Â鶹ŮÓÅ

Senate Republicans on Wednesday passed legislation that would enable patients to force hospitals into administering drugs for off-label use if the hospital’s own physicians refuse. The legislation comes after a COVID-19 pandemic when conservatives came to believe that drugs like hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, neither of which have been proven to benefit COVID-19 patients, would cure, treat or prevent their infections. (Zuckerman, 12/11)

Since 2017, at least two men with serious mental illness have died in the psychiatric unit of the New Hampshire State Prison, after being restrained face down by corrections officers. The state maintains the cases are fundamentally different. But advocates say they reflect long-running problems with how the state cares for people in its custody. (Cuno-Booth, 12/13)

FBI agents Thursday morning searched the offices of two Minnesota autism treatment centers as part of a major investigation into alleged Medicaid fraud. A search warrant application unsealed by a federal judge Thursday alleges that Smart Therapy in Minneapolis received nearly $14 million in reimbursement from Medicaid between 2020 and last month. Star Autism Center in St. Cloud — which opened in August 2020 — received $6 million. Investigators say the clinics made fraudulent Medicaid claims for services that they never provided, and claimed to pay employees who had little or no training or purported to work unusual schedules. (Sepic, 12/12)

The Los Angeles County Department of Health today announced that it is investigating two suspected avian flu illnesses in indoor pet cats that drank recalled raw milk, fueling more concerns about wider spread in other animals, which includes zoo animals infected in Arizona's Maricopa County. Also today, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed several more outbreaks in dairy cattle in California and in poultry flocks in three states. And two states reported rises in wild-bird detections. (Schnirring, 12/12)

A coalition of organizations focused on worker and human rights spent the past week rallying across North Carolina for support of what could be the first national heat standard, something that farmworkers and others worried about more frequent periods of extreme heat have been advocating for more than a year. (Blythe, 12/13)

Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News: More Californians Are Freezing To Death. Experts Point To More Older Homeless People.

A growing number of people — many of them older and homeless — are freezing to death during winter. Hypothermia from exposure to cold temperatures was the underlying or contributing cause of death for 166 Californians last year, more than double the number a decade ago, according to provisional death certificate data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The age-adjusted rate of 3.7 deaths per million residents in 2023 was the highest in the state in at least 25 years. (Reese, 12/13)