State Highlights: Doctors At Boston Hospitals Warned To Disclose Financial Ties Amid Sloan Kettering’s Crisis; Roundup Cancer Case Verdict Faces First Court Test
Media outlets report on news from Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Wisconsin, New York, Illinois, North Carolina and Colorado.
Amid an unfolding ethics crisis at a prominent New York cancer center, Boston hospitals are warning doctors that they must publicly disclose all their financial relationships with pharmaceutical and device companies. ...The hospitals鈥 actions were triggered by a series of lapses at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, including the failure of its chief medical officer to disclose millions of dollars in payments from pharmaceutical and other companies. (Kowalczyk, 10/9)
A San Francisco jury's $289 million verdict in favor of a school groundskeeper who says Roundup weed killer caused his cancer will face its first court test Wednesday. Agribusiness giant Monsanto will argue at a hearing that Judge Suzanne Bolanos should throw out the verdict in favor of DeWayne Johnson. Attorneys for the company say Johnson failed to prove that Roundup or similar herbicides caused his lymphoma, and presented no evidence that Monsanto executives were malicious in marketing Roundup. Bolanos was not expected to rule immediately. (10/10)
Nine of the 16 health systems in Connecticut ended 2017 in the black, according to a report by the state Office of Health Strategy. Collectively, the systems took in about $14.2 billion in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2017. (Rigg, 10/9)
I sat down with Dr. Paul Linde, who for a quarter-century worked in the psychiatric emergency room at San Francisco General Hospital before leaving to work part-time as a primary care psychiatrist. He described San Francisco鈥檚 revolving door for mentally ill homeless people, the shortage of treatment beds and how California鈥檚 newly passed law strengthening the conservatorship program might help. (Knight, 10/9)
Mayor Tom Barrett and Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik are calling on faith leaders to help them combat infant deaths in Milwaukee. Barrett and Kowalik spoke Tuesday at an event celebrating that more than 30 local churches have become "Strong Baby Sanctuaries," where pregnant women and new families can find information on community resources. (Spicuzza, 10/9)
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday signed into law a bill that will create a third gender option on birth certificates. Under the new law, birth certificates can list gender as 鈥渕ale,鈥 鈥渇emale鈥 or 鈥淴,鈥 allowing people who don鈥檛 identify as either male or female to better reflect their identities. (Honan, 10/9)
Walgreens is changing the benefits it offers employees and eliminating health insurance for most of its eligible retirees, just months after announcing it would boost hourly wages for store employees. Starting in 2019, employees of the Deerfield-based drugstore chain won鈥檛 qualify for paid time off unless they work at least 30 hours a week, said Walgreens spokesman Brian Faith. Currently, employees can qualify for paid time off if they work at least 20 hours a week. (Schencker, 10/9)
After Florence, dozens of water and sewer systems聽 throughout North Carolina are struggling. Many have been struggling since Matthew, two years ago. Dozens more were underwater before either storm hit, with shrinking economies and populations that make it difficult for them to cover routine expenses and service the debt on their water and sewer infrastructure. (Ross, 10/10)
California chiropractors allege in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court that an aggressive middleman in the workers鈥 compensation arena is employing a novel kickback scheme to steer patients to providers willing to share more of their fees with the company. Sacramento-based California Chiropractic Association asserted in its court complaint that One Call Care Management is violating business and professions codes that have gotten health care practitioners prosecuted for fraud. (Anderson, 10/9)
The Colorado Department of Health is investigating an unprecedented outbreak of rare viral infections with neurological complications among young children, state officials announced Tuesday. State health officials, in conjunction with the experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said they have found 41 cases of enterovirus A71 infections in children this year 鈥 a majority of them in the Denver area. (Tabachnik, 10/9)
Since 2017, 12 families a day on average have been evicted from their homes in Travis County. Many people had lost a job, experienced a medical emergency or had a roommate leave without notice. According to an analysis of five years of eviction data by KUT, the threat of eviction in Travis County is nearly three times more common than reported by Eviction Lab, a new project to publish nationwide eviction data. (McGlinchy, 10/10)
They're employees of the city and state, homeless service providers, and the local public health commission and housing authority. They've been working for the last three years toward a goal of eliminating chronic homelessness in the city by the end of 2018. (Joliocoeur, 10/9)
Cannabis cafes where consumers could enjoy marijuana together may be coming to a small number of Massachusetts cities and towns chosen to participate in a Cannabis Control Commission pilot program, marijuana regulators said Tuesday 鈥 though they cautioned that such businesses are unlikely to open for months or even years. Commissioners said they would partner with a handful of municipalities that want to host 鈥渟ocial consumption鈥 businesses. (Adams, 10/10)