State Highlights: Ohio’s Infant Mortality Rate Drops Overall, But Rate For Black Babies Increases; Family Planning Services Cut At Milwaukee Clinic

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohio Infant Deaths In 2017 Second Lowest On Record, Disparity Rises
Ohio’s infant mortality rate fell in 2017 with 42 fewer infant deaths overall than the previous year, according to a report released today by the Ohio Department of Health. It’s only the second time since the state started recording these statistics in the 1930’s that fewer than 1,000 Ohio babies died (the first time was in 2014). (Zeltner, 12/6)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Health Clinic Still Withholding Family Planning Services
Family planning is still not being offered at the city's Southside Health Center, nearly a year after the crucial service was disrupted. The Journal Sentinel first reported months ago that family planning services — as well as cancer screenings — overseen by the troubled Milwaukee Health Department had been interrupted. (Spicuzza, 12/6)

Detroit Free Press: Feds: 6 Detroit Area Doctors Ran $500 Million Opioid Scam
In what federal prosecutors are calling one of the largest health care scams in U.S. history, six doctors from across Metro Detroit have been charged with running a $500 million opioid scheme out of Macomb County. The lead defendant is  Dr. Rajendra Bothra, 77, a well-connected Bloomfield Hills surgeon,  philanthropist and politician who owns the pain clinics at the center of the case: The Pain Center USA in Warren and Eastpointe; and Interventional Pain Center in Warren. (Baldas, 12/6)

Boston Globe: Mass. Medical Marijuana Program To Be Overseen By Cannabis Control Commission
The Massachusetts medical marijuana program will transfer hands from one state agency to another later this month, giving the Cannabis Control Commission oversight of both recreational and medical marijuana programs in the state. Effective on Dec. 23, the commission will oversee the medical marijuana program, rather than the Department of Public Health, which has run the program since it started in 2014. (Gans, 12/6)

Stat: A Nonprofit Wants To Test Pig Skin To Help Burn Victims Recover 
Somewhere in North Grafton, Mass., lives a drove of remarkable miniature pigs. They’ve been specifically bred for more than 40 years to help save humans’ lives. In a few weeks, they’ll be put to the test for the first time. For years, scientists have sought some way to protect raw, burned flesh — and some think these pigs can help. Without something covering burned skin, a person’s body loses water and protein and is more vulnerable than usual to infection. (It also hurts like hell.) Pig skin is more available than human skin, the covering of choice. But due to concerns about pieces of an ancient virus that lurk in pigs’ DNA, it hadn’t been explored in a clinical trial. (Sheridan, 12/7)

CQ: Supervised Injection Site Implementation Faces Uphill Climb
A growing number of cities are seeking to fight the opioid epidemic by providing people with an addiction a place to inject drugs with sterile needles, despite questions about the practice’s legality under federal law. The trend suggests a showdown with the Justice Department may come if one of these cities is able to pass legislation and find funding to open a supervised injection site, which could happen as soon as next year. (Raman, 12/7)

The New York Times: ‘A Witness That They Were Here’: Los Angeles Honors 1,457 Of Its Unclaimed Dead
They are the forgotten people of Los Angeles — 1,457 people, to be exact. Old, poor, homeless, babies born premature and abandoned. They may have died alone, but they were buried together, in a mass grave, and were honored together this week in an interfaith ceremony that has been an annual ritual in Los Angeles for more than a century. (Arango, 12/7)

The Associated Press: Groups Sue To Block Medical Marijuana Compromise In Utah
A pair of advocacy groups in Utah sued Thursday to block a compromise agreement legalizing medical marijuana, accusing the Mormon church of unconstitutional domination and interference in a process that led to the gutting of a measure approved by voters. The lawsuit alleges the revised initiative creates overwhelming obstacles for suffering patients who want to obtain the drug. It also asks a judge to set aside the revision passed by lawmakers and keep the original version that won with 53 percent of the vote in November. (McCombs and Whitehurst, 12/6)

USA Today and Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Violated: How The Indian Health Service Betrays Patient Trust And Treaties In The Great Plains
Dozens of patients have died needlessly due to errors made in IHS hospitals in South Dakota alone. Thousands more in the state’s rural Indian reservations face limited access to primary care providers, long wait times for basic medical treatments and outstanding medical debt for necessary care sought outside the federally-funded facilities. The federal government has largely ignored the deplorable conditions. Even well-intentioned lawmakers representing states with significant Native American populations have failed to make meaningful change, including South Dakota’s Congressional delegation. Meanwhile, the U.S. government remains in violation of its treaty promise to provide health care to Native Americans. (Ferguson, 12/6)

NPR: Robot Punctures Can Of Bear Repellent At Amazon Warehouse, Sickening Workers
Twenty-four workers at an Amazon warehouse in New Jersey were taken to area hospitals after being exposed to bear repellent on Wednesday morning, when a robot punctured a can of the aerosol spray. One woman was reported to have been critically injured in the incident, which caused at least 54 workers to have difficulty breathing, and burning throats and eyes, NJ.com reports. The warehouse, which is ventilated, measures about 1.3 million square feet. (Wamsley, 12/6)

Kaiser Health News: More Than Half Of California Nursing Homes Balk At Stricter Staffing Rules
More than half of California’s nursing homes are asking to be exempted from new state regulations that would require them to spend more time directly caring for their patients. The state’s new staffing requirements for nursing homes, quietly passed in last year’s budget bill, seem universally unpopular. Patient advocates say the new regulations don’t go far enough and that residents remain at risk in poorly staffed homes. Nursing home operators say they can’t hire enough staff to comply. (Feder Ostrov, 12/7)