The New York Times: E.R. Doctors Misdiagnose Patients With Unusual Symptoms 
As many as 250,000 people die every year because they are misdiagnosed in the emergency room, with doctors failing to identify serious medical conditions like stroke, sepsis and pneumonia, according to a new analysis from the federal government. The study, released Thursday by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, estimates roughly 7.4 million people are inaccurately diagnosed of the 130 million annual visits to hospital emergency departments in the United States. Some 370,000 patients may suffer serious harm as a result. (Abelson, 12/15)

CNN: More Than 7 Million Incorrect Diagnoses Made In US Emergency Rooms Every Year, Government Report Finds 
A new study finds that nearly 6% of the estimated 130 million people who go to US emergency rooms every year are misdiagnosed, which translates to about 1 in 18 patients getting the wrong diagnosis. ... Stroke was missed 17% of the time, often because people reported symptoms of dizziness and vertigo. When they entered the ER, 40% of patients who had those two symptoms had their stroke missed initially. (Kounang, 12/15)

In related news —

USA Today: Iowa Man Awarded $27 Million After Meningitis Misdiagnosed For Flu
A Des Moines man has been awarded $27 million in damages after a local urgent care clinic failed to diagnose him with a serious meningitis infection that ultimately resulted in permanent brain damage. The now-53-year-old Joseph Dudley still wrestles with the physical and mental limitations following his 2017 illness, which his wife says affects his ability to have an active role in his young children's lives. (Ramm, 11/22)

People: Jake Tapper Says His Daughter 'Almost Died' After Being Misdiagnosed
Jake Tapper revealed his 15-year-old daughter Alice had been near-fatally misdiagnosed around Thanksgiving last year. In both an opinion piece written by Alice and a short segment on CNN, the family shared the tumultuous days after Alice's appendicitis misdiagnosis and discussed spreading awareness about the issue, which happens more often than people think. (Speakman, 12/15)

The New York Times: Congress Clears Military Bill Repealing Vaccine Mandate For Troops 
The Senate on Thursday gave final approval to an $858 billion military policy bill that would rescind the Pentagon’s mandate that troops receive the coronavirus vaccine, defying President Biden’s objections and sending to his desk a bill that paved the way for a massive increase in spending on the military. The vote was 83 to 11, an overwhelmingly bipartisan margin that reflected support in both parties for boosting the Pentagon’s budget by $45 billion over Mr. Biden’s request, as lawmakers in both parties argued that the protracted war in Ukraine and an emboldened China had changed the nation’s security posture. (Edmondson, 12/15)

AP: Senate Passes Defense Bill Rescinding COVID Vaccine Mandate 
To win GOP support for the 4,408-page bill, Democrats agreed to Republican demands to scrap the requirement for service members to get a COVID-19 vaccination. The bill directs Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to rescind his August 2021 memorandum imposing the mandate. (Freking, 12/16)

More on the vaccine rollout —

NBC News: CDC Director Warns Vaccine Misinformation Is A Public Health Threat
Doctors' appointments missed during the first years of Covid contributed to a dip in childhood vaccination rates, but it's the onslaught of vaccine disinformation that continues to put young kids at risk for preventable death and disease, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, told NBC News. "As I think about the challenges that we have to public health vaccine, misinformation is among the biggest threats," she said. (Edwards, 12/16)

CNBC: Covid News: Most Nursing Home Residents Have Not Received Omicron Booster
Less than 50% of nursing home residents, one of the country’s most vulnerable populations to severe illness from Covid-19, have received an omicron booster ahead of an expected wave of infection this winter. (Kimball, 12/15)

ABC News: New Poll Shows Why Some Adults Aren't Getting The COVID Booster
About four in 10 adults say they've gotten the new bivalent booster or will get it as soon as they can, according to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation COVD-19 Vaccine Monitor. In the survey, 22% of adults said they have gotten the shot, while around 16% said they will soon. (Haslett, 12/16)

In other legislative news —

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Health Spending? Only Congress Knows
Congress has a tentative framework for government spending through this fiscal year. Now, lawmakers must fill in the blanks, including on key health care provisions, and get it passed. The Biden administration will send more free covid-19 home tests to Americans after initial fears the program was running out of money. And there’s plenty of news coming in from the states, where this week a Texas judge tossed out a lawsuit based on the state’s so-called vigilante abortion law, and the governor of Florida is asking for a grand jury investigation into harm caused by covid vaccines. (12/15)

KHN: Is Legislation To Safeguard Americans Against Superbugs A Boondoggle Or Breakthrough? 
With time running out in the 2022 congressional session, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers and infectious disease specialists is scrambling to pass a bill aimed at spurring the development of antibiotics to combat the deadly spread of drug-resistant pathogens. The PASTEUR Act, as amended, would provide $6 billion in federal funding over several years to give drugmakers incentive to develop and manufacture lifesaving medications for the small but growing number of infections highly resistant to antibiotics. (Szabo and Allen, 12/16)

The Washington Post: Trump Downplayed Drumbeat Of Intelligence Warnings On Covid, Report Finds 
Beginning in late January 2020, U.S. intelligence agencies reported to senior Trump administration officials that the coronavirus spreading in China threatened to become a pandemic and spark a global health crisis. But then-President Trump’s public statements over the next two months “did not reflect the increasingly stark warnings coursing through intelligence channels,” including the president’s daily brief, available to Trump and senior members of his administration, according to a report issued Thursday by the House Intelligence Committee. (Harris, 12/15)

Politico: Report: Intelligence Agencies Didn’t Move Fast Enough To Collect Covid Data 
The intelligence community was not prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic and did not move quickly enough to gather information about the spread of the virus, according to a report released Thursday by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee. The report looks at the intelligence community’s response to Covid-19, particularly in the early days of 2020. The intelligence agencies’ clandestine collectors largely focused on analyzing data about the virus that was already being discussed openly by public health officials and experts across the world, the report said, arguing that they moved too slowly to collect clandestine information. (Banco, 12/15)

CNN: Covid-19 US Intel Agencies Likely Missed Chances To Investigate Covid Pandemic's Origin, House Democrats' Report Says 
Democratic investigators on the House Intelligence Committee have alleged that US intelligence agencies may have lost a critical opportunity to gather useful information on the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins by failing to pivot its collection resources earlier. (Lillis, 12/15)

NBC News: U.S. Should've Spied On Chinese Health Officials Who Were Hiding What They Knew About Covid, Congress Says
U.S. intelligence agencies began warning that Covid-19 could become a pandemic just weeks after the coronavirus was first reported in China, but they missed an opportunity to better understand its spread because they didn’t quickly begin spying on Chinese health officials who were hiding what they knew, says a newly declassified report by the House Intelligence Committee. (Dilanian, 12/15)

Reuters: Philadelphia Schools Will Require Masks As U.S. COVID Cases Spike 
Public school students in Philadelphia will have to wear face coverings at school for 10 days after their winter break, officials said, as communities around the country contend with another surge of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses. The mandate, which will run from Jan. 3-13, is aimed at reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses after a holiday season likely filled with more social gatherings and increased exposure, the school district said in a statement on Thursday. (12/15)

The CT Mirror: CT COVID Hospitalizations Up 58%; Officials Urge Masking Indoors
Connecticut’s COVID hospitalizations have risen by 58% over the last four weeks, and with families and colleagues preparing to gather for the holidays, health officials are urging people to don masks indoors and consider the well-being of others as they go about the seasonal bustle. (Carlesso, 12/15)

Chicago Tribune: Chicago Likely To Soon Return To High COVID Levels
Chicago’s top doctor is warning that she expects the city to soon be at high COVID-19 levels, and Chicago will again encourage people to wear masks indoors when that happens. (Schencker, 12/15)

In related news about masks for people with disabilities —

The Washington Post: Masking Can Be Required In Classes For Virginia Students With Disabilities 
Parents of students with disabilities in Virginia public schools have won the right to require that their children’s peers and teachers wear masks, after the state government agreed to a settlement with several families who had filed a lawsuit challenging a statewide mask-optional policy. (Natanson, 12/15)

On covid tracking and testing —

AP: New Hampshire Restarts COVID Wastewater Surveillance Program 
A wastewater surveillance program to monitor COVID-19 levels in communities across New Hampshire has been started by the state’s Department of Health and Human Services. (12/15)

The Baltimore Sun: State Ramps Up COVID Testing, Treatment In Baltimore As Cases Climb 
The Maryland Department of Health announced Thursday that it is offering more access to COVID tests and treatment in Baltimore as more people are being sickened by the virus. Maryland has seen an increase in COVID hospitalizations and positivity rate since Thanksgiving, and the department of health wants residents to know that tests and treatment are available ahead of the December holidays. (Bologna, 12/15)

Bloomberg: Do Covid Tests Expire? Breaking Down Expiration Dates
With the US health officials preparing to distribute free at-home Covid-19 tests again, people who stocked up during the omicron surge may be wondering if they are still good. (Rupp and Lauerman, 12/15)

Axios: Changing The Way We Think About Rapid Tests
​​The COVID-19 rapid tests that public health officials are counting on to help fight a wintertime surge may not give an on-the-spot picture of whether a person is infected. And that could influence the way people approach the holiday season. (Moreno and Dreher, 12/16)

The New York Times: Covid May Spread From Corpses, Scientists Report 
Like a zombie in a horror film, the coronavirus can persist in the bodies of infected patients well after death, even spreading to others, according to two startling studies. The risk of contagion is mainly to those who handle cadavers, like pathologists, medical examiners and health care workers, and in settings like hospitals and nursing homes, where many deaths may occur. While transmission from corpses is not likely to be a major factor in the pandemic, bereaved family members should exercise caution, experts said. (Mandavilli, 12/15)

CIDRAP: Autopsies Show COVID-19 Virus In Brain, Elsewhere In Body
An analysis of tissue samples from the autopsies of 44 people who died with COVID-19 shows that SAR-CoV-2 virus spread throughout the body—including into the brain—and that it lingered for almost 8 months. The study was published yesterday in Nature. (Wappes, 12/15)

CIDRAP: Physical Activity Cuts Risk Of Poor COVID Outcomes, Study Finds
Adults who were more physically active before testing positive for COVID-19 were at lower risk for hospitalization, clinical deterioration, and death by 90 days, finds a study published yesterday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Kaiser Permanente Southern California researchers led the study of the electronic health records of 194,191 patients diagnosed as having COVID-19 from Jan 1, 2020, to May 31, 2021, before vaccines were widely available. (Van Beusekom, 12/15)

The Hill: Long COVID Rehab Program Produces ‘Impressive’ Results
A rehabilitation program for long COVID symptoms in the United Kingdom shows “impressive” results, according to a new paper in the Journal of Medical Virology. ... Over the course of six weeks, 31 participants followed the World Health Organisation (WHO) CR-10 Borg pacing protocol, which includes five levels of activity. The protocol rates how active a patient is and what level they are at based on a scale of 0 to 10 where 0 is the lowest level of exertion and 10 is the highest. There are suggested activities for different levels like breathing exercises, gentle walking, jogging and resistance exercises. The more rigorous levels included activities like running, swimming and dancing. (Hou, 12/15)

Fortune: People Who Skipped Their COVID Vaccine Are At Higher Risk Of Traffic Accidents, According To A New Study
If you passed on getting the COVID vaccine, you might be a lot more likely to get into a car crash. Or at least those are the findings of a new study published this month in The American Journal of Medicine. ... [Researchers] found that the unvaccinated people were 72% more likely to be involved in a severe traffic crash—in which at least one person was transported to the hospital—than those who were vaccinated. ... Of course, skipping a COVID vaccine does not mean that someone will get into a car crash. Instead, the authors theorize that people who resist public health recommendations might also “neglect basic road safety guidelines.” (Prater, 12/13)

Axios: America's Historically Bad Flu Season May Be Peaking
The U.S. has been pummeled by respiratory illness, including a harsher flu season than we've seen in years. But new data indicates the outbreak may be peaking. The CDC estimates there have been at least 13 million illnesses, 120,000 hospitalizations and 7,300 deaths, including 21 pediatric deaths, from the seasonal flu. (Reed, 12/16)

The Washington Post: How A Viral Siege Is Making Some People Sick For Weeks, Even Months
It started in mid-September with Vance, 5, who came down with RSV and wheezed so badly that his skin was pulling in and out of his ribs with every breath. His little brother Banks, then 11 months old, caught it too. Things were just starting to get better in October, when the boys caught a nasty cold that resulted in more sleepless nights. In November, the flu hit, bringing fevers of 102 degrees. “It feels like a never-ending cycle,” said their mom, Michelle Huber of Louisville. “We are beyond exhausted.” (Cha, 12/15)

More on the surge of covid, flu, and RSV —

Nebraska Public Media: Midwest Hospitals Struggling Find Beds For Kids Amid 'Tripledemic'
Multiple Nebraska hospitals are struggling to care for all the sick people walking into their emergency departments. Similar to the omicron and delta COVID-19 waves last winter that crippled emergency rooms, hospitals are currently leaning on nearby states to get medical care for patients. This winter, capacity is especially slim for pediatric patients who are coming down with respiratory viruses. (Ourada, 12/15)

Michigan Radio: Children's Hospitals Are Struggling To Cope With A Surge Of Respiratory Illness
Waiting for their turn in the ER, dazed-looking parents in winter coats bounce crying children in their arms, trying to catch the eye of Dr. Erica Michiels. Us! Pick us next! they seem to plead with tired eyes. Michiels directs pediatric emergency medicine at Corewell Health Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Lips pressed together in a thin line, she surveys what she calls the "disaster" area. (Wells, 12/15)

Fortune: Tamiflu: Is The In-Demand Flu Treatment Safe To Take?
A study out of Vanderbilt University Medical Center is set to explore the neurological impact of the flu treatment. According to researchers, some flu patients have experienced “neuropsychiatric symptoms, such as behavior changes, hallucinations, and even attempted suicide,” says the VUMC Reporter. However, it’s unknown whether the symptoms are the result of the infection itself or Tamiflu. (Payton, 12/14)

Los Angeles Times: California Has Plenty Of Anti-COVID Drugs, But Few Prescriptions
With California staring down the triple threat posed by the coronavirus, RSV and flu, health officials are urging the wider use of anti-COVID drugs to help prevent people from falling seriously ill and keep them out of the hospital. (Lin II and Money, 12/15)

The Atlantic: Is COVID A Common Cold Yet?
Now, nearly three years into the crisis, the virus is more familiar, and its symptoms are too. Put three sick people in the same room this winter—one with COVID, another with a common cold, and the third with the flu—and “it’s way harder to tell the difference,” Chavez told me. Today’s most common COVID symptoms are mundane: sore throat, runny nose, congestion, sneezing, coughing, headache. (Wu, 12/15)

Also —

Stat: Drugmakers Seek New Standards For Covid Antibody Drugs
Biotech executives and a handful of academics pleaded with U.S. and European regulators on Thursday to adopt new standards for approving antibody drugs against Covid, particularly for immunocompromised and other vulnerable patients. (Mast, 12/15)

AP: California To End Mandatory Pay For Workers With COVID
California will stop making companies pay employees who can’t work because they caught the coronavirus while on the job. For the past two years, California workplace regulators have tried to slow the spread of the coronavirus by requiring infected workers to stay home while also guaranteeing them they would still be paid. But Thursday, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to end that rule in 2023 — in part because the rule has become harder to enforce. (Beam, 12/15)

USA Today: Common Process By Which People Get Pregnant Is In Legal Jeopardy. Some Democrats Want To Legally Protect IVF
Democratic senators are trying to legally protect the right to use in vitro fertilization after the fall of Roe v. Wade not only ended the constitutional right to abortion but also threw into question the fate of IVF. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Patty Murray, along with Rep. Susan Wild, are introducing the new legislation, called the Right to Build Families Act of 2022. (Hughes and Fernando, 12/15)

CBS News: Senators Move To Protect IVF Treatments
The new legislation, according to its authors, would prohibit limitations for individuals to access reproductive technologies, protect healthcare providers who administer them, instruct the Justice Department to take action against states in violation and create a "private right of action" for patients and health care providers in states where reproductive technologies are limited. (Huey-Burns, 12/15)

Texas has released a long-awaited report on maternal mortality —

Dallas Morning News: Most Texas Pregnancy-Related Deaths Preventable, Disproportionately Affected Black Women
Most pregnancy-related deaths in 2019 were preventable and disproportionately affected Black Texans, according to a long-awaited state report released on Thursday. (Morris, 12/15)

The Texas Tribune: Texas Maternal Mortality Report Shows Continued Disparities
At least 118 women dead and nearly 200 children left without a mother. This was just a portion of the death toll from pregnancy and childbirth in Texas in 2019, according to a long-awaited state report published Thursday. (Klibanoff, 12/15)

In other reproductive health news —

The 19th: How Movies And TV Shows Have Portrayed Abortion After Dobbs
For the past five years, researcher Steph Herold has studied portrayals of abortion in television and film as part of the Abortion Onscreen initiative. The latest study by Herold, a research analyst at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) at the University of California-San Francisco’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health spans this year. It found 60 abortion plotlines or mentions from 52 distinct television shows, well outnumbering the 47 abortion plotlines in 42 shows seen in 2021. (Gerson, 12/15)

Bay Area News Group: Harry And Meghan's Claim About Miscarriage Pushes Common Misperception
UK’s National Health Services (NHS) said it’s “a common misperception” that a mother’s emotional state, including anxiety or depression, is tied to an increased risk of miscarriage, which is generally described as the death of a fetus before the 20th week of pregnancy. This misperception is in the same category as fears that a woman can harm her fetus by exercising, lifting something heavy, having sex, eating spicy food, standing or sitting long hours at work or experiencing a shock or fright, according to the NHS. (Ross, 12/15)

North Carolina Health News: No Guidelines For Drug Testing Pregnant Patients 
In 2003, Congress enacted the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act. The new law was intended to strengthen programs that prevent child abuse and neglect, including improved training for child welfare workers and better connections between social service departments and community mental health agencies. Included in its 33 pages is the mandate that each state create a process to identify infants exposed to drugs in-utero and intervene in some way. But, nearly 20 years later, that hasn’t happened. (Donnelly-DeRoven, 12/16)

Stat: Inflation Caused Another Big Drop In Net Drug Prices, Analysis Finds
Amid ongoing debate over the cost of prescription medicines, a new analysis finds that brand-name drugmakers increased their wholesale prices by 4.8% in the third quarter this year, up slightly from 4.2% a year earlier and 4.9% in the previous quarter. But when accounting for inflation, wholesale prices fell by 3.1%, and inflationary pressures are likely to push wholesale prices still higher. (Silverman, 12/15)

Stat: AbbVie Exits Major Pharmaceutical Industry Lobbying Groups 
The maker of one of the world’s most profitable medicines is exiting the pharmaceutical industry’s two major lobbying organizations next year, just as Washington pledges to crack down on high drug costs. (Cohrs and Owermohle, 12/15)

In other pharmaceutical news —

Stat: To Fix Pulse Oximeters, The FDA Asked This Lab To Find Answers
The discovery that fingertip oxygen-measuring devices might contribute to health disparities because they appear to work less well on patients with darker skin has roiled the world of pulse oximetry, a $2 billion industry that now faces stricter regulations and pressure to address bias in the development and testing of its devices. (McFarling, 12/16)

WUSF Public Media: Alzheimer's Treatment Built On Sarasota Research Heads Toward FDA Approval
Thirty years ago, doctors with Sarasota's Roskamp Institute were the first to discover genetic causes of Alzheimer’s Disease. Now, a drug built on their findings, is likely heading for FDA approval. (Carter, 12/15)

NPR: Court Rules That Law Requires Former Research Chimps To Go To A Sanctuary
A federal judge has ruled that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) violated the law when it determined that former research chimpanzees in New Mexico would not move to a sanctuary in Louisiana known as Chimp Haven. (Greenfieldboyce, 12/15)

Reuters: Global Stockpile Of Cholera Vaccines 'Empty Or Extremely Low' - WHO 
A World Health Organization official said on Friday that the global stockpile of cholera vaccines it helps manage is "currently empty or extremely low" amid a resurgence of the disease around the world. The U.N. health agency says there are around 30 countries around the world that have reported cholera outbreaks this year which is about a third higher than a typical year. (12/16)

In research updates —

Stat: Notices Of Concern Issued On Papers By Stanford President 
The leading journals Science and Cell on Thursday issued “expressions of concern” on papers co-authored by Stanford University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne, who is under investigation over allegations of research misconduct. (Joseph, 12/15)

Grand Rapids Business Journal: Trinity Health Michigan Offers Employees Daily Pay Option In 2023
Trinity Health soon will offer employees the option to be paid by the day, a new effort by the major healthcare system to attract and retain employees and provide its workforce another option for financial stability. The U.S. healthcare system is struggling to maintain employees at all levels as nurses, physicians and even CEOs struggle with burnout and battle to bounce back from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Poirier, 12/15)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Hundreds Picket Outside Las Vegas Hospital For New Union Contract
For the second time in recent months, more than a hundred picketers were outside Valley Hospital Medical Center Thursday demanding a fair contract for hospital support staff. About 90 support staff at the medical center have been in contract negotiations since the end of 2016. They claim their wages have stagnated and they fear a reduction of benefits could happen. (Hemmersmeier, 12/15)

Axios: Non-Profit Hospitals' Staffing Woes Ease, New Research Shows
Despite the "tripledemic" and continued high employee turnover, non-profit hospitals' staffing crunch is showing signs of lifting, Fitch Ratings concludes. Fitch cites Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing hospital and ambulatory health services payrolls increased by 11,000 and 23,300, respectively, from October to November while job openings for the health and social assistance sector declined in October. (Bettelheim, 12/15)

In other health care industry news —

Modern Healthcare: Mayo Clinic's Billing Practices In Question By Minnesota Attorney General
The office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) is looking into Mayo Clinic's billing practices after a local media outlet reported the health system sued low-income patients for unpaid balances. The Rochester Post Bulletin, which published the investigation last month, interviewed 20 sued patients and found 14 appeared to have been eligible for free or discounted services. (Hudson, 12/15)

Modern Healthcare: Massachusetts Blue Cross Unveils ‘Pay-For-Equity’ Program
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has entered into value-based arrangements with four health systems including Mass General Brigham and Boston Medical Center that offer financial incentives for eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities in outpatient care. (Hartnett, 12/15)

CIDRAP: Report Describes Mpox Infections Tied To Tattoo Parlor 
Piercing or tattooing appears to be the vehicle that left 21 people infected with mpox virus (MPXV) after visiting the same tattoo parlor in Cadiz, Spain, during 2 weeks in July, according to a report yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. From July 6 to July 19, the parlor served 58 customers, and 21 of them (36%) became infected with the virus. Of the mpox patients, 14 (67%) were female, and 9 (43%) were children. The median patient age was 26. (Wappes, 12/15)

In other health and wellness news —

The 19th: Lois Curtis’ Legacy Lives On Years After Disability Rights Supreme Court Case
Lois Curtis was a lifelong Georgia resident, an artist and a plaintiff in one of the most consequential disability rights cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, Olmstead v. L.C.  The 1999 case led to more states allocating funding for people with disabilities to live in their own homes – something that had previously been rare. Curtis died on November 3 at the age of 55. (Luterman, 12/15)

KHN: Readers And Tweeters Chime In On Disability Rights And Drug Discounts 
KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. (12/16)

KHN: To Combat Gun Violence, This Artist Turns Ammunition Into Art
As a child, Mykael Ash enjoyed picking up seashells near the Mississippi Gulf Coast. His grandfather lives there, so trips to the beach were a regular part of life. “It’s peaceful energy,” Ash said. “Especially when you put that seashell to your ear.” At age 32, he still collects shells. But the terrain is different in this city of 18,000 people. Ash walks on concrete instead of sand, picking up shells left by bullets as he walks through the city for exercise. “It just hit me one day,” he said: He could use the shell casings in his artwork. (Anthony, 12/16)

AP: Ohio Lawmakers OK Sweeping Criminal Justice Law Changes 
The bill, which received bipartisan support, also would decriminalize fentanyl test strips, make strangulation a separate offense, outlaw fertility fraud by doctors, and mandate age-appropriate education about child sexual abuse prevention in schools, among other changes. (Hendrickson, 12/15)

In Medicaid news from Iowa and elsewhere —

Iowa Public Radio: Iowa Announces A $44 Million Settlement With Medicaid Managed Care Organization Centene
The state attorney general’s office has reached a $44.4 million settlement with managed care company Centene over its pharmaceutical billing practices. Missouri-based Centene operates as Iowa Total Care in the state. It’s one of two managed care organizations currently contracted with the state and providing services under its Medicaid program. (Krebs, 12/15)

KHN: Why Medicaid Expansion Ballots May Hit A Dead End After A Fleeting Victory In South Dakota 
Republican-led legislatures have repeatedly thwarted Medicaid expansion in a dozen conservative states, despite high numbers of uninsured residents. In recent years, supporters of expansion have found success with another strategy: letting voters decide. Since 2017, Medicaid expansion has passed in seven states where the issue was put on the ballot, adopting the Affordable Care Act provision that would grant health insurance to hundreds of thousands living at or near the poverty line. (Pradhan and Chang, 12/16)

In environmental health news from Florida, New York, Tennessee, and Massachusetts —

Climate Central and ADAPT: After Ian And Nicole, Experts Warn Of Health Risks From Blue-Green Algae
Shannon Valentine-Sanders had been suffering from mysterious symptoms for a couple weeks last year when she vaguely remembers sending an emergency alert to her family from a KFC parking lot in Matlacha, on Florida’s Southwest coast. “I didn’t know where I was,” she says. “I thought I was drugged or poisoned or something.” Seeing her pain, exhaustion and forgetfulness, hospital doctors connected her illness to toxins secreted by blue-green algae floating in mats around the sailboat she’d lived on over the summer. (Upton, DeFonza and Rivers, 12/15)

NPR: Government Admits Its Ortho-Toluidine Exposure Limit Is Too High
Before his shift at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Niagara Falls, N.Y., in May 2021, a worker peed in a cup. Before he clocked out, he did it again. (Lerner, 12/15)

AP: Audit: Tennessee Must Curb Eastman Plant's Emissions
ine years after the EPA first found Tennessee’s Eastman Chemical Company was polluting the air with unsafe levels of sulfur dioxide from its coal-burning power plants, the state is still working to bring the company into compliance with national air quality standards. ... The Environmental Protection Agency tightened its standards for sulfur dioxide emissions in 2010, saying the new limits were “necessary to provide protection of public health with an adequate margin of safety, especially for children, the elderly and those with asthma.” (Loller, 12/15)

The Boston Globe: Stray Cat In Dorchester Tests Positive For Rabies
Boston health officials announced that a stray cat found outdoors in Dorchester Monday tested positive for rabies, and they urge anyone who may have encountered the cat to seek medical advice. (Allen, 12/15)

In updates from California —

Los Angeles Times: 'Gimme Shelter': Why It's So Hard For Homeless People To Get Healthcare
Many homeless Californians have significant chronic health problems. But comparatively few receive the healthcare they need. The latest estimate of California’s homeless population tops 173,000, but less than one-third who are enrolled in the state’s healthcare program for low-income residents have ever seen a primary care doctor. (Dillon, 12/15)

CalMatters: Why A Mentally Disabled Northern California Man Was Jailed Nine Years Awaiting A Murder Trial That Never Happened
Arrested at age 27, Mays’ intellectual disability made it hard for him to make sense of terms like “no contest” or “plea bargain” or even the role of a judge and jury. He told one psychologist he thought he was in jail for witnessing a murder. (Wiener, 12/15)

Barron's: MacKenzie Scott’s Unrestricted Gifts Transform The Organizations That Receive Them, Study Finds 
As of last spring, MacKenzie Scott had donated nearly US$13 billion in unrestricted gifts to 277 nonprofit organizations, transforming the ways the grantees function and reshaping philanthropy in the process, a new study shows. Scott’s philanthropic endeavors began in the summer of 2019 with the announcement of large, unrestricted gifts to a wide-range of nonprofit organizations including the arts, women-led groups, from the Girl Scouts to Planned Parenthood and organizations that prioritize equity. (Block, 12/12)

NPR: Two Entrepreneurs Win MIT Prizes For Their Global Health Apps
Tech ideas like this could be key to tackling the planet's massive health disparities, says Alex Amouyel, executive director of MIT Solve, the Massachusetts-based university's initiative to drum up new ways to address international problems. Each year, Solve identifies a set of "Global Challenges" and invites tech entrepreneurs to submit their solutions. Judges then select winners (aka "Solvers") to support with grants of $10,000 each, plus a 9-month mentorship program. (Hallett, 12/12)

Modern Healthcare: 3 Hospital CEOs Reveal Their Regulatory, Policy Wish Lists
An increasing number of health systems are seeking to shift care delivery to home and outpatient care. But regulatory and policy changes are necessary to help enable those changes—and to address ongoing challenges facing the industry, including reimbursement and surprise billing. (Hudson and Kacik, 12/12)

Harvard Public Health: The Best Public Health Books And Journalism Of 2022
A selection of the year’s best public health books and journalism from award-winning writers. And a few of our staff favorites. (Mehta, 12/14)

Stat: 'Make People Better': The CRISPR Babies Story You Probably Don't Know
In May of 2017, Samira Kiani found herself in a San Diego hotel ballroom surrounded by some of the CRISPR field’s brightest shining stars. Jennifer Doudna, George Church, and others were all there at the behest of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to talk about gene drives — a CRISPR-enabled technology that forces a genetic trait through a population at evolutionary warp speed — and what they as scientists could do to build guardrails around them. (Molteni, 12/13)

AP: A Breast Cancer Survivor On Changing Odds For Black Women
Ricki Fairley, a 11-year late-stage breast cancer survivor and advocate, is fighting hard to improve the chances for Black women to overcome breast cancer and to address the racial disparities in treatment. ... Told she only only two years to live, Fairley turned to more aggressive treatments that left her with no evidence of disease. Fairley started to embrace breast cancer advocacy for Black women. But then in 2020, she quit her job and co-founded a nonprofit foundation called Touch, The Black Breast Cancer Alliance to help turn the tide on Black women’s survivorship after seeing a mountain of studies showing how Black women are disproportionately affected by breast cancer. (D'Innocenzio, 12/12)

The New York Times: How To Manage Holiday Stress And Anxiety 
It’s no secret that the holidays are stressful. Last year, the American Psychiatric Association polled over 2,000 adults: 41 percent reported an increase in worrying during the season. This year, 31 percent said they expected to feel even more stressed than they did in 2021. The reasons are plentiful: social obligations, gift-giving woes, family tensions, travel challenges, financial concerns and the list goes on. So we asked experts to provide a few solutions to our holiday stressors. Consider their answers our gift to you. (Seo, Pearson, Smith, Blum, Gupta and Stock, 12/7)

The Washington Post: Baby-Formula Tariffs Are About To Return, Risking Fresh Shortages 
Americans keep having to learn and relearn the same sorry lesson: Protectionism makes our supply chains less resilient, not more. This may again become painfully evident when tariffs on baby formula return in two weeks. (Catherine Rampell, 12/15)

Newsweek: 15 Million Americans Are About To Lose Their Health Care. Congress Must Act 
Disaster is likely to strike, as state Medicaid agencies struggle to reevaluate the eligibility of more than 82 million people. Federal researchers project that Medicaid will terminate 15 million people—seven times the largest previous annual loss of Medicaid coverage. (Derrick Johnson, Marc H. Morial and Sonia M. Perez, 12/15)

San Francisco Chronicle: Medical Deepfake Disinformation Is Coming. We Aren’t Ready
When thinking of malicious deepfakes in medicine, one might imagine a deepfake video portraying Dr. Anthony Fauci spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. But deepfakes misrepresenting prominent leaders is only one possibility. Cyber researchers are already imagining hypothetical scenarios where deepfakes sabotage the very tools doctors and scientists use in the field. (Annie Ostojic, 12/15)

Chicago Tribune: What’s Most Troubling About Long COVID? America Doesn’t Know Enough About It. 
By no means is COVID-19 a bygone worry, but on so many levels, life as we knew it has resumed. This is not the case, however, for the subset of Americans enduring what is known as “long COVID.” (12/15)

The Washington Post: Should Mask Mandates Return? 
After a brief lull, coronavirus cases are again on the rise. At the same time, hospitals are inundated with patients infected with RSV, influenza and other viral infections. New York City health officials have strongly recommended masking, and the Los Angeles area is considering a return to mask mandates. (Leana S. Wen, 12/15)

The Tennessean: How Better Communication Can Drive Better Health Outcomes
The phrase “health literacy” describes a person’s ability to seek, comprehend and effectively use information when making decisions about their health care. Unfortunately, not everyone has this ability. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says nearly 9 out of 10 Americans have limited health literacy. (Sharon Moore-Caldwell, 12/15)

Stat: A Physician Grapples With The Art Of The 'Deceased Note' 
My grandmother died in the hospital, alone, the day after she was “found down” at home by emergency medical services. Two years later, I summoned the strength to review her medical records, including the deceased note. (Trisha S. Pasricha, 12/16)