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First lady Dr. Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday evening, the White House said. Biden, 72, was experiencing mild symptoms at the time of the positive test, the first lady's communications director, Elizabeth Alexander, said in a statement. She plans to remain at her home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. President Biden was administered a COVID-19 test after the first lady's positive result — he tested negative, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.  (Dev, 9/4)

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Biden’s foreign travel could be affected. But Biden's official week-ahead schedule, released shortly after the announcement of the first lady's diagnosis, showed him traveling to New Delhi on Thursday to attend the G20 summit. Biden is scheduled to fly to Hanoi on Sunday. (9/5)

In August, arch conspiracy theorist Alex Jones predicted that air passengers would have to wear face masks from mid-October, before "a return to the full COVID protocol" by December. There is currently no evidence to suggest this will be the case. A Transportation Security Administration spokesperson denied the claims to the Associated Press, while a CDC spokesperson described them as "utterly false." "HE WAS RIGHT," Eric Spracklen, a conservative digital strategist, said on Monday evening. "Jill Biden's positive test is all part of the plan." (Phillips, 9/5)

Two teams of US scientists have completed lab experiments testing the antibodies from vaccinated and infected Americans to see how well they might be able to fend off currently circulating variants of the virus that causes Covid-19, including the highly mutated BA.2.86. Their results match up almost exactly, and the news – at least when it comes to BA.2.86, which has also been dubbed Pirola – is very good. Our immune systems can recognize and fight off this variant as well as, and perhaps even a bit better than, the currently circulating offshoots of the XBB variant. (Goodman, 9/4)

The anticipated late summer COVID wave is here – but it's tougher than ever to measure. With the end of federal COVID case tracking and the prevalence of rapid at-home testing, virus-related hospitalization rates and wastewater analyses are the best bet for monitoring spread. (Habeshian, 9/3)

An uptick in Covid cases and hospitalizations in the U.S., and the emergence of new variants of the virus, are prompting questions about whether Americans should start masking up again. One thing’s for sure: People infected with Covid should wear masks around others to prevent the spread of the virus. For those not infected, the decision to mask depends on a few things. That includes your personal risk level, Covid rates in your region and who you might make contact with, public health experts said. (Constantino, 9/1)

COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising across much of the Mountain West and nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This trend mirrors patterns from previous years, but healthcare experts say the U.S. is well-equipped to handle another surge in infections and emergency room visits. Spikes in coronavirus activity have been recently reported in Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and Idaho. In Wyoming, State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist said more people are likely getting infected as they return to more normal work and school schedules from the summer season. (Walkey, 8/30)

A federal appeals court Friday revived a lawsuit by three doctors who say the Food and Drug Administration overstepped its authority in a campaign against treating COVID-19 with the anti-parasite drug ivermectin. ... Drs. Robert L. Apter, Mary Talley Bowden and Paul E. Marik filed the lawsuit last year. All three said their reputations were harmed by the FDA campaign. Bowden lost admitting privileges at a Texas hospital, the ruling noted. Marik alleged he lost his positions at a medical school and at a hospital for promoting the use of ivermectin. (McGill, 9/1)

�鶹Ů�� Health News and PolitiFact: Activist Misuses Federal Data To Make False Claim That Covid Vaccines Killed 676,000 

A blog post shared on Facebook claimed that covid-19 vaccines have killed some 676,000 Americans. The post was written by anti-vaccine activist Steve Kirsch, who has made other vaccine claims debunked by PolitiFact and other fact-checkers. Kirsch’s Aug. 6 post referred to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a federal database. (Kertscher, 9/1)

In the midst of the Covid-19 surge during the winter of 2021, the Pittsburgh-based UPMC health system received 450 doses of Evusheld — a scarce antibody cocktail being used at the time to prevent immunocompromised patients from being infected by the coronavirus. But those doses were just a fraction of a percent of what the sprawling 35-hospital system needed to protect its 200,000 immunocompromised patients. (McFarling, 9/1)

Ask Patricia Anderson how she is doing, and you probably will not get a routine answer. “Today, I’m working and I’m fine,” she said on a recent Tuesday. “Saturday and Sunday, I was bedridden. Long Covid is a roller coaster.” Before the pandemic, Ms. Anderson practiced martial arts and did without a car, instead walking and taking buses around Ann Arbor, Mich., where she is a medical librarian. Just before contracting Covid-19 in March 2020, she had racked up — oh, she keeps track — 11,409 steps in one day. (Span, 9/3)

The Biden administration released a proposed rule Friday morning that would mandate minimum staffing in nursing homes, but it fell short of what advocates had long been pushing for. The long-awaited proposed rule would mandate each resident receive at least three hours of direct care per day, with 33 minutes of that care coming from registered nurses. That standard falls below what the average nursing home already provides, according to experts. But the government said Friday 75 percent of nursing homes would have to increase staffing to comply with the proposed standard. (Hellmann, 9/1)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Biden Administration Proposes New Standards To Boost Nursing Home Staffing

The proposal, by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, would require all facilities to increase staff up to certain minimum levels, but it included no money for nursing homes to pay for the new hires. CMS estimated that three-quarters of the nation’s 15,000 homes would need to add staff members. But the increases at many of those facilities would be minor, as the average nursing home already employs nurses and aides at, or very close to, the proposed levels. (Rau, 9/1)

The Biden administration's new proposed nursing home staffing minimums may be friendlier to industry than providers' loud protests suggest. The first-ever national staffing standard for nursing homes, issued just before Labor Day weekend, came in on the lower end of what federal officials previously analyzed, and it stops short of what patient advocates pushed for. (Goldman, 9/5)

Humana sued the federal government Friday, arguing that this year’s new rule to claw back overpayments from it and other Medicare Advantage insurers violates federal law due to its “shifting justifications and erroneous legal reasoning.” (Herman, 9/1)

Swiss drugmaker Novartis on Friday said it had sued the U.S. government in an attempt to halt the Medicare drug-price negotiation program, which includes its top-selling heart-failure medicine Entresto. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, is the first since the Biden administration on Tuesday released its list of 10 prescription medicines that will be subject to price negotiations by the Medicare health program, which covers 66 million people. (Wingrove, 9/1)

Drugmakers are poised to change their lawsuits and bring new ones against the Biden administration now that the list of the first 10 drugs subject to Medicare price negotiations is out. (Lopez and Phengsitthy, 9/5)

White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden said Sunday that she’s convinced that the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare drug price negotiation program will be upheld in court. Speaking on “The Katie Phang Show” on MSNBC, Tanden said, “There is nothing in the Constitution that stops Medicare from negotiating drug prices. We really, we feel very strongly about our ability to win these lawsuits because this is just a basic principle.” (Cohen, 9/3)

The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services is recommending that the Drug Enforcement Administration significantly loosen federal restrictions on marijuana but stopped short of advising that it should be entirely removed from the Controlled Substances Act. The health agency wants the drug moved from Schedule I to Schedule III under the CSA, potentially the biggest change in federal drug policy in decades. (Fertig and Demko, 8/30)

Some marijuana users may have elevated levels of lead and cadmium — two heavy metals linked to long-term health issues — in their blood and urine, a new study shows. Among a group of more than 7,200 adults, the 358 who reported using marijuana within the past 30 days were found to have 27% higher blood lead levels than those who said they didn’t use either marijuana or tobacco. (Bendix, 8/30)

Bill Martin is a product of the 1960s when it comes to using marijuana. The Vietnam veteran experimented with smoking weed after his discharge. But he quit using while he raised a family in the 1980s. "I was a clean machine,” said Martin, 76, a Deerfield resident who grew up in Winnetka. Then, about five years ago, he began using cannabis again when the drug was cleared for medicinal use in Illinois. (Struett, 9/5)

Accidental overdose became the No. 1 cause of death in 13 states for people under 40, overtaking suicide in nine states and vehicle accidents in five others; it’s now the top cause in 37 states. The only other change was in Mississippi, where homicide became the main cause of death, overtaking car accidents. In 40 states and the District of Columbia, overdose was the biggest increase in deaths for young people. (Henderson, 9/5)

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the county alleged that Express Scripts Inc. and OptumRx Inc. colluded with drug manufacturers to promote dangerously addictive opioids as a safe and moderate pain treatment option. ... “Defendants are not bystanders in the opioid crisis,” the lawsuit said. “They helped fuel the fire.” (Ellis, 9/4)

It’s a fact that more than 70,000 people nationwide died last year after overdosing on fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. The drug has drawn national attention because it’s so lethal, up to 100 times more potent than morphine. But the spotlight has also led to a lot of misinformation. Politicians and pundits commonly misrepresent who brings fentanyl into the U.S. And stories of police officers and first responders becoming sick or overdosing by simply being around or touching fentanyl proliferate online — a phenomenon that toxicology experts say is not scientifically possible. (9/4)

Americans are dying of fentanyl overdoses in record numbers, and the Republican presidential candidates are talking tough about their plans to respond. Many of the plans are startling, even violent: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pledged to “use lethal force” by sending troops to attack cartel operations in Mexico. Former President Donald Trump has called for convicted drug dealers to be sentenced to death. Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, meanwhile, has suggested taking a different tack: Decriminalizing nearly all drugs, including ayahuasca and ketamine. But for all the candidates’ big rhetoric about the war on drugs — either ending it or escalating it — few of their stump speeches make any mention at all of addiction treatment. (Facher, 9/5)

Lawmakers return this week with one pressing challenge this month– avoiding a potential government shutdown. The Senate is back Tuesday to sort out the next steps on crafting a short-term funding bill that can pass before federal agencies run out of money on Sept. 30. But talk of the health of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., following another episode when he froze at a press conference last week, will also dominate Capitol Hill. (Walsh and Snell, 9/5)

While many Kentucky Republicans have offered support, some local party officials questioned in interviews with the USA TODAY Network whether it was time for McConnell to pass the baton as Senate GOP leader. "There's something that's not right somewhere. I'm afraid that the next time it happens you may see him fall over and go into cardiac arrest or even die God forbid," Chris Dickerson, chair of the Elliott County Republican Party in Kentucky, said in an interview. "I mean, I just think there's something seriously wrong with his health." (Bailey, Tran, Sonka, and Looker (9/2)

A federal program that helps poor families afford healthy food could see substantial benefit cuts starting in October, raising the prospect that roughly 6 million low-income Americans could become some of the earliest victims of an unresolved Washington budget battle. The looming cliff adds to the political pressure on Congress, which now has mere weeks to shore up the program’s finances, fund the federal government and avert a potentially catastrophic shutdown. (Romm, 9/3)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Workers Pay The Price While Congress And Employers Debate Need For Heat Regulations 

Sometimes the heat makes you vomit, said Carmen Garcia, a farmworker in the San Joaquin Valley of California. She and her husband spent July in the garlic fields, kneeling on the scorched earth as temperatures hovered above 105 degrees. Her husband had such severe fatigue and nausea that he stayed home from work for three days. He drank lime water instead of seeing a doctor because the couple doesn’t have health insurance. “A lot of people have this happen,” Garcia said. There are no federal standards to protect workers like the Garcias when days become excessively hot. And without bipartisan support from Congress, even with urgent attention from the Biden administration, relief may not come for years. (Maxmen, 9/5)

Fifteen hospitals and health systems have been recognized for their compliance with the federal price transparency regulations. (Bailey, 8/24)

Several Chicago-area hospitals have been honored for excellence in price transparency two and a half years after a set of federal transparency guidelines went into effect. Rush University Medical Center was one of 10 hospitals nationwide to receive the inaugural Price Transparency Champion Award, honoring medical systems going above and beyond to keep price estimates accessible and upfront. (Arougheti, 9/5)

The prolonged closure of Brockton Hospital, which is expected to last into next year, has disrupted life in this diverse city, leaving many residents scrambling to find providers, traveling farther for care, and waiting longer to be seen. The hospital closure has overwhelmed nearby emergency rooms and behavioral health clinics with an influx of new patients. The shutdown has also affected local businesses and forced displaced health care workers to look for new jobs. (Mohammed, 9/3)

So began a dizzying, months-long effort by Cheryl to simply find out the reason for the $5,040 charge. And when she finally unraveled it, she was totally taken aback by the hospital’s reason for billing them. It turns out that Saint Vincent had billed the Farrells’ health insurer for the cost of a private room, but the insurer paid the hospital only the lower cost of a semiprivate room. Hence, the $5,040 balance. (Murphy, 9/5)

A Labor Day demonstration that blocked part of Sunset Boulevard led to the peaceful arrest of roughly two dozen people protesting Kaiser Permanente’s labor practices in front of the HMO’s medical center in Hollywood. ... The protest is part of an ongoing dispute between the Oakland-based HMO and a coalition of unions representing roughly 40% of its workforce. (Purtill, 9/4)

The four companies delivering care on Amazon Clinic say joining the direct-to-consumer telehealth marketplace hasn't forced them to rewrite their business plans. Amazon Clinic, the tech giant’s direct-to-consumer telehealth marketplace, offers both asynchronous and synchronous care for non-urgent medical conditions such as urinary tract infections and seasonal allergies through third-party companies. Amazon launched the offering in November 2022. (Turner, 9/1)

The world’s largest technology companies are racing to build generative AI into every corner of health and medicine. Microsoft has formed an alliance with the electronic health records vendor Epic to wire the technology into dozens of health software products. Google is infusing it into tools used by hospitals to collect and organize data on millions of patients. Not to be outdone, Amazon has unveiled a service to help build clinical note scribes, and is separately working to embed generative AI in drug research and development. (Ross and Palmer, 9/5)

Across the globe, scientists, doctors, public health practitioners and community-centered groups are continuing their work to combat the transmission of HIV. And they’re turning the tide against the disease. (Storrow, 9/1)

When a South Charlotte mom was looking for a psychiatrist to prescribe medication for her teenage daughter’s depression last year, she described sitting with her phone and going down the list of doctors listed as in network with her insurance company. Some weren’t taking new patients. Others never returned her messages. And a few said their first appointment was months away. After more than 25 calls, she finally found a practice able to schedule an appointment for her daughter that month. (Crouch, 9/5)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: �鶹Ů�� Health News' 'What the Health?': 3 Health Policy Experts You Should Know 

In this special episode, host Julie Rovner, �鶹Ů�� Health News’ chief Washington correspondent, interviews three noted health policy experts. (8/31)

A New Zealand woman visited multiple doctors for help with severe abdominal pain after having a Caesarean section in 2020. But when she underwent a CT scan about a year later, doctors had no problem identifying the cause of her agony, according to a new report. The scan found that during the woman’s C-section, doctors had left a piece of equipment about the size of a dinner plate in her abdomen, the report alleges. About 18 months after the woman’s original procedure, doctors removed an Alexis wound retractor — a soft, round plastic device that retracts the edges of an incision during surgery — from the woman’s abdomen, the report states. (Melnick, 9/5)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent warning letters to three baby formula manufacturers on Wednesday, saying that they had not set up adequate safety procedures to prevent any chance of contamination. The agency said in letters to ByHeart, Reckitt/Mead Johnson Nutrition and Perrigo Wisconsin that the formula makers didn’t do enough to determine the underlying causes when some of their formula tested positive for cronobacter in instances that came after the height of last year’s shortages. (Peterson, 8/30)

Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Rosalind Brewer has stepped down as head of the company and as a member of its board of directors, the company said Friday. Brewer and the board "mutually agreed" on Brewer's exit, which took effect Thursday, the company said in a news release. Walgreens said Brewer will advise the company while it conducts a search for a permanent CEO and receive a $375,000 monthly consulting fee through February. (Hudson, 9/1)

Drugs and medical devices rarely come from the nonprofit world. There are more than 2,600 for-profit pharmaceutical companies in the United States, but only three nonprofits have products on the American market. One of them is Medicines360, which in 2015 became the first nonprofit to introduce a medical device — an IUD. The genesis of the device came from an anonymous foundation that saw one of the most effective and reversible birth-control methods, the hormonal IUD, was too expensive for most women. Even insured women could be billed copays of up to $1,000. (Motoyama, 9/1)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: NPR And �鶹Ů�� Health News Share The Story Of Two Health Heroes Who Helped Stop Smallpox 

�鶹Ů�� Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, Céline Gounder, and Regina G. Barber, host of NPR’s podcast “Shortwave,” team up to discuss the work of two public health workers who went to great lengths — sometimes traveling by speedboat to remote islands — to root out smallpox in Bangladesh. Hear the full episode of “Speedboat Epidemiology” here — it’s Episode 4 of the latest season of the “Epidemic” podcast, “Eradicating Smallpox.” (9/5)

State public health officials have detected eastern equine encephalitis, or EEE, in mosquitoes in Massachusetts for the first time since 2020, the Department of Public Health said Friday. Mosquito samples collected Wednesday in Douglas and Southbridge in Worcester County were confirmed to contain EEE by the State Public Health Laboratory, according to a statement from the DPH released just as the Labor Day three-day weekend was beginning, with many local families planning outdoor activities. (Little Endara, 9/1)

In its latest arbovirus surveillance report, the Florida Department of Health (Florida Health) reported one more locally acquired dengue cases and a second infection involving eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus. The report covers the epidemiologic week ending August 26. The dengue case is in Miami-Dade County, where most previous cases have been from. The new illness raises the total for the year to 16. Florida often reports sporadic local dengue infections, and Florida Health has noted that infected travelers can pass the virus to local mosquito populations. (Schnirring, 8/30)

New Mexico has seen its first fatal case of West Nile virus this year, health officials said Friday. The state Department of Health reports a Valencia County man’s recent death is related to the virus. Statewide, 36 people have been diagnosed in 2023 with West Nile virus, which typically spreads to humans through a bite from an infected mosquito. (9/1)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday issued a national alert warning health-care professionals to watch out for infections of Vibrio vulnificus, a rare flesh-eating bacteria that has killed at least 13 people on the Eastern Seaboard this year. ... Friday’s warning urges health-care providers to consider the bacteria as a possible cause of infected wounds, particularly if patients were exposed to warm coastal waters during hotter months. (Jeong, 9/2)

An outbreak of meningococcal disease in Virginia is growing, state health officials announced this week, and nearly a half-dozen people have died as a result of the eruption. According to the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), 27 cases of the disease, caused by a bacteria called Neisseria meningitidis type Y, have been identified in eastern, central, and southwest Virginia since June 2022. "This development is three times the expected number of cases during this time period," the department said in a news release. (Neysa Alund and Calello, 9/1)

A study conducted at two universities in Oregon suggests meningococcal group B vaccine (MBV) may offer protection against gonorrhea infection, researchers reported today in JAMA Network Open. In the study, researchers with the Oregon Public Health Division analyzed gonorrhea incidence among more than 30,000 students ages 18 to 29 at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University who received one or more doses of MBV following group B meningococcal outbreaks on the two campuses in 2015 and 2016. (Dall, 8/31)

Investigators say a rare outbreak of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in a social network in Kansas provides a "cautionary tale" for areas with low TB incidence. The outbreak, described today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, involved 13 people in Kansas and one in a neighboring state and was initially identified in a hospitalized infant in Kansas in November 2021. Resistance to the four drugs that constitute first-line TB therapy was confirmed by DNA sequencing and drug-susceptibility tests. Investigation by public health officials identified four additional members in the infant's household with MDR-TB. (Dall, 8/31)

A systematic review and meta-analysis found that room disinfection with ultraviolet-C (UV-C) devices had little impact on the incidence of healthcare-associated multidrug-resistant organism (MDRO) infections, researchers reported today in Epidemiology & Infection. The study, conducted by Chinese researchers, analyzed nine previously studies that examined the impact of UV-C devices on the incidence of Clostridioides difficile, vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and gram-negative rod-shaped bacteria. (Dall, 8/30)

Jimmy Buffett died of skin cancer at his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., on Long Island, according to a statement on the singer-songwriter’s website. After Mr. Buffett died on Friday at age 76, his site announced the death but did not give a cause or specify where he died. In an update over the weekend, the website said that he had Merkel cell carcinoma for four years. A rare and aggressive form of skin cancer, Merkel cell is diagnosed only about 2,500 times a year in the United States, and until recent years it had carried a life expectancy of five months. (Sisario, 9/4)

MCC is a rare but aggressive type of skin cancer that is known to have a high rate of recurring and spreading, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation (SCF). Around 3,000 cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. That number is expected to reach 3,250 by 2025. The disease is 40 times rarer than melanoma, the SCF states on its website. (Rudy, 9/3)

The condition was named for German scientist Friedrich Merkel, who first described that type of cell in 1875. Merkel cells are thought to be a kind of neuroendocrine cell found at the base of the surface of the skin, the epidermis. They’re close to the nerve endings in the skin that let you feel a light touch. (Christensen, 9/4)

Prostate cancer loomed over David Weigand’s family: His uncle had the disease, and his father died of it. Yet widely followed recommendations for prostate-cancer screening didn’t consider him eligible for a test. ​In 2021​, he got tested anyway at his partner Cody Green’s urging. Weigand was 53 at the time​—two years below the age when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says men should consider testing​ for levels of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA​. He had no symptoms. (Abbott, 9/4)

Amid new signs that AI could transform cancer care, clinicians and health systems are taking stock of thorny ethical and practical questions that still stand in the way of the technology's widespread adoption. Cancer remains the second leading cause of death in the U.S. and innovations like AI-enhanced mammography could detect cases sooner and cut down on unnecessary tests and treatments. (Saric, 9/5)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Mississippi’s Cervical Cancer Deaths Indicate Broader Health Care Problems 

Shementé Jones knew something wasn’t right. Her back hurt. She felt pain during sex. She said she kept telling her doctor something was wrong. Her doctor told her, “Just wash your underwear in Dreft,” Jones said, referring to a brand of detergent. Within months of that 2016 appointment, Jones, who lives in a suburb of Jackson, Mississippi, was diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer. She underwent a hysterectomy then weeks of radiation therapy. “I ended up fine,” said Jones, now 43. “But what about all the other women?” (Anderson, 9/5)

For 1-year-olds, spending two or more hours a day in front of screens — for television, video, mobile phones or other digital devices — may increase their chances of experiencing developmental delays in subsequent years, according to research published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. Based on data on 7,097 children, the study found that as screen time increased, so did the likelihood of developmental delays, primarily in communication and problem-solving skills. (Searing, 9/4)

The viral trend of "Barbie Botox" that has women as young as in their 20s rush for toxin-based procedures to mimic the looks of the movie's lead actress Margot Robbie may lead to resistance among them and hinder medical use in future, doctors cautioned. The procedure, also known as "Trap Tox", has been widely used by doctors to inject a class of drugs known as botulinum toxins, such as Botox, into the trapezius muscles of the upper back to treat migraines and shoulder pain. (Leo, 9/1)

Approximately 245,366 pounds of frozen chicken strips are being recalled from Conagra Brands, Inc. after the company discovered the products may be contaminated with pieces of plastic. (Lane, 9/3)

Healthy sleep schedules and habits tend to fall apart during summer. We travel across time zones. We socialize more—and drink more alcohol. Those extra hours of daylight mean we often stay up later. Often, those habits drag into the fall, creating a “jet lag” as we scramble to rise earlier to get kids out the door for school and as work obligations pick up, says Dr. Jennifer L. Martin, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. (Petersen, 9/4)

If morning exercise doesn’t work with your schedule, getting some evening exercise may be your best bet. And it shouldn't hurt your shut-eye if done correctly. (Loria, 9/4)

�鶹Ů�� Health News and WBUR: When Temps Rise, So Do Medical Risks. Should Doctors And Nurses Talk More About Heat? 

An important email appeared in the inboxes of a small group of health care workers north of Boston as this summer started. It warned that local temperatures were rising into the 80s. An 80-plus-degree day is not sizzling by Phoenix standards. Even in Boston, it wasn’t high enough to trigger an official heat warning for the wider public. (Bebinger, 9/1)

Phillip Merritt’s dementia is so advanced he’s lost the ability to speak. But with the help of his cellmates at Western Illinois Correctional Center, the 71-year-old still manages to get on the phone with his brother every few weeks. ... Merritt’s deteriorating condition makes him a prime candidate to get out of prison under the Joe Coleman Medical Release Act, a pivotal criminal justice reform bill touted by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Illinois Democrats as an effective way to alleviate the state’s decrepit prison health care system, reduce the “staggering” costs of caring for ailing people in prison, and reunite families with frail loved ones. ... But a year-and-a-half since the Coleman Act went into effect, an investigation by Injustice Watch and WBEZ found far fewer prisoners have been released under the law than expected, as the medical release process has become mired in the charged politics of criminal justice reform in the post-George Floyd era. (Ballesteros, Heffernan and Qin, 9/3)

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker defended the number of dying and disabled prisoners released under a landmark law that went into effect early last year at a news conference Thursday. “The Coleman Act is, in fact, being carried out as it should be,” Pritzker told reporters in response to an Injustice Watch and WBEZ investigation, which found only 52 prisoners had been granted release under the law — far below the hundreds of terminally ill and incapacitated prisoners advocates say could have been released by now. (Ballesteros, 9/4)

For nearly 30 years, Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania have approved millions of taxpayer dollars for an anti-abortion program. Now the state’s new governor plans to end the contract as the organization that distributes those funds and other groups like it gain attention since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Pennsylvania plans to end on Dec. 31 its longstanding contract with the nonprofit Real Alternatives, the first organization in the nation to secure significant state and federal subsidies to support anti-abortion counseling centers. Under the program, Real Alternatives distributed the state and federal funds to dozens of Pennsylvania centers, including Catholic Charities, anti-abortion counseling centers and maternity homes, which provide support and housing for pregnant women. (Schultz and Kruesi, 9/1)

An effort to guarantee access to abortion rights in Ohio, a November ballot measure, is already fueling misleading claims about how it could influence abortion care, gender-related health care and parental consent in the state. The proposed constitutional amendment would give Ohioans the right to make their own reproductive decisions. Backers say that since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, the proposal would restore a commonsense abortion protection that most Ohio voters can support. (Swenson and Fernando, 9/2)

A federal judge on Friday refused to block a new Florida law making it more difficult for transgender adults to access hormone therapy and surgeries. But U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle said he could issue a narrowly tailored injunction to ensure care for individual plaintiffs if they provide detailed medical records. (Kam, 9/4)

Montana’s Medicaid providers are still waiting to see the fruits of an historic investment that legislators voted into law earlier this year. Lawmakers directed more than $330 million in state and federal funds to boost Medicaid reimbursement rates during the 2023 session. But, an unprecedented, month-long delay in transmitting the state budget bill to the governor for final authorization in May has culminated in a two-month lag in distributing the new funds. (Schabacker, 9/3)

Nearly 40 years ago, Victoria McMullen and her husband traveled from St. Louis to Sikeston to adopt a six-year-old boy with severe developmental disabilities named Ron. Now 44, Ron has cerebral palsy, autism and intellectual disabilities. He’s unable to live independently and for the last 23 years his parents have relied on a state service to help pay for in-home caregivers to provide the intensive assistance he needs. (Bates, 9/3)

A federal judge has struck down a Texas law requiring age verification and health warnings to view pornographic websites and blocked the state attorney general’s office from enforcing it. In a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge David Ezra agreed with claims that House Bill 1181, which was signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in June, violates free speech rights and is overbroad and vague. (Miller, 9/1)

The only homeless shelter in rural Somerset County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore closed with little warning over the summer after an audit identified improper spending, including covid relief dollars spent on an employee’s Jeep Compass — leaving the state’s poorest county without a shelter as homelessness spikes. The nonprofit Somerset Committee for the Homeless Inc. shuttered the Princess Anne, Md., facility one day after receiving news that its state contracts would not be renewed, following the previously unreported audit by the county health department and the state housing agency. Twenty-three people who were staying in the Lower Shore Shelter had to move to hotel rooms temporarily, and just three landed in permanent housing, Danielle Weber, a health officer at the Somerset County Health Department, told The Washington Post. The rest moved to other shelters in neighboring counties, with 10 remaining homeless after the hotel stays ended. (Shepherd, 9/4)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: How Far Will Montana’s Push To Remove Lead From School Drinking Water Go?

Montana’s legislature designated $3.7 million this spring to remove lead from school drinking-water supplies, then the state received $565,000 more on Aug. 1 from the $50 billion federal infrastructure package aiming to improve water systems nationally. But even with these two new pools of money intended to last two years, the state’s schools may struggle to remove all but the most dangerous sources of lead, considering about half the schools that tested their water between July 2020 and February 2022 found high lead levels. Medical experts say no amount of lead is safe to ingest. (Larson, 8/31)

“You have cancer.” Ask anyone who has been told this: It’s terrifying. That’s one reason we need to rethink what we call cancer. Despite amazing advances in our understanding of the disease, we have neglected to update how we define what has been called the emperor of all maladies. Some cancers have extraordinarily low risks of altering the quality or length of life but get lumped in with those that do. And that often leads to unnecessary treatment, disfigurement, side effects and a constellation of other psychological, relationship and financial issues. (Dr. Laura Esserman and Dr. Scott Eggener, 8/30)

The senator asserts that this blanket and unprecedented “hold,” which he has maintained for more than six months, is about opposition to Defense Department policies that ensure service members and their families have access to reproductive health no matter where they are stationed. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this policy is critical and necessary to meet our obligations to the force. It is also fully within the law, as confirmed by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. (Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall and Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, 9/4)

More and more people, especially early career workers, want jobs fighting climate change. But when we think about climate work, we tend to imagine only a small number of activities, like integrating renewables into the grid or planning cities to be resilient against flooding and fires. We often overlook jobs in another key climate technology sector: biotechnology. (Lily Fitzgerald, 9/5)

The term for a patient who lists their questions was likely coined in the late 19th century in the clinic of Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière. Known as la maladie du petit papier, or the illness of the little paper, the derogatory descriptor was inherently feminine and usually reserved for hypochondriacs making a laundry list of their purported ailments. As researchers in and proponents of the burgeoning field of shared decision-making, we now know that doctors shouldn’t be so dismissive of patients who bring in a list of questions. In fact, medical systems should be promoting the practice. (Akila Muthukumar Valliammai, Leigh Simmons and Karen Sepucha, 9/5)

When my primary care doctor prescribed Klonopin to treat my severe anxiety in the months before and after major surgery in December 2021, I had no idea that getting off the drug later — as well as the Ambien I had taken for over a decade — would become a nightmare. (Sharon Goldman, 9/2)