First Edition: September 19, 2019

Kaiser Health News: Doctors And Nurses With Addictions Often Denied A Crucial Recovery Option
Dr. Wesley Boyd, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard, has spent years working with state programs that help doctors, nurses and other health care workers who have become addicted to opioids get back on their feet professionally. He supports these non-disciplinary programs, in which doctors and nurses enroll for a number of years and are closely monitored by addiction specialists and state authorities as they seek to maintain or restore their medical licenses. (Yasinski, 9/19)

California Healthline: Camouflaged Vaping Devices Are Hoodwinking Parents And Schools
In yet another twist for worried parents: Meet the vaping hoodie. This high school fashion mainstay — defined by a hood with drawstrings — is now available as a vaping device, ready to deliver a puff of nicotine (or marijuana) anywhere, anytime. Including in the classroom. It marks an addition to the fleet of discreet — some would say camouflaged — vaping devices that have teachers and parents struggling to monitor the usage of a product that has surged in popularity among high school-aged kids in the past two years, despite laws in most states that allow sales only to people 18 and up. (Barry-Jester, 9/18)

Politico: Pelosi Steams Ahead With Drug Pricing Plan Amid Liberal Angst
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is making a hard sell to her caucus this week on a signature drug pricing bill. But it’s not yet clear whether she can win over skeptical progressives. The California Democrat has won initial praise from key moderate factions in her drive to push the legislation through by Thanksgiving. But the ambitious plan, and its closed-door drafting process, has left progressives worried that the bill will fall well short of their expectations and that they remain cut out of the talks. (Ferris, Cancryn and Karlin-Smith, 9/18)

Stat: Democrats Still Have Questions About Nancy Pelosi’s Drug Pricing Plan
For months, Nancy Pelosi has kept even her fellow Democrats in the dark on her plan to lower drug prices. The big reveal, for the lawmakers, came this week: Pelosi barnstormed the Capitol as if campaigning for office, pitching moderate, progressive, and middle-ground Democratic groups on her plan. But for many members of Congress, Pelosi’s presentation left more to be desired — even as she’s expected to publicly release it as soon as today. (Facher, 9/19)

NPR: Pelosi To Roll Out Bill To Negotiate Prescription Drug Prices
The speaker's proposal would allow the federal government, through the Health and Human Services secretary, to negotiate prices for the top 250 most expensive drugs on the market that don't have at least two competitors. The amounts would be pegged to the costs of the same drugs in other countries — which are generally much cheaper — under an "international price index." It would also levy steep fines on drug companies that refuse to engage in negotiations, and put limits on how much drug costs can go up. (Davis, 9/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Attorney General Probes Support For Gun Background Checks On Capitol Hill
Attorney General William Barr is gauging support among lawmakers for a plan to expand gun background checks, signaling that the administration hasn’t dismissed a significant tightening of gun rules, though President Trump hasn’t indicated what he will endorse. Mr. Barr spent several days on Capitol Hill this week with White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland floating a plan requiring background checks for all commercial gun sales, including at events such as gun shows where buyers currently can largely avoid them. (Gurman, Andrews and Lucey, 9/18)

CNN: Proposal To Expand Background Checks Floated On Hill But Trump Has Yet To Sign Off On It Or Any Other Gun Plan
The pitch -- outlined in a document that was obtained by CNN -- would expand background checks to all advertised commercial sales, though it's not clear whether it would pass muster with lawmakers. The White House on Wednesday made clear that President Donald Trump had not signed off on any plan, and GOP leaders have indicated they are awaiting word from Trump before taking action. (Shortell, Fox, Foran and Barrett, 9/18)

The Daily Caller: Here’s The Document The White House, Barr Are Using To Push Gun Control On Republicans
The Daily Caller obtained a copy of an idea sheet circulating among Republican members, which indicates that the legislation in question would expand background checks to include all commercially advertised unlicensed sales. (Athey, 9/18)

Politico: Leaked Background Check Plan Sows Chaos On Hill
“You don’t need to worry about what’s floating around,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said. “We aren’t going to do anything that the president isn’t going to sign anyway. ”When asked about the proposal, Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) first asked whether Trump publicly endorsed it as his own. “Once the president does, I’ll look forward to reviewing it,” Young said. (Levine and Everett, 9/18)

The Associated Press: Teen Vaping Of Nicotine Jumped Again This Year, Survey Finds
A greater share of U.S. teens are vaping nicotine e-cigarettes. About 25% of high school seniors surveyed this year said they vaped nicotine in the previous month, up from about 21% the year before. The University of Michigan study was published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers surveyed more than 42,000 students across the country in grades 8, 10 and 12. (Stobbe, 9/18)

The New York Times: Teenage Vaping Rises Sharply Again This Year
“It’s not good news at all,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which decided to release the new vaping numbers from an annual survey conducted by University of Michigan researchers three months earlier than scheduled. “There has to be a policy that would make it much harder for teenagers to be introduced to vaping.”Vaping prevalence more than doubled in the grades surveyed, eighth, 10th and 12th, from 2017 through this year. One in 4 students in the 12th grade reported that they had vaped within the previous 30 days this year, 1 in 5 in the 10th grade; and 1 in 11 in the 8th grade. (Kaplan, 9/18)

The Washington Post: 1 In 9 High School Seniors Vape Nicotine Near-Daily, New Survey Says Amid E-Cigarette Scare
The data could help to strengthen a growing crackdown on e-cigarettes on the heels of bans on sales of flavored vaping products in New York and Michigan. Last week, the Trump administration said it, too, plans to outlaw sales of the flavored liquids that have come under criticism as enticing to teens. (Knowles, 9/18)

The New York Times: TV Networks Take Down Juul And Other E-Cigarette Ads
As health concerns mount over the rise in teenage vaping, CNN, CBS and Viacom are ending advertisements by e-cigarette companies. The parent company of CNN, WarnerMedia, said on Wednesday that it was removing the ads from its entire portfolio of networks, including TNT and TBS, in response to recent health warnings from authorities including the American Lung Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Yaffe-Bellany, 9/18)

The Associated Press: Michigan Bans Flavored E-Cigarettes A Day After New York
Michigan banned the sale of flavored e-cigarettes on Wednesday, the latest state to act following hundreds of serious breathing issues in people using vaping devices that prompted a federal investigation. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said the ban was effective immediately and gave retailers, including online sellers, two weeks to comply. The ban includes menthol and mint flavored products and expires after 180 days if not extended. (9/18)

The Wall Street Journal: New York’s Smokers’ Quitline Offers Little Help To E-Cigarette Users
Thousands of callers a year to the New York State Smokers’ Quitline receive help to stop smoking through education programs, counseling and nicotine-replacement therapy, including free packages of nicotine gum, patches and lozenges to reduce cravings. A smaller, but growing number of people are calling the quitline to stop using e-cigarettes and vaping devices. Those enrollees, by contrast, only receive coaching and information on tobacco use and nicotine addiction, not free nicotine-replacement therapy. (West, 9/18)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Sanders’s Apples-And-Oranges Comparison On Medicare-For-All Costs
“Joe said that Medicare-for-all would cost over $30 trillion. That’s right, Joe. Status quo over 10 years will be $50 trillion.” — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), remarks during the third Democratic presidential debate, Sept. 12, 2019. Sanders made this comment after former vice president Joe Biden criticized the senator’s Medicare-for-all plan for potentially adding “$30 trillion, $3.4 trillion a year” to the federal budget. In his response, Sanders favorably compared that $30 trillion to what he called the “status quo” for health-care spending — $50 trillion. He added: “Every study done shows that Medicare-for-all is the most cost-effective approach to providing health care to every man, woman and child in this country.” (Kessler, 9/19)

The Hill: Dem Leader Says Party Can Include Abortion Opponents
The Democrats' tent is big enough to include anti-abortion lawmakers, the No. 2 House Democrat said Wednesday. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) emphasized that Democrats are overwhelmingly in favor of women's right to terminate a pregnancy. But there's no litmus test, he said, that would exclude those lawmakers who feel otherwise. (Lillis, 9/18)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Targeting California Housing Rules To Fix Homelessness
President Trump’s big idea for fixing California’s homelessness crisis should look familiar to many prominent Democrats: Eliminate layers of regulation to make it easier and cheaper to build more housing. On the eve of a two-day swing through the state this week, Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers released a report blaming “decades of misguided and faulty policies” for putting too many restrictions on development and causing home prices to rise to unaffordable levels. It’s a continuation of a strategy that the president began in June, when he signed an executive order to establish a White House council to “confront the regulatory barriers to affordable housing development.” (Dillon and Oreskes, 9/18)

The Associated Press: Trump Threatens EPA Action Against San Francisco
President Donald Trump threatened to unleash the Environmental Protection Agency on San Francisco Wednesday after a California visit during which he blamed the homelessness crisis on "liberal" policies. Trump accused the city of allowing a tremendous amount of waste, including needles, to go through storm drains into the ocean. (9/18)

The New York Times: San Francisco To Get Environmental Violation For Homelessness, Trump Says
San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, called Mr. Trump’s comments “ridiculous.” “To be clear, San Francisco has a combined sewer system, one of the best and most effective in the country, that ensures that all debris that flow into storm drains are filtered out at the city’s wastewater treatment plants,” Ms. Breed said in a statement Wednesday night. “No debris flow out into the bay or the ocean.” (Shear, Fuller and Baker, 9/18)

The Wall Street Journal: ‘Cities Going To Hell’: Trump’s EPA To Put San Francisco On Notice For Homelessness
Mr. Trump traveled to the Bay Area on Tuesday for the first time since his election, attending a roundtable and a fundraiser near Palo Alto. He has repeatedly attacked San Francisco—a largely liberal city whose congresswoman, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) routinely clashes with the president—over its homelessness problem. (Ballhaus, 9/19)

The Washington Post: Purdue Pharma’s Bankruptcy Plan Includes Special Protection For The Sackler Family Fortune
In 2008, as Purdue Pharma was searching for a new chief executive, Richard Sackler received a memo from an adviser. “In the event that a favorable [recapitalization] deal cannot be structured during 2008, the most certain way for the owners to diversify their risk is to distribute more free cash flow to themselves,” F. Peter Boer, a member of Purdue’s board of directors told Sackler, a prominent member of the wealthy family that owns the company. (Merle and Bernstein, 9/18)

Politico: Democrats Favor Righteous Rage, GOP The Safer Bet In Purdue Opioids Settlement
Last year, 49 states and thousands of cities, counties and territories joined in massive litigation designed to punish the drug industry for its role in the opioid crisis. But now that one of the companies, Oxycontin-maker Purdue, has put as much as $12 billion on the table as part of a bankruptcy settlement, Democrats and Republicans are fighting over the proper strategy. (Karlin, 9/18)

Los Angeles Times: Who's To Blame For The Nation's Opioid Crisis? Massive Trial May Answer That Question
For the families of the roughly 400,000 Americans who have died of opioid drug overdoses since 1999, a legal drama scheduled to unfold in an Ohio courtroom next month may feel like a true shot at justice. After downplaying the risks of dangerous and highly addictive prescription narcotics, and of profiting from their spiraling misuse, the purveyors of prescription painkillers could be forced to reckon with the consequences of their actions. (Healy, 9/18)

The Associated Press: Louisiana Governor Election Won't Uproot Medicaid Expansion
Louisiana's Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, moved quickly to expand Medicaid when he took office in 2016, making his state the only one in the Deep South to embrace that signature piece of President Barack Obama's health care law. And in a conservative state that solidly supports President Donald Trump, the $3 billion-plus Medicaid expansion program that is Edwards' hallmark achievement isn't going anywhere, even if the Democratic governor is ousted by a Republican in this fall's election. (DeSlatte, 9/18)

The Associated Press: Will Combo Pill Catch On In US To Prevent Heart Attacks?
A cheap, daily pill that combines four drugs has been tested for the first time in the United States to see if it works as well among low-income Americans as it has in other countries to treat conditions leading to heart attacks and strokes. Experts said the study may draw U.S. interest to a strategy that has been seen as useful only in places with limited access to medical care. (9/18)

Los Angeles Times: A Daily Combo Pill Can Boost The Cardiovascular Health Of Poor And Minority Americans, Study Suggests
The pill contains low doses of three blood pressure drugs and a cholesterol drug. About 300 people, ages 45 to 75, from a community health center in Mobile, Ala., took part in the study. Half were assigned to take the combo pill. The others continued their usual care. (Johnson, 9/18)

Stat: Groups Push Back Against ‘Troubling’ FDA Crackdown On Genetic Tests
In recent weeks, the genetic testing world has been rattled by the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to quietly pressure a number of companies to stop reporting results to patients about how their genes may interact with specific drugs. Now, increasingly, the industry is pushing back. On Wednesday, a trade group that represents clinical laboratories sent a sharply worded letter to the agency calling its enforcement actions “troubling” and “inappropriate.” The letter, from the American Clinical Laboratory Association, warned that the agency’s actions could stifle the growth of a burgeoning industry and make it harder for patients to get the right types and doses of their medications. (Robbins, 9/18)

Stat: FDA To Modernize Its IT — And Make More Efficient Use Of Data
Dr. Amy Abernethy, the principal deputy commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration, is unveiling a three-point plan to radically redirect the agency’s efforts at using computer technology. At a Wednesday meeting held by Friends of Cancer Research, a patient advocacy group, Abernethy, who is also the FDA’s acting chief information officer, plans to outline how regulators can move more of their work to “the cloud” — virtual servers – and automate work that is now done by hand. This, she said, could change the way that the agency interacts with the companies it regulates. (Herper, 9/18)

The New York Times: What Should Young Children Drink? Mostly Milk And Water, Scientists Say
A panel of scientists issued new nutritional guidelines for children on Wednesday, describing in detail what they should be allowed to drink in the first years of life. The recommendations, among the most comprehensive and restrictive to date, may startle some parents. Babies should receive only breast milk or formula, the panel said. Water may be added to the diet at 6 months; infants receiving formula may be switched to cow’s milk at 12 months. For the first five years, children should drink mostly milk and water, according to the guidelines. (Rabin, 9/18)

The Associated Press: Uptick Seen In Rare Mosquito-Borne Virus In Some US States
The number of U.S. deaths and illnesses from a rare mosquito-borne virus are higher than usual this year, health officials report. Eastern equine encephalitis has been diagnosed in 21 people in six states, and five people have died. The infection is only being seen in certain counties within a small number of states. The U.S. each year has seen seven illnesses and three deaths, on average. (9/18)

NPR: Gliomas Network With Normal Brain Cells To Grow Faster
Researchers are beginning to understand why certain brain cancers are so hard to stop. Three studies published Wednesday in the journal Nature found that these deadly tumors integrate themselves into the brain's electrical network and then hijack signals from healthy nerve cells to fuel their own growth. (Hamilton, 9/18)

The Associated Press: Judge Denies Missouri Request To Allow 20-Week Abortion Ban
A federal judge has denied a request by Missouri to allow a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy to go into effect while the state waits for further court action. The Kansas Star reports that U.S. District Court Judge Howard Sachs had previously paused parts of Missouri’s new abortion law. It was set to go into effect Aug. 28 and criminalizes abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy. It also triggered bans at 14, 18 and 20 weeks if the initial eight-week ban was found unconstitutional. (9/18)

The Associated Press: 25 Californians Charged With $150M In Health Care Fraud
Twenty-five Southern California doctors and others are accused of billing Medicare and other health plans for $150 million in fraudulent charges. Federal cases were announced Wednesday in Los Angeles and Santa Ana. (9/18)