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More than three-quarters of sudden infant deaths involved multiple unsafe sleep practices, including co-sleeping, a recent analysis suggests. A study published in the journal Pediatrics looked at 7,595 sudden infant death cases in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention registry between 2011 and 2020. The majority of deaths occurred in babies less than 3 months old. (Blakemore, 3/31)

Some infants who pass away from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) are known to have had acute minor infections. Could these have played a role in their death? Using next-generation molecular tools, a new study provides evidence that undiagnosed inflammation and occult infection can contribute to SIDS and the brainstem pathology seen in some infants. The findings are published in JAMA Neurology. (Fliesler, 3/27)

Most targeted cancer drugs work like tranquilizer darts, snaring an overzealous gene that has spurred the cell into murderously rapid growth. But many tumors don’t have a hyperactive gene. Like the mayhem in “Cat in the Hat,” they are enabled by parental absence. They grow because the genes that are meant to provide discipline, guiding the activity of other genes or self-destructing a cell whose DNA is too damaged, are broken or missing. (Mast, 4/1)

Teenagers are increasingly using social media to self-diagnose their mental health issues, alarming parents and advocates who say actual care should be easier to access.  A poll by EdWeek Research Center released this week found 55 percent of students use social media to self-diagnose, and 65 percent of teachers say they’ve seen the phenomenon in their classrooms. (Lonas, 3/30)

A troubled heart pump that has now been linked to 49 deaths and dozens of injuries worldwide will be allowed to remain in use, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to issue an alert about the risk that it could puncture a wall of the heart. The tiny Impella pumps, about the width of a candy cane, are threaded through blood vessels to take over the work of the heart in patients who are undergoing complex procedures or have life-threatening conditions. (Jewett, 3/29)

Jazmin Evans had been waiting for a new kidney for four years when her hospital revealed shocking news: She should have been put on the transplant list in 2015 instead of 2019 — and a racially biased organ test was to blame. As upsetting as that notification was, it also was part of an unprecedented move to mitigate the racial inequity. Evans is among more than 14,000 Black kidney transplant candidates so far given credit for lost waiting time, moving them up the priority list for their transplant. (Neergaard, 4/1)

Neurologists and patient advocates are up in arms over a policy decision by a U.K. health agency that they say will imperil access to an ALS treatment that’s available in the U.S. and on its way to approval in the European Union. (Joseph, 4/1)

A woman in Texas who was falsely charged with murder over a self-induced abortion in 2022 has filed a lawsuit against the local prosecutor’s office and its leaders, seeking more than $1 million in damages. Lizelle Gonzalez was arrested in April 2022 in Starr County, near the southeastern border with Mexico, and charged with murder after using the drug misoprostol to self-induce an abortion, 19 weeks into her pregnancy. She spent two nights in jail before the charge was dropped. (Betts, 3/30)

Samantha Casiano spent this month planning her daughter’s first birthday party. The 30-year-old east Texas mother of four knows how to throw a good party for her kids. But this family get-together on Friday was not a traditional party, despite Casiano purchasing a cake and balloons for the event. Instead, Casiano’s family spent the day at the gravesite of Halo Hope Villasana, Casiano’s daughter who was born with anencephaly, a fatal condition that prevents a child’s brain and skull from forming properly. (Wright, 3/31)

If you were at Saturday’s Texas Rangers game at Globe Life Field, you might've seen a plane fly past the stadium hours before the game with a banner that read "Abortion pills by mail." ... Shipping abortion pills by mail is a felony in Texas. But several online groups will send them here, anyway, relying on what are known as 'shield laws,' explained Olivia Raisner, executive director of Mayday Health, the educational nonprofit that ran the banner. (Persing, 3/31) "There are six states in the US where providers can provide and ship pills to people in states where abortion clinics are banned," she said.

The Florida Supreme Court announced Thursday night that it will issue long-awaited rulings on Monday that will decide the fate of proposed amendments that would expand abortion access and allow recreational marijuana. The court’s regular 11 a.m. Thursday opinion release time came and went, with no decision on whether the two amendments can stand on the 2024 ballot. (Ellenbogen, 3/29)

When Morgan Johnson walked into her annual well woman’s exam at the Little Rock Planned Parenthood in 2018, the Arkansas clinic had just gotten a call from the governor’s office. A new state law that had been working its way through the courts had just gone into effect — Planned Parenthood could no longer receive Medicaid reimbursements. That meant Johnson, then a student, single mom to twin girls and patient on the federal insurance program for those living in poverty, had to find a new provider. (Spoerre, 3/29)

New Hampshire abortion providers say the medication at the center of a major legal fight before the U.S. Supreme Court has been key to expanding abortion access locally. Abortions done via medication, rather than an in-clinic procedure, have become increasingly common in recent years, as the Food and Drug Administration has made it easier to access mifepristone – one of two drugs used in medication abortions. (Cuno-Booth, 3/31)

Women who choose to undergo reproductive technology procedures such as egg freezing face a long road riddled with obstacles. Here’s a look into the driving forces behind egg freezing and the financial, social and emotional costs that come with it — based on personal experiences from women across the country. (Han, 3/30)

In between chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and all the other medical appointments that come with a cancer diagnosis, Katie McKnight rushed to start the in vitro fertilization process in hopes that she could one day give birth when she recovered. McKnight, 34, of Richmond, Calif., was diagnosed in 2020 with a fast-spreading form of breast cancer. ... But after having begun the process — being sedated to retrieve her eggs and paying hundreds of dollars annually to properly store the embryos made with her husband — McKnight can’t afford right now to get the embryos out of a freezer. (Mays, 3/31)

Anti-abortion advocates worked for five decades to topple Roe v. Wade. They’re now laying the groundwork for a yearslong fight to curb in vitro fertilization. Since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos are children, the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups have been strategizing how to convince not just GOP officials but evangelicals broadly that they should have serious moral concerns about fertility treatments like IVF and that access to them should be curtailed. (Messerly and Ollstein, 4/1)

Every morning, Jeni Gutke swallows 12 pills. In the evening, she takes 15 more, then another before bed. She also takes an injectable medication once weekly, and two other medications as needed. Gutke, of Joliet, Illinois, has polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, and the medications and supplements help the 45-year-old cope with migraines, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, anxiety and depression that come with the complex hormonal condition. Not one of  Gutke’s medications are technically “PCOS drugs.” (Hopkins, 3/31) 

In a striking departure from recent voting and polling trends, healthcare has tumbled to the 16th-most important problem facing Americans today, according to Gallup data released Friday. At first glance, this shift is bewildering, especially considering the central role healthcare played in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 election cycles. Americans now list the nation’s top problems as immigration (28%), the government (20%), the economy in general (12%), inflation (11%), poverty, hunger and homelessness (5%), unifying the country (4%), crime/violence (4%), and so on. ... Healthcare continues to be a pivotal issue, but its impact now permeates a broader array of societal concerns, reshaping our understanding of what constitutes a “healthcare issue.” (Pearl, 4/1)

President Biden and top Democrats have spent weeks mounting a full-scale blitz to tout the Affordable Care Act, including ads, social media posts, speeches — and a video that blasts rival Donald Trump for “running to ‘terminate’ the ACA.” Trump — who as president pushed to kill the law and last November reiterated that he wants to “replace” it — has angrily countered on social media that Biden “DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES ALL THE TIME,” and that all Trump wants to do is make the 14-year-old law better. (Diamond, 3/30)

A joint media investigation into "Havana syndrome," a mysterious health condition that's affected U.S. diplomats and government officials, has found evidence that a Russian military assassination unit may be responsible. "60 Minutes" noted that the findings from its five-year probe with The Insider and Der Spiegel that Russia's GRU Unit 29155 may be behind the neurological symptoms marked the first evidence linking a foreign adversary to the cases. (Falconer, 3/31)

A coalition of 22 state attorneys general is calling on Congress to address “the glaring vagueness” that has led to legal cannabis products being sold over the counter across the country — including sometimes from vending machines or online. A letter dated March 20 addresses the consequences of Republican lawmakers’ choice to legalize hemp production in the 2018 omnibus Farm Bill — a decision that perhaps inadvertently led to a multibillion-dollar market in intoxicating cannabis products that are arguably federally legal. (Elbein, 3/30)

Migrants with disabilities can’t access the asylum system the way others can, according to a complaint that advocacy organizations filed against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security earlier this week. (Bohra, 3/29)

A recent tweak to a Medicaid formula could be behind the shake-up to inhaler products, a series of changes that have both benefited and harmed patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. (Clason, 3/29)

Tricare beneficiaries with prescriptions for specialty drugs can now get more of them at the lower copays of Tricare Home Delivery with the addition of Accredo, a specialty pharmacy, to the program. Two pharmacies, Express Scripts and Accredo, are now part of Tricare Home Delivery. Defense Health Agency officials confirmed that some users will have mail-order prescriptions with both Express Scripts and Accredo if they have both non-specialty and specialty prescriptions. (Miller, 3/29)

UnitedHealth Group has gobbled up physician practices at an astounding rate — roughly 20,000 last year alone. Most of them share a common trait: They’re independent groups, not affiliated with hospital chains. (Bannow, 4/1)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Hospitals Cash In On A Private Equity-Backed Trend: Concierge Physician Care

Nonprofit hospitals created largely to serve the poor are adding concierge physician practices, charging patients annual membership fees of $2,000 or more for easier access to their doctors. It’s a trend that began decades ago with physician practices. Thousands of doctors have shifted to the concierge model, in which they can increase their income while decreasing their patient load. (Galewitz, 4/1)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: How Primary Care Is Being Disrupted: A Video Primer

How patients are seeing their doctor is changing, and that could shape access to and quality of care for decades to come. More than 100 million Americans don’t have regular access to primary care, a number that has nearly doubled since 2014. Yet demand for primary care is up, spurred partly by record enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans. Under pressure from increased demand, consolidation, and changing patient expectations, the model of care no longer means visiting the same doctor for decades. (Appleby, Norman and Tempest, 4/1)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: For-Profit Companies Open Psychiatric Hospitals In Areas Clamoring For Care

A for-profit company has proposed turning a boarded-up former nursing home here into a psychiatric hospital, joining a national trend toward having such hospitals owned by investors instead of by state governments or nonprofit health systems. The companies see a business opportunity in the shortage of inpatient beds for people with severe mental illness. (Leys, 4/1)

Adventist Health has acquired two California hospitals from Tenet Healthcare. Roseville, California-based Adventist announced last month it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center and Twin Cities Community Hospital, in addition to related physician practices and imaging centers, in a $550 million cash deal. (Hudson, 3/29)

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit against Ephraim McDowell Health after an employee was allegedly turned down for a promotion because she was a woman. The suit was filed after the EEOC received a complaint from an employee of the Danville, Kentucky-based health system. She alleged her application for an administrative position at Fort Logan Hospital in Stanford, Kentucky, was denied based on her gender, the EEOC suit alleges. (DeSilva, 3/29)

Cybersecurity experts warn that as more healthcare is provided in patients’ homes, the flow of data between those locations, vendors and providers raises the risk for ransomware attacks. In the wake of the Change Healthcare attack, cybersecurity consultants are scrutinizing home-based care — particularly the storage and transfer of data through telehealth, remote patient monitoring and wearable devices. (Eastabrook, 3/29)

Seton Medical Center’s Coastside emergency room in Moss Beach is set to temporarily close for nine months beginning Monday, April 1. The announcement came as workers at the health care provider’s main Daly City location protested a new employee health plan they say severely limits their own options for medical care.The two events are the latest in a long-running saga of financial challenges and labor issues that have beleaguered the community hospital and vital health service provider in northern and coastal San Mateo County. (Macasero, 3/31)

A nurses strike on Staten Island has been averted after an all-night bargaining session. The New York State Nurses Association says it reached a tentative contract with Staten Island University Hospital Northwell Health early Saturday morning. More than 1,000 nurses were set to strike on April 2 if that deal wasn't reached. (3/30)

The Pennsylvania Department of Health has reported a variant H1N2 (H1N2v) infection in a patient younger than 18 years, marking the nation's first variant influenza A case of 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly influenza update. (Schnirring, 3/29)

Highly pathogenic avian influenza has been discovered in dairy herds in Michigan and Idaho, indicating the virus is spreading into new US states. The National Veterinary Services Laboratories has confirmed the presence of bird flu in a Michigan herd that recently received cows from Texas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Friday. In a joint statement with the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the USDA also said presumptive positive test results have been received in New Mexico, Idaho, and Texas. (Marsh, 3/30)

When a new RSV vaccine for pregnant people arrived last fall, Sarah Turner, a family-medicine physician at Lutheran Hospital, in Indiana, couldn’t help but expect some pushback. At most, about half of her eligible pregnant patients opt to get a flu vaccine, she told me, and “very few” agree to the COVID shot. But to Turner’s surprise, patients clamored for the RSV shot—some opting in even more eagerly than they did for Tdap, which protects newborns against pertussis and had previously been her easiest sell. (Wu, 3/29)

Children who are given polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests that simultaneously look for multiple causes of a rash may test falsely positive for measles if they recently had a dose of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine, according to a new study in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. MMR vaccine includes live attenuated measles virus, which is detectable by PCR tests but does not cause active infections in people with healthy immune systems. From September 2022 to January 2023, however, the Tennessee Department of Health received two reports of measles detected by PCR panels conducted for rashes. (Soucheray, 3/29)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Journalists Dig Into Measles, Abortion Access, And Medicaid Expansion

�鶹Ů�� Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media in recent weeks to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances. (3/30)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Four Years After Shelter-In-Place, Covid-19 Misinformation Persists

From spring break parties to Mardi Gras, many people remember the last major “normal” thing they did before the novel coronavirus pandemic dawned, forcing governments worldwide to issue stay-at-home advisories and shutdowns. Even before the first case of covid-19 was detected in the U.S., fears and uncertainties helped spur misinformation’s rapid spread. (Gyamfi Asiedu, 4/1)

Before Carlton McPherson was accused of fatally shoving a stranger in front of a subway train last week, he was placed by New York City into specialized homeless shelters meant to help people with severe mental illness. But at one shelter, in Brooklyn, he became erratic and attacked a security guard. At another, he jumped on tables and would cycle between anger and ecstasy. At a third, his fellow residents said it was clear his psychological issues were not being addressed. (Harris, Ransom, Parnell and Newman, 3/31)

A Missouri laboratory agreed this week to a $13.6 million settlement to resolve allegations that it performed expensive and unnecessary urine tests and billed Medicare for them. The company and two of its owners will be barred from federal health care programs for 15 years. (Merrilees, 3/29)

The burnout that has hit so many in her line of work came for Phyllis Lubel last fall. She had just finished a particularly grueling 16-month stretch in which she logged close to 300 hours inside Lake County emergency rooms, where she took on the arduous task of trying to help survivors in the immediate aftermath of a sexual assault. After nearly 26 years with the Zacharias Sexual Abuse Center in Gurnee, first as a volunteer and then as an advocacy services specialist, the 58-year-old Skokie native had reached a breaking point. I need to have a life, she thought. I can’t keep this pace up. (Lubel, 3/31)

The Environmental Protection Agency has identified potentially dangerous levels of toxic chemicals in several new vapor samples taken near a Union Pacific rail yard in Fifth Ward, where residents have for years worried that the creosote process once used to treat rail ties at the site had contaminated their properties and made them sick. Residents still living on top of an underground plume of creosote-contaminated water blame it for the area's elevated cancer rates. (Ward, 3/29)

California could become home to the nation’s most sweeping assisted dying policies with a new bill that would allow dementia patients and out-of-state residents to end their lives here. First, the proposal will have to overcome opposition from the state’s influential religious and disability rights groups. It could also face pushback from doctors and hospitals that have historically been hesitant to loosen rules around the process. (Bluth, 4/1)

Inside a clinic wedged next to a smoke shop in a South Los Angeles strip mall, Dr. Mohamad Yaghi operated on a 28-year-old woman who had traveled from Las Vegas to have fat trimmed from her arms and stomach. Yaghi had been offering liposuction for roughly seven years when he started making incisions that day in October 2020, but he was trained as a pediatrician, according to a formal accusation later filed by state regulators. (Alpert Reyes, 3/31)

In an effort to curb the incidence of fentanyl overdoses and to protect drug users in California, the state has rolled out free fentanyl test strips for a limited time. According to California Department of Public Health specialist Pike Long, the fentanyl test strips "are a useful addition" to the state's harm-reduction strategies, such as "never using alone and always carrying naloxone." (Joseph, 3/29)

Yet another powerful storm that doused Southern California has led to potentially high bacteria levels flushing down inland rivers and streams and into the ocean, prompting health officials to issue an advisory on Saturday. Los Angeles County Department of Public Health officials say that the heavy rains could cause discharge from drains, creek and rivers that is contaminated with bacteria, chemicals, debris and trash from city streets into the ocean. (Fioresi, 3/30)

Adolescents face overwhelming mental health challenges. It is essential for public online spaces to be safe for teens to use. But the fear and focus on social media’s possible harms (on which the science is actually quite mixed) may prevent key decision- and policymakers from considering another possibility: social media holds unprecedented promise to support adolescent mental health, especially for teens facing barriers to treatment. (Jessica Schleider, 4/1)

The Supreme Court this week heard the first major challenge to abortion rights since it struck down Roe v. Wade two years ago — an attempt to severely limit access to mifepristone, the most commonly used abortion pill in the country, by a group of doctors who are morally opposed to the practice. (3/30)

There’s a lot to gain from a better scientific understanding of aging. Getting older is a risk factor for all the major killer diseases — heart disease, cancer and even severe Covid. And in the US, the ranks of people over 70 will swell within the coming years, creating a vast increase in the number of people suffering from dementia or other age-related problems. (F.D. Flam, 3/30)

Expanding access to health care has been a shared policy priority for Joe Biden and the former Democratic presidents who joined him onstage at a lucrative New York City fundraiser last night, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But the politics of health care look very different for Biden than they did for his two predecessors. (3/29)

Healthcare is a human right. As the home of the nation’s largest municipal healthcare system, New York City works to honor and uplift that right every day. (Dr. Ted Long, 3/31)