First Edition: June 19, 2018

Kaiser Health News: If You’ve Got Hep C, Spitting Can Be A Felony
Last week, an Ohio man who has the hepatitis C virus was sentenced to 18 months in prison for spitting at Cleveland police and medics. Matthew Wenzler, 27, was reportedly lying on a Cleveland street across from a downtown casino in January. When police and emergency medical technicians tried to put him on a stretcher to take him to a hospital, he spit saliva mixed with blood repeatedly at them, hitting an officer in the eye. (Andrews, 6/19)

California Healthline: New Hospital Leader Fights Price Controls Despite Reputation As A Reformer
In Maryland, Carmela Coyle is known as a reformer. During her tenure as president of the Maryland Hospital Association, she helped establish a first-of-its kind state program that capped hospitals’ yearly revenue — a counterintuitive move for a leader in an industry anxious to defend its bottom line. But here in California, just eight months into her new job as president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, Coyle, 57, has already helped defeat a legislative effort to cap the amount hospitals are paid for medical procedures. And she did so with “scorched earth” vigor, said Anthony Wright, executive director Health Access California, a consumer advocacy group. (Bartolone, 6/18)

The Associated Press: Trump To Finalize Small Business Health Insurance Option
The Trump administration is close to finalizing a health insurance option for small firms and self-employed people that would cost less but could cover fewer benefits than current plans, congressional officials and business groups said Monday. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the pending announcement. The Labor Department scheduled an announcement Tuesday morning. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/18)

The New York Times: Trump Clears Way For Health Plans With Lower Costs And Fewer Benefits
President Trump has said millions of people could get cheaper coverage from the new “association health plans.” But consumer groups and many state officials are opposed, saying the new plans will siphon healthy people out of the Affordable Care Act marketplace, driving up costs for those who need comprehensive insurance. The new entities would be exempt from many of the consumer protections mandated by the Affordable Care Act. They may, for example, not have to provide certain “essential health benefits” like mental health care, emergency services, maternity and newborn care and prescription drugs. (Pear, 6/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Conservatives Make New Push To Repeal Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act should be repealed in August and replaced with a new system that lifts national consumer protections and gives control of health care to the states, according to a proposal by a conservative group set to be released Tuesday. The proposal risks irking centrist Republicans who want to focus on other subjects. Republican leaders have said they have no appetite for another push to repeal the ACA before the November midterm elections unless such a bill clearly has the votes to pass. Republicans faced a series of obstacles—including internal division and unified Democratic opposition—as their effort to repeal the ACA collapsed last year. There is little evidence those dynamics in Congress have changed. (Armour, 6/19)

The Associated Press: GOP, Dem Governors Back Benefits For Pre-Existing Conditions
A bipartisan group of governors is speaking out against a Trump administration decision that could narrow access to health insurance benefits for those with pre-existing conditions. Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and the governors of Alaska, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Montana, Washington and Maryland issued a joint statement Monday. They said the administration’s move would hurt families in their states, add uncertainty to insurance markets and go against American values. (6/18)

Bloomberg: Most Under-35s OK With Insurers Digital Spying If It Cuts Prices
The majority of people between 18 and 34 would be willing to let insurance companies dig through their digital data from social media to health devices if it meant lowering their premiums, a survey shows. In the younger group, 62 percent said they’d be happy for insurers to use third-party data from the likes of Facebook, fitness apps and smart-home devices to lower prices, according to a survey of more than 8,000 consumers globally by Salesforce.com Inc.’s MuleSoft Inc. That drops to 44 percent when the older generations are included. (Edde, 6/19)

The New York Times: A Troubling Prognosis For Migrant Children In Detention: ‘The Earlier They’re Out, The Better’
Some youngsters retreat entirely, their eyes empty, bodies limp, their isolation a wall of defiance. Others cannot sit still: watchful, hyperactive, ever uncertain. Some compulsively jump into the laps of strangers, or grab their legs and hold on for life. And some children, somehow, move past a sudden separation from their parents, tapping a well of resilience. The Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents has alarmed child psychologists and experts who study human development. (Carey, 6/18)

The Associated Press: Immigrant Kids Seen Held In Fenced Cages At Border Facility
Inside an old warehouse in South Texas, hundreds of immigrant children wait in a series of cages created by metal fencing. One cage had 20 children inside. Scattered about are bottles of water, bags of chips and large foil sheets intended to serve as blankets. One teenager told an advocate who visited that she was helping care for a young child she didn't know because the child's aunt was somewhere else in the facility. She said she had to show others in her cell how to change the girl's diaper. (Merchant, 6/18)

The Washington Post: What Separation From Parents Does To Children: ‘The Effect Is Catastrophic’
This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents. Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites — the little branches in brain cells that transmit mes­sages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and — especially in young children — wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain. (Wan, 6/18)

The Hill: American Academy Of Pediatrics President: Trump Family Separation Policy Is 'Child Abuse' 
The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday said President Trump's “zero tolerance” policy separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border “amounts to child abuse.” Dr. Colleen Kraft in an appearance on CNN described the many ways Trump’s policy emotionally harms children and laid out in detail what she witnessed when she toured an immigration detention center. (Wise, 6/18)

The New York Times: It Was Supposed To Be An Unbiased Study Of Drinking. They Wanted To Call It ‘Cheers.’
The director of the nation’s top health research agency pulled the plug on a study of alcohol’s health effects without hesitation on Friday, saying a Harvard scientist and some of his agency’s own staff had crossed “so many lines” in pursuit of alcohol industry funding that “people were frankly shocked.” A 165-page internal investigation prepared for Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, concluded that Kenneth J. Mukamal, the lead investigator of the trial, was in close, frequent contact with beer and liquor executives while designing the study. (Rabin, 6/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Maine Keeps Battling Over Medicaid Expansion
Despite two state court rulings that Maine must begin to execute its voter-approved Medicaid expansion, Republican Gov. Paul LePage isn’t giving in. Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy first ordered on June 4 the governor’s administration to jump-start the planned July 2 expansion, and on Friday ruled a delay could “engender disrespect for duly enacted laws.” Mr. LePage’s administration on Monday urged the state’s Supreme Judicial Court to step in, saying it is being asked to implement a “massive new benefit program that the legislature has not yet funded.” The administration said the expansion should be put on hold pending its legal appeal. (Levitz, 6/18)

Stat: 7 Questions To Watch After Criminal Charges Filed In The Theranos Saga 
Federal prosecutors on Friday filed criminal charges against Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and the company’s former president Sunny Balwani — marking a pivotal turning point in a scandal that has rocked the business world and captivated the public imagination. So, what’s next for the Silicon Valley villains of the moment? Here are seven questions to watch as the case moves forward. (Robbins and Garde, 6/18)

The Associated Press: US Could Back 1st Pot-Derived Medicine, And Some Are Worried
A British pharmaceutical company is getting closer to a decision on whether the U.S government will approve the first prescription drug derived from the marijuana plant, but parents who for years have used cannabis to treat severe forms of epilepsy in their children are feeling more cautious than celebratory. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide by the end of the month whether to approve GW Pharmaceuticals' Epidiolex. It's a purified form of cannabidiol — a component of cannabis that doesn't get users high — to treat Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut syndromes in kids. Both forms of epilepsy are rare. (Foody and Banda, 6/19)

The New York Times: New York Moves Toward Legal Marijuana With Health Dept. Endorsement
New York moved a significant step closer to legalizing recreational marijuana, as a study commissioned by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will recommend that the state allow adults to consume marijuana legally, the governor’s health commissioner said on Monday. The announcement by the commissioner, Howard Zucker, signals a broad turnaround for the administration of Mr. Cuomo, a second-term Democrat who said as recently as last year that marijuana was a “gateway drug.” (McKinley and Mueller, 6/18)

The Associated Press: Florida Smokable Medical Marijuana Ruling Put On Hold
A Florida circuit court has reinstated a stay on smoking medical marijuana. The state's 1st District Court of Appeal has ruled that the hold will remain in effect "pending final disposition of the merits of (a recent) appeal." The Department of Health appealed to a higher court earlier this month after Leon County Circuit Court Judge Karen Gievers upheld her May 25 ruling that the Florida Legislature's provision banning smokable medical marijuana is unconstitutional. (6/18)

The Associated Press: State Receives Applications To Produce Medical Cannabis Oil
Nearly 50 medical cannabis companies are pursuing five licenses to operate in Virginia. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports the state has received 49 applications. Virginia plans to hand out licenses to dispense medical cannabis oil in the state’s five health services areas. The applications require a $10,000 filing fee. (6/19)

The Washington Post: The Growing Case Against IV Tylenol, Once Seen As A Solution To The Opioid Crisis
In the midst of the opioid crisis, Boston Medical Center added an intravenous version of Tylenol to its arsenal of drugs for pain management. But IV Tylenol was expensive, and after drugmaker Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals increased the price, the hospital projected it was on track to spend $750,000 in 2015 on acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol) in injectable form. "It was going to cost us, without the intervention that happened, more than any other drug on our formulary. Think of the most expensive cancer drug,” said David Twitchell, Boston Medical Center’s chief pharmacy officer. “To me, that didn’t seem justified.” (Johnson, 6/19)

NPR: Why Don't Overdose Patients Get The Medicines That Could Save Their Lives?
More than 115 Americans are dying every day from an opioid overdose. But a study out Monday finds that just three in 10 patients revived by an EMT or in an emergency room received the follow-up medication known to avoid another life-threatening event. The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, followed 17,568 patients who overdosed on opioids between 2012 and 2014 in Massachusetts. It looked at survival rates over time and whether or not patients received medicines that treat addiction. (Bebinger, 6/18)

NPR: Babies Born To Opioid-Addicted Moms Avoid Foster Care With The Right Support
For most of her childhood, growing up in southeastern Pennsylvania, Kelly Zimmerman felt alone and anxious. She despaired when her mother was depressed or working late shifts; when her parents fought nonstop; when her friends wanted to come over, and she felt too ashamed to let them see her home's buckling floor, the lack of running water. (Chatterjee and Davis, 6/19)

Stat: Boundary-Breaking Neurologist Treats Patients Other Doctors Give Up On
Her neurology work at Massachusetts General Hospital involves plenty of gadgetry — she heads up the deep brain stimulation unit, and sometimes uses electroconvulsive therapy to help patients with depression or mania — but these days, that’s not the kind of tinkering that’s at the front of her mind. Instead, she has been toying with the boundaries of illness itself. She likes seeing patients other doctors have given up on. Many have faced questions about whether they’re really as sick as they say. For all of them, getting the proper treatment — pills or infusions or electrical currents — depends on a kind of collaboration with [Dr. Alice] Flaherty, a workshop in which motivations are re-examined, stories reshaped, turns of phrase redefined. (Boodman, 6/19)

The Associated Press: Smoking Hits New Low; About 14 Percent Of US Adults Light Up
Smoking in the U.S. has hit another all-time low. About 14 percent of U.S adults were smokers last year, down from about 16 percent the year before, government figures show. There hadn't been much change the previous two years, but it's been clear there's been a general decline and the new figures show it's continuing, said K. Michael Cummings of the tobacco research program at Medical University of South Carolina. (Stobbe, 6/19)

Los Angeles Times: World Health Organization Says Video Game Addiction Is A Disease. Why American Psychiatrists Don't
The World Health Organization has made it official: digital games can be addictive, and those addicted to them need help. In the latest edition of its International Classification of Diseases, released Monday, the United Nations agency concluded that people whose jobs, educations, family or social lives have been upended by video games probably meet the criteria for a new form of addiction called “gaming disorder.” (Healy, 6/19)

NPR: Brain Balance's Approach To Autism, ADHD: High Hopes, High Costs And Slim Science
Some parents see it coming. Natalie was not that kind of parent. Even after the director and a teacher at her older son's day care sat her down one afternoon in 2011 to detail the 3-year-old's difficulty socializing and his tendency to chatter endlessly about topics his peers showed no interest in, she still didn't get the message. Her son, the two educators eventually spelled out, might be on the autism spectrum. (Benderev, 6/18)

Los Angeles Times: Foods That Are Both Fatty And Sweet Can Hijack The Part Of The Brain That Regulates Food Consumption
It may have taken thousands of generations of hunting, gathering, farming and cooking to get here. But in the end, the genius of humankind has combined fats and carbohydrates to produce such crowning culinary glories as the doughnut, fettuccine Alfredo, nachos and chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. It goes without saying that these delectables do not exist in nature. It turns out combinations of carbohydrates and fats generally do not exist in the landscape in which man evolved. (Healy, 6/18)

The Washington Post: Ticks Cause Disease But You Can Avoid Them
Cases of vector-borne disease have more than tripled in the United States since 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported, with mosquitoes and ticks bearing most of the blame. Mosquitoes, long spreaders of malaria and yellow fever, have more recently spread dengue, Zika and chikungunya viruses, and caused epidemic outbreaks, mainly in U.S. territories. The insects are also largely responsible for making West Nile virus endemic in the continental United States. (Sakamoto and Whitehead, 6/18)

The Associated Press: VA Launches Investigation Into Impaired Arkansas Pathologist
Federal officials said Monday a pathologist fired from an Arkansas veterans hospital for being "impaired on duty" misdiagnosed seven cases and that more than 30,000 additional cases are being reviewed. The Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks in Fayetteville said one error may have led to a death. Spokeswoman Wanda Shull said the seven errors were found among 911 cases already reviewed by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Office of the Inspector General. (Grabentstein, 6/18)

The New York Times: ‘Incredibles 2’ Moviegoers Warned About Possible Seizures
Marcos Gardiana, a self-proclaimed Disney fanatic with five tattoos of Disney characters on his body to prove it, was excited to see the company’s latest blockbuster, “Incredibles 2,” on Sunday, and took his girlfriend along with him. He never got to see the end of it. Mr. Gardiana, 27, who has epilepsy as a result of a brain injury from a 2011 car accident, said he started getting lightheaded and dizzy in the theater. He had a “small” seizure at first, he said, and then a “blackout seizure, a full-on shaking seizure.” (Svachula, 6/18)

The New York Times: A Third Of Children Use Alternative Medicines
A third of children under 19 are regular users of dietary supplements or alternative medicines. Using data from a large national health survey, researchers found that multivitamins were the most common supplements, followed by vitamin C, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D and melatonin. Three percent of male teenagers took bodybuilding supplements, and so did 1.3 percent of teenage girls. Omega-3 fatty acids were used by 2.3 percent of children under 19. Melatonin and other sleep aids were used by 1.6 percent of adolescents and by 1.2 percent of children under 5. (Bakalar, 6/18)

The New York Times: Nearly Eradicated In Humans, The Guinea Worm Finds New Victims: Dogs
Martoussia, the celebrity of the moment in this remote fishing village, pants heavily under the awning where he lies chained. Still, he remains calm and sweet-tempered as the crowd presses in. Children gawk as volunteers in white surgical gloves ease a foot-long Guinea worm from the dog’s leg and American scientists quiz his owner, a fisherman, about how many worms Martoussia has had. The village chief, Moussa Kaye, 87, is asked the last time one of his people had a worm. “Not since 40 years ago,” he says. (McNeil, 6/18)

The Associated Press: Federal Judge Again Blocks Arkansas Medication Abortion Law
A federal judge on Monday again blocked Arkansas from enforcing a law that critics say makes the state the first in the nation to effectively ban abortion pills. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker granted a 14-day temporary restraining order preventing Arkansas from enforcing the restriction on how abortion pills are administered. The law says doctors who provide the pills must hold a contract with a physician with admitting privileges at a hospital who agrees to handle any complications. (Kissel, 6/18)

The Associated Press: Overtime Pay For Prison Nurses Costs Millions Of Tax Dollars
Thousands of hours of overtime worked by Ohio prison nurses in recent years have cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The Plain Dealer reports overtime for registered nurses in the prison system has increased by nearly 60 percent since 2012. The newspaper says its analysis of payroll records show some prison hospital nurses have earned over $100,000 in overtime in one year. (6/18)

The Washington Post: Fairfax Students To Learn About HIV Prevention Pill In Health Classes
High school students in Virginia’s largest school system will learn about daily medication used to prevent HIV as part of their health education. The Fairfax County School Board voted last week to include information about pre-exposure prophylaxis — PrEP — in the district’s family life education curriculum, which includes lessons on sexual health and sexuality. It was one of several vigorously contested updates to the family life curriculum that culminated in a boisterous board meeting that devolved frequently into jeers. (Truong, 6/18)