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Sleek and featherweight in metallic black or navy blue, Juul-brand electronic cigarettes have become a fashion -- you could say, a contagion -- among high-school students across America. Easily mistaken for an ordinary flash drive, the gadgets let kids "Juul" without notice in hallways or school cafeterias and conveniently recharge on their laptops. This is a sure sign, if one were needed, that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is failing in its responsibility to regulate e-cigarettes. By its inaction, the agency allows a wall of vapor to obscure the fact that tobacco in any form poses a real danger -- and imperils children's lives. (3/29)

Transgender Americans who want to serve their country in the military, but whom Trump has deemed unworthy. If the courts don’t come to their defense, they will be banned from service. We hope the courts make clear that a ban is unconstitutional. (3/29)

As a registered nurse and office manager of a small subspecialty (pulmonary) physician practice, I am amazed at “Republicans’ Quiet Health Victory” by Bobby Jindal (op-ed, March 22) endorsing how wonderful Medicare Advantage plans are. He mentions the Mayo Clinic, but fails to mention it will not see patients with advantage plans. I have traditional Medicare and a supplemental policy. If I have a rare brain tumor, I can more easily go to the best neurosurgeon in the country. In many “advantage” plans the copay to see a specialist is often double the amount to see a primary-care provider. I guess the plans are so “consumer oriented” they want enrollees to see the physician with three to six years less training. (Colleen Davis Stinar, 3/29)

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing a limit on the amount of opioids a physician can prescribe to a patient. This limitation, that may take effect on Jan.1, 2019, would be unrelated to the patient's past experience or need. It would render pharmacists unable to fill prescriptions that CMS has defined as “high” or long-term dosages unless an appeal is approved. (Lynn R. Webster, 3/29)

Independent contractors and freelancers make up an increasing share of the workforce, yet Washington is largely neglecting the market where self-employed workers get health insurance. That's bad news for people in the burgeoning "gig economy," where work is divorced from an employer — and thus from employer-sponsored insurance. (Caitlin Owens, 3/30)

Kansas law requires children who attend day care or preschool to be immunized with an initial dose of measles-mumps-rubella between 12 and 15 months of age, but there’s no law requiring day care workers to be immunized. Kansas lawmakers should quickly rectify that to help prevent a future outbreak of the contagious disease. (3/29)

In mid-March thousands of students across the country left school to protest gun violence. The same day Sen. Chuck Grassley spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the mass shooting at a Florida high school. A transcript of his speech was sent to media in a press release. The subject line of the email was spot-on: We must hold government accountable for failures before the Parkland tragedy. Unfortunately, Grassley failed to demand accountability from the legislative branch of government. Congress has incredible power to limit access to firearms in this country, but too many members refuse to support meaningful reform.  (3/29)

Illinois’ economic and government dysfunction manifests itself in countless ways. One of the most damaging is population loss. People keep packing up and moving out because taxes smother them and government doesn’t stoke job growth — it hinders it. So a state that keeps losing people year after year — a net 33,703 fewer residents in 2017 — needs the most accurate count possible of who’s left. Why? Population is a basis for how many billions of dollars in federal money Illinois gets annually. It also dictates representation in the U.S. House, the Electoral College, and factors into setting boundaries for federal, state and local government districts. (3/29)

Don't downplay lead problems, or solutions, for kids in Flint water crisisMona Hanna-Attisha Published 7:59 Flint’s blood lead levels are not the worst in history nor even the worst in the country. But it is important to understand that the way children in Flint were exposed to lead — via drinking water and not the more-common lead exposure through paint, soil, air or dust — and the current screening procedures developed to test for exposure from those common sources were inadequate to document the extent of Flint's lead-poisoning problem. It's even more important to renew and refocus our efforts to ensure that kids in cities like Flint, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore and Philadelphia aren't exposed to lead in the first place. (Mona Hanna-Attisha, 3/28)

Much has been written about the escalating crisis of opioid-overdose deaths in the United States and its mounting social and economic costs. Although political and public health leaders have begun to confront this urgent problem, hidden beneath it lies another danger: the increasing spread of hepatitis C virus (HCV) associated with injection-opioid use. (Jake Liang and John W. Ward, 3/29)