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Federal health officials on Monday urged pregnant women to stay away from a Miami neighborhood where they have discovered additional cases of Zika infection — apparently the first time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised people not to travel to a place in the continental United States. Florida officials said the number of Zika cases caused by local mosquitoes had risen to 14 from the four announced on Friday: 12 men and two women. They declined to say whether either woman was pregnant. All of the cases have been in one neighborhood. (Belluck, 8/1)

Government health officials warned pregnant women Monday to avoid a Zika-stricken part of Miami and told couples who have been there recently to put off having children for at least two months, after the number of people feared infected through mosquito bites in the U.S. climbed to 14. In its highly unusual and perhaps unprecedented travel warning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said expectant mothers should get tested for the virus if they have visited the neighborhood since mid-June. (8/1)

Pregnant women are being asked to stay away from the Wynwood neighborhood in Miami. The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a Zika-related travel warning for pregnant women to an area just north of Downtown Miami after 10 more people were suspected of getting the virus locally. Health officials have identified at least 14 apparently mosquito-borne Zika infections in a 1-square-mile area in and near Wynwood. (8/2)

“It is truly a scary situation,” said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “This is a really tough mosquito to control.” The travel warnings and growing outbreak mark a troubling but not unexpected turn for efforts to stem the virus’s spread through the United States, and they could have profound impacts on Florida’s tourism-heavy economy. It also demonstrates how even the best prepared communities may struggle to deal with a virus that spreads so readily. (Sun, Harwell and Dennis, 8/1)

[Gov. Rick] Scott has asked the CDC to send an emergency response team to Florida to help with mosquito control, sample collection, and investigating the virus. Previously, the CDC had sent a medical epidemiologist to the state but not the agency's full response team. (Cook, 8/1)

Some experts say the travel warning area is too small. Dr. Peter Hotez, a tropical medicine expert at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, said the CDC should be more cautious and expand the travel advisory to all of Miami-Dade County. "If you're pregnant or think you might be pregnant, avoid travel to Miami, and possibly elsewhere in South Florida," he said. "I'm guessing most women who are pregnant are doing that. I don't think they're sitting around for the CDC to split hairs and fine-tune it to a specific area." (Johnson, 8/1)

On Monday, after 14 cases of local Zika transmission were confirmed in a Miami neighborhood, federal health officials issued a travel advisory for that area for people how traveled to or lived there on or after June 15, 2016...Health officials continue to encourage residents to avoid mosquito bites by staying indoors and using mosquito repellents. They also ask people to empty all sources of standing water around their homes to eliminate breeding grounds for the mosquitoes. (Miller, 8/1)

Florida providers worry they might not be ready to serve a potential influx of Zika-infected patients. The concerns come after four Floridians became the first known cases to be infected by mosquitoes in the U.S. ... If transmission within the U.S. spreads, providers serving populations that have been identified as being the most vulnerable — the poor living in urban areas with inadequate housing conditions and environments that host pools of stagnant water — say they might not be ready as they face reductions in disproportionate-share payments. The CMS has been pushing back on DSH payments since it's believed states would see more patients covered through Medicaid expansion. (7/29)

The Zika virus is fiendishly designed to evade the short attention span of Congress. The horrible birth defects caused by Zika grabbed the world’s notice eight months ago. But the mosquito-borne virus could disappear after a year or two, before periodically resurfacing and subsiding in coming years, scientists and public health officials say. That means it could end up being an irritating plague that never fully goes away but — given the current impasse over federal funding — fails to attract the necessary resources to develop an effective vaccine. (Allen and Cook, 8/1)

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is calling on Republican leaders in Congress to convene an emergency session to approve new federal funding to combat the Zika virus. Two other Connecticut lawmakers, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, echoed the sentiment after Blumenthal's Monday morning press conference in East Hartford. The push for legislative action comes as Florida’s governor announced as many as 14 cases of the Zika virus in his state may have been caused by mosquitos carrying the virus locally, according to the Associated Press. (Constable, 8/1)

The Obama administration is struggling to explain why it is pressing Congress for more money to fight the Zika virus while sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars that it already controls and could be used instead. ... The White House could tap into the $400 million that remain of the previously reprogrammed funds. An Office of Management and Budget spokeswoman confirmed Friday that $385 million is still in that account. The administration does not need congressional approval to decide how to spend the money. (Bennett, 8/2)

Homegrown mosquitoes have infected more than a dozen people with Zika in a small area of Miami, and officials are recommending that pregnant women stay away from the neighborhood. The Zika infections are the first from mosquito bites on the U.S. mainland. Scientists don't expect big outbreaks in U.S. states like those in hard-hit parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico. (8/1)

President Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. has made serious strides in improving services for military veterans, but work remains to overcome shortcomings in the delivery of health care, housing and mental health services. He called the nation's commitment to its veterans a "sacred covenant." "I don't use those words lightly. It's sacred because there is no more solemn request than to ask someone to risk their life, to be ready to give their life on our behalf," Obama said at the annual convention of the Disabled American Veterans. (8/1)

The president acknowledged that many veterans remained frustrated by the health care bureaucracy, calling continued delays in seeing doctors “inexcusable.” And he said the country needed to do more to help economically struggling veterans. But veteran homelessness, he said, has been cut almost in half since 2010, when the administration outlined a national strategy on the issue. He vowed to continue working with states and cities toward “ending the tragedy, the travesty of veterans’ homelessness.” (Shear, 8/1)

President Barack Obama [was in] Atlanta Monday to raise campaign funds for Democrats and to address the convention of the Disabled American Veterans. The president's visit comes just a day after his Veterans Affairs Secretary, Bob McDonald, announced the opening of a new call center in Atlanta, which will handle the increased volume of mental health crisis calls. The idea is to cut the number of veteran suicides, which continues at an estimated average rate of more than 20 per day. On "Morning Edition," host Denis O'Hayer spoke with McDonald. (O'Hayer, 8/2)

Two more health cooperatives have filed lawsuits against the Obama administration over a program in which insurers compensate each other for taking on sicker customers under the Affordable Care Act, following a similar lawsuit in June from another startup company. New Mexico Health Connections and Minuteman Health of Massachusetts filed their cases on Friday afternoon, arguing the Obama administration mismanaged the program known as “risk adjustment” by creating an inaccurate formula that overly rewarded big insurers. (Radnofsky and Wilde Mathews, 8/1)

A company that offers health insurance plans in New Hampshire under the Affordable Care Act is suing the federal government over a part of the health care law. The lawsuit from Minuteman Health aims to block the current form of the federal Risk Adjustment program, which aims to stabilize the health care market by spreading the costs that come from covering sicker people among insurers with healthier clients. (Carlson, 8/1)

Insurers want to crank up the cost of health insurance premiums by as much as 45 percent for Illinois residents who buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, the most popular insurer on the state's Obamacare exchange, is proposing increases ranging from 23 percent to 45 percent in premiums for its individual health-care plans, according to proposed 2017 premiums that were made public Monday. The insurer blamed the sought-after hikes mainly on changes in the costs of medical services. (Schencker, 8/1)

The latest rates for health insurance under Obamacare in New Hampshire range from a drop of less than a half-percent to nearly a 60 percent increase, depending on the insurer. All insurers offering health plans in the exchange had to present their proposals by Monday for the year beginning Jan. 1. The dominant health insurer, Anthem, had the lowest proposal — a decrease of four-tenths of 1 percent from the preferred provider organization for the “off exchange” population. (Landrigan, 8/1)

Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes announced a new blood-testing device at an academic conference here Monday but didn’t address problems found with the company’s earlier machines. At the annual meeting of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, a group of laboratory scientists, Ms. Holmes described a device, called miniLab, resembling a computer printer. Theranos says it can run tests accurately on as little as 160 microliters of blood, or a few drops, pricked from a finger. (Carreyrou, 8/1)

The chief executive of embattled Theranos Inc on Monday presented plans for a new product and said the blood testing company was working diligently to rectify all of its outstanding issues involving its product and laboratory operations. CEO Elizabeth Holmes described new technologies that she said were "distinct from the operations of our clinical laboratories" that have come under scrutiny - part of a presentation before some 2,650 scientists at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry meeting in Philadelphia. (Barlyn and Berkrot, 8/1)

Ms. Holmes said that Theranos, the company she started, was developing a new version of its technology that she called the mini-laboratory, or miniLab. She said the technology would be able to perform multiple types of medical tests in a box that could be placed on a table in a doctor’s office. She said the company was seeking approval of a test to detect infection by the Zika virus. The presentation suggested that Theranos was shifting its business model toward selling medical testing machines, rather than strictly being a laboratory that performs tests by itself. (Pollack, 8/1)

Holmes declined to provide any data about the company’s controversial Edison platform for running diagnostic tests based on a single finger prick of blood. The company voided results for thousands of those tests earlier this year, after their accuracy came under fire. Instead, Holmes unveiled a new device called the miniLab, which has been in development for the past five years. It’s meant to condense blood testing technology that would normally require several large machines into a single desktop device. (Keshavan, 8/1)

Speaking in front of hundreds of laboratory scientists for 45 minutes, Holmes introduced a new device that can fit on a desktop. The machine, called a miniLab, integrates several blood-testing methodologies and, using robots and its proprietary “nanotainer” collection tube, will be able to process small volumes of blood remotely and send data back to a centralized location. Holmes presented internal company data that showed the system worked for a range of tests, including a new assay for Zika. She said the technology known as “Edison,” the subject of so much controversy over the past year, is obsolete. (Brooks, 8/1)

Founder Elizabeth Holmes, who is facing a two-year ban by U.S. regulators from running a clinical testing company, used the session at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry’s annual scientific meeting to introduce the “miniLab” testing device, a 95-pound diagnostic tool that can fit on a tabletop... Along with the new device came a scaled back vision for the company that not long ago, promised to upend the world of clinical lab testing by running hundreds of tests using a single drop of blood. (Langreth and Chen, 8/1)

At the Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital outside Detroit, patients arrive to uniformed valets and professional greeters. Wi-Fi is free and patient meals are served on demand 24 hours a day. Members of the spa staff give in-room massages and other treatments. While clinical care is the focus of any medical center, hospitals have many incentives to move toward hotel-inspired features, services and staff training. Medical researchers say such amenities can improve health outcomes by reducing stress and anxiety among patients, while private rooms can cut down on the transfer of disease. (Weed, 8/1)

Some hospital intensive-care units are bucking tradition by allowing patients’ family and friends to visit for unlimited hours. ICUs care for the sickest patients in high-tech, antiseptic environments. Most have strict limits on what time relatives can come and how long they can stay. Children typically are banned. Hospitals say the restrictions are meant to keep patients from being disturbed when they need calm and to allow medical staff to get on with their jobs uninterrupted. (Lagnado, 8/1)

Saving a patient from a heart attack requires swift action by a team working with assembly-line precision. But in cities across the United States, the medical response is nowhere near as efficient as your average auto plant. One key reason: a lack of communication among emergency and hospital personnel. A study published Monday in the journal Circulation shows it doesn’t have to be that way. (Ross, 8/1)

Keith Clayton's death is an example of the sometimes-fatal effects of restraints used to subdue patients at Texas' state-run facilities for people with mental illness — institutions that face an uncertain future due to unpredictable funding, crumbling infrastructure and a growing demand to house patients from an overcrowded criminal justice system. At a time when the state claims to be reducing its reliance on forcible restraints, Keith Clayton's case raises questions about the secrecy around such incidents, particularly when they end in death. (Walters, 8/2)

It’s 4 p.m., and if you’re a hospital patient, that could be one of the most critical times of the day. Your doctor’s shift just ended, and someone new will take over your care. How these professionals communicate could have major repercussions for your recovery. Those shift changes, also known as handoffs, are prime opportunities for key information about a patient’s condition to get lost in the shuffle. It’s essential that these relevant points are not only captured, but also effectively conveyed between hospital staff. (Luthra, 8/1)

Texas' proposed rules requiring the cremation or burial of fetal remains "will almost certainly trigger costly litigation," reproductive rights lawyers say. In a letter to the Texas Department of State Health Services, lawyers with the Center for Reproductive Rights on Monday argued that the new rules — proposed at Gov. Greg Abbott's directive — are "plainly in violation" of the legal standard abortion regulations must meet to be deemed constitutional. (Ura, 8/1)

A federal judge is weighing whether to continue blocking an Ohio law that diverts public money from Planned Parenthood. U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday in Cincinnati on the merits of the law and whether it should remain on hold. The law was set to take effect in May, though a temporary order suspends it from doing so until Friday. (8/2)

The young surgeon was mystified. A fist-size tumor had been removed from the stomach of his patient 12 years earlier, but his doctors had not been able to cut out many smaller growths in his liver. The cancer should have killed him, yet here he lay on the table for a routine gallbladder operation. The surgeon, Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg, examined the man’s abdominal cavity, sifting his liver in his fingers, feeling for hard, dense tumors — but he could find no trace of cancer. It was 1968. Dr. Rosenberg had a hunch he had just witnessed an extraordinary case in which a patient’s immune system had vanquished cancer. (Pollack, 8/1)

Donald Trump said Monday that he believes that building a wall on the Mexican border will help stop the heroin and painkiller epidemic killing tens of thousands of Americans every year. At a town hall meeting Monday in Columbus, Ohio, the Republican presidential nominee stressed the need to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, saying he would “cut off the source, build a wall.” (Scott, 8/1)

Lawmakers should end the use of anonymous shell companies to make it easier for law enforcement to curb the drug trafficking behind the opioid crisis, a report released Monday argues. “Simply requiring that all companies formed in the U.S. disclose their beneficial owners would enable law enforcement to more effectively follow the money trail and make it harder for criminals to hide their money,” the Fair Share Education Fund, a group that “promotes economic fairness and sustainability,” said in its report. (Jagoda, 8/1)

As opioid abuse rages and its legacy of overdose deaths continues to climb, more bereaved families are responding by publicly exposing addiction as the demon. Swapping openness for ambiguity in death notices — “died after a long struggle with addiction” replaces “died suddenly at home” — they are challenging the stigma and shame often bound up in substance abuse. Maybe more important, they’re sounding alarms about the far-reaching grasp of addiction. (Fleming, 8/1)

Jonathan Goodman can recall most of the lectures he's attended at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He can recite detailed instructions given more than a year ago about how to conduct a physical. But at the end of his second year, the 27-year-old M.D.-Ph.D. student could not remember any class dedicated to addiction medicine. Then he recalled skipping class months earlier. Reviewing his syllabus, he realized he had missed the sole lecture dedicated to that topic. "I wasn't tested on it," Goodman said, with a note of surprise. (Jacewicz, 8/2)

Across the country, a critical shortage of state psychiatric beds is forcing mentally ill patients with severe symptoms to be held in emergency rooms, hospitals and jails while they wait for a bed, sometimes for weeks. Mental health advocates, attorneys and judges say the practice, known as psychiatric boarding, prevents patients from getting the care they need. Instead, such patients are sometimes strapped down or held in isolation, and often receive little or no mental health services. (Ollove, 8/2)

Scientists announced on Monday that they had pinpointed 15 locations in our DNA that are associated with depression, one of the most common mental health conditions and one that is estimated to cost the world billions in health-care costs and lost productivity. Although gene association studies — which link DNA inherited from our parents to particular diseases, conditions or even habits such as vegetarianism — are published practically every week, this is a particularly important one. (Cha, 8/1)

Brynne Henn, 26, leaned back onto a pristine white couch and settled white-and-red headphones over her ears. She picked up a handset, grasping one buzzer in each hand, closed her eyes, and the session began. The room was quiet. Through the headphones, Henn heard an alternating tone — first in the right ear, then the left, back and forth. The handset buzzed in synchrony, right-left-right-left, part of a trauma treatment that also involves recalling painful memories. She turned her thoughts to the day her brother, Nate, died. (Schreiber, 8/1)

For some people, the attack on police officers by a gunman in Dallas this summer brought to mind another attack by a sniper in Austin 50 years ago – on Aug. 1, 1966. That's when student Charles Whitman stuck his rifle over the edge of the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin and started shooting. Ultimately, he killed 16 people — and wounded more than 30 others. For decades, people have struggled to figure out why. There have been theories about abuse, a brain tumor and, of course, mental illness. (Silverman, 7/29)

It’s one of the most universal recommendations in all of public health: Floss daily to prevent gum disease and cavities. Except there’s little proof that flossing works. Still, the federal government, dental organizations and manufacturers of floss have pushed the practice for decades. Dentists provide samples to their patients; the American Dental Association insists on its website that, “Flossing is an essential part of taking care of your teeth and gums.” (Donn, 8/2)

According to a new study in rats, iron-containing nanoparticles may be better at destroying cavity-causing plaque than nearly any other tooth-cleaning technique. These tiny particles act as catalysts to promote a natural cleaning process in your mouth. The process can kill bacteria thousands of times more efficiently than a traditional brush, the paper in the journal Biomaterials suggests. (Betuel, 8/1)

Gov. Robert Bentley's support of a referendum on a state lottery comes six years after he criticized gambling as a detriment to society. ... Asked about his past remarks, Bentley says he weighed what would be best. The governor says a lottery was the only option left for funding Medicaid, a healthcare program for the poor after the state tried cutting costs, borrowing money and raising taxes. (Bates, 8/1)

Deep new cuts to Alabama’s Medicaid system begin Monday, due to the budget set to take effect October 1. Doctor reimbursements are now less for the Medicaid patients they serve. The change has some doctors warning they may move out of state or cut other services to make up the cost. Governor Robert Bentley is calling lawmakers back to Montgomery August 15 to tackle the budget problems. Bentley is pushing for a statewide lottery. He sat down with ABC 33/40 to discuss his plan. (Walsh, 8/1)

Cuts to Alabama’s Medicaid agency start today, meaning doctors will no longer get enhanced payments for certain services. Checkups and exams are just part of a daily routine for pediatrician Dr. Ken Elmer. About half of those check-up are on Medicaid patients, a practice that could soon be changing because of Medicaid cuts. “We're just kind of hanging on and hoping that something will happen and that the Legislature will fund it and fund it fully, not just this sort of every year stop-gap,” he said. (Powell, 8/1)

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services delayed the start of new managed Medicaid contracts to April 1 from Jan. 1, after Aetna won a preliminary injunction that blocked the state from continuing the process of implementing new contracts. Aetna, which had 201,196 Pennsylvanians in its Medicaid managed care plans in March, objected to the state's use of undisclosed factors in its its decision-making. (Brubaker, 8/1)

New Hampshire is looking for someone to take charge of its $1.4 billion Medicaid budget at a time of big changes in the federally subsidized health insurance program for low-income individuals and families. Katie Dunn, who served as Medicaid director for more than 10 years, and prior to that as director of public health, has accepted a position as a senior policy advisor to a national health policy organization, according to NH Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Jeffrey Meyers. (Solomon, 8/1)

A second strike by Twin Cities nurses at Allina Health hospitals is looming after contract talks ended Monday, leaving the union with an offer that falls short of its demands — particularly with respect to health insurance. Negotiators for Allina and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) ended as far apart, or farther, than after a similar session a week earlier, they said. (Olson, 8/1)

Another round of contract talks has ended with no agreement between Allina Health and the union representing the hospital system's nurses. The Minnesota Nurses Association says its rank-and-file members will vote on Allina's latest offer later this month. A super-majority of "No" votes would authorize union negotiators to call a strike and set the time and duration of a walkout. The union would have to give the hospital system 10 days advance notice of a job action. Health benefits are the major sticking point in the talks. (MPR News Staff, 8/1)

Health insurers must immediately start paying for long-term antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease after the Legislature overrode a veto by Governor Charlie Baker in the waning hours of the session Sunday night. In other health-related actions, the Legislature restored a long-sought wage increase for nursing home workers and voted to require health insurers to cover treatment for a side effect from HIV drugs. The mandate on Lyme disease coverage came despite objections from dozens of medical specialists who said such treatment is ineffective at best — and sometimes harmful. The governor had proposed, instead, that the Executive Office of Health and Human Services hold listening sessions about the appropriate treatment of Lyme disease. (Freyer, 8/1)

Making Colorado a single geographic area for purposes of setting health insurance premiums wouldn’t solve the problem of much higher mountain rates, according to a study mandated by the legislature and released Monday by the Division of Insurance. Wide disparities in rates among the current nine geographic regions led lawmakers to ask the agency to look at a single-region solution, and the report concluded that such a move would be “treating a symptom rather than finding a cure,” according to insurance commissioner Marguerite Salazar. (8/1)

A University of Kansas Hospital pathologist’s lawsuit alleging the hospital’s chief pathologist misdiagnosed a patient with cancer and subsequently covered it up has taken a new turn. On Friday, the plaintiff, Dr. Lowell L. Tilzer, voluntarily dismissed his whistleblower action against the hospital, saying he “believes further litigation of this claim is not necessary to protect him from retaliation at this time.” (Margolies, 8/1)

Genesis Healthcare Inc., a major nursing home operator based in Kennett Square, said Monday that it would pay $52.7 million under an "agreement in principle" to settle four separate U.S. Department of Justice investigations. The investigations involve allegations that Genesis units acquired since 2012 improperly billed the government for hospice services in Nevada, provided inadequate staffing at some facilities from 2005 through 2013, and violated Medicare rules for physical therapy at two subsidiaries. (Brubaker, 8/2)

Last week the state ordered nine psychoeducational facilities closed immediately, days before the start of a new academic year. Inspectors had found mold, overloaded electrical circuits and leaking roofs, along with what may have been asbestos and peeling lead-based paint. State officials also are reviewing thousands of records to determine whether students were appropriately assigned to the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support, known as GNETS. (Judd, 7/29)

For years now, Florida has been the largest state in the nation without a genetic counseling degree program, but that's about to change. The University of Central Florida and University of South Florida are each establishing two-year master's degree programs and hope to accept their first classes by fall 2017. Experts hope the new programs will help alleviate the shortage of genetic counselors that's plaguing many parts of the country, including Florida. (Miller, 8/1)

Missouri Care has signed a deal with BJC HealthCare and Washington University Physicians after failing to come to an agreement with SSM Health. The deal will give about 117,000 individuals access to BJC facilities and its partnering physicians. Missouri Care manages health insurance for individuals enrolled in Medicaid, the state's health coverage for the poor. (Liss, 8/1)

Redmond Regional Medical Center CEO John Quinlivan has filed an appeal of the state’s June rejection of a planned 18-bed psychiatric and substance abuse unit at the hospital. The Georgia Department of Community Health has not yet set a date for the hearing regarding Redmond’s Certificate of Need application. However, Floyd Healthcare Management, the body that operates the Floyd Medical Center, has filed a request to intervene with objections. (Walker, 8/1)

A new wellness center is scheduled to open this month near a number of hospitals around the University of South Florida. It will sell cannabis. Following approval Wednesday from the state Health Department, Surterra Therapeutics can proceed in the next week with plans to start home deliveries of a strain of medical marijuana low in THC, the chemical that causes a euphoric high. The company also can open a wellness center this month near USF. (Howard, 8/1)

Along with several decades worth of household trash from Wayne County and beyond, it [Broadhurst Environmental Landfill] stores nearly a million tons of coal ash. Earlier this year Wayne County residents learned there had been a leak there in 2011. State regulators say it was contained on the site. Residents also learned that, if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approves a requested wetland mitigation for it, a new rail spur could allow more coal ash to be shipped in to Broadhurst. (Landers, 8/1)

The science is clear on vaccines’ safety and efficacy. But the presidential candidates’ thoughts on vaccines? Well, they’re a mixed bag. ... Out of the four big presidential candidates, only Hillary Clinton seems to be fully pro-vaccine, meaning she’s the only one aligned with the scientific consensus on this issue. Republican Donald Trump is a straight-up anti-vaxxer, and the other two candidates — Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson — have mixed views on the issue. (German Lopez, 8/1)

It must be tough being both a physician committed to scientific evidence and a politician running for the presidency. Over the weekend, Dr. Jill Stein, a retired internist who is the Green Party's presidential candidate, got caught between the conflicting demands of those two professions when the Washington Post asked her a brief question about public health. “Do you think that vaccines cause autism?” (Harris Meyer, 8/1)

Yesterday Florida governor, Rick Scott, reported that ten additional cases of Zika were in all likelihood, acquired locally. This followed Friday’s announcement that the emerging virus had been spread from person-to-person by mosquitoes in Miami. The advisory was somewhat surprising, given that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, Dr. Thomas Frieden said as recently as Friday, that local transmission was not enough to warrant advising against travel, and that he expected additional cases to emerge. (Meghan May, 8/2)

Premiums for Obamacare insurance are rising more quickly this year than they have in the past. But, on average, the coverage remains cheaper than what the government’s own forecaster had predicted it would be by this point. That’s the conclusion of two new independent reports, by scholars at the Brookings Institution and at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The finding is likely to surprise people who have read all the headlines about skyrocketing premiums in the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, to say nothing of those consumers who are weighing whether to pay the higher prices next year or to seek out cheaper alternatives for coverage. (Jonathan Cohn, 8/1)

Usually it's a good thing that everything's bigger in Texas, but that isn't true when it comes to health-insurance premiums for Obamacare. Recent federal data show that Texas' largest insurer on the Obamacare exchanges is seeking average premium increases of nearly 60 percent for 2017 -- among the highest hikes in the entire country. (Jerome Greener, 8/1)

Banning resident Jim Bailey and his wife went in recently for their annual physicals. They came away with hundreds of dollars in charges for co-pays and tests. Bailey, 78, told me that he feels duped. “The Affordable Care Act dictates that all annual physicals be provided at no cost to the policyholders — no deductibles or co-pays,” he said. “But that wasn’t the case with us.” ... “There’s nothing in the ACA that guarantees a free checkup,” said Bradley Herring, an associate professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s surprising how many people think it’s part of the law.” (David Lazarus, 8/2)

Worries about all manner of pathogens — disease-causing bacteria, viruses, and larger parasites — are an underappreciated contributor to prejudice, distrust of foreigners, and resentment toward those who spurn traditional values, according to a growing body of psychology research. To understand why, it helps to be acquainted with the behavioral immune system, our defense against infection that’s shaped by natural selection and further embellished by learning. Largely below the level of our conscious awareness, we constantly scan our surroundings for any potential source of contagion. ... But this germ radar is not guided by sophisticated reasoning, and it pays particularly close attention to other people, a leading source of infection. (Kathleen McAuliffe, 7/31)

I’m not an economist. But I find it hard to imagine that we can achieve sustainable health reform if we ignore 70 percent of what’s driving health outcomes and costs. Yet if you look at spending in the health care sector, little funding is devoted to identifying or addressing unmet social needs. Today we spend most of our time and money wrangling about clinical care, while population health — the health outcomes of groups of individuals — has been allowed to languish. We need to blur the distinction between clinical care and population health and look more closely at unmet social needs. (Rocco Perla, 8/1)

Amy Kapczynski and Aaron Kesselheim proposed in Health Affairs that the federal government reduce the price of on-patent prescription drugs using an obscure federal law (codified as 28 USC 1498) to either threaten to, or actually, seize patent rights to drugs in a manner similar to eminent domain. The idea is that the federal government would “produce or import low-cost versions of patented medicines” itself, while paying the drug company that previously controlled the patent “reasonable and entire compensation” according to some vaguely measure. (Robert Book, 8/1)

Rulemakers in outgoing administrations usually end their tenures with a bang, not a whimper. President Barack Obama's appointees at the CMS are no exception. Over the objections of most healthcare provider trade groups, the agency last week proposed expanding its mandatory bundled-payment program to include heart attacks and coronary artery surgery in 98 markets. It also extended the purview of the orthopedic joint replacement bundles, just getting started in 67 markets, to include hip and femur fractures. (Merrill Goozner, 7/30)

It’s hard to find a more complicated thicket than health care finances, yet there are some clear truths: We all end up paying for each others’ health care. The best way to control costs is to prevent disease and expensive medical crises. With that in mind, dividing Kentuckians covered by taxpayer-funded Medicaid from those covered by taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance, as a Bevin administration spokeswoman seemed to do last week, sheds no light. It does stigmatize as “dependent” people who toil for low wages with only Medicaid to keep them healthy. (8/2)

In 2015, city supervisors in San Francisco passed an ordinance requiring billboards advertising sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) to include a notice: “Warning: drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay. This is a message from the city and county of San Francisco.” The ordinance, originally scheduled to go into effect on July 25, 2016, represents the first such SSB warning notice law in the world. A clear, factual warning notice about health effects related to SSBs may be important in reducing disease rates among many people. (Dean Schillinger and Michael F. Jacobson, 8/1)

The latest attack on America’s expanding waistlines is aimed at your wallet, as health advocates and lawmakers hope to tax consumers out of drinking so many sugary drinks. ... Americans, more than one-third of whom are obese, would be better off if they did cut back on sugary drinks. But efforts to tax people out of the habit are likely to fall flatter than day-old cola. People are quick to see through ideas described as good for them but which make little sense. Why slap a surtax on sodas but not on Twinkies (135 calories per cake) or McDonalds' Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese (780)? And why tax diet sodas, as Philadelphia does, if the target is sugar? Maybe because the tax is a money grab disguised as a public health initiative. (8/1)

The time has come to tax sugary drinks like we tax tobacco. The analogy is powerful: As with tobacco, rock-solid evidence shows habitual use harms health. Sugary drinks are a prime culprit in rampant health problems — diabetes, obesity, and heart, dental and liver disease – that cut lives short and drive up health care costs. (Jim Krieger, 8/1)