First Edition: September 5, 2019
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
As Measles Outbreak Fades, N.Y. Sets In Motion New Rules On School Vaccinations
As children head to school this fall, the number of measles cases in New York has slowed to a trickle, and officials this week declared that the outbreak in New York City, which largely affected Orthodox Jewish families who avoided immunizations, is over. But even though the New York outbreak — which has sickened nearly 900 people in 2019 so far and accounted for three-quarters of all cases nationwide — may finally be fading, school vaccination requirements remain a contentious issue. (Andrews, 9/5)
Kaiser Health News:
School Districts Double Down On Drug Testing, Targeting Even Middle Schoolers
Thirteen-year-old Aura Brillhart and her 11-year-old sister, Morgan, will face a new sort of test in school this year: a drug test. The middle and high schools in their community of Fort Scott, Kan., are among the latest to require random drug testing of students who want to participate in sports, clubs, dances or any other extracurricular activities. “I hate that it’s even an issue for us to have to address,” said their mom, Jody Hoener. “But putting our heads in the sand isn’t going to make things any better.” (Ungar, 9/5)
Kaiser Health News:
Americans More Likely Than Swedes To Fill Prescriptions For Opioids After Surgery
Americans and Canadians are seven times more likely to fill a prescription for opioid pain pills in the week after surgery than Swedes, says a study published Wednesday, one of the first to quantify international differences. More than 75% of patients in the U.S. and Canada filled a prescription for opioids following four common surgeries, compared with 11% of Swedes, researchers report in JAMA Network Open. Americans also received the highest doses of opioids. (Appleby, 9/4)
Kaiser Health News:
Analysis: How Your Beloved Hospital Helps To Drive Up Health Care Costs
As voters fume about the high cost of health care, politicians have been targeting two well-deserved villains: pharmaceutical companies, whose prices have risen more than inflation, and insurers, who pay their executives millions in salaries while raising premiums and deductibles. Although the Democratic presidential candidates have devoted copious airtime to debating health care, many of the country’s leading health policy experts have wondered why they have given a total pass to arguably a primary culprit behind runaway medical inflation: America’s hospitals. (Rosenthal, 9/5)
The Washington Post:
FDA’s Ned Sharpless Gets Endorsement For Job As Permanent Commissioner
The jockeying over who will be the next Food and Drug Administration commissioner intensified Tuesday when former agency heads and dozens of health groups urged the White House to nominate acting FDA chief Norman “Ned” Sharpless to become the agency’s permanent commissioner. Supporters of Sharpless sent two letters — one from four former FDA commissioners and the other from more than 50 cancer and other groups — to President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. The letters had the same message: The FDA needs a permanent commissioner, and Sharpless should be nominated and confirmed to lead the agency. (McGinley, 9/4)
The Wall Street Journal:
Texas Doctor Stephen M. Hahn Is A Top Contender To Head FDA
Stephen M. Hahn, a senior executive and radiation oncologist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, has emerged as a leading candidate to be nominated by the Trump administration to become commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, according to people familiar with the matter. Dr. Hahn, 59 years old, is chief of radiation oncology and chief medical executive at M.D. Anderson, a research and clinical hospital affiliated with the University of Texas. He didn’t respond to phone calls or an email seeking comment. (Burton, 9/4)
The Wall Street Journal:
‘So What’s His Kill Count?’: The Toxic Online World Where Mass Shooters Thrive
Less than two weeks after a gunman killed more than 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand, law-enforcement officials found a disturbing piece of graffiti outside a San Diego County mosque that had been set on fire. “For Brenton Tarrant -t./pol/,” it read. The cryptic message, which paid homage to the alleged New Zealand shooter and a dark corner of the internet where such shootings are celebrated, foreshadowed a string of violence. In April, one month after the graffiti appeared, John Earnest, the man who police say vandalized the mosque, allegedly attacked a nearby synagogue, leaving one person dead. Then, in August, a shooting in an El Paso Walmart killed 22. One week later, a Norwegian man allegedly opened fire at an Oslo mosque. (Wells and Lovett, 9/4)
The New York Times:
San Francisco Declares The N.R.A. A ‘Domestic Terrorist Organization’
Unsettled by recent mass shootings across the nation, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution this week declaring the National Rifle Association a domestic terrorist organization. The resolution was introduced by Supervisor Catherine Stefani on July 30, two days after a shooting at a garlic festival in Gilroy, Calif., in which three people were killed and more than a dozen others injured. (Padilla, 9/4)
Politico:
Trump Teases Action On Gun Control 'Soon' But Is Coy On Specifics
President Donald Trump maintained Wednesday that he hopes to quickly see legislative action to address a spate of mass shootings, but he remained coy about what exactly he would support. Fielding questions from reporters following a White House event on the opioid crisis, the president said that any gun reform proposal would need to be bipartisan. (Oprysko, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
Facebook Ads Underscore Trump's Mixed Messages On Guns
President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that he wanted to move quickly on gun violence legislation, but his new push came just days after posting an ad on his official Facebook page that defended the Second Amendment and warned that Democrats were looking to seize Americans' firearms. Under growing pressure to deliver some form of gun control package following mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, Trump told reporters in the White House, "I would like to see it happen soon." (Lemire, 9/4)
The New York Times:
When Active-Shooter Drills Scare The Children They Hope To Protect
After the first day of school at Mark T. Sheehan High School in Wallingford, Conn., Mackenzie Bushey, a 15-year-old junior, came home upset that a teacher enforced a no-cellphones policy by confiscating students’ phones before class. She needed her cell, Mackenzie told her family last month, to notify police should a gunman attack her school. And also, she said, “to say my final goodbye to you.” Mackenzie’s mother, Brenda Bushey, blames her daughter’s fears on monthly active-shooter drills at Sheehan High. (Williamson, 9/4)
The Wall Street Journal:
Authorities Suspect Man Of Making And Selling Gun Used In Texas Shooting
Law-enforcement officials said they have identified a person of interest they suspect of illegally manufacturing and selling the rifle used in Saturday’s mass shooting in West Texas. Authorities were in the process of investigating the Lubbock, Texas, man, whose identity they haven’t released, and were seeking to question him late Wednesday at his residence, officials said. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been trying to piece together how Seth Aaron Ator was able to purchase the AR-15-style rifle he used to kill seven people and wound 22 before police shot and killed him. (Frosch, Gurman and Elinson, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
Texas Governor Resists Calls For Quick Votes After Shooting
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday rejected calls from Democrats for immediate votes on new gun safety measures in Texas following a violent August that began and ended with mass shootings that left 29 people dead and injured dozens more. The Texas Legislature doesn't meet again until 2021. That means any new Texas laws in response to two gunmen — both armed with assault-style rifles — opening fire at a Walmart in El Paso and an hour-long rampage in West Texas are at least two years away, unless the governor takes the rare step of ordering an emergency legislative session. (Silber and Weber, 9/4)
The Wall Street Journal:
Sen. Martha McSally Walks Careful Line On Guns Ahead Of 2020
To open a meeting of local Republicans here last week, Butch Kuentzler had this message: “Red flag” laws, which allow families and law enforcement to remove guns from people deemed dangerous, are unconstitutional. Those laws are at the center of the current gun-policy debate, whose complicated politics are expected to dominate the legislative agenda when Congress returns to Washington next week from a recess scarred by a string of mass shootings. (Duehren, 9/5)
The New York Times:
Trouble For The Pentagon: The Troops Keep Packing On The Pounds
The United States Navy has eliminated fried food and sugary drinks on its ships. It is keeping base gyms and fitness centers open all night. But its sailors keep getting fatter: A new Defense Department study found that 22 percent of them — roughly one in every five — now qualifies as obese. The Navy’s figure is the highest, but the study found striking rises in obesity rates in the other armed services as well, even though the Pentagon has rolled out one strategy after another in recent years to try to keep the troops trim. And the increases have military leaders worried. (Philipps, 9/4)
The Washington Post Fact Checker:
Biden Says More Vets Have Committed Suicide Than Killed In Iraq And Afghanistan
The Washington Post recently detailed how the former vice president told a moving but false story about an incident in Afghanistan. While watching a clip of the lengthy monologue that led to this tale, we were struck by his claim that there are more suicides per month of returning veterans than those killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan — “by a long shot.” This seemed an interesting subject for a fact check, though it turned out the data is sketchy and not especially clear. There’s also an added wrinkle — what did Biden, who is not especially precise in his phrasing, mean with his comment? (Kessler, 9/5)
The New York Times:
Mississippi Mental Health System Violates Federal Law, Judge Says
A federal judge in Mississippi ruled Wednesday that the state had violated federal civil rights law by not providing mental health patients enough care in their communities, forcing them to essentially be segregated in state-run hospitals. In a 61-page opinion, Judge Carlton W. Reeves of United States District Court in Jackson, Miss., said that the state had run afoul of the Americans With Disabilities Act. He said he would appoint a special master to oversee changes to Mississippi’s mental health system. (Zaveri, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
Federal Judge Intervenes In Mississippi Mental Health System
Reeves wrote that he's "keenly aware of the judiciary's limitations" in cases like this. He ordered the state and federal government to each suggest three possible names to act as a special master, along with a proposal for that person's role. Until Reeves decides on the special master's role, the depth of federal intervention into the mental health system won't be clear. (Amy and Pettus, 9/4)
The Wall Street Journal:
Federal Judge Directs Oversight Of Mississippi’s Mental-Health System
The judge, nominated by President Obama, wants a “special master” appointed to help craft and oversee changes in the state’s mental-health system. Both the state and the Justice Department will be able to name candidates for the job. In 2011, a Justice Department investigation found that Mississippi’s mental-health system “unnecessarily institutionalizing persons with mental illness.” Five years later, after negotiations with state officials failed, the Justice Department sued Mississippi, alleging that it failed to provide adequate services in the community for adults with mental illness. By confining the mentally ill in state-run hospitals and jails, Mississippi is violating the rights of individuals with disabilities, the lawsuit alleged. (Ansari, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
'Can't Feel My Heart:' IG Says Separated Kids Traumatized
Separated from his father at the U.S.-Mexico border last year, the little boy, about 7 or 8, was under the delusion that his dad had been killed. And he thought he was next. Other children believed their parents had abandoned them. And some suffered physical symptoms because of their mental trauma, clinicians reported to investigators with a government watchdog. (Long, Mendoza and Burke, 9/4)
The Wall Street Journal:
Migrant Children Exhibited Post-Traumatic Stress, Government Watchdog Finds
Migrant children separated from their parents last year under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration-enforcement policy didn’t receive adequate mental-health care in the government’s custody, according to a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ internal watchdog. The report offers a first glimpse at how shelter staff perceived conditions inside the facilities where thousands of children were detained. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, the federal agency charged with caring for unaccompanied migrant children, told investigators for HHS’s inspector general that it struggled to recruit enough mental-health counselors to meet the needs of the children in their care. (Hackman, 9/4)
Politico:
Watchdog: Migrant Children Separated From Families Experienced Intense Trauma
Shelter staff said that they were unprepared to address the problems because of a lack of resources and ongoing efforts to reunify children with their parents. The share of children under the age of 12 in ORR custody rose to 24 percent from 14 percent from April to May of last year. The shelter staff also said Trump administration policies requiring sponsors of children to undergo fingerprint background checks delayed unifications and led to overcrowding in shelters. (Rayasam, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
Many Moms Say Kid's Health Worsened In Immigration Custody
Many mothers who were detained in border stations this summer reported that the health of their children worsened in custody. That's according to a questionnaire of 200 women by a nonprofit legal group that provides services to mothers detained in immigration custody at a family detention center in Dilley, Texas. (Long, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
Some Migrant Parents Deported Without Kids Can Return To US
A federal judge ordered the U.S. government Wednesday to allow the return of 11 parents who were deported without their children during the Trump administration's wide-scale separation of immigrant families. U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ruled that government agents unlawfully prevented those parents from pursuing asylum cases. In some cases, Sabraw found, agents coerced parents to drop their claims and accept deportation by having them sign documents they didn't understand or telling them that asylum laws had changed. (Merchant, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
Shuttered Shelter For Migrant Kids Reopens In Phoenix
A national provider of shelters for immigrant children has reopened one of two Arizona facilities it was forced to shutter last year because of issues with employee background checks. The Arizona Department of Health Services said Wednesday it approved an application by Southwest Key to reopen a Phoenix facility that can house up to 420 children. The shelters are for kids who traveled to the U.S. alone or were separated from a relative. (Galvan, 9/4)
Reuters:
U.S. Judge Approves CVS Purchase Of Insurer Aetna
A federal judge reviewing a Justice Department decision to allow U.S. pharmacy chain and benefits manager CVS Health Corp to merge with health insurer Aetna said on Wednesday that the agreement was in fact legal under antitrust law. Judge Richard Leon of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had been examining a government plan announced in October to allow the merger on condition that Aetna sell its Medicare prescription drug plan business to WellCare Health Plans Inc. Both deals have already closed. (Bartz, 9/4)
The Wall Street Journal:
Judge Approves Settlement Allowing CVS-Aetna Merger
The judge, in a first for a court review of a government merger settlement, convened hearings to consider live witness testimony from the deal’s critics who said the Justice Department’s deal with the companies was inadequate. Judge Leon on Wednesday said the critics’ testimony ultimately was unpersuasive. He said the health-care markets at issue in the case “are not only very competitive today, but are likely to remain so post-merger.” (Kendall, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
Trump Administration Announcing Nearly $2B In Opioid Grants
The Trump administration is awarding nearly $2 billion in grants to states and local governments to help fight the opioid crisis. Health and Human Services Secretary Alexander Azar says the grants come from money that President Donald Trump secured from Congress last year. Trump says "nothing is more important than defeating the opioid and addiction crisis." (9/4)
The Wall Street Journal:
Trump Administration Awards $1.8 Billion In Grants To Combat Opioid Epidemic
About $930 million in funding approved by Congress will go to states and some territories with a focus on prevention and treatment, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a press call. The programs are broad and include expanding rural telemedicine, support for obtaining the overdose reversal drug naloxone and prevention programs, he said. “We know we have more work to do,” Mr. Azar said. “More Americans still need treatment.” Another $900 million in grants over three years will go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help most states, localities and territories track overdose data and develop strategies on treatment. (Armour, 9/4)
NPR:
'Fentanyl, Inc.' Tracks Opioid's Dark Web Path From China To U.S. Street Corners
More than 70,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year, and a growing number of those deaths are attributed to the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. Journalist Ben Westhoff says the drug, while an important painkiller and anesthesia medicine in hospitals, is now killing more Americans annually as a street drug than any other in U.S. history. "Fentanyl was originally formulated as a medical drug, something that was used in ... open heart surgery and in end-of-life care," Westhoff says. "It's an opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin, 100 times stronger than morphine." (Davies, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
Australia Faces Its Own Opioid Crisis After Warnings Ignored
The coroner's sense of futility was clear, as he investigated the death of yet another Australian killed by prescription opioids. Coroners nationwide have long urged officials to address Australia's ballooning opioid addiction, and to create a tracking system to stop people from collecting multiple prescriptions from multiple doctors. Yet even as thousands died, the coroners' pleas were met largely with silence. (Gelineau, 9/5)
The Wall Street Journal:
Planned Parenthood To Expand App-Based Health Services To All 50 States
Planned Parenthood Federation of America will expand a telemedicine program to connect patients with birth-control and other services via smartphone, part of the organization’s effort to extend the reach of its health-care offerings that Republican policy makers have sought to weaken or destroy. Planned Parenthood’s telemedicine app will be available in all 50 states by next year, up from 27 states and Washington, D.C., currently, officials said Wednesday. (Armour, 9/4)
Stat:
What To Know Before Key FDA Meeting On Aimmune Peanut Allergy Therapy
The Food and Drug Administration is bringing together a panel of outside experts to review a novel but controversial treatment that aims to protect people against severe peanut allergy. The convening of the FDA advisory panel, scheduled to meet — and vote — on Sept. 13, will be a pivotal moment for Aimmune Therapeutics (AIMT), the biopharma company that developed the new treatment, called AR101. If approved, AR101 will be the first protective therapy for peanut allergy and the start of what Aimmune hopes will be a family of products with blockbuster commercial potential — all designed to benefit the millions of people who suffer with life-threatening food allergies. (Feuerstein, 9/4)
Stat:
Study: A Cap On Medicare Drug Costs Helps A Small Few — A Lot
A Senate proposal to redesign the way Medicare pays for drugs could save seniors who rack up sky-high drug bills — more than $100,000 in a year — roughly $4,000 per year, according to a new paper published Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The plan wouldn’t actually change much for the average senior. But the paper’s lead author says that’s not necessarily a bad thing. (Florko, 9/5)
The New York Times:
How To Get TB Patients To Take Their Pills? Persistent Texting And A ‘Winners Circle’
The hardest part of curing tuberculosis, doctors say, is getting patients to take all their pills every day for at least six months. Even the easiest regimens of four antibiotics can cause nausea, fevers, rashes and stomach pain. Health officials have tried many ways to persuade patients to comply, from gentle encouragement to imprisonment in locked wards. Now researchers have come up with a new tactic: A program based on nagging cellphone texts succeeded in goading patients into taking their drugs in a preliminary test in Nairobi, Kenya, according to a study published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (McNeil, 9/4)
ProPublica/The New York Times:
How Amazon Hooked America On Fast Delivery While Avoiding Responsibility For Crashes
When she added Gabrielle's name to the chart in her kitchen, Judy Kennedy could picture the annual ritual. At birthdays she would ask her newest grandchild to stand up straight, heels against the door frame, so she could mark Gabrielle’s height beside that of her other granddaughter in the Maine house the family has lived in since the 1800s. But there are no lines for Gabrielle. In January, the 9-month-old was killed when a driver delivering Amazon.com packages crashed a 26-foot rented box truck into the back of her mother’s Jeep. The baby was strapped into a car seat in the back. (Callahan, 9/5)
The Wall Street Journal:
Amid Rising Hot-Car Deaths, Auto Makers Agree To Back-Seat Alerts
In an effort to prevent child heatstroke deaths, an alliance of major car makers announced an agreement to include rear-seat alert systems in nearly all new cars and trucks—a move that a key child-safety group called inadequate. The agreement, which the auto industry had largely resisted in the past, pre-empts pending legislation in Congress that would mandate rear-seat monitoring features on U.S.-sold vehicles. The push, fueled with bipartisan support, comes after 53 children died in hot cars last year, marking a record, according to noheatstroke.org. So far this year, 38 children have died from vehicular heatstroke. (Byron and Foldy, 9/4)
The New York Times:
How To Safeguard Children Against Cyberbullying
The bullying started with some teasing and mean comments, but escalated significantly when Mallory Grossman, 12, a cheerleader and gymnast from New Jersey, began middle school. It spread to social media where a group of children tormented her. They took pictures of Mallory at school, without her knowledge, posted them online and taunted her with text messages containing screenshots of the vicious comments made about her. “They called her horrible names, told her you have no friends and said, when are you going to kill yourself,” said her mother, Dianna Grossman. (Valencia, 9/5)
The New York Times:
Fighting The Shame Of Skin Picking
When Deborah Huffman went for her annual physical a few years ago, she saw a new doctor who handed her a paper gown, instructing her to leave it open in the back. The doctor returned a few minutes later to find Ms. Huffman wearing the gown, sobbing. What was wrong? “I pick at my skin,” Ms. Huffman, who is now 65, remembers saying. The doctor peered at Ms. Huffman’s exposed back, which was dappled with scabs and open lesions. (Gellman, 9/5)
Reuters:
Special Report: Death And Politics Roil A Georgia Jail
In the summer of 2016, Georgia’s Chatham County hired jail monitor Steven Rosenberg with a mission: scrutinize the county jail’s healthcare services after a string of deaths. In the previous 30 months, seven inmates had died at the Chatham County Detention Center, shaking public confidence. The last healthcare provider lost its contract in June 2016 after some of its own staff accused it of improper practices. Chatham County sought a fresh start, signing a multiyear contract worth $7 million annually with a small Atlanta company, CorrectHealth LLC. (9/4)
The Associated Press:
Firing Of Doctor Sets Off Fight Over Assisted Suicide Law
After watching his mother die slowly when he stopped her medication, Neil Mahoney knew he wanted the option of ending his own life peacefully when a doctor told him in July that he had months to live after being diagnosed with cancer. A physician was willing to help him do that under Colorado's medically assisted suicide law, but she was fired by Centura Health, a Christian-affiliated health system, for violating its guidelines on the issue. (9/4)
The New York Times:
Johns Hopkins Opens New Center For Psychedelic Research
Since childhood, Rachael Petersen had lived with an unexplainable sense of grief that no drug or talk therapy could entirely ease. So in 2017 she volunteered for a small clinical trial at Johns Hopkins University that was testing psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, for chronic depression. “I was so depressed,” Ms. Petersen, 29, said recently. “I felt that the world had abandoned me, that I’d lost the right to exist on this planet. Really, it was like my thoughts were so stuck, I felt isolated.” (Carey, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
Newsom’s California Vaccine Bill Changes Surprise Backers
Medical groups and a lawmaker behind California legislation to crack down on vaccine exemptions said Wednesday they were surprised by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s last-minute call for changes to the bill, a move that inserted fresh uncertainty into one of the year’s most contentious issues. It was the second time the Democratic governor sought to change the measure aimed at doctors who sell fraudulent medical exemptions for students, a proposal vehemently opposed by anti-vaccine activists. After expressing hesitancy with the bill and winning substantial changes to the measure in June, Newsom had committed to signing it. (Thompson and Ronayne, 9/4)
The Associated Press:
Concerns Reported To Kansas Agency Before Toddler's Death
Kansas child welfare officials say they received repeated reports about a Wichita toddler before he was found dead in a motel of a methadone overdose in the latest high-profile tragedy involving the agency responsible for overseeing young children. In response to a records request from The Associated Press, the Kansas Department of Children and Families released a summary Tuesday of its involvement with 2-year-old Zayden JayNesahkluah. (9/4)
Los Angeles Times:
Two Could Face Arson Charges In Eagle Rock Brush Fire Started At Homeless Camp
Prosecutors are still weighing criminal charges against two Los Angeles men who are accused of intentionally setting fire to a homeless encampment late last month, a situation that sparked a brush fire and led to the evacuations of several homes in Eagle Rock and Glendale, authorities said Wednesday. The Los Angeles Police Department announced the arrests of Daniel Nogueira and Brian Araujo Cabrera, both 25, on suspicion of attempted murder late Tuesday afternoon. (Queally, 9/4)