�鶹Ů��

A Trump appointee accused of mishandling efforts to reunify migrant children who were separated at the border will testify before Congress on Tuesday after months of resistance, as newly empowered House Democrats push the administration to hold officials responsible for the policy. Scott Lloyd, who led the HHS refugee office last year as it took custody of thousands of migrant kids separated from their families, will face a grilling on Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee — one of four panels escalating probes into family separations. (Diamond, 2/26)

House Democrats are laying the groundwork to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border. The Oversight Committee will vote Tuesday on whether to approve subpoenas to the heads of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services. With Democrats as a majority, the authorization is expected, but it's still not clear whether the subpoenas will actually be served. (2/26)

A 24-year-old woman went into premature labor and delivered a stillborn baby while she was in custody at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in South Texas last week, officials said. The woman, a migrant from Honduras whose identity the agency withheld, was arrested near Hidalgo, Tex., on Feb. 18. She was six months pregnant at the time. Four days later, she went into labor and delivered a premature and unresponsive baby boy. Local doctors pronounced the newborn dead soon after. (Thebault, 2/25)

Senate Democrats on Monday blocked a Republican bill that would have threatened prison for doctors who don't try saving the life of infants born alive during abortions. The measure seemed doomed from the start but offered the GOP a chance to appeal to conservative voters. The vote was the latest instance in which Republicans have tried to go on offense on the issue and put Democratic abortion-rights lawmakers in an uncomfortable position. Supporters said the measure presented lawmakers with a simple, moral choice. (Fram, 2/25)

The bill would require a health-care practitioner to “exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child” as he or she would to “any other child born alive at the same gestational age.” The bill includes criminal penalties, a right of civil action for an affected mother and a mandatory reporting requirement for other health providers. Opponents of the bill argued that it represented an unjustified attack on abortion rights, preventing doctors from exercising their best medical judgment and exposing them to possible lawsuits or prosecution. (DeBonis and Sonmez, 2/25)

Republicans, including the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), argued the bill doesn’t restrict access to abortions but rather focuses on the care of fetuses that are “born alive” during such procedures. “It isn’t about new restrictions on abortion, it isn’t about changing the options available to women. It’s just about recognizing that a newborn baby is a newborn baby, period,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday. (Jamerson, 2/25)

President Trump on Monday ramped up his attacks against Democratic senators over abortion after the Senate failed to advance an anti-abortion measure on Monday. "Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn infant children," Trump claimed on Twitter on Monday. "The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth." (Wise, 2/26)

Sanders, Harris, Warren, Booker and Gillibrand all voted against the measure. Sherrod Brown, another Democratic senator exploring a White House bid, complained to POLITICO that the vote was held in bad faith. "This is pure Mitch McConnell. It's all aimed at keeping his base in line, while the president grows increasingly unpopular," the Ohio Democrat said. "We're not doing infrastructure, we're not doing health care. We're not doing anything that matters to help our country. It's just votes on abortion and other kinds of divisive votes he's going to bring." (Ollstein, 2/25)

Anti-abortion groups like the Susan B. Anthony List have said they hope this vote will get senators running for the Democratic nomination in 2020 on the record on this issue. The bill “is carefully crafted to target, intimidate, and shut down reproductive health care providers,” said Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “My Republican colleagues have said some incendiary things about opposing this bill. Let me be very clear. Many of these claims are false. It has always been illegal to harm a newborn infant. This vote has nothing to do with that.” (Raman, 2/25)

Strangers have called them monsters, trolled them on social media and said their living children should be taken away. Their darkest moments are judged and politicized by figures who know nothing about them. They feel like involuntary pawns in an ugly, vicious game they didn't ask to play. Women who've had abortions later in their pregnancies are "bonded in a sisterhood through a club nobody ever wanted to be a part of," one woman said. She was one of half a dozen women who recently shared their stories with CNN. They chose to speak up after President Donald Trump called on Congress to pass legislation that would ban "late-term abortion," a phrase derided by ob-gyns. (Ravitz, 2/25)

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Monday he will sue to challenge President Donald Trump's policy setting up new obstacles for women seeking abortions, calling it "a transparent attack on Planned Parenthood" that would severely impair access to many types of medical care, especially for low-income women in rural areas. It's the first of several legal challenges expected to be announced by Democratic-led states. A national organization representing publicly funded family planning providers said Monday it would file a separate lawsuit over the policy. (Johnson, 2/25)

“We stand united with Attorney General Ferguson and our state and legislative leaders against this blatant assault on women’s health,” Inslee said in a statement. “Washington has been, and will continue to be, a state that stands with women and their right to safe and legal abortion and reproductive care. We will never allow President Trump or anyone else in D.C. to take those rights away.” The rules announced by the Trump administration on Friday would cut off federal family planning funds under the Title X program from clinics that provide abortions or that refer patients for abortions, a way of partially defunding Planned Parenthood. (Sullivan, 2/25)

As a legal point, Ferguson said the rule—which would boot Planned Parenthood and any other clinic that offers abortions from the network and prohibits direct referrals for abortion—violates the Affordable Care Act's mandate against limiting what information clinicians can give to their patients. (Luthi, 2/25)

The new rule, announced Friday, would create obstacles for women, particularly low-income women, seeking abortions. It would bar organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, that receive federal Title X money from referring patients to abortion providers. Organizations that receive those funds would still be able to perform abortions, but would have to do them in physically separate facilities. Providers have long had to financially separate abortion services from other services they provide. (Gutman, 2/25)

Under a new rule proposed by the Trump administration, family-planning clinics that receive federal funds through Title X would be prevented from referring women to other providers for abortions. One organization that would be affected is Planned Parenthood, whose president, Dr. Leana Wen, talks to William Brangham about why the move would compromise patient health as well as medical ethics. (Brangham, 2/25)

The Trump administration intends to limit the Title X program that provides birth control and other reproductive health services. Under the new restrictions, any clinic accepting federal funds would be prevented from performing abortions -- or referring women to other providers for the procedure. (Brangham, 2/25)

Oklahoma would automatically ban abortions if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide under a bill that has cleared a Senate panel. While abortion opponents chanted, prayed and sang hymns outside the committee room, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 11-4 on Monday for the so-called "trigger" abortion ban . Similar bills already have passed in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota. (2/25)

Planned Parenthood cannot resume abortions at a clinic in central Missouri after a federal judge ruled that state restrictions were not "undue" burdens on women seeking abortions. Current Missouri law requires clinics that provide abortions to have physicians with admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The Columbia clinic has been unable to secure a physician with those privileges after a panel of medical staff at University of Missouri Health Care decided to stop offering the privileges in 2015 during a Republican-led legislative investigation on abortion in the state. (2/25)

The Arkansas House on Monday approved a proposal to ban abortion 18 weeks into a woman's pregnancy, moving the state closer toward enacting what could be the strictest prohibition in the country. Without any debate, the majority-Republican House approved the ban by a 77-13 vote. Arkansas already has some of the strictest abortion limits in the country and bans the procedure 20 weeks into a woman's pregnancy. The bill advanced Monday includes an exemption for medical emergencies, but not for rape or incest. The 18-week ban now heads to the majority-Republican Senate. (2/25)

More than 17 years after the 9/11 attacks, first responders and their advocates were back at the Capitol Monday urging Congress to ensure that a victims’ compensation fund does not run out of money. Members of the New York delegation, joined by first responders, survivors and family members, lamented an announcement by the Justice Department that the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund is running low on money and future payments may be cut by up to 70 percent. (Daly, 2/25)

“If we learn that more people are hurt, we don’t stop and say ‘too late buddy, too late ma’am you got your cancer five years too late,’” Schumer said at a press conference. “We step up to the plate. That’s what America’s always done. That’s what America must do now.” The legislation comes after a report from the compensation fund’s special master last week that warned benefits would be reduced between 50 and 70 percent, depending on when a claim was filed, citing insufficient funds. “I sincerely apologize to the 9/11 community for making a promise that I could not keep,” special master Rupa Bhattacharyya wrote. (Levine, 2/25)

The sobering moment was punctuated by an infuriated [Jon] Stewart, who has spent the last decade repeatedly slamming Congress for delays in funding health care for ailing first responders and survivors who risked their lives on 9/11. Stewart’s fury on the issue has been nearly unparalleled among other public figures, emerging louder than arguably anyone else on Capitol Hill or in the media each time money for first responders’ health care has been at risk of evaporating.Now he’s back yet again, urging Congress this week to pass new legislation that would permanently fund health care for ailing 9/11 first responders and survivors, as yet again, the 9/11 victims compensation fund is running out of money. (Flynn, 2/26)

Policymaking in Washington can live and die by “the baseline” — in particular, the baseline set by the Congressional Budget Office. During the debate over the 2017 Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Democrats often cited estimates that the repeal would result in 23 million fewer people having health insurance within a decade. That number came from the CBO’s estimate of the impact of the law versus what it predicted would happen under existing policy — i.e., “the baseline.” The big part of the change was because the law proposed to repeal the mandate that individuals must be insured. (Kessler, 2/26)

The goal for Insys Therapeutics Inc.’s call center in Phoenix was simple: persuade insurers to authorize at least 70 prescriptions a week of its expensive opioid spray. Workers would get bonuses for surpassing the goals, a former call center manager testified. Even if the patient had minor skin cancer decades earlier, employees were told to lie to insurers to get approval for the powerful and expensive drug, which had only been approved for “breakthrough” cancer pain, Elizabeth Gurrieri told a Boston jury. (Lawrence, 2/25)

The Food and Drug Administration will require drug companies to study whether prescription opioids are effective in quelling chronic pain — another step in the government’s efforts to rein in use of the narcotics that spawned the drug epidemic. Some studies already indicate that opioids are ineffective for pain beyond 12 weeks and many experts say long-term use can cause addiction, by prompting patients to build up tolerance to the drugs and seek higher doses. But conclusive, controlled research is scarce. (Bernstein and McGinley, 2/25)

Some of the communities hit hardest by the opioid epidemic and a related methamphetamine spike also are facing another health crisis: a steep rise in syphilis. It isn’t a coincidence. Many opioid users have started to use meth, either in combination with opioids or as a cheaper, more accessible alternative. Stimulants such as meth are even more likely than opioids to promote risky sexual behavior that increases the likelihood of contracting syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. (Alvarez, 2/26)

While there's early evidence that the explosive rate of opioid deaths has started to slow, opioids killed more than 49,000 people in the United States in 2017, according to preliminary data. A new study reveals which part of the country has been affected the most by the ongoing epidemic. In a study of opioid deaths from 1999 to 2016, "we found that, in general, opioid mortality is skyrocketing," said Mathew Kiang, a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University's Center for Population Health Sciences. (Tinker, 2/22)

A former Mount Carmel Health System doctor has requested a hearing before the State Medical Board of Ohio as the panel considers disciplining him over allegations that he prescribed inappropriately high doses of painkillers to critically ill patients. Dr. William Husel also asked for reports from expert witnesses and other records and that any recommendations from a hearing examiner be deliberated in public. He submitted the request through his attorneys on Friday. (Viviano, 2/25)

Cigna Corp. officials did everything they could to sabotage a $48.9 billion merger with Anthem Inc., including refusing to consider divestitures that would have helped the deal win regulatory approval, Anthem’s general counsel told a judge. Cigna refused to turn over data Anthem executives needed to convince U.S. Justice Department attorneys of the merger’s value to customers, Thomas Zielinski, Anthem’s top lawyer, testified Monday in the opening of a damages trial tied to the transaction’s collapse. (Feeley, 2/25)

The U.S. Justice Department formally asked a judge on Monday to approve its deal to allow CVS Health Corp to merge with insurer Aetna. Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia scolded the government and parties late last year for closing the $69 billion dollar merger before the consent order was approved by the court. In response, CVS offered to halt some integration of the two companies. (2/25)

The resurgence of measles across the United States is spurring a backlash against vaccine critics, from congressional hearings probing the spread of vaccine misinformation to state measures that would make it harder for parents to opt out of immunizing their children. In Washington state, where the worst measles outbreak in more than two decades has sickened nearly 70 people and cost over $1 million, two measures are advancing through the state legislature that would bar parents from using personal or philosophical exemptions to avoid immunizing their school-age children. Both have bipartisan support despite strong anti-vaccination sentiment in parts of the state. (Sun, 2/25)

Facebook will soon take action against misinformation about vaccines, according to a Facebook representative. Public health experts have pointed fingers at social media platforms, saying that false claims that vaccines cause autism and other diseases have frightened parents into refusing to vaccinate, resulting in the current measles outbreak that started in Washington state. (Cohen and Bonifield, 2/25)

Lawmakers and public health advocates are pressuring tech companies to crack down on anti-vaccine content proliferating online, which they fear is contributing to a massive measles outbreak in the United States. Experts attribute the outbreak to the increasing number of "anti-vaxers," people who don't vaccinate their children. And they warn the movement is largely using social media to promote their views, for example via YouTube videos and Facebook discussion groups. (Birnbaum, 2/25)

Measles outbreaks across the nation are prompting state lawmakers to consider eliminating vaccination exemptions for religious and personal beliefs that have been claimed by the parents of some children. Public health experts and officials blame the exemptions as one reason why states are seeing an increased number of cases of measles. (Hellmann, 2/26)

Cannabidiol, or CBD, a nonintoxicating component of the marijuana plant, is touted as a magic bullet that eases pain, anxiety, insomnia and depression. Salves, sprays, tinctures and oils containing CBD are marketed as aphrodisiacs that boost desire; as balms for eczema, pimples and hot flashes; and even as treatments for serious diseases like diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Unlike THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the “psychoactive” component of the cannabis plant, CBD won’t get you “high.” But scientists know little about what it can do: Most of the information about CBD’s effects in humans is anecdotal or extrapolated from animal studies, and few rigorous trials have been conducted. (Rabin, 2/25)

Children who are spanked, slapped, shoved or otherwise physically punished may be more prone to antisocial behavior as adults, a U.S. study suggests. Four in five children in the United States have been spanked at least once by the time they reach kindergarten, researchers said in JAMA Network Open. While spanking and other forms of harsh physical punishment have long been linked to mental health problems in children, less is known about how these childhood experiences influence adult behavior. (2/25)

Bacteria lodged deep in Ella Balasa's lungs were impervious to most antibiotics. At 26, gasping for breath, she sought out a dramatic experiment — deliberately inhaling a virus culled from sewage to attack her superbug. "I'm really running out of options," said Balasa, who traveled from her Richmond, Virginia, home to Yale University for the last-resort treatment. "I know it might not have an effect. But I am very hopeful." (2/26)

The experience of natural spaces, brimming with greenish light, the smells of soil and the quiet fluttering of leaves in the breeze can calm our frenetic modern lives. It's as though our very cells can exhale when surrounded by nature, relaxing our bodies and minds. Some people seek to maximize the purported therapeutic effects of contact with the unbuilt environment by embarking on sessions of forest bathing, slowing down and becoming mindfully immersed in nature. (Lambert, 2/25)

Four days before he died, Geoffrey Turner turned to his daughter and asked for his laptop. Sarah Huiest knew that her father had made preparations for his death, including writing his obituary — a way, she said, for the 66-year-old to tell his own story in his own words. Huiest said she had not yet read it — but now, it was time. (Bever, 2/25)

Smoking cigarettes has long been known for its ability to damage eyesight, on top of the harm it causes to the lungs, heart and other organs. But a new study suggests that smoking can impair vision far earlier than is commonly thought. Heavy smokers with an average age of 35 were markedly worse than nonsmokers at distinguishing colors as well as the contrast between different shades of gray, the study authors said. (Avril, 2/26)

Ireland diagnosed a record high number of new H.I.V. infections in 2018, new health data suggests, a trend that contrasts with a general decline in infections across Europe, and that some Irish activists attribute to poor sex health education and insufficient access to preventive drugs. Preliminary figures released last month by the Health Protection Surveillance Center, a state watchdog, suggested that 531 new cases of H.I.V. infection had been diagnosed in Ireland last year, an increase from 492 the previous year. (O'Loughlin, 2/25)

[Dr. Pierre Rollin] is renowned among the hardcore community of people who work on Ebola (and on Marburg fever, a related virus) as a jack-of-all-trades, someone who is able and willing to do nearly anything that needs to be done during an outbreak. Stay up late into the night entering data? Not a problem. Dig a grave? Someone has to. Explain infection control to the staff at a local hospital? Great idea. Trap animals to try to see where Ebola hides in nature? Why not? (Branswell, 2/26)

Every day, I scan the obituaries to see why or how people die. You might call it morbid fascination, but I attribute it to the combined influence of my age (77) and my profession (health reporting). Obituaries give me ideas for Personal Health columns like this one that might help others — and me — avoid a preventable ailment or accident and premature demise. One of the most frequent causes of death listed for people my age, as well as some younger and many older folks, is “complications from a fall,” the explanation given for the death last month at 93 of Russell Baker, the much-loved Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist and columnist for The New York Times. (Brody, 2/25)

A good friend called me recently to say hello. We chatted about his kids, a problem he was having at work, and his recent vacation. When he asked how I was doing, I mentioned a big work project. “The deadline is bearing down on me and I am stressed,” I said. He didn’t respond, so I asked: “Do you think you could brainstorm a few things with me sometime?” There was more silence. Then my friend—who had woken me up at 6 a.m. to talk—blurted out: “Oh darn, I missed one! I’m taking this online training course for work and just messed up the last answer.” (Bernstein, 2/25)

New York City Health + Hospitals chief Mitchell Katz told members of the City Council during testimony Monday that wait times to see medical specialists at some of the city’s public hospitals can stretch to months, depending on where a person seeks care and incremental staffing changes. A patient at North Central Bronx, for example, might wait as long as three months to see a cardiologist, said Dr. Katz, the president and chief executive of the city’s 11 public hospitals and 70 clinics. Patients of Jacobi, also in the Bronx, might have to wait three months to see an endocrinologist, cardiologist, renal specialist, neurologist or ophthalmologist, Dr. Katz said. Meanwhile, Harlem Hospital in Manhattan has the shortest wait times to see a cardiologist and gastroenterologist, but it would take three months to see a podiatrist, he said. (West, 2/25)

Bayer AG on Monday began defending itself in a second trial alleging its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, a case the German chemicals and pharmaceuticals company is under pressure to win to help stop a downward spiral of its share price. Jurors heard competing scientific viewpoints on whether 70-year-old California resident Edwin Hardeman developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma because of decadeslong Roundup use on his property. A lawyer for Mr. Hardeman previewed scientific studies she said will prove that Roundup is to blame, followed by a lawyer for Bayer arguing that other risk factors in Mr. Hardeman’s health history are more likely the cause. (Randazzo and Bender, 2/25)

Gov. Laura Kelly announced Monday that the Department for Children and Families (DCF) will post daily counts of missing and runaway foster children in Kansas, following a push from legislators last week for more transparency in the troubled child welfare system. The daily statistics, which will be available online, include the age, gender and amount of time the children have been missing. (Korte, 2/25)

A former Vanderbilt nurse who is being criminally prosecuted for a fatal medication error was also investigated by state health officials who ultimately decided there was no reason to discipline her or take any action against her nursing license. RaDonda Vaught, 35, of Bethpage, was indicted on charges of reckless homicide and impaired adult abuse earlier this month. The indictment stems from the 2017 death of Charlene Murphey, a Vanderbilt patient who was left braindead after being accidentally given a lethal dose of a powerful paralyzing medicine. (Kelman, 2/25)

[Roland] Perpignan was one of at least five Chicago police officers to take their own life since last July. What's more, she was one of three officers to do so while on duty or on police property, an exceedingly rare occurrence, according to experts. The police department is unable to provide historic numbers on officer suicides, said Guglielmi, the police spokesman. (Smith, 2/26)

Sacramento residents are more stressed on average than people from Los Angeles, Chicago, Manhattan, Phoenix and more than 60 other cities, one recent social media-based study claims. Survey results analyzing the language in more than 5 million tweets from the 100 most populous cities in the U.S. ranked Sacramento at No. 30 in the nation and No. 11 in California, according to London-based Babylon Health. (McGough, 2/25)

As Ohio’s medical marijuana industry finally takes off, some patients and advocates are griping about costs that put it out of reach for many people. A steep price tag stems partly from the lack of competition, as Ohio only has seven dispensaries spread throughout the state, mostly in rural areas, experts said. Costs are expected to drop as more dispensaries open and the industry finds its footing. (Cooley, 2/25)

The latest report from the federal monitor of the state Department of Children and Families shows that the agency maintained compliance with five of 10 measures that are part of a court supervised exit plan, but is still failing to meet the remaining five – including those related to hiring and caseloads. (Megan, 2/26)

CON governs the construction and expansion of health care facilities and services. Under the current laws, a provider must obtain a “certificate of need” from the state to proceed with a major project. Major hospital groups oppose the CON revamp, saying it will undermine hospital care, including in rural Georgia. Proponents say it will increase competition and lead to lower health care costs. (Miller, 2/25)

NPR has found that Walmart is changing the job requirements for front-door greeters in a way that appears to disproportionately affect workers with disabilities. Greeters with disabilities in five states told NPR they expect to lose their jobs after April 25 or 26. (Selyukh, 2/25)

It’s not every day an Iowan has the opportunity to wake up and ask top executives of seven major pharmaceutical companies the question that’s on the minds of most Americans: Why do prescription drug prices keep rising in America? That’s exactly what I’ll be doing this morning when I chair a congressional hearing of the Senate Finance Committee. It’s the second in a series of hearings I have called to examine drug pricing in the United States. (Chuck Grassley, 2/26)

Let me start by getting this out of the way: Vaccines are one of humankind’s greatest health care achievements, along with antibiotics, clean water, and good sanitation. There should be no argument about this at all.Vaccines save millions of lives each year — children and adults — and prevent tremendous personal misery caused by infectious diseases. Some vaccines, such as the one against human papillomavirus (HPV), even prevent some types of cancer from developing in adult women and men. Despite these enormous successes, vaccines are being aggressively attacked by a number of groups, many of which are well-organized and financed. Some of them have suggested that vaccines are more harmful than the diseases they prevent, which is nonsense. (Stewart Lyman, 2/26)

It’s that time again. Time to revise the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, something that happens every five years. This time, those revisions will happen in the face of charges that, over the past 40 years or so, the guidelines not only haven’t helped Americans eat better, they’ve contributed to our obesity problem. Have they? Here’s the theory. By suggesting that Americans limit fat intake, the guidelines led to decreased fat and increased carbs. That change was at least partly responsible for the rise in obesity. (Tamar Haspel, 2/25)

The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine issued a report in February 2017 recognizing the serious ethical risks of heritable genome editing. Unforeseen biological complications are a concern, but societal factors — including the dividing line between those with the means to accomplish enhancements for their children and successive generations — are a grave worry. (Adil Shamoo, 2/23)

The racist photo in the medical school yearbook page of Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia has probably caused many physicians to re-examine their past. We hope we are better today, but the research is not as encouraging as you might think: There is still a long way to go in how the medical field treats minority patients, especially African-Americans. (Aaron E. Carroll, 2/25)

My favorite ceramic mug goes unused these days, as I’ve lost my taste for coffee. Pancreatic cancer has taken many of my small pleasures. Yet I value this mug more than ever as I remember the young potter in Florida who made dozens in a desperate attempt to raise money for breast cancer treatment for his uninsured sister. While I can, I want to share why I have spent my life fighting to give people like the potter’s sister the health care they deserve. (Rob Restuccia, 2/25)  

When patients enroll in health insurance, they are often met with a stark reality: Even with insurance, they can’t afford their treatment. With the Affordable Care Act and its protections for people with pre-existing conditions in limbo once again, it’s important to remember that those with such conditions need more than health insurance. They also need to be protected from discriminatory pricing so that they can afford the medications they need. In 2015 I published a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine that detailed how some insurers were raising costs for H.I.V. medicines to dissuade H.I.V.-positive people from selecting their plans. (Douglas Jacobs, 2/25)

In “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Margaret Atwood’s ever-resonant tale of misogynist dystopia, Christian fascism has a sordid, perverse underbelly. On the surface, the Republic of Gilead, Atwood’s imaginary successor to America, is a place of totalitarian religious austerity. But as the book’s enslaved narrator discovers, the society’s leaders also maintain a brothel, Jezebel’s, full of women who couldn’t fit into the new order. It’s the inevitable flip side of a regime that dehumanizes women, reducing them to their reproductive organs. “Nature demands variety, for men,” says a character called the Commander. (Michelle Goldberg, 2/25)

As an Asian American woman living in Kentucky, I was outraged to discover that anti-choice state legislators have introduced a bill to restrict reproductive health-care access under the guise of nondiscrimination. The legislation, House Bill 5, contains what is known as a sex-selective abortion ban, among other types of bans. Sex-selective abortion bans are dangerous to the well-being of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women and our agency over our lives, our families, and our communities. (Valerie Izumi, 2/22)

A new slogan on the American political left — “every billionaire is a policy failure” — links economic inequality to governmental error. Whether the claim is true is a good question. Billionaires include everyone from Harry Potter’s creator, J.K. Rowling, to the wizard of Omaha, Warren Buffett. Then again, the ranks of the superwealthy include one Richard S. Sackler, and his family, whose assets, shared among 20 people, total $14 billion, according to a 2016 estimate by Forbes magazine. (Charles Lane, 2/25)

Marijuana legalization is gaining momentum across the country, backed by supportive public opinion, politicians, Wall Street investors and the increasingly influential for–profit cannabis industry. By 2025, the legal U.S. marijuana market could be a roughly $50 billion business as a cornucopia of cannabis-based products become easily available in shops and online. But in the rush to legalize marijuana, we are not taking adequate precautions and lack comprehensive and conclusive scientific evidence about what the impact might be. (Mitchell S. Rosenthal, 2/25)

A soldier dies twice: once wherever he takes his last breath; and he dies again when he’s forgotten. Naming the Murfreesboro VA residential treatment facility after Sgt. John Toombs will ensure those veterans we lose to suicide do not die twice and are indeed never forgotten. (Sherman Gillums, 2/25)

It’s called the End-of-Life Option Act. That sounds appealing — until you realize that one of the options on offer is killing. Patients and doctors should have a full array of dignified end-of-life options. But there’s a reason, for two and a half millennia, doctors have taken the Hippocratic oath: “I will keep [the sick] from harm and injustice. I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.”Physicians devoted to their patients’ care should not be in the killing business. (Ryan T. Anderson, 2/25)