State Highlights: Fla. Boy Must Resume Chemotherapy Despite Parents’ Wishes, Judge Rules; Calif. Governor’s Budget Focuses On Medi-Cal, Homelessness

The Associated Press: Judge: Boy Must Resume Chemotherapy, Despite Parents’ Wishes
A judge has ruled that a 3-year-old Florida boy must resume his cancer treatment, despite his parents’ wishes. The Tampa Bay Times reports that Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Caroline Tesche Arkin ruled Wednesday that Noah McAdams must immediately resume the first phase of chemotherapy to treat his leukemia. Joshua McAdams and Taylor Bland-Ball want to treat their son with natural remedies that include cannabidiol, fresh foods and alkaline water. Noah was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia April 4. (5/9)

Sacramento Bee: Gavin Newsom’s Budget Has Less For Undocumented Health Care
The revised state budget Gov. Gavin Newsom released this week includes more subsidies for Covered California enrollees but doesn’t expand Medi-Cal to all undocumented adults as some lawmakers have pressed him to do. On the campaign trail, Newsom came out in support of a single-payer system in which everyone receives the same government insurance. He says that’s still his goal, but he’s focusing on smaller steps toward providing all Californians health insurance they can afford. (Caiola, 5/9)

The Associated Press: New Budget Proposal Tackles Homelessness In California
Calling it “a stain on the state of California,” Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday vowed to use part of a historic budget surplus to tackle homelessness in the nation’s most prosperous state. “This homeless issue is out of control,” Newsom told reporters on as he unveiled his revised state budget. “(People) are outraged by it, they are disgusted by it, they are wondering what the hell is going on in Sacramento, and they should.” (Beam, 5/9)

Sacramento Bee: Newsom California Budget Doesn’t Fund Wildfire Home Retrofits
Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he wants to see Californians “harden” their homes to protect them from deadly wildfires, but he declined Thursday to endorse a proposed $1 billion fund to help homeowners pay for retrofits and did not include funding for home hardening in his latest budget proposal. Releasing his budget revisions at the Capitol, Newsom reiterated his support for fire-resistant roofs and other features that can protect homes during mega-fires. He cited reporting by McClatchy that showed half the homes built to stricter building codes survived the November 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed nearly 19,000 buildings, compared to the 18 percent survival rate for older homes built when less stringent codes were in effect. (Kasler, Bollag and Thompson, 5/9)

Des Moines Register: Iowan To The Medicaid Director Over UnitedHealthcare Departure: "You Can't Calm Our Fears"
Iowa’s Medicaid director sought to reassure Iowans Wednesday that UnitedHealthcare’s exit from the giant health-care program would not cause major disruptions. “The first thing I want to emphasize is no one is losing benefits,” Mike Randol told more than 50 Medicaid members in the first of six town hall meetings he’s scheduled around the state. “…There are going to be bumps in the road, but we’re going to do everything we can to make it as seamless as possible.” (Leys, 5/8)

Wyoming Public Radio: Domestic Violence Advocates In Douglas Struggle To Help Victims As Energy Boom Hits
A program that helps victims of domestic violence is increasingly having trouble finding safe places for people to stay because of an energy boom that has filled all the housing options in the area. Converse Hope Center Director Lisa Thalken said recently, when a woman sought their help, they couldn't find anywhere to put her. "Our advocates literally called every hotel in the county and could not find a single hotel room," Thalken said. "Thankfully, we are good friends with the manager at the Higgins Hotel in Glenrock and she remembered that someone had reserved a night and hadn't checked in. So, we were able to get them in to Glenrock, but that was the only room in the entire county that evening." (Edwards, 5/8)

Texas Tribune: Texas LGBTQ Caucus Marks Major Victory, Killing Bill Advocates Feared Would Hurt Gay Communities
In their first major test, members of the Texas House’s LGBTQ Caucus helped muscle down a bill Thursday night that they characterized as an assault on gay rights and protections. The five female lawmakers in the first-of-its-kind caucus used a parliamentary maneuver to delay and ultimately defeat House Bill 3172 by Fort Worth Republican Matt Krause, a measure he said would protect religious individuals and organizations from attacks by the government, and authorize the Texas attorney general to bring lawsuits in their defense. (Platoff, 5/9)

Modern Healthcare: N.Y. Bill Would Strengthen Law On Informed Consent For Medical Exams
New York's state Senate passed a bill this week requiring the informed consent of patients for any healthcare procedure or examination, including those performed in the course of medical education or training. The bill passed the Assembly March 14 and now heads to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. If signed into law, it would make it clear that patients who are unconscious after being anesthetized for a procedure must have explicitly consented to any unrelated procedure—such as a pelvic, rectal or prostate exam—before they were anesthetized. (Henderson, 5/9)

The CT Mirror: Nursing Home Workers Set New Strike Deadline
Connecticut’s largest health care employee union issued a new threat Thursday, setting a deadline of June 3 for more than 2,500 nursing home workers to strike if additional funding for pay raises isn’t added to the state budget. The union, New England Health Care Employees, District 1199 SEIU, has asked for a 4 percent increase in wages for all nursing home caregivers industrywide – including non-bargaining workers – in each of the next two fiscal years. This would cost $40 million annually, labor officials said. About half of that would be borne by the state and half would be covered by federal Medicaid payments to Connecticut. (Carlesso, 5/9)

Georgia Health News: Blood Products: Plasma Business Thriving In Georgia
On a street in downtown Athens, across from an arthouse movie theater and beside a craft brewery, sits an off-white building with a large statue of a bulldog near the entrance. This structure houses a local branch of Biotest Plasma Center, a national company that collects plasma from people’s blood. Plasma, when it’s separated from the rest of the blood, is a yellowish liquid. It is rich in protein and helps the body to fight infection. It is so valuable for pharmaceutical companies that it has sometimes been referred to as “liquid gold,” according to the National Institutes of Health. (Herbert, 5/9)

The CT Mirror: Senate Passes Bill Toughening Penalty For Disseminating Intimate Images, Ban On Gay Panic Defense
The penalty for disseminating intimate images without consent would be considerably more severe under a bill passed by the Senate Thursday. “It addresses a pernicious issue, thankfully not rampant but so serious that when it actually does occur, it has the potential to ruin individuals’ lives,” said Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, as he spoke in favor of the bill. “The dissemination of intimate images, especially regarding social media, has been gaining in traction over the years with the advent of more and more technology.” (Megan and Carlesso, 5/9)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Deputies Used Cuyahoga County Jail Surveillance System To Watch Guard Sell Drugs To Inmate, Records Say
A Cuyahoga County Jail officer sold drugs to an inmate as sheriff’s deputies watched him in real-time on surveillance videos, according to court records. Stephen Thomas’ arrest marks the latest in a growing number of investigations into issues at the jail following eight inmate deaths in 2018. Other investigations have focused on mismanagement of the jail, civil-rights abuses and officers attacking inmates. (Ferrise, 5/9)

Health News Florida: Florida Prisons Sued Over Solitary Confinement Practices
Florida is an “outlier” in prison systems across the nation when it comes to the use of solitary confinement, according to a 90-page federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that alleges the state Department of Corrections is violating the constitutional rights of inmates.A view of a hallway from a jail cell. Attorneys with the Southern Poverty Law Center named the state agency and Secretary Mark Inch as defendants in the lawsuit, which contends state prison officials “discriminate against people with disabilities in its use of isolation” and are “deliberately indifferent to the substantial risk of harm caused” by isolation policies. (5/9)

Health News Florida: Report: Florida Improves 'Health Security' Ranking
Florida has improved its ranking in an annual report that rates states on how prepared they are for public health emergences. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation analyzed which states are leaving themselves at risk to infectious disease, antibiotic resistance, terrorism, weather emergencies, or other threats in the "2019 National Health Security Preparedness Index" report. (Miller, 5/8)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Prison System: Cell Locks Have Been Broken For Decades, This Is Why
In March 1997, an inmate at Arizona's Perryville Prison broke out of a cell with a faulty lock and stabbed a corrections officer to death. In November 2000, an inmate escaped his poorly secured cell at the state prison in Phoenix and assaulted a nurse, leaving her bloody and bruised. In June 2018, six inmates at Lewis Prison abandoned cells with broken locks and entered another inmate's quarters, beating him so badly he died of his injuries. (Polletta, 5/9)

North Carolina Health News: Melissa Crady Was Young, Vibrant And Among 199 North Carolinians Who Died From The Flu This Season 
Nearly 200 people have died in North Carolina from influenza or its complications so far this flu season — 199 to be precise. Each of those 199 people had a life, a family who loved them and a story to be told. Among them were infants, the elderly and everyone in between. Include Melissa Crady of Fayetteville in the group of 199. Melissa was born 36 years ago with chronic idiopathic neutropenia, a blood condition that causes a reduced number — or the complete absence — of neutrophils, a type of white blood cell that is responsible for much of the body’s protection against infection. (Barnes, 5/10)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Link Between Appendectomy And Parkinson’s Disease Is Possible, Cleveland Study Shows
A Cleveland-based study purports there is a gut-brain connection that may be an important step toward finding treatments for Parkinson’s disease. The local study’s findings, however, appear to contradict other previous research. An analysis of more than 62 million patient records from 26 health systems across the country showed that patients who had an appendectomy were more than three times as likely to develop Parkinson’s than those who had not. (Washington, 5/9)

The Star Tribune: Medtronic Shuts Division Aimed At Offering Lower-Cost Orthopedic Implants
A Minneapolis medical device maker that was supposed to challenge the existing business model for costly orthopedic implants for the lower body is instead being closed by Medtronic, which acquired the business in 2016 but could never make it work. Responsive Orthopedics, founded as a startup by entrepreneurs including Minneapolis med-tech veteran Doug Kohrs, designed a line of prosthetic knee and hip implants that were specifically engineered to have lower prices than the high-end implants that have long dominated the market. (Carlson, 5/9)

Health News Florida: The Drones Are Coming! Keys Add A New Weapon In War Against Mosquitoes
Rainy season in South Florida means it's also mosquito season. And now there's a new weapon being added to the arsenal against the insects in the Florida Keys. Wednesday morning, after heavy rains in Key West, residents woke up to a familiar sound — a mosquito control helicopter spraying larvicide aimed at the Aedes aegypti mosquito. That's the one that can carry diseases like zika and dengue fever. (5/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: Homeless Mothers Call On SF Leaders To Increase Funding For Families On Streets
A rallying cry echoed across San Francisco’s City Hall steps Thursday afternoon as 60 homeless mothers, children and organizers called on the Board of Supervisors to allocate an additional $14 million in funding for homeless services and housing ahead of Mother’s Day. (Wu, 5/9)