The New York Times: Supreme Court Sidesteps Abortion Question In Ruling On Indiana Law
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sidestepped part of a major abortion case, a new sign that the court is not yet moving aggressively to test the constitutional right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade. In an apparent compromise in a case from Indiana, the justices turned down an appeal that asked the court to reinstate a state law banning abortions sought solely because of the sex or disability of a fetus. But the court upheld part of the same law requiring abortion providers to bury or cremate fetal remains. (Liptak, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Supreme Court Won’t Reinstate Indiana Ban On Abortion For Sex Selection
The court’s unsigned opinion appeared the product of a delicate compromise over perhaps the most divisive issue on the docket—one that has resonated more loudly since the majority’s position on abortion fell into question following the retirement last year of Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who had joined liberals to reaffirm women’s constitutional right to end their pregnancies. With President Trump’s appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Kennedy seat, opponents of abortion rights have accelerated efforts to restrict the procedure, with some hoping the court may be ready to overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision recognizing abortion rights. (Bravin, 5/28)

NPR: Supreme Court Abortion Ruling Upholds Part Of Indiana Law, Punts On The Rest
Tuesday's unsigned opinion in the Indiana case appeared to be a compromise that allows the court to tread water on abortion for now. It preserves the status quo and, indeed, even allows for a possible challenge to the burial and cremation provision of the law on different grounds in the future. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor would have struck down both provisions of the law. (Totenberg and Montanaro, 5/28)

Los Angeles Times: Supreme Court Issues A Go-Slow Signal In Its First Abortion Decision Of The Year
Tuesday’s outcome, after weeks of internal debate, suggests that the justices are inclined to move slowly and cautiously on the abortion issue and that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and his fellow conservatives are not ready to directly confront abortion rights, at least during a presidential election year. Had the high court agreed to hear the Indiana case, it would have been argued in the fall and decided by June 2020. The decision not to hear Indiana’s appeal provides further evidence that the justices will not be eager to consider the even more sweeping abortion bans recently adopted by Alabama and other conservative states. (Savage, 5/28)

The Hill: Supreme Court Upholds Indiana Law On Fetal Remains, Avoids Major Abortion Ruling For Now
Tuesday's order also noted that Justice Sonia Sotomayor would have rejected the appeals for both laws, upholding the lower court rulings. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a lengthy opinion that he "would have thought it could go without saying that nothing in the Constitution or any decision of this court prevents a state from requiring abortion facilities to provide for the respectful treatment of human remains." (Thomsen, 5/28)

CQ: High Court Allows Indiana Fetal Remains Law, Not Abortion Ban
Ginsberg, who concurred in part and dissented in part, wrote that the fetal remains language goes against prior precedent. “This case implicates ‘the right of [a] woman to choose to have an abortion before viability and to obtain it without undue interference from the State,’” she wrote, referring to Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, a 1992 abortion case. (Raman, 5/28)

Politico: McConnell: Republicans Would Confirm A Justice During 2020 Election
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that Republicans would fill an opening on the Supreme Court if there were a vacancy next year — in contrast with 2016, when he stated his fierce opposition to confirming a justice in the last year of a president’s term. At a Paducah (Kentucky) Area Chamber of Commerce lunch, McConnell was asked about how he would handle an opening if a justice were to die in 2020, when President Donald Trump is up for reelection. McConnell confidently replied, “Oh, we’d fill it.” (Choi, 5/28)

The New York Times: Missouri’s Last Abortion Clinic Could Stop Providing The Procedure This Week
Missouri’s last abortion clinic might have to stop providing the procedure by the end of the week because of a standoff with state officials over an audit, according to Planned Parenthood, which operates the clinic. Lawyers for the clinic say that the audit, which began this spring, has become wide-ranging and includes demands they consider to be unreasonable. They say the clinic’s license is due to expire at midnight on June 1, and if the disagreement over the audit is not sorted out by then, the clinic will be forced to stop providing abortions. (Tavernise, 5/28)

Reuters: Missouri May Become Only U.S. State With No Legal Abortion Provider
The license for Reproductive Health Services to provide abortions expires on Friday, after which it may no longer offer abortions. It would continue providing other healthcare services, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman said. "This is a real public health crisis," said Leana Wen, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which runs the clinic. "More than a million women of reproductive age in Missouri will no longer have access to a health center in the state they live in that provides abortion care." (Borter, 5/28)

The Washington Post: Missouri Could Become The First State Without An Abortion Clinic
The St. Louis clinic plans to file a lawsuit in state court Tuesday seeking permission to keep providing abortions if its license expires, Planned Parenthood said in a statement. The nonprofit said the clinic “has maintained 100 percent compliance” with the law. “What is happening in Missouri shows that politicians don’t have to outlaw abortion to push it out of reach entirely,” Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. (Iati, 5/28)

The Hill: Missouri's Only Abortion Clinic Expects To Be Shut Down This Week 
Planned Parenthood made two of its doctors available for interviews, but the other five are not considered employees of the organization and have not consented to interviews. The state hasn't given specifics about the investigation's focus but told Planned Parenthood officials that it's "not off the table" for it to result in criminal referrals. (Hellmann and Rodrigo, 5/28)

Los Angeles Times: With Missouri’s Last Abortion Clinic Targeted, Illinois Braces For Influx Of Patients
Faced with that prospect, abortion providers in neighboring Illinois were bracing for an influx of patients. “If Missouri blocks the last remaining abortion provider … in the state, it’s going to leave more than 1.1 million women of reproductive age to face a world where they’re blocked from accessing abortion services,” said Alison Dreith, the deputy director of the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Ill., 10 miles from downtown St. Louis. (Jarvie, 5/28)

CQ: Missouri's Sole Abortion Provider May Close Friday
In 2018, Missouri had two abortion providers, but the Columbia Planned Parenthood was forced to close in October over hospital admitting privilege requirements for abortion providers.The American Civil Liberties Union separately said it also supports challenging these requirements. (Raman, 5/28)

KCUR: Missouri Could Soon Become First State Without A Clinic That Performs Abortions 
Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, director of State Media Campaigns for Planned Parenthood, said the situation in Missouri has been unfolding for years and is the result of what she describes as a "weaponized inspections process." "This didn't happen overnight. It's been a slow drip of restriction after restriction, and we've been warning for some time that abortion access is on the line," Lee-Gilmore said. (McCammon and Gringlas, 5/28)

Kaiser Health News: What Closing Missouri’s Last Abortion Clinic Will Mean For Neighboring States
As the last abortion clinic in Missouri warned that it will have to stop providing the procedure as soon as Friday, abortion providers in surrounding states said they are anticipating an uptick of even more Missouri patients. At Hope Clinic in Granite City, Ill., just 10 minutes from downtown St. Louis, Deputy Director Alison Dreith said Tuesday her clinic was preparing for more patients as news about Missouri spread. “We’re really scrambling today about the need for increased staff and how fast can we hire and train,” Dreith said. (Weber, 5/28)

The Washington Post: Illinois House Passes Reproductive Health Act, Affirming Abortion Rights Amid Attack On Roe V. Wade
Alabama. Ohio. Kentucky. Mississippi. Georgia. Utah. Arkansas. Missouri. These are the states on the front lines of the cultural battle intensifying over abortion. Next up: Illinois? The “Land of Lincoln” is the latest place to advance legislation addressing access to the medical procedure. But the aim in Springfield, Ill., is vastly different. (Stanley-Becker, 5/29)

The Associated Press: Illinois May Expand Abortion Rights As Other States Restrict
The Illinois House voted to bolster the right to abortion on Tuesday as Democratic-led states respond to restrictions placed by some Republican-led states that conservatives hope will lead the U.S. Supreme Court to review the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed the right to abortion. The Illinois House voted 64-50 on Rep. Kelly Cassidy's Reproductive Health Act , which would rescind prohibitions on some late-term abortions and 45-year-old restraints such as criminal penalties for doctors performing abortions, all measures whose enforcement has been prohibited by court orders. (O'Connor, 5/28)

The Associated Press: 2020 Candidate Kamala Harris Targets State Abortion Bans
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Tuesday that if she won the White House, she would require states seeking to restrict abortion laws to first obtain federal approval. The senator from California said she would back legislation requiring states with a history of restricting abortion rights to receive clearance from the Justice Department to change abortion laws. (Summers, 5/28)

The New York Times: Kamala Harris Wants To Require States To Clear Abortion Laws With Justice Dept.
The requirement would apply to jurisdictions with a history of violating Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in 1973 that established the constitutional right to abortion. These jurisdictions would have to clear new abortion laws with the Justice Department before putting them into effect. Ms. Harris is one of several Democrats in the 2020 race who have sharply criticized laws passed in Alabama, Missouri and other states that severely restrict abortion. She is also one of several Senate co-sponsors of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would prevent any government entity from imposing various restrictions on abortion services. (Stevens, 5/28)

Bloomberg: Kamala Harris Pushes To Proactively Block State Abortion Limits
But any attempt to put abortion rights into federal law will be difficult if Republicans, who overwhelmingly oppose legal abortion, control one or both chambers of Congress after the next election or maintain filibuster power to block bills in the Senate. (Kapur, 5/28)

Los Angeles Times: Kamala Harris Proposes Federal Oversight Of State And Local Abortion Laws
“It really goes on the offense. It’s a real game changer,” said Laurie Rubiner, former vice president of Planned Parenthood. Currently, if abortion rights advocates oppose a law passed on the state or local level, “we have to wait for them to pass the law, we go to court, we challenge it,” Rubiner said. “The onus is on us to challenge it. We have to go through the expense, the time.” (Mason, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Kamala Harris Proposes Abortion Law Modeled On Voting Rights Act
Ms. Harris, who was expected to explain her new plan at an MSNBC town hall Tuesday, is one of several presidential candidates to issue proposals in response to the passage of abortion restrictions in states like Alabama, Missouri, and Georgia. The wave of recent bills has rallied both abortion rights and antiabortion activists in the last two weeks. (Parti, 5/28)

The Hill: Harris To Unveil Abortion Rights Plan Modeled On Voting Rights Act 
Several candidates have released their plans to protect abortion access, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas). (Hellmann, 5/28)

Politico: House GOP Grapples With Abortion Messaging After Alabama Law
Republicans wanted to weaponize abortion against vulnerable Democrats in 2020, but a wave of strict bans across the country has upended their strategy, leaving them scattered and mostly mute. Before Alabama passed its law, Republicans had made clear they would make abortion a central issue in the next election. They had homed in on a host of state laws expanding access to abortion, seizing specifically on a New York bill that Republicans inaccurately claimed would legalize “infanticide.” (Barron-Lopez and Zanona, 5/29)

The Washington Post: Netflix Becomes The First Major Hollywood Studio To Speak Out Against Georgia’s Abortion Law
Ever since Georgia passed a “heartbeat bill” earlier this month, there has been a growing pressure in Hollywood to speak out, given that the state has become a major production hub for film and television due to generous tax incentives. Some celebrities have vowed to boycott Georgia if the law is officially implemented in January, while others will instead donate earnings to organizations fighting against it. But it wasn’t until Tuesday that a major Hollywood studio contributed to the conversation. Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos declared that while the streaming giant wouldn’t yet refrain from working in Georgia, it would partner with organizations in the legal fight against the law, which is among the most restrictive in the nation. (Rao, 5/28)

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Henry DA Pattillo Says He Won't Prosecute Women Under "Heartbeat" Law
The district attorney for Henry County is joining several of his peers in metro Atlanta in pledging not to prosecute women for seeking an abortion under the state’s new “heartbeat” law.“ HB 481 is unconstitutional because it is contrary to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which is presently the law of the land,” Henry District Attorney Darius Pattillo said in a statement. (Stafford, 5/28)

Meanwhile, the Washington Post fact checks statements on women dying before Roe v. Wade —

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Planned Parenthood’s False Stat: ‘Thousands’ Of Women Died Every Year Before Roe
A reader asked us to investigate this repeated claim by the president of Planned Parenthood — that “thousands of women” died every year from botched abortions before the Supreme Court in 1973 nullified antiabortion laws across the United States in Roe v. Wade. This turned out to be an interesting inquiry, taking The Fact Checker through a tour of decades of musty academic literature. Statisticians had tried to parse data on what was, for the most part, an illegal act. Unplanned pregnancy and abortions were deeply shameful at the time, so the official statistics were not necessarily reliable indicators of mortality rates from abortion. (Kessler, 5/29)

The Washington Post: A Violation Of ‘Privacy, Liberty, Dignity’: Civil Rights Groups Sue HHS Over Religious Exemption Rule
Lambda Legal and other civil rights groups are asking a federal court to strike down a Health and Human Services Department “conscience” rule that is set to dramatically expand the situations in which health providers, insurers and others could refuse to provide or pay for services they say violate their religious or moral beliefs. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claims the policy, which was published May 21, is unconstitutional and exceeds HHS’s statutory authority. (Cha, 5/28)

The Hill: Civil Rights Groups Sue Trump Administration Over 'Conscience Protection' Rule
According to the groups, which include Lambda Legal, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Center for Reproductive Rights, the rule will result in "mass confusion among health care providers and is completely infeasible to implement." (Weixel, 5/28)

CQ: Abortion-Rights Groups Sue HHS Over Conscience Rule
James R. Williams, county counsel for Santa Clara County, said much of the health care the county provides is related to emergency services. “Under our current policies, we require advanced notice about refusing to participate in certain care,” he said, adding that patient care must come first. If a health professional objects to helping during a medical emergency, he or she must provide care until a replacement can step in. The rule, he said, would make this impossible. (Raman, 5/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: Another Suit Against Administration Plan To Deny Treatment To LGBTQ People
The rule, scheduled to take effect July 22, is part of the administration’s “aggressive effort to expand enforcement of religious-objection laws at the expense of patients,” said the suit, filed in federal court in San Francisco. It said the plan violates numerous federal laws and the constitutional separation of church and state. (Egelko, 5/28)

The Associated Press: Washington Is Latest State To Sue Over Trump Health Rule
Washington is the latest state to sue President Donald Trump's administration in hopes of blocking a new rule that lets health care professionals refuse to provide abortions and other services that conflict with their moral or religious beliefs. Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat who has sued frequently and successfully over Trump's initiatives, filed the case Tuesday in federal court in Spokane. (5/28)

The New York Times: Oklahoma Faces Off Against J & J In First Trial Of An Opioid Maker
Opening statements in the country’s first trial over whether a pharmaceutical company is liable for the opioid crisis began as a battle between fire and ice: Lawyers for Oklahoma, a state brought to its knees by addiction and overdose deaths, heatedly accused Johnson & Johnson of creating a deadly demand for the drugs, while the company coolly responded that it had acted responsibly and lawfully in its quest to offer relief to chronic pain patients. (Hoffman, 5/28)

Bloomberg: Oklahoma Opioid Trial Against Johnson & Johnson Begins 
J&J and its Janssen unit used a “deceitful, multibillion-dollar brainwashing campaign’’ to dupe doctors into prescribing the powerful medications for unapproved ailments, causing a wave of fatal overdoses and addiction woes, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said at the start of a trial in the state’s claim against the company. (Feeley, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Johnson & Johnson, Oklahoma Spar In Opioid Trial
The case, which is being heard before a judge and not a jury, is the first to go to trial of some 2,000 lawsuits filed by states, local governments and Native American tribes alleging the pharmaceutical industry helped fuel the opioid crisis. The state argues that Johnson & Johnson followed in the footsteps of Purdue Pharma LP, whose 1996 introduction of OxyContin is widely seen as the beginning of a shift by drug companies toward promoting opioids for widespread pain. That shift played down the risk of addiction and created a public-health crisis, plaintiffs argue, for which the pharmaceutical industry should now pay to alleviate. (Randazzo, 5/28)

The Associated Press: Oklahoma Attorney Blames Corporate Greed For Opioid Crisis
Corporate greed is responsible for an opioid crisis that has cost Oklahoma thousands of lives and will take billions of dollars to repair, the state’s attorney general told a judge Tuesday at the start of the nation’s first state trial against the companies accused of fueling the problem. Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter’s opened the state’s case against consumer products giant Johnson & Johnson and several subsidiaries by saying the powerful painkillers have led to the “worst manmade public health crisis” in U.S. history. The state alleges drugmakers extensively marketed highly addictive opioids for years in a way that overstated their effectiveness and underplayed the risk of addiction. (Murphy, 5/28)

Reuters: J&J's Greed Helped Fuel U.S. Opioid Crisis, Oklahoma Claims At Trial
Brad Beckworth, a lawyer for the state, told Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman that New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J, along with Purdue and Teva, used misleading marketing beginning in the 1990s to push doctors to prescribe more opioids. Beckworth said J&J, which sold the painkillers Duragesic and Nucynta, marketed the opioids as "safe and effective for everyday pain" while downplaying their addictive qualities, helping create a drug oversupply. He said J&J was motivated to boost prescriptions not only because it sold opioid painkillers, but because it also grew and imported raw materials opioid manufacturers like Purdue used. "If you have an oversupply, people will die," Beckworth said. (5/28)

The Washington Post: Oklahoma Opioid Trial Begins As State Lays Blame For Crisis On Drug Companies
The company countered that its products make up just a tiny portion of the painkillers that have been consumed in Oklahoma, and it said its business — from the poppy farms of Tasmania to its products in U.S. drugstores — is closely regulated by federal and state agencies. With manufacturers, distributors, doctors and pharmacists all involved in bringing painkillers to patients, the state cannot prove that Johnson & Johnson caused rampant addiction and overdose deaths, its attorney said. (Bernstein, 5/28)

Politico: Nation’s First Opioid Trial Begins, Testing How Much Pharma Will Be Held Responsible For Crisis
The Oklahoma trial, which is being broadcast online, is expected to last for much of the summer, drawing renewed attention to a health crisis that is still claiming 130 U.S. lives a day. The testimony will focus on how much manufacturers of highly addictive painkillers are to blame for getting patients hooked on opioids through misleading medical claims and aggressive marketing practices. (Demko, 5/28)

In other news on the crisis —

The Associated Press: AP Report: 'Pain League' Allegedly Pushed Opioids In Italy
The police huddled for hours each day, headphones on, eavesdropping on the doctor. They'd tapped his cellphone, bugged his office, planted a camera in a trattoria. They heard him boast about his power to help Big Pharma make millions pushing painkillers, and about all the money they say he was paid in exchange. Now Dr. Guido Fanelli is at the center of a sprawling corruption case alleging he took kickbacks from an alliance of pharmaceutical executives he nicknamed "The Pain League." (5/29)

Arizona Republic: AHCCCS Could Add More Prescription Options For Opioid Dependence
After considering the testimony, the committee on Thursday recommended allowing a generic buprenorphine/naloxone tablet in addition to the Suboxone film to the preferred list of buprenorphine drugs, according to a photo of the panel's written recommendations that were presented at the meeting. The panel also recommended adding a statewide, streamlined pre-authorization process for prescribing an injectable form of extended-release buprenorphine known by the name Sublocade. (Innes, 5/28)

Politico: Seth Moulton Discloses PTSD, Unveils Military Mental Health Proposal
Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine veteran who is running for president, will introduce a plan Tuesday evening to expand military mental health services and will disclose that he sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder after his combat deployments during the Iraq War. “I had some particular experiences or regrets from the war that I just thought about every day, and occasionally I’d have bad dreams or wake up in a cold sweat,” the Massachusetts Democrat told POLITICO in an interview ahead of a Tuesday night event in Massachusetts that will begin a Veterans Mental Health Tour in early-primary states. “But because these experiences weren’t debilitating — I didn’t feel suicidal or completely withdrawn, and I was doing fine in school — it took me a while to appreciate that I was dealing with post-traumatic stress and I was dealing with an experience that a lot of other veterans have.” (Thompson, 5/28)

Boston Globe: Moulton Reveals He Sought Help For PTSD, Calls For Better Mental Health Care For Military
In a statement, Moulton, who served four tours in Iraq and was twice decorated for heroism, said he supports a mandatory counseling session for everyone returning from a combat deployment within two weeks of their arrival at home. He advocated for annual mental health check-ups “just like annual physicals” for those in the military and veterans. (McDonald, 5/28)

The Hill: Moulton Unveils Mental Health Plan, Shares Experience With Post-Traumatic Stress 
Further expanding benefits for veterans, the plan includes a doubling of Pentagon health professionals and a $500 million increase to its mental health budget. The proposal also provides funding for mental health screenings for every high school student in the country and establishes 511 as a National Mental Health Crisis Hotline. (Axelrod, 5/28)

CNN: Seth Moulton Unveils Mental Health Plan Focused On Veterans, High Schoolers
But while the military factors heavily into his plan, Moulton wanted to make clear that mental health is not something that just affects those who served in the military. "We must recognize that mental health matters to everyone. We all have personally dealt with mental health challenges, or have a family member, friend, or co-worker who has dealt with them, whether we know it or not," Moulton said in his plan, noting that high schoolers are particularly at risk for mental health issues. (Merica, 5/28)

USA Today: Moulton Unveils Mental Health Plan For Veterans, Reveals PTSD Treatment
Moulton is one of the first presidential candidates to publicly reveal that he has received mental health treatment. (Morin, 5/28)

Stat: Powerful New Cancer Drugs Can Trigger Diabetes — And No One Knows Why
Roughly 1% of patients receiving immunotherapy drugs experience the same irreversible side effect. Making matters worse, oncologists have little clue why. ...On Wednesday, the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, JDRF (formerly called the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), and the Helmsley Charitable Trust announced they are joining forces to launch a $10 million, three-year research initiative designed to identify the root causes of drug-induced diabetes among cancer patients. (Dolgin, 5/29)

NPR: FDA's Accelerated Approvals For Cancer Drugs At Odds With Many Later Studies
Cancer drugs that speed onto the market based on encouraging preliminary studies often don't show clear benefits when more careful follow-up trials are done, according to research published Tuesday. These cancer drugs are granted accelerated approval to give patients faster access to the treatments and to allow drug companies to reap the economic rewards sooner. As a condition of this process, the Food and Drug Administration requires drug companies to conduct more research, to confirm whether the medications actually work and are safe. (Harris, 5/28)

Stat: Drug Maker Tells FDA A Dancing Holiday Was To Blame For Infractions
During an inspection of a Centurion Laboratories facility in India last October, a Food and Drug Administration investigator noticed a variety of troubling manufacturing problems. These included a failure to follow written procedures for cleaning and maintaining equipment. Specifically, the investigator noticed equipment in one room that was marked as cleaned actually had “visible product build-up” and an air filter was damaged with multiple holes. This mattered to the FDA because the equipment was used to make drugs shipped to the U.S. (Silverman, 5/28)

Cincinnati Enquirer: A Year After Federal Right-To-Try Bill, Paul Rinderknecht Lives In Hope
Getting sick turned Paul Rinderknecht of Springfield Township into a political activist for terminal patients who want more access to experimental drugs. A year ago, President Donald Trump signed the right-to-try law, and Rinderknecht celebrated. Yet the law has not helped him or thousands of other Americans who hoped for relief from dire conditions such as brain cancer and, in Rinderknecht’s case, the progressive paralysis known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. (Saker, 5/27)

Stat: 5 People Behind Facebook's Push Into Health Care 
When it comes to building out a health business, Facebook is often seen as having much more modest ambitions than its Big Tech competitors. If that was ever true, it’s looking less so now — even as the company faces a backlash over revelations about its use of customers’ personal information. Last week alone, Facebook rolled out a set of maps aimed at aiding the fight against disease outbreaks, while Google’s one-time chief health strategist announced he would join Facebook as its head of health strategy. (Robbins and Thielking, 5/29)

Modern Healthcare: Centene Nabbed Lower WellCare Price Thanks To Market Downturn
A downturn in the market during the fourth quarter of 2018 helped Centene score a better price for WellCare Health Plans, a purchase the companies expect to close in the first half of 2020. The deal price fluctuated widely over the seven months of negotiations, reaching as high as $380 per share, consisting of as much as 55% cash with the rest being shares of Centene common stock, according to the companies' joint proxy statement filed last week. (Livingston, 5/28)

Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Executives Call For Stark Law Reform
Beth Hughes' job involves closely partnering with physicians to sync Sioux City, Iowa-based MercyOne's operations and move the health system forward. But one regulation continues to stand in her way—the Stark law, the president of MercyOne's Western Iowa region said. The anti-kickback statute is meant to curb Medicare and Medicaid spending by prohibiting financial compensation for referrals. But it has impeded new payment models by limiting incentives used to reward progress, providers said, noting that they can incur significant financial penalties even if they didn't intend to violate the Stark law. (Kacik, 5/28)

The Star Tribune: Allina-Aetna Says Its Enrollment Hits 12,000 
Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Co. enrolled about 12,000 people in coverage during the first quarter of operations for the firms' joint venture, according to a regulatory filing this month. Membership in the new joint-venture company, which is based in St. Louis Park, was roughly split between people with coverage via employer groups and those with Medicare health plans. (Snowbeck, 5/28)

Kaiser Health News: Not Funny: Midwife Slapped With $4,836 Bill For Laughing Gas During Her Labor
Nurse-midwife Karli-Rae Kerrschneider wanted the same supportive birth experience she promises her own patients — and that included the use of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, to dull her discomfort. The delivery of the gas during labor has come back in vogue in the U.S. in the past few years as a less invasive alternative to an epidural administered by an anesthesiologist. With a tank in the hospital room, a woman in labor can take breaths of the gas as she needs it. (Weber, 5/29)

The Associated Press: Can A Business Owner Require Staffers To Get Vaccinated?
Small business owners worried about the spread of measles may want to be sure their staffers have been vaccinated, but before issuing any orders, they should speak with a labor law attorney or human resources consultant. An employer generally is prohibited from requiring employees to undergo medical procedures including vaccinations under the Americans with Disabilities Act; a company that tries to force staffers to be vaccinated can find itself being sued by angry workers. But there can be exceptions, especially in places where there's a measles outbreak or where government officials have ordered vaccinations to protect the public's health. (5/28)

In other news on the outbreak —

Tampa Bay Times: Officials Blame Technical Error For False Report Of Measles In Pasco
A technical error spurred a flurry of news reports about a measles case in Pasco County over the Memorial Day holiday weekend. But local health officials say there is no such case. In a news release Tuesday afternoon, the Florida Department of Health in Pasco County said there have been no measles cases in the county there this year. “It has been recently reported that Pasco County had its first positive case of measles this year. This illness was investigated and ruled out as measles.” (Griffin, 5/28)

The Associated Press: Health Paradox: New US Diabetes Cases Fall As Obesity Rises
The number of new diabetes cases among U.S. adults keeps falling, even as obesity rates climb, and health officials aren't sure why. New federal data released Tuesday found the number of new diabetes diagnoses fell to about 1.3 million in 2017, down from 1.7 million in 2009. Earlier research had spotted a decline, and the new report shows it's been going on for close to a decade. But health officials are not celebrating. (5/28)

The Associated Press: 6 Months Later, Gene-Edited Babies Stir New Interest, Debate
Six months after a Chinese scientist was widely scorned for helping to make the world's first gene-edited babies, he remains out of public view, and new information suggests that others may be interested in pursuing the same kind of work outside the United States. A fertility clinic in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai emailed scientist He Jiankui to seek training in gene editing, Stanford University bioethicist Dr. William Hurlbut said ahead of a speech Tuesday at the World Science Festival in New York. (5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Many Teens Check Their Phones In Middle Of Night
Teenagers are so attached to their smartphones that more than a third of them wake up in the middle of the night and check the devices, according to a new survey. One reason teens might be so hooked: Their parents are nearly as bad. The survey, by Common Sense Media, found that roughly a quarter of parents woke up and checked their phones overnight. The findings trouble researchers because they indicate large numbers of smartphone users are ignoring the recommendations of sleep experts to cut off screen time at least an hour before bed and not check the phone in the night. (Morris, 5/29)

NPR: Stressed At Work? Burnout Is A Serious Problem, Says World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is bringing attention to the problem of work-related stress. The group announced this week that it is updating its definition of burnout in the new version of its handbook of diseases, the International Classification of Diseases — ICD-11 — which will go into effect in January 2022. The new definition calls it a "syndrome" and specifically ties burnout to "chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed." (Chatterjee and Wroth, 5/28)

The New York Times: Dog Owners Get More Exercise
Dog owners are about four times more likely than other people to meet today’s physical activity guidelines, according to a large-scale new study of dogs and exercise. The study, which involved hundreds of British households, suggests that having a dog can strongly influence how much people exercise. But it also raises questions about why some dog owners never walk their pets or otherwise work out and whether any of us should acquire a dog just to encourage us to move. (Reynolds, 5/29)

Miami Herald: Passengers Can Check Or Carry On CBD, Hemp Products, TSA Says
In an update to its website’s “What Can I Bring?” section, the Travel Security Administration clarified that Food and Drug Administration-approved hemp products like certain CBD medications are now allowed in both carry-on and checked bags.The clarified language was quietly posted Sunday. (Gross, 5/28)

The Washington Post: Gillette Ad Shows Father Teaching His Transgender Son To Shave
Gillette’s new ad campaign captures a pivotal life moment — a father teaching his son to shave — and a cultural milestone. The spot features transgender activist Samson Bonkeabantu Brown, who stands before a bathroom mirror, razor in hand, as his father guides him through the process. “Don’t be scared,” the older man says. “Shaving is about being confident.” The clip that keys in on a crucial step in Brown’s transition — “I’m glad I’m at the point where I’m able to shave,” he says — has gone viral since it was posted Thursday on Facebook. It’s had more than 1 million views and collected nearly 6,000 “loves” and 3,000 likes. (Shaban, 5/28)

NPR: For Many Navajos, Getting Hooked Up To The Power Grid Can Be Life-Changing
Neda Billie has been waiting to turn on lights in her home for 15 years. "We've been living off those propane lanterns," she says. "Now we don't have to have flashlights everywhere. All the kids have a flashlight so when they get up in the middle of the night like to use the restroom they have a flashlight to go to [the outhouse]." (Morales, 5/29)

The New York Times: Why There Has Been A Surge In Single Mothers Who Work
Single mothers in the United States can face many barriers to employment, like finding affordable child care and predictable work schedules. For many, a sick child or a flat tire can mean a lost job. Yet since 2015, something surprising has happened: The share of young single mothers in the work force has climbed about four percentage points, driven by those without college degrees, according to a New York Times analysis of Current Population Survey data. It’s a striking rise even compared with other groups of women who have increased their labor force participation during this period of very low unemployment. (Miller and Tedeschi, 5/29)

WBUR: This Teen Planned A School Shooting. But Did He Break The Law?
In many ways, the system worked: Someone saw something, then said something, and police made an arrest. But what happened next would play out a fundamental tension at the heart of our criminal justice system: At what point does a thought — or a plan — become a crime? (Keck and Elder-Connors, 5/28)

NPR: A Mental Health 'Epidemic' Among College Students And Their Parents
As colleges and universities across the country report an explosion of mental health problems, a new book argues that college life may be more stressful than ever. Dr. Anthony Rostain, co-author of The Stressed Years of Their Lives, notes that today's college students are experiencing an "inordinate amount of anxiety" — much of it centered on "surviving college and doing well." (Gross, 5/28)

The New York Times: High Doses Of B Vitamins Tied To Hip Fractures In Women
Large doses of vitamin B supplements are linked to an increased risk for hip fracture in older women, researchers report. The recommended dietary allowance for healthy women over 50 — 2.4 micrograms of B12 and 1.5 milligrams of B6 — would be fulfilled by eating six ounces of cooked tuna, and there are many other foods that contain these vitamins. One tablet of Centrum Silver, a widely used brand of multivitamins, contains 50 micrograms of vitamin B12 and 5 milligrams of B6. (Bakalar, 5/28)

NPR: Teen Sports May Protect Victims Of Childhood Trauma From Depression, Anxiety
As a kid, Molly Easterlin loved playing sports. She started soccer at age four, and then in high school, she played tennis and ran track. Sports, Easterlin believes, underlie most of her greatest successes. They taught her discipline and teamwork, helped her make friends and enabled her to navigate the many challenges of growing up. When Easterlin became a pediatrician, she started seeing a lot of kids suffering from trauma, from physical abuse to emotional neglect. (Neilson, 5/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: Citing Chronic Understaffing, SF Nurses Plan To Hit Health Department With ‘No Confidence’ Letter
More than 1,300 San Francisco nurses have signed on to a “no-confidence” letter they intend to send to leaders at the Department of Public Health on Thursday to protest what they’ve long claimed is a chronic understaffing of nurses throughout the city’s health care system. Despite playing critical roles on the front lines of the city’s mounting homelessness, mental health and drug addiction crises, nurses say they’re running on fumes, with conditions forcing them to take on more patients, skip breaks and work overtime. (Fracassa, 5/28)

Sacramento Bee: Nurses Protest At Tenet Hospitals In CA Over Breaks, Overtime
Nurses picketed outside Tenet-affiliated hospitals across California on Tuesday afternoon in a union-organized event meant to urge management to invest in nursing staff. More than 3,700 registered nurses represented by the California Nurses Association at eight California hospitals are in ongoing contract negotiations that began in September 2018 with the Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corporation. (Vaughan, 5/28)

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Nursing Shortage In Georgia: What Georgia Hospitals Are Doing
Nurses play a critical role in patient care. But for many hospitals, these professionals are in high demand and short supply. This is particularly true in states such as Georgia, according to nurse.org. One reason for the shortage is that many nurses are reaching retirement age and they aren't necessarily being replaced quickly enough by younger nurses. In addition, the population is aging and, as a result, more health care is needed generally. (Caldwell, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: New York State Lawmakers Weigh Single-Payer Health Bill
State lawmakers heard hours of testimony for and against establishing a system of single-payer health care for New York during a Tuesday hearing in Albany as they weigh legislation on the topic. Groups representing hospitals worried that they would receive lower reimbursement rates that would prompt closures. Insurance companies warned that people would have to wait longer for specialist care. Mitch Katz, president of New York City Health & Hospitals, said a single-payer system would ensure health care as a human right. Public employee unions said they didn’t want to surrender health benefits won through contract talks. (Vielkind, 5/28)

Stateline: Palliative Care Beyond Hospice Is Spreading To More States
Now more states are taking steps to extend such coverage to millions more people. They are extending palliative care benefits to adult Medicaid beneficiaries who are not necessarily close to death, mandating that providers tell patients that palliative care is available when it might be of some benefit, and requiring palliative care training for doctors. Maryland in 2017 became the first state to require all hospitals with more than 50 beds to provide palliative care services. (Ollove, 5/29)

Los Angeles Times: The West Has Many Wildfires, But Too Few Prescribed Burns, Study Finds
President Trump has laid the blame for out-of-control California wildfires on the state’s “gross mismanagement” of its forests. Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke pointed the finger at “environmental terrorist groups.” But according to a new study, the federal government is not doing enough to control the threat of wildfire in the West. (Phillips, 5/29)

California Healthline: UCSF Medical Center Backs Off Plan To Deepen Ties With Dignity Health
UCSF Medical Center officials said Tuesday they no longer would pursue a formal affiliation with Dignity Health, a large Catholic health care system that restricts care on the basis of religious doctrine. The decision follows months of heated protest from hundreds of University of California-San Francisco faculty and staffers, who argued that such an arrangement would compromise patient care and threaten the famously progressive health system’s reputation as a provider of unbiased and evidence-based care. (Gold, 5/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: Following Outcry, UCSF Ends Talks To Expand Partnership With Dignity Health
UCSF has abruptly ended three years of negotiations with Dignity Health, halting plans to share branding and medical services with the Catholic hospital chain while calming critics of Dignity’s religious restrictions on care. (Asimov, 5/28)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Teens Weigh In On Lawmakers' Plans To Tackle Vaping
Students and administrators say e-cigarettes are becoming more popular and harder to control in New Hampshire. E-cigarettes - which look like flash drives or pens - produce a flavored vapor high in nicotine. Manufacturers say they help adults quit smoking, but with flavors like cotton candy and lagging regulations on products, many say vaping has become an epidemic among teens. (Gibson, 5/28)

The Baltimore Sun: Frank Kelly Helped Create UMMS, And His Insurance Business Grew Alongside It. Now Such Ties Are Under Scrutiny. 
Since its inception more than three decades ago, the University of Maryland Medical System has been molded by former state Sen. Francis “Frank” Kelly Jr. Hard-charging and sometimes brusque, Kelly used his seat in the state legislature in the mid-1980s to help create UMMS and build its world-renowned R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. ...Those efforts have long bolstered Kelly’s reputation as a civic-minded businessman. But in the past few months, they’ve also drawn scrutiny after revelations that Kelly and nine others on UMMS’ 30-member board had contracts with the system they oversaw. UMMS has acknowledged that some of those contracts were not competitively bid, though it has not said whether Kelly’s were. (Rector and Cohn, 5/29)

The CT Mirror: Lamont, Hospitals On Brink Of Resolving Seven-Year Feud
Gov. Ned Lamont and the Connecticut Hospital Association announced the settlement of a 2015 industry lawsuit contesting a provider tax that has extracted billions of dollars from facilities since 2011. The administration also confirmed last week that it has begun supplemental payments to hospitals to resolve a $200 million-plus dispute involving payments for treatment of Medicaid patients. (Phaneuf, 5/28)

The CT Mirror: After Years Of Lean Budgets, Nonprofits Want $100 M From Surplus
With Connecticut’s coffers flush with cash for the first time in a decade, long-suffering nonprofit social services want a share of the wealth. The CT Community Nonprofit Alliance recently wrote to Gov. Ned Lamont, asking that he and lawmakers set aside $100 million to assist those who provide the bulk of state-sponsored social services. (Phaneuf, 5/29)

Texas Tribune: Texas Law Will Prevent Minors From Buying OTC Cough Medicine
Starting in September, Texans under 18 years old will no longer be able to buy popular over-the-counter cough medicines like NyQuil and Robitussin under a bill Gov. Greg Abbott signed earlier this month. House Bill 1518, by state Rep. Garnet Coleman D-Houston, will prevent minors from buying products that contain dextromethorphan, a cough suppressant found in more than 100 over-the-counter cough medicines. (Byrne, 5/29)

KQED: ‘We Have No Choice’: San Diego Officials Coping With Influx Of Migrants, Flu Outbreak
In a migrant shelter inside a former courthouse in downtown San Diego, medical personnel from local health clinics navigated through rows of green cots, stopping to check the temperatures and blood pressure of migrant parents and their children. Down the hall, physicians from the county and UC San Diego conducted initial health screenings for new arrivals. (Hall, 5/28)

Tampa Bay Times: Profit At Johns Hopkins Hospitals Tumbled. All Children’s Was To Blame.
The Johns Hopkins Health System’s operating profit dropped 70 percent in the first quarter of 2019, in large part because of problems in the All Children’s Hospital heart surgery program, according to the system’s latest financial report. The health system’s operating profit margin fell by a total of $31.7 million compared to the same period last year. The disclosure said the decrease was “mainly driven by lower net patient service revenue at (All Children’s) as a result of the closing of the Heart Institute.” (McGrory and Bedi, 5/28)

MPR: 'Mental Health Is Health': Docs Who Treat Kids Get Trained To Spot Mental Health Problems
In Minnesota, more than a million people are under the age of 18, but there are only 140 child psychiatrists practicing in the state. And there's clearly a need. There's a 1 in 5 chance that kids will develop depression sometime between middle and high school and a 1 in 6 chance they'll develop serious anxiety.Yet the people who take care of kids most of the time — like pediatricians and family doctors — don't get much training in how to treat mental health problems. (Roth, 5/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: No Hallucination: Oakland A Step Closer To Approving Use Of ’Shrooms
The Oakland City Council’s public safety committee approved a resolution Tuesday to decriminalize certain natural psychedelics, including mushrooms, paving the way for Oakland to become the second city in the country to do so. The resolution, introduced by committee chairman Noel Gallo, instructs law enforcement to stop investigating and prosecuting people using the drugs. (Ravani, 5/28)

Sacramento Bee: Oakland May Decriminalize Mushrooms: Drug, Legalization Facts
Oakland leaders are meeting on Tuesday night to consider decriminalizing so-called “magic mushrooms.” That would make the Northern California city the second in the United States to allow adults over 21 to possess psilocybin, the ingredient that gives “magic mushrooms” their hallucinogenic effects. (Gilmour, 5/28)

Concord Monitor: Senate Finance Committee Approves Psych Facility Compromise
New Hampshire’s Senate Finance Committee is backing a plan to create a psychiatric facility in the state, breathing new life into a proposal by Gov. Chris Sununu months after the House stripped it from the budget. But the plan, recommended 4-2, scales back Sununu’s original vision for a standalone psychiatric hospital, reducing the bed count from 60 to 24 and the price tag from $26 million to $17 million. (DeWitt, 5/28)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cleveland Pimp Sues Over Cuyahoga County Jail Conditions
A Cleveland man convicted of human trafficking said in a lawsuit that he endured inhumane living conditions while being housed in the Cuyahoga County Jail. Dorian Brown, 30, said he also endured cruel and unusual punishment and was deprived of proper medical and mental health care when in the jail from 2015 to 2017. (Heisig, 5/28)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Settlement Finalized In Terrill Thomas Jail Dehydration Case
Milwaukee County and the company that formerly provided health care at the jail have paid $6.75 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the estate of Terrill Thomas, who died of dehydration in his cell in 2016. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported the proposed settlement in January. The payments, about $5 million from the county and $1.7 million from Armor Correctional Health Services, have now been made. (Vielmetti, 5/28)

California Healthline: Lawmakers Push To Stop Surprise ER Billing
California has some of the nation’s strongest protections against surprise medical bills. But many Californians still get slammed with huge out-of-network charges.State lawmakers are now trying to close gaps in the law with a bill that would limit how much hospitals outside of a patient’s insurance network can charge for emergency care. “We thought the practice of balance billing had been addressed,” said state Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco), author of the bill. “Turns out there are major holes in the law potentially impacting millions of Californians with different types of insurance.” (Ibarra, 5/28)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Supreme Court: Medical Marijuana Extracts Are Legal
The long debate over whether medical marijuana extracts are legal in Arizona is over, after a ruling by the state Supreme Court. Extracts fall under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, the court ruled Tuesday. The ruling comes after a 2016 conviction and sentencing of Rodney Jones, a registered medical marijuana patient who was found in possession of a jar containing 0.005 ounces of hashish in 2013. (Castle, 5/28)

NPR: Tylenol For Infants And Children Is The Same. Why Does 1 Cost 3 Times More?
If you've ever had a little one at home with a fever, you might have noticed two options for Tylenol at the store. There's one for infants and one for children. They contain the same amount of medicine — 160 milligrams of acetaminophen per 5 milliliters of liquid — but the infant version costs three times more.What gives? It turns out, there's a backstory. (Simmons-Duffin, 5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: The Hidden Formula That Determines How Much You Pay For Drugs
Drug pricing is complicated and secretive. WSJ explains how the flow of money, drugs and rebates behind the scenes may drive up the price of prescription medicine for consumers. (5/28)

Stat: FTC Says Pay-To-Delay Cases Fell, Prompting Trade Group To Argue Legislation Isn’t Needed
Although more drug makers are settling patent lawsuits, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission found a dramatic drop in the number of so-called pay-to-delay deals, which the regulator and consumer watchdogs argue unfairly rob Americans of lower-cost alternatives to their prescription medicines. In discussing the findings, which were from fiscal year 2016, the FTC argued that the decline in such deals underscores the fact that brand-name and generic drug makers can settle patent litigation without having to resort to anti-competitive terms. A trade group for the generic industry, meanwhile, contended the data show that legislation designed to eliminate pay-to-delay deals is unnecessary. (Silverman, 5/24)

The Washington Post: The Price Of Insulin Is Surging. This State Is The First To Make Insurance Companies Eat The Cost.
A new Colorado law will ensure that those living with diabetes will spend no more than $100 per month on insulin, making it the first state to limit the cost of an increasingly expensive medication millions of Americans rely on. More than 30 million Americans have diabetes, and some 7.4 million of them must take insulin every day to live, according to the American Diabetes Association. Although insulin was discovered nearly a century ago, costs continue to rise. A January report from the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, found the price of an insulin prescription roughly doubled nationwide from 2012 to 2016. (Donovan-Smith, 5/24)

The CT Mirror: ACU Promotes Trump's End To Drug Rebates, CT Insurers Oppose Plan
The American Conservative Union has launched print, digital and cable ads lauding President Donald Trump’s plan to curtail a complex system of prescription drug price rebates that pharmaceuticals pay to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers. The ads say seniors can save up to 30% on the cost of their medicine and urge Americans to call the White House and thank the president “for fighting for Rx Drug Discounts for Seniors (Radelat, 5/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Drug Giant Tries New Tactic To Fight Cancer
Seeking an edge in the increasingly competitive market for cancer drugs, one of the industry’s largest companies is taking a bold but risky approach: targeting the early stages of the disease. AstraZeneca PLC’s new cancer research chief, José Baselga, wants the company to prioritize early-stage cancers over advanced disease when developing new cancer drugs. If successful, his unorthodox strategy could reap rewards for both patients—the potential to cure cancer is much greater when it is treated early—and company coffers. (Roland, 5/27)

MarketWatch: Will Drug Prices In TV Ads Really Be Transparent?
A website launched by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly LLY, -0.88%   earlier this year leads with a daunting statement about the price of its diabetes drug Trulicity: “Drug prices can be confusing,” it says. That’s for sure, and thanks to a new mandate from the Trump administration, consumers could find themselves even more confused. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in May that it will require drugmakers to include “list prices” in television ads for all medicines covered by Medicare or Medicaid that cost $35 or more for a one-month supply or for a full course. (Since private insurers and employer-run plans typically cover these drugs, too, the rule is likely to affect most prescription medications touted on TV.) (Weintraub, 5/28)

US News & World Report: Though 'Donut Hole' Is Shrinking, Medicare Drug Costs Are Rising: Study
Seniors' out-of-pocket costs for cancer drugs continue to rise steadily, with patients paying thousands of dollars each year despite efforts to close the Medicare Part D "donut hole," researchers said. Prices for 13 anticancer drugs available through Medicare Part D in 2010 rose an average 8% over inflation every year over the past decade, said lead researcher Stacie Dusetzina. She is an associate professor of health policy and cancer research at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn. (Thompson, 5/28)

Stat: Debate Erupts Over Whether Sarepta’s Rare Disease Drug Has Enough Clinical Data To Determine Cost-Effectiveness
A new controversy is emerging over a costly treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare disease that can send boys to an early death, thanks to a new analysis suggesting that clinical data is so limited that it is impossible to determine whether the medication is worth a price tag of $300,000 or more. The medicine, which is called Exondys 51 and marketed by Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT), caused a heated public debate over regulatory approval standards and satisfying unmet medical needs during the run-up to its endorsement nearly three years ago by the Food and Drug Administration. (Silverman, 5/23)

Stat: Glaxo Revamps Sales Rep Compensation As Part Of An Effort To Compete In The Cancer Market 
For the second time in less than a year, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is reworking promotional practices in order to boost prescriptions, and its latest move will provide greater incentives for its sales reps. The change comes as Glaxo attempts to compete in the burgeoning oncology market, a step underscored with its recent $5 billion acquisition of Tesaro, which sells a treatment for ovarian cancer. The deal helped return the drug maker to the commercial cancer business, which demands that promotional efforts match what rivals are doing. (Silverman, 5/23)

Bloomberg: A $2.1 Million Drug Price Record Is Made To Be Broken
The record $2.1 million price tag for Novartis AG’s gene therapy Zolgensma – a one-time treatment for a deadly childhood disease that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday – evokes two very different responses. Critics see out-of-control pricing behavior. Supporters say the sticker-shocked are ignoring the creation of a possible cure for a disease that kills children before their second birthday. They’re both valid reactions. But we’re heading toward a point where spiraling prices on gene therapies threatens to hamper access or effectively ration usage by income or coverage quality. The problem isn’t just Zolgensma. It’s the dozens of other incoming gene therapies that will use this price as a reference point. Miracle cures don’t do much good if they aren’t accessible. (Max Nisen, 5/28)

Los Angeles Times: A Drug With A Multimillion-Dollar Price Tag Is Making A Mockery Of Washington’s Efforts To Rein In Prices
Gilead Sciences, a California biopharmaceutical company, scored a major breakthrough in 2013 when the Food and Drug Administration approved Sovaldi, a pill that could cure hepatitis C when combined with another antiviral medication. And then Gilead delivered another breakthrough, albeit not a good one: It priced Sovaldi at $1,000 per pill, or $84,000 to $168,000 per course of treatment. The pricing stunned patients, insurers and state governments, which were suddenly exposed to billions of dollars in potential prescription costs. But as it turns out, Sovaldi was just a milepost on the way to the six- and seven-figure prices that a new generation of specialty drugs are expected to command. (5/23)

Stat: Why Adding Prices To TV Drug Ads Is Bad For Patients 
As soon as this summer, TV ads for prescription drugs are going to look a little different: the Trump administration recently finalized a rule that will require drug makers to show a medication’s list price. As a future physician, I am against this change. Adding the information would make the ads less helpful and more confusing for patients, who are powerless to change the complex system driving out-of-control prices. (Aaron Troy, 5/28)

Stat: Giving A Buprenorphine-Based Drug Orphan Status Is Wrong
The 30 million Americans with rare diseases should feel as encouraged as I am by the ongoing and enthusiastic commitment the Food and Drug Administration has made to advancing the approval of orphan drugs. But a loophole exploited by a pharmaceutical company threatens the integrity of this vital act. Over the past few years, fully one-third of new drugs approved by the FDA have been for rare diseases. The total number of orphan indications approved by the FDA jumped from 594 in 2016 to more than 770 in 2018. These approvals reflect not just a commitment by the FDA but also the success of the Orphan Drug Act, passed by Congress in 1983 to provide incentives for companies to develop orphan drugs. The act gives companies seven years of exclusivity for drugs given an orphan indication, a 25% tax credit for qualified clinical trials, and the waiver of application fees. (Diane Dorman, 5/28)

Forbes: Blink Health Taking On Middle Men To Democratize Drug Prices
Geoffrey Chaiken, co-founder and CEO of Blink Health, says he and his brother, Matthew, have a simple mission: To make prescriptions affordable for everybody in the country. “The way we’re doing that is by moving the category online,” Chaiken said. “When a category moves online, it brings transparency. You see the price before you get to the counter.” (Daniel D'Ambrosio, 5/23)

Kansas City Star: Missouri’s Attempt To Close Last Abortion Clinic Is Shameful
Missouri’s only remaining abortion clinic may close Friday — the result of a relentless and unconstitutional campaign against women that’s been led by state officials, the legislature and Gov. Mike Parson. Without a court order, Missouri could become the first state in the union in more than four decades to have zero abortion providers, threatening the rights of more than one million reproductive-age women in the state. (5/29)

The New York Times: A Dark Milestone For Women’s Rights: A State With No Abortion Clinics
In this threatening time for reproductive rights in America, a dark milestone is looming: Planned Parenthood announced on Tuesday that it would most likely be forced to stop providing abortions at its clinic in St. Louis, the last abortion clinic in Missouri, making it the only state in the country with zero abortion clinics. The ending of abortion care in St. Louis would make clear that while Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States, continues to protect the right to abortion in all 50 states, that is becoming a right in name only in many places. What good is a legal right to abortion if a woman can’t get one? (5/28)

Bloomberg: Supreme Court Avoids Big Issues On Indiana Selective Abortion Law
Abortion rights aren’t appreciably more in danger after Tuesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on two Indiana laws than they were before. But it’s clear that the drums are beating — and judicial war over abortion is coming, like it or not. The court upheld an Indiana law that says fetal remains can’t be “incinerated” with other medical waste but may be simultaneously “cremated.” Seven of the nine justices agreed with this judgment, signaling that the court’s liberals (except Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) didn’t want a fight over the law. Avoidance was made easier by the fact that abortion-rights activists did not claim the law unduly burdened a woman’s right to choose. (Noah Feldman, 5/28)

Arizona Republic: Roe V Wade Isn't Settled. Maybe State Abortion Laws Will Give Us A Say
Roe isn’t settled law; it’s bad law. Instead of ending the abortion debate, it is igniting new debates in every state almost 50 years later. The ultimate result of these new laws will be that the voters will finally have their say on the issue. (Jon Gabriel, 5/28)

The New York Times: I Want A Baby. I Don’t Want To Force Someone To Have It For Me.
When my husband and I first learned we had fertility issues in 2012, I’d been a patient escort at an abortion clinic in New York City for about six months. I would stand outside the clinic and help patients enter, while watching for any aggressive anti-abortion protesters. Back then, clinic escorting was a fairly simple job. Sure, we had a few regular protesters, who trailed patients from the subway to the front door, all while shoving pamphlets in their faces and begging them not to kill their babies. But mostly, both sides kept to ourselves, and the police rarely got involved. (Elizabeth Keenan, 5/28)

Los Angeles Times: UCSF Drops Affiliation With Catholic Hospitals, A Victory For Reproductive Rights
UC San Francisco announced Tuesday that it is dropping plans for an expanded affiliation with Dignity Health, a Catholic hospital chain that places flagrantly discriminatory restrictions on abortions, transgender care and other services. The decision was announced in a letter to the UCSF community and “concerned citizens” signed by Sam Hawgood, the USCF chancellor, and Mark Laret, CEO of UCSF Health, who had been pushing hard for the plan in presentations to the UC regents. (Michael Hiltzik, 5/28)

The New York Times: Why The Fight Over Abortion Is Unrelenting
In her classic 1984 study, “Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood,” the sociologist Kristin Luker addressed the fundamental question posed by the medical termination of a pregnancy: Why is the debate so bitter, so emotional? Part of the answer is very simple: the two sides share almost no common premises and very little common language. (Thomas B. Edsall, 5/29)

The Hill: Children Are The Most Neglected And Vulnerable Stakeholders In Climate Change
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), only 10 percent of the world’s population is less than five-years-old and they will bear 90 percent of the economic and health burden of climate change. We have a very limited amount of time remaining in which to decide whether we will take responsibility to address climate change and the disproportionately devastating effects it will have on our children. (Michael Rosenbaum and Lawrence Stanberry, 5/28)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: The EPA Isn't Going To Make The Air Safer; It's Just Going To Say It Is. 
In the Trump administration’s latest assault on science in service to industry, the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to adopt a new method for projecting the future health risks of air pollution. It will drastically lower the number of predicted deaths — not by actually prompting cleaner air, but by downplaying the dangers of the current levels of air pollution. (5/27)

Miami Herald: We Must Find A Way To Assimilate Immigrants As We Did Before
The report, by The Intercept and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, found that the federal immigration agency has used isolation cells at Krome and elsewhere to punish immigrants for sometimes minor offenses and to segregate certain groups, including LGBTQ detainees and people with disabilities or mental illness. To say that it is appalling to know that there is so little compassion in the world, that human beings could be so heartless to other humans, is an understatement. (Bea Hines, 5/24)

Stat: First Ladies Can Help Lead The Fight Against HIV/AIDS
From Barbara Bush to Margaret Kenyatta, first ladies have a special place in the rich history of women’s leadership on AIDS. In Africa, that expertise and authority are formalized through the Organization of African First Ladies for Development. Its latest effort, the Free to Shine campaign, seeks to keep mothers healthy and end AIDS among African children by 2030. The campaign was launched in Zimbabwe last year, and other countries are rolling out their own plans. (Agnes Mahomva, 5/29)

Georgia Health News: CDC Must Back Pneumococcal Vaccinations For Seniors
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will meet June 26 in Atlanta and consider whether to continue recommending the pneumococcal vaccine for Americans 65 and older. Keeping the ACIP vaccination recommendation in place is important. The recommendation increases the likelihood that health care providers will talk to patients about immunization, and it may even affect whether health plans cover immunizations. (Linda Walden, 5/28)

Stat: Dialysis Care Offers Lessons For Achieving Health Equity In The U.S.
Achieving health equity at a local level is challenging. Doing so consistently at a national scale is rare. Yet that is exactly what one U.S. health care sector — dialysis care — has been doing, substantially outperforming many other sectors of this ecosystem. The kidney community has overcome socioeconomic barriers and is reliably delivering excellent clinical outcomes regardless of where dialysis centers are located and who they are caring for. (Kent Thiry, 5/29)

Sacramento Bee: Americans Are Unhealthy Because They Work Too Much
The problems with our health are part of a complex pattern, inextricably linked to a society that for all its wealth sets us up for bad habits and poor outcomes. We live in a more demanding and less rewarding work world in which elite executives enrich themselves to an obscene degree while cutting health insurance and pension plans and job security; a free-rein, marketing-oriented culture that barrages us with messages about things we should buy, many of which are bad for us; and a society that leaves us without a real safety net. (Karin Klein, 5/25)

The New York Times: Nurses Know The Human Costs Of Care. That’s Why Many Want ‘Medicare For All.’
The experiences that have turned the members of National Nurses United, the nation’s largest union for nurses, into vocal advocates for a universal, government-run health care system are numerous and horrific. Renelsa Caudill, a Washington, D.C.-area cardiac nurse, remembers being forced to pull a cardiac patient out of the CT scanner before the procedure was complete. The woman had suffered a heart attack earlier that year and was having chest pains. The doctor wanted the scan to help him decide if she needed a potentially risky catheterization, but the woman’s insurance, inexplicably, had refused to cover the test. (Jeneen Interlandi, 5/27)

The New York Times: A Missed Opportunity For The Malpractice System To Improve Health Care
The American medical malpractice system is doing almost nothing to improve the quality of health care, research suggests. What may be more concerning is that there is very little discussion, much less action, about changing this. Despite worries among doctors that they are at financial risk from large payouts to plaintiffs, it turns out that a small percentage are responsible for a huge number of claims. A new study, confirming earlier research, found that about 2 percent of doctors accounted for about 39 percent of all claims in the United States. (Aaron E. Carroll, 5/27)

The Washington Post: A Letter To My Suicidal Younger Self: Suicide Is The Wrong Choice, No Matter How Dire Things Look.
At 10, I sat down in my teddy bear chair that was getting a little too small for me, and I wondered what I had done to make my daddy hate me. I thought he must hate me because he threatened my life. Just the night before, I’d heard him say he might turn on the gas to our house, and he said it would be better if we all were to die. But I didn’t want to die! Not then, anyway. The rest of fourth grade did not get better. After months of begging my daddy to live, I finally lost the battle I waged to save his life. My daddy shot himself to death on traditional Memorial Day in 1989. It was the beginning of my 10th summer and the abrupt end to my childhood. (Robin Raven, 5/25)

Boston Globe: Sex Offender Bill Targets Child Predators
The way this state deals with sexual offenders, particularly those who prey on children, has been a problematic part of the law for decades. Now the Massachusetts Legislature has an opportunity to readjust the balance between psychology and public safety, between the role of experts and the pain of victims; they should grab it before the moment passes. (5/28)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Don’t Put Supervised Injection Site On Ice. Put It On Wheels.
Cities in Germany, Spain, Canada, and other countries have converted vans to a two- or three-seat clinic — similar to a small version of a Red Cross van for blood donation — in which clients inject drugs under medical supervision. Supervised injection vans are usually a way to expand the reach of a brick-and-mortar site, but that is not a required condition. Seattle, for example, is considering opening a mobile site. (5/24)