CQ Healthbeat: Limited Medicaid Expansion Sought By Arkansas Governor
Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Wednesday that he’s open to continuing the state's Medicaid expansion program, which serves 220,000 low-income residents, beyond its 2016 expiration if the state can make some sweeping changes that would be a tough sell to the Obama administration. In a presentation to his state’s Healthcare Legislative Task Force, created earlier this year to consider changes to the program, Hutchinson outlined a seven-point proposal emphasizing cost-cutting and encouraging beneficiaries to work. (Evans, 8/20)

Alaska Public Radio: To Stand A Fighting Chance, Anti-Medicaid Lawsuit Needs To Prove Irreparable Harm
Medicaid expansion is set to roll out in Alaska September 1st. It would offer health coverage to up to 40,000 very low-income adults who don’t have children. The lawmakers suing to stop expansion will ask a judge for a preliminary injunction. That would prohibit the state from implementing the program before the issue is decided in court. (Feidt, 8/20)

The Associated Press: Newcomer To Koch Scene, Bush Competes With Tea Party Class
Billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch are opening the tea party's door for Republican Jeb Bush, whose time as Florida governor preceded the movement. ... Five of the 17 GOP presidential candidates, including Cruz and Rubio, plan to be in Columbus. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry are also scheduled to speak at the two-day summit. Notably absent will be Ohio's own Gov. John Kasich, whose office is less than a mile from the convention hall. Americans for Prosperity objected strongly to the GOP presidential candidate's acceptance of federal money in exchange for expanding Ohio's state-run health insurance program for poor people under the 2010 federal health care law. (8/21)

The New York Times: Once Voters Get The ‘Narrative,’ Jeb Bush Says, They’ll Turn To Him Over Donald Trump
The day after dueling New Hampshire town-hall-style meetings left Jeb Bush the recipient of snide attacks from Donald J. Trump, Mr. Bush offered some not-so-friendly fire of his own. ... “I cut taxes every year; he’s proposed the largest tax increase in mankind’s history, not just our own country’s history. I have been consistently pro-life; he until recently was for partial birth abortion. I’ve never met a person that actually thought that was a good idea. I believe we need to reform our health care system to make sure we stop the suppression of wages and allow people to have access to insurance; he’s for a single payer system.” (Parker, 8/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Lawmakers Examine Whether Antiabortion Videos Broke Laws
Congressional Democrats are examining whether the antiabortion group that released videos of Planned Parenthood Federation of America officials discussing fetal tissue broke state or federal laws. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) on Thursday sent a letter to the antiabortion group the Center for Medical Progress. Mr. Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is looking into whether the organization sought charitable donations by posing as a nonprofit and whether the group secretly recorded Planned Parenthood employees without their consent. (Armour, 8/20)

Politico: Sting Videos' Star Sees Some 'Good' In Planned Parenthood
The woman featured prominently in three of the Planned Parenthood sting videos says she’s unsure whether the women’s health organization should be shut down in light of the massive political controversy she helped ignite. Holly O’Donnell, a 24-year-old from Northern California, said in a little-noticed conservative radio podcast that she is “pro-life” and personally opposes abortion, but also calls it “every woman’s choice.” She said she participated in the videos as a whistleblower because she wanted to expose practices that she considers trafficking in fetal body parts — yet she still has praise for some of Planned Parenthood’s work. (Haberkorn, 8/20)

The Washington Post's Wonkblog: The New Women’s Libido Drug May Not Be The Feminist Victory That It Seems
Should women really be celebrating the new libido drug? Flibanserin, the newly approved drug that has been touted as the "female Viagra" and decried for its risky side effects, has been under an intense media spotlight for the past two days. Just days after Sprout Pharmaceuticals received federal regulators' blessing to market the drug, the small company got scooped up by a Canadian drugmaker for $1 billion. (Johnson, 8/20)

The New York Times' DealBook: Maker Of Addyi, ‘Female Viagra’ Drug, Being Sold To Valeant For $1B
Sprout Pharmaceuticals, which on Tuesday won regulatory approval for the first pill to aid a woman’s sex drive, will be acquired by Valeant Pharmaceuticals International for about $1 billion in cash. The deal, announced on Thursday, represents a sizable return for investors in Sprout, a privately held company in Raleigh, N.C., with 34 employees. A total of about $100 million has been invested in Sprout since its formation in 2011. (Pollack and Bray, 8/20)

Bloomberg: Valeant Buys Female Libido-Drug Maker Sprout For $1B
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. agreed to pay about $1 billion in cash for Sprout Pharmaceuticals Inc., the U.S. drugmaker that this week received approval to sell a pill for low libido in women. Sprout’s pill received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday. The drug has been controversial due to modest benefits and serious side effects, and was caught up in a debate about whether male sexual dysfunction has received more attention. The agency followed the counsel of an expert panel that decided in June that the benefits of the drug outweighed the risks. (Chen, Koons and Edney, 8/20)

Reuters: Digital Health Company ZocDoc Valued At $1.8B In Latest Funding
ZocDoc, which helps users book doctor appointments online, said on Thursday it raised $130 million in funding, valuing the U.S. digital healthcare company at $1.8 billion. The proceeds would be used to develop products and expand beyond its scheduling capability, the company said. ZocDoc, founded in 2007, is used by millions of people in all 50 U.S. states and covers 60 percent of the country's population. The New York-based startup also helps patients find in-network neighbourhood doctors and get reminders for upcoming appointments and check-ups. (Roy, 8/20)

Bloomberg: Google Glass Comes To Doctor's Office Near You As Upgrade Looms
A few weeks ago, a New Zealand doctor donned Google Glass and beamed video of an aortic surgery to the U.S. offices of medical device maker Endologix Inc. The test demonstrated the potential power of a technology that famously flopped with consumers but is quickly becoming a go-to gadget for the medical world. Google is expected to roll out a new version of Glass in the coming months, and medical device makers, hospitals and family doctors are eagerly anticipating improvements. These will probably include an adjustable eyepiece, longer-lasting battery and water-resistant properties, according to people familiar with the project. (Kharif and Womack, 8/20)

Bloomberg: The Startups That Give You A Second Opinion On Costly Surgery
In the window before his kids wake up and he has to go to work, Dr. Gregory Gebauer helps people he's never met avoid needless surgery. That's when the Florida spine surgeon reads charts and examines MRI or X-ray scans referred to him through a company called Grand Rounds, a San Francisco startup that promises to save employers money and help their workers find better care. He often finds that patients have been given an inaccurate diagnosis or recommended for an operation unlikely to help them. (Tozzi, 8/20)

The Washington Post: Study Raises Doubts About Early-Stage Breast Cancer Treatments
Aggressive interventions to treat the earliest stage of breast cancers have no effect on whether a woman is alive a decade later, according to a study that tracked more than 100,000 women. (Johnson and Cha, 8/20)

The Associated Press: Earliest Breast Cancer Risky For Women, Study Suggests
New research shows that chances of dying from very early breast cancer are small but the disease is riskier for young women and blacks, the same disparities seen for more advanced cancer. Death rates in the 20 years after diagnosis totaled about 3% for women whose breast cancer was confined to a milk duct. The death rates were twice as high for those younger than 35 at diagnosis and in blacks — but still lower than those with more common invasive breast cancer. (8/20)

As Jimmy Carter reveals that he has brain cancer, news outlets cover the former president's treatment plan, which will include radiation and IV infusions of a new type of anti-cancer drug.

The Washington Post: Jimmy Carter To Undergo Latest Immune Treatment For Brain Cancer
Flanked by family members and friends at a news conference at the Carter Center in Atlanta, he detailed the treatments that he has already begun and will continue in coming weeks, including radiation and the IV infusions of a new type of anti-cancer drug that tries to harness the body’s immune system to fight the disease. (Nutt, Phillip and Dennis, 8/20)

Reuters: Former President Jimmy Carter To Be Treated For Cancer
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Thursday that his cancer has spread to his brain and he will start radiation treatment for it later in the day, adding that his fate was "in the hands of God." Carter, 90, held a news conference on his condition barely a week after announcing he had undergone surgery for liver cancer. Appearing calm and lucid, the former president said he will cut back dramatically on his schedule to receive treatment every three weeks after doctors detected four "very small spots" of melanoma on his brain. (Beasley, 8/20)

North Carolina Health News: Report: Medicaid Care Management Program Saved Millions
A new report from the state auditor shows the program created to manage the care of many of North Carolina’s Medicaid patients has been successful at saving the state hundreds of millions of dollars over a decade. Between 2003 and 2012, Community Care of North Carolina, or CCNC, saved about $312 annually for each Medicaid recipient, while keeping people out of the hospital. The report also shows CCNC had success in reducing visits for asthma, diabetes and readmissions to the hospital after treatment. (Hoban, 8/21)

The Associated Press: Program With Uncertain Future Finds Medicaid Savings
The nonprofit program in which primary care physicians keep close tabs on most of North Carolina's Medicaid recipients saves the state more than $300 per patient annually and probably improves their health, according to a state audit released Thursday. The review of Community Care of North Carolina by State Auditor Beth Wood's office, requested by lawmakers in 2013, comes as the organization faces an uncertain future as General Assembly negotiators near agreement on how to overhaul paying to treat Medicaid patients. (Robertson, 8/20)

Raleigh News & Observer: Legislators Near Medicaid Deal As Agency Fights For Its Future
House and Senate negotiators said Thursday that they’re nearing a deal to reshape Medicaid and reduce its cost to state taxpayers. The two chambers have been at odds over the future of the government insurance program for the poor, elderly and disabled for more than a year. Both sides want to change the current structure under which doctors, hospitals and other medical professionals are paid for patients’ office visits and procedures. Instead, legislators want the state to pay for the program through a flat fee per patient. (Campbell, 8/20)

North Carolina Health News: N.C. Medicaid By The Numbers: Where Money Gets Spent
Tucked into the latest version of a Medicaid reform plan passed by the North Carolina Senate this month is a single line of text that could cost North Carolina billions of dollars. In a section on page three of the 27-page bill, where it describes the bids that companies would have to submit in order to get a contract to manage the care of tens of thousands of Medicaid beneficiaries, is a note that those contracts must provide coverage “in all categories except the dual eligible categories.” (Hoban, 8/20)

News outlets also report on developments related to Medicaid and the CHIP program in Iowa, Kansas and Pennsylvania -

The Associated Press: Companies Vow To Add Iowa Jobs To Manage Medicaid Program
The big health insurance companies picked to manage Iowa’s $4.2 billion Medicaid program have promised to create hundreds of jobs in the state in the coming months, according to bidding documents released Thursday. UnitedHealthcare projected that it would increase its existing 400-employee staff in Iowa by about 250 people. WellCare pledged it would open several offices, from Council Bluffs to Davenport. Amerigroup has already located space for a West Des Moines headquarters. And AmeriHealth Caritas said it would open three “state-of-the-art community wellness centers,” potentially in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Sioux City. (Foley, 8/20)

The Kansas Health Institute News Service: Advocacy Group To Share Concerns About KanCare Grievance Process
Each month, according to the latest available data, roughly 225 KanCare beneficiaries file complaints about the care they’ve received or been denied. That’s a small percentage, considering that more than 400,000 Kansans depend on the state’s privatized Medicaid program. The numbers also show that all but a handful of the complaints are resolved within 15 days. (Ranney, 8/20)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Pa. Upgrades Kids' CHIP Insurance Plan
Gov. Wolf announced Thursday a series of small benefit upgrades for families with coverage though the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), effective Dec. 1. Changes include removal of limits on inpatient and outpatient stays for mental-health and substance-abuse treatment, and the end of outpatient co-payments for mental-health services. Vision care was broadened to cover more types of prescription lenses and tinting. (Sapatkin, 8/21)

News Service Of Florida: Battle Over Abortion Clinics Heat Up
A fight between Planned Parenthood and Gov. Rick Scott's administration escalated on Wednesday, with state health officials saying three clinics can continue to operate but remain under investigation for allegedly performing illegal second-trimester abortions. Amid news reports that the Agency for Health Care Administration had backed down after being sued by the clinics, the agency released a letter from its top lawyer saying that the clinics were still under investigation and had broken the law. (Kam, 8/20)

The New Orleans Times-Picayune: Planned Parenthood Keeping Options Open For Litigation Over Medicaid Funding
Planned Parenthood Gulf States is keeping its options open when it comes to filing a lawsuit against Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration, which has said the health care provider will lose its Medicaid funding on Sept. 2. ... The rally Thursday was held as Jindal administration staff blasted audio from a controversial video over speakers pointed toward the rally. The videos were also projected onto a screen, but were difficult to see in sunlight. (Litten, 8/21)

The Associated Press: AG Looking Into Medicaid Payments To Abortion Clinics
Attorney General Alan Wilson's office is looking into Medicaid payments to South Carolina's three abortion clinics to determine whether any fraud occurred, according to letters provided Thursday to The Associated Press. Wilson becomes the latest Republican to pursue investigations into abortion clinics following the release of videos — secretly taped by an anti-abortion group — that show Planned Parenthood officials elsewhere discussing the collection of fetal organs for research. (Adcox, 8/20)

The Associated Press: Dallas Hospital With Link To JFK Moves To New $1.3B Building
About 600 patients were moved Thursday into a new $1.3 billion hospital in Dallas that replaces an aging facility memorialized in U.S. history as the place John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead after his assassination. Some 1,700 staff members and volunteers participated in the move across the street from the old Parkland Memorial Hospital into its new 17-story embodiment, which features about $80 million worth of digital technology and a lobby with a display commemorating the 35th president. (Warren, 8/20)

WFAA: Parkland's Staff Bids Farewell To Old Hospital
Parkland Memorial Hospital nurses and doctors were snapping photos outside the emergency room on Wednesday. "It holds a lot of special memories for me," said nurse Ashley Mildy. The ER that became a worldwide focal point in 1963 after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated is closing its doors on Thursday morning. "There were a lot of touching, healing moments that I can't put a value on," said Jennifer McLellan, another nurse. "When you walk through, you remember those moments and carry them with you forever." (Lopez, 8/20)

The Wall Street Journal: N.Y.C. Legionnaires’ Disease Outbreak Over, City Says
New York City’s Legionnaires’ disease outbreak is officially over, health officials said on Thursday, confirming that the Opera House Hotel in the South Bronx was its source. The outbreak, which officials called the worst for Legionnaires’ in the city’s history, killed 12 people and sickened 128 since early July. No new illnesses have been identified since Aug. 3, longer than the disease’s two-week incubation period. (Ramey and MacMillan, 8/20)

North Carolina Health News: Bill Would Require Health Assessments For All New N.C. Public School Kids
Parents sending their kids to North Carolina public schools for the first time this August will face slightly different health assessment and vaccine regulations. Previously, North Carolina required health assessments for kids entering kindergarten, but those entering the public school system at any other grade were exempt. (Herzog, 8/20)

The Associated Press: UCare Asks Judge To Halt Impending Public Program Signups
The health insurance company UCare has asked a Minnesota judge to halt the state’s upcoming sign-up period for public health insurance programs as the coverage provider fights a decision eliminating it from the menu of options. In a Ramsey County lawsuit filed Wednesday, UCare seeks an injunction delaying 2016 enrollments due to start in early September and asks for the right to negotiate new contracts with the state. The company alleges that the state arbitrarily cut it out during a bidding process for those contracts and failed to follow the wishes of dozens of counties which recommended contracting with UCare. (Baskt, 8/20)

The Texas Tribune: In Wealthy Zip Codes, Freestanding ERs Find A Home
Five years after Texas became the first state to permit freestanding emergency rooms, more than 160 of the facilities have set up shop around the state — a presence that suburban commuters and health insurers alike are finding impossible to ignore. Health care experts say the financial success of the freestanding facilities — and the growing bargaining power that comes with it — is leading health insurers to arrange for more of the emergency rooms to be in a patient’s network. That could mean better deals for the Texans who rely on the facilities for quick access to emergency care, mostly in wealthier, suburban neighborhoods. (Walters and Lin, 8/21)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Camden Diocese To Sell Nursing Homes For $40M
The Diocese of Camden announced Thursday that it had reached a $40 million agreement to sell its four nursing and elder-care facilities. It would end more than six decades of hands-on care by the diocese. The diocese put the facilities up for sale in August 2014, saying it could no longer afford to maintain them. Losses, partly due to the way the government compensates nursing-home services, have reached $8 million, officials say. (Burney, 8/21)

Health News Florida: Budget Veto Forces Free Clinics To Adjust
The St. Petersburg Free Clinic is one of 87 programs participating in the Florida Association of Free and Charitable Clinics. Last year, when the group received $4.5 million from the state budget, the clinics served 125,000 uninsured Floridians. The state money bought new equipment, expanded services and allowed some of the clinics to hire additional staff. This year, clinic leaders said they expected double that amount. A total of $9.5 million passed both the House and Senate, for the fiscal year that started July 1. But Governor Rick Scott vetoed the line item a week before the budget went into effect. The clinics got nothing. (Miller, 8/20)

The Washington Post: They’ve Overdosed, Or Seen Other People Die. Now They’re Learning To Save Victims’ Lives.
Baltimore City Adult Drug Treatment Court is the first court in Maryland to teach drug offenders how to save someone suffering from an overdose of heroin, oxycodone, hydrocodone or similar substances. As the number of deaths from opioid overdoses swells locally and nationwide, the demonstration was part of growing number of public health efforts to get naloxone — also known as Narcan — to those best positioned to save lives. (Bui, 8/20)

FOXCT: Greenwich Couple Battles Cancer After Losing Coverage From New State Law
In June, Denise El-Tayyeb says she was faced with the unbearable task of telling her husband that he had stage-three gastrointestinal cancer. A few weeks later, Denise and her husband Akram were dealt another blow. They received a letter, dated July 17, stating that their Husky A health coverage would be terminated starting in August 2016. The letter was the result of a new Connecticut law lowering the income limit for Husky, Connecticut’s version of Medicaid, from 201 percent of the federal poverty level to 155 percent. The law was passed as part of the state’s new budget in an effort to save Connecticut money during a significant shortfall. It did not eliminate coverage for children and pregnant women. (Moller, 8/20)

The New York Times: Nail Salon Sweeps Continue As Violations Are Found In Queens
This was a sweep. But this was not a guns-blazing drama unfolding off Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens. This was a meticulous fact-finding mission through an empty salon that left Mr. Tran with a list of health and safety violations to fix in his tired-looking shop. (Robbins, 8/20)

The Washington Post's Plum Line: Why The GOP Presidential Candidates Can’t Reform Health Care
In the last few days, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio released health care plans, and other Republican candidates are sure to follow soon. Most will probably be pretty similar, even if some are more fully fleshed out than others. But they’ll all share one feature, the thing that tells you that they aren’t even remotely serious about this issue: they will take as their starting point that the entire Affordable Care Act should be repealed. (Paul Waldman, 8/20)

Forbes: Republican Presidential Candidates Roll On Health Reform
Republican presidential candidates are starting to roll on health reform. I mean that in a good way, like when the pilot accelerates down the runway and says “Let’s roll.” Governor Scott Walker (WI) just released his 15-page “Day One Patient Freedom Plan.” U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (FL) has written an op-ed in Politico that needs more detail, but contains a significant reform similar to Governor Walker’s. (John Graham, 8/19)

The National Review: Three Actual — And Actually Good — Plans To Replace Obamacare
Perhaps today will mark the beginning of a new phase in the long campaign for the GOP nomination for president in 2016. That’s possible because two of the leading candidates — Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and Florida senator Marco Rubio — have offered serious plans for replacing Obamacare in its entirety. (In Senator Rubio’s case, he reiterated in an op-ed the principles of a plan he outlined several months ago.) They, along with Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, are now the candidates who can speak most credibly about what’s wrong with Obamacare, because they have actual plans to do something about it. (James C. Capretta, 8/19)

The Wall Street Journal: The Compassion Of John Kasich
As the nation goes about mentally categorizing the crowded Republican field, here’s one way to divide the arena: small-government reformers and big-government surrenderists. That debate is at the center of a bigger GOP meditation on how to better appeal to the poor and minorities. Mr. Kasich has emerged as the most eloquent and compelling spokesperson for the go-big camp. ... And he took to the soapbox in Iowa this week to keep driving his theme: that it’s OK to be “conservative” and have a “big heart.” It’s his way of excusing his decision to embrace ObamaCare’s expansion of Medicaid, putting that welfare program on track to consume 50% of Ohio’s operating budget in 2016. “Everybody has a right to their God-given purpose,” said Mr. Kasich at the debate, bragging that his Medicaid blowout is helping the “working poor” to “get on their feet.” (Kimberly A. Strassel, 8/20)

USA Today: Cruz: End Planned Parenthood Funding
Over the past few weeks, Americans have seen a series of videos come out of Planned Parenthood that are nothing short of horrifying. The footage shows senior Planned Parenthood officials laughing, swilling chardonnay and casually, callously, heartlessly discussing killing unborn children in order to sell their body parts. These videos also force Americans to face the grim reality of what happens to the babies’ remains. (Sen. Ted Cruz, 8/20)

The New York Times' Upshot blog: How Texas Could Set National Template For Limiting Abortion Access
Efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and calls for tighter abortion laws at the Republican presidential debate have moved abortion rights back into the national spotlight. But the real fight is at the state level. The next big Supreme Court case involving abortion is expected to come from Texas, where a 2013 law led to the closing of many clinics and inspired abortion opponents around the country to propose similar restrictions. The law’s effects in Texas show the degree to which regulations ostensibly about clinic quality and women’s safety can reduce access to abortion and raise costs for women who choose the procedure. (Kim Soffen, 8/19)

Los Angeles Times: How To Pay The Bill For Hepatitis C
How long should you wait to treat a possibly fatal but curable disease? That's a question with major implications for millions of patients and for insurers and government programs that have to pay for the treatment. In the last year this question has focused on hepatitis C, a viral infection of the liver that, left untreated, can lead to cirrhosis, cancer, liver failure and death. Hepatitis C is the leading cause for liver transplants in the United States. (D. Steven Fox and Jeffrey S. McCombs, 8/20)

Forbes: When It Comes To Long-Term Care Insurance, Americans Don't Get It
A newly-released survey shows just how conflicted Americans are about long-term care insurance. And how unrealistic they are about how much long-term care costs and how much insurance they can buy for what they are willing to spend. The survey, completed in 2014 by the consulting firm RTI International and the survey research firm GfK Research for the US Department of Health and Human Services, found that consumers prize two attributes above all others when they think about long-term care insurance: They want lifetime coverage and low premiums. Their willingness to buy any LTC insurance declines dramatically as premiums rise and the benefit period shrinks. (Howard Gleckman, 8/19)

The Kansas City Star: IRS Says: Get Grad Students Off University Subsidized Health Plans Or Pay Up
Typical federal government right hand/left hand confusion has some graduate students at the University of Missouri in Columbia turning their pockets inside out to scrape together enough money to afford health benefits. On one hand, Obama administration education officials are pushing for colleges and universities to ease the rising cost of attending college, increase institutional need-based scholarship, and do whatever it can to help students avoid drowning in student-loan debt. Of course, there’s also a push to make sure all Americans have affordable health care. (Williams, 8/20)

JAMA: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement And Implications For Access To Essential Medicines
The TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] Agreement is still being negotiated; recently, in a meeting of trade ministers in Maui, Hawaii, negotiators failed to finalize the text of the Agreement due in large part to disagreement regarding intellectual property protections for pharmaceutical products. ... It is critical to ensure that patents protect only innovative pharmaceutical products and for governments to balance grants of market exclusivity with other competing interests, such as the widespread availability and affordability of certain drugs. (Jing Luo and Aaron S. Kesselheim, 8/20)

The New York Times: Children Die Because People Are Wrongly Afraid Of Vaccines
Of all the threats to human life confronted by international health workers, few cause as heavy a toll as what is termed “vaccine hesitancy” — the delay or refusal by misinformed people to accept vaccination for themselves and their children. An estimated one in five children went without lifesaving vaccines globally last year, adding to the grim toll of 1.5 million children who die annually for lack of immunization, according to the World Health Organization. (8/20)

The New York Times: ‘Little Pink Pill’ For Women Comes With Risks
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval on Tuesday of a marginally effective drug to enhance the sexual drive of women with low libido came with appropriate safeguards to protect the safety of patients. We will probably never know whether the agency made a purely scientific judgment or whether it was unduly influenced by a campaign, partly financed by the manufacturer and organized with the help of one of its consultants, to depict the agency as gender-biased for never having approved a drug to treat sexual dysfunction in women while approving numerous drugs for men. (8/21)

news@JAMA: Finding What Works To Reduce Violence Against Women
A recent issue of JAMA highlights 2 studies that examined how physicians might treat or help prevent violence against women. If one only glanced at the results, they might seem like bad news. But a further reading should provide us with optimism about how we might address this difficult issue through the health care system. One study was a research letter that looked at 3-year follow-up of a randomized trial of screening for partner violence. The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends universal screening of women of reproductive age, but others have argued that there’s little evidence that doing so has much of an effect. (Aaron Carroll, 8/19)

The Washington Post: The Great American Heroin Emergency
Not even the federal government can solve the nation’s growing heroin epidemic on its own, but it could always do more. That’s probably the best way to think about the new anti-heroin initiative unveiled by the White House on Monday. A one-year, $2.5 million plan to track the flow of drugs through the Northeastern states and other “high-intensity” regions certainly can’t hurt; but the White House isn’t pretending that its new initiative will conquer the problem and nor should anyone else. (8/20)

The Washington Post: The End Of Polio In Africa?
Africa has reported some genuinely good news in the battle to eradicate polio. Late last month , Nigeria passed a full year without a case of wild poliovirus. As of Aug. 11, it has been a year since the last case was detected anywhere on the continent (it was in Somalia). These anniversaries are unofficial milestones, but they point toward continued progress against polio, a scourge that once claimed hundreds of thousands of lives each year. Unfortunately, polio has shown a fierce tendency to return. Hopefully this time will be different. (8/20)