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In 1977, after an electrical fire destroyed the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, killing 165 people, a plaintiffs’ lawyer named Stanley Chesley came up with a novel way to recover money for the families of the victims. The fire made it impossible to know which company had made the aluminum wiring for the building, so Chesley sued every wiring company in the country, on the grounds that they all bore some blame because aluminum wiring was inherently dangerous. It worked: the plaintiffs wound up with about $50 million, most of which came, by definition, from companies that had nothing to do with the fire. (Joe Nocera, 8/27)

As drugmakers are being held responsible for fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic, it might look at though they have nothing to fear in Europe, where, it’s often assumed, opioid misuse isn’t so rampant. The European Union, though, should take a closer look at the data and make its own move against the irresponsible marketing of opioid painkillers. (Leonid Bershidsky, 8/28)

Last fall, speaking to a far-right Austrian magazine, the Iowa Republican congressman Steve King succinctly laid out his theory of Western decline. The problem, he suggested, was a demographic born at the nexus of reproduction and immigration. “If we continue to abort our babies and import a replacement for them in the form of young violent men, we are supplanting our culture, our civilization,” King said. (Marissa Brostoff, 8/27)

If you read high-profile medical journals, the high-end popular press, and magazines like Science or Nature, it is clear that the medicalization of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data is in full swing. Speculation abounds about what these can do for medicine. It’s time to put them to the test. From what I can tell, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data are mostly jargon for one of two things. (Michael J. Joyner, 8/28)

At a time when many insurers and health information technology companies are busily assembling databases of hundreds of millions of medical records, Americans find it difficult to get access to their own. If you try to get yours, be prepared for confusing policies, ill-informed staff, wasted time and high costs. Even then, you may not get the records you seek. And all of this is at odds with your federal rights. (Harlan Krumholz, 5/28)

Four years ago, with my white coat on, I stepped out of my pediatric clinic and held a news conference. Lifting a baby bottle filled with water from Flint, Mich., I shared my research: Lead was increasingly in the blood of Flint’s children. The powers-that-be tried to silence me initially, but persistence, activism, teamwork and science prevailed. Since then, Flint has been on a slow but sure path toward recovery. Flint is an extreme case but not unique. A troubling number of cities across the country — Pittsburgh, Chicago, Portland, Ore. — are struggling with elevated lead in their drinking water. (Mona Hanna-Attisha, 8/27)

The Trump administration last week announced a new regulation that would allow the government to indefinitely detain migrant families who cross the border. If it goes into effect, it would terminate an agreement known as the Flores settlement that has been in place since 1997 to ensure that children are kept in the least restrictive setting possible, receive certain standards of care, have access to lawyers, and are generally released within 20 days. The effect would be to extend the well-documented suffering of migrant children in detention centers. (Leah Hibel and Caitlin Patler, 8/27)

Philip Morris and Altria, two tobacco giants valued at about $100 billion each, are in talks to merge in what would be the industry’s biggest deal ever. Their goal: join forces to quickly concentrate nicotine addicts around new non-cigarette products before competition heats up or more people quit smoking altogether. On Tuesday, amid recent M&A speculation, Philip Morris International Inc. confirmed that it is, in fact, in discussions to recombine with its sister company, Altria Inc., from which it was spun off in 2008. (Tara Lachapelle, 8/27)

The recent Democratic debates confirmed that universal access to health care insurance is a core issue for the 2020 election, although it’s difficult keeping up with all the proposals. "Medicare for All" gets the most press, but its cost may be prohibitive, and has no chance of surviving the health care industry lobbying in Congress. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg want to bolster the Affordable Care Act by creating a new “public option” within it. Sen. Kamala Harris has introduced a proposal to include Medicare Advantage alongside the publicly run Medicare program. (Ken Janda and Vivian Ho, 8/27)

I believe that health care providers aren’t paid anything close to what they are worth to society. I don’t mean this in the sappy emotional sense in which the “value of any human’s life is infinite,” or any other subjective standard. I am talking about real world, measurable economic impacts. Using the entrepreneurs’ 10% reward as a guide, health care providers create astronomical value for which they are paid a small token. (Jay Crawford, 8/28)

As Connecticut’s population gets older – more than 575,000 residents, or 16 percent of the population, were over age 65 in 2016, with more aging into that group every year since – a ticking time bomb awaits them. Long-term care insurance was a good investment in years past, but the cost of that insurance is now skyrocketing. That leaves seniors in a dangerous situation. (Saud Anwar, 8/28)

It was probably inevitable that we would have a “retirement crisis” as hordes of baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) sprint and stumble into their “golden years.” But it’s a fake crisis, even though it’s already becoming a staple of journalism and politics. It presumes that most Americans can’t afford to retire comfortably. Not so. It’s important to get this right. If we don’t, we risk harboring a fundamentally mistaken and misleading view of the elderly’s well-being. This has political and social consequences in the real world, where more government spending on the old often comes at the expense of the young. (Robert J. Samuelson, 8/27)

The FDA has drafted a guidance — currently available for public comment — which aims to re-evaluate the endpoints that the agency should consider when determining whether a given heart failure drug should be approved. If finalized, the guidance holds the potential to facilitate the development of truly innovative cardiovascular medicines. It comes at a unique inflection point, as our understanding of the genetics and the biology of the heart has advanced enough to enable the discovery of more targeted treatments, and our tools for monitoring outcomes are validated to enable the evaluation of heart failure medicines on endpoints other than survival or hospitalization. (Dr. Jay Edelberg, 8/27)

Back-to-school season is upon us and the future of child surveillance may soon be underway in Florida. Last month I referenced a proposed school surveillance program in the state, where lawmakers were planning to introduce a statewide database “that would combine individuals’ educational, criminal-justice and social-service records with their social media data, then share it all with law enforcement.” (Charlie Warzel, 8/27)

The term “type 1 diabetes” generally conjures up images of insulin. That makes sense, because insulin is the main treatment for this common disease. But it isn’t a cure. A type of cell transplant that comes close to a cure for some people with type 1 diabetes, a technique pioneered and tested in the United States, is now available in many countries but is still deemed an experimental procedure in the U.S., making it almost impossible to get. That doesn’t make sense to us. (Camillo Ricordi and Anthony Japour, 8/27)

When Congress reconvenes in September, President Trump has a golden opportunity to “own the libs,” as the conservative kids online say. The Democrats, helped by the media, have spent August taunting the president and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), claiming they don’t have the guts to buck the National Rifle Assn. and put a gun reform package on the floor. Republicans have a golden opportunity to refute the claim and show suburban America — which, according to the latest polls and focus groups have gone south on the GOP — that they are listening when it comes to this tragic American problem. (Scott Jennings, 8/28)

One of the most pressing issues facing Connecticut citizens and the small businesses where they work is surprise medical billing also known as “balance billing.” Many patients who do the right thing by going to the emergency room or in-network hospitals often are surprised when doctors or hospitals send them large, unexpected bills. (Tim Phelan, 8/27)