First Edition: June 12, 2018

Kaiser Health News: The ‘Perfect Storm’: Redirecting Family Planning Funds Could Undercut STD Fight 
A Trump administration effort to shift family planning funding toward groups that may not provide comprehensive services and away from organizations that provide abortions could cripple other federal efforts to curb an explosion in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), some public health officials fear. “This is the perfect storm, and it comes at absolutely the worst time,” said Daniel Daltry, program chief of the HIV/AIDS, STD and Viral Hepatitis Program at the Vermont Department of Health. (Andrews, 6/12)

Kaiser Health News: ‘Where The Need Is:’ Tackling Teen Pregnancy With A Midwife At School
The student comes in for a pregnancy test — the second time she has asked for one in a matter of weeks. She’s 15. She lives with her boyfriend. He wants kids — he won’t use protection. She loves him, she says. But she doesn’t want to get pregnant. She knows how much harder it would be for her to finish high school. (Simmons-Duffin, 6/12)

Reuters: House Panel Questions FDA's Track Record Combating Illegal Opioids
U.S. lawmakers fear the Food and Drug Administration is not doing enough to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States as the country works to combat the opioid epidemic. Republican and Democratic members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee questioned whether the FDA's criminal investigators are effective at blocking illegal drugs at U.S. ports of entry, in a letter seen by Reuters. (Lynch, 6/11)

The Hill: CMS Releases Guidance To States On Using Medicaid To Address Opioid Crisis
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Monday released guidance aimed at helping states leverage Medicaid to combat the opioid epidemic. Specifically, the guidance focused on information related to covering services for infants born exposed to opioids and how to enhance federal funding for telemedicine and programs that keep tabs on patients’ prescriptions. (Roubein, 6/11)

Stat: Drug Pricing Advocates Take Aim At Democrats For Supporting Pharma
Fifty congressional Democrats signed on to a letter advancing the pharmaceutical industry’s talking points — and now a drug pricing advocacy group is calling them out. Patients for Affordable Drugs sent a letter this morning to Speaker Paul Ryan and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, along with the 50 Democrats, condemning the members who signed on to a separate May 24 missive that supports one of the drug industry’s chief lobbying priorities: a change to their financial liability in the so-called “donut hole.” (Mershon, 6/11)

The Hill: Trump Officials Meet With Drug Companies To Push For Voluntary Price Cuts
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials have been meeting with pharmaceutical companies to seek voluntary cuts in drug prices, according to sources familiar with the meetings. Voluntary cuts in prices would allow the administration to immediately tout benefits of President Trump's drug pricing plan, which was announced last month, rather than having to wait for any regulatory actions to be put forward and take effect. (Sullivan, 6/11)

Modern Healthcare: White Houses Taps The Brakes On HHS Religious Rule 
The White House has urged HHS not to finalize a rule that will require hospitals and physician practices to create standards and procedures to protect their employees' religious and moral beliefs until it can elaborate how the policy will affect the industry. HHS received more than 72,000 comments on the rulemaking before the March deadline. The agency is still drafting a final version of the rule, but proactively asked the Office of Management and Budget to allow it to confirm that providers were both complying with the rule and notifying staff and patients of their rights. (Dickson, 6/11)

Reuters: U.S. Opens Inquiry Into Gynecologist Scandal At University Of Southern California
The U.S. Education Department has opened an investigation into how the University of Southern California handled complaints that a longtime campus health clinic gynecologist sexually harassed or abused his patients during pelvic examinations. The agency's Office for Civil Rights will examine USC's response to reports of such misconduct by Dr. George Tyndall that date back to 1990 but were not fully investigated by the university until the spring of 2016, the department said in a statement. (Gorman, 6/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Education Department Launches Investigation Into University Of Southern California
USC has been dealing with fallout from allegations that the doctor, George Tyndall, had abused students as far back as the 1990s by conducting improper pelvic exams and making sexually inappropriate comments to patients during exams. By the end of May USC had received more than 410 complaints against Dr. Tyndall, via telephone and online forms, while at least a dozen women have filed lawsuits against Dr. Tyndall and the school. The Los Angeles Police Department is conducting a criminal probe, though Dr. Tyndall hasn’t been charged with any crime. (Korn, 6/11)

Los Angeles Times: USC's Handling Of Complaints About Campus Gynecologist Is Being Investigated By Federal Government
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has been criticized for taking a less vigorous approach to examining sexual misconduct than predecessors, called for a “systemic” examination of USC and urged administrators to fully cooperate. “No student should ever endure sexual harassment or abuse while trying to pursue their education,” DeVos said in a statement. The Education Department’s action is the second high-profile investigation of a university’s handling of sexual misconduct complaints this year. The agency launched an investigation in January into Michigan State’s response to Dr. Larry Nassar, the USA Gymnastics doctor convicted of sexual misconduct toward young patients. (Hamilton and Ryan, 6/11)

Stat: Alcohol Study Failed To Seek FDA Approval, Possibly Violating Federal Rules
The controversy surrounding a study of whether moderate drinking might prevent cardiovascular disease isn’t over: If one interpretation of federal regulations is correct, the study may be in violation of Food and Drug Administration requirements meant to protect the health of research volunteers. STAT has learned that the study’s leaders failed to seek a form of regulatory approval intended to protect study participants and ensure they understand the possible health risks of the research. By not seeking approval from the FDA, said public health researcher Dr. Michael Siegel of Boston University, the study “is in violation of federal law.” (Begley, 6/12)

The New York Times: Rose McGowan Calls For ‘Collective Conversation’ On Depression After Bourdain’s Death
The actress Rose McGowan echoed calls for a broad conversation about depression and mental illness in an open letter on Monday about her friend Asia Argento, an actress, and Ms. Argento’s partner, Anthony Bourdain, who killed himself last week. “To the media and to the random commenter, Anthony would never have wanted Asia to be hurt, I’d like to think he would want us to have the collective conversation that needs to be had about depression,” she wrote. (Chokshi, 6/11)

The Washington Post: American Medical Association To Keep Reviewing Its Opposition To Assisted Death
A recommendation that the American Medical Association maintain its opposition to medically assisted death was rejected Monday, with delegates at the AMA's annual meeting in Chicago instead voting for the organization to continue reviewing its guidance on the issue. Following a debate on whether the nation’s most prominent doctors’ group should revise its Code of Medical Ethics, the House of Delegates voted by a margin of 56 to 44 percent to have the AMA’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs keep studying the current guidance. That position, adopted a quarter-century ago, labels the practice “physician-assisted suicide” and calls it “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.” (Bever, 6/11)

Reuters: Orlando Rally Marks Second Anniversary Of Nightclub Mass Shooting
Hundreds of protesters, including survivors from two of Florida's deadliest modern mass shootings, staged a rally in Orlando on Monday to call for tougher firearms restrictions two years after a gunman killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub. The demonstration, held on the eve of the shooting anniversary, preceded a day of events planned in Orlando commemorating the bloody rampage by a South Florida security guard who professed allegiance to Islamic State militants. (Gorman, 6/11)

The Associated Press: 2nd Anniversary Of Pulse Massacre Marked By Art, Litigation
Survivors and victims' relatives are marking the second anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting with a remembrance ceremony, a run, art exhibits and litigation. Ahead of Tuesday's commemoration of the massacre of 49 people at the gay nightclub, some survivors and victims' relatives have sued the Orlando Police Department and the owners of the nightclub. (Schneider, 6/10)

The New York Times: Illinois Prohibits Guns On Campuses. Teachers Are Training To Use Them Anyway.
Illinois is one of 40 states that prohibit concealed weapons on school campuses. That hasn’t kept teachers there from turning out in droves for firearms training, spending hours in classrooms and on shooting ranges — receiving lessons, for a change. Across the state, businesses have begun offering free concealed-carry training sessions to teachers and school staff members, a seemingly uncoordinated response to mass shootings in schools. Many of them are banking on a proposal to allow armed faculty that’s currently making the rounds in school board meetings. (Gomez, 6/12)

Stat: CRISPR-Edited Cells Might Cause Cancer, Two Studies Find
Editing cells’ genomes with CRISPR-Cas9 might increase the risk that the altered cells, intended to treat disease, will trigger cancer, two studies published on Monday warn — a potential game-changer for the companies developing CRISPR-based therapies. In the studies, published in Nature Medicine, scientists found that cells whose genomes are successfully edited by CRISPR-Cas9 have the potential to seed tumors inside a patient. That could make some CRISPR’d cells ticking time bombs, according to researchers from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute and, separately, Novartis. (Begley, 6/11)

The New York Times: Lasik’s Risks Are Coming Into Sharper Focus
Ever since he had Lasik surgery two years ago, Geobanni Ramirez sees everything in triplicate. The surgery he hoped would improve his vision left the 33-year-old graphic artist struggling with extreme light sensitivity, double vision and visual distortions that create halos around bright objects and turn headlights into blinding starbursts. His eyes are so dry and sore that he puts drops in every half-hour; sometimes they burn “like when you’re chopping onions.” His night vision is so poor that going out after dark is treacherous. (Rabin, 6/11)

The New York Times: As An H.I.V. Prevention Drug Surged In Australia, Condom Use Fell
The rollout of a drug that prevents H.I.V. infection was followed by a reduction in condom use among gay and bisexual men in Australia, according to a study published in the journal Lancet H.I.V. But so effective was the drug that H.I.V. infection rates in the study region declined anyway, the researchers concluded. During the rapid distribution of a drug that prevents infection — a strategy called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP — among gay and bisexual men in Australia, researchers found that unprotected sex increased even among those not on PrEP, suggesting that perceptions of risk had declined in communities where the drug was widely available. (Baumgaertner, 6/11)

Stat: A Shameful Medical History: Using Lobotomies To Treat Ulcerative Colitis
The radical idea of using lobotomy to treat ulcerative colitis arose from a theory in vogue at the time: The disease was psychosomatic, meaning it originated from mental or emotional causes. This concept evolved from ancient observations that emotions can cause physical changes. Think sweating under stress, stomachaches before marriage, battlefield diarrhea, and the like.”Emotions and Bodily Changes,” a persuasive collection of anecdotes published in 1935 by psychiatrist Helen Flanders Dunbar, helped set the stage for viewing many illnesses as psychosomatic. (Carrier, 6/12)

The New York Times: The Dangers Of Belly Fat
If you do nothing else today to protect your health, consider taking an honest measurement of your waist. Stand up straight, exhale (no sucking in that gut!) and with a soft tape measure record your girth an inch or two above your hip bones. The result has far greater implications than any concerns you might have about how you look or how your clothes fit. In general, if your waist measures 35 or more inches for women or 40 or more inches for men, chances are you’re harboring a potentially dangerous amount of abdominal fat. (Brody, 6/11)

NPR: Young Women Get Exercise Less Than Men Do
Young women, especially young women of color, tend to get less exercise than their male counterparts, and the disparities worsen after high school ends. This is the finding of a study published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. As teens, 88 percent of boys report being physically active, compared to 78 percent of girls. Once the high school days of soccer games, track practices and physical education classes have ended, around 73 percent of young men stay active, but only 62 percent of women do. (Watson, 6/11)

NPR: Genetic Tests And Research Get Personal In 'She Has Her Mother's Laugh'
As a science columnist for The New York Times, Carl Zimmer had reported extensively about genetics and the role gene mutations play in various ailments. After a while, he got to wondering about what secrets his own genetic code holds. "I wanted to know if there was anything I needed to worry about," Zimmer says. "We all think back to our relatives who got sick and then wonder, 'Is that in me?' " (Gross, 6/11)

NPR: How Hunger Pangs Can Make Nice People 'Hangry'
Hunger can trigger cruel words from kind people. A starved dog lover might fantasize about punting the neighbor's Chihuahua that just will not shut up. A puckish but otherwise nice person might snap at a friend, "Bring me the freaking cheesesteak before I flip this TABLE!" They are, in a word, "hangry," or irrationally irritable, upset or angry because of hunger. But how hunger turns into hangriness is a mystery, says Jennifer MacCormack, a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in psychology and neuroscience, who wanted to understand the phenomenon. "The mechanism isn't clear on how [hunger] affects your emotions or the exact emotional processes," she says. (Chen, 6/11)

The Washington Post: 3D Organs Help Surgeons Figure Out Out To Operate
Bernice Belcher couldn’t get out of bed. It wasn’t that she was tired — she’d had a good night’s sleep. But every time the 77-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, tried to get up, she became so dizzy she had to lie down again. That’s how she eventually found herself in consultations with surgeons who told her she needed an artificial heart valve, to be done by open-heart surgery. They had abandoned the thought of less-invasive surgery — transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR, because Belcher’s aortic root, where the body’s main artery meets the heart, wasn’t long enough to have an artificial valve implanted using a catheter. (Blakemore, 6/11)

The New York Times: Secrets Of The Y Chromosome
In advance of Father’s Day, let’s take a moment to sort out the differences and similarities between “Dad jeans” and “Dad genes.” Dad jeans are articles of sex-specific leisure clothing, long mocked for being comfy, dumpy and elastic-waisted but lately reinvented as a fashion trend, suitable for male bodies of all shapes and ages. Dad genes are particles on the sex-specific Y chromosome, long mocked for being a stunted clump of mostly useless nucleic waste but lately revealed as man’s fastest friend, essential to the health of male bodies and brains no matter the age. (Angier, 6/11)

The Washington Post: Tick Paralysis: 5-Year-Old Kailyn Griffin Paralyzed By Feeding Tick
As soon as Kailyn Griffin's feet hit the floor Wednesday morning, she collapsed in a heap. The 5-year-old kept trying to stand but fell every time. She was also struggling to speak, said her mother, Jessica Griffin. Her daughter had been fine when the family went out to a T-ball game the night before, NBC-affiliate WLBT in Jackson, Miss., reported. Maybe Kailyn was having a hard time waking up Wednesday morning, or perhaps her legs were asleep. (Wootson, 6/11)

Reuters: Fed Up With Rising Costs, Big U.S. Firms Dig Into Healthcare
At its Silicon Valley headquarters, network gear maker Cisco Systems Inc is going to unusual lengths to take control of the relentless increase in its U.S. healthcare costs. The company is among a handful of large American employers who are getting more deeply involved in managing their workers' health instead of looking to insurers to do it. Cisco last year began offering its employees a plan it negotiated directly with nearby Stanford Health medical system. Under the plan, physicians are supposed to keep costs down by closely tracking about a dozen health indicators to prevent expensive emergencies, and keep Cisco workers happy with their care. If they meet these goals, Stanford gets a bonus. If they fail, Stanford pays Cisco a penalty. (Humer, 6/11)

Reuters: KKR To Take Envision Private For $5.57 Billion In Healthcare Push
KKR & Co said on Monday it will buy Envision Healthcare Corp, one of biggest U.S. providers of physicians to hospitals, in a deal valued at $5.57 billion as it builds up its healthcare portfolio. The private equity firm beat peers Carlyle Group, TPG Global and others as it sealed the deal for $46 per share - a premium of 5.4 percent to Envision's last close on Friday. (Saxena, 6/11)

The Associated Press: KKR Is Buying Envision Healthcare In A Nearly $10B Deal
Nashville, Tennessee-based Envision announced last fall that it would review its strategic options. Envision said Monday that its board and financial advisers looked at acquisitions, contacted 25 potential buyers and considered keeping Envision as a stand-alone business. They determined that the KKR deal offered the best chance to maximize shareholder value. The companies said the share price in this deal is a 32-percent premium to the volume-weighted average price the day after the company said it would review strategic options. (6/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Stryker Makes Takeover Approach To Boston Scientific
Stryker Corp. has made a takeover approach to rival Boston Scientific Corp., a move to create a medical-device giant and the latest effort to consolidate a corner of the health-care industry that has produced a raft of large deals lately. Boston Scientific has a market value approaching $50 billion, so a deal would be one of the largest in a year that is shaping up to be one of the busiest ever for mergers and acquisitions. (Mattioli, Dummett and Cimilluca, 6/11)

Reuters: Biotech's Soon-Shiong Hiring Bankers For Nant Cancer Drug IPO
Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong plans to take an experimental cancer treatment company public this year and has begun hiring bankers, the biotechnology entrepreneur told Reuters. The former surgeon said in a recent interview that the new company, to be called Nant, would use most of the money raised from the initial public offering to develop a pipeline of cancer drugs, although the amount of financing has yet to be determined. (Beasley, 6/11)