State Highlights: Court Strikes Down Baltimore Abortion Transparency Law; Net Neutrality Debate Sparks Concerns Over Rural Care In Georgia

Reuters: Court Voids Baltimore Law Requiring 'No Abortion' Clinic Disclaimers
A federal appeals court on Friday declared unconstitutional a Baltimore law requiring pregnancy clinics that do not offer or refer women for abortions to post signs disclosing that fact in their waiting rooms. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that the law violated the First Amendment free speech rights of the Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns, a Christian nonprofit that provides prenatal services and counsels women on abortion alternatives. (Stempel, 1/5)

The Hill: Court Strikes Down Baltimore Abortion Disclosure Law
A federal appeals court on Friday found unconstitutional a Baltimore City law requiring that pro-life pregnancy clinics post a sign in their waiting rooms disclosing that they don’t offer or refer women for abortions. In a 3-0 decision, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns, a Christian nonprofit, which argued the law violated its First Amendment right to free speech. (Wheeler, 1/5)

The Associated Press: University Launches Investigation Into Fetal Tissue Transfer
The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center is investigating the transfer of fetal tissue by a faculty member to a private medical research company in Michigan. Health Sciences Center spokeswoman Alex Sanchez confirmed the internal investigation Friday after it was first reported by the Albuquerque Journal. She said the inquiry began in the fall but she declined to provide any details. (1/5)

Georgia Health News: ‘Net Neutrality’ Furor Extends To Telemedicine And Rural Health Care
The federal decision to end “net neutrality’’ rules has sparked concerns about potential damage to rural health care. The central question: Will repeal of the rules harm the burgeoning telemedicine movement in Georgia and other states? (Miller, 1/6)

The New York Times: City’s New Public Hospitals Chief Will Focus On Primary Care
The incoming president of NYC Health & Hospitals wants to turn the nation’s largest public health care network into an agency that focuses less on hospitalized care and more on primary care, similar to initiatives carried out nationwide. The new president, Dr. Mitchell H. Katz, who begins his job on Monday, also said he would expand the use of eConsult, an electronic health management system to streamline care and reduce wait times for specialty appointments, evaluate staff allocation and consider decreasing administrative services such as “unnecessary consultant expenses” to increase savings and revenue. (Ransom, 1/7)

Des Moines Register: Medical Errors Have Happened To Many Iowans, Poll Shows
Nearly one in five Iowans say they’ve had personal experience with medical errors, such as surgical mistakes, wrong diagnoses or incorrect medications, a new poll shows. In more than half of those cases, medical staff members did not inform the patients. The poll, organized by the Heartland Health Research Institute, found that 19 percent of Iowa adults have experienced a medical error in their own care or in the care of someone close to them in the past five years. Among those who said they’d experienced such an error, 60 percent said they were not informed about it by medical staff members. (Leys, 1/8)

Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Still Lags Nation In Health Rankings
Ohio’s high number of drug deaths, increasing smoking rate and high level of air pollution are among challenges noted in a new report that ranks the state 39th in overall health. The state also falls far short in preventable hospitalizations and public-health funding, which at $53 per person is $30 less than the national average. (Viviano, 1/7)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Should Taxpayers Or Hospitals Pay For Psychiatric Emergency Care?
About 8,000 times this year — roughly 22 times a day — people in the Milwaukee area will suffer psychiatric episodes so severe they’ll end up in the emergency department at the Mental Health Complex in Wauwatosa. Yet three years from now, that emergency department probably will no longer exist. (Boulton, 1/6)

The New York Times: Man Who Posed As A Doctor At 18 Is Going To Prison At 20
He wore a white lab coat and a stethoscope, but as several would-be patients in South Florida learned in 2015 and 2016, Malachi A. Love-Robinson was no doctor. Mr. Love-Robinson, who was 18 when he was accused of practicing medicine without a license, pleaded guilty to several charges on Thursday, and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. The charges included grand theft from a person over 65 — prosecutors said he stole money and checks from an 86-year-old woman he was seeing as a patient. (Victor, 1/5)

Denver Post: How A Summit County Family Turned A Mother’s Suicide Into A Rallying Call For Better Mental Health Service
The response from community made the Casey family realize they never really had been alone. Others confessed to struggling with the same issues. When the family started looking into mental health issues and suicide, the Caseys discovered that Summit County’s suicide rate was three times the national average in a state that has one of the highest suicide rates in the country and that mental health lockups in the county jail had skyrocketed in recent years. (Phillips, 1/7)

Tampa Bay Times: Experts: Florida Likely Not A Target In Jeff Sessions' Move To Restrict Marijuana
Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled Thursday that the U.S. government could no longer be counted on to look the other way in states that have legalized marijuana to various degrees even as the substance remains illegal under federal law. But the 64,000 Floridians who are registered to receive medical marijuana need not to worry about getting in trouble from federal enforcement, advocates and state lawmakers say. (Griffin, 1/5)

Houston Chronicle: Some Harvey Evacuees Went Days Without Crucial Medications 
In the chaotic early aftershocks of Hurricane Harvey, dozens of seriously mentally ill evacuees at the George R. Brown Convention Center were left under-treated or without proper medication for days because doctors did not have the right kind of psychiatric drugs. The only medicine immediately available for any mental health patient, including those with severe schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was Prozac or Zoloft, according to firsthand medical accounts not previously made public. Those drugs typically are used to treat depression, anxiety, panic or obsessive-compulsive disorder. (Deam, 1/6)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Bodybuilding Supplement Contained Illegal Drug, Georgia Firm Warned
A Roswell company illegally sold an unapproved new drug, marketing it as a dietary supplement that could be used as a “physique enhancing agent,” federal regulators say. That product, recalled last year, can cause life-threatening reactions including liver toxicity, and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. (Norder, 1/5)