First Edition: September 20, 2018

Kaiser Health News: Despite Red Flags At Surgery Centers, Overseers Award Gold Seals
At his surgery center near San Diego, Rodney Davis wore scrubs, was referred to as “Dr. Rod” and carried the title of director of surgery. But he was a physician assistant, not a doctor, who anesthetized patients and performed liposuction with little input from his supervising doctor, court records show. So it was perhaps no surprise, in 2016, when an administrative judge stripped Davis of his license, concluding it was the only way to “protect the public.” State officials also accused two former medical directors of Pacific Liposculpture of enabling Davis to act as a doctor. (Jewett, 9/20)

Kaiser Health News: Chaos And Agitation: Helping A Patient Survive A Hurricane
As Hurricane Florence barreled toward her coastal community, Patty Younts grappled with a question: Where should a person with dementia go? Her husband, Howard, 66, suffers from a type of dementia called posterior cortical atrophy, which has robbed him of short-term memory and made him almost blind. Their home on Pawley Island in South Carolina, where they have lived for more than 30 years, lay in a mandatory evacuation zone. Staying could mean exposing themselves to raging winds and a storm surge. But leaving would mean upending the familiar routines and sense of security that her husband relies on. (Bailey, 9/20)

California Healthline: Bad Air And Inadequate Data Prove An Unhealthy Mix
Kira Hinslea wanted to play outside, but she knew she couldn’t until her mom checked an air-quality app on her phone. “Is it OK?” the 6-year-old eagerly asked her mother, Shirley Hinslea, one day late last month. Hinslea gave Kira the green light, and the child beamed with excitement. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” she yelled, sprinting from the kitchen, across the living room and out to the porch of their mobile home in this small Kern County town. (Ibarra, 9/19)

Politico: Republicans ‘Duck And Cover’ On Pre-Existing Conditions
Republicans are struggling to convince voters they will protect people with pre-existing conditions as Democrats trying to build a blue wave for November pound them for threatening to take away sick people’s health care. Republicans have sought for weeks to defuse public angst over the issue, alternately vowing to protect coverage for vulnerable Americans while trying to fire up opposition to Democrats’ growing embrace of single payer. (Cancryn, 9/19)

The Associated Press Fact Check: Trump's Undue Credit For Slowing Health Costs
What a difference a year makes. From predicting that the Affordable Care Act would "implode" and "explode," President Donald Trump is now claiming credit for modest average premium increases expected next year. In remarks this week, Trump appeared to cite a recent analysis by Avalere Health and The Associated Press in asserting that premium costs are now "far lower" than they would have been under a Democratic president, because his administration has been managing premiums "very, very carefully." Not so. (9/19)

The Associated Press: Administration Sends States $1B In Grants To Battle Opioids
The Trump administration is awarding more than $1 billion in grants to help states confront the opioid epidemic, with most of the money going to expand access to treatment and recovery services. Officials say more than $900 million comes from a grant program Congress approved this spring as part of a budget bill. Lawmakers are working on another bipartisan bill to address the opioid problem and hope to have final legislation to President Donald Trump by year's end. (9/19)

The Hill: Trump Admin Awards Over $1 Billion In Grants To Fight Opioid Epidemic 
“Addressing the opioid crisis with all the resources possible and the best science we have is a top priority for President Trump and for everyone at HHS,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. “The more than $1 billion in additional funding that we provided this week will build on progress we have seen in tackling this epidemic through empowering communities and families on the frontlines.” (Sullivan, 9/19)

The New York Times: Kavanaugh’s Supporters And His Accuser Are At An Impasse Over Her Testimony
The confrontation between Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and his accuser devolved into a polarizing stalemate on Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans advanced competing narratives to convince voters that the other side has been unfair in the Supreme Court confirmation battle. Christine Blasey Ford, the professor who alleged that Judge Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, said a Senate hearing set for Monday to hear her allegation would not be fair and Democrats insisted that an F.B.I. investigation take place first. Backed by President Trump, Senate Republicans rejected any F.B.I. inquiry, and said that Monday was her chance to be heard. (Baker and Fandos, 9/19)

The Washington Post: Senate Republican Signal They Will Forge Ahead On Embattled Nominee Kavanaugh
GOP senators who fretted earlier this week about the prospects for President Trump’s pick are now largely pushing for a vote on Kavanaugh, who is accused of sexually assaulting now-professor Christine Blasey Ford when they were teenagers, amid signs that she may decline to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Trump is more convinced he should stand by Kavanaugh than he was two days ago, people close to the White House say. (Kim, Dawsey and Wagner, 9/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Republicans Plan To Push Ahead On Kavanaugh Confirmation
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the hearing would start at 10 a.m. Monday, and he pressed Dr. Ford to testify. In a letter to her lawyers, he gave her a deadline of 10 a.m. Friday to submit her biography and prepared remarks if she planned to testify. Dr. Ford’s attorneys issued a statement late Wednesday calling for more witnesses to be involved in the hearing—not just Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford. It didn’t say whether Dr. Ford would attend the hearing. “The rush to a hearing is unnecessary, and contrary to the Committee discovering the truth,” the attorneys wrote. (Andrews, Peterson and Hughes, 9/19)

The Washington Post: Republicans Push To Confirm Kavanaugh Amid Fears It Will Come At A Political Cost
Already burdened by an unpopular president and an energized Democratic electorate, the male-dominated GOP is now facing a torrent of scrutiny about how it is handling Kavanaugh’s accuser and whether the party’s push to install him on the high court by next week could come at a steep political cost with women and the independent voters who are the keystone for congressional majorities. The uncertainty in Republican ranks evoked uneasy memories of how the hearings for Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination spurred what became known as the “Year of the Woman” in 1992, when a wave of Democratic women won office, and underscored widespread GOP disquiet over the fast-changing culture and the power of the #MeToo movement. (Costa, 9/19)

Los Angeles Times: GOP Pushes Kavanaugh Accuser To Testify About Sexual Assault Allegation, But Risks A #MeToo Backlash
“There’s a real risk, it seems to me. It further inflames Democratic and independent women,” said David Brady, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a think tank. “[Those groups] are the big danger in the midterms anyway. I’d be polling the [heck] out of this.” President Trump raised doubts Wednesday about Ford’s story. Ford, a Palo Alto University psychology professor, says Kavanaugh pinned her down, groped her and covered her mouth to silence her when the two were high school students in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. Trump said it's "very hard for me to imagine anything happened," calling the accusation “unfair.” Trump added he hoped to hear from Ford. (Wire and Haberkorn, 9/19)

Politico: Grassley In Firing Line On Kavanaugh Assault Allegation
Sen. Chuck Grassley has cultivated a decadeslong reputation for protecting whistleblowers and fighting for government transparency. Now he’s plunging into the harrowing task of probing a sexual assault allegation while advancing a Supreme Court nominee that could define him and the GOP for years to come. (Everett and Schor, 9/20)

The New York Times: They Were Seeking Mental Health Care. Instead They Drowned In A Sheriff’s Van.
Nicolette Green had decided to get better. The medication she was taking to treat her schizophrenia had calmed her and cleared her head. On Tuesday morning, her oldest daughter, Rose, with whom she had spent the weekend waiting out Hurricane Florence, drove her to her regular counseling session. A new therapist saw Ms. Green, 43, that day. And within a half-hour of evaluating her, he wanted her committed, said Donnela Green-Johnson, Ms. Green’s sister. ... Then Rose watched, troubled, as sheriff’s deputies patted her mother down and put her in a van to take her to a hospital almost two hours away. Rose, 19, recalled the deputies having handcuffs out when they frisked her mother, though she did not know if they put them on.(Pager, Robertson and Dixon, 9/19)

The Associated Press: Women Die In Flooded Van Driven By South Carolina Deputies
As South Carolina rivers overflowed from Florence's torrential rain, deputies taking two women to a mental health facility drove into floodwaters that engulfed their van and trapped the women inside, officials said Wednesday. The two deputies worked to free the women, who were being transported Tuesday night as part of a court order, but were not able to save them from the back of the van, Horry County Sheriff Phillip Thompson told reporters. (Kinnard, 9/20)

The Washington Post: S.C. Florence Deaths: Horry County Sheriff’s Detainees Die When Floodwaters Sweep Away Transport Van
By the time a rescue team arrived, the deputies were stranded on top of the van. It was too late for the women. Richardson said a diver was able to get a look at the bodies, but as of Wednesday afternoon the van and women remained submerged. “They’re in a ditch,” the coroner said. “It’s deep, swift, dark and contaminated. You’ve got snakes, tree limbs and trash.” A dive team was assembling to extract the women, he said, but he was not sure when conditions would allow it. (Selk, 9/19)

Modern Healthcare: Recovering From Florence, Hospitals Get An Outside Assist
When Atrium Health's mobile hospital unit arrived into Burgaw, N.C., on Monday from its home-base in Charlotte, residents of the rural area had been without medical care for days in the wake of Hurricane Florence. They lined up for help even as the medical team was setting up in a Family Dollar parking lot. The area's Pender Memorial Hospital, a critical access hospital, was evacuated ahead of the storm and remained closed because of flooding. The nearest open hospital sat at least 50 miles to the south in Wilmington, N.C., a city unreachable by ground transportation after rising floodwaters cut if off from the rest of the state. (Livingston, 9/19)

NPR: Do Hurricanes' Low Barometric Pressure Trigger Births?
Have you heard the theory that low air pressure during a hurricane can cause a surge in births? Supposedly a steep drop in barometric pressure makes it easier for a baby to pop out. As Hurricane Florence ripped through the Carolinas, we wondered if that was really true. "It's one of those old wives' tales," said Dr. Hal Lawrence, executive vice president and CEO of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (Cohen, 9/19)

The Washington Post: Hurricane Florence, ‘Just A Cat 1,’ Reveals Flaw With Saffir-Simpson Scale
Rolling across the Atlantic Ocean early last week, bearing down on the Carolinas, Hurricane Florence grew into a Category 4 storm, nearly a 5 — and that got everyone’s attention. People know that a Cat 5 is as big and bad as a storm can get. In Craven County, N.C., authorities changed their voluntary evacuation order to “mandatory” for all 105,000 residents. Then Florence ran into some shearing winds, and downshifted to a Cat 3 — and then a Cat 2. (Achenbach and Wax-Thibodeaux, 9/19)

The Washington Post: Floods Prevent Inspectors From Studying Environmental Harm
Aerial photographs show widespread devastation to farms and industrial sites in eastern North Carolina, with tell-tale trails of rainbow-colored sheen indicating potential contamination visible on top of the black floodwaters. However, conditions remain so bad more than five days after Hurricane Florence made landfall that the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality said its inspectors have been unable to visit the hardest hit areas or collect samples of the floodwater for lab testing. The agency’s regional office in Fayetteville had one foot of water inside, while other locations were without electricity. (Biesecker, 9/20)

The Associated Press: Maria's Death Toll Climbed Long After Rain Stopped
Disabled and elderly people were discharged from overwhelmed hospitals with bedsores that led to fatal infections. Medical oxygen ran out. People caught lung infections in sweltering private nursing homes and state facilities. Kidney patients got abbreviated treatments from dialysis centers that lacked generator fuel and fresh water, despite pleas for federal and local officials to treat them as a higher priority, according to patient advocates. (Weissenstein, Campoy and Sosa, 9/20)

The Wall Street Journal: A Year After Maria, Puerto Rico Is Pushed To Precipice
A year after Hurricane Maria tore through this mountain town, some shops have reopened, residents chat under gazebos in the serene central square and a nearby bridge wrecked by floodwaters stands sturdy. But the town of 21,000 people is dotted with boarded-up businesses, including El Navideño, a local institution strung year-round with Christmas lights. Some abandoned homes lie in ruin. Others are covered in blue tarps serving as temporary roofs. The surrounding lush landscape is interspersed with idle farmland. (Campo-Flores and Scurria, 9/20)

The Hill: Medicaid Supporters Urge Trump Officials To Approve Expansion In Maine
Supporters of Medicaid expansion in Maine are pressuring the Trump administration to approve the state’s application to expand the program under ObamaCare, despite the GOP governor’s opposition. Maine Equal Justice Partners, an advocacy group that is pushing for Medicaid expansion, wrote in a letter to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) dated Sept. 14 that the administration should approve the expansion, noting that Maine residents voted in favor of expansion in a ballot measure last year. (Sullivan, 9/19)

Stat: Gawande-Led Venture Taps Consulting Giant To Hone Strategy For Chronically Ill 
The health venture led by Dr. Atul Gawande is working with a global consulting powerhouse to hone its strategy for improving care of chronically ill patients who account for the vast majority of medical costs, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. The partnership with Boston-based Monitor Group, the business consulting arm of Deloitte, signals a desire to deliver stepped-up services — enabled by data and modern technology — to frequent users of health care within Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase, the companies that hired Gawande to rein in their 1.2 million employees’ health spending. (Ross, 9/20)

Stat: Life Sciences Industry Rallies Behind Calif. Bill To Prevent Nightmare Scenario
Drug companies here are rallying behind legislation that they say would fix a state consumer privacy law that threatens to jeopardize the integrity of clinical trial results and drive scientists out of California. The bill, called SB-1121, would prevent patients from accessing and deleting some of their data from clinical trials. The idea is to make sure that clinical trial participants can’t use the consumer privacy law to prohibit their data from being used by researchers, or to find out if, say, they’re receiving an active treatment or a placebo. (Robbins, 9/20)

Stat: In The Battle For Life Sciences Companies, One State Shows Up Behind Enemy Lines
The campaign to promote life sciences and biotech in Maryland began last fall, but the mobile billboard is new. Mayer declined to comment on the exact route it’s taking in the Boston area or beyond or how it was determined. The billboard features a link to a website touting Maryland’s benefits. The site includes a direct comparison of real estate costs for life sciences companies in Maryland ($24.35 per square foot, the site says), San Francisco ($47.39), and Boston ($49.61). The site also lists companies like Otsuka, GlaxoSmithKline, and AstraZeneca’s MedImmune that are already operating in Maryland. (Sheridan, 9/19)

Reuters: EU Approves Fifth Copy Of AbbVie's $18 Billion Drug Humira
Europe has approved a fifth copy of AbbVie's $18-billion (£13.7 billion)-a-year biologic drug Humira – the world's best-selling prescription medicine – ramping up competition among makers of less-expensive biotech drugs. Mylan and Fujifilm Kyowa Kirin Biologics said on Thursday they had won a European Commission green light to market their version of the injectable medicine, known as Hulio. They intend to launch it in Europe on or after Oct. 16, when AbbVie's primary European patent on Humira expires. (9/20)

Politico: Pulse Check At Work: Data Scientist
Health care is awash in data. And we’re all being tracked, maybe in ways we don’t even realize, by a new class of analysts, armed with increasingly savvy tools. So who are these people — these data scientists — and what exactly do they do? That's what we'll answer on this episode of "Pulse Check: At Work." (9/20)

The New York Times: Life Insurance Offering More Incentive To Live Longer
Brian and Carla Restid, a couple in their mid-60s, bought life insurance four years ago to protect their lifestyle in retirement. A year later, they upgraded to a pilot program offered by the insurer to get fitter, healthier and more energized. In exchange for working to improve their well-being and providing details about the process, they have saved $700 so far in premiums. (Sullivan, 9/19)

The Associated Press: Flu Shots: A Pinch In The Arm, But Not Always In Your Wallet
It's flu shot season, but the pinch of a shot doesn't have to also hurt your wallet. Health officials recommend that nearly all Americans get flu vaccinations to blunt the impact of a disease that annually infects millions. Roughly 145 million Americans get flu shots each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That count represents about 60 percent of children and 40 percent of adults. (Stobbe, 9/19)

The Associated Press: Flu Cases Found In All Delaware Counties; 1 Hospitalized
Delaware health officials say flu cases have been confirmed in the state’s three counties and one person has been hospitalized. The News Journal of Wilmington reported Wednesday that at least one flu case has been confirmed in each county since last week. The state confirmed its first flu case last year in late October. The flu last year killed more than 30 Delawarians, the highest amount since the state started keeping records in 2004. (9/20)

The New York Times: Kidney Stones Are More Beautiful Than You Might Think
Kidney stones, the painful urinary deposits that affect more than 10 percent of people worldwide, are surprisingly dynamic, forming much like microscopic coral reefs, according to new research that could provide insights into how to better diagnose and treat the condition. The findings, published last week in the journal Scientific Reports, challenge assumptions by many doctors that kidney stones are homogeneous and insoluble. Instead, they resemble nanoscale coral reefs or limestone formations: complex, calcium-rich rocks with strata that accumulate and dissolve over time, researchers found. (Baumgaertner, 9/19)

NPR: IVF And Other Reproductive Tech Linked To High Blood Pressure In Kids
When patients come to Dr. Molly Quinn for infertility treatments, they usually aren't too interested in hearing about the possible downsides, she says. They just want to get pregnant. Still, she always discusses the risks. For example, there's an increased likelihood of twins or triplets — which increases the chances of medical complications for both moms and babies. And stimulating the ovaries to ripen extra eggs can, in a small number of cases, cause the ovaries to rupture. (Gordon, 9/19)

The New York Times: Apple Watch Series 4 Review: Faster, Bigger, With A Promise To Be Healthier
A few days ago, I sat in a medical recliner at the University of California, San Francisco. A cardiologist placed 10 stickerlike electrodes onto my limbs and chest and then connected the wires to a dated-looking contraption with a screen and a keyboard on a cart. About a minute later, a printer produced a chart of my heart’s electrical activity on red graph paper. The procedure I had undergone was an electrocardiogram, or an EKG, which is used to diagnose cardiac problems like arrhythmia and heart attacks. (Chen, 9/19)

The Associated Press: Georgia's Kemp: School Safety 'Has Nothing To Do' With Guns
Georgia's Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp has unveiled a $90 million proposal for school security focused on mental health and local control. But absent from his plan was any mention of the topic that has dominated the national conversation around school safety: guns. "This is a school safety proposal. This has nothing to do with Second Amendment protections or gun control ideas that my opponent might have," Kemp said, referring to Democrat Stacey Abrams. (9/19)

The New York Times: Hospital Food You Can Get Excited About
On a Tuesday morning in March, chef Bruno Tison presided over a frenzied cook-off between teams from 16 health care facilities at Glen Cove Hospital on Long Island. Mr. Tison was hired last September by the nonprofit network Northwell Health to help transform the food service at the company’s 23 New York-area hospitals. Teams of cooks in towering chef caps, together with white-suited dietitians, had 45 minutes to transform a cornucopia of fruits, vegetables and meats piled on a table at the center of the auditorium into four-course meals of their own devising. Their creations not only had to meet restrictions for salt and calories, but were judged according to criteria not usually applied to hospital food like palatability, plate appearance and skill in cooking. (Schiffman, 9/20)

The Associated Press: Delaware Reports 1st West Nile Death Since 2012
Health officials are reporting Delaware’s first death related to West Nile Virus since 2012. The Division of Public Health officials announced Wednesday that a 73-year-old New Castle County man, who had been hospitalized since last month, died this week after becoming infected with the virus. The division has confirmed five cases of the virus this year, including the man who died. Officials say all five were men ranging in age from 57 to 75, including four in New Castle County and one in Sussex County. (9/19)

The Associated Press: Surgeon Denies Negligence In Removing Woman’s Healthy Kidney
A South Dakota surgeon admitted to mistakenly removing an Iowa woman’s healthy kidney but denied that he breached the standard of care, according to the surgeon’s response to a lawsuit filed by the patient. Dr. Scott Baker and The Surgical Institute of South Dakota acknowledged in an answer to Dena Knapp’s lawsuit that Baker removed Knapp’s right kidney instead of an adrenal gland and an associated mass, the Argus Leader reported. Knapp, of Milford, Iowa, filed the lawsuit last month alleging professional negligence. (9/19)

Los Angeles Times: More Than Six Women Accuse Orange County Surgeon And His Girlfriend Of Sexual Assault
As more than half a dozen women came forward Wednesday to accuse a Newport Beach surgeon and his girlfriend of sexually assaulting them, one alleged victim described the couple as a “Bonnie and Clyde” team who drugged her and then forced her to participate in sexual acts, according to court documents. The new accusers have come forward just one day after Orange County prosecutors charged Dr. Grant Robicheaux, 38, and Cerissa Laura Riley, 31, with rape by drugs, oral copulation by anesthesia, assault with intent to commit sexual offenses and other crimes. (Winton and Fry, 9/19)