First Edition: September 12, 2019

Kaiser Health News: In Search Of Age-Friendly Health Care, Finding Room For Improvement
A month ago, during a visit to her doctor’s office in Sequim, Wash., Sue Christensen fell to her knees in the bathroom when her legs suddenly gave out. The 74-year-old was in an accessible stall with her walker, an older model that doesn’t have brakes. On her left side was a grab bar; there was nothing to hold onto on the right. Christensen tried to pull herself up but couldn’t. With difficulty, she rearranged her clothing and, inching forward on her knees, exited the stall. There, she tried calling the front desk on her cellphone but was placed on hold by the automated phone system. (Graham, 9/12)

Kaiser Health News: Congress Rakes In Millions From Drugmakers
Members of Congress raked in almost $4 million from pharmaceutical manufacturers and their trade groups in the first six months of 2019. Two members — Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — each received over $100,000. Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) is $5,000 shy of qualifying for the “million-dollar club,” a group of current members who’ve received $1 million or more since 2007. (Lucas, 9/12)

Kaiser Health News: Legislation To End Surprise Medical Bills Has High Public Support — In Both Parties
Nearly 8 in 10 Americans support legislation to protect people from surprise medical bills, a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows. That support persisted no matter which party was asked: 84% of Democrats, 78% of independents and 71% of Republicans said they support surprise billing legislation, according to the poll. (Huetteman, 9/12)

California Healthline: Vaping By The Numbers
The explosive rise in a serious lung illness linked to vaping spotlights the popularity of e-cigarettes among teens and young adults — and how little is known about the devices’ safety and use. As of Tuesday, federal health officials were investigating at least 450 possible cases of the mysterious pulmonary illness across 33 states, including six cases that resulted in death. California has reported nearly 60 cases of lung illness since late June in patients with a history of vaping; one of those patients, in Los Angeles County, has died. (Rowan, 9/11)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Plans To Ban Flavored E-Cigarettes
The Trump administration said on Wednesday that it would ban the sale of most flavored e-cigarettes, at a time when hundreds of people have been sickened by mysterious lung illnesses and teenage vaping continues to rise. ... Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary, said that the Food and Drug Administration would outline a plan within the coming weeks for removing flavored e-cigarettes and nicotine pods from the market, excluding tobacco flavors. The ban would include mint and menthol, popular varieties that manufacturers have argued should not be considered flavors. (Kaplan, 9/11)

The Washington Post: Trump Moves To Ban Flavored E-Cigarettes
The administration’s move comes as health officials across the country investigate more than 450 cases, including six deaths, of lung disease linked to vaping. Many patients have reported using cannabis-related products, but authorities have not ruled out any specific type of vaping. With the picture still murky, critics have seized the moment to press for tougher regulation of conventional e-cigarettes, which come in sweet and fruity flavors that have been favored by many young people. (McGinley, 9/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Plans To Ban Most Vaping Flavors
Public-health officials have encouraged adult smokers to switch to less risky products such as e-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine in a cloud of vapor. Tobacco companies have invested in the technology to offset declining sales as smokers switched to new entrants like Juul. But the sleek devices also proved popular with teens and young people who had never smoked. About eight million adults use e-cigarettes, and about five million children are also vaping, including more than a quarter of high-school students, according to the latest government estimates. “We have a problem in our country. It’s a new problem,” Mr. Trump, a Republican, said in the Oval Office on Wednesday as he met with top health officials. “It’s called vaping, especially vaping as it pertains to innocent children.” (Maloney and Leary, 9/11)

The Associated Press: Government Plans To Ban Flavors Used In E-Cigarettes
Trump, whose son Barron is 13 years old, said vaping has become such a problem that he wants parents to be aware of what's happening. "We can't allow people to get sick and we can't have our youth be so affected," he said. Melania Trump recently tweeted her concerns over the combination of children and vaping, and at the meeting, the president said, "I mean, she's got a son — together — that is a beautiful, young man, and she feels very, very strongly about it." (9/11)

NPR: To Combat Youth Vaping, Trump Administration Plans To Banish Flavored Vapes
"We must act swiftly against flavored e-cigarette products that are especially attractive to children. Moreover, if we see a migration to tobacco-flavored products by kids, we will take additional steps to address youth use of these products," Acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless, said in a statement. (Harris and Wroth, 9/11)

Politico: Melania Versus The Vapers
The first lady was not the only driving force. ... But Trump said his wife’s pressure was key. In comparison with past first ladies, she has had a low profile on public policy. Here, in contrast, she persuaded her husband to dramatically shift the government's approach to a massive, growing and politically connected industry. That's something that neither federal regulators nor Capitol Hill had been able to do. (Owermohle, Kumar and Cancryn, 9/11)

The Hill: Lawmakers Applaud Trump's Ban On Flavored E-Cigarettes
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill largely applauded the Trump administration’s plan to ban all nontobacco flavors of e-cigarettes, with some saying the move is long overdue. On Wednesday, top administration health officials said they are finalizing a ban on all flavors of e-cigarettes in response to a massive spike in underage vaping. (Weixel, 9/11)

Politico: Europe’s Missing ‘Vaping Sickness’
Europe does not appear to be experiencing an outbreak of the “vaping sickness” gripping the U.S.It’s not clear anyone would know if it was. (Wheaton, 9/12)

Politico: Juul Threw Millions Of Dollars At Washington. It Hasn’t Bought Much.
Juul Labs has spent millions of dollars on lobbying, hired high-profile Trump administration officials, and blanketed Washington with ads touting its efforts against underage vaping. None of that was enough to keep President Donald Trump from moving to ban flavored e-cigarettes on Wednesday, delivering a blow to the dominant vaping company and its rivals. (Meyer, 9/11)

The Associated Press: Mint, Menthol: Vape Industry Has Dug Heels In On Flavor Bans
Efforts to ban flavored e-cigarettes and reduce their appeal to youngsters have sputtered under industry pressure in over a half-dozen states this year even as one state, Michigan, moves ahead with its own restrictions and President Donald Trump promises federal ones. In many cases, the fight by the industry and its lobbyists has focused on leaving the most popular flavors — mint and its close cousin, menthol — alone. But public health experts say that all flavors should be banned, and that menthol can still hook kids on vaping. (9/12)

Reuters: 'Doing Me A Favor': Vapers Open To Trump's Proposed Ban On Flavored E-Cigarettes
New Yorkers who vape do not seem to mind if President Donald Trump pushes through a proposed ban on flavored e-cigarettes, admitting that widespread youth addiction needed to be controlled and expressing hope that it might help them quit. ... "He would be doing me a favor," said Antoinette Quiles, a 31-year-old carpenter, as she inhaled from her Juul outside a New York subway stop. "Hopefully, if it’s not available, I won’t buy it. I’ve tried to stop and put it away, but it’s available." (9/11)

The Associated Press: Vaping Group Plotted Lobbying Efforts At Trump's DC Hotel
America's vaping industry has in recent years taken its fight to fend off regulation directly to President Donald Trump's doorstep, with a lobbying group twice booking annual meetings at his Washington hotel and e-cigarette maker Juul hiring two of his former White House officials. In 2017 and 2018, the Vapor Technology Association met at Trump's hotel to strategize how to lobby the administration, with a Republican lawmaker at one conference advising it to emphasize jobs created by the growing industry and how regulation could devastate hundreds of small vaping businesses. (9/11)

Reuters: Amid U.S. Vaping Crackdown, Juul Enters China With Online Store Openings
U.S. e-cigarettes maker Juul Labs Inc, which faces a widening crackdown on vaping at home, has entered China, with online storefronts on e-commerce sites owned by Alibaba Group and JD.com to tap the world’s largest market of smokers. Juul, in which tobacco giant Altria Group owns a 35% stake, has been launching its products in international markets such as South Korea, Indonesia and Philippines. It recently raised over $750 million in an expanded funding round. (9/12)

The Wall Street Journal: As Juul Moves Abroad, It’s Leaving Some Of Its U.S. Restrictions Behind
Juul said it approaches each country differently depending on its culture, laws and regulations. In Ireland, where there is no minimum age to purchase e-cigarettes, Juul said it has required retailers to enforce a minimum age of 18, matching the legal minimum for traditional cigarettes. It said it is gathering data on youth vaping rates in all the countries where it sells—from government agencies and through its own surveys—and could take additional steps if it sees an uptick among young people. (Maloney, 9/11)

The New York Times: Purdue Pharma Tentatively Settles Thousands Of Opioid Cases
Thousands of municipal governments nationwide and nearly two dozen states that sued the pharmaceutical industry for the destructive opioid crisis have tentatively reached a settlement with Purdue Pharma and its owners, members of the Sackler family. The deal is a landmark moment in the long-running effort to compel Purdue, the company whose signature opioid, OxyContin, is seen as an early driver of the epidemic, and its owners, the Sacklers, to face a reckoning for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people from overdoses and the calamitous systemic costs. (Hoffman, 9/11)

The Washington Post: Tentative Deal Reached With Purdue Pharma, Maker Of OxyContin
If the deal becomes final, it would be the first comprehensive settlement in the broad effort to hold drug companies accountable for their role in the opioid epidemic. To date, Purdue has also settled with one state, Oklahoma, for $270 million, and won a victory when a North Dakota judge threw out that state’s case against the company. The deal also would mark the demise of Purdue as a private company widely blamed for its role in driving the prescription opioid epidemic in the late 1990s and the first years of this century. In 2007, Purdue and three of its executives pleaded guilty to criminal charges of misleading doctors and the public about the safety of OxyContin and paid a $635 million fine. (Bernstein, Davis, Achenbach and Higham, 9/11)

The Associated Press: Tentative Opioids Settlement Falls Short Of Nationwide Deal
The agreement with about half the states and attorneys representing roughly 2,000 local governments would have Purdue file for a structured bankruptcy and pay as much as $12 billion over time, with about $3 billion coming from the Sackler family. That number involves future profits and the value of drugs currently in development. In addition, the family would have to give up its ownership of the company and contribute another $1.5 billion by selling another of its pharmaceutical companies, Mundipharma. (9/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Purdue Pharma Reaches Deal With Cities, 23 States Over Opioid Crisis
Purdue has valued the settlement at between $10 billion and $12 billion, though much of that relies on future sales of its signature painkiller and the development of drugs to treat opioid addiction. States that oppose the deal have questioned the settlement’s valuation. A Purdue spokesman said Wednesday the company “continues to work with all plaintiffs on reaching a comprehensive resolution to its opioid litigation” that will include billions of dollars and overdose-rescue medicines. Representatives for the Sacklers didn’t respond to a request for comment. (Randazzo and Hopkins, 9/11)

Reuters: Purdue Pharma Reaches Tentative Opioid Settlement With Some: Sources
More than a dozen other states remain opposed or uncommitted to the deal, setting the stage for a legal battle over Purdue's efforts to contain the litigation in bankruptcy court, they said.States on Wednesday updated a federal judge on the settlement offer's support, which could evolve as the day progresses, the people said. (9/11)

The Associated Press: Settlement Money Won’t Restore Ohio City Upended By Opioids
The tentative settlement involving the opioid crisis and the maker of OxyContin could mean that thousands of local governments will one day be paid back for some of the costs of responding to the epidemic. But for public officials in Akron, no amount of money will restore the families and institutions that were upended by prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl. (Carr Smyth, 9/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Maryland Worries Fentanyl Drug Sale Could Fuel More Addiction
The state of Maryland is uncomfortable with Insys Therapeutics Inc. ’s proposed sale of the opioid drug Subsys, raising concerns the buyer would fuel further illegal sales of the drug. In an objection filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., where Insys is selling off its assets, Maryland authorities said they believe the proposed buyer is linked to a company that has its roots in a mail-order pharmacy that they said “knowingly aided” off-label sales of Subsys, a powerful fentanyl painkiller. The state said Subsys shouldn’t be sold unless safeguards are in place to prevent the buyer from following Insys in feeding drug addiction. (Brickley, 9/11)

The Hill: Poll: Biden Proposal More Popular Than 'Medicare For All' In General Election
A new poll finds that more voters favor an optional government-run health insurance plan, as former Vice President Joe Biden advocates, than full-scale "Medicare for All" that eliminates private health insurance, as advocated by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The poll could give credence to Biden's argument against his main two rivals in the Democratic White House race, Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), that an optional plan is more popular in a general election than the full-scale Medicare for All that Sanders and Warren advocate. (Sullivan, 9/11)

The Wall Street Journal: What To Watch For In The Houston Democratic Debate
The winnowing phase of the Democratic primary kicks into high gear Thursday in Houston when the top presidential candidates debate on stage together for the first time in a one-night event. Only 10 candidates met the Democratic National Committee’s higher thresholds for the third debate—half the number that qualified for the last two debates, which were split into two nights. (Parti, Naranjo and Collins, 9/11)

The Associated Press: Democrats Slam Decision To End Immigrant Medical Relief
Democratic lawmakers criticized federal immigration officials Wednesday for refusing to explain their decision to stop considering requests from immigrants seeking to defer deportation for medical treatment and other hardships. Officials with two agencies — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — declined to answer many questions posed during a contentious House hearing, citing a recent legal challenge from civil rights groups. (Marcelo, 9/11)

The New York Times: ‘If I’m Sent Back, I Will Die’: Sick Immigrants Tell Their Stories To Congress
One immigrant went to California as a child to participate in a drug study that has helped Americans survive with a rare genetic disease. Another, an adolescent girl from Spain, was told by a cardiologist that she must remain in Boston to receive critical care for which her family borrowed thousands of dollars. A teenage boy with cystic fibrosis arrived in the United States “literally dying,” he said, but now has a new lease on life. (Jordan, 9/11)

The New York Times: Business Leaders To Call On Congress To Act On Gun Violence
In a direct and urgent call to address gun violence in America, the chief executives of some of the nation’s best-known companies were set to send a letter to Senate leaders on Thursday, urging an expansion of background checks to all firearms sales and stronger “red flag” laws. “Doing nothing about America’s gun violence crisis is simply unacceptable and it is time to stand with the American public on gun safety,” the heads of 145 companies, including Levi Strauss, Twitter and Uber, say in the letter, a draft of which was shared with The New York Times. (Sorkin, 9/12)

The Associated Press: Abortion, Border Wall Put Major Spending Bills Into Disarray
Fights over abortion and President Donald Trump's U.S.-Mexico border wall have thrown Senate efforts to advance $1.4 trillion worth of agency spending bills into disarray, threatening one of Washington's few bipartisan accomplishments this year. A government shutdown remains unlikely, but agencies face weeks or months on autopilot while frozen at this year's levels if the logjam isn't broken. (9/12)

PolitiFact: The Latest On US Health Insurance Coverage, Income And Poverty
The 2017 and 2018 figures are not directly comparable with previous years due to changes in how the data is calculated. But a different data set showed that the small rises in the uninsured rate for 2017 and 2018 marked a change for a number that had improved every year since its peak in 2010, when the Affordable Care Act was passed. The law created a national marketplace for individual insurance and allowed states to expand Medicaid to more people. (Jacobson, 9/11)

The Associated Press: VA May Have To Pay Billions In Vets' Emergency Care Bills
The government may be required to pay billions of dollars in emergency care claims to veterans after a federal court ruled this week that the Department of Veterans Affairs improperly denied reimbursements for such care received at non-VA facilities. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims said federal law mandated the VA to pay the emergency medical expenses if they are not covered by private insurance. (9/11)

PBS NewsHour: Flint's Deadly Water
A FRONTLINE investigation uncovers the extent of a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak during Flint's water crisis — and how officials failed to stop it. (9/11)

The Washington Post: Frontline's Flint Water Crisis Report Links Dozens Of Deaths To Legionnaires
For years, state health officials in Michigan have set the official death toll for the Legionnaires’ outbreak amid the Flint water crisis at 12 people. But during the roughly year-and-a-half the outbreak spanned, Frontline reporters found that 115 people in Flint died of non-viral pneumonia. The stark difference in numbers, along with evidence culled from court records, internal emails among state government officials, interviews with victims and data analysis, suggests there were dozens of deaths that stemmed from undiagnosed and untreated cases of Legionnaires’ disease that ultimately fell outside the state’s official count (which, per standard public health reporting methods, only counts people diagnosed with Legionnaires’ who either died in the hospital or within a month of leaving it). (Bellware, 9/11)

Bloomberg: How Carcinogen-Tainted Generic Drug Valsartan Got Past The FDA
The chemical N-Nitrosodimethylamine, or NDMA, is a yellow liquid that dissolves in water. It doesn’t have an odor or much of a taste. It’s known to cause cancer in animals and is classified as a probable carcinogen in humans—it’s most toxic to the liver. A single dose of less than a milligram can mutate mice cells and stimulate tumors, and 2 grams can kill a person in days. An Oklahoma man poisoned the family of an ex-girlfriend in 1978 by pouring a small vial of NDMA into a pitcher of lemonade. In 2018 a graduate student in Canada sickened a colleague by injecting the chemical into his apple pie. (Edney, Berfield and Yu, 9/12)

The New York Times: Why Aren’t There Better Cancer Drugs? Scientists May Have Picked The Wrong Targets
Twenty years ago, the fight against cancer seemed as if it were about to take a dramatic turn. Traditionally, cancer doctors fought the disease with crude weapons, often simply poisoning fast-growing cells whether they were cancerous or healthy. But then a team of researchers hit on a new strategy: drugs targeting proteins produced by cancer cells that seemed necessary to their survival. (Zimmer, 9/11)

Stat: Study Suggests Explanation For Why So Many Cancer Drugs Fail
Jason Sheltzer thought he was learning answers to a simple question, but one that, for cancer patients, could mean the difference between life and death: Which genes can’t tumor cells survive without? Identifying DNA that seems essential to cancer cells’ survival tells drug developers which genes or gene products to target — a tried-and-true approach that has led to such lifesaving cancer drugs as Herceptin. (Begley, 9/11)

NBC News: Transgender 'Conversion Therapy' Associated With 'Severe Psychological Distress'
Exposure to "conversion therapy" — efforts by a secular or religious professional to change a transgender person’s gender identity — is associated with thoughts of and attempts at suicide, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Dr. Jack Turban, the study’s lead author and a resident physician in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said it was the first study "to show that gender identity conversion efforts are associated with adverse mental health outcomes, including suicide attempts.” (Fitzsimons, 9/11)

The Washington Post: Conversion Therapy Associated With Severe Psychological Distress In Transgender People, Study Says
Researchers analyzed survey responses from more than 27,000 transgender adults across the United States and U.S. territories and military bases, roughly evenly divided between those who had been identified as boys at birth and those who had been identified as girls. People who said they had undergone conversion therapy at any point during their lifetime were twice as likely to have attempted suicide than those who had never undergone such therapies. And those who were subjected to conversion efforts during childhood were four times as likely to have tried to take their own lives, the researchers said. (Bever, 9/11)

Politico: Council Set To Repeal Its Conversion Therapy Ban In Face Of Lawsuit
The City Council is planning to repeal the ban on conversion therapy it passed with much fanfare just two years ago, an unusual maneuver designed to sidestep a lawsuit from an anti-LGBTQ hate group based in Arizona. Conversion therapy aims to alter a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, and has been banned in a host of states. Speaker Corey Johnson on Thursday plans to introduce legislation that would repeal New York City's prohibition on the practice. (Anuta, 9/11)

The New York Times: A Breeding Ground For A Fatal Scourge: Nursing Homes
Maria Davila lay mute in a nursing home bed, an anguished expression fixed to her face, as her husband stroked her withered hand. Ms. Davila, 65, suffers from a long list of ailments — respiratory failure, kidney disease, high blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat — and is kept alive by a gently beeping ventilator and a feeding tube. Doctors recently added another diagnosis to her medical chart: Candida auris, a highly contagious, drug-resistant fungus that has infected nearly 800 people since it arrived in the United States four years ago, with half of patients dying within 90 days. (Richtel and Jacobs, 9/11)

The New York Times: How Immunotherapy Might Be Used To Treat Heart Failure
A cutting-edge cancer treatment can also cure certain kinds of heart failure in mice, scientists reported on Wednesday. The treatment is a type of immunotherapy known as CAR-T, which has proved life-changing for some patients with blood cancers. CAR-T relies on engineered white blood cells — T cells — that seek out and destroy malignant cells in the body. (Kolata, 9/11)

The Associated Press: A Gene-Editing First: Scientists Tried CRISPR To Fight HIV
Scientists are reporting the first use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR to try to cure a patient's HIV infection by providing blood cells that were altered to resist the AIDS virus. The gene-editing tool has long been used in research labs, and a Chinese scientist was scorned last year when he revealed he used it on embryos that led to the birth of twin girls. Editing embryos is considered too risky, partly because the DNA changes can pass to future generations. (9/11)

Stateline: 'Gravely Disabled' Homeless Forced Into Mental Health Care In More States
Often, when she got high on meth, “Melanie,” who suffers from schizophrenia, would strip naked and run screaming straight into San Francisco traffic. Invariably, police would bring her to the hospital, where she’d undergo treatment. There, her psychotic symptoms would quickly subside. But by law, Melanie, who is homeless, couldn’t be held for longer than 72 hours without her consent, so back on the street she would go. Until she relapsed, and her drug use triggered yet another psychotic episode, and she ended up in the emergency room all over again. And each time, she got a little worse. (Wiltz, 9/11)

The New York Times: We Know It Harms Kids To See Smoking On TV. What About Rape?
Recently, Netflix announced that it would not include depictions of smoking in any new programming aimed at younger viewers. In a similar vein, on the advice of medical experts, it has removed the suicide scene from the first season of its teen drama “13 Reasons Why.” These efforts to protect the physical and mental health of young people are commendable. But if we are reconsidering what gets set before adolescents in the context of entertainment, there’s a serious and striking omission in the announced changes: depictions of rape. (Damour, 9/12)

The New York Times: What Are My Long-Term Care Options?
We were so confused. My wife’s mother was going through medical issues that could potentially have left her needing long-term care. But we had never taken a hard look at our options if that happened. She lives 2,000 miles away, and we all had to start thinking about what the next steps would be if things did not go well with her. And we had no idea where to start. (Schwartz, 9/12)

The Washington Post: Face Cream Containing Mercury Puts A California Woman In A Coma
A Sacramento woman went to the emergency room in July with numbness in her hands and feet, slurred speech and trouble walking. The 47-year-old mother of five wasn’t having a stroke or heart attack. She was suffering from mercury poisoning from a tainted anti-wrinkle cream imported from Mexico, KCRA-TV reported. She has been in the hospital since then, according to her son, who told KCRA he wished to remain unidentified. (Beachum, 9/11)

The New York Times: Scammers Look For Vulnerability, And Find It In Older People
Late last month, Kathleen Eaton of Amelia Island, Fla., went online to buy a dog. She found a miniature black schnauzer named Holly at a site she thought was puppyspot.com. She emailed the company and was told she could get the dog for a discounted price of $750. She asked to pay with a credit card, but was told to wire the money to a Western Union in Oklahoma City. The company would then send her information about Holly’s flight the next day. (Ellin, 9/12)

NPR: Human Embryoids Can Now Be Mass-Produced
Scientists have invented a device that can quickly produce large numbers of living entities that resemble very primitive human embryos. Researchers welcomed the development, described Wednesday in the journal Nature, as an important advance for studying the earliest days of human embryonic development. But it also raises questions about where to draw the line in manufacturing "synthetic" human life. (Stein, 9/11)

The Hill: Judge Halts North Dakota Abortion Counseling Law
A federal judge has temporarily halted a North Dakota law that required doctors to tell patients the effects of abortion drugs can be reversed. U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland issued an order Tuesday granting a preliminary injunction on that part of the law, known as H.B. 1336. (Frazin, 9/11)

The Associated Press: Inspector General Investigates Virginia Medicaid Contract
Virginia's inspector general is investigating a contract worth up to $1.5 million that the state's Medicaid office awarded to a company owned by a former U.S. government employee who helped oversee federal oversight of the state. The Department of Medical Assistance Services said earlier this week that it asked for the investigation to "ensure full transparency." The agency did not say what prompted the request and declined to answer questions. (9/11)

The Associated Press: Florida Businessman Faces Sentencing In $1B Medicare Fraud
A Florida health care executive is facing sentencing following his conviction on 20 criminal charges in what prosecutors described as a $1 billion Medicare fraud scheme. A Miami federal judge Thursday is set to sentence 50-year-old Philip Esformes in one of the biggest such cases in U.S. history. Prosecutors are seeking a 30-year prison term, while Esformes' lawyers as asking for a lenient sentence. (9/12)

The Associated Press: Maryland Woman Convicted Of Felony Medicaid Fraud
The Maryland attorney general’s office says a woman has been convicted of felony Medicaid fraud after claiming that she was providing care for a client with developmental disabilities and autism when she was actually working elsewhere. Attorney General Brian Frosh said in a news release that a judge gave 55-year-old Shelia Vines a suspended three-year sentence, five years’ probation and ordered her to repay the Medicaid program more than $18,900. (9/12)

Los Angeles Times: Forest Thinning Projects Won’t Stop The Worst Wildfires. So Why Is California Spending Millions On Them?
Four months after the town of Paradise was incinerated in the most destructive wildfire in California history, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an emergency proclamation, ordering agencies to thin trees and clear shrubs near some of the state’s most fire-threatened communities. Saying the $32 million in projects were vital “to protect the lives and property of Californians” he swept aside environmental reviews and competitive bidding requirements to speed the work. (Boxall, 9/11)

Los Angeles Times: Nearly 3,000 Illegal Marijuana Businesses Found In California Audit, Dwarfing Legal Trade
California’s black market for cannabis is at least three times the size of its regulated weed industry, according to an audit made public Wednesday, the latest indication of the state’s continued struggle to tame a cannabis economy that has long operated in legal limbo. The audit, conducted by the United Cannabis Business Assn., found approximately 2,835 unlicensed dispensaries and delivery services operating in California. By comparison, only 873 cannabis sellers in the state are licensed, according to the Bureau of Cannabis Control. (Queally and McGreevy, 9/11)