed. The crisis only grew from there. Madagascar has poor health-care infrastructure and a low vaccination rate. But public health experts say its dangerous measles outbreak still offers a warning for anti-vaccination campaigners in the United States, where a smaller-scale flare-up has led to more than 100 confirmed cases since the beginning of the year. (O'Grady, 2/13)

Stateline: Pay Attention To This Little-Noticed Opioid Lawsuit In Oklahoma 
At a minimum, the Oklahoma trial would for the first time give the press and the American public full access to evidence and arguments aimed at showing that drug companies flooded local markets with opioid painkillers for more than a decade while knowing that the pills were highly addictive. In the case, which was filed in 2017, attorneys representing Oklahoma will present evidence and expert testimony to support the state’s claim that OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet and other prescription pain medicines that drugmakers falsely claimed were safe led to the deaths of thousands of Oklahomans. (Vestal, 2/14)

The Washington Post: Fentanyl Deaths From ‘Mexican Oxy’ Pills Hit Arizona Hard
Aaron Francisco Chavez swallowed at least one of the sky blue pills at a Halloween party before falling asleep forever. He became yet another victim killed by a flood of illicit fentanyl smuggled from Mexico into the Southwest — a profitable new business for drug gangs that has pushed the synthetic opioid to the top spot for fatal U.S. overdoses. Three others at the party in Tucson also took the pills nicknamed “Mexican oxy” and police flagged down by partygoers saved them by administering naloxone overdose reversal medication. But the treatment came too late for Chavez, who died at age 19. (Snow, 2/14)

Stat: He Hunted For Gold-Standard Research On AI In Medicine — And Didn't Find Much 
By now everyone’s heard about the potential of artificial intelligence in medicine to revolutionize things like interpreting medical data and predicting patient outcomes. And everyone’s probably heard plenty, too, about how much hype is out there about what these algorithms can actually do. But what does the evidence say? Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and geneticist at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, recently published a review article in the journal Nature Medicine in which he sifted through the research available on AI in medicine. He wasn’t impressed. (Robbins, Feuerstein and Garde, 2/14)

The New York Times: Can Big Science Be Too Big?
Modern science is largely a team sport, and over the past few decades the makeup of those teams has shifted, from small groups of collaborators to ever larger consortiums, with rosters far longer than that of the New England Patriots. Answering big questions often requires scientists and institutions to pool resources and data, whether the research involves detecting gravitational waves in deep space, or sorting out the genetics of brain development. But that shift has prompted scientists to examine the relative merits of small groups versus large ones. Is supersizing research projects the most efficient way to advance knowledge? What is gained and what, if anything, is lost? (Carey, 2/13)

NPR: To Fight Antibiotic Resistance, Scientists Look To Microbes In Insects
Nobody likes a cockroach in their house. But before you smash the unwelcome intruder, consider this: that six-legged critter might one day save your life. That's right. Insects—long known to spread diseases—could potentially help cure them. Or rather, the microbes living inside them could. Scientists have discovered dozens of microorganisms living in or on insects that produce antimicrobial compounds, some of which may hold the key to developing new antibiotic drugs. (Chisholm, 2/13)

The Washington Post: Why Did The First U.S. Uterine Transplant Fail?
On March 7, 2016, doctors at the Cleveland Clinic introduced the nation to Lindsey McFarland, the first person to undergo a successful uterus transplant in the United States. Within hours, however, McFarland was back in surgery: A life-threatening infection forced the organ’s removal, crushing hope she might one day give birth. McFarland later learned the culprit was Candida albicans, a fungus common in women’s reproductive tracts. In her, it flared into a raging infection that damaged at least two of her arteries, including one that supplied blood to the newly implanted uterus. (Bernstein, 2/13)

The New York Times: Inflammation In Midlife May Lead To Memory Problems
Chronic inflammation in middle age may lead to memory and thinking problems later in life. Unlike acute inflammation, which arises in response to injury, chronic inflammation persists over months or years. Autoimmune disease, lingering infection, exposure to polluted air, psychological stress and other conditions can all promote chronic inflammation. (Bakalar, 2/13)

The New York Times: Behavior At Age 6 May Predict Adult Income
A kindergarten boy’s behavior could predict his income as an adult, a new study has found. Kindergarten teachers in the poorest neighborhoods of Montreal rated 920 6-year-old boys using scales measuring inattention, hyperactivity, defiant behavior, aggression and prosociality (the tendency to help someone being hurt, stop quarrels or invite a bystander into a game). Researchers then gathered information on earnings from tax returns at ages 35 to 36. The study is in JAMA Pediatrics. (Bakalar, 2/13)

The Associated Press: Jury Sides With Transgender Employee In ‘Historic’ Iowa Case
A jury ruled Wednesday that an Iowa prison warden discriminated against a transgender employee by denying him the use of men’s restrooms and locker rooms in a verdict that advocates call “historic.” Jurors also found that the state executive branch discriminated against Jesse Vroegh by offering medical benefits that would not cover his gender reassignment surgery. After making those findings, the eight-member jury awarded $120,000 in damages for emotional distress to Vroegh, 37, a former nurse at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville. (Foley, 2/13)

The Wall Street Journal: New York City Council Members Want To Dial Down Sirens
The piercing wail of an ambulance, the one that disturbs sleep and triggers dogs to howl, should be replaced with the more European, two-tone sound, according to New York City council members who are expected this week to introduce legislation that would mandate a citywide siren change. (West, 2/13)