First Edition: October 8, 2018

Kaiser Health News: The Feds’ Termination Of A Tiny Contract Inflames Bitter Fight Over Fetal Tissue
Federal health officials announced late last month they had terminated their contract with a company that supplies human fetal tissue for medical research and were checking that similar contracts, as well as studies conducted with that tissue, comply with federal law. The seemingly innocuous release about a tiny government contract, which came out as Americans focused on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, belied the big stakes and contentious issue behind it. Government officials are considering pulling federal funding for a decades-old form of research that has yielded a number of medical advances, including the polio vaccine. (Huetteman, 10/8)

Kaiser Health News: Medicare Advantage Plans Shift Their Financial Risk To Doctors
Dr. Christopher Rao jumped out of his office chair. He’d just learned an elderly patient at high risk of falling was resisting his advice to go to an inpatient rehabilitation facility following a hip fracture. He strode into the exam room where Priscilla Finamore was crying about having to leave her home and husband, Freddy. (Galewitz, 10/8)

California Healthline: Patient Advocacy Or Political Ploy? Union, Industry Square Off Over Dialysis Initiative
This year, California dialysis clinics — and their profits — are in a powerful union’s crosshairs. On Nov. 6, the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West union hopes to deliver a stinging blow with a ballot measure designed to limit clinic profits. (Tuller and Rowan, 10/5)

Kaiser Health News: Facebook Live: The Cancer Divide
If you get cancer, how long you live may depend on factors outside of your control: your race or ethnicity. Where you live. Your age. The type of insurance you have. Although Californians and Americans overall are living longer with cancer, some communities fare better than others. There are many reasons for this cancer divide. Certain groups may not have regular access to doctors or cancer screening. Smoking and physical inactivity play a role, as does exposure to air pollution. (10/5)

The New York Times: Fact-Checking The President: Has He Saved Or Sabotaged Obamacare?
Even as President Trump boasts that he has “eliminated the core of Obamacare,” his health secretary is taking credit for making the law work better than ever. What gives? ... A review of the administration’s assertions suggests that some are valid while others are sheer hooey. (Pear, 10/6)

The Hill: Study: Insurers Returning To Pre-ObamaCare Profitability
Insurers in the individual market performed better financially in the first six months of 2018 than they have in all of the years of the Affordable Care Act, according to a brief released Friday. The brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows insurers returning to the levels of profitability seen before the passage of the ACA, but notes recent actions from the Trump administration "cloud expectations for the future." (Hellmann, 10/5)

The Hill: Hirono: Roe V. Wade Won't Be Overturned, But Will Be Nullified
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said on Sunday that she does not think the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade now that Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a member, but that lower-level judicial and legislative decisions will instead undermine the landmark decision, which legalized abortion. "It matters if they overturn Roe v. Wade, which I doubt they're gonna do," Hirono told ABC's "This Week." (Keller, 10/7)

The Associated Press: Supreme Court Moves Right, But How Far, How Fast?
The moment conservatives have dreamed about for decades has arrived with Brett Kavanaugh joining the Supreme Court. But with it comes the shadow of a bitter confirmation fight that is likely to hang over the court as it takes on divisive issues, especially those dealing with politics and women's rights. With Kavanaugh taking the place of the more moderate Anthony Kennedy, conservatives should have a working majority of five justices to restrict abortion rights, limit the use of race in college admissions and rein in federal regulators. (Sherman, 10/7)

The Washington Post: Kavanaugh Vote: The Junk Science Susan Collins Used To Undermine Christine Blasey Ford
The politically convenient, scientifically baseless theory that sexual assault so traumatized Christine Blasey Ford she mixed up her attacker is now something like common wisdom for many Republicans. President Trump explicitly endorsed the theory Saturday, shortly after Brett M. Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed as a Supreme Court judge, telling reporters he was “100 percent” sure Ford accused Kavanaugh in error. (Selk, 10/7)

The Associated Press: FDA Expands Use Of Cervical Cancer Vaccine Up To Age 45
U.S. regulators Friday expanded the use of Merck's cervical cancer vaccine to adults up to age 45. The vaccine was previously only for preteens and young adults through 26. The Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil 9 for women and men through 45. (Johnson, 10/5)

The New York Times: HPV Vaccine Expanded For People Ages 27 To 45
The vaccine is Gardasil 9, made by Merck, and had been previously approved for minors and people up to age 26. It works against the human papillomavirus, HPV, which can also cause genital warts and cancers of the vulva, anus, penis and parts of the throat. The virus has many strains. It is sexually transmitted, and most adults encounter at least one strain at some point in their lives. The vaccine protects against nine strains, including those most likely to cause cancers and genital warts. (Grady and Hoffman, 10/5)

The Washington Post: FDA Approves HPV Vaccine For People Up To 45
Experts say the vaccine, which protects against nine HPV strains, is most effective when administered before the initiation of sexual activity. But data also indicate that the vaccine can benefit the older group. That’s because even though many adults have been exposed to some types of HPV, most have not been exposed to all nine types covered by the vaccine. Merck, which manufacturers the vaccine, requested the expanded age range this year. In June, the FDA granted the application priority review. (McGinley, 10/5)

Politico: Oregon’s Unlikely Abortion Fight Hinges On Taxes
Abortion foes in Oregon are trying a new approach to advance their cause in one of the most progressive states in the country — making it about money, not morality. They’re relying on anti-tax sentiment to win support for a Nov. 6 ballot initiative that would ban the vast majority of public funding for the procedure, rather than the making it a referendum on the procedure itself as they have in more conservative states like Texas. (Colliver, 10/6)

The Associated Press: Abortion Rights Group Seeks Rehearing On Louisiana Law
A group that supports abortion rights wants a federal appeals court to revisit its split decision upholding a Louisiana law that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The Center for Reproductive Rights asked in documents filed Friday that the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rehear the case. A panel of judges on the appellate court, in a split 2-1 decision last month, upheld the law. (Johnson, 10/6)

The Associated Press: UN Report On Global Warming Carries Life-Or-Death Warning
Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge. The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea. (Borenstein, 10/8)

The New York Times: Major Climate Report Describes A Strong Risk Of Crisis As Early As 2040
The report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population. The report “is quite a shock, and quite concerning,” said Bill Hare, an author of previous I.P.C.C. reports and a physicist with Climate Analytics, a nonprofit organization. “We were not aware of this just a few years ago.” The report was the first to be commissioned by world leaders under the Paris agreement, the 2015 pact by nations to fight global warming. (Davenport, 10/7)

The Washington Post: The World Has Just Over A Decade To Get Climate Change Under Control, U.N. Scientists Say
At the same time, however, the report is being received with hope in some quarters because it affirms that 1.5 degrees Celsius is still possible — if emissions stopped today, for instance, the planet would not reach that temperature. It is also likely to galvanize even stronger climate action by focusing on 1.5 degrees Celsius, rather than 2 degrees, as a target that the world cannot afford to miss. “Frankly, we’ve delivered a message to the governments,” said Jim Skea, a co-chair of the IPCC panel and professor at Imperial College London, at a press event following the document’s release. “It’s now their responsibility … to decide whether they can act on it.” He added, “What we’ve done is said what the world needs to do.” (Mooney and Dennis, 10/7)

The New York Times: Why Half A Degree Of Global Warming Is A Big Deal
Half a degree may not sound like much. But as the report details, even that much warming could expose tens of millions more people worldwide to life-threatening heat waves, water shortages and coastal flooding. Half a degree may mean the difference between a world with coral reefs and Arctic summer sea ice and a world without them. (Plumer and Popovich, 10/7)

The New York Times: Deputies Made Jokes About A Veteran Thrashing In His Cell Before He Died
Two years ago, a man died of an apparent drug overdose after being held at the Clackamas County Jail in Oregon City, Ore. This week, video emerged in which sheriff’s deputies could be heard laughing as the man thrashed uncontrollably in a padded cell before he died. They joked that he could be used as a cautionary example to warn students about the dangers of drugs. (Fortin, 10/6)

Stat: FDA Approves Akcea's Rare Disease Drug With A Black Box Warning
Akcea Therapeutics finally earned a U.S. drug approval. The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday it had approved the company’s drug, inotersen (Tegsedi), which aims to treat a rare and fatal condition known as hATTR. It’s a major win for Akcea, after the FDA declined to approve another of the company’s drugs, Waylivra, based on the same technology. But Tegsedi was approved with a black box warning — the strongest type the FDA can put on a prescription drug. (Sheridan, 10/5)

NPR: Heroin And Opioid Users Hoping To Quit Turn To Black Market For Suboxone
Months in prison didn't rid Daryl of his addiction to opioids. "Before I left the parking lot of the prison, I was shooting up, getting high," he says. Daryl has used heroin and prescription painkillers for more than a decade. Almost four years ago he became one of more than 200 people who tested positive for HIV in a historic outbreak in Scott County, Ind. After that diagnosis, he says, he went on a bender. (Harper, 10/5)

The New York Times: Life On The Dirtiest Block In San Francisco
The heroin needles, the pile of excrement between parked cars, the yellow soup oozing out of a large plastic bag by the curb and the stained, faux Persian carpet dumped on the corner. It’s a scene of detritus that might bring to mind any variety of developing-world squalor. But this is San Francisco, the capital of the nation’s technology industry, where a single span of Hyde street hosts an open-air narcotics market by day and at night is occupied by the unsheltered and drug-addled slumped on the sidewalk. (Fuller, 10/8)

USA Today: Toxic Stress Causes Lifelong Mental And Physical Health Problems
The 10-year-old girl suffered from persistent asthma, but the cause was unclear. Tests ruled out everything from pet hair to cockroaches. Then the girl's mother thought of a possible trigger. “Her asthma does seem to get worse whenever her dad punches a hole in the wall," she told Dr. Nadine Burke Harris. "Do you think that could be related?” (O'Donnell, 10/5)

The Associated Press: Chance The Rapper Giving $1M To Boost Mental Health Services
Chance the Rapper says he's donating $1 million to help improve mental health services in Chicago. The Chicago native made the announcement Thursday during a summit for his nonprofit organization SocialWorks , saying those involved "want to change the way that mental health resources are being accessed." (10/5)

The Washington Post: Depression Screening And Help Available From Doctors Or Online
Are you depressed? If you’re not sure, it’s no surprise. Perpetual sadness isn’t the only symptom. Anger, back pain, sleep disturbances and even indecisiveness could all be signs of depression. (Blakemore, 10/7)

The Washington Post: Study: Lingering Illnesses Can Trouble Women For Years After Assault, Workplace Harassment
Women can experience lingering health problems years after workplace sexual harassment or sexual assault, a new study finds. These health problems can include high blood pressure, poor-quality sleep, anxiety and symptoms of depression, the researchers found after doing medical exams of about 300 women. (Geggel, 10/6)

Los Angeles Times: The Long Reach Of Sexual Assault And Sexual Harassment: Both Can Worsen Women's Health At Midlife
Researchers also found that women who said they had been subjected to sexual harassment were more than twice as likely to have untreated high blood pressure than were women who did not experience such harassment. And women with a history of either sexual assault or sexual harassment were roughly twice as likely to suffer sleep problems at midlife than their counterparts who did not report gender-based mistreatment. (Healy, 10/5)

The Associated Press: Therapy Dogs Can Spread Superbugs To Kids, Hospital Finds
Therapy dogs can bring more than joy and comfort to hospitalized kids. They can also bring stubborn germs. Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore were suspicious that the dogs might pose an infection risk to patients with weakened immune systems. So they conducted some tests when Pippi, Poppy, Badger and Winnie visited 45 children getting cancer treatment. (Stobbe, 10/5)

The Washington Post: Primary Care Doctors Aren't So Important To Millenials
Calvin Brown doesn’t have a primary care doctor — and the peripatetic 23-year-old doesn’t want one. Since his graduation last year from the University of San Diego, Brown has held a series of jobs that have taken him to several California cities. “As a young person in a nomadic state,” Brown said, he prefers finding a walk-in clinic on the rare occasions when he’s sick. (Boodman, 10/6)

The Washington Post: Flu Can Be A Killer, But Some Refuse To Take A Shot
Latasha Haynes was 34 when she almost died of the flu last year. What started as a little coughing and fatigue ended with two blood transfusions and a diagnosis of congestive heart failure weeks later. Flu had caused damage to her heart muscles and the saclike tissue around it. She survived, but just barely, and it took her months to recover. Haynes, who has a photography business in Tacoma, Wash., and came down with the flu in January 2017, was one of the estimated 30.9 million people who got the flu during the 2016-2017 season. (Correll, 10/6)

NPR: FDA Bans Use Of 7 Synthetic Food Additives After Environmental Groups Sue
Ever heard of these food additives? Synthetically-derived benzophenone, ethyl acrylate, methyl eugenol, myrcene, pulegone, or pyridine? These compounds can help mimic natural flavors and are used to infuse foods with mint, cinnamon and other flavors. You've likely never seen them on food labels because food manufacturers are permitted to label them simply as "artificial flavors." (Aubrey, 10/6)

The Washington Post: Breast Feeding Offers Some Surprising Benefits For Babies And Mothers
A mother’s milk, rich in an exquisitely tailored mix of fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals, provides all the nutrition a helpless infant requires — and more. Breast milk is thought to protect against disease, set up a healthy digestive system and even influence a child’s behavior. And yet we know a lot less about this important substance than we could, says lactation researcher Katie Hinde of Arizona State University. (Wessel, 10/6)

The New York Times: Flashy Science Hub And Vaping Parties Fail To Win Friends At W.H.O. Tobacco Talks
Up in the convention center balcony on Day 1 of the World Health Organization’s tobacco treaty negotiations last week, two men posted invitations to a party on the lake. The event, called the “Nicotine Is Not Your Enemy Soirée,” was held at La Potinière, a posh restaurant with views of the city’s soaring Jet d’Eau fountain and the Alps beyond. (Kaplan, 10/7)

The Washington Post: Allergy Treatments Offer Fixes For Itching And Sneezing
If you’re like me, you’re spending portions of your day rubbing your eyes and blowing your nose. It’s fall, which means ragweed is releasing pollen into the air — and people with ragweed allergies are trying to cope. If you’re like me, you think that by taking an antihistamine every day, you are doing all you can to keep your symptoms at bay. But otherwise, you muddle through your days, tissues by your side, secretly hoping for a hard frost to kill all those pollen-producing weeds. (Adams, 10/7)

NPR: Many Apps Promise To Put You To Sleep, Some Help Curb Insomnia
Paige Thesing has struggled with insomnia since high school. "It takes me a really long time to fall asleep — about four hours," she says. For years, her mornings were groggy and involved a "lot of coffee." After a year of trying sleep medication prescribed by her doctor, she turned to the internet for alternate solutions. About four months ago, she settled on a mobile phone meditation app called INSCAPE. (Chatterjee, 10/8)

The Washington Post: Good Memory Can Be Trained These Wizards Find
Let’s start with a number that many have come across in math class: pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It begins with 3.14159 . . . and carries on forever. It is infinite and irrational, never ending and never repeating, and people are drawn into its orbit. To some, the attraction is spiritual; to others, the pull may be explained by the “because it’s there” reasoning of mountaineers. Memory athletes — so called because of their intensive training in games of the mind — in particular are drawn to the endlessness of pi. (Hooper, 10/7)

The New York Times: Amputations And Lacerations: Your Front Lawn Is A Jungle
The accident typically happens on a spring or summer weekend, mostly to men, and the results can be severe: lacerations, fractures and even amputations. From 2006 to 2013, an estimated 51,151 people were injured while mowing the lawn, and 12,243 of them wound up losing a body part. (Bakalar, 10/5)

NPR: A Brain Scientist Who Studies Alzheimer's Explains How She Stays Mentally Fit
As a specialist in Alzheimer's prevention, Jessica Langbaum knows that exercising her mental muscles can help keep her brain sharp. But Langbaum, who holds a doctorate in psychiatric epidemiology, has no formal mental fitness program. She doesn't do crossword puzzles or play computer brain games. "Just sitting down and doing Sudoku isn't probably going to be the one key thing that's going to prevent you from developing Alzheimer's disease," she says. (Hamilton, 10/8)

The New York Times: Leading An Active Life With A Diagnosis Of Dementia
Laurie Scherrer was a workaholic sales executive when she began forgetting customers and losing her ability to perform simple math calculations. Five years ago, at age 55, she learned she has early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia. After a “self-inflicted pity party,” Mrs. Scherrer said, she sprang into action. She created plans that would enable her to pursue an active life while also protecting her as the disease progressed. (Garland, 10/5)

The Associated Press: Flint Residents Seek To Reinstate Snyder In Water Lawsuit
Residents and businesses affected by the lead-contaminated water crisis in Flint are asking a judge to reinstate Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and other Michigan officials as defendants in a class-action lawsuit. (10/7)

Los Angeles Times: California’s Senior Population Is Growing Faster Than Any Other Age Group. How The Next Governor Responds Is Crucial
It was early in their courtship seven years ago when Manuel Villanueva warned his now-husband, “I come as a package of three.” The other parts of that deal: his father, Ramon Villanueva, whose failing kidneys forced him to stop working, and his mother, Maria Guadalupe Olague. Now they live as a family unit of four — six, if you count the cats — in a Highland Park two-bedroom apartment. As caring for his parents has increasingly taken a toll on his finances, time and psyche, Manuel Villanueva has taken up a matter-of-fact mantra to soldier on: “Adapt and understand your reality.” (Mason, 10/7)

Politico: Marijuana Skeptics Fear 'De Facto Legalization' In States
When Jason Nemes, a Republican legislator in deeply conservative Kentucky, proposed a bill allowing the sale of medicinal marijuana this year, he included strict conditions to prevent doctors from rampantly prescribing the drug. After all, Nemes has no interest in actually legalizing pot: He hasn’t smoked, he’s decidedly anti-drug and, until recently, he was even skeptical of marijuana’s effectiveness for treating conditions like cancer or epilepsy. (Sutton and Marinucci, 10/6)

The Washington Post: Military Families Raise Concerns About Housing Problems After Hurricane Florence
Families living on one of the Marine Corps’ largest bases are ramping up criticism of the private company that manages their homes, saying it is ignoring long-standing problems with mold and structural defects that were exacerbated after Hurricane Florence slammed North Carolina last month. Even before the hurricane unleashed devastation across the Carolinas, several spouses were working to draw attention to what they called a lackadaisical attitude by Atlantic Marine Corps Communities about the conditions inside Camp Lejeune’s private housing — from leaky and crumbling ceilings to 70-foot-tall rotting trees in danger of collapsing. (Wax-Thibodeaux, 10/6)

The Associated Press: California Wildfire Victims Say Cleanup Crews Add To Woes
One year after a devastating series of wildfires ripped through Northern California wine country, destroying thousands of homes, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' first experience cleaning up after a wildfire has turned into an expensive bureaucratic mess and California's top emergency official suspects fraud played a role. (Elias, 10/8)