First Edition: July 8, 2019

Kaiser Health News: Sobering Up: In An Alcohol-Soaked Nation, More Seek Booze-Free Social Spaces
Not far from the Anheuser-Busch brewery, Joshua Grigaitis fills a cooler with bottles and cans in one of the city’s oldest bars. It’s Saturday night, and the lights are low. Frank Sinatra’s crooning voice fills the air, along with the aroma of incense. The place has all the makings of a swank boozy hangout. Except for the booze. (Ungar and O'Donnell, 7/8)

Kaiser Health News: FDA Ends Months-Long FOIA Battle Over Medical Device Failures, Says Putting Database Online ‘Satisfies’ KHN Request
The Food and Drug Administration responded Wednesday to a Freedom of Information Act request filed months ago, noting that the information sought by Kaiser Health News “is now posted online.” KHN had filed a series of FOIA requests, beginning in September 2018, seeking hidden reports of malfunctions or injuries tied to scores of medical devices. The FDA said fulfilling the requests would take up to 22 months and denied a KHN request for expediting the process because there was no “compelling need” to release the information. (7/3)

The Washington Post: 5th Circuit Decision On ACA Could Create Political Havoc For GOP
The judges of the marbled appellate courthouse in the heart of New Orleans once upended civil rights law, issuing rulings that propelled desegregation. This summer, they could upend health-care law and with it, the roiling politics of health care in Congress, the White House and the 2020 campaigns. On Tuesday, the Trump administration and 18 Republican-led states will face off against a score of Democratic-led states over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — the sprawling law the Supreme Court has upheld twice but a federal district judge in Texas ruled invalid late last year. (Goldstein, 7/7)

The Hill: ObamaCare Repeal Lawsuit Faces Major Court Test
Legal experts on both sides of the aisle say the challengers’ legal arguments are weak and the lawsuit is unlikely to ultimately succeed, but nothing is assured. And regardless of the outcome, Democrats are using the lawsuit to argue Republicans are a threat to the 20 million people who rely on ObamaCare for health insurance. (Sullivan, 7/7)

The Associated Press: Congress Has Ambitious Agenda Tackling Health Care Costs
Lawmakers are trying to set aside their irreconcilable differences over the Obama-era Affordable Care Act and work to reach bipartisan agreement on a more immediate health care issue, lowering costs for people who already have coverage. Returning from their Fourth of July recess, the Senate and House are pushing to end surprise medical bills, curb high prices for medicines, and limit prescription copays for people with Medicare. Partisan disagreements could derail the effort, but lawmakers fear the voters' verdict in 2020 if politicians have nothing to show for all their hand-wringing about drug prices. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 7/7)

The Washington Post: House Freshmen Balance National Crises, Issues Back Home
Iowa Rep. Abby Finkenauer spent her time back home meeting with small-business owners and veterans, marching in a parade and delivering gifts to fire stations. In their upstate New York districts, Rep. Antonio Delgado visited farms, including one that’s part of a pilot program for hiring veterans, and Rep. Andy Brindisi kicked off a summer lunch program for kids. As the class of freshmen House lawmakers returned to their states for the Independence Day break, six months into their first terms, many were determined to push beyond President Donald Trump’s latest pronouncements from the White House — over the border crisis or the impeachment calls against him — to focus on local issues they say matter in their districts. (Mascaro and Robinson, 7/6)

CNN: Ocasio-Cortez Hits Back At Pelosi For Knocking Far-Left Lawmakers Who Voted Against Border Bill
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit back at Nancy Pelosi after the House Speaker criticized her and three other far-left Democrats in Congress for voting against a Senate measure on border funding that President Donald Trump recently signed into law. Ocasio-Cortez argued that Democrats cannot trust the Trump administration not to divert money for humanitarian aid toward immigration enforcement -- a comment that comes after the President acknowledged that ICE raids would begin after the Fourth of July. (Ehrlich, 7/7)

The New York Times: What Would Giving Health Care To Undocumented Immigrants Mean?
Providing comprehensive health coverage to undocumented immigrants has long been nothing more than a wouldn’t-it-be-nice item on the far left’s wish list. But in the crowded field of candidates vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, nearly everyone supports it. Almost all of the 19 candidates who responded to a recent New York Times survey on health care positions said “yes” to a question about whether undocumented immigrants should be covered under a “Medicare for all” system, a public option or other government health programs. And during the second night of the Democratic debates last week, the idea received a unanimous show of hands in support. (Hoffman, 7/3)

The Hill: Biden On Health Care For Undocumented Migrants: How Do You Say, 'I'm Gonna Let You Die' 
Undocumented immigrants should have access to healthcare, former Vice President Joe Biden said in a CNN interview released Friday. “I think undocumented people need to have a means by which they can be covered when they’re sick,” he said in a CNN interview, adding, “This is just common decency.” “In an emergency they should have health care. Everybody should,” he added. "How do you say 'You're undocumented, I'm gonna let you die, man?'" (Frazin, 7/5)

Politico: Bernie Sanders Decries Planned Closing Of Philadelphia Hospital
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday assailed the planned closure of a hospital in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, saying it demonstrates the failures of the country's greedy health care system. American Academic Health System CEO Joel Freedman said he "relentlessly pursued numerous strategic options" to keep the Philadelphia-based Hahnemann University Hospital open, but it "cannot continue to lose millions of dollars each month and remain in business." (Otterbein, 7/7)

The Hill: Delaney: Medicare For All Proponents Have 'Hijacked The Good Name Of Medicare' 
Former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) on Sunday blasted his fellow Democratic presidential candidates’ support of Medicare for All proposals, saying the voters “will reject” them. “This is [Sen.] Bernie Sanders’s [I-Vt.] plan, it will take private insurance away from half the people in this country,” Delaney said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” adding that Democrats who support such proposals have “outsourced” health care policy to the Vermont senator. (Budryk, 7/7)

The Hill: Biden Says He Would Bring Back ObamaCare's Individual Mandate 
Former Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview that aired Friday on CNN that he would bring back ObamaCare's individual mandate if he is elected president. "Yes, I'd bring back the individual mandate," Biden told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Thursday. The mandate, which is a financial penalty in the Affordable Care Act for Americans who don't have health insurance, was the main target of Republicans for years in their attempts to repeal Obama's signature health care law. (Manchester, 7/5)

The New York Times: Trump And His Aides Dismiss Reports Of Disease And Hunger In Border Facilities
President Trump and his top immigration officials on Sunday contested reports that migrant children were being held in horrific conditions in federal detention facilities, as the administration argued that the government was enforcing oversight standards even as it struggled to house and care for an influx of migrants. Accounts of disease, hunger and overcrowding have multiplied in recent days, but Kevin K. McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security, and Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the acting director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, maintained that the facilities were safe. (Cochrane, 7/7)

The Associated Press: DHS Official Defends Conditions At Border Patrol Stations
"It's an extraordinarily challenging situation," McAleenan told ABC's "This Week." The Homeland Security Department's internal watchdog provided new details Tuesday about the overcrowding in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. The report said children at three facilities had no access to showers and that some children under age 7 had been held in jammed centers for more than two weeks. Some cells were so cramped that adults were forced to stand for days on end. (7/7)

Politico: Migrant Detention Presents 'Extraordinarily Challenging Situation,' DHS Chief Says
“So, I’m not denying that there are challenging situations at the border. I’ve been the one talking about it the most,” he continued. “What I can tell you right now is that there's adequate food, water, and that the reason those children were at Clint station in the first place is so they could have medical consolidated; they had shower facilities — for over a year there’s been showers there. So, this is why we try to provide a better situation for the brief time they’re supposed to spend at the border.” (Forgey, 7/7)

The Washington Post: HHS To Media: Don’t Call Our Youth Shelters ‘Detention Centers’
Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Mark Weber recalls how he briefed workers at a housing facility for migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Tex., after the Associated Press wrote a short article about its opening. “I’m sorry to report that they called this a detention center,” says Weber in an interview with the Erik Wemple Blog, noting that the assembled professionals groaned. “But I am happy to say that at least they said we were providing educational services.” (Wemple, 7/5)

The Associated Press: Migrant Child Drawings Depict Jail-Like Scenes Of Detention
In one drawing, stick figures sleep on the ground under blankets watched by other figures with hats. Another picture has frowning stick figures behind what appears to be a chain-link fence. One shows two toilets in a small room. All of the drawings include imposing jail-like bars covering most of the canvas. They were done by children asked to depict their experience in Border Patrol custody and photographed by an American Academy of Pediatrics volunteer last week. (7/5)

CNN: Pediatricians Share Migrant Children's Disturbing Drawings Of Their Time In US Custody
The staff at the center asked the children to depict their time in CBP custody. A social worker at the center gave the drawings to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which gave them to CNN. "The fact that the drawings are so realistic and horrific gives us a view into what these children have experienced," said Dr. Colleen Kraft, immediate past president of the AAP. "When a child draws this, it's telling us that child felt like he or she was in jail." (Cohen, 7/4)

CNN: Doctors Describe Black Box Of Medical Care In Detention Facilities: 'That Is Not Medical Care. That's Malpractice'
Pediatricians who have volunteered to work with migrants in El Paso, Texas, are walled off from any contact with "whoever is providing the medical care to these individuals" in government run migrant detention centers, pediatrician Dr. Carlos Gutierrez said Tuesday. "That is not medical care. That's malpractice," said Gutierrez, who has helped treat families received by Annunciation House, a nonprofit that runs temporary residential centers that receives migrants released by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement or US Customs and Border Protection. (Christensen and Nedelman, 7/3)

The Wall Street Journal: As Border Crisis Worsens, A Detention Center Designed For Children Has None
Outfitted with miniature furniture, toys, and rugs with roads painted on them, the government detention center here was designed with young migrants in mind. But the only people being held here right now are adults. While reports of children being detained in crowded Border Patrol stations widely criticized as dirty and unsafe have sparked a national outcry, several facilities run by immigration authorities that are intended for children aren’t being fully used for that purpose. (Frosch and Caldwell, 7/5)

The Associated Press: Pregnant Teens Especially Vulnerable In Border Centers
As tales of wretchedness and overcrowding in government border detention facilities abound, one group of migrants is particularly vulnerable: teen moms and pregnant girls without parents of their own. Immigrant advocates and lawyers say the young mothers don't get special medical consideration while they're being crammed into U.S. facilities so packed that migrants are forced to sleep on floors or stand for days on end. As a result, the girls say they're underfed, have poor hygiene and their babies get sick. (Galvan, 7/4)

The New York Times: Trump Suggests Executive Order On Drug Prices, With A Scope That Is Unclear
President Trump said Friday that the White House was writing an executive order to require pharmaceutical companies to offer the United States government among the lowest prices in the world, in comments that were not immediately clear to many experts on the country’s health care system. “We’re working on a favored-nation clause, where we pay whatever the lowest nation’s price is,” Mr. Trump said to reporters Friday, specifying that an “executive order” was in the works. “Why should other nations like Canada — why should other nations pay much less than us? They’ve taken advantage of the system for a long time, pharma.” (Sanger-Katz, 7/5)

The Associated Press: Trump Promises Order Aimed At Lower Prescription Drug Prices
Trump says his administration soon would announce a “favored-nations clause,” where the amount paid by the government for a particular drug would not exceed the lowest amount paid by other nations or companies. Prices in other countries are often lower because governments directly negotiate with manufacturers. Trump mentioned his proposal when speaking with reporters before departing the White House for New Jersey, but he provided no other details. (7/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Plans Order To Tie Drug Prices To Other Nations’ Costs
Pharmaceutical stocks reacted negatively to the president’s remarks. The S&P 500 Pharmaceuticals index closed down 1.7%, and the NASDAQ Biotechnology index closed down 1.4%. Drug-makers who derive significant revenue from doctor-administered drugs, such as those for cancer and blindness, were among the hardest hit Friday. Two people familiar with White House planning said they thought Mr. Trump was referring to a proposal the White House put forward in October that would test a plan to lower costs for some drugs over five years by basing them on their costs in other countries. The proposal is under review. (Armour, 7/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Fast-Track Drug Approval, Designed For Emergencies, Is Now Routine
For decades, most drugs for critical illnesses passed through a standard battery of tests before regulators allowed them onto the market. A smaller portion were “fast tracked” to make them available to patients sooner. Now that dynamic has flipped. Most drugs are released faster than ever through federal programs expediting their approval. The new normal is transforming medical decision-making for the seriously ill, especially those who are out of other options. Families and doctors are thrust into a new world of trade-offs, raising complex questions about the medical and financial value of drugs with limited track records. (Loftus, 7/5)

The Associated Press: Appeals Court Puts Trump Abortion Restrictions On Hold Again
Trump administration rules that impose additional hurdles for low-income women seeking abortions are on hold once again. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Wednesday vacated a unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel and said a slate of 11 judges will reconsider lawsuits brought by more than 20 states and several civil rights and health organizations challenging the rules. (Johnson, 7/3)

Politico: Appeals Court Takes Up Fresh Challenge To Trump Abortion 'Gag Rule'
The court's order marks the latest turn in a battle over the administration’s changes to the program, which seek to steer federal dollars away from providers such as Planned Parenthood that offer abortions and abortion referrals. Critics have dubbed the Trump policy a "gag rule." The order covers several challenges to the rules, but it's unclear whether they will be heard together or separately. (Roubein and Rayasam, 7/3)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Reminds Providers That Emergency Rules Apply To 'Born-Alive' Infants
The CMS has re-issued a memorandum on emergency stabilization and treatment of newborn infants that could cause fresh anxiety for hospitals and physicians over abortion and care for pregnant women and severely disabled infants.The memo, first published in 2005 and re-issued last week, reminds providers that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires them to screen, stabilize and treat or transfer "every infant who is born alive, at any stage of development." (Meyer, 7/3)

The New York Times: When ‘Black Lives Matter’ Is Invoked In The Abortion Debate
As a pastor, Clinton Stancil counsels his black congregants that abortion is akin to the taking of innocent life. But as a civil rights activist, Mr. Stancil urges them to understand the social forces that prompt black women to have abortions at disproportionately high rates. The national debate over abortion has focused of late on when a heartbeat is discernible in the fetus, on the rights of women to make choices over their bodies and on the vast schism between the opposing views on ending pregnancies. (Eligon, 7/6)

The Associated Press: Judge Blocks Ohio Abortion Law, Clinics To Remain Open
A federal judge temporarily blocked an Ohio law banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, siding with abortion clinics that had argued the law would eliminate abortion access in the state. The ruling Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett halts the July 11 enforcement of the law that opponents argued would effectively ban the procedure. That is because a fetal heartbeat can be detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. (Carr Smyth and Franko, 7/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Prosecutors Drop Charge Against Alabama Woman Who Lost Fetus In Shooting
Prosecutors in Alabama dropped a manslaughter charge against a pregnant woman who lost her fetus after getting shot in the belly during an altercation. The case drew nationwide attention because a grand jury chose to indict the mother, 28-year-old Marshae Jones, for allegedly provoking the fight, rather than the woman who fired at her. It also revived debate over “fetal homicide” laws, like the one in Alabama, that define the fetus as a person and confer it with rights. (Campo-Flores, 7/3)

The New York Times: Unlicensed Nebraska Midwife Is Arrested In Newborn’s Death After Home Delivery
A Nebraska woman who advertised herself as a midwife specializing in home births — but who prosecutors said did not have the proper certification — is facing a homicide charge after the troubled delivery of a newborn resulted in the baby’s death. The midwife, Angela Hock, who turned herself in to the police on Tuesday for the June 17 death of the 2-day-old baby, appeared in Douglas County Court in Omaha on Friday, and was expected to be released later that day on a $25,000 bond. (Vigdor, 7/6)

The Associated Press: Oklahoma Presses Opioid Case Against Johnson & Johnson
So far, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter has secured about $355 million from two groups of defendant drugmakers in the state's lawsuit against opioid manufacturers, and he's trying to make the case that even more money should come Oklahoma's way in the first such state case to go to trial. While Hunter presses the claim that Johnson & Johnson is to blame for Oklahoma's opioid epidemic, he's also facing criticism, some from his own Republican colleagues, about his team's deal making and go-it-alone style. (Murphy, 7/4)

Politico: The Purell Presidency: Trump Aides Learn The President’s Real Red Line
He asks visitors if they’d like to wash their hands in a bathroom near the Oval Office. He’ll send a military doctor to help an aide caught coughing on Air Force One. And the first thing he often tells his body man upon entering the Beast after shaking countless hands at campaign events: “Give me the stuff” — an immediate squirt of Purell. Two and a half years into his term, President Donald Trump is solidifying his standing as the most germ-conscious man to ever lead the free world. His aversion shows up in meetings at the White House, on the campaign trail and at 30,000 feet. And everyone close to Trump knows the president’s true red line. (Lippman, 7/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Antivaccination Groups In New York Push Home Schooling
Antivaccination groups in New York have been promoting home schooling as a way to circumvent a new state law that eliminates religious-belief exemptions for school vaccination requirements. The New York Alliance of Vaccine Rights last week hosted a four-hour workshop called Homeschooling 101 in a hotel ballroom in Melville, N.Y., on Long Island. Hundreds of parents attended the event, where the hosts explained academic course requirements, individual home-instruction plans and extracurricular activities for home-schooled students. (St. John and West, 7/4)

The New York Times: Chief During Turmoil At Children’s Hospital May Be Next UNC President
As the University of North Carolina begins its formal search for a permanent president, a likely top candidate is the former head of the state-owned medical system, which is now being investigated over turmoil at its children’s hospital during his tenure. Dr. William L. Roper, who since January has been interim president of the university, was chief executive of UNC Health Care when doctors at the institution’s Chapel Hill children’s hospital warned administrators that their young heart patients seemed to be dying at higher-than-expected rates or faring poorly after surgery. (Gabler, 7/5)

The New York Times: Stored In Synapses: How Scientists Completed A Map Of The Roundworm’s Brain
The tiny, transparent roundworm known as Caenorhabditis elegans is roughly the size of a comma. Its entire body is made up of just about 1,000 cells. A third are brain cells, or neurons, that govern how the worm wriggles and when it searches for food — or abandons a meal to mate. It is one of the simplest organisms with a nervous system. The circuitry of C. elegans has made it a common test subject among scientists wanting to understand how the nervous system works in other animals. (Sheikh, 7/3)

The Washington Post: Research Into Worms’ Central Nervous System Could Bring Insight Into Mental Health Disorders
A connectome is a wiring schematic, like a circuit diagram, that shows how nerve cells link to each other and to organs. Building a human connectome is a long-sought goal among neuroscientists. It remains out of reach, despite investments such as the BRAIN Initiative, which the National Institutes of Health funded at more than $400 million in 2018. But researchers behind the worm connectome say maps such as this could help explain the biology of mental disorders that affect humans. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder “may be connectopathies. (Guarino, 7/6)

The New York Times: New Weapons Against Cancer: Millions Of Bacteria Programmed To Kill
Scientists have used genetically reprogrammed bacteria to destroy tumors in mice. The innovative method one day may lead to cancer therapies that treat the disease more precisely, without the side effects of conventional drugs. The researchers already are scrambling to develop a commercial treatment, but success in mice does not guarantee that this strategy will work in people. Still, the new study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Medicine, is a harbinger of things to come, said Dr. Michael Dougan, an immunologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. (Zimmer, 7/3)

NPR: New Markers For Alzheimer's Disease Could Aid Diagnosis And Speed Up Drug Development
Alzheimer's disease begins altering the brain long before it affects memory and thinking. So scientists are developing a range of tests to detect these changes in the brain, which include an increase in toxic proteins, inflammation and damage to the connections between brain cells. The tests rely on biomarkers, shorthand for biological markers, that signal steps along the progression of disease. These new tests are already making Alzheimer's diagnosis more accurate, and helping pharmaceutical companies test new drugs. (Hamilton, 7/4)

The New York Times: At Banks And Fund Firms, Access Is Too Often Denied, Blind And Deaf Investors Say
Albert Rizzi gave up on trying to manage his nest egg because as a blind person, he encountered digital barriers constantly. Many of the websites, mobile apps, PDFs and software programs he needed were not accessible. Sometimes, they just didn’t work. So Mr. Rizzi, 55, the founder of My Blind Spot, an accessibility advocacy group in New York, filed a federal lawsuit in April 2018 against Morgan Stanley, the firm he uses to manage his personal retirement accounts. (Brockman, 7/5)

The Associated Press: Poll: 1 In 4 Don't Plan To Retire Despite Realities Of Aging
Nearly one-quarter of Americans say they never plan to retire, according to a poll that suggests a disconnection between individuals' retirement plans and the realities of aging in the workforce. Experts say illness, injury, layoffs and caregiving responsibilities often force older workers to leave their jobs sooner than they'd like. (7/6)

NPR: Why Genome Sequencing For Newborns Is Not Yet Mainstream
Sequencing a person's DNA is now a routine task. That reality has left doctors looking for ways to put the technology to work. A decade ago, a top federal scientist said, "Whether you like it or not, a complete sequencing of newborns is not far away." Dr. Francis Collins, who made that statement, has been head of the National Institutes of Health for the intervening decade. But his prophecy hasn't come to pass, for both scientific and practical reasons. (Harris, 7/8)

NPR: Juul's Cool Hasn't Ebbed Among Teens, Young Adults On Social Media
Popular e-cigarette company Juul's November 2018 commitment to stop marketing its products to youth on social media may have done little to curb the brand's reach among young people. Following intense scrutiny from public health professionals and the government, Juul announced it would try to reach fewer young people with its advertising in the U.S. The company terminated its Instagram and Facebook accounts in November 2018, and says it does not use paid social media influencers. (Neilson, 7/3)

The New York Times: Reflux Drugs Tied To Bone Fractures In Children
Infants are sometimes treated for gastroesophageal reflux with acid-suppressing medicines, but a new study suggests that they may increase the risk for bone fracture later in childhood. Researchers studied records of more than 850,000 children up to 14 years old. About 97,000 had received acid suppression medicines in their first year of life — 8,000 were prescribed proton pump inhibitors like Nexium; 71,000 took histamine-2 receptor antagonists like Pepcid; and 18,000 got both. The study is in Pediatrics. (Bakalar, 7/5)

NPR: More Rural Patients Using Telehealth — If They Can Afford It
Telehealth turned Jill Hill's life around. The 63-year-old lives on the edge of rural Grass Valley, an old mining town in the Sierra Nevada foothills of northern California. She was devastated after her husband Dennis passed away in the fall of 2014 after a long series of medical and financial setbacks. "I was grief-stricken and my self-esteem was down," Hill remembers. "I didn't care about myself. I didn't brush my hair. I was isolated. I just kind of locked myself in the bedroom." (Neighmond, 7/7)

NPR: The Homeless In Rural America Are Often Undercounted, Underserved
Charles Bowers takes long, quick strides down a worn, dirt path and stops in front of a tall thicket of bushes. He lifts a hand to signal that he's spied something. He's leading me on a tour of camps made by homeless people in wooded corners of Fayette County, Kentucky, and there, slightly up the hill, is a patch of blue. A tent. He keeps his voice low to avoid startling those inside. (Meehan, 7/4)

Los Angeles Times: Trees Could Reduce Carbon In The Atmosphere To Levels Not Seen In Nearly 100 Years
By removing carbon dioxide from the air, trees are one of our strongest allies in the fight against climate change. And if we planted a whole lot more of them in just the right places, they could reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere to levels not seen in nearly 100 years, researchers say. After examining more than 70,000 high-quality satellite photos of trees from all over the planet, ecologists concluded that the Earth could support 900 million additional hectares of tree cover. Those trees would eliminate about two-thirds of the carbon that's in the atmosphere today as a result of human activities, according to a study in Friday's edition of the journal Science. (DeMarco, 7/5)

The Washington Post: The Sober-Curious Movement Challenges ‘Wine Mom’ Culture At A Time When Mothers Are Drinking More Than Ever.
The turning point came at an evening soiree in the middle of December, when Mai Trinh spotted a friend’s luminous face amid a crowd of cocktail-quaffing party­goers. “She stood out — she looked absolutely radiant,” recalls Trinh, 44, a corporate wellness consultant and mom of three in Alexandria. “So I asked her, ‘What’s your secret, what are you doing?’ ” The secret, it turned out, was what she wasn’t doing: Trinh’s friend had decided to temporarily bail on booze, after signing up for an alcohol-free challenge through an online program. (Gibson, 7/7)

The Washington Post: Breast Cancer Survivors Have Fewer Worries About Lymphedema Today
For more than 25 years, many breast cancer survivors were given a lifelong, life-changing warning: Do not lift anything over five pounds, avoid getting manicures, taking saunas or even gardening since it might lead to a painful complication called lymphedema, which can cause irreversible swelling in the arm and often hardening of skin. The condition is usually caused by the removal of lymph nodes, which is done during breast cancer surgery to determine if the cancer has spread. (Berger, 7/6)

The Washington Post: Pool Safety Tips Aim To Reduce Child Drownings
With summer in full swing, pools beckon children who are eager to jump in, cool off and have fun. Brain injury or death are far from the minds of most families who own or use pools. But they shouldn’t be. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning is the leading cause of unintentional deaths among children between 1 and 4 years old. For every child who drowns, another five visit the emergency department for a nonfatal injury associated with submersion. (Blakemore, 7/6)

The Associated Press: Dementia Tied To Hormone-Blocking Prostate Cancer Treatment
Alzheimer's disease may be a risk for older prostate cancer patients given hormone-blocking treatment, a large, U.S. government-funded analysis found. Previous evidence has been mixed on whether the treatment might be linked with mental decline. But experts say the new results stand out because they're from a respected national cancer database and the men were tracked for a long time — eight years on average. (Tanner, 7/5)

The New York Times: What Do Teenagers Need? Ask The Family Dog
People of all ages become deeply connected to their pets, but in the lives of teenagers, animals often play a special role. Indeed, pets provide comforts that seem to be tailor-made for the stresses of normal adolescent development. To start, animals don’t judge — and teenagers are generally subjected to a great deal of judgment. Adults tend to harbor negative stereotypes about adolescents, and even those who feel neutral or positive about young people often engage them with the aim of cultivating their growth in one way or another. (Damour, 7/4)

The New York Times: The Ripples Of My Mother’s Hunger
At the age of 16, my mother spent hours waiting in bread lines in communist Poland, biting at her nails. The year was 1972. The line was mostly women. Their bellies rattled with hunger, anticipation of food burning in their throats. My mother has said that waiting in a bread line was not much different from a time later in her life when she had moved to America and stood in line for hours for an Eric Clapton concert. “It’s all about wanting something. You want something, you wait for it,” she recited with a tone so deadpan that it reminded me that my mom was once a teenage girl. (Connors, 7/5)

The New York Times: ‘A Space Where You Could Be Free’: Puerto Rico’s L.G.B.T. Groups Rebuild After A Hurricane
Puerto Ricans mourned so many losses after Hurricane Maria that the closing of a beloved tiki bar in San Juan might have seemed of little consequence, another casualty of the battered post-storm economy. But the bar — El Escondite, or the Hideaway — was not just a place for a strong screwdriver cocktail. It was also a mainstay for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patrons wanting to share a good time or enjoy a drag show. (Rosa And Mazzei, 7/7)

The Washington Post: Social Workers And Custodians Help Form The Backbone Of A Campus. But Virginia Schools Have Lost Billions For Those Jobs.
School systems across Virginia have lost billions of dollars in state money for social workers, custodians and psychologists after the state imposed a funding cap on school support staff amid the Great Recession. The cap hasn’t been lifted, even as the state rebounded in the years after the downturn, according to a report from the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, a Richmond think tank. As a result, the number of support staff across the state dropped by 2,800 workers in the past decade, while enrollment grew by 55,000 students. (Truong, 7/7)