General
Vulnerable Republicans Who Backed Obamacare Repeal Aren’t As Fired Up About It Now
Kevin Robillard and Igor Bobic, HuffPost
Incumbents facing reelection in 2020 are softening their rhetoric about the Affordable Care Act even as Trump seeks to strike down the law in court.
‘People are just doing it’: Gottlieb says evidence of CBD supplements’ medicinal value is lacking, despite popularity
Nicholas Florko, Stat News
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is skeptical of the hype around CBD dietary supplements, at least until some hard science is published. “There’s no science to demonstrate that putting it in the food supply has any medicinal value, let alone [to] support that it’s safe,” he told STAT in a phone interview.
Teen suicide and mental health: America’s deadly, costly problems that have no end in sight
Jayne O’Donnell, USA Today
The nation’s medical system falls far short of meeting the demand for teen mental health services because cases of suicide and psychiatric disorders are skyrocketing, underscoring a public health crisis that is already costing Americans billions to combat.
Anti-vaxxers target communities battling measles
Lena H. Sun and Ben Guarino, The Washington Post
In a suburban shopping center an hour north of New York City, hundreds of mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered in a sex-partitioned ballroom to hear leaders of the national anti-vaccine movement.
Study finds CBD effective in treating heroin addiction
Nadia Kounang, CNN
Cannabidiol, the non-psychoactive ingredient in hemp and marijuana, could treat opioid addiction, a new study says. Given to patients with heroin addiction, cannabidiol, also known as CBD, reduced their cravings for the illicit drug as well as their levels of anxiety.
State Abortion Curbs Reverberate in Presidential Race
Tarini Parti, The Wall Street Journal
In the days since this state’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved a near-total ban on abortion, the debate over abortion rights has taken a central role in the 2020 presidential race.
Mississippi 6-week abortion ban heads to federal court
Emily Wagster Pettus, The Associated Press
A federal judge who struck down Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban last year is hearing arguments about a new law that puts the ban even earlier. The law would prohibit most abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, at about six weeks, when many women may not know they’re pregnant.
Episiotomies are painful, risky and not routinely recommended. Dozens of hospitals are doing too many.
Alison Young and John Kelly, USA Today
An episiotomy is a surgical cut to the vagina during childbirth. A USA TODAY analysis finds a startling number performed despite guidance from 2006.
Court case seeking to overturn abortion restrictions opens in Virginia
Laura Vozzella, The Washington Post
A federal trial opened Monday with activists challenging four state laws that restrict abortion, including requirements that clinics meet stringent licensing standards, that patients get an ultrasound at least 24 hours before an abortion and that only doctors perform the procedure in the first trimester.
The Other Reasons Kids Aren’t Getting Vaccinations: Poverty And Health Care Access
Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR News
The toddler looking up at Dr. Melanie Seifman in her Washington, D.C., exam room seems a little dazed. It could be because she just woke up from a nap at daycare.
S&P Futures Climb With Europe Stocks; Bonds Mixed: Markets Wrap
Yakob Peterseil, Bloomberg
U.S. equity futures and European stocks advanced on Tuesday following a mixed session in Asia as the trade-war driven turbulence that has dominated markets this month showed few signs of abating. The dollar strengthened while Treasuries slipped.
Payers
America’s first-ever public option, explained by Gov. Jay Inslee
Dylan Scott, Vox
A lot of 2020 candidates talk health care. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee just signed a public option into law.
Providers
Private plans pay California hospitals more than double the Medicare rate
Shelby Livingston, Modern Healthcare
Private insurers paid California hospitals more than two times as much as Medicare for similar services in 2015 and 2016, according to a study published Monday by West Health Policy Center. The study found that private insurers paid hospitals an average 209% of Medicare, though there was wide variation across hospitals.
Poll: Many Rural Americans Struggle With Financial Insecurity, Access To Health Care
Joe Neel and Patti Neighmond, NPR News
Polling by NPR finds that while rural Americans are mostly satisfied with life, there is a strong undercurrent of financial insecurity that can create very serious problems for many people living in rural communities.
Pharma, Biotech and Devices
Hidden Reports Masked The Scope Of Widespread Harm From Faulty Heart Device
Christina Jewett, Kaiser Health News
Faced with the possibility that a bout of abnormal heartbeats could end his life, in 2006, Dr. Marc Sicklick had a small device implanted in his chest that would shock it back into rhythm. Soon he would struggle with another life-or-death choice: whether to remove the Sprint Fidelis, which was deemed dangerous and recalled in 2007 after it had been implanted in hundreds of thousands of patients.
The True Victims Of The Opioid Crisis Are Starting To Rebel
Michele Cohen Marill, Wired
April Grove Doyle, a 40-year-old single mom with metastatic breast cancer, pulled her car to the side of the road. Her face was flushed and her eyes puffy from crying, but she looked into the phone mounted on her dashboard and pressed the record button.
Teens made up most of e-cigarette maker Juul’s Twitter following – study
Lisa Rapaport, Reuters
Almost half of the people who followed Juul Labs Inc on Twitter last year were not old enough to legally purchase e-cigarettes in the United States, according to a study published on Monday.
Health IT
Google’s AI improves accuracy of lung cancer diagnosis, study shows
Casey Ross, Stat News
One of lung cancer’s most lethal attributes is its ability to trick radiologists. Some nodules appear threatening but turn out to be false positives. Others escape notice entirely, and then spiral without symptoms into metastatic disease.
Robots Take a Turn Leading Autism Therapy in SchoolsAutism Tech Tools Go Beyond School
Sumathi Reddy, The Wall Street Journal
Two third grade students sit slumped in an office at Robert Waters Elementary School, a 2-foot robot named Milo on the table before them. Milo moves his hands and eyebrows, blinks and makes eye contact during a session that is used as part of their autism therapy.
Can Tech ‘objectively’ Assess Pain?
Emma Grey Ellis, Wired
Pain flickers across people’s faces in inconsistent, contradictory ways. Charles Darwin, ever the meticulous observer, noticed this problem early: “The mouth may be closely compressed, or more commonly the lips are retracted,” he wrote in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
Drug Importation Is Risky Business
Wayne Pines, Morning Consult
If there’s one issue that both the Democratic and the Republican parties agree on, it’s the need to reduce the price of prescription drugs. While politicians and experts do not agree on how to do it, they all agree it needs to be done.
Commentary: We need to make sure new drug cures don’t widen income gap for the poor
Scott Gottlieb, CNBC
Science offers the chance to cure debilitating and once-intractable disorders like hemophilia and sickle cell disease. But we need to make sure the ability to access these therapies, or the risk that someone can be locked out of them, doesn’t widen gaps between the rich and poor.
Research Reports
Opioid addiction, deaths, and treatment: The latest analysis of the data
USA Facts
A deep dive into the government’s data on the opioids crisis reveals previously unreported insights. For instance, the number of people seeking treatment for opioid addiction now outweighs alcohol abuse at reporting facilities.
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