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Disability rights groups are attempting to intervene in an Appleton teenager’s decision to cease medical treatment and die of the incurable disease that has racked her body and left her in constant pain. Carrie Ann Lucas, executive director of the Colorado-based Disabled Parents Rights, said her organization is one of several that have asked for child-protection authorities to investigate the case of 14-year-old Jerika Bolen, whose decision to enter hospice care at the end of summer gained national attention. (Collar, 9/7)

Schools in New York state will be required to test their drinking water for lead contamination under a new measure signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. School districts will report the results to parents as well as local and state officials. Buildings found to have high levels of lead will have to develop and implement plans to fix the problem. (9/6)

California lawmakers have OK'd a Planned Parenthood-backed bill that creates new penalties for distributing secret recordings of discussions with health providers – but civil rights and media advocates say the measure goes too far. The bill, which passed Friday and now goes to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk, targets activists such as the Center for Medical Progress -- which last year released secretly recorded videos purportedly showing activists discussing the purchase of aborted fetal body parts with Planned Parenthood representatives. (9/7)

The immediate loss of income could be a pinch for many of the 4,800 nurses who went on strike for the second time this summer in a prolonged contract dispute with Allina over health benefits. Nurses picketing at five Allina hospitals on Monday described a variety of survival strategies, from deferred mortgage and car payments to second jobs in nursing or other careers to moving back in with parents. (Olson, 9/7)

Allina Health and 4,800 Twin Cities hospital nurses represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association remained at a stalemate Tuesday, the second day of an open-ended strike. Neither the Minneapolis-based hospital and clinic system nor the union announced plans to resume negotiations, and both said they want to start where they separately left off when talks resume. Yet Allina can’t necessarily guarantee that, Allina spokesman David Kanihan said. (Cooney, 9/6)

It was the early 1960s, and 9-year-old Eliseo Pérez-Stable was at home in Miami with the chickenpox, dreading his return to the third grade. ... The boy panicked. Scabs were forming over his blisters, but if they didn’t heal, he rationalized, perhaps he could stay home. One by one, he began to pick at them. It was a month before he was forced to return to class. His experiences as a young immigrant proved pivotal for Pérez-Stable, who grew up to become a physician and scientist, whose research has documented the impact of language barriers and other issues on the health of Latinos. At 64, he leads the National Institutes of Health’s division for funding and guiding minority health research. (Kelly, 9/6)

Before last year, the UW was one of scores of schools still using a 100-year-old curriculum that emphasized eight-hours-a-day, five-days-a-week lectures. Medical students didn’t escape the confines of the lecture hall and begin taking care of patients until their third year. Then last year, following a national trend, the School of Medicine tossed its old curriculum and began teaching students using a hands-on approach. (Long, 9/6)