First Edition: September 28, 2018

Kaiser Health News: ‘Contraception Deserts’ Likely To Widen Under New Trump Administration Policy
When Nikia Jackson needed to be screened for a sexually transmitted disease, she wanted a clinic that was reputable, quick and inexpensive. After searching online, Jackson, 23, ended up at the Obria Medical Clinics’ sparkling new facility in an office park in suburban Atlanta. She was unaware that the clinic does not offer condoms or other kinds of birth control beyond so-called natural family planning methods. (Varney, 9/28)

Kaiser Health News: Buried In Congress’ Opioid Bill Is Protection For Personal Drug Imports 
The final version of the massive opioid bill Congress released Wednesday would grant the Food and Drug Administration new powers to crack down on drug imports, but it also includes a provision — nearly killed in the Senate — to shield people who are just trying to buy cheaper, needed prescription medication from other countries. Broadly, the bill seeks to enlist the FDA in combating the opioid crisis by mandating that the agency take steps to accelerate development of non-opioid painkillers and to limit the supplies of the drugs, both illegal and legitimate, that claimed the lives of more than 49,000 people last year. (McAuliff, 9/27)

California Healthline: Whipsawed: Low-Income Patients At UC Davis Losing Coverage Again
Whipsawed is not a medical condition, but it describes exactly how Lee Henderson feels about his on-again, off-again care at UC Davis Medical Center, a place he’s been visiting since he was a child. For the second time in three years, Henderson is about to lose access to his primary care team at the Sacramento institution. (Waters, 9/26)

Kaiser Health News: KHN Conversation On Overtreatment
From duplicate blood tests to unnecessary knee replacements, millions of American undergo screenings, scans and treatments that offer little or no benefit every year. Doctors have estimated that 21 percent of medical care is unnecessary — a problem that costs the health care system at least $210 billion a year. Such “overtreatment” isn’t just expensive. It can harm patients. (9/27)

The New York Times: Brett Kavanaugh And Christine Blasey Ford Square Off In Emotional Hearing With Court In Balance
Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and his accuser faced off Thursday in an extraordinary, emotional day of testimony that ricocheted from a woman’s tremulous account of sexual assault to a man’s angry, outraged denial, all of which played out for hours before a riveted nation and a riven Senate. The two very different versions of the truth, unfolding in the heated atmosphere of gender divides, #MeToo and the Trump presidency, could not be reconciled. The testimony skittered from cringe-worthy sexual details to accusations and denials of drunken debauchery to one juvenile exchange over flatulence. (Stolberg and Fandos, 9/27)

The Washington Post: Charges And Denials Fuel An Emotional Hearing As Kavanaugh Nomination Hangs In The Balance
The day began with an emotional punch as a self-described “terrified” Ford, her voice shaking at times, described in stark detail being pinned on a bed by a drunken Kavanaugh at a high school gathering. Hours later, the drama escalated as a seething Kavanaugh faced the Senate Judiciary Committee from the same chair and adamantly denied her charges. “You may defeat me in the final vote, but you’ll never get me to quit. Never,” the red-faced and defiant nominee told Democrats. (Barnes, Kim and Viebeck, 9/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Stark Divide, Raw Emotion In Kavanaugh-Ford Hearing
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Friday on the nomination. Republican senators said they expected the full chamber would hold its first procedural vote Saturday, and a final vote is expected early next week. (Hook, Peterson and Andrews, 9/27)

Politico: GOP Barrels Toward Kavanaugh Vote With Key Republicans Undecided
Publicly, Republicans do not have the votes yet to confirm Kavanaugh, but GOP leaders seem confident they can push him through with brute force. Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) wouldn’t say whether undecided Republicans would back Kavanaugh. “We’re still talking through all those issues, and I’m optimistic we’ll get to confirmation,” Cornyn said as he left the Capitol. (Everett and Bresnahan, 9/27)

The New York Times: Not All Women Have A Clear Answer For How Sexual Assault Affected Them. That Doesn’t Mean It Had No Effect.
“Can you tell us what impact the events had on you?” Senator Dianne Feinstein asked Christine Blasey Ford during Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. It was the first of several questions aimed at getting Dr. Blasey to outline the toll on her life of a sexual assault that she testified involved Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. Many people who work in the area of trauma found her answers, which included “anxiety, phobia and PTSD-like symptoms,” familiar and credible. But they said it’s important to remember something Dr. Blasey, a research psychologist, drew attention to during her testimony. (Murphy, 9/27)

Los Angeles Times: Did Christine Blasey Ford's Account Sound Real? Here's What Experts Who Study Sexual Violence Have To Say
What Christine Blasey Ford remembers best about that night 30-plus years ago is the laughter. It came, she said, from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge — two high school boys who drunkenly locked her into the bedroom of a friend’s house where she was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh. (Healy, 9/28)

The Associated Press: Experts Say Ford Got The Science Of Memory Mostly Right
In her testimony to a Senate committee, the woman who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers dipped briefly into the mechanics of memory. Experts say she got it pretty much right. When asked Thursday how she could be sure it was Kavanaugh who put a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet, psychologist Christine Blasey Ford cited levels of chemical messengers called norepinephrine and epinephrine in her brain at the time of the alleged attack. (Ritter, 9/27)

Los Angeles Times: If Christine Blasey Ford's Testimony Stirred Up Painful Memories, Here's Where You Can Get Help
Millions of people heard Christine Blasey Ford tell the Senate Judiciary Committee about a long-ago gathering where she said Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, pushed his body against hers, tried to remove her clothes and held his hand over her mouth as she tried to scream for help. The story was difficult to take in, and that’s especially true for victims of sexual assault. (Kaplan and Healy, 9/27)

The Associated Press: Trump Health Chief: Premiums To Drop For Popular ACA Plan
Speaking in Nashville on Thursday, Azar said premiums for a popular type of “silver” plan will drop by 2 percent in the 39 states served by the federal HealthCare.gov website. The number of marketplace insurers will grow for the first time since 2015. Azar’s comments track with a broader independent analysis earlier this month. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 9/27)

The Hill: Small Business Owners Say Health Care Costs Is Biggest Issue They Face: Survey
Small Business Owners say that the most important issue affecting them is the cost of health care, according to the National Small Business Association’s annual Politics of Small Business Survey. When asked what issues they raised most with elected officials, 40 percent of the surveyed owners said health care costs. Local issues were second on the list at 28 percent and tax reform came third with 37 percent. (Elis, 9/26)

The Hill: Trump Administration Defends Medicaid Work Requirements 
A top health official in the Trump administration defended Medicaid work requirements Thursday, arguing that its intent isn't to expel people from the program. "Community engagement requirements are not some subversive attempt to just kick people off of Medicaid," Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a speech in Washington, D.C. "Instead, their aim is to put beneficiaries in control with the right incentives to live healthier, independent lives." (Hellmann, 9/27)

The Associated Press: Aetna Sells Medicare Business As It Eyes Close Of CVS Deal
Aetna is selling its Medicare prescription drug business, potentially clearing the way for CVS Health to complete its $69 billion takeover of the insurer. CVS announced plans to buy Aetna late last year. The deal is expected to give the drugstore chain a bigger role in health care, with the companies combining to manage care through CVS stores, clinics and prescription drugs. (9/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Aetna To Sell Medicare Part D Drug Business To WellCare Health
The announcement marks a major step forward for CVS’s planned acquisition of Aetna, a nearly $70 billion deal that will unite the third-biggest health insurer with the drugstore and pharmacy-benefit company. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Justice Department antitrust enforcers were preparing to give the green light to the deal, and that WellCare was in talks to acquire Medicare drug plan assets from the merger partners. (Wilde Mathews and Prang, 9/27)

The Hill: GOP Lawmaker Touts Move To Lift Limits On Telehealth For Opioid Treatment 
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) on Thursday touted legislation to use telehealth to prescribe drugs to treat opioid addiction, a move he said would make it easier to fight the epidemic. “This will give the opportunity for physicians, through telemedicine, to actually prescribe controlled substances such as what we use in medication assisted treatment,” Carter said at an event on telehealth hosted by The Hill and sponsored by the Health Care Alliance for Patient Safety. (Sullivan, 9/27)

NPR: VA To Put Naloxone In AED Cabinets For Fast Opioid Response
It took more than 10 minutes for paramedics to arrive after a housekeeper found a man collapsed on the floor of a bathroom in a Boston Veteran Affairs building. The paramedics immediately administered naloxone, often known by its brand name Narcan, to reverse the man's opioid overdose. But brain damage can begin after just a few minutes without oxygen. (Bebinger, 9/27)

The Associated Press: Board Reshuffle At Rite Aid After 2 Failed Merger Attempts
After two failed buyout attempts that could have put it in a better position to compete against larger rivals, Rite Aid is shuffling its board of directors and dividing power at the top of the drugstore chain. Rite Aid said Thursday that three new, independent directors will be nominated to its board and that CEO John Standley will no longer hold the title of chairman. That goes to current board member Bruce Bodaken. (Murphy, 9/27)

The Associated Press: Drug Sweep Of North Carolina Tribal Land Nets 76 Arrests
An opioid task force arrested 76 people on drug charges in a sweep of traffickers on western North Carolina tribal land, U.S Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Thursday. Federal, state, local and tribal officers fanned out in recent days to serve arrest warrants on the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' reservation and in nearby communities as the culmination of an undercover operation begun weeks ago, Zinke said at a news conference in Asheville. (Drew, 9/27)

The New York Times: A Football Player’s Descent Into Pain And Paranoia
As Daniel Te’o-Nesheim’s sister picked through her brother’s belongings after the former N.F.L. defensive lineman died last year, she came across a plastic container filled with several pages from a journal he kept during his days in pro football — a scrawled catalog of his seemingly endless injuries and attempted treatments. The entries are a sad coda to a life cut tragically short. (Belson, 9/27)

Stat: Can Genetic Tests Gauge How Well Antidepressants Will Work?
It can be notoriously difficult for psychiatrists and patients to determine which antidepressant might be most effective, or which might cause side effects. And so Color Genomics, a company that already sells genetic tests to determine someone’s risk of developing certain cancers, said this week that it will also begin to offer a DNA test to determine how well widely used antidepressants are likely to work for patients. (Robbins, 9/28)

The New York Times: Caffeine May Increase Pain Tolerance
Consuming caffeine regularly may increase the ability to withstand pain, a small study suggests. Researchers recruited 62 men and women, ages 19 to 77, and had them record their daily caffeine intake from coffee, tea, soda, energy drinks and chocolate. They averaged 170 milligrams of caffeine a day, about the amount in two cups of coffee, although 15 percent of the group consumed more than 400 milligrams a day. The study is in Psychopharmacology. (Bakalar, 9/27)

The Washington Post: For Back Pain, The Subtle Moves Of The Feldenkrais Method Can Help Some People Find Relief
In my first Feldenkrais class, we lay on our backs with eyes closed and drifted our eyeballs left to right and back again. We shifted our heads from side to side as our eyes followed in their sockets. Then we changed it up, moving our eyes in the opposite direction from our heads. This may sound like a simple sequence. It’s deceptively challenging. And it continued for an hour, with sitting variations, eyes alternately open and shut, a brain workout that included tracking our thumbs as our bent arms moved at eye level from left to right and back again. (Rein, 9/27)

Stat: You Have Questions About How To Analyze Clinical Trials. We Have Answers
The other day, we hosted an hourlong webinar on how to analyze clinical trials to best spot red flags before they cause trouble. The response was terrific and we thank you for your interest. But because we only had a limited time for the webinar, we weren’t able to address all of your questions. We have collected some more and compiled the responses below. (Feuerstein and Begley, 9/28)

The Associated Press: Nurse Charged With Injuring Infants At Wisconsin Hospital
Wisconsin prosecutors charged a former nurse Thursday with abusing multiple infants in a Madison hospital's intensive care unit, accusing him of bruising them and breaking their bones. Christopher Kaphaem faces 19 felony child abuse counts involving nine infants. All but one of the counts carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison. The 19th count, intentional child abuse causing great bodily harm, carries a maximum 25 years behind bars. (9/27)

The Associated Press: Vermont To Test More Schools For Chemicals In Water
State environmental officials plan to test the drinking water at more schools after an initial round of testing found unsafe chemical levels at two schools. Last week, the state health department recommended that all schools test their water for lead. Now, the Department of Environmental Conservation said it is looking at a list of about 25 schools to figure out which should be in line for testing for chemicals known by the acronym PFAS. The state recently tested 10 schools for the chemicals and found that both Grafton Elementary School and Warren Elementary School had levels above the state's safe drinking standard. (9/27)

The Washington Post: D.C. Council Will Consider Law To Strengthen Prevention Of Lead Poisoning In Homes
Safety measures to ensure that children are protected from the dangers of lead poisoning while living in District homes may soon become a lot more stringent. The D.C. Council is considering a bill to shore up weaknesses in lead-poisoning-prevention laws that in recent years have led to elevated blood lead levels for some low-income children in subsidized rental housing. (McCoy, 9/27)

Los Angeles Times: Gov. Brown Signs Bill Cracking Down On L.A. 'Veto' For Homeless Housing
In Los Angeles, members of the City Council have had the power to block funding for homeless and affordable housing projects by refusing to hand over a required letter. Critics have sued the city over it, denouncing the rule as an unfair and arbitrary “pocket veto.” Now the city must get rid of that requirement — or end up losing out on state funding for housing projects. (Reyes, 9/27)

The Associated Press: Denver Removes Homeless Storage Units Lived In By People
Denver officials have removed large outdoor storage containers set up last year for homeless people after discovering that people were living inside them. The city paid $30,000 for 10 4-by-6-foot (1-by-2-meter) containers meant to give homeless people a safe place to store clothing and other possessions. But the city decided to do away with the containers for now because people were staying in the unventilated units day and night, Chris Conner, director of the city’s Denver Road Home homelessness agency, told The Denver Post. (9/27)