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Aetna Inc. expects to continue selling Affordable Care Act exchange plans in 15 states, and the insurer said it may expand into new areas. The announcement adds to the mixed picture that the industry has been providing about companies’ willingness to stick it out on the exchanges, which have generated red ink for many insurers. Insurers’ moves on the exchanges are being closely watched after UnitedHealth Group Inc. said last month that it would withdraw from all but a handful of the 34 states where it is offering the marketplace plans, amid continued losses. ... But other big insurers have struck a guardedly optimistic tone. (Wilde Mathews and Armour, 5/11)

Health Insurer Aetna Inc on Wednesday said it plans to continue its Obamacare health insurance business next year in the 15 states where it now participates, and may expand to a few additional states. "We have submitted rates in all 15 states where we are participating and have no plans at this point to withdraw from any of them," said company spokesman Walt Cherniak. But he noted that a final determination would hinge on binding agreements being signed with the states in September. (Pierson, 5/11)

Insurers are seeking double-digit premium increases in the coming year for tens of thousands of Mainers who receive insurance through President Barack Obama's health care law. Proposals filed with the Maine Bureau of Insurance would raise individual plan premiums between 14 percent and 23 percent under the health care law's marketplace. All told, more than 84,000 Mainers are signed up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act. (Sharp, 5/11)

House GOP leaders announced Wednesday at a weekly closed-door conference meeting that they will present members with an update on the Republican Obamacare replacement plan on Thursday afternoon, according to a senior GOP aide. ... While the plan is not yet finalized, a hearing in Energy and Commerce Committee’s health subcommittee on Wednesday offered hints of what the replacement plan might contain. Committee members are mulling various ways to handle pre-existing conditions, quality of coverage, affordability and insurance regulation. (Owens, 5/11)

The meeting, which will be attended by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), marks the first time the task force will lay out a draft of its plan after months of conversations with members, according to a House GOP aide. The plan is expected to include numerous standard Republican health policy ideas — including a controversial proposal to cap the employer tax exclusion for health insurance, according to two Republican lobbyists. ... Details of the plan have been mostly kept quiet, but Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, told The Hill that other elements include allowing insurers to sell across state lines and “beefing up” health savings accounts. (Sullivan and Ferris, 5/11)

While the attention on Capitol Hill this week has focused on Donald Trump’s visit, a quieter — and potentially more substantive — conversation is underway in Congress to address the opioid addiction crisis sweeping the country. House Speaker Paul Ryan, after a morning meeting with Trump, is planning Thursday to continue pushing for passage of 18 initiatives to help stem the epidemic. (Jan, 5/12)

The White House on Wednesday blasted a lack of new funding in Republican legislation in the House to address the national opioid addiction crisis. White House press secretary Josh Earnest did not say whether President Obama would refuse to sign the bills. But he dismissed the measures, saying they lack “substance.” He noted that Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) office has complained that the series of 18 bills has not received widespread attention because of the raucous Republican presidential primary. (Fabian, 5/11)

The House of Representatives on Wednesday unanimously passed legislation to improve safety planning for children who are born dependent on opioid drugs. A similar bill is pending in the Senate. It is one of more than a dozen new measures that are aimed at addressing a U.S. epidemic of addiction to pain pills and cheap heroin. (5/11)

In the modern era of Congress, it’s a rare day when lawmakers vote on legislation actually intended to go to the president’s desk. It’s an even rarer occasion when that legislation is meant to help individuals battling opioid addiction — as is the case with the bills the House passed on Wednesday and the raft of legislation it’s expected to pass in the next few days. (Fuller, Grim and Cherkis, 5/11)

Moves in Congress to link billions of dollars in new medical research funding to revised standards for drug and medical-device approvals are troubling some public-health experts, who say the combination makes it too easy for lawmakers to support lower patient-safety standards. These safety advocates say legislation to beef up research funding for the National Institutes of Health should be separated from product-approval changes at the Food and Drug Administration. (Burton, 5/12)

Senate leaders are seeking lawmakers' input on whether to schedule a mental health bill for floor action between Memorial Day and the July Fourth recess, and several senators already are lobbying for consideration of their amendments. (Siddons, 5/11)

Anti-abortion groups that steadfastly opposed Donald Trump are coming around — though not with great enthusiasm. The thawing of relations comes as the Trump camp has made moves that anti-abortion leaders view as potentially promising that he will champion their causes if he becomes president. On Tuesday evening, the presumptive GOP nominee pledged to appoint “pro-life” judges, his clearest and most prominent effort to date to tap into one of the highest priorities of anti-abortion voters. (Haberkorn, 5/11)

Donald Trump on Tuesday said he will appoint Supreme Court justices who oppose abortion but stopped short of saying they would overturn Roe v. Wade. Pressed by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on whether his chosen justices would overturn Roe v. Wade, Trump said, “They will be pro-life, and we will see what about overturning.” (Sullivan, 5/11)

The head of a major anti-abortion group has a strong message for the rest of the social conservative movement: It’s time to punish our enemies at the ballot box. Even if that means taking on fellow Republicans. The need for payback explains why Susan B. Anthony List took the unprecedented step Wednesday of endorsing the male opponent of Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers, said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the group. ... last year, Ellmers infuriated some anti-abortion activists when she helped stall a House bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks. (Roarty, 5/11)

In the latest attempt to restore confidence in its business, the embattled Silicon Valley blood-testing company Theranos is replacing its chief operating officer and expanding its board, including the addition of a former senior Amgen executive. Theranos attracted the media spotlight with its claim of revolutionizing the laboratory business, offering simplified blood tests at a fraction of the cost of conventional methods. But the company, once valued at $9 billion, now faces growing skepticism over its technology and is under criminal investigation and intense regulatory scrutiny. (Abelson, 5/11)

A top executive who helped build Theranos Inc. into a major blood-testing laboratory is leaving the company amid regulatory probes of the embattled Silicon Valley firm. The departure of Sunny Balwani as Theranos president and chief operating officer comes amid a broader board reorganization announced by the Palo Alto, Calif., firm. In a release late Wednesday, Theranos said it is expanding its board, adding three members to beef up its scientific and medical expertise. (Carreyrou, 5/11)

Theranos said Wednesday that Sunny Balwani, its president and chief operations officer, is leaving the company. The firm will also add three new board members as part of the restructuring. Theranos has positioned itself as a provider of cheaper, more efficient alternatives to traditional medical tests. It had been valued at more than $9 billion on claims that it can process dozens of lab tests with just a few drops of blood. (Mclean, 5/12)

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled in favor of a Columbia, Missouri, Planned Parenthood clinic after the state last year tried to revoke its abortion license, a move the judge found likely was due in part to “political pressure.” U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey in a Wednesday ruling said the Department of Health and Senior Services treated the clinic “more harshly” than other ambulatory surgical centers. (Ballentine, 5/12)

Planned Parenthood sued Ohio's health department on Wednesday, saying thousands of patients could be denied access to HIV tests, cancer screenings and other services under a law designed to strip public money away from the organization's affiliates in the state. The law targets the roughly $1.3 million in funding that Planned Parenthood gets through Ohio's health department. That money, which is mostly federal, supports certain health education and prevention programs. The state's law would bar such funds from going to entities that perform or promote abortions. (Sanner, 5/11)

Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against Ohio officials on Wednesday over a plan by the state to restrict the U.S. healthcare agency's access to state and federal funds, saying it was being singled out for providing abortion services. (Palmer and Ortiz, 5/11)

In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, Planned Parenthood argues Ohio violated the U.S. constitution when it defunded the organization, punishing it for advocating safe abortions. An Ohio law signed in February forbids the state from contracting for health services with any entity that performs or promotes non-therapeutic abortions. The organization could still perform abortions, but it would lose state health contracts. So the lawsuit, filed jointly by Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio, seeks to keep the law from taking effect as scheduled May 23. (Higgs, 5/11)

Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit Wednesday to prevent Ohio officials from stripping more than $1 million from the abortion and health care provider later this month. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, would prevent the Ohio Department of Health from taking away money that Planned Parenthood uses for uses for HIV testing, sex education for foster children and other programs. No taxpayer money pays for abortions. (Balmert, 5/11)

Kansas has delayed cutting off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood a second time and postponed its action against the abortion provider until June 7. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri spokeswoman Bonyen Lee-Gilmore said Wednesday that the state sought another extension to prepare for the first hearing in a federal lawsuit challenging the cutoff and that the delays are sign of how the state's decision is "all political." (Hanna, 5/11)

Planned Parenthood’s defunding date has been rescheduled for June 7. The state of Kansas originally planned to defund Planned Parenthood on Tuesday, but that date was pushed back when Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against the state last week. A hearing for the lawsuit underwent delays, too. It’s now scheduled for May 25. (Dunn, 5/11)

The Mississippi Medicaid program will be banned from spending money with any facility that performs elective abortions under a new law that takes effect July 1. Republican Sen. Joey Fillingane of Sumrall, the main sponsor of Senate Bill 2238 said Wednesday that the bill is aimed at blocking state tax dollars from going to Planned Parenthood. The organization’s only Mississippi clinic doesn’t do abortions but refers patients to other places abortion is available. (Wagster Pettus, 5/11)

The doctors wanted to talk about illness, but the patients — often miners, waitresses, tree cutters and others whose jobs were punishingly physical — wanted to talk only about how much they hurt. They kept pleading for opioids like Vicodin and Percocet, the potent drugs that can help chronic pain, but have fueled an epidemic of addiction and deadly overdoses. “We needed to talk about congestive heart failure or diabetes or out-of-control hypertension,” said Dr. Sarah Chouinard, the chief medical officer at Community Care of West Virginia, which runs primary care clinics across a big rural chunk of this state. “But we struggled over the course of a visit to get patients to focus on any of those.” Worse, she said, some of the organization’s doctors were prescribing too many opioids, often to people they had grown up with in the small towns where they practiced and whom they were reluctant to deny. (Goodnough, 5/11)

Michael Burghardt couldn't sleep. His legs were shaking, his bones ached and he couldn't stop throwing up. Burghardt was in the Valley Street Jail in Manchester, N.H. This was his 11th stay at the jail in the last 12 years. There had been charges for driving without a license, and arguments where the police were called. This time, Burghardt was in after an arrest for transporting drugs in a motor vehicle. (Corwin, 5/11)

This is the first week inmates about to be released from prison in New Hampshire can receive the substance abuse medication Vivitrol. The program is designed to reduce re-offenses and drug overdoses after release. (Corwin, 5/11)

Those in the grips of prescription drug addiction may feel trapped, but the countless stories of recovery show there's hope. CNN hosted a town hall Wednesday night with Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta to address the opioid painkiller epidemic in the United States. (Jackson, 5/11)

Secret documents about the marketing of the potent pain pill OxyContin will be unsealed next month under an order issued Wednesday by a Kentucky judge. STAT filed a motion in March to unseal the records in Pike Circuit Court in Kentucky. They include the deposition of Dr. Richard Sackler, a former president of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and a member of the family that owns the privately held Connecticut company. OxyContin has been blamed by many for helping to ignite the scourge of opioid abuse in the United States that began with prescription painkillers and has progressed to heroin and fentanyl. (Armstrong, 5/11)

A judge has unsealed records from a Kentucky lawsuit against the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, including the secret testimony of a former company president. Pike Circuit Court Judge Steven Combs ordered the records be released in 32 days. But Combs said he would delay his order if Purdue Pharma appealed the decision. Richard Silbert, the company’s chief litigation counsel, confirmed it would appeal. He declined further comment. (Beam, 5/11)

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, lost a legal battle Wednesday to keep records and testimony about its bestselling and widely abused painkiller secret. A judge in Pike County, Kentucky, a region hard-hit by prescription painkiller abuse, granted a motion by a news outlet to unseal records from a lawsuit by the state accusing the company of fraud, conspiracy and negligence in the development and marketing of the drug. Purdue settled that suit in December for $24 million without any admission of wrongdoing. (Kim and Ryan, 5/11)

There's little doubt: Zika is coming to the continental United States, bringing frightening birth defects — and, most likely, newly urgent discussions about abortion and contraception. Fearful they might bear children who suffer from brain-damaging birth defects caused by Zika, more women are expected to look for ways to prevent or end pregnancies. But the highest risk of Zika spreading is in Southern states where long-lasting birth control and abortions are harder to procure, and where a mosquito that transmits the virus already is plentiful. (Stobbe, 5/11)

Zika aid could find a place in the two-bill appropriations package heading to the floor after the chamber wraps up work on the Energy-Water spending bill, Republican and Democratic senators said Wednesday. (Mejdrich, 5/11)

Gov. Rick Scott, expected to travel to Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, reiterated Tuesday that he intends to push federal officials to craft a plan to attack the spreading Zika virus. (5/11)

Florida health officials confirmed two new Zika infections in Miami-Dade on Tuesday, raising the statewide total to 109 people who have contracted the virus this year, more than any state. In Miami-Dade, where most of Florida’s Zika cases have been reported, 44 people have been infected with the virus, said the state health department, but the disease has not been transmitted locally by mosquito bites. Broward County has reported 15 cases of Zika. (Chang, 5/11)

Ten Massachusetts residents became infected with Zika while traveling to areas where the virus is prevalent, but no local transmission of the illness has been reported, and it’s “extremely unlikely” that will happen, a top state disease tracker told public health officials Wednesday. (Freyer, 5/11)

A year ago, Laura Hall felt tired all the time, was losing weight and had a bad cough. The 41-year-old Spanish teacher from Shelburne, Vermont, went to doctors for three months before they finally nailed the diagnosis: active tuberculosis. “I was scared. I was horrified. Oh my gosh, how did I get this? Where did I get it?” Hall said in a video about TB survivors’ experiences. “I didn’t think that I could get TB, ever.” (Mercer, 5/12)

Felicita Soto remembers finding blood in the oddest places. On her pillow in the morning. In her sandwich after she took a bite. Once, a coworker whispered with disgust: “Felicita, you’re bleeding.” Soto felt mortified. She’d recently kicked a smoking habit she’d had since age 12. But it was too late for her teeth. Eventually, she found herself in a dentist’s chair, getting 23 extracted at once. ... Soto is one of a handful of former smokers sharing stories as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national Tips from Former Smokers campaign. Personal stories like Soto’s — emotional and sometimes jarring — run on television, radio, online and in print around the country. And they are intended to resonate with the nation’s major ethnic groups. (Wiener, 5/12)

Scientists are peeking inside living brains to watch for the first time as a toxic duo of plaques and tangles interact to drive Alzheimer’s disease — and those tangles may predict early symptoms, a finding with implications for better treatments. (Neergaard, 5/11)

Besides packing a toothbrush and some magazines, certain patients who check into a hospital need to bring something else with them: their sleep-apnea machine. In a new study led by a Thomas Jefferson University Hospital physician, patients at high risk for sleep apnea were substantially more likely to require a "rapid response" for an emergency or other sudden decline. (Avril, 5/11)

When parents tell Dr. Gregory Fox their boisterous child was stuck in a classroom all day, the Rhode Island pediatrician takes out his notepad and writes a doctor's order to send to school. "Please do not take away this child's recess," Fox writes. So many kids are being deprived of unstructured play time during the school day that a note from the doctor is one way parents around the country have gone over the heads of principals and teachers who can't find time in the school day for recess. (5/11)

The Federal Trade Commission has decided to continue battling a merger between Penn State Hershey (Pa.) Medical Center and PinnacleHealth System in Harrisburg despite a loss in federal court this week. (Schencker, 5/11)

In an aggressive move, the Federal Trade Commission is appealing a federal court ruling to block a merger of two healthcare providers in Pennsylvania. The FTC and state attorney general tried to block a merger between Penn State Hershey Medical Center and PinnacleHealth System that would create a four-hospital network with nearly 1,200 beds, Reuters reported Tuesday. A federal judge cleared the merger Monday, allowing it to become official as early as Friday. (Gorenstein, 5/11)

The city government and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia are planning to join forces to provide health care to South Philadelphia adults and children in a unique arrangement that might also include a new library and recreation center. (Sapatkin, 5/11)

Three Mecklenburg County nonprofit hospitals ranked in the Top 100 most profitable U.S. hospital systems, according to a recent study in the journal Health Affairs. The Top 100 hospitals each netted $63 million to $302 million from patient care in 2013, the most recent year for which data from Medicare was available. (Garloch, 5/11)

New Mexico's fast-growing effort to improve early childhood health and development by offering home visits from nurses and counselors would likely be eligible for federal matching funds under Medicaid, a policy expert told lawmakers on Wednesday. (Lee, 5/11)

Add radiologists and public health experts to the chorus of critics over the state budget proposal the Senate is expected to take up tomorrow. The plan hammered out by Democratic leaders last week does not restore $7 million for radiology services for the poor. The money was cut from the state budget last year. (Altimari, 5/11)

Louisiana lawmakers have agreed to block the creation of new Medicaid-financed centers aimed at helping “medically fragile” children. With an 85-0 vote Wednesday, the House gave final legislative passage to a measure placing a one-year moratorium on pediatric day health care centers, not allowing any new ones into the state-funded program until July 2017. (5/12)

With a large demographic — more than 20 percent — of Ohioans facing old age, many are likely to require the assistance of a friend or family member to help them take care of their medical needs. (Perkins, 5/11)

Missouri may soon have the authority to review the prices of some health insurance plans before they’re sold to consumers in the state. A measure to enact the change was approved Tuesday by the Legislature, and it’s headed to Gov. Jay Nixon’s desk. (Liss, 5/11)

It makes Gary Schwitzer cringe when he sees a network news report about a diet that lets you eat pizza, doughnuts and ice cream while melting away fat. (Gentry, 5/11)

California is spending more than $2 billion a year on health care for retired state employees – up more than 80 percent in the last decade, according to Gov. Jerry Brown’s latest budget. However, the state would have to spend over three times as much – $6.6 billion a year – to fully cover current health care costs and whittle down its $80.3 billion unfunded liability for future health care obligations, according to a new report from Pew Charitable Trusts. (Walters, 5/11)

Patients looking for more transparency in health care costs won’t usually find it on the bill from their medical provider. One visit to a hospital can result in multiple bills from various providers -- including the facility, doctor, lab and specialists -- each with their own presentation, coding and medical jargon. (5/11)

The budget includes cuts to a wide range of social service programs, including grants for mental health and substance abuse treatment, cash assistance for poor state residents, independent living centers for people with disabilities, and school-based health centers. But many of those cuts are not as steep as they could have been under other proposals made during the budget process. (Phaneuf and Levin Becker, 5/12)

Ride2MD is in the fast lane of development, with a mission, a team and a road map to launch in a few months.The patient-centric Ride2MD aims to be the Lyft for healthcare, providing an innovative solution that eliminates wasted time and effort by streamlining the transportation process with real-time technology that offers complete transparency. Through Ride2MD, non-emergency transportation can be easily booked online; Ride2MD plans to move away from vans common now to smaller vehicles and more personalized transport. “We’re totally committed,” said Simon Fernandez, who has held leadership positions at Simply Healthcare, IOS Health Systems and other companies. (Dahlberg, 5/11)

A Chicago-area oncologist has agreed to relinquish her medical license to settle charges by state officials that she used nonapproved and misbranded cancer drugs on her patients between 2008 and 2012. (Channick, 5/11)

Kansans might feel a little queasy looking at the state’s reported gastrointestinal illnesses in 2015, but officials say an increase from the previous year likely reflects improved detection technology. Cases of five types of gastrointestinal illnesses, spread by contaminated food or water, rose substantially from 2014 to 2015. The illnesses have symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. (Hart, 5/11)

The New Hampshire House has again voted decriminalize marijuana. This proposal would make first offense possession of a 1/4 ounce or less a violation. The 289-58 vote marked the seventh time house lawmakers have tried to make marijuana possession a violation. (Rogers, 5/11)

A legal challenge aimed at reclassifying marijuana in Iowa was shot down Wednesday by the state's appeals court, though the issue will be taken up again in a separate case that also seeks new guidance on the drug's use under state law. The Iowa Court of Appeals said the Iowa Board of Pharmacy had proper authority to deny Carl Olsen's request in 2013 to reclassify marijuana as a controlled substance that has medical use. (Rodriguez, 5/11)

The latest flareup of a conflict between vaccine skeptics and an inoculation-championing state senator has moved from a Capitol corridor to the realm of hashtags. (White, 5/11)

A reproductive health clinic serving San Francisco’s Mission District that is threatened with closure will stay open another year, UCSF officials say. (Romero, 5/11)

Health policy experts have long argued that Congress should let older Americans buy into Medicare before they become eligible for it at 65. Hillary Clinton said this week that she supports this option, which could help expand coverage and cut the cost of insurance for some people. Many lawmakers, as well as former President Bill Clinton, have said in the past that people between 55 and 65 should be allowed to buy into Medicare, which has lower administrative costs than private insurance because it pays lower reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals and does not have to turn a profit. Congress even considered this provision when it was debating the Affordable Care Act, but did not include it in the law because of opposition from Republicans, conservative Democrats and former Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut independent. (5/12)

While public support for Obamacare remains tepid, Medicare gets more love. On Monday, Hillary Clinton proposed extending the popular government health insurance program to more Americans. (Elizabeth O'Brien, 5/11)

The shrinkage of employee retirement resources in the U.S. has been well documented, as employers shift more risk onto their workers. Less so is the rate at which employers have been eliminating healthcare benefits for retirees. As the Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported, retiree health coverage is becoming an endangered species. "Employer-sponsored retiree health coverage once played a key role in supplementing Medicare," observe Tricia Neuman and Anthony Damico of the foundation. "Any way you slice it, this coverage is eroding." (Michael Hiltzik, 5/11)

When millions of Americans got thrown off of their existing health-insurance plans in the fall of 2013, PolitiFact called it the Lie of the Year. Obama ended up apologizing for the lie in an interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd in November 2013, even if he couldn’t quite bring himself to admit that it was a lie. “We weren’t as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place,” was as far as Obama’s contrition went. (Edward Morrissey, 5/12)

“Most people are healthy enough to work longer than they do now,” write economists Courtney Coile of Wellesley College, Kevin Milligan of the University of British Columbia and David Wise of Harvard. Most Americans could work another two to four years without adverse consequences, they say. (Robert J. Samuelson, 5/11)

The Republican-controlled Congress has wasted entirely too much time sitting on President Obama’s request for emergency funding to combat the arrival of the Zika virus to the mainland United States. The National Governors Association, not exactly an alarmist group, declared that “the nation is on the threshold of a public health emergency.” Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says that Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory where the virus is already on the move, “is on the precipice of a really serious disaster.” Now that Congress has returned from its recess, it is time to buckle down and approve the president’s request for about $1.9 billion in emergency funding, or something close to it. (5/11)

In a moment, we’ll get to the Zika virus. First, remember how scathing Republicans were about President Obama’s handling of Ebola in the fall of 2014? They lambasted his reluctance to ban travelers from affected nations, with Paul Broun, a House member from Georgia then, even wondering if Obama had a “purposeful” plan to use Ebola to harm America. (Nicholas Kristof, 5/12)

The lesson of history is that politics and epidemics generally do not mix well. In The Great Influenza, historian John Barry showed that President Woodrow Wilson’s obsession with projecting strength during World War I hampered the US response to the pandemic. In And the Band Played On, journalist Randy Shilts documented how the homophobia of key political leaders undermined the nation’s efforts during the emergence of AIDS. (Joshua Sharfstein, 5/11)

So are regulators responsible for high drug prices? The short answer is yes and no. Before drug regulatory agencies existed, all sorts of “remedies” were sold on street corners — sometimes for a penny. But even if high prices weren’t always an issue, concerns about product quality, safety, and lack of efficacy created a need for regulation. In the ensuing decades, regulatory agencies have developed sophisticated evidence standards to ensure that approved drugs have favorable benefit–risk profiles. Regulators have, for example, developed rigorous standards for the generation and analysis of clinical trial data and for acceptable trial end points and study designs. Regulatory requirements have undoubtedly made pharmaceutical R&D expensive. (Hans-Georg Eichler, Hugo Hurts, Karl Broich and Guido Rasi, 5/12)

When I read that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States, I had no trouble believing it. Human bodies and minds are complex, and caring for them when something goes wrong is difficult. (Jerry Large, 5/11)

Since 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics has encouraged primary care providers to discuss firearm safety with families. This reflects the influential group’s acknowledgment that keeping a gun locked and unloaded dramatically reduces the risk of firearms accidents, and the belief that brief counseling by physicians promotes safer storage of guns in homes with children. Still, sadly, some controversy remains. (Marjorie Rosenthal, 5/11)

Long-awaited federal rules to keep electronic cigarettes out of the hands of children finally arrived last week, and not a moment too soon. Use of the nicotine delivery devices has been growing rapidly among middle- and high-school-aged teens in the last few years. The rules, in the works since 2010, put the regulation of all tobacco products — including “ novel and future” ones — under the authority of the Food and Drug Administration for the first time. This is a profoundly important step in reining in e-cigarettes, a popular product with unknown long-term health effects that has been virtually unsupervised by government until now. (5/12)

A quarter of Ohioans get health insurance through Medicaid. Why? Because they’re too young, old, sick or disabled to work; because their jobs are low-paying and don’t provide insurance; or because they can’t find a job at all. (Wendy Paton, 5/11)

Mental illness is treated differently than any other illness. It always has been. It remains in the shadows and away from the public square. It is rarely the subject of casual conversation or self-disclosure, and it is invariably an awkward topic when it can’t be avoided. (John Broderick, Jr., 5/11)

I’ve really been struggling with my anxiety disorder the last week or so. That’s bad news on multiple fronts. First, panic attacks stink. My heart races. I sweat. My hands shake. It feels as if I’m in the middle of a life-threatening situation just sitting in my apartment trying to watch the NBA Playoffs. The worst attacks feel like my skin is itching on the inside. Secondly, anxiety spurs binge eating. Panic attacks are chemical imbalances in the brain. Biologically, my body will do whatever it thinks is necessary to restore proper chemical balance. (Daniel Finney, 5/11)

As deaths caused by opiate overdoses in Virginia continue to climb, a lifesaving drug is becoming more widely available. In a joint event Wednesday with Gov. Terry McAuliffe, CVS Health announced that naloxone — which reverses the effects of opioid overdoses — can now be purchased without a prescription in CVS pharmacies. (Katie Demeria, 5/11)

One of my greatest satisfactions as a physician was the ability to get to know many people from all over Philadelphia, and to offer advice and support as they tried to care for themselves and their families. (Gene Bishop, 5/11)

For workers and visitors to some businesses in St. Louis County, the countywide smoking ban has become a joke, instead of the good policy and common-sense public health effort it was supposed to be. On Jan. 2, 2011, after winning voter approval by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, the county’s “Indoor Clean Air Code” took effect. And so, too, began the exemptions. (5/11)

Dieting doesn't cure obesity. That's not news, although it was reconfirmed last week in a particularly mediagenic fashion in a study published by National Institutes of Health researchers. The researchers followed contestants from the “The Biggest Loser” television show as these formerly obese contestants proceeded to regain most of the massive amounts of weight they had lost on the show. (Gary Taubes, 5/11)