First Edition: November 12, 2018

Kaiser Health News: High Stakes, Entrenched Interests And The Trump Rollback Of Environmental Regs
Since his days on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump has promised to roll back environmental regulations, boost the use of coal and pull out of the Paris climate agreement — and he’s moving toward doing all those things. He has pushed ahead with such action even as a report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released in October concluded that without much stronger measures to reduce the use of fossil fuels, a warming planet will witness the spread of tropical diseases, water shortages and crop die-offs affecting millions of people. (Appleby, 11/12)

Kaiser Health News: Fish Oil And Vitamin D Pills No Guard Against Cancer Or Serious Heart Trouble
Although hundreds of studies of these supplements have been published over the years, the new clinical trial — a federally funded project involving nearly 26,000 people — is the strongest and most definitive examination yet, said Dr. Clifford Rosen, a senior scientist at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute who was not involved in the research. Doctors have been keenly interested in learning the supplements’ true value, given their tremendous popularity with patients. A 2017 study found that 26 percent of Americans age 60 and older take vitamin D supplements, while 22 percent take pills containing omega-3 fatty acids, a key ingredient in fish oil. (Szabo, 11/10)

California Healthline: An Underused Strategy For Surge In STDs: Treat Patients’ Partners Without A Doctor Visit
If patients return to Dr. Crystal Bowe soon after taking medication for a sexually transmitted infection, she usually knows the reason: Their partners have re-infected them. “While you tell people not to have sex until both folks are treated, they just don’t wait,” she said. “So they are passing the infection back and forth.” That’s when Bowe, who practices on both sides of the North and South Carolina border, does something doctors are often reluctant to do: She prescribes the partners antibiotics without meeting them. (Gorman, 11/9)

Kaiser Health News: Listen: Teen Vaping Sparks FDA Crackdown
Federal regulators want to ban the sale of most flavored e-cigarettes at retail locations like gas stations and convenience stores. They also want to require anyone buying e-cigarettes online to verify their age. The new restrictions come as the Food and Drug Administration has been trying to rein in a dramatic increase in vaping by young people. Smoking of traditional tobacco cigarettes has fallen to a record low, but the popularity of e-cigarettes among youth is raising alarm bells. (Daley, 11/9)

The New York Times: Democrats Won A Mandate On Health Care. How Will They Use It?
The top priorities for Ms. Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, and her party’s new House majority include stabilizing the Affordable Care Act marketplace, controlling prescription drug prices and investigating Trump administration actions that undermine the health care law. Administration officials who have tried to undo the Affordable Care Act — first by legislation, then by regulation — will find themselves on the defensive, spending far more time answering questions and demands from Congress. House Democrats plan to hold early votes on proposals to protect people with pre-existing medical conditions, an issue they continually emphasized in midterm races. The votes will test campaign promises by Republicans who declared their support for such protections.(Pear, 11/10)

The Hill: Pelosi Says She'll Be Speaker ‘To Protect The Affordable Care Act’ 
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that she is "staying on as Speaker" to protect the Affordable Care Act. Pelosi added during an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation" that she could have "gone home" if Hillary Clinton had been elected president in 2016. (Burke, 11/11)

The Associated Press: Meet The House Democrats Who Will Be Running The Show
Now that Democrats have captured control of the House for the next two years, the party's most senior members are poised to regain the wide-ranging power of committee chairmanships. While some of the Democrats have gained fame in feuds with President Donald Trump, others are relatively little-known outside of Capitol Hill. A look at the Democratic lawmakers expected to wield the gavels and shape the party's top priorities. (Freking, 11/12)

CQ: 116th Congress: With An Ambitious Policy Agenda, Pelosi Is Poised To Lead The House Again
Basking in House Democrats’ midterm election wins, Nancy Pelosi is focused on the planks of the Democratic campaign platform that will become the new majority’s agenda: health care, infrastructure and cleaning up corruption in Washington. ...Health care was the top issue for Democrats on the campaign trail. They hammered House Republicans for passing legislation that would’ve opened the door for states to gut protections for pre-existing health conditions. But Democratic candidates were divided about how best to shore up the health care system for the future. Some want to strengthen the health care law and add a public insurance option to compete with private-sector plans, while others want to allow everyone to join the government’s program for seniors, Medicare. (McPherson, 11/12)

The Associated Press: Democratic State Gains May Mean Tighter Gun, Looser Pot Laws
From New York to New Mexico, residents in a number of states can expect a leftward push for expanded health care coverage, gun control, education funding and legalized recreational marijuana as Democrats who gained new or stronger powers in the midterm elections seek to put their stamp on public policy. While Republicans remain in charge in more states, Democrats nearly doubled the number of places where they will wield a trifecta of power over the governor's office and both chambers of the state legislature. (Lieb and Mulvihill, 11/11)

The Hill: Medicaid Expansion Gets Extra Boost From Governor Races
Medicaid expansion advocates are looking to capitalize off their midterm victories by potentially adding Kansas and Wisconsin to their list of recent wins. Voters in three deep-red states voted to extend coverage to low-income adults, and those wins could spur expansion efforts next year in Wisconsin and Kansas, where Democratic candidates won governor's races on Tuesday. (Weixel and Hellmann, 11/10)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Plans To Seek A Ban On Menthol Cigarettes
In a landmark move bound to further shake the tobacco industry, the Food and Drug Administration plans to propose a ban on menthol cigarettes next week as part of its aggressive campaign against flavored e-cigarettes and some tobacco products, agency officials said. The proposal would have to go through the F.D.A. regulatory maze, and it could be several years before such a restriction took effect, especially if the major tobacco companies contest the agency’s authority to do so. None of the major tobacco companies would comment on the possibility of barring menthol cigarettes at this early stage. (Kaplan, 11/9)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA To Propose Ban Of Menthol Cigarettes
It could take a year or more for a rule banning menthol to be finalized, and then another year for it to be enforceable in the marketplace. But a ban on menthols would be a big blow to British American Tobacco PLC, which sells the Newport brand of cigarettes in the U.S. (Maloney, 11/9)

USA Today: FDA To Tighten Age Restrictions On E-Cigarettes, Limit Flavored Vapes
The FDA will ban convenience store and gas station sales of flavors other than tobacco, mint and menthol next week, the official said. Stricter age-verification requirements are also planned for online sales of e-cigarettes. The overwhelming majority of e-cigarette sales are through brick-and-mortar retail outlets, so the FDA's move would have a huge negative effect on business. It also is likely to draw legal action. (O'Donnell, 11/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Juul To Stop Sales Of Most Flavored E-Cigarettes In Retail Stores
E-cigarette startup Juul Labs Inc., faced with a regulatory crackdown and criticism that its marketing has attracted underage users, plans to stop selling most of its flavored nicotine liquids at bricks-and-mortar stores, according to people familiar with the matter. Juul plans to keep selling menthol- and tobacco-flavored products in stores, while all flavors, including cucumber and mango, will remain on its website, which has age-verification controls, the people said. The planned restrictions could heavily affect Juul Labs, according to analysts who say more than half of its sales come from flavors other than tobacco, mint and menthol. (McKay and Maloney and Chaker, 11/9)

NPR: After NRA Mocks Doctors, Physicians Reply: 'This Is Our Lane'
A mocking tweet from the National Rifle Association has stirred many physicians to post on social media about their tragically frequent experiences treating patients in the aftermath of gun violence. "Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane," the NRA tweeted on Thursday. "Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves." (Wamsley, 11/11)

The Washington Post: ‘Being Silenced Is Not Acceptable’: Doctors Express Outrage After NRA Tells Them ‘To Stay In Their Lane’
At first, Judy Melinek didn’t know how to respond when she learned about a National Rifle Association tweet last week telling doctors who dared enter the gun debate “to stay in their lane.” But two days later, when the West Coast forensic pathologist was on her way to the morgue to examine the body of one of the country’s many forgotten gunshot victims, the words came to her. “Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn’t just my lane,” she tweeted Friday. “It’s my [expletive] highway.” (Sellers, 11/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Democrats Plan To Pursue Most Aggressive Gun-Control Legislation In Decades
Democrats say they will pass the most aggressive gun-control legislation in decades when they become the House majority in January, plans they renewed this week in the aftermath of a mass killing in a California bar. Their efforts will be spurred by an incoming class of pro-gun-control lawmakers who scored big in Tuesday’s midterm elections, although any measure would likely meet stiff resistance in the GOP-controlled Senate. Democrats ousted at least 15 House Republicans with “A” National Rifle Association ratings, while the candidates elected to replace them all scored an “F” NRA rating. (Epstein, 11/9)

The New York Times: California Is Already Tough On Guns. After A Mass Shooting, Some Wonder If It’s Enough
After a mass killing in Santa Barbara in 2014, California passed a law that let police officers and family members seek restraining orders to seize guns from troubled people. A year later, a shooting rampage in San Bernardino led to voters approving a ballot proposition to outlaw expanded magazines for guns and require background checks for buying ammunition. The state has also banned assault weapons and regulates ammunition sales — all part of a wave of gun regulation that began a quarter century ago with a mass murder at a San Francisco law firm. (Arango and Medina, 11/10)

The Washington Post: Ventura Shooting: They Survived The Las Vegas Massacre. In A California Country Bar, It Happened Again.
The first frantic message buzzed Brendan Hoolihan’s phone at about midnight Wednesday, and for hours the messages continued to flood his Snapchat group text. His friends had created the chain after the Las Vegas shooting massacre a year earlier, just in case something unimaginable like that ever happened again. It had. (Mettler, 11/11)

NPR: Psychological Effects Of Mass Shootings Are Widespread
Roger Chui first learned about the mass shooting that killed 12 people in a packed bar Wednesday night in Thousand Oaks, Calif., when he woke up the morning after and turned on his phone. "And I was like 'Oh, that seems really soon after Pittsburgh and Louisville,' " says the software developer in Lexington, Ky. "I thought we'd get more of a break." Chui feels like these kinds of shootings happen in the U.S. so often now that when he hears about them all he can think about is, "Oh well, it happened again I guess." (Chatterjee and Westerman, 11/9)

Los Angeles Times: The Role Of PTSD In Mass Shootings: Let’s Separate Myth From Reality
Just hours after former Marine Ian David Long killed himself and 12 other people at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks on Wednesday night, observers speculated that post-traumatic stress disorder played a role in the tragedy. The Ventura County sheriff alluded to it. One of Long’s former roommates in Reseda mentioned it. Even the president of the United States said it. But psychology experts say it is premature to suggest that Long suffered from PTSD — or that it could have prompted him to open fire in a bar packed with young adults. (Netburn, 11/10)

The Associated Press: Death Toll Rises In California Wildfire, Matching Deadliest
As relatives desperately searched shelters for missing loved ones on Sunday, crews searching the smoking ruins of Paradise and outlying areas found six more bodies, raising the death toll to 29, matching the deadliest wildfire in California history. Wildfires continued to rage on both ends of the state, with gusty winds expected overnight which will challenge firefighters. The statewide death toll stood at 31. The Camp Fire that ravaged a swath of Northern California was the deadliest. (Flaccus and Selsky, 11/11)

Sacramento Bee: 228 Missing, 29 Dead In California Wildfire
The death toll, which increased by six on Sunday, equals the death toll from the 1933 Griffith Fire in Los Angeles as the worst mass-casualty wildland fire ever in the state. The Oakland hills Tunnel Fire in 1991 caused 25 deaths. The fire slowed some on Sunday, but officials said the risk of flaring remains high and winds are once again a threat overnight. (Sabalow, Valine and Bizjak, 11/11)

Los Angeles Times: Death Toll Jumps To 29 In Camp Fire
The first bodies found after the fire passed were in a car on the road. Some survivors said they had only minutes to escape. Five of the bodies found Sunday were in homes. One was in a vehicle. Much of the area has still not been searched, and scores of people remain missing. “What I will say is we are very early in our efforts,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said. “There is still a great deal of work to do.” (Sahagun and Serna, 11/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Firefighters Battle Deadly California Wildfires
The Camp Fire in Butte County, about 100 miles north of Sacramento, grew slightly to a total of 109,000 acres on Sunday, after destroying an estimated 6,500 homes and 260 businesses, mostly in the city of Paradise. At least five victims of the fire were found trapped in charred vehicles as they tried to flee the fast-moving blaze, authorities said. ... In Southern California, the Woolsey Fire expanded to 83,275 acres Sunday morning, after leaving an estimated 177 homes and other structures destroyed in Ventura and Los Angeles counties and at least two known fatalities. More than 200,000 people remained evacuated from their homes on Sunday, including in Thousand Oaks where a gunman fatally shot 12 people in the Borderline Bar and Grill before apparently taking his own life. (Carlton, 11/11)

The New York Times: Vitamin D And Fish Oils Are Ineffective For Preventing Cancer And Heart Disease
In recent years, many Americans have embraced vitamin D and fish oil pills, their enthusiasm fueled by a steady trickle of suggestive research studies linking higher levels of vitamin D with lower rates of cancer and other ills, and fish consumption with reduced heart disease. Now a large and rigorous government-funded randomized trial — the only such study of omega-3 fish oils ever carried out in healthy adults, and the largest trial ever done of high-dose vitamin D — has found the supplements do not lower cancer rates in healthy adults. (Rabin, 11/10)

The Washington Post: Fish-Oil Drugs Protect Heart Health, Two Studies Say
The large, multiyear research efforts tested different formulations and quantities of drugs made with Omega-3 fatty acids on two groups of people: one that suffered from cardiovascular disease or diabetes and another that represented the general population. Both studies found that people who took the drugs every day enjoyed protection against some heart and circulatory problems compared with those given a placebo. In a look at another commonly consumed supplement, vitamin D, researchers found no effect on heart disease but saw a link to a decline in cancer deaths over time. (Bernstein, 11/10)

The Associated Press: Heart Meeting Features Fish Oil, Vitamin D, Cholesterol News
Good news for everyone: You no longer have to fast before a blood test to check cholesterol. Don't stop at the doughnut shop on your way to the clinic, but eating something before the test is OK for most folks, the guidelines say. They're from the Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology and are endorsed by many other doctor groups. No authors had financial ties to drugmakers. (Marchione, 11/11)

Reuters: New Drug Options, Risk Factors Added To U.S. Heart Guidelines
Updated U.S. guidelines on heart health advise more personalized assessment of risk as well as two newer types of cholesterol-lowering drugs for people at particularly high risk of heart attack or stroke. The recommendations from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, last issued in 2013, acknowledge recent research showing the benefit of very low levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, which contributes to fatty plaque buildup and narrowing of arteries. (Beasley, 11/10)

The Washington Post: New Cholesterol Management Guidelines Call For Personalized Risk Assessments
The recommendations build on and address criticism of guidelines issued in 2013 that fundamentally altered the way health-care providers determine a patient’s risk of heart attack and cardiovascular disease. In that watershed document, the experts told doctors to stop trying to lower patients’ cholesterol numbers to specific targets and instead follow an overall matrix that attempts to predict their future risk of problems. The latest guidelines give clinicians a better idea of how to do that via treatment categories that vary depending on cholesterol scores and, if necessary, other tests. The 121-page document was unveiled Saturday at the American Heart Association’s 2018 Scientific Sessions in Chicago and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and the heart association’s journal, Circulation. (Bernstein, 11/10)

The Wall Street Journal: New Guidelines For Treating High Cholesterol Take A Personal Approach
“Risk is more of a process than a calculation,” said Donald Lloyd-Jones, chair of the department of preventive medicine at Northwestern University and a member of the panel that wrote the guidelines. “We can help personalize the decision. ”Nearly one in every three American adults has high levels of LDL, the AHA says, which contributes to buildup of fatty plaque and narrowing of the arteries. Research shows that people with LDL of 100 or lower have lower rates of heart disease and stroke, according to the AHA. (McKay, 11/10)

Los Angeles Times: With Better Drugs For High Cholesterol, Doctors Become More Ambitious With Their Treatment Goals
When recommending the more aggressive treatment of those who are at highest risk of heart attacks and strokes, “it helps patients and providers when you give them numbers and targets,” Nissen said. “Because if you’re constantly checking, you keep patients staying focused on compliance, what it takes to stay healthy.” Nearly 800,000 people die of heart attacks, strokes and other manifestations of cardiovascular disease in the United States each year, making it the country’s leading cause of death. But while 78 million Americans — close to 37% of the adult population — either take or should consider taking medication to lower their cholesterol, close to half don’t do so. (Healy, 11/10)

Stat: Generic Arthritis Drug Comes Up Short Against Inflammation In Heart Disease 
The trial, called the Cardiovascular Inflammation Reduction Trial (CIRT) and sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, tested methotrexate in people who had previous heart attacks or strokes in addition to having diabetes or metabolic syndrome, which can lead to inflammation. Methotrexate was an attractive option because people who took the relatively inexpensive, oral drug to treat their rheumatoid arthritis also appeared in observational studies to have lower rates of heart disease. The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the meeting of the American Heart Association in Chicago. (Cooney, 11/10)

The New York Times: Too Much Caffeine May Stress The Heart
As my brother neared the end of a smooth, swift recovery from open-heart surgery to bypass an 80-percent blockage in his heart’s most important artery recently, he reverted to a longstanding habit of downing many cups a day of strong coffee. I objected, but he insisted that the caffeine doesn’t affect him, meaning it doesn’t disturb his sleep. (Brody, 11/12)

The Washington Post: VA Secretary Says He Will Continue Agency’s Controversial Experiments On Dogs
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie defended the agency’s ongoing experiments on dogs Friday and said he would continue to “reauthorize” them, eight months after Congress passed legislation limiting tests that are opposed by a bipartisan cast of lawmakers and several veterans’ groups. Speaking at the National Press Club, Wilkie rejected calls to end research that he said led to the invention in the 1960s of the cardiac pacemaker and the discovery in the late 1990s of a treatment for deadly cardiac arrhythmias. These days, he said, some of the testing is focused on spinal cord injuries. (Brulliard, 11/9)

The Associated Press: Michelle Obama Had Miscarriage, Used IVF To Conceive Girls
Michelle Obama says she felt “lost and alone” after suffering a miscarriage 20 years ago and she and Barack Obama underwent in vitro fertilization to conceive their two daughters. “We were trying to get pregnant and it wasn’t going well,” Mrs. Obama, 54, writes in her upcoming memoir. “We had one pregnancy test come back positive, which caused us both to forget every worry and swoon with joy, but a couple of weeks later I had a miscarriage, which left me physically uncomfortable and cratered any optimism we felt.” (Kellman, 11/9)

The New York Times: Dementia Is Getting Some Very Public Faces
The spouses arriving for the Wednesday afternoon caregivers’ class at the Penn Memory Center in Philadelphia had something on their minds even before Alison Lynn, the social worker leading the session, could start the conversation. A few days before, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor had released a letter announcing that she’d been diagnosed with dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease. (Span, 11/9)

NPR: Research Shows Strong Link Between Childhood Trauma And Adult Mental Illness
When public health officials get wind of an outbreak of Hepatitis A or influenza, they spring into action with public awareness campaigns, monitoring and outreach. But should they be acting with equal urgency when it comes to childhood trauma? A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests the answer should be yes. It shows how the effects of childhood trauma persist and are linked to mental illness and addiction in adulthood. And, researchers say, it suggests that it might be more effective to approach trauma as a public health crisis than to limit treatment to individuals. (Blakemore, 11/9)

NPR: The American Academy Of Pediatrics On Spanking Children: Don't Do It, Ever.
Twenty years after urging caution among parents who choose to discipline their children with spankings, the American Academy of Pediatrics has updated its stance. Now, its overwhelming consensus for parents: do not do it. In a new policy statement issued earlier this month, the group warns that "Aversive disciplinary strategies, including all forms of corporal punishment and yelling at or shaming children, are minimally effective in the short-term and not effective in the long-term. With new evidence, researchers link corporal punishment to an increased risk of negative behavioral, cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional outcomes for children." (Jenkins and Garcia-Navarro, 11/11)

Stat: A Pivotal Day In World's Response To Ebola Nears: The Launch Of A Clinical Trial 
Health officials are preparing to launch a clinical trial designed to test whether experimental Ebola therapies improve patients’ chances of survival in the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — a landmark moment in the world’s efforts to respond to this and future crises. The randomized controlled trial will compare three different antibody treatments and an antiviral drug to each other, rather than involving a placebo. It is unlikely that the trial will produce clear results based on a single epidemic; it is expected to span several outbreaks and countries — a novel and challenging design. (Branswell, 11/12)

The New York Times: Soy Baby Formulas Tied To Menstrual Pain
Consuming soy-based formula during infancy may be linked to severe menstrual pain in adulthood, researchers report. A study published in Human Reproduction included 1,553 African-American women ages 23 to 35 with information on soy formula feeding gathered by questionnaires. To determine menstrual pain, they asked women whether they had ever taken prescription or over-the-counter medication to prevent menstrual cramps or pelvic pain. (Bakalar, 11/9)

The Washington Post: Is Anorexia Part Of Ballet Culture? An Ex-Dancer Describes Her Struggles.
Anais Garcia, 21, anxiously stares at the menu of a Bob Evans restaurant in Baltimore. Her dark brown eyes gravitate toward the Fit and Healthy section, which lists calories per meal. She takes a long time figuring out what to order and decides to go with her “safe meal,” a small stack of pancakes, with no butter, reduced-calorie syrup, a small bowl of fruit on the side and a cup of black coffee. “Restaurants are like battle zones for me, literal war zones,” she says. (Rolz, 11/11)

The Washington Post: Poor Sleep Can Be The Cause Of Anxiety, Study Finds
A sleepless night can leave the brain spinning with anxiety the next day. In healthy adults, overnight sleep deprivation will trigger anxiety the next morning, along with altered brain activity patterns, scientists reported at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience on Nov. 4. (Sanders, 11/10)

The Washington Post: Fructans, Not Gluten, Might Cause Wheat Sensitivity. Here’s What You Need To Know.
Americans love to designate dietary devils. MSG. Fat. Carbs. Gluten. The latest food to be nominated for devilhood is fructans. And the focus on them came about, in part, because of our obsession with gluten. Here’s how: We know that many people who follow a gluten-free diet don’t need to for medical reasons, such as having celiac disease. Yet some insist they aren’t going gluten-free because it’s trendy — they’re going gluten-free because it makes them feel better. Many researchers believe these people who think they can’t tolerate gluten are actually sensitive to fructans. (Dennett, 11/6)

The Washington Post: ‘Songs To Do CPR To’ Playlist Could Be A Lifesaving Soundtrack
You may have heard that “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees has the perfect beat for doing CPR. But it’s not the only song that can provide a soundtrack to chest compressions in an emergency. If you know “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga, “Rock This Town” by Stray Cats or “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé, you already know a song that could help you save a life. The “Songs to do CPR to” playlist on Spotify collects those songs and more. (Blakemore, 11/10)

NPR: To Make A Point, Bill Gates Brings A Jar Of Human Poop To His Toilet Expo
It's not every day that one of the world's richest men walks on stage carrying a jar of human feces, but that's precisely what Bill Gates did in Beijing on Tuesday. The Microsoft founder was in China to talk toilets at the Reinvented Toilet Expo, an event showcasing the latest in high-tech sanitation to entrepreneurs, development banks and government agencies. (Yu, 11/9)

The Washington Post: What To Do When You’re Told You Have Thinning Bones
Two bits of health news last month left me puzzled. One study said don’t bother taking vitamin D for bone health. Another reported that bone-building medications are useful in women with thinning bones, but without an osteoporosis diagnosis. That pre-osteoporosis state is called osteopenia. It’s when your bone density score shows some bone loss, but not enough to be labeled osteoporosis. (Adams, 11/10)

The Washington Post: How To Help A Child Dealing With Pain
Sheer panic. It’s all I can remember. Out of the blue, while enjoying his morning snack one day, my toddler started having seizures. And they didn’t stop. It was terrifying. He was admitted to the intensive care unit. Between seizures he was scared, flailing on the hospital bed, totally out of control. I wanted desperately to help soothe him but didn’t know quite what to do. My first intuition was to distract him. I remember grabbing a jungle pop-up book out of my diaper bag and springing the pictures open right in front of his face to block out all the doctors scurrying about. I made loud roaring sounds like a tiger to drown out all the scary medical noise. It didn’t help. (Coakley, 11/11)

Reuters: NHL Concussion Lawsuit Reportedly Near Settlement
A lawsuit brought against the NHL over what more than 100 former players claim was negligence in dealing with their head injuries could be on the verge of a settlement. According to a Forbes report on Friday, the case is "on the verge" of a settlement agreement worth a total of $18.9 million. Per the report, the lead attorney for the players is pushing for acceptance of the agreement, which would give $6.9 million to the players, or just $22,000 each. (11/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Harlem Study Fruitful In Teaching Children Healthy Habits
Preschoolers who went through a four-month program focused on the body, physical movement and emotions were able to maintain healthier behaviors in the future, according to research conducted at 15 Head Start schools in Harlem. Half of the children in the study—a continuing project led by Dr. Valentin Fuster, physician in chief at Mount Sinai Hospital—received no intervention initially, while the other half received 50 hours of health education, including lessons on how to take care of the body, the heart, healthy food choices and exploring mad, sad and happy feelings. (West, 11/10)

The Washington Post: Former Fairfax Teachers Allege Pregnancy Discrimination By School System
A former Fairfax County teacher has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that administrators at the nationally recognized Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology discriminated against her after she became pregnant. The social studies educator, Amanda Hurowitz, said she was on maternity leave in April with her second child when she learned from the school’s principal, Ann Bonitatibus, and an assistant principal that her contract as a part-time teacher would not be renewed for the 2018-2019 academic year. (Truong, 11/11)

The Associated Press: Delaware Psychotherapist Pleads Guilty To Health Care Fraud
A psychotherapist in Delaware has pleaded guilty to health care fraud. The News Journal of Wilmington reports 47-year-old Sachin Karnik was sentenced to two years in prison. He was charged last year with fraud, falsifying business records and theft by false pretenses. The state’s Department of Justice said Friday that Karnik submitted fraudulent claims to Medicaid for counseling sessions. The state says Karnik also lied about his educational background. (11/12)

The Associated Press: Delaware Woman Sentenced For Embezzling From Hospital
Authorities say a Delaware woman has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to embezzling more than $100,000 from a hospital. A news release from the Delaware Department of Justice said Friday that 49-year-old Hope Abram was sentenced to 25 years, though much of it was suspended. The release said the sentence includes 2 years in prison, followed by home confinement. (11/11)