The Hill: Vulnerable House Republican Unveils Resolution On Pre-Existing Conditions
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) on Tuesday introduced a resolution intended to protect people with pre-existing conditions, illustrating the lengths vulnerable Republicans are going to try to show they favor those protections. The resolution from Sessions, who is facing a close reelection race against Democrat Colin Allred, is nonbinding, but expresses the opinion of the House that pre-existing conditions should be protected. (Sullivan, 10/2)

CQ: Republicans Say They Support Pre-Existing Conditions Coverage
The resolution is backed by 18 other House Republicans, ranging from incumbents in tight races like Reps. Leonard Lance of New Jersey and John J. Faso of New York to conservatives in safe seats such as Reps. Tom Cole of Oklahoma and Mark Meadows of North Carolina. “I proudly introduced this resolution to ensure that patients with pre-existing conditions are protected from the erroneously high costs and the limited options they are experiencing now,” Sessions said in a statement. (McIntire, 10/2)

Pioneer Press: MN Individual Health Insurance Rates Are Declining, But Will It Last?
Health insurance rates on Minnesota’s individual market will drop for a second straight year in 2019, but the progress toward better affordability could be short-lived. “I think we need a plan,” Jessica Looman, state commerce commissioner, said Tuesday when she announced premiums would decrease on average between 7 percent and 27.7 percent. “I think we need to look at what we are going to do moving forward.”That’s because the efforts state lawmakers put in place to help stabilize the individual insurance market are winding down. Subsidies for high premiums ended after 2017 and a two-year, $541 million reinsurance program, which limits insurers’ losses on high-cost patients, will sunset next year. (Magan, 10/2)

The Star Tribune: Health Insurance Premium Rates In Minn. Drop For Individuals, Rise For Small Firms 
The reductions announced Tuesday by state officials point to a second consecutive year of flat or reduced premiums in the individual market, which for several years was plagued by premium spikes under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA). About 155,000 Minnesotans buy individual policies, which are an option for those who don’t get health insurance through their employer. Even with premium cuts on the horizon, the market remains much smaller than it used to be and still causes pocketbook pain for those who don’t receive federal tax credits. (Snowbeck, 10/2)

MPR: 2019 Non-Group Health Insurance Premiums Plunge In Minnesota
The information from the Commerce Department did not address one important aspect of health insurance that can profoundly affect consumers' finances--out-of-pocket costs. Earlier this year, the Minnesota health department issued a report assessing the state of the non-group market in Minnesota and noted "a shift towards insurance products with considerable cost sharing," the industry term for deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket expenses. (Zdechlik, 10/2)

And in Maryland —

The Washington Post: Maryland Dems: Trump Health Care Curbs Could Affect 260,000
As many as 260,000 Maryland residents could see higher premiums or lose their health care coverage altogether because of pre-existing medical conditions, age or gender under a new Trump administration legal strategy, state Democrats warned on Tuesday. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Baltimore, along with other Democratic members of the Maryland congressional delegation and state Attorney General Brian Frosh attacked the Trump administration for refusing to protect Americans guaranteed the right to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. (Goldstein, 10/2)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Seizes Documents From Juul Headquarters
The Food and Drug Administration conducted a surprise inspection of the headquarters of the e-cigarette maker Juul Labs last Friday, carting away more than a thousand documents it said were related to the company’s sales and marketing practices. The move, announced on Tuesday, was seen as an attempt to ratchet up pressure on the company, which controls 72 percent of the e-cigarette market in the United States and whose products have become popular in high schools. The F.D.A. said it was particularly interested in whether Juul deliberately targeted minors as consumers. (Hoffman, 10/2)

Reuters: FDA Seizes Documents From Juul In Latest E-Cigarette Crackdown
The inspection, completed on Friday, followed a request in April for documents that would help the agency better understand the high rates of use and appeal among youth of Juul products. The FDA also said it conducted inspections of several of Juul's contract manufacturing units earlier this year. "We've now released over 50,000 pages of documents to the FDA since April that support our public statements," Juul Chief Executive Officer Kevin Burns said in a statement, adding the meeting with the regulator was constructive and transparent. (Mathias, Banerjee and Abutaleb, 10/2)

The Washington Post: FDA Seizes Juul E-Cigarette Documents In Surprise Inspection Of Headquarters
The Juul product, which is sleek and shaped like a USB drive, has surged in popularity, including among high school students. Critics say some of the e-liquid flavors, including mango and creme, make the product especially appealing to minors. But vaping defenders say such flavors are critical to helping adult smokers switch from more dangerous combustible cigarettes to safer e-cigarettes. (McGinley, 10/2)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA Conducted Surprise Inspection Of Juul’s Headquarters
The number of high-school students who used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days has risen roughly 75% since last year to about three million, or about 20% of high-school students, according to unpublished preliminary federal data. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in September that teen use of e-cigarettes “has reached an epidemic proportion.” He announced new measures to curb teen vaping and said he was considering banning flavored products. (Maloney, 10/2)

Bloomberg: Juul Documents Seized In FDA Raid At E-Cigarette Company 
“FDA has clearly recognized that there’s a crisis and that there’s a need for change,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, who had warned that the FDA’s action in 2017 would lead more children to take up vaping. (Edney and Zaleski 10/2)

The Hill: FDA Conducts Surprise Inspection Of E-Cigarette Maker Juul As Part Of Crackdown
Juul CEO Kevin Burns said in a statement that the episode was part of a “constructive and transparent dialogue.” “We want to be part of the solution in preventing underage use, and we believe it will take industry and regulators working together to restrict youth access,” he added. (Sullivan, 10/2)

Politico Pro: Study: Teens Who Vape More Likely To Smoke, Use Both Products More
Teens who use e-cigarettes are more likely to smoke cigarettes and increase their usage of both products over time, according to new Rand Corporation research. There has been research showing that e-cigarette use is associated with future smoking habits, but Rand researchers said this is the first study to examine how use changes for individuals over time. (Owermohle, 10/2)

The Washington Post: Nooses, Rotting Teeth And Neglect: Inspectors Find Dismal Conditions At California Immigration Jail
Homeland Security inspectors who made an unannounced visit to a private, for-profit immigration jail in California in May found major violations of federal detention standards, including cells with nooses dangling from air vents, detainees losing teeth from lack of dental care and one disabled inmate left alone in a wheelchair for nine days. The infernal conditions are described in a report issued Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security’s office of inspector general, which audited the facility, overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in Adelanto, Calif. It has a capacity of 1,940 detainees and is run by GEO Group, which owns and operates 71 federal prisons and detention centers with a combined total of 75,500 beds, according to its website. (Miroff, 10/2)

Los Angeles Times: Nooses In Cells, Rotting Teeth — Report Details Harsh Conditions At Adelanto Immigration Facility
“When we asked two contract guards who oversaw the housing units why they did not remove the bedsheets, they echoed it was not a high priority,” officials with the Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s office wrote in a scathing report made public Tuesday detailing dangerous conditions found at the facility during their unannounced visit. The nooses are just one of many problems posing “significant health and safety risks” identified by federal inspectors at Adelanto, which can house nearly 2,000 detainees as they await the outcome of their immigration cases. (Esquivel and Mejia, 10/2)

USA Today: Federal Inspectors Find Nooses, "Serious Violations" At ICE Facility
In her response to the Inspector General report, Nathalie Asher, executive associate director of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations, acknowledged that she was "concerned" by the findings. She said the treatment of detainees is "paramount" and announced that the Adelanto facility will undergo a more thorough inspection starting Oct. 10. After a summer when much of the country’s attention was focused on the treatment of families and minors temporarily held in chain-linked holding pens along the border, the Inspector General report highlights the treatment of adult immigrants in long-term detention. (Gomez, 10/2)

Arizona Republic: Report: Physicians With Abuse, Criminal Records Examined New Migrants
The agency overseeing the nation's legal immigration system put immigrants and the American public at risk because it has poor controls for verifying that immigrants applying for green cards meet health-related standards, according to a new government watchdog report. The agency inadequately screened doctors who conduct medical health exams of immigrants applying for green cards, an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General found. (González, 10/2)

CQ: Senate Drug Caucus Examines Ways To Stop Illegal Opioid Imports
Administration officials emphasized at a bipartisan caucus hearing Tuesday the importance of ramping up efforts to restrict synthetic opioids and strengthen international partnerships to prevent the drug from illegally entering the country. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, was involved in 60 percent of opioid overdose deaths last year, rising from 14 percent in 2010. The drug is now involved in more overdose deaths than prescription opioids or heroin. Both the Drug Enforcement Administration and State Department have stated that most of the fentanyl imported to the U.S. comes from China. (Raman, 10/2)

The Associated Press: San Francisco Mayor Weighs Drug Injection Site, Despite Veto
Driven in part by family tragedy, San Francisco Mayor London Breed has repeatedly pledged to open what could be the first supervised drug injection site in the country. However, California Gov. Jerry Brown made the promise tougher to keep when he vetoed legislation over the weekend that would have given San Francisco some legal cover to open a site under a pilot program. (10/2)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Health Insurers Are Making It Harder For Addicts To Get Treatment
Gov. Scott Walker has signed about 30 laws designed to address Wisconsin's opioid crisis as part of the Heroin, Opiate Prevention and Education (HOPE) Agenda. These include initiatives to give immunity to people who contact authorities to help someone suffering an overdose, the development of a robust prescription drug monitoring program and increased state reimbursement for outpatient mental health and substance use disorder treatment. Even so, Milwaukee County’s drug overdose rate was almost triple its homicide rate last year, which argues for continuing to aggressively fight this horrible scourge. (Kurter, 10/2)

Kaiser Health News: VA Adding Opioid Antidote To Defibrillator Cabinets For Quicker Overdose Response 
It took more than 10 minutes for paramedics to arrive after a housekeeper found a man collapsed on the floor of a bathroom in a Boston Veteran Affairs building. The paramedics immediately administered naloxone, often known by its brand name Narcan, to successfully reverse the man’s opioid overdose. But it takes only a few minutes without oxygen for brain damage to begin. (Bebinger, 10/3)

St. Louis Public Radio: St. Louis Drug-Overdose Victims To Hear From More Recovering Users
For two years, the Engaging Patients in Care Coordination project has enlisted peer-recovery coaches from participating treatment centers to area ERs to meet with people who have overdosed on opioids. Starting this month, the project will send the coaches — themselves in recovery — to meet with overdose victims who refused to go to the ER. (Fentem, 10.3)

ProPublica/The New York Times: Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Chief Executive Resigns From Merck’s Board Of Directors
Dr. Craig B. Thompson, the chief executive of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, said Tuesday that he would resign his seats on the boards of drug maker Merck and another public company, the latest fallout from a widening institutional reckoning over relationships between cancer center leaders and for-profit health care companies. Dr. Thompson has served on the board of Merck, the maker of the blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda, since 2008. He has been on the board of Charles River Laboratories, a publicly traded company that assists research in early drug development, since 2013. (Thomas and Ornstein, 10/2)

In other news concerning the health industry —

Modern Healthcare: Ascension Enters Final Stage Of Systemwide Rebranding 
Ascension is rounding out its systemwide rebranding in the third and final phase of its marketing and advertising campaign, the nation's largest Catholic health system announced Tuesday. The last four markets to adopt the Ascension brand have about 100 care delivery sites; the markets are Baltimore's Ascension St. Agnes, Indiana's Ascension St. Vincent, Oklahoma's Ascension St. John and Ascension St. Thomas in Tennessee. (Kacik, 10/2)

The Baltimore Sun: Saint Agnes Hospital Adopts Ascension Name To Its Own 
Saint Agnes Healthcare in Baltimore is changing its name as the health system that owns it tries to create more unified branding across all of its hospitals. The hospital will become Ascension Saint Agnes and adopt the Ascension logo. Saint Agnes has been part of St. Louis-based Ascension, the largest non-profit health system in the United States and world’s largest Catholic system, since it was formed in 1999. (McDaniels, 10/2)

Modern Healthcare: Losing UnitedHealth Contract Could Cut Into Envision's Revenue
Envision Healthcare rakes in up to one-quarter—or $1 billion—of its annual commercial revenue from UnitedHealth Group alone, the physician services provider's CEO told Modern Healthcare Tuesday. That dynamic puts pressure on Envision to retain its in-network status with the health insurance giant in 2019 and beyond, especially as it finalizes its acquisition by the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, an event Envision's CEO, Chris Holden, described as "imminent." UnitedHealth last week warned more than 700 hospitals that Envision will likely be out of network starting Jan. 1, but Holden said the company intends to remain in network. (Bannow, 10/2)

Stat: Physics Nobel Honors Discoveries That Advanced Eye Surgery, Virus Manipulation
The 2018 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to scientists who advanced the development of lasers into fields as different as eye surgery and manipulating objects as tiny as viruses and other living cells, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Tuesday in Stockholm. American Arthur Ashkin of the old Bell Laboratories was awarded one half of the 9 million Swedish kronor ($1.01 million) prize for “optical tweezers,” and the other half went to France’s Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland of Canada’s University of Waterloo for laser advances that were turned into the beams that correct nearsightedness. (Begley, 10/2)

CNN: Nobel Prize In Physics Shared By First Woman In 55 Years
Donna Strickland, a Canadian physicist, was awarded the 2018 prize jointly with Gérard Mourou, from France, for their work on generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses. They share the award with an American, Arthur Ashkin, who at 96 becomes the oldest Nobel Laureate, for developing "optical tweezers." Both inventions had "revolutionized laser physics," the Royal Swedish Academy said. (Mackintosh, 10/2)

Los Angeles Times: Physicists Who Turned Science Fiction Into Reality Share The Nobel Prize For Their Work On Lasers
"Billions of people make daily use of optical disk drive, laser printers and optical scanners ... millions undergo laser surgery," said Nobel committee member Olga Botner after the award was announced Tuesday in Stockholm. "The laser is truly one of the many examples of how a so-called blue sky discovery in a fundamental science eventually may transform our daily lives." (Kaplan, 10/2)

Boston Globe: Stabbed, Punched, Bitten: ER Doctors Face Rising Violence
A new survey of more than 3,500 emergency physicians across the United States released Tuesday suggests this type of violence against hospital emergency room staff is growing worse. Assaults against nurses have been well-documented, but this is one of the largest surveys of physicians. (Kowalczyk, 10/2)

The Associated Press: Nurse Attacked At Washington Psychiatric Ward
A patient at Washington state's largest psychiatric hospital vaulted over a nurse's station last weekend, knocked a nurse to the floor, choked her and bit part of her ear off. The assault Sunday night was the latest in a series of attacks on health care workers at Western State Hospital. Hospital spokeswoman Kathy Spears told staff in an email obtained by The Associated Press about the attack. (10/2)

Stat: At NEJM, Change At Top Offers A Chance To Reshape The World’s Oldest Medical Journal
The retirement of Dr. Jeffrey Drazen as editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, announced last week, has created an opportunity to bring a new perspective to what is arguably the world’s most prestigious medical journal. Scientific publishing has changed a great deal during the 18 years that Drazen, who will remain in the post during the search for his replacement, has run the more than 200-year-old journal. Advances in technology, more scrutiny of publishing and peer review, and the emergence of some models — particularly preprints — threaten to erode the hegemony that journals like the NEJM have long enjoyed. Barely whispers at the turn of the millennium for most journals, open access and open data in medicine now are important parts of the discussion. (Marcus and Oransky, 10/3)

The Associated Press: Lawmakers Buy Industry Fix To Stop Mass School Shootings
Security companies spent years pushing schools to buy more products — from “ballistic attack-resistant” doors to smoke cannons that spew haze from ceilings to confuse a shooter. But sales were slow, and industry’s campaign to free up taxpayer money for upgrades had stalled. That changed last February, when a former student shot and killed 17 people at a Florida high school. Publicly, the rampage reignited the U.S. gun-control debate. Privately, it propelled industry efforts to sell school fortification as the answer to the mass killing of American kids. (Dunklin and Pritchard, 10/2)

And the gun control issue bubbles up on the trail —

The Hill: Five Takeaways From Nelson And Scott's First Debate
The deadly mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in February is reverberating throughout the state's elections, and Tuesday’s Senate debate was no exception. [Sen Bill] Nelson pointed to [Gov. Rick] Scott’s “A-rating” from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and accused him of failing to implement new rules and regulations that he said could help address mass shootings like the one in Parkland, where 17 people were killed. (Greenwood, 10/2)

The New York Times: In Australia, Cervical Cancer Could Soon Be Eliminated
Cervical cancer could be eliminated in Australia within the next two decades because of a government program to vaccinate children against the cancer-causing human papillomavirus, according to a new report. The study, published this week in The Lancet Public Health, found that by 2028, fewer than four women in every 100,000 could be diagnosed with cervical cancer annually in Australia — effectively eliminating the disease as a public health problem. And by 2066, the researchers say, less than one woman per year could receive that diagnosis. (Albeck-Ripka, 10/3)

The Associated Press: Proposed Rule Change Worries Some About Radiation Regulation
The EPA is pursuing rule changes that experts say would weaken the way radiation exposure is regulated, turning to scientific outliers who argue that a bit of radiation damage is actually good for you — like a little bit of sunlight. The government’s current, decades-old guidance says that any exposure to harmful radiation is a cancer risk. And critics say the proposed change could lead to higher levels of exposure for workers at nuclear installations and oil and gas drilling sites, medical workers doing X-rays and CT scans, people living next to Superfund sites and any members of the public who one day might find themselves exposed to a radiation release. (Knickmeyer, 10/3)

NPR: Patient Satisfaction Ratings May Be A Factor In Doctor's Prescribing Behavior
When they're sick, it seems Americans know what they want: antibiotics. And if they don't get them, their doctors' reputations may suffer. A study published Monday finds that patients rated themselves happiest with their doctor's visit when they got an antibiotic after seeking care for a respiratory tract infection, such as a common cold, whether they needed it or not. (Cohen, 10/3)

The Associated Press: Study: 1 In 3 US Adults Eat Fast Food Each Day
A government study has found that 1 in 3 U.S. adults eat fast food on any given day. That's about 85 million people. It's the first federal study to look at how often adults eat fast food. An earlier study found a similar proportion of children and adolescents ate it on any given day. (10/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Hershey’s Strategy For A Healthy-Snack World
What does a big snack company do when many consumers say they want to eat healthier, and upstarts are grabbing market share? To find out, The Wall Street Journal’s Annie Gasparro spoke with Michele Buck, president and chief executive officer of Hershey Co., at the Journal’s Global Food Forum conference. (10/2)

The Washington Post: Survival After Cardiac Arrest May Depend On Which EMS Agency Shows Up
Whether you survive a cardiac arrest may depend, at least in part, on which emergency medical services agency shows up to treat you, a new study suggests. Researchers found a wide variation in cardiac arrest survival rates depending on which EMS agency provided initial treatment, according to the study published in JAMA Cardiology. (Carroll, 10/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Is It Ethical To Choose Your Baby’s Eye Color?
Blair and James are trying to start a family. Like many parents, they hope their future offspring will be healthy. They’d also like the baby to have blue eyes. The couple, both 35, describe themselves as type-A personalities who research everything. When they decided to try for a baby, they looked into DNA testing to rule out disease-causing genetic mutations they might pass along to their child. Then they learned about a test that might help predict a future baby’s eye color. (Marcus, 10/2)

The New York Times: To Prevent Urinary Tract Infections, Drink Up
Women are commonly advised to drink extra water to prevent recurrent urinary tract infections, or U.T.I.s, but until now there has been little evidence that it works. Now a randomized trial has found that women who drink more water do indeed get fewer infections. Researchers studied 140 women with recurrent U.T.I.s who habitually drank less than one and a half quarts of water a day, and averaged 3.3 episodes of cystitis the previous year. (Bakalar, 10/2)

WBUR: What We Really Know — And Don't Know — About Obesity
The obesity epidemic is getting worse. But what if presumptions about the causes and consequences of obesity are wrong? (Chakrabarti, 10/3)

The Washington Post: Want To Avoid Stressing-Out Your Infant? Breast-Feeding May Help, Study Says.
Mothers have long been told that “breast is best” when it comes to feeding newborn babies, but a small experiment suggests at least some of the benefits may have nothing to do with the milk itself. Pediatricians recommend that mothers exclusively breast-feed infants until they are at least 6 months old because it can bolster babies’ immune systems and reduce their risk of ear and respiratory infections, sudden infant death syndrome, allergies, obesity and diabetes. (Rapaport, 10/2)

The Washington Post: More Than 250 People Worldwide Have Died Taking Selfies, Study Finds
The next time you’re standing at the edge of a scenic cliff or on top of a waterfall, take care when you have the urge to snap a quick selfie. It could very well be the last thing you do. More than 250 people worldwide have died while taking selfies in the last six years, according to a new study from researchers associated with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, a group of public medical colleges based in New Delhi. The findings, which analyzed news reports of the 259 selfie-related deaths from October 2011 to November 2017, were published in the July-August edition of the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care. (Chiu, 10/3)

The New York Times: We Slow As We Age, But May Not Need To Slow Too Much
Most of us who are older competitive runners are not able to race at anywhere near the same speed as we did when we were 30. But we can perhaps aim to slow down at the same pace as Bernard Lagat, Ed Whitlock and other greats of masters running, according to a timely new analysis by two professors from Yale University. (Reynolds, 10/3)

Nashville Tennessean: Tennesseans' Health Is Below Average And It's Costing Billions, Nonprofit Says
In the five years since the Governor's Foundation for Health and Wellness was created to help encourage Tennesseans to lead healthier lives, not much has changed. As Tennessee enjoys historically low unemployment rates, the nonprofit has focused on how poor health and preventable disease among the state's workforce is affecting its economy. (Sauber, 10/2)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Atlanta VA Fined $13,600 After Hazardous Waste Storage Violations
The Atlanta VA Medical Center suffered another setback after inspectors discovered more than one ton of hazardous waste packed floor to ceiling in unsafe conditions, recently-released records show. A portable building was stuffed so full of the hazardous waste that there was no room for inspectors to enter, much less firefighters or emergency equipment, an inspection report said. (Mariano, 10/2)

Los Angeles Times: California Lawmakers Wrote 1,016 New Laws This Year. Here's Some Of What Did And Didn't Make It
California’s Legislature revved into high gear when it came to writing laws in 2018, sending the most bills to the governor’s desk in more than a decade. In all, Gov. Jerry Brown weighed in on 1,217 pieces of legislation passed by the state Senate and Assembly. He signed 1,016 into law, and most will take effect on Jan. 1. (Myers, 10/2)

KCUR: Doctor Who Complained About Staffing At Overland Park ER Gets $29 Million Jury Award 
A Jackson County jury has awarded nearly $29 million to a physician who claimed he was wrongfully terminated by the emergency room staffing companies that employed him. Raymond Brovont argued that he'd been fired after he raised concerns that a single physician was used at night to cover both the regular and pediatric ERs of Overland Park Regional Medical Center. The staffing decision was made by his employers, subsidiaries of the ER staffing company EmCare. (Margolies, 10/3)

Georgia Health News: Kaiser Again Rated Top Health Plan In Georgia
Kaiser Permanente has again been rated the top commercial health plan in Georgia by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. It’s the 14th straight year for Kaiser to lead the NCQA commercial plan ratings. (Miller, 10/2)

Boston Globe: Water At VA Boston In West Roxbury Tests Positive For Legionnaires’
Water at a VA Boston Healthcare System hospital in West Roxbury tested positive for Legionnaires’ disease, officials announced Tuesday, more than a week after a patient was diagnosed with the disease. Low levels of Legionnaires’ were found at three locations in the facility. All fixtures at the hospital were removed for further testing, and the source of the disease was eliminated, the VA said in a statement. (Cote, 10/3)

The Associated Press: New Rulings On Medical Marijuana Use Go Against Employers
Health care worker Katelin Noffsinger told a potential employer that she took medical marijuana to deal with the effects of a car accident, but when a drug test came back positive, the nursing home rescinded her job offer anyway. A federal judge last month ruled that the nursing home, which had cited federal laws against pot use, violated an anti-discrimination provision of the Connecticut's medical marijuana law. (10/2)

Pioneer Press: Fraud Scheme Lands Two Chiropractors In Prison For Years 
Two Twin Cities chiropractors will spend years in prison for separate multi-million dollar insurance fraud schemes. The Minnesota Commerce Department announced Tuesday that Adam John Burke, 34, of Minneapolis, received a 90-month prison term and Preston Ellard Forthun, 40, of Bloomington, was sentenced to 60 months. Both men were found guilty last year in separate federal trials — Burke of multiple counts of mail fraud and conspiracy and Forthun of multiple counts of mail and wire fraud and conspiracy. The state commerce Fraud Bureau, the FBI, Minneapolis and St. Paul police, the state patrol and Homeland Security all worked on the investigation. (Magan, 10/2)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cuyahoga County Jail Inmate Dies, Marking Sixth Inmate Death In Four Months
A Cuyahoga County Jail inmate died while incarcerated in the jail marking the sixth inmate death in the county jails since late June. Cuyahoga County spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan confirmed the inmate died and that he was taken to MetroHealth, but said she had no other details surrounding the death. (Ferrise, 10/2)

Health News Florida: State Seeks To Stamp Out Marijuana License Case
The Florida Department of Health is asking an appeals court to block a lower-court judge from moving forward with a lawsuit in which a Martin County nursery argues it should receive a potentially lucrative medical-marijuana license. The department went to the 1st District Court of Appeal last week in the dispute, which stems from nursery Edward Miller & Son Inc. being denied a marijuana license --- at least in part because the firm missed an application deadline by 27 minutes. (Saunders, 10/2)

Boston Globe: Cannabis Control Commission To Vote On Final Retail Pot Licenses
State officials will vote either Thursday or next Tuesday on whether to issue final licenses to a marijuana store in Northampton run by New England Treatment Access (NETA) and to a marijuana cultivation, processing, and retail complex in Leicester owned by Cultivate Holdings, according to a meeting agenda published by the commission Tuesday. Both NETA and Cultivate Holdings already operate as medical marijuana dispensaries regulated by the Department of Public Health, or DPH. (Adams, 10/2)

Stat: U.S.-Canada-Mexico Trade Deal Draws Fire On Drug Prices 
The new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico is prompting concerns among generic drug makers and consumer advocates who argue language that is designed to bolster intellectual property rights for medicines will hurt taxpayers and patients. At issue is a provision that would grant 10 years of marketing exclusivity for biologics, which are pricey medicines used to combat a wide variety of diseases, including many cancers. The language means that a company that wants to sell a lower-cost version of a brand-name biologic, which is known as a biosimilar, would be prevented from doing so for a decade. (Silverman, 10/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Patients In Canada, Mexico Could Face Longer Wait For Some Generic Drugs
The proposed new North American trade agreement could make patients and health systems in Mexico and Canada wait years longer for lower-cost copies of certain brand-name medicines. The deal would extend to 10 years the minimum “data-protection” period for biologic drugs, a category which includes some of the costliest drugs on the market. A data-protection period essentially gives a new drug a monopoly for some time before rival firms can market copies. (Loftus, 10/1)

Marketplace: Why Some People Are Worried About Drug Patent Protections In The New NAFTA
The new NAFTA — or as it's officially known, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement — is already raising some complaints from north of the border. Canadians are worried their drug prices will go up. That's because one piece of the deal gives years of extended patent protection to high-end, expensive drugs known as biologics. That means the trade deal could delay the time it takes for cheaper generics to get to market. (Tong, 10/2)

Stat: Pharma Tries To Cash In On Migraine Market By Making New Drugs Free, For Now
With approval of a new migraine therapy, Eli Lilly has become the third drug company angling for dominance in what could become a multibillion-dollar market for preventing debilitating headaches. But because none of the three medicines is clearly better than another, the contenders are taking a novel approach to competition: giving drugs away for free. Lilly’s treatment, called Emgality, is an injected medicine that has proved to reduce the number of migraine days patients experience each month. Doctors say its effects are virtually identical to recently approved treatments from Teva Pharmaceutical and the partnership of Amgen and Novartis, and all three drugs carry a list price of $6,900 per year. (Garde, 9/28)

The New York Times: Pfizer’s Departing C.E.O. Will Be Known For The Deals He Didn’t Complete
Ian Read is stepping down after eight years as chief executive of Pfizer. During his tenure, Mr. Read helped reshape one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies. Through deal making, he focused the company on its core business like vaccines and other specialized treatments. He acquired companies like Hospira, a maker of complicated generic versions of biotech treatments, and spun off divisions, such as an animal health business that is now the separately traded Zoetis. (de la Merced, 10/1)

Stat: FDA To Block Drug Makers From Using Citizen Petitions To Delay Generics 
After years of concern, the Food and Drug Administration issued draft guidelines that are designed to limit the use of citizen petitions to delay approval of generic drugs or biosimilars. The move comes after long-standing complaints by agency officials that many petitions generally do not raise valid scientific concerns and appear to have been filed solely to delay rival medicines. The new guidance indicates that the agency would highlight any improper use of these petitions in its annual reports filed with to Congress and may refer purportedly inappropriate petitions to the Federal Trade Commission, which could then pursue violations of antitrust laws. (Silverman, 10/2)

Stat: Pay-For-Delay Deals For Biosimilars May Be Hard To Pull Off Under A New Bill 
A little-noticed provision in a bill recently passed by Congress would make it harder for drug makers to strike so-called pay-to-delay deals that could prevent biosimilar medicines from reaching the market and lowering U.S. health care costs. Tucked into the Patient Right to Know Act is language that would require companies that make biologics and biosimilar medicines to report settlements of patent litigation to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. This would allow the agencies to have the same kind of information resulting from settlements pertaining to generic drugs. (Silverman, 9/27)

Kaiser Health News: Drugmakers Play The Patent Game To Lock In Prices, Block Competitors
David Herzberg was alarmed when he heard that Richard Sackler, former chairman of opioid giant Purdue Pharma, was listed as an inventor on a new patent for an opioid addiction treatment. Patent No. 9861628 is for a fast-dissolving wafer containing buprenorphine, a generic drug that has been around since the 1970s. Herzberg, a historian who focuses on the opioid epidemic and the history of prescription drugs, said he fears the patent could keep prices high and make it more difficult for poor addicts to get treatment. (Tribble, 10/2)

The Associated Press: House Candidate Runs Across Ohio To Fight Rising Drug Costs
Democrat John Kennedy is running for the Ohio House. In more ways than one. The candidate set out from his northeast Ohio hometown of Aurora on Friday for a two-day, 142-mile run to the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus. Kennedy, a 52-year-old ultra-marathoner who has type 1 diabetes, said he’s using the run — and 14 stops along the way — to bring attention to the rising costs of insulin and other prescription drugs. (Smyth, 9/29)

Chicago Tribune: Court Rules Against Lake Forest Drugmaker Akorn's $4.75 Billion Merger With German Firm
Shares of Akorn dove by more than 50 percent Monday after a Delaware judge ruled that a German health care company may walk away from its plans to acquire the drugmaker in a deal worth $4.75 billion. A Delaware Chancery Court judge sided Monday with Fresenius Kabi, which announced in April that it would terminate its agreement to acquire Akorn, headquartered in Lake Forest. (Schencker, 10/1)

South Florida Sun Sentinel: Slashing Drug Costs: Scripps Florida Scientists Wins $4 Million Grant For Cost-Cutting Program
What good is an effective drug if patients can’t afford it? It’s a question that’s disturbing to many in the medical field. Now, a Scripps Florida scientist in Jupiter is trying to do something about it. Thomas Kodadek, a chemist, hopes to slash the high price of drug development with the help of a new grant that’s worth $4 million over five years. The award was one of 10 made recently by Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. (Pounds, 10/2)

Capital News Service: Grassroots Group Urges Candidates To Support Drug-Cost Board
A coalition of progressive health advocates last week called on all candidates for governor and the Maryland General Assembly to support their proposal to create a Prescription Drug Affordability Board. The announcement came just a day after Ben Jealous, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, showed his support for the campaign and announced his own plan to reduce drug prices. Both proposals essentially look to create a watchdog to oversee prescription drug prices and ensure there are no surprise price increases. (Cann, 9/29)

Stat: A 1962 Law Slowed Drug Development. Changing It Could Slash Drug Prices
During my 19 years as a research scientist at the Upjohn Company, the regulatory burden imposed by the open-ended Drug Amendments Act of 1962 was mushrooming. My coworkers and I joked that because of this dramatic change to the mission of the FDA, made largely as a response to the European thalidomide crisis, we spent so much time meeting the FDA’s development demands that we had little time to discover new drugs. (Mary J. Ruwart, 10/1)

The Daily Caller: The FDA Must Grease Its Wheels To Save Lives
When you’re desperately ill, your chances of relief and recovery improve as your access to treatment improves. That’s why it’s such good news that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is working to speed up the process of getting new medications to patients. The FDA has two critical missions. One is to ensure that medications approved for sale to patients are safe and effective. The other is to get effective treatments to patients as quickly as possible. (Peter Pitts, 9/28)

Bloomberg: Crowded Migraine Market Puts Drugmakers To The Test
The market for migraine medicines is getting better and better for patients. And for the companies that are crowding into it, it has the potential to be a drug-price proving ground. The Food and Drug Administration approved Eli Lilly & Co.’s Emgality on Thursday, 13 days after it OK’ed Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.’s similar Ajovy, and less than five months after the first approval in the class, for Novartis AG and Amgen Inc.’s Aimovig. (Max Nisen, 9/28)

Washington Examiner: Trade Deals Aren't Just For Manufacturing, They Can Lower Drug Prices Too
Over the first two years of his administration, President Trump has prioritized policies that promote American competitiveness and U.S. interests in trade deals as well as focus on lowering the cost of healthcare and the price of medicines. Trump can make huge progress toward achieving these goals by ensuring the U.S. negotiates trade deals that get tough on foreign price-controlled medicines and allow innovation to flourish. (Grover Norquist and Alex Hendrie, 9/26)

Forbes: To Include Or Not Include Drug Prices In DTC Ads
For quite some time, consumer groups, patient advocates, and even several medical professional societies have called for direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements to include information on drug pricing. In June 2017 the American Medical Association put out a statement explicitly arguing in favor of inclusion of drug prices in DTC advertisements. (Joshua Cohen, 9/24)

Bloomberg: Pfizer Incoming CEO Albert Boula Should Consider Acquisitions
When Pfizer Inc. CEO Ian Read steps aside in January, the legacy he’ll leave behind won’t be the one he intended. Read, whose move was announced early Monday, attempted the two biggest pharma deals in history when he went after AstraZeneca PLC and Allergan PLC, only to be stymied by target resistance and regulators. He’ll just have to settle for having navigated a difficult series of patent expirations — and a 162 percent increase in the stock price. (Max Nisen, 10/1)

The Nation: Can The US Provide A Public Option For Prescription Drugs?
Five-year-old Aurora Pugh of Farmington, Minnesota, loves swimming and dancing. She also suffers from severe epilepsy. After spending months taking dance lessons, “Aurora slept through her first dance recital after an overnight seizure and we could not get her to wake up,” her mother, Lindsay Pugh, said. “As parents, that was a difficult moment.” Aurora’s epilepsy diagnosis, Lindsay said, has “made us appreciate every moment more.” But the high costs of her medications have strained the family’s finances. Lindsay must always have a rescue medication—known as Diastat—on hand in case Aurora has a seizure that lasts longer than about three minutes, and that medication can cost her up to $560 for just two doses. Aurora has had as many as six seizures in a single week, so Lindsay has sometimes had to purchase Diastat five times in just a month. (Joel Dodge and Sean McElwee, 10/1)

The New York Times: A Bad Move That Exposes Kids To Chemicals 
Last week, the leadership of the Environmental Protection Agency took aim at its own Office of Children’s Health Protection by placing its director, Dr. Ruth Etzel, a distinguished pediatrician and epidemiologist, on “administrative leave.” At first glance, the action might look like mere bureaucratic shuffling, though the agency, while saying she was not facing disciplinary action, offered no explanation for the move. But we worry that it signals one of two actions: closing the office, which has argued for tougher regulations on industrial pollutants, or minimizing its role in rule-making. For its part, the E.P.A. says children’s health programs are not in jeopardy. But there is no question that if Dr. Etzel is pushed aside, the chemical industry will benefit and America’s children will be harmed. (Philip J. Landrigan and Lynn R. Goldman, 10/2)

The Washington Post: A Year After The Las Vegas Shooting, Congress Still Hasn’t Banned Bump Stocks
It has been a year since a gunman in a hotel room on the Las Vegas Strip killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more. The mass shooting — the worst in modern U.S. history — brought attention to the bump stocks the shooter used to effectively convert his rifles into automatic weapons, enabling him to spray more than 1,000 rounds in 11 terrible minutes. There was widespread agreement — including from congressional leaders — about the need to ban these devices. (10/2)

Stat: Memorial Sloan Kettering, You've Betrayed My Trust
I trusted Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and believed in it. For more than 30 years, my family and I have literally put our lives in its hands. But it has betrayed my trust and that of many other patients and their families. (Steven Petrow, 10/3)

Sacramento Bee: We Already Know What America Would Look Like If Roe Is Overturned
The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and threat to Roe v. Wade is cause for considerable concern for the future of legal abortion in the United States. But we don’t have to imagine what could happen in a post-Roe America. There are many current policies that already push abortion out of reach. (Sarah CM Roberts, 10/2)

The Hill: Restricting Medicaid Abortion Coverage Forces Some Women To Carry Unwanted Pregnancies
As we continue to fight for the future of abortion rights, it is critical for us to take a moment to acknowledge that many in the United States currently live without the ability to get abortion care. Prior Supreme Court decisions like Roe v. Wade and Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt have reaffirmed every person’s right to access abortion services, however, many obstacles — from laws designed to shut down abortion clinics to bans on insurance coverage — stand in the way of exercising that right.  (Terri-Ann Thompson, 10/2)

Boston Globe: Keeping The Nobel Prizes Relevant
It’s early fall, and the season of Nobel Prizes is now upon us. Among elite scientists, pulses quicken in the days prior to each announcement, for reasons of both hope and handicapping. Yet the way scientific laureates are chosen has not kept pace with major changes in the conduct of science, which means some updates should be made to the selection process. Established in the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel — whose considerable fortune derived from the discovery and marketing of dynamite and who was perhaps seeking a more exalted legacy — the prizes are now given in six areas “to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.” (Jeffrey S. Flier, 10/2)  

The Washington Post: Dear Dads: Your Daughters Told Me About Their Assaults. This Is Why They Never Told You. 
A man emailed recently in response to something I’d written about street harassment. He was so glad, he said, that his college-age daughter never experienced anything like that. Less than a day later, he wrote again. They had just talked. She told him she’d been harassed many, many times — including that week. She hadn’t ever shared this, because she wanted to protect him from her pain. For all the stereotypes that linger about women being too fragile or emotional, these past weeks have revealed what many women already knew: A lot of effort goes into protecting men we love from bad things that happen to us. And a lot of fathers are closer to bad things than they’ll ever know. (Monica Hesse, 10/3)

USA Today: Trump Is A Classic Gaslighter In An Abusive Relationship With America
The United States is in an abusive relationship with the president. As a psychologist in clinical practice, I’m trained to spot the signs and offer strategies to help people cope. Abusive relationships are extremely dangerous, and this is no exception. Donald Trump’s gaslighting has led the country into a spiral of doubt, anger and despair. Gaslighting behavior has always been present in history, to a degree. It is par for the course whenever a person or entity wants to exert as much control as possible over others. But we haven’t seen this level of gaslighting since the Axis powers of World War II. (Stephanie Sarkis, 10/3)

New England Journal of Medicine: A Not-So-New Treatment For Old Bones
Taken together, the results of the trial by Reid et al. should have an effect on clinical practice. Given the effectiveness of infrequent administration of zoledronate in reducing the risk of fragility fracture, this treatment can certainly be added to our armamentarium for treating osteoporosis, and it would represent an approach that would not be hindered by adherence issues. But just as importantly, this trial reminds us that risk assessment and treatment decisions go well beyond bone mineral density and should focus particularly on age and a history of previous fractures. (Clifford J. Rosen, 10/1)

Stat: More Research On ‘Dying Healthy’ Will Also Help Us Live Healthier
Helping people live longer has been a central goal of medicine for decades. The quest to extend life raises an interesting question: Should we keep investing in research aimed at adding even more years to the already impressive gains in the average life expectancy that occurred during the 20th century? We can only go so far. ...Lacking evidence that the human life span can be radically increased by new medical technologies, we believe it’s time to shift our country’s investment priorities away from medical research that aims to extend life and instead focus on the same social, cultural, and political factors that successfully prolonged life in the last century. That means more public investment in education, transportation, and housing. That kind of investment would directly contribute to the prevention of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and many cancers, and would do more to improve the quality of life of the population than additional medical research aimed at treating individuals with specific diseases. (George J. Annas and Sandro Galea, 10/3)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Dementia Wracks Finances As Well As Minds. Federal Programs Leave Gaping Holes.
In the frayed, porous net that is America’s health care system, dementia sufferers are especially susceptible to falling through. With early-onset dementia in particular, the financial stresses can be devastating, and federal programs inadequate. It can drive patients, their spouses and even their adult children to bankruptcy. (10/3)

The Hill: Medicare (And Medicaid) For None
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, and other liberal candidates for office this year are calling for “single-payer” health care, or “Medicare for all.” These proposals would be inefficient and explosively expensive, leading to a collapse of the U.S. health care system and the emergence of a two-tiered system with excellent, expensive health care for the rich and little or no health care for the poor and elderly. The objective of health care reform should be to make care available to all Americans and to have a system that continuously lowers cost and improves quality of care. Single-payer and Medicare-for-all would do the opposite. (Grady Means, 10/2)