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A Missouri appeals court on Tuesday that vacated a $72 million award to an Alabama woman who claimed her use of Johnson & Johnson products that contained talcum contributed to her ovarian cancer has thrown the fate of awards in similar cases into doubt. The Missouri Eastern District Court’s ruled that Missouri was not the proper jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit filed by Jacqueline Fox, 62, of Birmingham, Alabama, who claimed the baby powder she used for feminine hygiene for about 25 years contributed to her cancer. (Stafford, 10/17)

San Diego’s hepatitis A outbreak added another death Tuesday, pushing the total to 19 as the number of confirmed cases passed 500. Updated numbers released by the county Health and Human Services Agency come as a massive effort around vaccination, sanitation and public education continues to try and stop the largest surge of the viral disease since the vaccine for hepatitis A was approved in the late 1990s. (Sisson, 10/17)

After defeat in one federal court, a pregnant minor unauthorized to be in the country has taken her fight to have an abortion to another one, with a new approach. "Jane Doe," a 17-year-old unaccompanied immigrant, is suing the federal agencies responsible for her care to allow her and other unaccompanied immigrant minors to obtain abortions. Doe’s court-appointed guardian, Rochelle Garza, filed the lawsuit Friday in a Washington, D.C., federal court against the heads of the agencies: the Department of Health and Human Services, the Administration for Children and Families and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. (Wang, 10/17)

New oversight for pharmaceutical companies, the creation of a MassHealth "buy-in" program and a target for hospital reimbursement rates are among the reforms and cost-control efforts contained in a wide-ranging bill a group of Senate Democrats rolled out Tuesday. (Lannan, 10/17)

Former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist was among six health care pioneers inducted Tuesday into the Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame. He joins Dorothy Lavinia Brown, the first African-American female surgeon in the South; Donald Pinkel, the first director and CEO of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; Harry R. Jacobson, former Vanderbilt University Medical Center CEO; Joel Gordon, a veteran health care businessman; and Stanford Moore, aNobel Prize-winning biochemist. (Hubbard, 10/17)

People who need physicians who speak a second language are likely to have a harder time finding their language spoken in Nashville than many other cities across the nation. Nashville ranked at number nine in the top 10 metro areas with the greatest disparity between languages spoken by patients and those spoken by physicians, according to a new study from Doximity, a professional social network for physicians and advanced practice clinicians. (Fletcher, 10/17)

Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative will add Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin to its network health plans for next year.The health plans also will include Children’s Hospital’s clinics and specialists. (Boulton, 10/17)

A Chicago woman has been charged with defrauding Illinois out of nearly $1 million in Medicaid funding. Santila Terry, 45, was charged Friday with theft, identity theft and vendor fraud, according to a statement from Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office. Terry billed Medicaid through her business “Special Therapy Care Chartered” for speech therapy services provided to children enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program, according to the statement. (Owen, 10/17)

Facing increasing pressure as the number of homeless people surges, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg asked Sacramento County leaders Tuesday for $53 million to provide services for that population. Steinberg wants to pool the county’s mental health funds – which stem from a state millionaire tax he authored as a legislator – with federal grants obtained by the city to spend a combined $117 million in three years to reduce homelessness. (Branan, 10/17)

During the five years Tony Price roamed the streets and dozed in doorways, the emergency rooms of Sacramento’s hospitals were a regular place for him to sleep off a hard day’s drinking. “A lot of times I would pass out, and then I’d wake up in the hospital,” said Price, 50. (Bartolone, 10/18)