The Washington Post: California Professor Christine Blasey Ford, Writer Of Confidential Brett Kavanaugh Letter, Speaks Out About Sexual Assault Allegation
Earlier this summer, Christine Blasey Ford wrote a confidential letter to a senior Democratic lawmaker alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her more than three decades ago, when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. Since Wednesday, she has watched as that bare-bones version of her story became public without her name or her consent, drawing a blanket denial from Kavanaugh and roiling a nomination that just days ago seemed all but certain to succeed. Now, Ford has decided that if her story is going to be told, she wants to be the one to tell it. (Brown, 9/16)

Los Angeles Times: Kavanaugh Nomination Faces Delay After Sex Assault Accuser Comes Forward
Kavanaugh, 53, issued a brief statement last week when the allegations came to light, without the accuser’s name attached. “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time,” he said. At about the same time, the White House released a testimonial letter from 65 women who knew Kavanaugh as a teenager saying that in their experience, he had always treated women with respect. (King, 9/16)

The New York Times: Brett Kavanaugh’s Confirmation In Turmoil As Accuser Comes Forward
Ms. Ford’s decision to put her name behind accusations that began to circulate late last week — a choice made after weeks of reluctance — appeared to open a door to a delay in a Senate committee vote on the nomination scheduled for Thursday. The disclosure also injected a volatile #MeToo element into the confirmation debate, one that is playing out in the overwhelmingly male Republican-led Senate during a midterm election that has energized Democratic women. (Stolberg, 9/16)

The Washington Post: GOP Senator: Hold Off On Kavanaugh Vote Until Accuser Is Heard
The White House on Sunday stood by Brett M. Kavanaugh after a woman publicly accused him of sexual assault decades ago, an allegation that triggered the most concrete signs yet of Republican resistance to President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. With the nomination suddenly in doubt, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) was working to arrange follow-up calls with Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who said he assaulted her when the two were in high school. (Sullivan, Kim and Sonmez, 9/16)

Politico: 'I Do Not Know This Woman': Trump Allies Rally To Kavanaugh's Defense
More than half a dozen current and former White House officials or people close to the president said that Trump will continue to stand behind Kavanaugh, even as they were increasingly resigned to the likelihood that the Senate Judiciary Committee will be compelled to examine the allegations in detail. “Of course we’re not going to pull the nomination,” said one White House official involved in the confirmation process after retiring Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a member of the Judiciary Committee, told POLITICO that he wasn’t comfortable moving ahead on the original timetable. (Gerstein, Restuccia and Lippman, 9/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Brett Kavanaugh Accuser Comes Forward About Alleged Sexual Assault
Sen. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.), who sits on the committee, said he wouldn’t vote for Judge Kavanaugh to advance to the full Senate until the committee had heard from Mrs. Ford. “I would not vote yes until we hear more from the woman who’s come forward,” Mr. Flake said in an interview. With Republicans holding just a one-vote majority on the committee, a defection by Mr. Flake would prevent the panel from favorably advancing Judge Kavanaugh to the full Senate, where the GOP has a 51-49 majority. Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) told Politico he also supported delaying the vote to hear from Mrs. Ford, while Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) told CNN she was discussing the matter with colleagues. (Peterson and Gurman, 9/16)

Politico: Flake Opposes Quick Vote On Kavanaugh, Putting Confirmation In Doubt
Later Sunday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a moderate who had yet to say how she will vote, echoed the notion that the vote might need to be delayed. “If there is real substance to this, it demands a response,” she told CNN. (Everett, 9/16)

Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Groups Sue To Block Trump's Expansion Of Short-Term Plans
Seven healthcare industry and advocacy groups sued the Trump administration Friday to block a new rule expanding the availability of short-term health plans that don't comply with Affordable Care Act consumer protection rules for the individual market. The Association for Community Affiliated Plans, the American Psychiatric Association and several other groups alleged that the rule flies in the face of the intent of the ACA to make low-cost comprehensive insurance available to Americans and it cannot move forward. (Meyer, 9/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Lawsuit Seeks To Block Trump Health-Insurance Effort
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, takes aim at one of the central planks of the administration’s plan to roll back the Obama-era health law, after Congress failed to repeal it last year. It sets the stage for a legal standoff that could affect coverage and premiums for millions of Americans in 2019. The Trump administration rule finalized in August loosens restrictions on a type of coverage known as short-term medical insurance—low-cost plans that cover a limited period with less-expansive benefit offerings, which are subject to fewer consumer protection regulations. The plans don’t have to cover people with pre-existing conditions, and insurers can charge higher premiums based on a consumer’s health status. (Armour, 9/14)

In other health law news —

The Baltimore Sun: Marylanders In Obamacare Individual Market Poised To See Rate Drop Thanks To Reinsurance 
Thousands of Marylanders covered by Obamacare plans purchased on the individual market are likely to see hefty decreases in their 2019 premiums, thanks to legislation the General Assembly adopted this year with bipartisan support. The two providers active on the insurance exchange for individual plans in the state, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield and Kaiser Permanente, have told the Maryland Insurance Administration they want to reverse their earlier requests for rate increases averaging about 30 percent. (Dresser, 9/14)

Los Angeles Times: How The Centers For Disease Control And Prevention Responds To A Hurricane Like Florence
For all the political chatter about the human toll of hurricanes, one lesson of past monster storms is clear and increasingly urgent: Hurricanes claim lives and erode health before, during and after the water, wind and rain hit. To reduce the short-term and long-term health consequences of these ever more frequent storms, emergency planners need to anticipate how the threats unfold — and get ahead of them. They may even use such disasters as opportunities to boost communities’ health after a storm has passed. (Healy, 9/14)

The Associated Press: Florence Death Toll At 17, Including 3-Month-Old
The death toll attributed to Florence stands at 17, including 11 in North Carolina and six in South Carolina. (9/17)

Meanwhile, a look at the difference between the congressional response to Hurricanes Maria and Katrina —

Politico: Trump Gets Pass From Congress On Puerto Rico Deaths
After Hurricane Katrina crashed into the Gulf Coast in 2005, Congress sprang into action. Seventeen days after the storm made landfall, the Republican-led House created a bipartisan select committee to investigate the Bush administration’s response to the storm. In the Senate, the committee with oversight over the Federal Emergency Management Agency held 22 hearings in six months. Within eight months, both committees had released 500-plus-page investigations into the Bush administration’s handling of the crisis with dozens of recommendations for reform. (Vinik, 9/16)

The New York Times: No. 1 Aim Of Democratic Campaign Ads: Protect Pre-Existing Conditions
In years past, Obamacare was the stuff of Republican attack ads. No more.This cycle, even Democrats running in red states are unapologetically putting health care at the center of their campaign messages. There’s a reason: Republican efforts to overhaul the health care system last year were deeply unpopular. (Sanger-Katz, 9/17)

The New York Times: Taking Page From 2016, Trump Claims Democrats Will Destroy Safety Net
President Trump had a blunt message for Montana voters last week, an unapologetic reprise of the promise to protect Medicare and Social Security that he used during the 2016 presidential campaign to successfully appeal to older, blue-collar voters. “They’re going to hurt your Social Security so badly, and they’re killing you on Medicare. Just remember that. I’m going to protect your Social Security,” Mr. Trump said at a campaign rally in Billings on behalf of Matt Rosendale, a Republican Senate candidate. (Shear, 9/14)

The CT Mirror: Dems Try To Link Stefanowski To Trump's Health Care Policy
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy tag-teamed with Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ned Lamont on Friday to paint the candidate’s Republican rival, Bob Stefanowski, as a Trump acolyte when it comes to health care policy. Specifically, Murphy and Lamont accused Stefanowski of likely joining President Donald Trump in pushing for cheap, short-term health insurance plans and dismantling protections for people with pre-existing conditions. (Silber, 9/14)

The Washington Post: America’s Anger Paradox: Voters Want The Anger To Stop But Can’t Stop Being Angry
Elissa Slotkin assumed that her campaign for Congress would be built around pocketbook issues such as the rising cost of health care, stagnant wages and unaffordable college tuition. Her first big indication that it would be something entirely different came at a house party last October in Ortonville, a small Republican-heavy town about 50 miles northwest of Detroit. The audience was made up entirely of moms. The presidential election and its aftermath were still raw. (Jaffe, 9/16)

And, Republicans target the disability insurance program —

CQ Magazine: Yearning To Cut Entitlements, Republicans Target Disability Insurance
Stymied in their desire to curb big-ticket health care entitlements, or touch the “third rail” of American politics itself — Social Security benefits for retirees — Republicans are increasingly targeting Social Security’s smaller disability insurance program, even as the improved economy has resulted in declining benefit rolls and healthier finances. Disability insurance predominantly benefits states with conservative-leaning constituents, and Republicans aren’t advertising their efforts much with the midterms approaching. But if they are somehow able to hang onto both chambers in November, look for the GOP to redouble efforts in the 116th Congress. (Krawzak, 9/17)

CNBC: HHS Supports FDA's Proposed E-Cigarette Crackdown, HHS Chief Azar Says
Regulators aren't going to allow what they're calling an epidemic of e-cigarette use among teens become a "pathway to nicotine dependency," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told CNBC on Friday. The e-cigarette craze has driven what's arguably the largest uptick in teen nicotine use in decades after years of driving cigarette smoking rates to record lows. Teens who would have never smoked cigarettes are happily inhaling fruity flavors, sometimes without realizing it is packed with nicotine, an addictive substance. (LaVito, 9/14)

Reuters: U.S. Health Secretary Backs Proposed FDA Crackdown On E-Cigarettes: CNBC
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said on Wednesday the agency was considering a ban on flavored e-cigarettes from Juul Labs and other companies as it grapples with an "epidemic" of youth e-cigarette use that threatened to create a new generation of nicotine addicts. (9/14)

Bloomberg: E-Cigarettes, Snus Get Wary Reception As Alternatives To Smoking 
Makers of smoking alternatives hit some potentially major hurdles this week in their quest to create a rival to the almighty cigarette. While Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb views tobacco products as a progression of risks, with cigarettes being the most harmful, his agency and its outside advisers dealt possible setbacks to products that deliver nicotine without cancer-causing smoke. (Edney, 9/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Gets $20 Million To Research Health Effects Of E-Cigarettes, Other Products
UCSF has won a $20 million federal grant to fund research into the health effects of new tobacco products such as electronic cigarettes, the use of which, especially among teenagers, is raising alarm among public health experts. The grant, which comes from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, is the second round of federal funding that UCSF has received for this kind of research. (Allday, 9/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Health Care Looks Beyond Medicine To Social Factors
The latest efforts by health organizations to fight disease extend well beyond medical care. With a growing body of research showing that social and economic forces play a significant role in health, many medical groups are investing in programs to help needy patients secure basics such as affordable housing, transportation and nutritious food. By tackling such nonmedical issues, often called the social determinants of health, they aim to ease the burdens that make battling disease more difficult. (Gormley, 9/16)

In other news —

Modern Healthcare: Health Systems Focus On Patient-Centered Care Consumerism Takes Hold
Market forces are pushing health systems to rethink their approach to defining and encouraging patient-centered care. The term patient-centered care, first coined by the Institute of Medicine in 2001 and defined as ensuring patients guide their own clinical decisions, has become commonplace in healthcare. But CEOs of top health systems say the term and approaches to providing it need a revamp in order to address evolving consumer expectations. (Castellucci, 9/15)

The New York Times: Prominent Cancer Researcher Resigns From Dartmouth Amid Plagiarism Charges
One of the country’s most influential researchers in cancer screening has resigned from his post at Dartmouth College, after a two-year internal investigation concluded he had plagiarized a graph included in a paper published in a prominent journal. The researcher, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, has published widely on the risks of aggressive screening and over-diagnosis, including Op-Ed articles in The Times and several popular books. He disputed the university’s findings against him. (Carey, 9/14)

Stat: NEJM Again Refuses To Retract Article Dartmouth Says Is Plagiarized
The New England Journal of Medicine is again refusing to retract an article co-authored by one of the country’s leading health policy scholars even after the researcher resigned his position this week following a misconduct finding last month. As STAT and Retraction Watch reported Thursday, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch resigned from his faculty position at Dartmouth following an internal investigation, which found that Welch had plagiarized material from a Dartmouth colleague and a researcher at another institution for a 2016 paper published in the venerable journal. The paper was an analysis of how breast cancer screening led to the overdiagnosis of tumors and unnecessary treatments. Welch disputes Dartmouth’s conclusions. (Oransky and Marcus, 9/14)

In other health care personnel news —

Stat: Turmoil Erupts Over Expulsion From Leading Evidence-Based Medicine Group 
One of the medical world’s most respected expert bodies is in turmoil as its annual meeting gets underway in Edinburgh, Scotland, after its governing board voted to expel a member. The Cochrane Collaboration, which reviews the scientific literature in areas of clinical research and produces widely cited analyses that help guide clinical practice, kicked out a member who has been an outspoken critic of certain vaccines and has blasted the profession of psychiatry for pushing unsafe drugs on unsuspecting patients. (Marcus and Oransky, 9/16)

Modern Healthcare: #MeToo Era Highlights Importance Of Emergency CEO Succession Plans 
Healthcare CEOs haven't been bolting under the weight of #MeToo accusations at nearly the same rate as other industries, but the sector is not immune to surprise exits. Athenahealth co-founder and CEO Jonathan Bush, for example, left swiftly in June amid allegations of physical abuse and sexual harassment. But there are other reasons, too. The CEO of PinnacleHealth, currently UPMC Pinnacle, stepped down suddenly last year, reportedly to “seek an alternative career path.” In Ohio, Summa Health CEO Thomas Malone resigned last year, shortly after hundreds of physicians and staff members expressed displeasure with his leadership. (Bannow, 9/15)

Boston Globe: Stranger In The House
The category of personal care aide is projected to add more jobs by 2026 than any other occupation in the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many of these aides enter the home as virtual unknowns, undergoing no background check and receiving little, if any, training. ... Crimes committed by home aides against their clients get little public attention in Massachusetts, in part because no single agency is charged with keeping track of the home aide workforce. (Matchan, 9/15)

In other news on home health care aides —

Boston Globe: Recent Immigrants Do Much Of The Low-Paying, Back-Breaking Work Of Caring For Frail Americans At Home. Back Home, They’re Seen As Success Stories.
People like [Rita] Sarpong are the backbone of one of the country’s fastest-growing and least-regulated industries, doing the important, if unglamorous, low-paid work of caring for people who can no longer care for themselves. The workers are overwhelmingly female and almost 50 percent foreign-born. In Massachusetts, a striking number of them emigrated from Ghana, hoping to earn enough to help support often desperate families back home and forming a trans-Atlantic economic pipeline from sub-Saharan Africa to the United States. (Matchan, 9/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Koch-Funded Gyms Help Opioid Addicts Recover
Emily Brawn stumbled as she attempted to kick opioids a few years ago. When she wasn’t at 12-step meetings, she grew isolated. “Days and days in your own head,” she said. “That is where the relapse starts.” She is trying a new strategy. In early September, 90 days sober, the 29-year-old stepped into a gym in an industrial corner of Boston. Muscled people were warming up for CrossFit, surrounded by top-line equipment and a rock-climbing wall. (Levitz, 9/16)

Stat: Addiction Doctors Try To Bring Care To Patients, Rather Than Vice Versa
The San Francisco program, run by the city’s public health department, is one of a handful of novel programs around the country that are taking the unusual step of delivering comprehensive treatment to people with addiction — wherever they are. These programs aim to help patients who can’t or won’t jump through the hoops of health care bureaucracy — appointments, referrals, paperwork, even obtaining a photo ID. It is one of the rare policy ideas that is giving health officials hope for reducing overdose deaths, even as Congress nibbles around the edges of the crisis and the Trump administration grows increasingly hostile to some harm-reduction initiatives. (Facher, 9/17)

The Associated Press: To Avoid Overdoses, Some Test Their Heroin Before Taking It
The newest tool in the fight against opioid overdoses is an inexpensive test strip that can help heroin users detect a potentially deadly contaminant in their drugs. Sales of fentanyl test strips have exploded as a growing number of overdose-prevention programs hand them out to people who use illicit drugs. (9/17)

Los Angeles Times: As Opioid Death Toll Worsens, California Doctors Will Soon Be Required To Perform Database Checks
By the time the 59-year-old woman overdosed in the late summer of 2013, she’d been given 75 prescriptions by three primary care doctors, a psychiatrist and a pain specialist in one year. Her deadly cocktail: an opioid painkiller, a sleeping aid and anti-anxiety medication. Had any of the five physicians treating her been aware she’d been “shopping” around for prescriptions? Had they warned her of the dangerous combinations? Had anyone tried to intervene? (Davis, 9/16)

The CT Mirror: Congress Moves Towards Approval Of Massive Anti-Opioid Bill
The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation earlier this year aimed at combating opioid addiction, which has become an epidemic in Connecticut and most other states. But the legislation stalled in the Senate because Democrats objected to a provision they said would solely benefit a powerful advocacy group with deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry. (Radelat, 9/14)

The CT Mirror: Doctors Slow To Adopt Medication-Assisted Therapy For Opioid Treatment
Research shows that medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid addiction is effective because it eliminates drug cravings, but the use of MAT in Connecticut is not keeping up with the epidemic, said Dr. David Fiellin, director of the Yale Program in Addiction Medicine, who works with the state to address the opioid crisis. (McCarthy, 9/16)

Kaiser Health News: Half As Many People Are Trying Heroin, But Marijuana Use Grows
Some good news from the front lines of the heroin crisis: Half as many people tried heroin for the first time in 2017 as in 2016. That’s according to data released Friday from the government’s annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health. “This is what we were hoping for,” said Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, who directs the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. “It tells us that we are getting the word out to the American people of the risks of heroin,” especially when the drug is tainted with additional powerful opioids, fentanyl or carfentanil. (Gold, 9/14)

Cincinnati Enquirer: New Heroin Use Dips In 2017 While Meth Use Among Young Adults Jumps
Far fewer people older than 25 started using heroin last year, but the decline among young adults was almost imperceptible, and the 18- to 25-year-old age group also saw a big jump in meth, a new federal report shows. The 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released Friday, emphasizes the “transitional aged youth” because they are more likely than anyone else to use cigarettes, alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and LSD. (DeMio, 9/14)

Philadelphia Inquirer: In South Philly, A Long-Hidden Heroin Crisis Can’t Be Ignored Anymore
While the opioid crisis is most acute by far in Kensington, overdose deaths in South Philly increased by 41 percent from 2016 to 2017. All told, 132 of the city's 1,217 overdose deaths last year were in the community. (Whelan, 9/14)

The New York Times: For Elderly Women With Breast Cancer, Surgery May Not Be The Best Option
Annie Krause moved into a nursing home in Detroit in 2015, when she was 98 years old. She had grown frail. Arthritis, recurrent infections and hypertension had made it difficult for her to manage on her own. When the facility’s doctor examined her, he found a mass in Ms. Krause’s breast and recommended a biopsy — standard procedure to determine what sort of tumor this was and, if it proved malignant, what treatment to pursue. Once diagnosed, breast cancer almost always leads to surgery, even in older women. (Span, 9/14)

The Associated Press: FDA Plans Meeting To Discuss Safety Data On Breast Implants
U.S. health regulators say they'll convene a public meeting of medical advisers next year to discuss new science on breast implant safety, including an independent analysis that suggests certain rare health problems might be more common with silicone gel implants. The Food and Drug Administration said it would hold the meeting even as its officials and several independent experts disputed the new work. Leaders of the study concede that it has big limitations and cannot prove that implants cause any of these problems. (9/14)

The New York Times: New Approach To Breast Reconstruction May Reduce Pain And Weakness For Some
Before Deborah Cohan had a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction five years ago, her plastic surgeon explained that he would “create a little pocket” behind her chest muscle and “slip the implant in.” Her doctor glossed over the part of the procedure in which the large pectoralis major muscles are detached from some underlying ribs, pulled off the chest wall, then stretched out for several months to accommodate breast implants. The process can weaken the muscle and left Dr. Cohan, an obstetrician, with chronic pain that made it difficult for her to work at a computer, let alone deliver babies. (Rabin, 9/17)

The New York Times: Low-Dose Aspirin Late In Life? Healthy People May Not Need It
Should older people in good health start taking aspirin to prevent heart attacks, strokes, dementia and cancer? No, according to a study of more than 19,000 people, including whites 70 and older, and blacks and Hispanics 65 and older. They took low-dose aspirin — 100 milligrams — or a placebo every day for a median of 4.7 years. Aspirin did not help them — and may have done harm. (Grady, 9/16)

NPR: Risks From Daily Low-Dose Aspirin Outweigh Benefits For Healthy Seniors
Results released Sunday from a major study of low-dose aspirin contain a disappointing answer for older, otherwise healthy people. "We found there was no discernible benefit of aspirin on prolonging independent, healthy life for the elderly," says Anne Murray, a geriatrician and epidemiologist at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, who helped lead the study. The study involved more than 19,000 people ages 65 and older in the United States and Australia. The results were published in three papers in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Stein, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Low-Dose Aspirin Offers No Overall Benefit For Healthy Older People, Research Says
There is good evidence that taking aspirin can help people with known cardiovascular problems. But it had been unclear whether healthy people older than 70 would derive the same benefit. “Clinical guidelines note the benefits of aspirin for preventing heart attacks and strokes in persons with vascular conditions such as coronary artery disease,” Richard J. Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, which helped fund the research, said in a news release. “The concern has been uncertainty about whether aspirin is beneficial for otherwise healthy older people without those conditions.” (Bernstein, 9/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Cancer Coaches Help Guide Patients During And After Treatment
Tom Loeswick has faced a series of illnesses in his life, but when he was diagnosed with stage 3 lymphoma in 2012 at the age of 61, he felt helpless, emotionally drained and disconnected. Overwhelmed, Mr. Loeswick turned to cancer coach Shariann Tom. Ms. Tom, a five-time cancer survivor and former executive coach, helped Mr. Loeswick understand the emotions he was feeling—especially anger—and helped him move forward, he says. (Sadick, 9/16)

The New York Times: How An Unsolved Mystery Changed The Way We Take Pills
Odds are that you have had moments of frustration trying to open new bottles of aspirin or other over-the-counter medications. Perhaps your fingernails are not up to the task of breaking the seal on the plastic wrap. Or maybe the pop-up cap is a challenge, seemingly designed to be not only childproof but also adultproof. The foil covering the lip of the bottle may defy neat tearing. Then you struggle to remove every wisp of the cotton wad standing between you and the medicine. But odds are also good that, even if a bit annoyed, you are reassured. All those layers of protection mean you may reasonably trust that the pill you are about to pop is safe. (Haberman, 9/16)

The New York Times: Where A Sore Throat Becomes A Death Sentence
Neighbors whisper that she is pregnant, a disgrace for a young, unmarried woman. The rumors mortify her. She hates her swollen belly. But Florence Ndimubakunzi is not pregnant. Her heart is failing. It pumps so poorly that blood backs up in her veins, bloating her liver and spleen, and filling her abdomen with fluid. She is only 18. For millions like her in poorer parts of Africa, Asia and other regions, this devastating heart disease began insidiously. During childhood, they contracted strep throat — an infection caused by streptococcal bacteria. (Grady, 9/16)

NPR: Support For Caregivers Is Key To Managing Alzheimer's And Dementia
When Kate Sieloff's husband, Karl, began acting strange, she didn't know where to turn. Her hard-working, affectionate spouse was suddenly having fits of anger and aggression. He stopped paying the bills. Karl, 56 at the time, was an engineer at General Motors, where he'd worked for more than 40 years. But some days he didn't even show up for work, finding it too hard to get out of bed. Because the problems were sporadic, most people in her life couldn't see what was going on. (Gravitz, 9/15)

The Wall Street Journal: The Secret To Retaining A New Skill: Learn, Exercise, Sleep
Scientists are discovering new connections between learning, exercise and sleep. A new study suggests that when learning a new task, people improve the long-term retention of those skills when they exercise intensely for as little as 15 minutes immediately afterward—provided this is followed by a good night’s sleep. The study was published in March in the medical journal NeuroImage. (Ward, 9/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Synthetic Materials Can Replace Cartilage In Your Aching Joints
Cartilage, a rubbery tissue that acts as a cushion between bones of joints, doesn’t come with a lifetime warranty. When it wears down with age, or is damaged, the pain may be so severe that the patient ends up fully replacing a joint such as a knee. For the big toe, a common option is to surgically fuse bones together, reducing pain but leaving the patient with no motion in the joint. (Johannes, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Mysterious Terrible Pain Afflicted Her For Years Because Doctors Refused To Listen
The prominent New York City gynecologist didn’t bother to conceal his disdain. “Stop practicing Google medicine,” Lina Kharnak remembers the doctor chiding her when she asked about a possible cause of her worsening leg and back pain. The disease about which she was inquiring, he said brusquely, has different symptoms. (Boodman, 9/15)

The Washington Post: Chronic Back Pain Managed With Body Modificiation
Janet Jay is a cyborg. No, she’s not RoboCop or Darth Vader. But she shares a similarity with those characters: Her all-too-human body has been upgraded with a machine. A next-generation implant deep in Jay’s back stimulates her spinal cord, overriding her body’s pain signals to give her some relief from the back pain that has plagued her for years. (Blakemore, 9/16)

NPR: Seniors Flock To Marijuana Dispensaries To Relieve Aches And Pains
Shirley Avedon, 90,­­ had never been a cannabis user. But carpal tunnel syndrome that sends shooting pains into both of her hands and an aversion to conventional steroid and surgical treatments is prompting her to consider some new options. "It's very painful, sometimes I can't even open my hand," Avedon says. (O'Neill, 9/17)

Arizona Republic: Small Particulates In The Air Linked To Dementia, ASU Research Finds
Researchers from Arizona State University have found another good reason to stay indoors on days when the local air pollution is high — it could help prevent dementia. A recently released working paper by three ASU economists makes the case that prolonged exposure to air pollution does not just cause respiratory problems, but also puts individuals at higher risk for dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. (Innes, 9/14)

The Washington Post: David Salamone, Who Contracted Polio From Vaccine And Helped Spur Changes In U.S. Immunization Policy, Dies At 28
“We had a very healthy 8-pound, 8-ounce baby boy, no problems at all,” John Salamone said in 1995, describing his then-5-year-old son, David. The problems started when David was 4 months old and received a routine oral vaccination for polio. He had a fever and a rash, but within weeks his parents noticed he could no longer crawl or turn over. (Schudel, 9/15)

The Washington Post: Face Transplant: Canadian Hunter Maurice Desjardins Becomes World's Oldest Face Transplant Recipient
A bullet fired from a rifle during a hunting trip left Maurice Desjardins with a severely damaged face. Despite the efforts of doctors and surgeons, who tried rebuilding the his face with plates, screws and even some bone that came from his leg, he was left with holes in his face instead of a full nose, and a mouth that he was unable to fully close. (Rosenberg, 9/14)

The New York Times: Don’t Use Infant Walkers
More than 230,000 children younger than 15 months were treated in emergency rooms for injuries incurred while using infant walkers from 1990 to 2014. An analysis published in Pediatrics has found that 6,539 of them had skull fractures, 91 percent of them from falling down stairs. The devices are banned in Canada, and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that they be banned in the United States as well. (Bakalar, 9/17)

NPR: Babies Still Injured In Infant Walkers, Doctors Call For Ban
"I view infant walkers as inherently dangerous objects that have no benefit whatsoever and should not be sold in the U.S.," says Dr. Benjamin Hoffman, a pediatrician who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention. More than 230,000 children under 15 months old were treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments for skull fractures, concussions, broken bones and other injuries related to infant walkers from 1990 through 2014, according to a study in the journal Pediatrics published Monday. (Cohen, 9/17)

The Associated Press: Few Safeguards For Foster Kids On Psych Drugs
Thousands of children in foster care may be getting powerful psychiatric drugs prescribed to them without basic safeguards, according to a federal watchdog's investigation that finds a failure to care for youngsters whose lives have already been disrupted. The report due Monday from the Health and Human Services inspector general's office found that about 1 in 3 foster kids from a sample of states were prescribed psychiatric drugs without treatment plans or follow-up, which are considered standard for sound medical care. (9/17)

Concord (N.H.) Monitor: Mental Health Issues Common Among Youth At Sununu Center
New Hampshire was rocked this May when a federal investigative group reported a child with emotional disabilities suffered a fractured shoulder due to illegal physical restraint at the Sununu Youth Detention Center. Yet the issues surrounding children with behavioral health disabilities and the juvenile justice system have long been a struggle in the Granite State. (Andrews, 9/16)

The New York Times: For Kids With Concussions, Less Time Alone In A Dark Room
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a major new guideline on diagnosing and managing head injuries in children on Sept. 4, the product of years of work and extensive evidence review by a large working group of specialists in fields ranging from emergency medicine and epidemiology to sports injuries to neurology and neurosurgery. The guideline, which is the first from the C.D.C. that is specific to mild brain injury in children, advises against the long recovery period, isolated in a dark, quiet room, that has sometimes been used in treatment. (Klass, 9/17)

The Associated Press: Doctors Group Recommends Support For Transgender Children
A doctors group took a stand in support of transgender children Monday, offering advice in what it called "a rapidly evolving" field. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended support for kids who change their names or hairstyles to affirm their chosen gender identity. The group said children are more likely to have better physical and mental health with such support. (9/17)

The Oregonian: Heart Transplant Surgeon Leaves OHSU In Fifth Resignation For Suspended Program 
Oregon Health & Science University is losing another cardiac specialist – the fifth resignation in a month and the first since the Portland research hospital suspended its heart transplant program. The heart transplant team is made up of surgeons who perform the transplants and cardiologists who take care of the patients afterward. Dr. Jai Raman is one of three surgeons on the team. He follows all four cardiologists -- one who left earlier this summer and three more will be done by the end of September. Those departures prompted OHSU to suspend the heart transplant program indefinitely last week, as well as order a review of the program by outside consultants. (Harbarger, 9/14)

The Star Tribune: Many Minnesota Seniors Bracing For Seismic Medicare Shift 
Anxiety, frustration and hints of exasperation are all in the mix as more than a quarter-million Minnesota seniors face the prospect of selecting new Medicare health plans in the coming months. An estimated 320,000 Minnesotans with Medicare Cost health plans must switch to a new policy because a federal law is eliminating the coverage next year across much of the state. (Snowbeck, 9/17)

KCUR: Kansas Nursing Homes Cited For Failings That Can Increase Risk Of Infection, Deadly Sepsis 
Sepsis hits nearly two million people in the U.S. a year and kills more than a quarter million. It’s a particular problem in nursing homes, where the aging, confused and immobile are especially susceptible. In Kansas, scores of nursing homes have received federal citations since 2015 for practices that can put residents at a higher risk of sepsis. A Kaiser Health News compilation of those warnings to nursing home operators shows eight Kansas nursing homes earned the most serious level of citations. (Llopis-Jepsen, 9/14)

Dallas Morning News: Dallas' Health Nonprofits Have A New Tool In Their Fight To Increase Food Access
In the fight to increase food access in Dallas, area health nonprofits have a new weapon that will help them identify where Dallas faces the most urgent needs. The City of Dallas Community Food Assessment, an interactive map that highlights key data like the concentration of diseases such as obesity and diabetes, was presented Friday at the seventh annual Dallas Hunger Summit, where dozens of area nutrition nonprofits gathered to listen to what Dallas’ hospital health systems and other health groups are doing to serve Dallas’ neediest. (Manuel, 9/15)

Tampa Bay Times: Locked In Legal Battle, Rick Scott’s Office And Health Vendor Trade Charges
Gov. Rick Scott's office and a health care provider are locked in a dispute over public records and whether the vendor would end its legal battles against Scott's office if the state would extend its contract. Scott's office says yes. The vendor's lawyer says no. The relevant email traffic is below. (Bosquet, 9/14)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Need Your Birth Certificate? Be Prepared To Wait.
People across the country who need housing, jobs, or government services need proof of their identities. That often starts with a birth certificate. ...But the Pennsylvania Department of Health faces a backlog of requests and anticipates next year will be its busiest. More people will be requesting birth certificates to get IDs that meet federal security requirements post-Sept. 11, 2001. (Bond, 9/14)

Georgia Health News: Where People Live Longer — And Where They Don’t
Life expectancy at an English Avenue neighborhood address, in a low-income section of Atlanta, is 63.6 years. But less than 10 miles away, an address in the affluent Margaret Mitchell area of Atlanta, named after the famous writer, has a life expectancy of 87.2 years. Such startling variations commonly appear in new data that break down life expectancy at birth — the average number of years a person can expect to live — for most of the census tracts in the United States, for the period from 2010 to 2015. (Miller, 9/15)

Sacramento Bee: Undocumented Immigrants Seek Health Care Less, Study Finds
A new study challenges the political notion that undocumented immigrants are a burden on the U.S. health care system — in fact, they’re much less likely to seek medical care at all, the study found. The four-year study, from Drexel University in Philadelphia and published in the journal Medical Care, relies on a California health survey and finds undocumented immigrants are using health care services at a lower rate than they did 15 years ago. (Sheeler, 9/15)

Houston Chronicle: West Nile Case Reported In Sugar Land 
The Fort Bend County Health and Human Services Department notified Dr. Joe Anzaldua, who serves as the city's medical director and health authority, that a person who lives in Sugar Land recently tested positive for West Nile Virus at a local hospital. Due to HIPAA considerations, additional details are not available, including where the adult was exposed to West Nile. (9/14)

San Jose Mercury News: Stanford Doctors Lead National Effort For Gun Safety
On Monday, angry and frustrated by gun violence, health care professionals at Stanford Medical Center and 40 other leading medical centers will hold simultaneous rallies to treat firearm violence as a public health crisis. It’s a non-partisan action co-founded by Stanford’s Professor of Medicine Dr. Dean Winslow and fourth year medical student Sarabeth Spitzer. (Krieger, 9/15)

Sacramento Bee: UC, Nurses’ Union Have Tentative Deal
After almost two years of negotiations, the California Nurses Association announced Saturday that it has a tentative contract agreement with the University of California that would boost pay 15 percent over five years. ...If approved by union members, the new contract would cover 14,000 registered nurses working at five UC medical centers, 10 student health centers and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory through October 2020, the press release said. (Dickman, 9/15)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Doctor Didn’t Offer A Flu Shot? It Might Depend On Time Of Day
As the day wears on, even the most efficient physician can fall behind schedule. One possible result, according to a new University of Pennsylvania study: Fewer patients get flu shots. That finding came from a review of 96,000 patient records at 11 primary-care clinics in the Penn Medicine health system, published Friday in the journal JAMA Network Open. (Avril, 9/14)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Lead Crisis: 1 Health Staffer Fired, 1 Quits, 2 Disciplined
One Milwaukee Health Department staffer was fired, one resigned and two others were disciplined in recent months as the city struggles with its ongoing lead crisis. ...The investigations focused on mismanagement of the city's program aimed at preventing lead poisoning among Milwaukee children. (Spicuzza and Bice, 9/14)

Columbus Dispatch: Unique Partnership Connects Seniors To Services So They Can Remain In Their Homes
In this case, fire departments deal daily with seniors who reach out to them for a variety of needs outside of emergency medical services. NCR, as the largest nonprofit provider of affordable housing, knows how or where to go to solve many of senior’s problems. ...NCR provides the fire departments with a service coordinator, who works out of the fire station and leads the efforts to solve seniors’ issues. (Stankiewicz, 9/16)

Kansas City Star: Baby Jack Palmer Among Youngest To Get Heart-Lung Transplant
“Baby Jack” triumphantly returned home to Kansas City recently as a marvel of modern medicine and moxie, after becoming one of the youngest people to ever have a heart-lung transplant. There is no medical textbook for this and no telling what his future will bring. (Marso, 9/16)

Arizona Republic: ADA: Domestic-Violence Shelters Struggle When People Have Disabilities
Deaf and hard-of-hearing survivors of domestic violence used to leave A New Leaf's shelters after a day or two,frustrated by a lack of qualified interpreters and the ensuing communication problems. ...Disability-rights advocates say organizations with good intentions but little funding often are unequipped to serve survivors who use wheelchairs, are blind or deaf, or have service animals. (Polletta, 9/16)

The Washington Post: A Family Battles A Terrible Diagnosis For An 11 Year Old
You’ve had a bad feeling all summer, a nagging in your gut that something’s wrong. She looks thinner, but she just turned 11 and kids that age get taller, thin out. Yet . . . why is she so pale in July? Why is she tired all the time? Your husband said it was because she’d been staying up too late on her iPad, so you limited her screen time. That didn’t help. She keeps falling asleep smack in the middle of bright summer days. You notice she isn’t enjoying her summer. She’s irritable, picking frequent fights with her younger sister. “It’s just hormones,” you tell yourself. “Eleven is a difficult age.” (Dooley, 9/16)

The New York Times: 2-Year-Old Boy With Deadly Cancer Gets An Early Christmas From His Neighbors
Five weeks ago, Brody Allen’s parents were told that their 2-year-old son’s rare form of brain cancer meant he had two months to live. The boy’s family realized that he probably wouldn’t be able to enjoy one more Christmas. So they decided to celebrate early, putting up a tree and decorations, and their Ohio neighborhood followed suit. (Garcia, 9/15)

Arizona Republic: Advocacy Group Wants Records Of Arizona State Hospital Patient Death
The Arizona Center for Disability Law's federal lawsuit, filed this week, names both the Arizona State Hospital and the Arizona Department of Health Services as defendants, because the Arizona State Hospital, which is an inpatient psychiatric treatment facility, is under the state Health Department's jurisdiction. The group, which among other things, investigates abuse and neglect of Arizona individuals with mental illness, says the hospital violated federal law when it refused to provide "reasonable" unaccompanied access to its facilities, patients and records. (Innes, 9/14)

Kansas City Star: Former U.S. Attorney Grissom Backs Cannabis Legalization
Former U.S. Attorney for Kansas Barry Grissom said Saturday that the federal classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, along with heroin, is “absurd” and he said advocates of marijuana legalization were patriots because they are standing up for individual liberty. As a federal prosecutor, Grissom said, “I soon became a true believer that enforcement of cannabis laws was immoral.” (Campbell, 9/15)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ‘Unknown Drug Substance’ At Georgia Smoke Shop Sickens Detective
A man is in custody after authorities executed a search warrant on a smoke shop in Pickens County, which let to law enforcement officers and emergency response personnel to encounter an “unknown drug substance,” sending five to the hospital, authorities said. A detective was immediately taken to the hospital after he came in contact with the substance, found Friday during a morning search of A-1 Smoke Shop in Jasper, officials said in a Facebook post on the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office’s page. (Habersham and Hansen, 9/15)

Los Angeles Times: Why I'm Voting 'No' On Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court Nomination
We already knew that Judge Kavanaugh held highly ideological views on the 2nd Amendment, women’s reproductive rights and the executive power of the presidency. Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony shed new light on these positions and on his loyalty to President Trump and his political agenda.Supreme Court justices should not be an extension of the Republican Party. They must also have unquestionable character and integrity, and serious questions remain about Judge Kavanaugh in this regard, as indicated in information I referred to the FBI. For these and other reasons detailed below, I strongly oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. (Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 9/16)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Sen. Susan Collins Might Not Like Crowdfunding Effort, But Hey, That's Democracy
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, could hold the key to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s future. Hers is one of a small handful of uncommitted Senate votes that could power Kavanaugh to a seat on the high court or deal a devastating blow to conservative efforts to tilt the court’s balance in their favor. As if that’s not pressure enough, a crowdfunding campaign involving more than 40,000 Kavanaugh opponents has formed to warn Collins that a wrong move could put her own future in jeopardy. They threaten to massively fund Collins’ as-yet-unnamed future Democratic opponent if she votes to confirm Kavanaugh. The campaign already has raised more than $1.1 million, an amount almost equal to Collins’ current cash on hand. ...The Supreme Court has consistently upheld campaign donations as legitimate forms of free speech. In fact, Collins herself has defended the practice. (9/16)

Portland Press Herald: Kavanaugh's Duplicity, Troubling Record On Civil Rights Should Disqualify Him From Court 
We are Mainers, 11 generations and counting, a father and daughter who have watched our state and our nation make slow progress in keeping its promises of securing liberty and equality for all of us. That’s why we are so alarmed at the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. We are counting on Sen. Susan Collins to do the right thing and vote to reject Kavanaugh for a lifetime seat on our highest court, not only because of his record of hostility to civil rights protections but also because his testimony at his confirmation hearing raises serious questions about his honesty and integrity. (Rachel Talbot Ross and The Hon. Gerald E. Talbot, 9/17)

The Washington Post: We Calculated The Deaths From Hurricane Maria. Politics Played No Role. 
Last December, a week before the holiday break, I received a call from the government of Puerto Rico seeking a meeting to discuss Hurricane Maria and its aftermath. In the cab on the way to meet Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, I knew the number of Puerto Rican lives lost was, and would continue to be, a highly charged issue. But I had no idea that after the Milken Institute School of Public Health, of which I am the dean, released our independent study, the issue would be the subject of several presidential tweets. The tweets suggested a political motive for our study’s finding of 2,975 excess deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. To set the record straight, our study was carried out with no interference whatsoever from any political party or institution. (Lynn R. Goldman, 9/16)

The Washington Post: The FDA Is Cracking Down On E-Cigarettes. This Is What Responsive Policymaking Looks Like.
The youth use of e-cigs is rising very sharply,” Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Wednesday, as he issued the federal government’s most forceful warning yet that these electronic nicotine-delivery devices are hooking a generation of teenagers. He promised that “everything is on the table” to arrest the trend. The rest of the Trump administration should take note: This is what responsive, evidence-driven government looks like. (9/16)

Philadelphia Inquirer: FDA Should Drive A Wedge Between Teens & Vaping
For those in favor of tighter regulations on everything from student loans to carbon emissions, there's not a lot of joy coming out of the federal government. But credit the Food and Drug Administration for ordering Juul Labs and other vaping device-makers to find a way to keep electronic cigarettes away from teens. (9/17)

The Hill: The World Health Organization's Misguided Effort To Stop Americans From Vaping
While the WHO claims it wants to reduce smoking, its actions contradict its goals. WHO continues to turn a blind eye to new harm-reduction technologies, such as vaping or heat-not-burn products, that help people wean themselves from smoking and if desired, addiction to nicotine. (Elizabeth Wright, 9/14)

Stat: Russian Bots Are Taking Aim At U.S. Public Health
It almost makes sense, in a most devious way, that the Russian government used a disinformation campaign to try to sway the 2016 elections. That campaign has been front and center in many news cycles. But a disinformation campaign that has garnered little attention was aimed at the public health of the United States. This week we learned that nearly 600 Russia-linked Twitter accounts broadcast disinformation aimed at seeding dissent and confusion about insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. This campaign not only sought to exacerbate political tensions, but it was also implicitly aimed at depressing enrollment in viable health insurance coverage. (David Beier and Andrew Sullivan, 9/14)

The New York Times: Can Paying For A Health Problem As A Whole, Not Piece By Piece, Save Medicare Money?
Among the standard complaints about the American health care system is that care is expensive and wasteful. These two problems are related, and to address them, Medicare has new ways to pay for care. Until recently, Medicare paid for each health care service and reimbursed each health care organization separately. It didn’t matter if tests were duplicated or if a more efficient way of delivering care was available — as long as doctors and organizations were paid for what they did, they just kept providing care the way they always had. (Austin Frakt, 9/17)

The Hill: Apple’s Watch And The Future Of Medical Care 
Many practicing physicians like me are therefore glad to see the release of the new Apple Watch Series 4, which includes health applications that monitor not just your heart rate but also whether you are breathing properly or not. An alert that you aren’t breathing properly can be very useful for sleep apnea and chronic lung conditions, such as COPD, or even for overdose victims of medications (including opioids) that suppress breathing. Another application of the watch uses Siri to automatically call 911 if you fall and remain unmoving for more than one minute. I am concerned this feature could prompt an overreaction, if you decide to rest or collect yourself before rising. On the other hand, it is bound to save lives if the fall is due to a blackout, seizure or stroke. (Marc Siegel, 9/16)

The Detroit News: Better Community Health Leads To Better Individual Health
Not every health care problem can be addressed with a prescription pad. In fact, we know that a person’s health is more often influenced by the health of – and how they interact with – their community. ...For example, a recent study by WalletHub found that Detroit is the most stressed out city in the United States. Many people might not think about the link between stress and health, but research shows that long-term stress seriously affects a person’s long-term well-being. Solving such health concerns can’t be done alone. Health insurers must keep working hand-in-hand with hospitals, doctors, community leaders and employers to build healthier communities. (Terri Kline, 9/16)

The New York Times: Many Ways To Be A Girl, But One Way To Be A Boy: The New Gender Rules
Girls have been told they can be anything they want to be, and it shows. They are seizing opportunities closed to previous generations — in science, math, sports and leadership. But they’re also getting another message: What they look like matters more than any of that. Boys seem to have been largely left out of the conversation about gender equality. Even as girls’ options have opened up, boys’ lives are still constricted by traditional gender norms: being strong, athletic and stoic. (Claire Cain Miller, 9/14)

USA Today: Police Brutality Is Damaging Black Community's Mental Health
Boston University and University of Pennsylvania researchers concluded that their findings support “recent calls to treat police killings as a public health issue.” They noted that failure to do so produces mental health issues and health problems:  “The observed adverse mental health spillover effects of police killings of unarmed black Americans could result from heightened perceptions of threat and vulnerability, lack of fairness, lower social status, lower beliefs about one’s own worth, activation of prior traumas, and identification with the deceased.” We suggest going a step further and incorporating a public health perspective into 21st-century policing. (Lisa H. Thurau and Johanna Wald, 9/15)

The New York Times: 23andMe Said He Would Lose His Mind. Ancestry Said The Opposite. Which Was Right?
In many ways, Matt Fender, a 32-year-old resident of New York City, is the prototypical 23andMe customer: tech-savvy, educated, a bit of a worrier. But he wasn’t worried last December when he clicked a button to dump all the raw data from his 23andMe genetic test into a DNA search engine called Promethease, which sorts through data for gene variants that have received a mention in the medical literature. Mr. Fender didn’t expect any revelations. He had already spent $5 on a Promethease report in 2016, which he’d found interesting but not life changing. But the company had recently emailed customers asking them to re-enter their data to be used for future research and quality control. In return, they were offered a free update. (Laura Hercher, 9/15)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Changing The Dialogue Around Suicide
Suicide has increased nearly 30 percent since the turn of the century and is at an all time high. The numbers prove that it is a problem, but how might suicide be considered a public health issue? (Hannah Kemble, 9/14)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: The Death Penalty Isn't Really A Conservative Ideal
Fondness for (or at least tolerance of) capital punishment is a position usually associated with conservatives. Yet, the entire concept of the state executing a human being flies in the face of conservative principles. With good reason, we express doubt that the government can get it right with health care, road construction or, let's face it, dog catching. (Maggie Brady, 9/16)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Taxing Distribution Of Opioids Doesn't Spell End Of Epidemic
As we continue debating the best policies to reduce addiction, it’s extremely important that we are intentional about the outcomes, and cautiously consider the unintended consequences of the actions we take. I, for one, am concerned about my fellow lawmakers renewing interest in legislation that imposes new taxes on the distribution of opioids – similar to the proposal that failed for good reason last legislative session. (Kim Moser, 9/14)

San Jose Mercury News: Prop. 3 Is Pay-To-Play Water Bond For Billionaires
Proposition 3 is an irresponsible approach to California’s water problems. The nearly $8.9 billion bond was crafted behind-the-scenes, contains critical elements that could directly harm the environment and turns important water policies on their head. (Eric Parfrey, 9/15)