The New York Times: On Disability And On Facebook? Uncle Sam Wants To Watch What You Post
If you’re on federal disability payments and on social media, be careful what you post. Uncle Sam wants to watch. The Trump administration has been quietly working on a proposal to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to help identify people who claim Social Security disability benefits without actually being disabled. If, for example, a person claimed benefits because of a back injury but was shown playing golf in a photograph posted on Facebook, that could be used as evidence that the injury was not disabling. (Pear, 3/10)

The New York Times: Transgender Troops Caught Between A Welcoming Military And A Hostile Government
Transgender troops like Senior Airman Sterling Crutcher are seen as “an unreasonable burden” by the Trump administration. It says their presence hurts morale and the military’s ability to fight, and that they have no place in uniform. That’s news to Airman Crutcher. He just got back from a deployment with his B-52 bomber squadron, and when he did, fellow airmen in his squadron, whom he counts among his best friends, threw a shower for him and his wife, Aimee, to celebrate their first child, born in February. (Philipps, 3/9)

Kaiser Health News: Military Doctors In Crosshairs Of A Budget Battle
The U.S. military is devising major reductions in its medical corps, unnerving the system’s advocates who fear the cuts will hobble the armed forces’ ability to adequately care for health problems of military personnel at home and abroad. The move inside the military coincides with efforts by the Trump administration to privatize care for veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs last month proposed rules that would allow veterans to use private hospitals and clinics if government primary care facilities are not nearby or if they have to wait too long for an appointment. (Rau, 3/11)

Politico Pro: Trump To Call For $291M In Spending On HIV Initiative
The Trump administration will seek $291 million for its domestic HIV initiative next year, according to two individuals with knowledge of the forthcoming budget request. The administration's fiscal 2020 funding plan to be unveiled Monday follows President Donald Trump's State of the Union pledge to effectively end HIV transmission in the United States within a decade. More than 1 million Americans have HIV, according to the CDC, and about 40,000 are newly infected every year. (Diamond, 3/10)

The Associated Press: Sanders' 'Medicare For All' Expands Long-Term Care Benefits
Sen. Bernie Sanders is raising the stakes of the "Medicare for All" debate by expanding his proposal to include long-term care, a move that is forcing other Democratic presidential candidates to take a stand on addressing one of the biggest gaps in the U.S. health care system. Medicare for All is unlikely to advance in the GOP-controlled Senate, but it's a defining issue in the early days of the Democratic primary and candidates have pointed to their support of Sanders' legislation as proof of their progressive bona fides. (3/8)

CQ: Democrats' Budget May Avoid Internal Health Care Fight
House Democrats appear unlikely to call in this year’s budget resolution for universal health care coverage through a “Medicare-for-all” system, although the Budget Committee chairman acknowledged it could be hard for Democrats to adopt a budget without including some progressive goals. Instead, the budget resolution is likely to call on committees to advance policies that would build upon the 2010 health care law (PL 111-148, PL 111-152) and allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, according to Budget Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky. (McIntire, 3/8)

The New York Times: Bernie Sanders-Style Politics Are Defining 2020 Race, Unnerving Moderates
The sharp left turn in the Democratic Party and the rise of progressive presidential candidates are unnerving moderate Democrats who increasingly fear that the party could fritter away its chances of beating President Trump in 2020 by careening over a liberal cliff. Two months into the presidential campaign, the leading Democratic contenders have largely broken with consensus-driven politics and embraced leftist ideas on health care, taxes, the environment and Middle East policy that would fundamentally alter the economy, elements of foreign policy and ultimately remake American life. (Martin and Ember, 3/9)

The New York Times: U.S. Continues To Separate Migrant Families Despite Rollback Of Policy
Nearly nine months after the Trump administration officially rescinded its policy of separating migrant families who have illegally crossed the border, more than 200 migrant children have been taken from parents and other relatives and placed in institutional care, with some spending months in shelters and foster homes thousands of miles away from their parents. The latest data reported to the federal judge monitoring one of the most controversial of President Trump’s immigration policies shows that 245 children have been removed from their families since the court ordered the government to halt routine separations under last spring’s “zero tolerance” border enforcement policy. (Jordan and Dickerson, 3/9)

Reuters: U.S. Judge May Force Trump Administration To Reunite More Families Separated At Mexico Border
In a blow to the Trump administration's U.S.-Mexico border strategy, a federal court judge in California has expanded the number of migrant families separated at the border that the government may be required to reunite. San Diego-based U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw late on Friday issued a preliminary ruling that would potentially expand by thousands the number of migrants included in a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. (3/9)

Reuters: Mumps, Other Outbreaks Force U.S. Detention Centers To Quarantine Over 2,000 Migrants
Christian Mejia thought he had a shot at getting out of immigration detention in rural Louisiana after he found a lawyer to help him seek asylum. Then he was quarantined. In early January, a mumps outbreak at the privately run Pine Prairie U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center put Mejia and hundreds of other detainees on lockdown. (3/10)

The Hill: Over 2,000 Migrants Quarantined In US Detention Centers Amid Mumps Outbreaks: Report
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill. The reported quarantines within migrant detention facilities comes during a surge in outbreaks in communicable infections such as measles and mumps. A recent spate of measles infected 159 mostly unvaccinated people in 10 states as of late last month, leading some states to reconsider vaccine exemptions. (Samuels, 3/10)

Meanwhile —

Politico Pro: HHS Panned For Plan To Shift $385M To Fund Migrant Children Care
HHS Secretary Alex Azar has told congressional appropriators that he plans to shift $385 million from health programs so the department can continue to house unaccompanied migrant children, a strategy that's been panned by Democrats and public health advocates. (Diamond, 3/8)

Reveal: Bitter Custody
A controversial theory is swaying family court judges to award custody to parents accused of harming kids. We trace the origins of “parental alienation” and learn how it has spawned a cottage industry of so-called family reunification camps that are making big profits from broken families. (Clegg, 3/9)

The New York Times: An Unvaccinated Boy Got Tetanus. His Oregon Hospital Stay: 57 Days And $800,000.
A 6-year-old boy was playing on a farm when he cut his forehead, a laceration that was simple enough to tend to at home. But six days later, his parents realized something was seriously wrong: He was clenching his jaw, having trouble breathing and experiencing involuntary muscle spasms. (Mervosh, 3/9)

The Washington Post: Unvaccinated Child Of Anti-Vaxx Parents Contracted Tetanus In Oregon, CDC Report Says
The child was playing on a farm when he cut his head on something, the report said. His parents cleaned and stitched the wound at home, but alarming symptoms emerged six days later. The boy’s jaw began clenching, and his neck and back were arched — a trademark indication of tetanus called opisthotonus that is caused by involuntary muscle spasms. He was airlifted to a pediatric hospital, where he was diagnosed with tetanus. It was the first instance of the life-threatening neuromuscular disease in a child in Oregon in more than three decades. (Wang, 3/8)

The Associated Press: CDC: Unvaccinated Oregon Boy Almost Dies Of Tetanus
"This is an awful disease, but ... we have had a mechanism to completely prevent it, and the reason that we have virtually no cases anymore in the United States is because we vaccinate, literally, everyone." Doctors in Portland, Oregon, who treated the child declined to provide any further information about the family at a news conference Friday, citing medical privacy laws. It was the first time that Dr. Judith Guzman-Cottrill, the pediatric infectious disease expert who treated the child, had ever seen tetanus because of widespread vaccination against it in the U.S. (3/8)

In other news on vaccinations and outbreaks —

Washington Post: 2019 Is Shaping Up To Be The Worst Year For Measles Since ’90s, CDC Data Show
More than 200 cases of measles were confirmed in the United States in the first two months of the year, with outbreaks occurring in 11 states, according to new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 206 cases in January and February represent the highest year-to-date number going back more than a quarter-century. (Ingraham, 3/8)

Kaiser Health News: Why Measles Hits So Hard Within N.Y. Orthodox Jewish Community
The Rockland County, N.Y., woman hadn’t told her obstetrician that she had a fever and rash, two key signs of a measles infection. A member of the Orthodox Jewish community there, she went into premature labor at 34 weeks, possibly as a result of the infection. Her baby was born with measles and spent his first 10 days in the neonatal intensive care unit. The infant is home now, but “we don’t know how this baby will do,” said Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, the health commissioner for Rockland County. When young children contract measles, they face a heightened risk of complications from the disease, including seizures or hearing and vision problems down the road. (Andrews, 3/11)

Dallas Morning News: Measles Case Confirmed In Collin County Is Second For Dallas-Fort Worth, 11th Statewide | Public Health | Dallas News
A case of measles has been confirmed in Collin County, according to health officials. The case is the first in the county and the second in North Texas this year, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. A case was confirmed in Denton County in February. The health department said Wednesday that Texas had surpassed the total number of measles cases in all of 2018. The Collin County case puts the total statewide at 11 cases — two more than last year. (Cardong, 3/11)

Dallas Morning News: Can Teens Get Vaccinated On Their Own? What Shots Are Required? Questions About Texas Immunization Laws, Answered 
While there's plenty of misinformation around the internet about the effectiveness of vaccinations, Texas law is straightforward about which vaccines are required for a child to enroll in a school or day care and how children can be exempted from vaccine laws. ...In Texas, minors can't consent to immunizations on their own — a parent or guardian must do so, except in some special circumstances. For example, minors who are pregnant or who have a child are allowed to consent to immunizations for themselves or their child under Texas law. (Coello, 3/10)

Seattle Times: How A Straight Shooter Is Trying To Change Washington State’s Vaccine-Exemption Law
Vancouver and Clark County are home to an unprecedented measles outbreak — 70 of the state’s 71 confirmed cases, more than 800 exposed kids held out of school, and an elevated rate of parents whose decisions to not have their children vaccinated have helped spread a disease considered eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. While he often agrees with his fellow Republicans, when it comes to education and public health, [Paul] Harris is viewed as a pragmatic problem-solver willing to go against his party. This session, along with looking to raise immunity to viral diseases in his community, he hopes to keep teens away from smoking by raising the minimum age for tobacco from 18 to 21. (Goldstein-Street, 3/10)

Arizona Republic: First Arizona Measles Case This Year Confirmed In Pima County
Arizona health agencies confirmed Friday that a 1-year-old child in Pima County has been diagnosed with measles, the first confirmed case in the state this year. The Arizona Department of Health Services and the Pima County Public Health Department said in a joint statement the case involves an individual with "Asia-related travel." (Fish, 3/8)

The Washington Post: Oklahoma Judge Refuses To Delay First Trial Of Responsibility For Opioid Crisis
An Oklahoma judge declined Friday to postpone the first major trial of whether drug companies bear responsibility for the opioid crisis, leaving the state and the firms on track to meet in court May 28. Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman refused a request from the defendants — three major drug manufacturers and 10 of their subsidiaries — to put off the jury trial for 100 days. (Bernstein, 3/8)

Bloomberg: Purdue Pharma Says Trial Timing Won't Sway Bankruptcy Call 
Purdue Pharma LLP says its decision on whether to file for bankruptcy to avoid being swamped by opioid lawsuits doesn’t depend on the timing of the first trial over its role in the public-health crisis. A judge in Oklahoma Friday refused Purdue’s, Johnson & Johnson’s and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.’s requests to push back a May trial of Oklahoma officials’ suit seeking to recover as much as $25 billion in current and future costs of dealing with the opioid epidemic. (Ronalds-Hannon, Church and Feeley, 3/8)

In other news on the crisis —

Boston Globe: How Addiction Treatment Falls Short, And What Is Being Done About It
Massachusetts regulations prohibit facilities from rejecting patients because they’re on medication, but reportedly some programs then urge these patients to get off their meds. But the evidence is clear that methadone, buprenorphine, and Vivitrol work. (Freyer, 3/9)

Boston Globe: Road To Recovery: Drugs Took Their Children, But Not Their Hope That Others Might Be Saved
Make no mistake: Many people addicted to opioids survive and recover. But thousands also die, leaving behind loved ones who ponder what went wrong. These parents told their stories in the belief that their cries of “if only” contain wisdom — potential answers, though complex and difficult ones, that might help deescalate the opioid crisis that has claimed some 2,000 lives in Massachusetts in each of the last three years. (Freyer, 3/9)

Cronkite News: Nogales, Other Border Cities See Effects Of Drug Smuggling At Ports Of Entry
From 2015 to 2017, fentanyl-related overdose deaths in the U.S. tripled, to 28,466 from 9,580, according to a National Institute on Drug Abuse analysis of data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Arizona, the number of such deaths rose from 1,274 in 2015 to 1,532 in 2017, according to the CDC. (Hernandez, 3/9)

The New York Times: Cancer Patients Are Getting Robotic Surgery. There’s No Evidence It’s Better.
Robotic surgery was never approved for mastectomy or any other cancer-related treatment, but that has hardly deterred doctors in the operating suite. The equipment is widely used to operate on patients with various malignancies, from breast cancer to prostate cancer. Yet there have long been questions about how well doctors are trained on the machines, and whether the devices are better for patients than traditional methods. (Rabin, 3/11)

The New York Times: Doctor On Video Screen Told A Man He Was Near Death, Leaving Relatives Aghast
Catherine Quintana’s father had been in and out of a hospital for weeks, and the family understood that his time was running out. Her 78-year-old father, Ernest Quintana, had lung disease and was struggling to breathe on his own. On March 3, he was admitted to a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Fremont, Calif., for the third time in 15 days, Ms. Quintana said. He had his wife of nearly six decades and other members of his family at his side. (Jacobs, 3/9)

The New York Times: How Artificial Intelligence Could Transform Medicine
Last month, President Trump signed an executive order making the development and regulation of artificial intelligence a federal priority. But one area where artificial intelligence is already taking hold is health care. Doctors are already using A.I. to spot potentially lethal lesions on mammograms. Scientists are also developing A.I. systems that can diagnose common childhood conditions, predict whether a person will develop Alzheimer’s disease and monitor people with conditions like multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. (O'Connor, 3/11)

Chicago Tribune: Hospitals Have 'Holy Grail Of Personal Data,' Yet Their Spending Lags On Digital Security 
When most people go to the hospital, data security is the last thing on their minds. They’re in pain, anxious and unsure. They want to be treated and return to their lives. Yet sometimes patients still have cause to worry months after they leave the hospital. They’re discovering that data they gave to health systems — Social Security numbers, birth dates, health insurance information, medical information and credit card numbers — have been compromised in breaches. (Schencker, 3/8)

Modern Healthcare: Columbia Surgical Specialists Pay $14K In Ransomware Attack
Physician owners at Columbia Surgical Specialists paid hackers more than $14,000 to regain access to patient data in January, according to a notice the medical practice posted Thursday. Spokane, Wash.-based Columbia Surgical Specialists said it learned of the ransomware attack Jan. 9, a few hours before several patients were scheduled for surgery. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts a victim's computer files, which hackers offer to decrypt in exchange for a ransom payment. (Cohen, 3/8)

The Washington Post: Springing Forward To Daylight Saving Time Is Obsolete, Confusing And Unhealthy, Critics Say
This weekend, Americans will once again navigate their complex relationship with the chronically confusing and arguably misnamed daylight saving time. In most of the United States, the clocks spring forward early Sunday when 2 a.m. suddenly becomes 3 a.m. People are advised to avoid scheduling anything important for 2:30 a.m. Sunday, since, by law, such a moment does not exist. But the law may change. The national policy of switching from standard time to daylight saving time and back again is under legislative challenge from coast to coast. (Achenbach, 3/8)

The New York Times: Daylight Saving Is Here. Suppose We Made This Time Change Our Last?
A day is a day, with so many hours of darkness and so many of light. It’s a hard reality that no powerful king or brilliant philosopher has ever found a way around. And yet, every year, bless our hearts, we try. Compelled by the augustly named federal Uniform Time Act of 1966, most Americans will leap ahead — or stumble blearily — from one configuration of the clock to another this weekend, as daylight saving time clicks in at 2 a.m. Sunday. (Johnson, 3/9)

The Associated Press: Washington House OKs Step Toward Year-Round Daylight Saving
As daylight saving time is set to take effect in most of the U.S. this weekend, the Washington House passed a measure Saturday that would make those later sunsets permanent in the state all year — if Congress allows it. The measure passed the chamber on an 89-7 vote and now heads to the Senate, which has its own bill on the topic. The vote comes as more than two dozen states are considering measures to avoid the twice-yearly clock change. (3/9)

The Wall Street Journal: I Gave My Kidney To A Stranger To Save My Brother’s Life
In August, I became part of an exercise in market economics to save my older brother’s life. We participated in an innovative program that creates exchanges of goods with immeasurable value—healthy kidneys—among strangers who never would have connected otherwise. A little over a year earlier, my brother had rushed to the intensive-care unit of the Alfred Hospital while on a work trip in Melbourne, Australia, after experiencing extreme difficulty breathing. (Patel, 3/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Rural Sheriffs Defy New Gun Measures
In swaths of rural America, county sheriffs, prosecutors and other local officials are mounting resistance to gun-control measures moving through legislatures in Democratic-led states. The “Second Amendment sanctuary” movement has taken hold in more than 100 counties in several states, including New Mexico and Illinois, where local law-enforcement and county leaders are saying they won’t enforce new legislation that infringes on the constitutional right to bear arms. (Gershman and Frosch, 3/10)

The New York Times: Doctors Welcome New Depression Drug, Cautiously
Doctors welcomed federal approval this week of a new, fast-acting nasal spray for depression. But also they expressed concerns about its cost and long-term effects, as well as the logistics of administering it in accordance with safety requirements. The new drug, esketamine, made by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, won approval from the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday for people who have received little or no relief from other antidepressants. (Carey, 3/8)

Stat: 23andMe Will Tell You How Your DNA Affects Your Diabetes Risk
As more people get genetic testing to assess their risk of getting cancers and other serious conditions, diabetes has been almost entirely left out — largely because of the difficulty of developing a useful test. But at the South by Southwest festival on Sunday, the consumer genomics giant 23andMe announced that it will now tell its customers how their DNA affects their chances of developing type 2 diabetes, a condition better known for its link to environmental factors than genetics. (Robbins, 3/10)

The New York Times: Bit By Bit, Scientists Gain Ground On AIDS
The unnamed “London patient” — the second person apparently cured of H.I.V. — earned all the headlines. But other research released this week at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections showed that scientists are making slow but steady progress on the tactics and medicines needed to fight the epidemic, especially in Africa. Monthly injections of long-acting H.I.V. drugs proved as good as daily pills at suppressing the virus, according to two trials involving more than 1,000 patients. In another study, Descovy, a new formulation of the H.I.V. treatment Truvada, proved just as effective at suppressing the virus, and may have fewer — or at least different — side effects. (McNeil, 3/8)

The Associated Press: Flu May Have Peaked, But Experts Eye Jump In Nastier Strain
There's a strong chance this flu season has peaked, but health officials are watching a recent wave of illnesses from a nastier flu strain. Flu was reported to be widespread in 48 states last week, down from 49 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday in its latest report on this winter's flu season. The federal agency's flu forecasters think there's a 90 percent chance the flu season has peaked. (3/8)

The Washington Post: The Man Who Developed Timeouts For Kids Stands By His Now Hotly-Debated Idea
After his daughter was born, Arthur Staats naturally began thinking about his role as a parent. How would he encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior as Jennifer grew up? He didn’t like spanking. So what was a psychology professor and behaviorist in 1960 to do? Invent timeout. Or so the family story goes. (Vander Schaaff, 3/9)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: ‘I Suffered In Silence For 12 Years’: Rape Survivor Helps Black Women Talk About Sexual Violence
Nearly two decades later, [LaQuisha] Anthony has become that hope for others. Through her nonprofit called V.O.I.C.E. (Victory Over Inconceivable Cowardly Experiences), Anthony works to elevate the stories of black women and girls, who are more likely to face sexual violence, research shows, yet less likely to speak out or be believed when they do. (Pattani, 3/11)

The New York Times: Congratulations, It’s Twins. The Doctor Is Perplexed.
It only required a glance at the ultrasound for the doctor to know that he was looking at identical twins. The positioning of two amniotic sacs attached to one placenta was the giveaway. It would be a couple of months before he could tell the mother whether to expect two boys or two girls. What seemed certain was that her babies would share a gender. And yet at 14 weeks when Dr. Nicholas M. Fisk, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital at the time, inspected the ultrasound, he saw something perplexing. (Murphy, 3/8)

The New York Times: No One Is Taking Your Hamburgers. But Would It Even Be A Good Idea?
The hamburger is suddenly embroiled in a political dispute. Supporters of the Green New Deal, according to a Republican talking point, are anti-patty. “They want to take away your hamburgers,” Sebastian Gorka, a former adviser to President Trump, said last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Other Republicans, including Mr. Trump, have made similar claims. But the Green New Deal, a broad climate policy proposal, makes no mention of hamburgers, cows or beef. (Pierre-Louis, 3/8)

The New York Times: We Broke The Same Bone. My Recovery Was A Breeze, Hers An Ordeal. Why?
A recent essay in The New England Journal of Medicine was titled “Heart and Sole — Of Metatarsals, Meaning and Medicine.” I had to read it. It’s not often you come across a reflection on metatarsal fractures, though they are common. I had just recovered from breaking my fifth metatarsal, the slender bone on the outside edge of the foot, so I was curious. (Kolata, 3/8)

NPR: Pregnant And Considering Home Birth? What You Should Know
As my belly grows, I'm more and more stressed by a decision that's weighed on me for the last eight months. Where should I deliver my baby? Last summer, when I found out I was pregnant with my first baby, I initially envisioned, like most American women, a hospital delivery. In fact, that's where roughly 99 percent of U.S. children are born. That's not a surprise: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or ACOG, recommends hospitals or accredited birth centers as the safest option for having a baby. (McClurg, 3/11)

Boston Globe: Who Are You Calling Senior? For Older Folks, Some Terms Are Fast Becoming Radioactive
Words once commonly used to describe older folks and their lives — “elderly,” “geriatric,” “in their golden years” — are now scorned by some as patronizing. Even durable terms like “aging” and “seniors,” still in widespread use and part of the names of countless organizations, are fast becoming radioactive. (Weisman, 3/7)

KCUR: Lost Sleep, Violent Outbursts: Children Cope With Gun Violence Trauma
More than 3,500 children and teenagers in the United States were injured or killed in firearm incidents last year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. These sort of incidents have fallout far beyond the immediate damage of the bullet, including the lingering trauma of friends and classmates dealing with the violent death of a peer. ...Since the shooting, several children at the center have reported having trouble sleeping. [Marilyn] Wiggins, the program volunteer, said one of her grandsons has started questioning the concept of his mortality. (Wise, 3/9)

The Washington Post: Look Right Here, Folks! Psychologist Points Out What Catches Your Eye, Fires Up Your Brain
What caught your attention about this article? Maybe it was the headline or its placement on a page or computer screen. But as you read these words, plenty of other things are vying for your visual attention. Color, movement, pattern expectations all beckon you. So what dictates what grabs you? “How Attention Works,” written by Stefan Van der Stigchel and translated from the Dutch by Danny Guinan, answers that question. A cognitive psychologist, Van der Stigchel is interested in how human brains process visual information. His book is slender but packed with information about how the brain navigates a complex visual world. (Blakemore, 3/10)

Nashville Tennessean: Caring For Therapists' Mental Health: Avoiding Burnout For Those Who Heal
Without boundaries and self-care, the healing profession of therapy can cause its counselors harm. Researchers focused on practitioner attrition found that as many as two out of every three mental health workers "may be experiencing high levels of burnout." The most prevalent cause, according to a 2018 review in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, is emotional exhaustion — feeling physically and psychologically drained while at work. (Bliss, 3/10)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Advocates Rev Up Pressure As 'Heartbeat Bill' Advances In Georgia
Anti-abortion and abortion rights advocates have trained their sights on the Georgia Senate as lawmakers begin to debate what would be one of the country’s strictest abortion laws — a so-called “heartbeat bill.” The House voted 93-73 late Thursday to approve legislation that would outlaw most abortions once a doctor can detect a heartbeat in the womb. (Prabhu, 3/8)

MTN News: Gov. Bullock Issues First Outright Veto Of 2019 Legislature
[Montana] Governor Steve Bullock on Friday issued his first outright veto of the 2019 Legislature – shooting down a Republican-sponsored bill on health insurance. The governor vetoed Senate Bill 54, which is sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Fred Thomas (R-Stevensville). The bill would align state law with new, less-stringent federal regulations on health-insurance arrangements among a group of related businesses, for their employers. Bullock said the new federal rules make it easier for sellers of these plans to offer sub-standard coverage – and that the state should not be relaxing its oversight. (Dennison, 3/10)

Politico Pro: Vermont Aims To Rescue Obamacare Coverage Mandate
Vermont was one of just a few states to pass its own individual mandate last year after Congress wiped out Obamacare's. But now comes the politically challenging part for state lawmakers — setting the financial penalty for skipping health coverage. (Goldberg, 3/8)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Gov. DeWine Wants To Double State Funding For ‘Home Visiting,’ Announces Pay-For-Success Model To Increase Participation
Governor Mike DeWine today announced he will ask for a doubling of state funding for “home visiting” programs and has set a goal to triple the number of families receiving in-home visits and care during and after pregnancy. The move follows the release of a report and recommendations on home visiting by a committee of experts in the field appointed by DeWine in his first days in office. (Zeltner, 3/8)

Health News Florida: Senate Signs Off On Smokable Marijuana
Under the proposal, patients could buy up to 2.5 ounces of medical pot during a 35-day period and would be able to possess up to 4 ounces of cannabis at any given time. Smoking of medical cannabis --- which would have to be purchased from state-authorized operators --- would be banned in public places. And patients under age 18 would be allowed to smoke the treatment only if they are terminally ill and have a second opinion from a board-certified pediatrician. (Kam, 3/8)

The Associated Press: Arizona Now Oversees Center Where Incapacitated Woman Raped
A Phoenix long-term care facility where an incapacitated woman was raped last year and gave birth in December without any healthcare workers noticing her pregnancy was placed Friday under state supervision, subjecting the center to strict oversight requirements. The Arizona Department of Health Services and Hacienda HealthCare entered into a voluntary agreement allowing state regulators to watch over the facility, which houses patients who are intellectually disabled or are medically fragile. (3/8)

Arizona Republic: State Health Officials Strike Regulatory Deal With Hacienda HealthCare
The agreement calls for, among other things, the installation of a video-monitoring system and to get a video-monitoring plan approved by the health department as additional security. In addition, Hacienda HealthCare must provide daily reports to state officials about any staffing departures to ensure there are no adverse impacts to patient care, the agreement says. (Innes, 3/8)

Los Angeles Times: Firefighter Suicides Reflect Toll Of Longer Fire Seasons And Increased Stress
Capt. Ryan Mitchell had just finished three punishing weeks of firefighting. He had deployed to fires far from home, then returned only to dash out to another one. Mitchell’s parents and 16-month-old son came to visit him at the station. “He didn’t look good. He was tired, he was thin, his eyes were shallow. He wasn’t his usual self,” Mitchell’s father, Will, recalled. (Agrawal, 3/1)

Modern Healthcare: CommonSpirit Health Projects $500 Million In Cost Savings
The leadership team behind CommonSpirit Health expects the merger that created the new system will generate at least $500 million in cost savings over the next three years, executives said on their first combined investor call Friday. Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health officially sealed the deal on Feb. 1, and executives with the new Chicago-based system said Friday the resulting synergies would start to pay off within 6 months to one year of closing, with the full extent of the savings realized within five years. (Bannow, 3/8)

Boston Globe: Most Doctors Don’t Screen For Dementia, But That May Change In Massachusetts
Nine out of 10 older people get their blood pressure checked when they visit their primary care doctors, and 73 percent are screened for hearing or vision loss. But what about problems with memory or thinking? Only 16 percent are asked about that. (Freyer, 3/10)

Seattle Times: Seattle Children’s And Microsoft Find New Insights Into How Smoking During Pregnancy Harms A Baby 
It’s no surprise that smoking during pregnancy is unhealthy for the fetus — just as it’s unhealthy for the person smoking. But the powerful combination of medical research and data science has given new insights into the risks involved, specifically when it comes to babies suddenly dying in their sleep. The risk of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) increases with every cigarette smoked during pregnancy, according to a joint study by Seattle Children’s Research Institute and Microsoft data scientists. (Blethen, 3/11)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: LCMC Health, LSU Respond To Report On Maternal Deaths, Injuries At Touro Infirmary 
Officials with LCMC Health System and the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans responded to a scathing exposé published in USA Today Thursday (March 7) that spotlighted Touro Infirmary as having what the newspaper described as unusually high rates of severe childbirth complications -- higher than any other New Orleans hospital. LSU Health Sciences, which operates its OBGYN residency program out of Touro, said Friday that “the USA Today story made allegations that are not only unsupported by fact, but we made it clear that the allegations were untrue from the outset.” (Clark, 3/9)

Pioneer Press: Medical Marijuana Works But Costs MN Patients Too Much
Patients in Minnesota’s medical cannabis program and even those who designed it point to [price] as its main flaw. It is too expensive for those who need it. It is a money loser for those who grow and sell it. And it is leaving people in pain with few options: pay up, enter a risky illegal market or take addictive opioids that are covered by insurance. Last year alone, more than 3,400 new patients dropped out of the program, according to state data. (Faircloth, 3/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: After Daughter’s Suicide, Grieving Parents Denounce Gaps In Access To Mental Health Care
A poll released in January by the California Health Care Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more than half of those surveyed thought their communities lacked adequate mental health care providers, and that most people with mental health conditions are unable to get needed services. The state Department of Managed Health Care has cited health plans dozens of times in the past decade — penalizing them millions of dollars — for mental health-related violations. (Wiener, 3/10)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Flu Activity Easing In Georgia, But Still High And Widespread
The 2018-19 flu season is shaping up to be a relatively mild one, and it may be thanks, at least in part, to a better match with the flu vaccine. Midseason estimates suggest that the flu shot has reduced the risk of illness by around 47 percent in vaccinated people, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Oliviero, 3/8)

Austin American-Statesman: Report: Texas Foster Kids Left In State Psychiatric Hospitals For Weeks Or Months
Nearly 600 foster kids in fiscal 2017 spent a total of almost 14,000 days in psychiatric hospitals after doctors said they were ready to leave, according to a new report by Disability Rights Texas, an advocacy group for people with disabilities. The consequences can be serious. While psychiatric hospitals provide medication and treatment, they also can be dangerous places where kids are assaulted by other patients or, sometimes, staffers. (Bell, 3/8)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: UGA Study Finds Link Between Menstruation And High Blood Pressure
Researchers found that girls who began menstruation early faced a significant increase in the likelihood of having hypertension as an adult. The link remained even when controlling for independent social economic factors, lifestyle behaviors, and other metabolic measures. (Clanton, 3/8)

KCUR: Three Kansas City Area Hospitals Get Dinged By Medicare For High Complication Rates 
Three Kansas City-area hospitals are among 17 in Missouri and seven in Kansas that are being penalized by Medicare this year for high infection and patient-injury rates. Truman Medical Centers, Research Medical Center and Belton Medical Center will see their Medicare payments reduced by 1 percent because of high rates of complications. It’s the fifth year in a row Truman has been penalized. (Margolies, 3/8)

Boston Globe: Mass. Authorities Face Steep Hurdles In Shutting Down Sex Trafficking
Police and prosecutors have made concerted efforts to curb sex trafficking since a state law took effect in 2012. ...ut the Internet has at least one other website directing customers to spas that offer sexual services all over Massachusetts, complete with customers’ Yelp-like reviews. And prosecutors say that many seeming mom-and-pop storefronts are part of larger networks that can quickly move around women and money. (Ebbert, 3/9)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Pilot Program For Doulas To Improve Infant Mortality Passes Committee
A new program aimed at helping expectant mothers deliver and nurture healthy babies in one of Milwaukee's most distressed neighborhoods will go before the Common Council this month. Under the proposal passed by the council's Public Safety and Health Committee last week, the Milwaukee Health Department would compensate 100 doulas to help expectant mothers in the 53206 ZIP code. (Shelbourne, 3/10)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Here’s How The Orleans School Board Plans To Help Traumatized Students
Work is underway within the Orleans Parish School Board to improve the behavioral health supports for public school students citywide. The OPSB is partnering with organizations such as the New Orleans Health Department and Children’s Hospital to implement pilot programs to support schools. The programs, district sources say, would begin in the 2019-2020 school year beginning in August. (Nobles, 3/8)

Boston Globe: Cannabis Is America’s Fastest-Growing Job Sector — But Can Feel Like A ‘Boys’ Club’
According to a new report from the cannabis website Leafly, America’s legal pot industry now boasts 211,000 workers, more than in teeth-cleaning, brewing, textile manufacturing -- even the president’s beloved coal mining sector. Here in Massachusetts, there are more than 3,000 weed workers, a number that will likely double this year. (Martin, 3/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: Aging Onto The Street: Nearly Half Of Older Homeless People Fell Into Trouble After 50
While a full half of the nation’s people living without homes are older than 50, it’s the growing number of those who fall into homelessness after that age that most concerns Margot Kushel, the UCSF professor who heads the study. The problem is especially acute in the Bay Area, where housing costs, including rents, have risen dramatically over the past decade. (Fagan, 3/8)

The Hill: Congress Should Condemn Trump's Shoddy Drug Strategy
House Democrats held a hearing this week to examine the Trump administration’s response to the overdose crisis and Trump’s new drug czar, Jim Carroll, was the administration’s witness. The Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing spotlighted the White House’s glaring failure to respond effectively to this crisis. President Trump has made many promises to end the overdose crisis, but two years in, his administration has failed to deliver. (Grant Smith, 3/8)

The Washington Post: New Rule Affecting Title X Would Hurt Millions Of Women
Having long ago made clear its intent to go after Planned Parenthood, the Trump administration has decided to proceed with a new rule that makes sweeping changes to the federal family planning program. The decision doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but that doesn’t make any more acceptable the harm that will be done if this misguided rule takes effect. Those who will be hurt are millions of women, many of them low-income, who will lose access to effective contraception and other reproductive health services that are critical to their well-being. (3/10)

The Wall Street Journal: America’s Extremist Abortion Industry
"Safe, legal and rare.” The phrase, which President Clinton coined during his 1996 re-election campaign, was meant to make abortion sound reasonable and even compassionate. It implied that abortion is inherently regrettable, and that legality and safety go hand in hand. A generation later, the party of “safe, legal and rare” has been captured by the loud voices and deep pockets of an extremist abortion industry that treats abortion as a moral good. Major Democratic politicians are even unwilling to protect the lives of babies who survive attempted abortions. (Meghan McCain and Ben Sasse, 3/10)

The New York Times: Vaping Is Big Tobacco’s Bait And Switch
I was 15 when I started smoking, and so were most of my friends. We smoked to rebel against our parents but also to identify with them — of course they smoked, even as they told us not to. We smoked because it was feminine and sexy, and also masculine and tough. Because celebrities did it, and they looked cool. Because the prissy kids didn’t do it, and we weren’t them. Because cigarettes were both forbidden and easy to get: ten quarters in a cigarette vending machine, which you could still find in most pizza joints and doughnut shops in suburban New Jersey in the early 1990s. (Jeneen Interlandi, 3/8)

The Wall Street Journal: There’s A Crisis At The Border, But A Wall Won’t Help
Is there a crisis on America’s southern border? Statistics out last week would seem to suggest so. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more than 66,000 aliens were apprehended as they tried to sneak across the border last month, the highest February total since 2008 and the highest total in any month since 2009. Add in those deemed inadmissible at ports of entry, the total is more than 76,000. The problem isn’t gaps in physical barriers, but in legal ones. Loopholes in U.S. immigration law, combined with a weak asylum process, are creating incentives for adults to use children as pawns to get into the U.S. (David Inserra, 3/10)

NPR: Oklahoma Opioid Summit Looks For Ideas To Stop Fatal Overdoses
Oklahoma has been making progress in fighting the opioid epidemic. But there's still a lot of work to be done. While the death rate from prescription opioids is on the decline here, the number of opioid prescriptions written in the state continues to vastly outpace the national average. Also, deaths from heroin overdoses have been climbing — up by more than 50 percent between 2015 and 2016 — and that could be a byproduct of stricter state regulations that aim to curb opioid prescribing. (John Henning Schumann, 3/8)

The New York Times: The Real Horror Of The Anti-Vaxxers
How many studies do you have to throw at the vaccine hysterics before they quit? How much of a scientific consensus, how many unimpeachable experts and how exquisitely rational an argument must you present? That’s a trick question, of course. There’s no magic number. There’s no number, period. And that’s because the anti-vaccine crowd (or anti-vaxxers) aren’t trafficking in anything as concrete, mundane and quaint as facts. They’re not really engaged in a debate about medicine. They’re immersed in a world of conspiracies, in the dark shadows where no data can be trusted, nothing is what it seems and those who buy the party line are pitiable sheep. (Frank Bruni, 3/9)

The New York Times: Colon Cancer Screening Can Save Your Life
Although I usually refrain from writing columns linked to national health observances, I believe that Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, in March, is too important to ignore. There are simply too many people who are still getting and dying from this preventable disease because they failed to get screened for it, including people with no excuse like ignorance, lack of health insurance or poor access to medical services. (Jane E. Brody, 3/11)

Stat: GoFundMe Should Stop Promoting Unproven Treatments, Research
Medical crowdfunding, a large and rapidly growing practice dominated by the website GoFundMe, can be a lifesaver for people who find themselves unable to access cancer treatments, surgery, or other essential medical services due to gaps in insurance coverage or the failure of public institutions to meet their needs. But it is also helping raise funds for scientifically unproven and potentially dangerous medical treatments that are often packaged as legitimate clinical research and trials. Instead of trying to put a stop to these shady practices, GoFundMe is actually promoting them. (Jeremy Snyder, 3/11)

Boston Globe: $50 Could Have Saved Him, But His GoFundMe Pitch Didn’t Get The Clicks
There are about 250,000 such requests for funds on the site in any given year, GoFundMe reports. Since GoFundMe started in 2010, one-third of the roughly $5 billion in donations made through the popular fundraising site has been used to cover people’s medical bills and health care related expenses. (Luke O'Neil, 3/7)

The Hill: Nasal Spray For Depression Is Promising, But Precautions Should Be Taken
On Tuesday March 5, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a nasal spray called esketamine, a molecular variation of ketamine, which can alleviate symptoms of treatment-resistant depression in just a few hours. While ketamine has attracted criticism and controversy over the years, there are numerous reasons to celebrate this development, even if it’s with some caution. (Joan Cook, 3/9)

The New York Times: This Is Not A Cure For My H.I.V.
H.I.V. is not going away anytime soon. I’ve been living with it for more than 20 years and have seen the overhyped stories promising a cure around the corner pop up regularly, particularly around the time of big AIDS conferences. The news last week that a second person seems to have gone into long-term remission from H.I.V. after a stem cell transplant is a real scientific advance. But I fear the sensationalism with which this report was received could do more harm than good. It obscures the actual struggles we face in combating this epidemic. (Gregg Gonsalves, 3/9)

The New York Times: A Diabetes Home Test Can Be A Waste And Time Of Money
More than 30 million people in the United States have diabetes. The vast majority of them have Type 2 diabetes. Some of those are testing their blood sugar at home, but the best research is telling us that they don’t need to — that in fact it’s a waste of money. It’s not a small problem. The waste is running into the billions of dollars, and it’s costing all of us money through the health care system. (Aaron E. Carroll, 3/11)

Los Angeles Times: Time’s Running Out On Daylight Saving Shift
The biannual shifting of the clocks took place Sunday morning, and you may be a little discombobulated. The transition to daylight saving time each March means losing the extra hour of night we enjoyed when the clocks shifted back four months earlier, and it can take a while for sleep schedules to adjust. If the twice-a-year clock-resetting leaves you grumpy, you’re not alone; there’s a growing global movement to end this pointless and, frankly, weird 20th century tradition that has persisted despite having no real practical benefit. (3/10)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Lead Poisoning Isn’t Just A Problem For The Young
Medical studies have demonstrated that lead exposure as an adult has a negative impact on a range of health issues involving the heart, kidneys and brain. One such study found a link between elevated blood lead levels in adults and premature death from cardiovascular disease. In fact, researchers found that adults ages 44 and older with high lead levels had a 70 percent greater risk of death from cardiovascular disease. The study estimates that more than 250,000 adults die prematurely each year from cardiovascular disease as a result of a lifetime of lead exposure. (Emily Muttillo, 3/10)