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The head of the Environmental Protection Agency conceded Thursday that her agency was too slow to intervene in the Flint, Mich., water-contamination crisis and less forceful than it should have been when federal officials told a recalcitrant state bureaucracy to act. Despite learning last June that three homes had lead-tainted water and expressing her concern over the situation in a September email to top staffers, Administrator Gina McCarthy did not use her emergency powers until late January. Assuming the state would make good on promises to take decisive measures, the EPA did not push Michigan’s environmental quality agency hard enough to begin treating the water, McCarthy acknowledged. (Bernstein, 3/17)

Lawmakers from both parties called on the top officials at the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Michigan to resign Thursday over their respective roles in the lead-tainted water crisis in Flint, Mich. Republicans began by calling for EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s resignation, and Democrats shot back that Michigan’s GOP Gov. Rick Snyder should resign. Thursday’s hearing in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was the first such appearance for both Ms. McCarthy and Mr. Snyder on this issue, which has captured the nation’s attention for the past few months. (Harder and Maher, 3/17)

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder again apologized for the Flint drinking water disaster when he opened his testimony Thursday before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Snyder and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy appeared before the committee during its third day of hearings into what caused the Flint drinking water public health crisis and how to prevent a recurrence. Reading from prepared remarks, Snyder called the Flint catastrophe a failure at all three levels of government, but he also accepted personal responsibility. (Egan, 3/17)

"Let me be blunt," Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said in his opening statement to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "This was a failure of government at all levels. Local, state and federal officials — we all failed the families of Flint." He was answering questions at a Congressional hearing this morning that is investigating the lead-laced water crisis in Flint, Mich. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy also testified at the hearing, which frequently became heated with multiple calls for their resignations. Once such call came from Democratic Congressman Matt Cartwright. "Governor, plausible deniability only works when it's plausible and I'm not buying that you didn't know about any of this until October 2015. You were not in a medically induced coma for a year," he said. "And I've had about enough of your false contrition and phony apologies." (Wagner and Kennedy, 3/17)

Flint, Michigan, earned a place in the spotlight again Thursday, as Congressional hearings on the city’s water crisis continued. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and EPA administrator Gina McCarthy both faced strict scrutiny for their apparent failure to respond to the dire situation quickly enough. (3/17)

Jamison [Rich's] school, Caroline Elementary in Ithaca, N.Y., is one of hundreds across the nation where children were exposed to water containing excessive amounts of an element doctors agree is unsafe at any level, a USA TODAY NETWORK investigation found. An analysis of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data showed about 350 schools and day-care centers failed lead tests a total of about 470 times from 2012 through 2015. That represents nearly 20% of the water systems nationally testing above the agency's "action level" of 15 parts per billion. (Ungar, 3/17)

New Jersey's largest school district began voluntary blood tests to check students for the presence of lead Thursday, a week after officials announced that elevated levels had been found in the drinking water. The first testing concentrated on the Newark school district's youngest students and began at the early childhood center, which was among 30 schools that had elevated lead levels in their water. About 67 families had registered for testing, said schools spokeswoman Dreena Whitfield. (Frederick, 3/17)

The District’s water utility found itself on the defensive this week after a Virginia Tech professor who has crusaded against lead in drinking water told a congressional panel that the city’s lead problem in the early 2000s was “20 to 30 times worse” than what has occurred recently in Flint, Mich. D.C. Water officials said that they didn’t take issue with professor Marc Edwards’s statement Tuesday to a House committee because the District is a much larger city than Flint, and the elevated levels of lead in the city’s tap water occurred over several years vs. about 18 months in Flint. (Shaver and Hedgpeth, 3/17)

City officials have turned over millions of documents to the federal prosecutors who are conducting a broad investigation into health and safety conditions at New York City Housing Authority buildings and at homeless shelters, according to people familiar with the matter. The investigation is “widespread” and about far more than lead issues, a senior city official said, adding it began in October 2015. (Dawsey and O'Brien, 3/18)

The federal government should do more to prevent people from fraudulently obtaining health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in testimony to the Senate Finance Committee. The testimony, delivered on Thursday in person and in writing by GAO spokesman Seto Bagdoyan, caps an extensive investigation by the GAO which found that, as of last April, about 431,000 people were still allowed to receive subsidies for insurance purchased through the federal exchange in 2014 despite possible inconsistencies in their applications. (3/17)

The number of Wyoming residents registered for subsidized health insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act continues to climb. Wyoming Insurance Commissioner Tom Glause said this week that 23,770 people registered for coverage through the federal health insurance marketplace by the Jan. 31 open enrollment deadline. That's up from about 21,000 who registered last year. (Neary, 3/17)

A four-year-old fight between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration reaches the Supreme Court on Wednesday, in a bishop’s challenge to the health-care law’s contraception requirements that could alter the boundaries of religious freedom. Eight justices will weigh how far the government has to go to accommodate religiously affiliated employers that object to including contraception in workers’ insurance plans. The outcome could affect as many as a million Catholic nonprofit employees. The case comes after the court’s 2014 Hobby Lobby ruling that for-profit businesses could assert such objections. (Radnofsky, 3/17)

Some Vermont lawmakers are trying to reinforce the state's birth control insurance mandates with an eye on the 2016 national elections. A bill moving through the Vermont House of Representatives would retain the birth control mandate in the federal Affordable Care Act, requiring health insurance plans to provide contraceptives and sterilization at no cost to patients — even if Congress repeals the law. (Burbank, 3/18)

Texas women had nearly 9,000 fewer abortions in the first full year since new restrictions forced more than half of the state's abortion clinics to close. Provisional data recently released by the Department of State Health Services show a 14 percent reduction in the number of abortions performed in 2014 compared with the year before. Nationally, abortion rates have steadily decreased in recent years, but the drop in Texas is dramatic. The Associated Press found that abortions decreased by about 12 percent nationwide from 2010 to 2013-14. Texas abortions decreased by 30 percent in that five-year span. (Martin, 3/17)

The number of abortions performed in Texas dropped significantly in 2014, with almost 9,000 fewer procedures in the state compared to the year before. Early estimates by state health officials show 54,191 abortions were performed in Texas in 2014 — down from 63,168 in 2013. The state estimates do not include abortions Texas women obtained at facilities outside the state. In 2013, 681 Texas women obtained abortions out-of-state. (Ura, 3/17)

An abortion rights group asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn a 2014 law that it says was designed to shut down abortion clinics in the state. The law, which hasn't taken effect because of a temporary injunction, would only allow abortions to be performed if a physician with local hospital admitting privileges is present. (Talley, 3/17)

Planned Parenthood is going up Friday with new television and digital ads pushing Florida Gov. Rick Scott to veto a sweeping anti-abortion bill. The ad campaign is Planned Parenthood’s first major pushback this year against state efforts to defund or undermine the organization — a legislative trend since sting videos targeting the group were released last summer. The Florida bill would increase regulations on abortion clinics and prohibit public funding for organizations such as Planned Parenthood that work with abortion clinics. It would also require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and perform the procedure in surgical centers — provisions similar to Texas restrictions that are now before the Supreme Court. (Haberkorn, 3/18)

Too much sitting increases heart failure risk and disability risk, and shortens life expectancy, studies have found. But according to an analysis published Wednesday of 20 of the best studies done so far, there's little evidence that workplace interventions like the sit-stand desk or even the flashier pedaling or treadmill desks will help you burn lots more calories, or prevent or reverse the harm of sitting for hours on end. "What we actually found is that most of it is, very much, just fashionable and not proven good for your health," says Dr. Jos Verbeek, a health researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. (Chen, 3/17)

Finances and fear deter many morbidly obese patients from having stomach-reducing bariatric surgery, but it’s steadily becoming more common. Surgical techniques and insurance coverage have improved, and the number of obese Americans, now about 79 million, keeps rising. Meanwhile, research shows benefits go far beyond looking better, because obesity reduces life span by two to 10 years. (Johnson, 3/17)

The United States lacks coherent, effective strategies for reducing the stubbornly high number of children who die each year from abuse and neglect, a commission created by Congress reported Thursday after two years of sometimes divisive deliberations. The report made dozens of recommendations, including expanding safe-haven programs for abandoned infants and enlisting a broader range of community organizations to help often-overburdened child protection service workers. "We need a system that does not rely on CPS agencies alone to keep all children safe," the report said. "Other systems become key partners, including the courts, law enforcement, the medical community, mental health, public health, and education. Even neighbors who come into regular contact with young children and families are part of a public health approach." (3/17)

The biggest outbreak of Elizabethkingia in recorded public health history just got bigger. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) confirmed Thursday that an older adult from the western part of the state has died after contracting the obscure blood infection, which has sickened more than 50 in Wisconsin. Seventeen of those patients died, though it’s not clear whether the infection was to blame. All of the victims were people with underlying health conditions, including the latest one in Michigan. An outbreak like this one is thought to be unprecedented — according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, most prior outbreaks had fewer than ten patients. (Kaplan, 3/18)

Health officials have confirmed that a western Michigan resident died after contracting a bloodstream infection matching a Wisconsin outbreak. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday that it was notified March 11 by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the match. The person was described as an older adult with underlying health conditions. (3/17)

A proposal will be introduced Monday to address the estimated 78,000 Idahoans who don’t qualify for Medicaid but also don’t make enough to qualify for health insurance subsidies, the head of the House Health and Welfare Committee says. Fred Wood, R-Burley, says legislative leaders were still finalizing the proposal as of Thursday, and committee members expressed new support for addressing the so-called Medicaid gap population before adjournment, which is tentatively expected by the end of next week. (Brown, 3/17)

A Senate committee advanced a bill Thursday forbidding Medicaid payments for elective births before the 39th week of pregnancy if they aren’t medically necessary, but it delayed consideration of a bill requiring doctors to screen pregnant women for certain risk factors. (Hart, 3/17)

Samiha Abusarekh, 22, sits at a computer in a small cubicle down the hall from the University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital Ambulatory care center. Across from her, 20-year-old N'Zinda Dennis jiggles her baby daughter Madison in her lap. The women are talking about living room furniture, cribs and Dennis's worries about paying her utility bills. (Zeltner, 3/17)

The largesse of the pharmaceutical and medical device industry extends well beyond physicians who are paid to deliver promotional talks and consult on their behalf. Teaching hospitals, which train future generations of doctors, also receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year from the companies. And that doesn’t include research funding. (Ornstein, 3/17)

A patient at an Arkansas hospital diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease prompted all operating rooms to be closed. Washington Regional Hospital representatives said as soon as they got the lab reports Tuesday afternoon, they immediately shut down all operating rooms. The hospital is working with the World Health Organization and the Arkansas Department of health to identify and advise those patients who received care at Washington Regional during the relevant period whether they may be at risk. (3/17)

A bill to clarify state rules related to HIV tests sailed through the Georgia House in February without a dissenting vote. It arrived in the Senate with little fanfare and with good prospects for passage. But a provision in House Bill 1058 that would have promoted ‘‘needle exchanges’’ for injection drug users was stripped out of the bill in the Senate, as a health committee took up the proposal. (Miller, 3/17)

Politically potent tobacco bills have not advanced to Gov. Jerry Brown a week after California legislators passed them, for now delaying the tobacco industry’s strategy to exact revenge with a referendum campaign. (White, 3/17)

Kentucky would halt its mine inspections in the beleaguered coalfields, ceding the job to a federal agency, under legislation that passed the Republican-led state Senate on Thursday. Sen. Chris Girdler said his measure, which passed on a 25-11 vote, would end duplication from federal and state inspections and offer some relief for struggling coal operators. (Schreiner, 3/17)

The Kansas House on Thursday tentatively approved a bill to prohibit city, county and school district officials from adopting certain types of healthy food policies. The bill — House Bill 2595 — would prevent local officials from restricting the sale of so-called junk food at restaurants, grocery stores and other retailers. It also would preclude policies that require businesses to provide consumers with more nutritional information about the food and drinks they sell. (McLean, 3/17)

Walter Melvin Atkinson is a bit vague about how long he has been in the assisted living portion of the Deerfield Correctional Center and how long he has left on his sentence. He claims to not even remember the crime — pedophilia — that landed him here. At 92, “Speedy,” as he is called ironically by fellow prisoners and guards, is frail enough to require a wheelchair to get around, and his inmate caregivers rushed to his side to grab from his shaking hand a coffee mug that seemed destined to spill all over his cot. A huge, bright orange star has been sewn on to the white blanket that covers the cot — an idea the unit manager, Kathy Walker, dreamed up to help Atkinson spot his own bed among the six rows of beds in the spotless unit. (Ollove, 3/17)

North Carolina's eight managed-care networks for treating people with mental health and substance abuse needs and providing services for people with developmental disabilities using public funds are becoming more consolidated. The Department of Health and Human Services laid out a plan Thursday to merge the eight over time into four — two in central North Carolina and one each in the east and west. (3/17)

In a move that’s been anticipated by many actors in North Carolina’s mental health system, Secretary of Health and Human Services Rick Brajer announced that it’s time for the state-funded mental health management organizations to consolidate. (Hoban, 3/18)

Nine Coast households with a family member suffering from HIV/AIDS could find themselves homeless next month after a federal housing grant was delayed -- again -- and sluggish fundraising rendered a local agency unable to make up the shortfall. Though the South Mississippi AIDS Task Force is aggressively seeking funding sources, it is also looking for ways to cut its expenses so other programs don't suffer. (Zilbermints, 3/17)

Attorney General Lori Swanson is raising concerns about the impact on competition from a possible merger between two large primary care providers in the St. Cloud area. In an interview this week, Swanson said her office has launched an antitrust review of a potential acquisition by CentraCare of St. Cloud Medical Group, and asked the parties to delay any closing. (Snowbeck, 3/16)

North Carolina is reversing warnings about water that health officials said was too polluted to drink and now reassuring residents who live near pits that hold waste from decades of coal-burning for electricity that their well water is safe. The state health agency issued written warnings last April to the owners of 330 water wells near eight Duke Energy power plants that their well water was too contaminated with vanadium and hexavalent chromium to use. Now a new letter is being sent to homeowners who draw from 235 of those wells suggesting more confidence in the safety of the water. The remaining 95 water wells will continue to carry a "do not drink" warning because of the presence of arsenic, cobalt or other pollutant, an agency spokeswoman said. (Dalesio, 3/17)

A new study suggests that health care facilities in non-metropolitan counties connect with relatively slow speeds when compared to their metro counterparts. More importantly, it also indicates that this connectivity gap is growing. (Whitacre, Wheeler and Landgraf, 3/17)

The Oregon Health Authority on Thursday gave a company that insures nearly 130,000 Oregon Health Plan members two options: Agree to the terms of a settlement offer on a $55 million rate dispute or risk losing your contract. (Terry, 3/17)

Amid growing calls to limit vaccine exemptions for children in public schools, several Seattle doctors have come up with a controversial plan: Allow personal and religious opt-outs for all shots — except the one that prevents measles. The proposal, published Friday in the journal Pediatrics, flies in the face of current thinking by many medical experts and some lawmakers, like those in California, who passed one of the nation’s strictest vaccination laws, prohibiting nonmedical exemptions. (Aleccia, 3/17)

A new for-profit osteopathic medical school is opening in Idaho, promising to bring more doctors to the rural Intermountain West. The Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine is a private, for-profit company, but it is affiliated with the public Idaho State University and its students will have access to ISU's campus in Meridian. Supporters say the new school will bring an economic boost and improve health care across the state, while opponents worry that it could tax existing infrastructure for Idaho medical students and that profits could take precedence over training. (Boone, 3/17)

It took three years for Dr. Enrico Di Cera and his team to map prothrombin, the protein that causes human blood to form clots. They ran countless samples through a machine, trying to find the conditions that would form a crystal large enough to be seen by a specialized X-ray. (Bouscaren, 3/17)

A software platform for health care that began under Parkland Memorial Hospital has spun off into a Dallas-based tech startup and raised $21.6 million from venture capital firms, Dallas investors and hospital systems. (Repko, 3/17)

Mississippi's health department says free vaccinations against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis are being offered at county health offices in 29 counties affected by recent floods. Health officials say tetanus vaccinations are recommended for anyone who hasn't had one in more than 10 years. People dealing with floods or storm cleanup are deemed at greater risk for tetanus infections. (3/17)

As spring and the end of the flu season approach, state health officials say they are seeing a surge in cases of the virus. The increase began in late February and continues, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Officials say the type of flu recorded is covered by this year's vaccine and it's not too late to get a flu shot, which are commonly available in doctors' offices, drug stores and other retail outlets. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends anyone older than six months old get vaccinated. (Cohn, 3/17)

House v. Burwell is far from resolution, but this case’s path through the federal courts and the threat it could pose to the Affordable Care Act show continued vulnerabilities of the health-care law as well as the stakes of the 2016 election. A Commonwealth Fund report published Thursday looks at a provision in the health-care law that is at issue in the case. To soften the impact of out-of-pocket costs under Obamacare, the law requires insurers to reduce certain payments for individuals whose incomes are up to 250% of the federal poverty level if they purchase a “silver” plan through one of the insurance marketplaces. The law also says that insurers are to be repaid for the discounts. (David Blumenthal and Sara R. Collins, 3/17)

Current methods for estimating the value of new drugs fail to capture the added value of better and extended life for loved ones who care for, depend on, and interact with the individual using the drug. (Dhruv Khullar, 3/17)

Socio-economic factors such as income, race, gender and age can predict whether a patient will be readmitted within 30 days of discharge from a hospital, according to a study. Findings from an analysis published Thursday in the Journal of Healthcare Quality suggests women who had been treated for a heart attack had a 17% higher risk than men for being readmitted within 30 days, while the odds of 30-day readmission among Medicare heart attack patients was 24% higher than patients with commercial insurance. (Steven Ross Johnson, 3/17)

This week’s Congressional hearings have shown that a series of government errors—local, state and federal—caused Flint’s lead-contaminated water. The state is fessing up, but the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to pretend it had nothing to do with it. (3/17)

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Thursday about the contaminated water in Flint, Mich., and state and federal regulation of the water supply. Most Americans say they have been following the issue, and many say they are worried about drinking-water safety, polling has found. As with many issues in our country, the poorer people are, the more worried they are likely to be that the system will fail them and their family. (Drew Altman, 3/17)

As Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy testify in Congress Thursday about the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., critics say the proceedings highlight the flaws in a system that falls short of holding government leaders accountable for their decisions. (Mendoza, 3/17)

Slowly but surely, like the proverbial aircraft carrier, the U.S. government is changing to a new and better course on the long-neglected issue of opioid abuse and addiction. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took an emphatic stand against the loose prescribing norms that have fueled the growth of opioid consumption for non-cancer pain, with the terrible result that 16,000 people a year die from overdoses. Labeling the drugs “dangerous,” and noting that evidence did not support their long-term efficacy for most cases of chronic pain, CDC Director Thomas Frieden urged physicians to follow more-cautious new CDC guidelines that emphasize alternative pain management techniques. Dr. Frieden and his colleagues deserve credit for incorporating a range of views in the guidelines while resisting pressure to weaken them from interest groups that support the status quo. (3/17)

The human body breaks down and wears out over time. More than two-thirds of older adults will need some personal assistance with basic activities like dressing and bathing before they die. About half will need a high level of assistance, typically for two years at an average cost of more than $100,000. (3/17)

Ironies abound whenever the General Assembly meets, but Sen. Ralph Alvarado, R-Winchester, a physician, endorsed one of the most profound and disturbing of this session. Alvarado voted to assure that more dirty hypodermic needles will be in circulation, spreading deadly blood-borne infections. He did this by supporting a noxious change in the Senate to a simple bill that had easily passed the House. (3/17)

The Iowa Caucuses have come and gone, but Iowans’ engagement in the issues important to our state and our people remain. Just as we are fortunate to have the opportunity to meet and ask presidential candidates questions, our elected federal officials constantly travel Iowa to meet with constituents. This lends us the opportunity to discuss the issues and challenges we encounter with the people who have the ability to help. (Andrew Wagner, 3/17)

Though attacking Planned Parenthood is a favorite pastime of some politicians, Iowans see through the antics. Nearly three-fourths want state government to continue funding non-abortion services provided by the health clinics, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows. A mere 22 percent do not. (3/17)

The Florida Legislature has been brazen in its repeated attempts to restrict access to abortion. Thankfully, some of the most blatant restrictions proposed this year never made it to the full House or Senate. But a bill that would siphon money away from preventive care efforts for women who are exercising their constitutional right was approved and sent to Gov. Rick Scott. If the governor follows through with his signal that he will sign the bill into law, it should be challenged in court. (3/17)

These are sound ideas aimed at ensuring coverage, not curbing it, and at preserving the ACA, not ending it. The company’s recommendations deserve consideration. (3/17)

After years of denial by the National Football League, a ranking league official has conceded what brain dissections of nearly 100 deceased football players have revealed — a direct link between concussions on the field and degenerative brain disease. (3/18)

Clearer rules would help doctors and employers navigate this tricky terrain. But physicians, agencies and companies also should bolster incentives for troubled employees to come forward. (3/18)