State Highlights: ‘Can’t Be Erased’: Alaskan Village Struggles After Years Of Abuse From Clergy; Iowa Health Officials Turn To Social Media To Locate People With STDs

ProPublica/Anchorage Daily News: Clergy Abused An Entire Generation In This Village. With New Traumas, Justice Remains Elusive.
The two brothers sat a few houses apart, each tending to his own anger. Justice is slow in Alaska villages, they have learned. Sometimes it never arrives. Chuck Lockwood, 69, grew up in this Yup’ik Eskimo village of 400 along the Norton Sound coast but left as a child for boarding school. His rage is fresh. Two years ago this month, the body of his 19-year-old granddaughter, Chynelle “Pretty” Lockwood, was found on a local beach. (Hopkins, 7/26)

Des Moines Register: Tinder, Grindr Have Become Investigative Tools For Iowa Public Health Officials.
Shannon Wood, a disease intervention specialist for the Iowa Department of Public Health, often sends such messages via Facebook and other online services people use to meet each other. Her job is to discreetly warn Iowans who have been exposed to sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea or chlamydia, which have been surging in Iowa and across the country. Wood and other public-health detectives start by interviewing patients who have tested positive for the bacteria or viruses that cause sexually transmitted diseases. The officials then search for the patients’ past sex partners, so they can encourage those partners to seek testing and treatment to keep the infections from spreading. (Leys, 7/28)

The Oregonian: Where Are The Native American Doctors? Oregon Med School Tries To Solve Crisis 
Chances are, most Oregonians have never met a Native American doctor -- even if they live on a reservation or an urban center with a high concentration of Native people. Less than half a percent of Oregon’s 11,000 physicians identify as American Indians or Alaska Natives. ...The number of Native Americans in medical schools has steadily declined over the last three decades, with only 39 in the entire U.S. last year out of more than 21,600. In 1980, that number was 60. It is a crisis that few have tried to solve. Native people face a complex and intertwined set of obstacles to get into medical school the traditional way -- high rates of poverty, cultural clashes and few models of how it can be done. (Harbarger, 7/28)

The Associated Press: Judge Denies Challenge To New Lead Rules That Followed Flint 
A judge on Friday let stand Michigan's toughest-in the-nation drinking water regulations that were created after the Flint crisis, dismissing a lawsuit that was brought by major Detroit-area water systems over concerns such as the cost of having to replace hundreds of thousands of underground lead pipes. State Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray said the rules, which former Gov. Rick Snyder's administration finalized more than a year ago, are procedurally, substantively and constitutionally valid. (7/26)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Child Welfare Advocates March For Reforms At N.H. DCYF
Child welfare advocates marched in front of the State House on Saturday to point out what they called flaws in New Hampshire’s Division for Children, Youth and Families. The event was hosted by New Road Project, a non-profit aiming to reform the state’s child protection system. Adults and kids walked down the streets of Concord, holding pinwheels, a symbol of childhood, and handmade signs. Organizers chanted “support improvements for DCYF" and "save New Hampshire's greatest resource: our children and families." (Willa Ernst, 7/29)

Columbus Dispatch: New Budget Earmarks $7.5 Million Of Ohio Taxpayers' Money For Pregnancy Centers
A big bump in funding for crisis pregnancy centers in Ohio’s new state budget is fueling a fight around the controversial facilities that supporters say help needy women while critics decry them as “fake health clinics” meant to steer women away from abortions. The final budget sets aside $7.5 million over the next two years for the Ohio Parenting and Pregnancy Program, which funds several crisis pregnancy centers throughout the state. (Deeter and Rouan, 7/26)

The Hill: Illinois Officially Passes Bill Requiring All Single Bathrooms Be Designated Gender Neutral 
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) signed legislation requiring every single-occupancy bathroom in public buildings in the state to be labeled gender neutral. Under Senate Bill 556, also dubbed the “The Equitable Restrooms Act,” all single-occupancy restrooms “in a place of public accommodation or public building shall be identified as all-gender and designated for use by no more than one person at a time or for family or assisted use,” the law states. (Folley, 7/27)

Boston Globe: At Vermont VA Hospital, Swirling Accusations Of Harassment, Retaliation, Negligence
Dr. Jennifer Keller’s last performance review at the White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center described a star anesthetist. ...But if that strong appraisal represented a pinnacle of Keller’s eight years at the VA, the last 13 months have represented a professional nadir, one involving a tangle of conflicting allegations of assault, medical negligence, and whistle-blower retaliation that has reverberated to the upper levels of the federal agency. (MacQuarrie, 7/28)

Health News Florida: Physician Fees A Sore Subject As Telehealth Moves Forward
The Florida panel that regulates medical doctors will begin putting in place rules next week that are designed to make the state’s new telehealth law a reality. But physicians who serve on the Florida Board of Medicine will have no say over one of the most-contentious parts of the law: registration costs for out-of-state doctors who can use telehealth to begin caring for Florida residents. (Sexton, 7/26)

St. Louis Public Radio: St. Louis Inmates To Receive Hepatitis A Vaccines Amid National Outbreak
The St. Louis Department of Health and Division of Corrections are vaccinating 800 people at the city’s two jails to prevent a national hepatitis A outbreak from spreading among inmates. Since 2016, more than 22,000 people have caught the highly contagious liver virus, which can cause nausea and jaundice and require long periods of hospitalization. Inmates are among the most at risk of contracting the disease, St. Louis Health Department Director Fred Echols said. (Fentem, 7/28)

Sacramento Bee: New Grant Will Aid Hepatitis B Screening In Sacramento
A new federal grant could help end the spread of hepatitis B virus in Sacramento County.The $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health will help health care service providers screen patients, primarily pregnant women, as well as Asian Americans, the population found to have the highest percentage of diagnosed cases for hepatitis B. Regardless of race or ethnicity, providers would vaccinate those who are not infected and link individuals at risk to care. (Yu, 7/27)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Mayor Appoints Atlanta’s First-Ever Chief Health Officer
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms recently announced the appointment of Dr. Angelica Geter Fugerson to serve as the first-ever Chief Health Officer for the city of Atlanta, according to a press release. Dr. Fugerson is a 15-year health expert with experience working at the federal, state, and local levels. Her research and program experience have focused on HIV/AIDS and public health services as well as equity and health disparities in the Southern United States. (Miller, 7/26)

Tampa Bay Times: Bayfront Health St. Petersburg Ramps Up Efforts To Collect Patient Debt
[Ileana] Brenes is one of hundreds of patients who have been sued by Bayfront Health St. Petersburg in recent years as the hospital evolved from a nonprofit institution to a for-profit arm of a national chain. The number of patients sued individually in Pinellas County civil and small claims court has risen from about 500 in 2015 to more than 730 so far this year, putting the hospital on pace to double that number by the end of 2019, a Tampa Bay Times analysis shows. The increase represents a stark change from past practice. In 2012, when Bayfront was still a non-profit, the hospital filed hundreds of small claims cases against patients' insurance companies, not the patients themselves. That continued in 2013 and 2014 as the hospital quickly changed hands to one corporate chain, then another. (Griffin, 7/29)

The Star Tribune: Minnesota Blue Cross CEO Defends Tougher Review Of Medical Procedures 
An increasing number of Minnesotans covered by Blue Cross health plans are finding that their scans and medical procedures are being denied, even though their doctor said the care is needed and would be in the Blue Cross network. The increasing trend is intentional. Dr. Craig Samitt, the company’s CEO, told the Star Tribune that Blue Cross is taking bold action to force change in a health care system that is unsustainably expensive. (Carlson, 7/27)

The Baltimore Sun: What Is Cyclospora? Maryland Health Department Investigating Rise In Infection 
Maryland health officials are investigating a spike this year in the number of reported cases of Cyclospora, a microscopic parasite that causes intestinal infection. The Maryland Department of Health said in a statement Thursday that there have been 42 lab-confirmed cases in the state this year, 37 of which were reported in the last two weeks. (Reed, 7/26)