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Parents with clear-cut religious objections can still opt to send their kids to school without vaccines, as long as they’re willing to meet with a health care provider and receive information about vaccine benefits. But parents who oppose vaccines as unnecessary or dangerous are on shaky ground under a 2015 law that does not recognize philosophical objections. (Schoenberg, 7/30)

A federal judge has blocked Arkansas from enforcing four new abortion restrictions, including a ban on a common second trimester procedure and a fetal remains law that opponents say would effectively require a partner's consent before a woman could get an abortion. (7/29)

In 2015, the state public health department and the Board of Registration in Medicine, which licenses doctors, issued a statewide advisory on how to identify high-risk obstetrical patients and manage emergencies. They cited 20 deaths over the previous four years, including nine women who were low-risk. (Kowalczyk, 7/29)

USC faced a choice five years ago: Keep Dr. Carmen Puliafito at the helm of the Keck School of Medicine or replace him. As dean, Puliafito had brought in star researchers, raised hundreds of millions of dollars and boosted the school’s national ranking — all critical steps in USC’s plan to become an elite research institution. (Ryan, Pringle, Hamilton, Parvini and Elmahrek, 7/30)

As temperatures soared into the mid-90s, a steady stream of young and old, rich and poor, families of every race and ethnicity joined the lines. It was probably the largest peacetime mobilization ever undertaken in North Texas, and one that required a mutual trust among government officials, the public and the medical community that seems unfathomable in today’s polarized environment. (Tarrant, 7/30)

A state appeals court judge ruled Saturday that Southern California Gas Co. can resume operations at its Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility, the source of the biggest methane leak in the country’s history. On Friday, L.A. County had been granted a temporary restraining order that would have halted the reopening. But a judge ordered the stay lifted on Saturday after the gas company filed a motion opposing the stay. (Karlamangla, 7/29)

A Florida health care administrator accepted bribes in exchange for helping a nursing home owner accused of orchestrating a $1 billion Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme keep his license, federal prosecutors said. (7/29)

Last year, there was a national outcry after the price skyrocketed for a medical-injection device that counteracts the life-threatening symptoms of a severe allergic reaction. But for a team of students at the University of Washington, the price jumps for the EpiPen signaled an opportunity — a chance to invent a cheaper device that could do the same thing, only better. (Long, 7/29)

When the University of Vermont's medical school opens for the year in the summer of 2019, it will be missing something that all but one of its peer institutions have: lectures. The Larner College of Medicine is scheduled to become the first U.S. medical school to eliminate lectures from its curriculum two years from now, putting it at the leading edge of a trend that could change the way the next generation of physicians learn their profession. (The medical school at Case Western Reserve University also has a no-lecture curriculum, established when the school opened in 2004.) (Bernstein, 7/29)

A Far North Dallas resident diagnosed with the county's first case of West Nile virus this year has died, health officials said. The victim, who was not identified, had underlying medical conditions, according to Dallas County Health and Human Services. (Ramirez, 7/30)

On a recent Thursday night, a crowd gathered at the new Seva Clinic, a nonprofit facility in Pearland offering free medical care from physicians. "It was crowded," said Hita Dickson who, along with her husband, Jim, serves on the clinic's board. "They had people lined up all the way down the hall and around the corner and even waiting outside. "I think they had 30 people show up and they serviced them all," she said. (Lamkahouan, 7/30)

There are a number of reasons someone may be prescribed the blood thinning drug warfarin, also known as Coumadin, from the risk of blood clots forming in their legs and lungs, to having had a stroke. Either way, said Maria Goldman, coordinator of the Anticoagulation Clinic at Carroll Hospital, some fine tuning is required. (Kelvey, 7/31)

Leander Independent School District requires students to use bathrooms based on their birth certificates. For Foster, who is transgender, that means using a gender-neutral bathroom or — when he can’t get across campus in time — the girls’ restrooms. (Ura, 7/31)

The Environmental Working Group determined that, in 2015, virtually every large water system in Ohio produced tap water with detectable levels of the same seven or eight contaminants that exceeded health guidelines, but not federal standards. EWG obtained its health guidelines from the latest state and federal scientific research, as well as from health and environmental agencies and EWG's own research, said David Andrews, a senior scientist at EWG. (McCarthy, 7/29)

Pasadena-based mental health agency will provide more direct on-site educational support services for special-needs students enrolled at Magnolia Park School for the upcoming school year. The Burbank Unified School District contracted with Hathaway-Sycamores Child and Family Services during a board meeting last week to provide services at Magnolia Park, which offers enrollment for elementary through high school students with significant behavioral and emotional challenges. (Vega, 7/28)

The airport has provided tokens for years to anyone who gets stranded at the end of the line, Yakel said. But, for the past seven or eight months, airport officials have been noticing an uptick in the number of homeless people with nowhere left to go when BART closes for the night. (Baldassari, 7/30)