Reuters: House Democrats Target DOJ Decision Not To Defend Obamacare
Democrats will scrutinize the Trump administration's decision not to defend Obamacare in federal court, when Democrats take control of the U.S. House of Representatives next year, a leading Democrat said on Monday. In June, the Department of Justice declared the healthcare law's individual mandate unconstitutional in federal court, which threatened to undermine insurance protections for people with preexisting conditions, and helped make healthcare a winning issue for Democrats in House elections on Nov. 6. (11/19)

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill —

CQ: Democrats Weigh Path Forward On 'Medicare-For-All'
Progressives in the House are calling for a vote on a single-payer “Medicare-for-all” bill in the next Congress, but the expected chairmen who will set the agenda for next year say they have other health priorities. Still, the progressives’ push could earn more attention over the next two years as Democratic candidates begin vying to take on President Donald Trump in 2020. A handful of potential presidential candidates expected to declare interest have already co-sponsored “Medicare-for-all” legislation, an issue that was also a flashpoint in Democratic primaries over the past year. (McIntire, 11/19)

New Hampshire Public Radio: At Health Care Discussion, Hassan Says ACA Repeal Is Less Likely, But Threats Remain
Senator Maggie Hassan met with constituents in Concord Monday to hear about their concerns over health care. Participants in the round-table discussion brought up coordination of care and prescription drug costs as issues they're dealing with in the day-to-day. At five months old, Laura Beaudoin’s son was diagnosed with a rare form of pediatric cancer. (Garrova, 11/20)

The Baltimore Sun: Lawmakers Seek To Create State Mandate To Push More Marylanders Into Health Insurance 
Buoyed by the midterm elections in which health care played a key role, lawmakers and advocates for the Affordable Care Act in Maryland say they will push a plan to require more people to get coverage. The proposal is a response to congressional Republicans’ move to strip enforcement of the federal mandate to buy coverage beginning in the new year. (Cohn, 11/20)

Nashville Tennessean: Medicaid Expansion: 3 Deep-Red States Just Did It. Why Not Tennessee?
When polls closed on Election Day, one of the biggest winners wasn’t a politician at all. Medicaid expansion – a government policy that extends taxpayer-funded health coverage to the moderately poor – saw significant victories against long odds last week. Although loudly opposed by Republicans lawmakers, ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid were approved by voters in the deep-red states of Utah, Nebraska and Idaho. Kansas and Wisconsin also elected new Democrat governors who vowed to expand Medicaid when their Republican predecessors had not. (Kelman, 11/19)

Kaiser Health News: Buyers Of Short-Term Health Plans: Wise Or Shortsighted?
Supporters of the nation’s health law condemn them. A few states, including California and New York, have banned them. Other states limit them. But to some insurance brokers and consumers, short-term insurance plans are an enticing, low-cost alternative for healthy people. (Gorman, 11/20)

Sacramento Bee: Camp Fire Update: 79 Now Dead, 699 Still Unaccounted For
The number of reported dead in Butte County’s Camp Fire increased by two Monday, bringing the total to 79, Cal Fire said in an incident report. One of the human remains found Monday was located in a structure in Paradise; the other was located outside in Magalia, according to a press release from the Butte County Sheriff’s office. Of the 79 dead, 64 have been tentatively identified, according to the release. (Darden, 11/19)

The Washington Post: With Disease In Shelters And Hotels At Capacity, Wildfire Evacuees Desperately Seek Refuge
The main exhibit hall at the Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds here has become the home of last resort for 68 people who fled the fires that swept through a broad swath of forest and hill towns nearby. And some days, an ambulance shows up. A team of paramedics, wearing protective masks and disposable yellow plastic aprons, wheeled a sick man out of the exhibit hall Monday on a stretcher, another victim of the bitter repercussions of mass displacement that the Camp Fire has created. (Sellers, Wilson and Craig, 11/19)

Los Angeles Times: Thousands Of Homes Incinerated But Trees Still Standing: Paradise Fire’s Monstrous Path
Driving toward Paradise on the afternoon of Nov. 8, Jonathan Pangburn was less worried about the flames burning through the forest than he was about the smoke. Black and thick, it billowed over the road like a dangerous fog, cutting visibility to less than three feet in places. A member of the incident management team with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Pangburn knew the signs. Gray smoke meant vegetation. Black smoke meant homes, possibly entire city blocks. The Camp fire was no longer just a wildland fire. (Curwen and Serna, 11/20)

Los Angeles Times: California Fires: Trump Administration Now Blames Devastation On 'Radical Environmentalists'
The political battle between the Trump administration and California over blame for the the devastating wildfires that have killed scores and left nearly 1,000 missing continued Monday. U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke blamed the state’s fires on “radical environmentalists” who he said have prevented forest management. (Reyes-Velarde and Serna, 11/19)

San Jose Mercury News: Camp Fire: PG&E Power Line Linked To Blaze Had 2012 Problem
In December 2012, a fierce winter storm toppled five steel towers that support the same PG&E transmission line that malfunctioned minutes before the Camp Fire roared to life. Now, six years later, the 115,000-volt Caribou-Palermo transmission line near Poe Dam and the tiny resort town of Pulga is again under the microscope. PG&E reported damage to it around 6:15 a.m. Nov. 8, about 15 minutes before flames were first reported under the high-tension wires, according to a regulatory filing and firefighter radio traffic. Another transmission line in nearby Concow also malfunctioned a half hour later, possible sparking a second fire. (Gafni, 11/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Stunned Residents Start Returning To Paradise In Fire’s Terrible Aftermath
A handful of residents returned to their homes in the burn zone Monday, among the first allowed back since the Camp Fire tore through town Nov. 8, some walking up to unscathed houses while friends and neighbors stood in disbelief in front of piles of ash and twisted metal. (Thadani, Sernoffsky and Tucker, 11/19)

California Healthline: Paradise Lost: Wildfire Chases Seniors From Retirement Havens To Field Hospitals
After barely getting out of Paradise alive before the Camp Fire turned her town to ash, Patty Saunders, 89, now spends her days and nights in a reclining chair inside the shelter at East Ave Church 16 miles away. It hurts too much to move. She needs a hip replacement and her legs are swollen. Next to her is a portable commode, and when it’s time to go, nurses and volunteers help her up and hold curtains around her to give her some measure of privacy. (Rinker, 11/19)

Capital Public Radio: California Offers Safe Space For Firefighters To Work Through Stress And Trauma
On the morning of his 23rd birthday, Leonel Salas is just getting off the fireline after battling the Woolsey fire all night in Southern California. "[We] can't get any rest while we're on the lines," he says.He's exhausted after working for 24 hours, but relieved to be at the base camp in Camarillo where there are hot meals, sleeping pods and mobile showers. (Perry, 11/17)

The New York Times: ‘Like A Terror Movie’: How Climate Change Will Cause More Simultaneous Disasters
Global warming is posing such wide-ranging risks to humanity, involving so many types of phenomena, that by the end of this century some parts of the world could face as many as six climate-related crises at the same time, researchers say. This chilling prospect is described in a paper published Monday in Nature Climate Change, a respected academic journal, that shows the effects of climate change across a broad spectrum of problems, including heat waves, wildfires, sea level rise, hurricanes, flooding, drought and shortages of clean water. (Schwartz, 11/19)

San Jose Mercury News: California Fires: Why More Disasters Like Paradise Are Likely
Fire crews are still working to contain the deadly inferno that leveled the town of Paradise, virtually wiping it off the map. Thousands of people are homeless, living in tents, trailers and parking lots. Dozens are dead. Hundreds are still missing. And massive, choking plumes of smoke continue to blanket Northern California. Forecasters say rain might arrive by Thanksgiving to clear away the smoke and mercifully reduce fire danger. But the optimism is tempered by a grim reality. Scientists say as temperatures continue to warm, drying out brush, grasses and trees into explosively flammable fuel by late summer and autumn, catastrophic fires and the unhealthy smoke they spew hundreds of miles away will almost certainly become more frequent in California and across the West in the coming years. (Rogers, 11/19)

Sacramento Bee: Study Says Smog Is Taking Years Off People’s Lives
People could add years to their lives in California and other smog-plagued parts of the world if authorities could reduce particulate pollution — soot from cars and industry — to levels recommended by the World Health Organization, a new study reported Monday. No other large U.S. city would benefit more than Fresno, which has soot concentrations at roughly twice the WHO guidelines. Fresno residents would live a year longer if the region could meet the health organization’s recommended levels of exposure, according to Monday’s study by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. (Leavenworth, 11/19)

The Washington Post: How Many Years Do We Lose To The Air We Breathe?
The average person on Earth would live 2.6 years longer if their air contained none of the deadliest type of pollution, according to researchers at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute. Your number depends on where you live. (11/20)

Stat: Air Pollution Exposure During Pregnancy Linked To Autism Diagnosis
Two new studies suggest that rising autism rates might be connected at least in part to air pollution from traffic. They are not the first to show a link between exposure to pollutants during pregnancy and the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders. But both studies look at large populations and find a link with relatively low levels of pollutants. In a study of 132,256 births in Vancouver, Canada, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers detected an association between exposure to roadway pollution in utero and later diagnosis with autism. The study’s strengths were its large size and its method of diagnosing autism, which can be inconsistent. (Weintraub, 11/19)

Stat: FDA Proposes New Regulations For Some Health Smartphone Apps 
The Food and Drug Administration wants to ramp up the way it regulates smartphone apps linked to prescription drugs — like medication reminders or symptom trackers. In a new proposal released Monday, the agency said it may treat some apps like drug advertisements — which would allow companies to distribute apps without going through a review process with every update. Right now, the apps aren’t covered by existing regulations. (Sullivan, 11/19)

In other news from the FDA —

The Wall Street Journal: FDA Menthol Ban Will Be A Slow Burn
The Food and Drug Administration’s war on menthol cigarettes could take years. Investors have time to sift the ashes and decide which tobacco stocks are best prepared for tougher U.S. regulations and a shift to alternative forms of smoking. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb last week said he wants to ban menthol brands, which are more addictive than regular tobacco, but didn’t give a timeline. He will immediately restrict sales of flavored e-cigarettes to fight rocketing use among young Americans—3.6 million middle- and high-school students are now e-smokers, up from 2.1 million in 2017. (Ryan, 11/20)

The Hill: Ex-Health Chief Price Joins New Georgia Governor's Transition Team 
Tom Price, who resigned as secretary of Health and Human Services last year following controversy about his use of a private jet, is joining the transition team of Georgia Gov.-elect Brian Kemp (R). Kemp, who just prevailed over Democrat Stacey Abrams in the closely watched gubernatorial race, announced Price would be among the members of his transition team at a press conference on Monday. (Sullivan, 11/19)

In other personnel news related to the Trump administration —

The Hill: Trump's Top Refugee Official Takes New Job At HHS
Scott Lloyd, the controversial Trump administration official in charge of refugee children at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is taking on a new role at the agency. Lloyd, who joined HHS in March 2017 as director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is leaving that post to serve as a senior adviser at the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives. (Hellmann, 11/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Opioid Industry Fights Efforts To Make It Pay For Crisis
Opioid makers and distributors are fighting a novel New York state law that aims to collect hundreds of millions of dollars from the industry to help defray costs of the opioid crisis, with some companies re-engineering their supply chain to avoid the new tax. Companies and trade groups have argued in three legal challenges filed in recent months that the law, which seeks $600 million over six years, is unconstitutional. They point to a lawsuit New York’s attorney general has already filed against major opioid industry players to recoup money for the state, and say the tax is an improper end-run around resolution of that case. (Randazzo, 11/19)

Stat: Pharmacists Dispense Naloxone. Can They Train Customers To Use It?
Sixty pharmacists began a recent Friday here in the company of a limbless dummy, watching an animation of a bird named Kiwi develop an addiction to golden nuggets. It was a pointed, if simplistic, way to explain the opioid crisis, and why first responders and even non-health professionals are often called upon to administer naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug. So at a conference just outside Washington, the dozens of pharmacists spent an hour of their free time learning to assemble nasal naloxone kits, squirt a milliliter of the drug into each nostril of someone experiencing an overdose — or use an autoinjector to stab them in the thigh and hold it there until a robotic voice finished counting to five. (Facher, 11/20)

Stat: Drug Maker Upped Opioid-Overdose Antidote Price 600 Percent. Taxpayers Paid 
In order to capitalize on the opioid crisis, a small company that sells a version of naloxone, a decades-old drug that is widely used to reverse the effect of opioid and heroin overdoses, raised the price of its product by more than 600 percent between 2014 and 2017, which cost the federal government more than $142 million, according to a lengthy report from a Senate subcommittee. Central to its strategy, Kaleo circumvented the traditional pharmaceutical market by subsidizing patients who were given its Evzio opioid antidote device, instead of contracting with pharmacy benefit managers and insurers. In doing so, the company used a controversial scheme to provide Evzio at no cost to patients, but counted on private and public insurers to pay an ever-rising wholesale, or list, price. (Silverman, 11/19)

NPR: Rhode Island Inmates Get Top-Level Treatment For Opioid Addiction
In a windowless classroom at the John J. Moran medium-security prison in Cranston, R.I., three men sit around a table to share how and when they began using opioids. For Josh, now 39, it was when he was just 13 years old. "I got grounded for a week in my house, so I grabbed a bundle of heroin and just sat inside and sniffed it all week." "I started using heroin at 19," says Ray, now 23. "I was shooting it. It was with a group of friends that I was working with, doing roof work." (Hsu and Shapiro, 11/19)

The Washington Post: Bisexual Women Are More Likely To Misuse Prescription Opioids, Study Finds. But Why?
People who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual are more likely to misuse prescription opioids than those who identify as heterosexual — and bisexual women face a particularly high risk, according to a new nationwide study. The study from the New York University School of Medicine, published Monday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, is the first to use a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States to examine sexual orientation as a risk factor for prescription opioid misuse, its authors said. (Schmidt, 11/19)

The Associated Press: CVS Says Florida's Opioid Claim 'Without Merit’
The nation's second-largest drugstore chain says Florida's lawsuit alleging that it helped fuel the state's opioid crisis "is without merit." CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis issued a statement Saturday saying the company is "dedicated to helping reduce prescription drug abuse and diversion." That includes training pharmacists and their assistants and public education efforts. (11/19)

Denver Post: Denver City Council Supports Supervised Drug-Use Site
The Denver City Council on Monday night gave initial approval to a plan that could bring a supervised drug-use facility to Denver. The bill eventually could allow a nonprofit to operate one supervised facility in Denver, allowing people to inject heroin and use other drugs under the supervision of a medical professional. (Kenney, 11/19)

Modern Healthcare: Cleveland Clinic-Oscar Health Pairing Is Exceeding Hopes 
Oscar Health and Cleveland Clinic are looking to capitalize on the initial success of their co-branded insurance product as they enter into their second year as partners. The partnership, which marked the clinic's first heavy play in the insurance business, vastly exceeded expectations in the first year, securing what they estimate to be a 15% share of the individual market in the 2018 open enrollment season. (Coutré, 11/19)

Modern Healthcare: Ascension's Outpatient Transformation Comes At A Cost 
As Ascension reinvents itself as a system centered around paying for value and providing outpatient—rather than inpatient—care, the evolution is having anticipated, but not exactly welcome effects on its operating results. Emphasizing outpatient care will undoubtedly put a dent in a health system's volumes, and St. Louis-based Ascension is already starting to see that, eight months after announcing its restructuring away from revolving around hospitals and instead focusing on outpatient care and telemedicine. (Bannow, 11/19)

Modern Healthcare: Health Data Interoperability Tool Lets Most Hospitals Share Records
The CommonWell Health Alliance and the Carequality framework have solidified their connection, boosting interoperability among members and allowing providers to more easily exchange data with each other even if they're on different electronic health record systems. CommonWell's new connection to the Carequality framework, which on Friday becomes available to all the groups' participants, promotes interoperability by linking the country's biggest EHR vendors, including Epic Systems Corp., Cerner, Athenahealth, Allscripts, and others. Previously, the connection was available on a limited basis. (Arndt, 11/16)

Modern Healthcare: ECRI Institute Launches Site To Replace Shuttered National Guideline Clearinghouse
Clinicians once again have free access to medical practice guidelines four months after the federal government closed a website that housed the information. The not-for-profit ECRI Institute on Monday launched the ECRI Guidelines Trust. The website is meant to replace the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's National Guideline Clearinghouse that shut down July 17 due to budget cuts. HHS said it cost $1.2 million in 2017 to maintain the website, which ECRI essentially developed and had operated since 1998 for AHRQ. (Johnson, 11/19)

The New York Times: Chicago Hospital Shooting Leaves 4 Dead
This city’s hospitals have grown all too accustomed to receiving victims of gunshot wounds from unrelenting violence on the streets, but on Monday, one hospital became the scene of a shooting that left four people dead and sent health workers and patients alike scrambling for safety. As a frantic scene played out inside and outside Mercy Hospital, south of Chicago’s downtown, four people were shot and killed, Superintendent Eddie Johnson of the Chicago Police said. Among the dead, according to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, were a police officer, a doctor and a pharmacy employee. (Smith, 11/19)

The Associated Press: Four Dead, Including Suspected Gunman, After Chicago Hospital Shooting, Police Say
The chain of events that led to the shooting began with an argument in the hospital parking lot involving the gunman and a woman with whom he was in a domestic relationship, police said. When a friend of the woman’s tried to intervene, ‘‘the offender lifted up his shirt and displayed a handgun,’’ Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said. The woman’s friend ran into the hospital to call for help, and the gunfire began seconds later, with the attacker killing the woman he was arguing with. Johnson described her only as a hospital employee. (Seitz and Babwin, 11/19)

ABC News: 4 Dead, Including Police Officer, In Hospital Shooting On Chicago's South Side 
One of the women killed was a doctor, while the other was a pharmaceutical assistant, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said during the news conference. "The City of Chicago lost a doctor, pharmaceutical assistant and a police officer, all going about their day, all doing what they love," Emanuel said. (Jacobo, 11/20)

USA Today: Alcohol Taxes And Restrictions Could Curb Problem Drinking, But Are Hard To Sell
When health officials wanted to reduce deaths from tobacco, they spread messages about the proven cancer risks, pushed to ban smoking in public places and worked to raise taxes on cigarettes. Alcohol, which causes 88,000 deaths a year in the United States, is a similarly grave public health concern. But the way forward is less clear. What worked with smoking may not work with drinking, which still enjoys broad social acceptance. Nearly all the potential solutions are hitting considerable roadblocks. (O'Donnell, 11/19)

CNN: One-Third Of US Parents Plan To Skip Flu Shots For Their Kids
Thirty-four percent of US parents said their child was unlikely to get the flu vaccine this year, according to a report published Monday by C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. The online poll, which was administered in October, looked at 1,977 parents who had at least one child, whether parents would get their children the flu vaccine and their reasoning, among other things. Of parents polled, 48% said they usually followed the recommendations of their child's health care provider when making choices about the flu vaccine. (Thomas, 11/19)

Stat: Scientists Are Creating A Contraceptive That Stops Sperm In Its Tracks 
Scientists are trying to create a new kind of contraception with a novel tactic: tangling up sperm so they can’t reach an egg. The project relies on the precision targeting ability of monoclonal antibodies, which are widely used as drugs to treat everything from cancer to Crohn’s disease. Boston University and Mapp Biopharmaceutical, a San Diego-based drug company that specializes in this technology, are spearheading the research, and scientists across the country have signed on to help study the idea. They’ve already scored early support: The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development recently awarded the team an $8 million grant. (Thielking, 11/20)

The New York Times: The Experiments Are Fascinating. But Nobody Can Repeat Them.
At this point, it is hardly a surprise to learn that even top scientific journals publish a lot of low-quality work — not just solid experiments that happen, by bad luck, to have yielded conclusions that don’t stand up to replication, but poorly designed studies that had no real chance of succeeding before they were ever conducted. Studies that were dead on arrival. We’ve seen lots of examples. (Gelman, 11/19)

San Jose Mercury News: Holiday Eating: Is Carb-Cutting The Secret To Losing Weight?
Step away from the mashed potatoes. So long stuffing. Here comes bracing new research about carbohydrates just as we approach holiday feast season. Flying in the face of conventional wisdom that you have to cut calories to lose weight, a large new study recently published in the British Medical Journal shows that overweight adults who cut carbohydrates from their diets and then replaced them with fat sharply increased their metabolisms. After only five months on the low-carb diet, their bodies burned off 250 calories more per day than those who ate a high-carb, low-fat diet, which suggests that cutting carbs may help people maintain their weight loss more easily. The low-carb group also had significantly lower levels of ghrelin, known as the hunger hormone. (D'Sourza, 11/19)

The New York Times: Omega-3s May Lower The Risk Of Preterm Birth
Taking omega-3 supplements during pregnancy may lower the risk for preterm birth, a review of studies has found. The analysis, in the Cochrane Reviews, considered 70 randomized trials that included almost 20,000 women. A few studied fish consumption, but most tested supplements of omega-3 fatty acids, the fats found in fish. (Bakalar, 11/19)

The New York Times: The Fight Against Malaria Has Reached A Standstill
Progress against malaria has stalled, and the disease remains a significant threat to billions of people despite the expensive, decades-long efforts to contain it, the World Health Organization reported on Monday. According to the W.H.O.’s latest annual assessment, there were an estimated 220 million cases of malaria last year, and about 435,000 deaths from the disease. Of the dead, 262,000 were children under age 5. (McNeil, 11/19)

The Associated Press: Limiting Screen Time For Your Kid? It’s Harder Than It Looks
It is Saturday morning, and 10-year-old Henry Hailey is up at the crack of dawn. Still in PJs, his microphone-equipped headphones glowing blue in the dim basement, he fixates on the popular online game “Fortnite” on a large screen. “What?! Right as I was about to finish it, I died,” he calls out disappointedly to his friend Gus, a fellow fifth-grader playing the game from his home just a few blocks away. “Dude, I should NOT have died.” The digital battles resume, and Henry’s enthusiasm never wanes. Would he play all day if his parents let him? “Probably,” he concedes with a slight grin. (Irvine, 11/19)

USA Today: James Woods Uses Twitter To Help Veteran Contemplating Suicide
Actor James Woods used his Twitter account to call attention and help to a distressed veteran who was contemplating suicide. The "Salvador" actor, 71, alerted the Orlando Police Department Monday night and asked authorities to perform a wellness check on former Marine Andrew MacMasters. (Henderson, 11/20)

The Washington Post: The Maternity Homes Where ‘Mind Control’ Was Used On Teen Moms To Give Up Their Babies
Karen Wilson Buterbaugh was 16 in the fall of 1965 when she got pregnant by her steady boyfriend. Terrified and in denial, she hid her growing body under an oversized sweater for five months. When she could no longer hide the pregnancy, she finally told her parents. They shipped her off to a maternity home without telling her where she was going. (Bernard and Bogen-Oskwarek, 11/19)

Kaiser Health News: Fish Oil Drug Looks Heart-Healthy. Just Don’t Swallow It Hook, Line And Sinker.
When biopharma company Amarin teased its latest clinical trial results this fall, it stirred both buzz and controversy in the medical community by suggesting its drug, Vascepa, could transform heart disease prevention. The company’s stock skyrocketed. But this month at the American Heart Association’s scientific sessions, an annual who’s who of cardiology, the company unveiled the complete study findings, also published in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Luthra, 11/20)

The New York Times: How Long Can People Live?
The most common risk factor for serious disease is old age. Heart disease, cancer, stroke, neurological conditions, diabetes — all increase radically with advancing years. And the older a person is, the more likely he or she is to have multiple chronic illnesses. Some scientists hope one day to treat all of them at once — by targeting aging itself. (Bakalar, 11/19)

The New York Times: Why Are We Still So Fat?
Whenever I see a photo from the 1960s or 1970s, I am startled. It’s not the clothes. It’s not the hair. It’s the bodies. So many people were skinny. In 1976, 15 percent of American adults were obese. Now the it’s nearly 40 percent. No one really knows why bodies have changed so much. (Kolata, 11/19)

The New York Times: Why Don’t We Have Vaccines Against Everything?
Vaccines are among the most ingenious of inventions, and among the most maddening. Some global killers, like smallpox and polio, have been totally or nearly eradicated by products made with methods dating back to Louis Pasteur. Others, like malaria and H.I.V., utterly frustrate scientists to this day, despite astonishing new weapons like gene-editing. (McNeil, 11/19)

The New York Times: When Will We Solve Mental Illness?
Nothing humbles history’s great thinkers more quickly than reading their declarations on the causes of madness. Over the centuries, mental illness has been attributed to everything from a “badness of spirit” (Aristotle) and a “humoral imbalance” (Galen) to autoerotic fixation (Freud) and the weakness of the hierarchical state of the ego (Jung). The arrival of biological psychiatry, in the past few decades, was expected to clarify matters, by detailing how abnormalities in the brain gave rise to all variety of mental distress. But that goal hasn’t been achieved — nor is it likely to be, in this lifetime. (Carey, 11/19)

The New York Times: Will We Ever Cure Alzheimer’s?
It’s a rare person in America who doesn’t know of someone with Alzheimer’s disease. The most common type of dementia, it afflicts about 44 million people worldwide, including 5.5 million in the United States. Experts predict those numbers could triple by 2050 as the older population increases. So why is there still no effective treatment for it, and no proven way to prevent or delay its effects? (Belluck, 11/19)

The New York Times: How Can We Unleash The Immune System?
Cancer has an insidious talent for evading the natural defenses that should destroy it. What if we could find ways to help the immune system fight back? It has begun to happen. The growing field of immunotherapy is profoundly changing cancer treatment and has rescued many people with advanced malignancies that not long ago would have been a death sentence. (Grady, 11/19)

ProPublica: ACLU Of Illinois Demands Removal Of Children In DCFS Care
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on Friday took the state’s child welfare agency to federal court to attempt to force the removal of all children in its care from a troubled Chicago psychiatric hospital after additional claims of sexual abuse there. A sexual assault allegation involving a 19-year-old patient, cited in the ACLU’s emergency court filing, comes as Aurora Chicago Lakeshore Hospital faces intense scrutiny following a string of disturbing accusations of sexual and physical abuse. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services sends hundreds of children to the hospital each year, relying on Lakeshore to treat those with severe mental illness who are sometimes turned away by other hospitals. (Eldeib, 11/16)

The Associated Press: 3 Killed When Air Ambulance Crashes In North Dakota
An air ambulance on its way to pick up a patient crashed shortly after taking off in North Dakota, killing all three people on board, and military officials involved in the response said the plane may have broken up in midair. The twin-engine Bismarck Air Medical airplane took off about 10:30 p.m. Sunday and crashed shortly after in a field about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of Bismarck. Air traffic control officials lost contact with the plane about 11 p.m., county spokeswoman Maxine Herr said. (11/19)

The CT Mirror: Conn. Lawmakers, Malloy Administration Wrangle Over Adding Telemedicine To HUSKY
Connecticut’s congressional delegation is at odds with the Malloy administration over its failure to apply for an expansion of the HUSKY program that would give low-income residents access to new telemedicine services, especially for psychiatric care and substance abuse treatment. The Malloy administration, however, says the process for applying for permission to add these services to the HUSKY program may not achieve the desired results, is lengthy, and is not currently a priority. (Radelat, 11/20)

The Associated Press: Trial Over Kentucky Abortion Law In Judge’s Hands
The fate of a Kentucky abortion law is in the hands of a federal judge after a trial wrapped up Monday over a lawsuit pitting Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration and the state’s only abortion clinic. The suit challenges a law aimed at a common second-trimester procedure to end pregnancies. An ACLU attorney representing the clinic says the law is unconstitutional because it would essentially end abortion access for women 15 weeks into their pregnancy. (11/19)

Georgia Health News: Georgians Have Voted To Help Homeless With Mental Illness
Beyond the debate around Georgia’s election outcome, one result is a clear victory for health care. Three of four Georgians voted to approve a referendum Nov. 6 that will help nonprofits provide permanent housing to homeless people with mental illness. (Miller, 11/19)

North Carolina Health News: State Health Officials Seek Input On Early Childhood Action Plan
The Department of Health and Human Services has a vision for all North Carolina children to be on track by 2025 for healthy, stable lives. DHHS needs public input for how to get there from here. Among other goals, they want to decrease the inequity in the high infant mortality rate between African-American and white infants, increase the percentage of eligible children enrolled in Medicaid, and lower the percentage of kids in food insecure households, which is now at more than 20 percent. (Duon, 11/19)

The Associated Press: Lawsuit Continues Against Novelist Sparks, School He Started
The former headmaster of a private Christian school founded by novelist Nicholas Sparks can continue to sue the school, the author and the foundation Sparks created to support the school, a federal judge said. U.S. District Judge James Dever III ruled last month that a jury should decide whether the author of "Message in a Bottle" and "The Notebook" defamed Saul Hillel Benjamin and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sparks was described as telling parents, a job recruiter and others that the former Epiphany School of Global Studies headmaster suffered from mental health problems, the judge said. Benjamin was in the position for less than five months and said he was forced out. (11/20)

Health News Florida: Nursing Homes Seek More Time On Generator Requirements
More than 40 percent of Florida nursing homes are asking health-care regulators for more time to meet backup-power requirements pushed by Gov. Rick Scott after Hurricane Irma last year. But Justin Senior, the state’s top health-care regulator, said his agency won’t approve waiver requests for deadbeat facilities that haven’t worked over the past several months to carry out emergency backup-power plans. (Sexton, 11/19)

New Hampshire Public Radio: EPA: New 'GenX' PFAS Chemicals, In Use In Merrimack, May Still Be Toxic
The EPA says new types of nonstick industrial chemicals might not be much safer than their predecessors – raising alarm in parts of New Hampshire. For years, companies used fluorinated chemicals like PFOA and PFOS to make nonstick, waterproof or stain-resistant products. (Ropeik, 11/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Court Overturns $1.6 Million Jury Award In Bay Area Asbestos Case
A state appeals court has overturned $1.6 million in damages awarded by an Alameda County jury against a pipe supply company last year in a suit by a former construction worker who was stricken with cancer after cutting pipes laden with asbestos. (Egelko, 11/19)

Iowa Public Radio: Changes To Sioux City's Firearms Code Would Make Carrying A BB Gun A Crime
Sioux City officials are in the process of changing the city’s weapons code to prohibit people from carrying toy firearms like BB guns in city limits. Local police say these guns look like real firearms, and banning them could curb crime. Sioux City council members passed a second reading of the ordinance on Monday. A first reading was passed in early November and the city council will revisit it for a third time next week. (Peikes, 11/20)

Boston Globe: First Recreational Pot Shops In Mass. Open Today
Thousands of marijuana customers are expected to be among the first in Massachusetts to buy recreational pot from one of two shops opening early Tuesday morning. The 8 a.m. opening of Cultivate in Leicester, and New England Treatment Access in Northampton, signals the start of legal cannabis sales after more than a century of pot prohibition in the state. (Adams, 11/20)

Stat: Rep. Joe Kennedy III: Time To Legalize Marijuana At The Federal Level
One thing is clear to me: Our federal policy on marijuana is badly broken, benefiting neither the elderly man suffering from cancer whom marijuana may help nor the young woman prone to substance use disorder whom it may harm. The patchwork of inconsistent state laws compounds the dysfunction. Our federal government has ceded its responsibility — and authority — to thoughtfully regulate marijuana. This needs to change. Given the rapid pace of state-level legalization and liberalization, I believe we must implement strong, clear, and fair federal guidelines. To do that requires us to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and legalize it at the federal level. (Joe Kennedy III, 11/20)

The New York Times: Canada’s Grand Cannabis Experiment Has Set Scientists Free 
Canada’s brand-new legislation, the Cannabis Act, replaces a restrictive system that treated researchers like would-be drug dealers. Scientists intending to cultivate their own plants can now simply apply for a specific class of license rather than toil for an exemption from the retrograde Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which, among other demands, required criminal record checks. The Canadian government, once unwilling to touch the stuff, has stepped up to properly examine how cannabis affects the body and brain. It’s funding 14 new studies and has set aside millions more for research grants that could ask questions like, Will a pregnant mother using cannabis harm her baby’s development? Does smoking affect drivers’ reaction time behind the wheel? And at what threshold does teenagers’ pot consumption become destructive? (Amanda Siebert, 11/20)

Chicago Tribune: How Medical Pot Made Me A Better Mom
I’d been a cannabis skeptic from the start: I never much liked getting high for fun, tending to feel nervous and paranoid rather than happy and chill. I also carried childhood shame about catching my mom smoking a little pipe in secret — the strange pungent smell, her altered state, her mortified reaction when I walked in on her. And I worried that using more cannabis would alter me in turn, distance me from my children and prevent good parenting. How wrong I was. (Diana Whitney, 11/19)

Boston Globe: 4 Lessons From The Mass. Marijuana Law Roll-Out
Well, at least it’s a start. More than two years after Massachusetts voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use, the first two stores are finally set to open on Tuesday, one in Northampton and the other in Leicester, where “budtenders” will help customers pick just the right pot-infused lozenge in sleek and stylish buildings resembling out-of-place Apple stores. ...State and local officials can do better as the industry rollout continues. Too often, officials seem to run for the hills when the subject of marijuana comes up, or view stores as nothing more than opportunities to extract tax revenue. “In my view, we’re running into a lot of challenges because, generally, local and state officials are not caught up to where the people are,” said Shaleen Title, one of the five members of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission. (11/20)

The Washington Post: Arkansas’s Medicaid Experiment Has Proved Disastrous
This summer, Arkansas became the first state to require poor people to prove they’re employed to receive Medicaid. Critics say the state is trying to save money on the backs of the poor. That’s nonsense, Arkansas officials reply. They want to help  the poor. Backed by the Trump administration, they are inspiring slackers and moochers to climb the economic ladder. (Catherine Rampell, 11/19)

Los Angeles Times: Tobacco And Alcohol Companies Have To Post Warnings About Their Products. Why Do Gun Vendors Get A Pass?
In California, businesses that sell products containing known carcinogens must post “clear and reasonable” warnings about the danger of exposure consumers face (remember that brouhaha about coffee?). Look at the side of a can of beer and you find a label warning that “drinking distilled spirits, beer, coolers, wine and other alcoholic beverages may increase cancer risk, and, during pregnancy, can cause birth defects.” Ditto for tobacco products.But in Washington state, the King County Board of Health (think Seattle) has gone one better about a consumer product with a much more immediate risk of death. It recently ordered all gun vendors in the county to post signs warning of the increased risks of danger from possession of a firearm. The signs read: “Warning: The presence of a firearm in the home significantly increases the risk of suicide, homicide, death during domestic violence disputes and unintentional deaths to children, household members and others.” (Scott Martelle, 11/19)

Miami Herald: Gun Violence Has Become An Issue Of Public Health 
I called this an American epidemic because it is not a worldwide pandemic. In the last two years, more Americans have died from firearm violence in their homes and communities than died in combat or from terrorism. More, in fact, than were killed in the decade-long Vietnam War. In 2016 alone (the most recent year of reported data), 37,000 people were killed in the United States by firearms. (In 2017, there were more gun deaths by suicide than by homicide in the United States. The numbers have grown steadily over the past quarter century. (Peter Gorski, 11/19)

The Detroit News: To Drain The VA Swamp, Trump Must First Wade Into It
President Trump campaigned on cleaning house at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He pledged to fire inept and corrupt bureaucrats and give veterans greater choice in their health care. ...To translate his campaign promises into reality, President Trump needs people who agree with his vision for the VA -- not civil servants who were there before he took office and will be there after he leaves. (Bob Carey, 11/19)

Stat: 6 Lessons From The Fight To Reform Pay For Primary Care Physicians 
I have had the fortune — both good and bad — of being at the forefront of reforming physician reimbursement as an advocate for physicians. I’ve worked on models spanning private practice, group employment, faculty practice plans, and independent physician associations. It’s been a bruising journey. (Andrew M. Snyder, 11/20)

Bloomberg: Peanut Allergy Remedy Offers Hope And Risk
Food allergies alter lives and can have deadly consequences. That’s one of the reasons that full results of a study of Aimmune Therapeutics Inc.’s peanut allergy treatment, published Sunday in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, are so exciting. The findings validated and fleshed out details of the study that were first released in February. The key takeaway: After a year of  treatment, two-thirds of children who took the medication were able to eat small amounts of peanuts. This isn’t a cure. But it has a shot at U.S. government approval, and could make the lives of children with few options easier and safer. That gives the medicine huge commercial potential. (Max Nisen, 11/19)

The Hill: Talking Points And Health-Care Restrictions Prevent People From Enrolling In ACA
Open-enrollment for marketplace health insurance began at the beginning of this month and with open-enrollment each year come the falsehoods and inaccuracies from the anti-choice movement.These inflammatory talking-points have been going around since the Affordable Health care Act was passed in 2015. Chief among these false talking points is the argument that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), provides federal subsidies for abortions — it is a blatant lie. (Julie A. Burkhart, 11/19)