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Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley is taking an important and necessary step in the ongoing effort to address the opioid drug crisis in the state. Hawley sued three pharmaceutical companies in state court Wednesday in St. Louis, alleging the firms contributed to the overuse of pain-killing medicines such as OxyContin and Percocet. (6/21)

Helping poor Americans put food on their table ought to be nonnegotiable and nonpolitical. Alas, it isn't and if state and the federal budget cutbacks go into effect, poor children, seniors and adults can add hunger pangs to their list of woes. (6/20)

Not since the lethal negligence of the Reagan administration have people with HIV and AIDS and their advocates faced with such presidential indifference. In a scorching resignation letter published by Newsweek, six now-former members of President Donald Trump’s HIV/AIDS advisory council cited their inability to work for “a president who simply does not care.” (Renée Graham, 6/20)

As a necessary prelude to a necessary discussion, surely we all can agree that best wishes are due to the still-hospitalized House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who faces a difficult recovery from injuries suffered in the gun attack at a Republican baseball practice June 14. ... But it’s important not to overlook how Scalise’s condition illuminates two of the most important public policy issues facing our country: There are too many guns in the hands of too many unsuitable owners; and healthcare is still treated in the United States as a privilege, not a right. (Michael Hiltzik, 6/20)

For the most part, despite my wheelchair and knowledge of medical terminology (you build that kind of vocabulary when it’s about your own limbs), my daily reality is mostly the same as that of my classmates. I groan over the same math and science homework, giggle with the same friends, and like every other adolescent, I probably spend too much time on my phone. As a girl with a disability, I know that my story is not a sad one. For the past four years, I’ve been trying to convince everyone else as well that my story doesn’t have to be a sad one. (Melissa Shang, 6/21)

Contentious issues were legion. Proposals that aimed to increase access to affordable medicines were nearly always sidetracked by people-versus-profits issues, with barely veiled suspicions that trade rules were rigged to favor rich and powerful nations. Equally difficult issues arose when public health interests crossed purposes with the interests of powerful economic operators, like the tobacco, alcohol, food, and beverage industries. Economic power readily translates into political power. Those industries fought nearly every move we made, from recommendations to reduce daily sugar intake and tax sugary beverages to warnings that alcohol front groups must not write national alcohol policies to our advice on how to stop the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children. (Margaret Chan, 6/20)

On Sunday morning, two Seattle police officers shot and killed Charleena Lyles in her apartment. She was pregnant, and three of her four children were home. She had called the police to report a burglary. According to the officers’ account, shortly after they arrived, Ms. Lyles, who the police knew was mentally ill, pulled a knife. Both officers shot her. Societal failure to care for mental health, which leaves the police as mental illness first responders, may well have been one deadly ingredient in this tragic encounter. (Phillip Atiba Goff and Kim Shayo Buchanan, 6/20)