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The Food and Drug Administration said it will resume inspections of some of the riskiest foods such as cheeses, produce and infant formula as early as Tuesday. The routine inspections had been briefly halted as a result of the partial government shutdown. (1/14)

"We are re-starting high risk food inspections as early as tomorrow," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb tweeted on Monday, noting that the inspections will be performed by employees who have agreed to come back to work unpaid. (Birnbaum, 1/14)

But Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the agency’s commissioner, said that he was asking employees to return from furlough to conduct some of the inspections and other agency functions involving surveillance of certain drugs, devices and potential outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. About one-third of all food safety inspections are for high-risk foods, he said. It was unclear when more routine inspections would resume. (Kaplan, 1/14)

The government shutdown could soon jeopardize highly anticipated new drugs from Janssen, Sanofi and Novartis for depression, diabetes and multiple sclerosis, as well as a host of other potential new therapies, according to a STAT analysis of upcoming regulatory decision dates. President Trump has warned that the shutdown — already the longest in history — could stretch on for “months or even years.” And though the Food and Drug Administration can retain more than half of its workforce thanks to application fees paid by drug and device makers, Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has cautioned the agency only has about three more weeks’ worth of funding to draw down. (Florko and Swetlitz, 1/14)

A federal court issued a nationwide injunction on Monday that prevents the Trump administration from interfering with women’s access to free birth control guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act. The decision, by Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the Federal District Court in Philadelphia, extends a losing streak for President Trump, who has repeatedly been set back in his efforts to allow employers to deny insurance coverage of contraceptives to which the employers object on religious or moral grounds. (Pear, 1/14)

U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia issued a nationwide injunction preventing the rules from taking effect, a day after another judge issued a more limited ruling blocking their enforcement in 13 states and the District of Columbia. The rules would let businesses or nonprofits lodge religious or moral objections to obtain exemptions from the Obamacare mandate that employers provide contraceptive coverage in health insurance with no copayment. (1/14)

In a 65-page opinion, Beetlestone concludes the Trump administration’s effort to carve out coverage of contraceptives for stricter limits than other types of preventive care “is inconsistent with the . . . text” of the ACA. And she rejects the contention that broader exemptions for birth control are required under a 1993 law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The judge said states would bear expenses from women seeking state-funded contraceptive services and from unintended pregnancies. Noting that federal health officials estimate 70,500 women would lose coverage under the policy, Beetlestone wrote: “The only serious disagreement is not whether the states will be harmed, but how much.” (Goldstein, 1/14)

The rule would allow employers with moral or religious objections to birth control to opt out of providing it to their employees. Numerous citizens could lose contraception coverage if the rule were enforced, Beetlestone wrote in her ruling, causing "significant, direct and proprietary harm" to the states through increased use of state-funded contraception services. (Hellmann, 1/14)

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and his New Jersey counterpart, Gurbir Grewal, who challenged exemption rules finalized in December, declared the decision a win for women. “Women need contraception for their health because contraception is medicine, pure and simple,” Shapiro said in a statement. (Larson, 1/14)

The rulings were early steps in what is likely to be a long court battle that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Officials in multiple states, including California, have sued the Trump administration over the contraception rules. “Until these discriminatory rules are blocked for good, the health and livelihoods of millions across the country are still threatened,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center, a liberal-leaning nonprofit that advocates for women and families. (Hackman, 1/14)

On most afternoons, people arrive from across New York City with backpacks and plastic bags filled with boxes of small plastic strips, forming a line on the sidewalk outside a Harlem storefront. Hanging from the awning, a banner reads: “Get cash with your extra diabetic test strips.” Each strip is a laminate of plastic and chemicals little bigger than a fingernail, a single-use diagnostic test for measuring blood sugar. More than 30 million Americans have Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and most use several test strips daily to monitor their condition. (Alcorn, 1/14)

One of the rare market bright spots last year, the U.S. healthcare sector remains a Wall Street darling despite a slow start to 2019. As 2019 begins, healthcare is the most favored of the 11 main S&P 500 sectors, according to a Reuters review of ratings from 13 large Wall Street research firms, which recommend how to weigh those groups in investment portfolios. (1/14)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is going to Canada for surgery — but don't accuse the staunch opponent of all things socialist of seeking public health care. He'll be paying for his care in full. "This is a private, world-renowned hospital separate from any system and people come from around the world to pay cash for their services,” a spokesperson told POLITICO. While the U.S. and Canada are often portrayed as having opposing health systems — one private, one public, the reality is more nuanced. Canada also offers some for-profit services, while the U.S. has federal health insurance programs. (Panetta, 1/14)

The surgery is related to the 2017 attack, the court document says. Boucher pleaded guilty to assaulting a member of Congress and was sentenced to 30 days in prison. Federal prosecutors are appealing the sentence, saying 21 months would have been appropriate. Paul is scheduled for surgery at Shouldice Hospital, which touts itself as a world leader in “non-mesh hernia repair.” (1/14)

In recent months, anti-abortion advocates have advocated for the cancellation of a federal research contract for fetal tissue procurement and pushed to halt other research they view as immoral. The results: a $2 million project to test HIV drugs derailed and another pair of studies, including one to develop cancer immunotherapies, left in limbo. The movement’s latest objective: to force President Trump to fire the renowned director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, the country’s top biomedical research scientist. (Facher and Thielking, 1/15)

Vice President Pence will speak at a fundraiser commemorating the country's largest anti-abortion march, organizers said Monday. The Rose Dinner, taking place Friday night, follows the March for Life, the annual march against abortion in Washington. (Hellmann, 1/14)

More than 400 abortions restrictions have become law in the last seven years throughout the United States, Wen said during a Friday interview. Twenty abortion-access related cases are one step beneath the Supreme Court — and if the high court takes any of them, the landmark 1973 case that guaranteed abortion rights could be further neutered, or erased. “The decision about someone’s health should not be made by politicians, whether they’re politicians in Washington or politicians in statehouses around the country,” [Leana] Wen said. (Kilpatrick, 1/13)

Emboldened by two conservative justices added to the U.S. Supreme Court in the past two years, a top Republican legislator believes Kentucky could be at the forefront of an effort to end legalized abortion nationwide. ...Undeterred by costs of litigation, lawmakers say Kentucky will push forward with a "fetal heartbeat" bill certain to face an immediate legal challenge if enacted. (Yetter, 1/14)

The opioid crisis in the United States has become so grim that Americans are now likelier to die of an overdose than in a vehicle crash. That’s according to a new report by the National Safety Council that analyzed the causes of preventable deaths in the country in 2017. The probability of dying from an opioid overdose, according to the report, is one in 96. The chances of dying in a vehicle crash? One in 103. (Mazzei, 1/14)

A mass drug overdose at a home in Chico, California, has killed one person and sent more than a dozen people to hospitals, police said. Chico Police Chief Michael O'Brien said the main substance involved is believed to be fentanyl -- the most commonly used drug in overdoses, according to a recent government report. (Boyette and Yan, 1/14)

Purdue Pharma on Monday asked the Kentucky Supreme Court to review a lower court decision that would unseal secret records about the company’s marketing of its opioid painkiller OxyContin. The legal fight stems from a motion filed by STAT in 2016 to make public sealed records believed to show how Purdue promoted OxyContin and what company executives knew about the addictive properties of the drug, which has been blamed for helping spawn the opioid addiction crisis. (Joseph, 1/14)

Lawmakers will hear testimony Tuesday on a bill to add opioid addiction as a qualifying condition for access to the state's medical marijuana program. It's the first time for the bill in New Hampshire, though it's been discussed in the past. (Tuohy, 1/14)

"Don't Die Wisconsin" podcasters Kevin Schaefer, an intervention specialist, and Patrick Reilly, an alcohol-and-other-drug-abuse program supervisor, will speak to parents about this topic. About a year ago, Schaefer, Reilly and Ryan Gorman, the podcast's "resident junkie," started the podcast based off of the "Don't Die Podcast" by Bob Forrest, a musician and drug counselor. (Kirby, 1/14)

Meet the average American man. He weighs 198 pounds and stands 5 feet 9 inches tall. He has a 40-inch waist, and his body mass index is 29, at the high end of the “overweight” category. The picture for the average woman? She is roughly 5 feet 4 inches tall, and weighs 171 pounds, with a 39-inch waist. Her B.M.I. is close to 30. (Bakalar, 1/14)

Click over to TV programming that caters to black and Hispanic youth and the commercials almost exclusively push fast food, sugary drinks, bad-for-you snacks and candy, a new report shows. Junk food comprised 86% of ad spending on black-targeted programming and 82% of spending on Spanish-language television in 2017, according to the study released Tuesday. (Ravitz, 1/15)

The British Nutrition Foundation released this month new portion-size guidelines designed to help people eat the right amounts of each food group -- and possibly help them avoid overeating. "It's really worth having a quick check of portion sizes before you're filling up with food because we know that it does take a little bit of time to get those fullness signals coming through," said Bridget Benelam, nutrition communications manager at the BNF. "Probably all of us have had the experience where you eat something and then you eat a bit more and perhaps a bit more and then 10 minutes later you feel much too full and you wish you had eaten a little less." (Thomas, 1/14)

Experiments involving just a few patients have hinted at it, and research on one type of tumor at a time has supported it, but a large study has now delivered the strongest evidence yet about how to identify cancer patients who are likely to benefit from a particular form of immunotherapy: count. Specifically, count how many mutations their tumor cells have. The higher this “tumor mutational burden,” concludes a study published on Monday in Nature Genetics, the likelier a patient is to go into remission, and possibly be cured, by checkpoint inhibitor drugs such as Bristol-Myers Squibb’s nivolumab (Opdivo) and Merck’s pembrolizumab (Keytruda). (Begley, 1/14)

When Joshua Mezrich was a medical student on the first day of surgical rotation, he was called into the operating room to witness a kidney transplant. What he saw that day changed him. After the donor kidney came out of ice and the clamps on it were released, he says, "it turned pink and literally, in front of my eyes, this urine just started squirting out onto the field." (Davies, 1/14)

One of the broadest studies of twins in the United States suggests that our genes tend to influence the diseases that afflict us more than where we live, according to research published Monday in the journal Nature Genetics. Using insurance claims data, researchers identified more than 56,000 pairs of twins and estimated the heritability of 560 diseases, finding that nearly a third of the variation in these conditions could be attributed to genetics, on average. Where people grew up was less contributory on the whole. (Nedelman, 1/14)

Pound for pound, the deadliest arms of all time are not nuclear but biological. A single gallon of anthrax, if suitably distributed, could end human life on Earth. Even so, the Trump administration has given scant attention to North Korea’s pursuit of living weapons — a threat that analysts describe as more immediate than its nuclear arms, which Pyongyang and Washington have been discussing for more than six months. (Baumgaertner and Broad, 1/15)

The death of a child is nearly always devastating and typically followed by an outpouring of support while parents mourn. But when a baby dies before it is born or shortly thereafter, parents are often alone in a hospital with a limited source of comfort and little, if any, opportunity to say goodbye to the baby — or babies. Enter the CuddleCot, a kind of refrigerated baby bed that helps preserve the body of a deceased newborn for days. The device gives parents a chance to bond with their babies — to love and hold them, take pictures, even take them home and take them for walks, creating memories to last a lifetime. (Brody, 1/14)

New research from the Penn State College of Medicine shows people with cancer are more than four times more likely to die of suicide than those without cancer, highlighting a need for a more comprehensive approach to treatment. ... For the study, published Monday in the journal Nature Communications, researchers examined data on more than 8.6 million cancer patients in the United States (28 percent of the country’s population) from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program. (Pirani, 1/14)

Kaiser Health News: Providers Walk ‘Fine Line’ Between Informing And Scaring Immigrant Patients

While the Trump administration decides whether to adopt a controversial policy that could jeopardize the legal status of immigrants who use public programs such as Medicaid, doctors and clinics are torn between informing patients about the potential risks and unnecessarily scaring them into dropping their coverage or avoiding care. “We are walking a fine line,” said Tara McCollum Plese, chief external affairs officer at the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers, which represents 176 clinics. “Until there is confirmation this indeed is going to be the policy, we don’t want to add to the angst and the concern.” (Ibarra, 1/15)

The brain-eating monsters are real enough — they lurk in freshwater ponds in much of the United States. Now scientists may have discovered a new way to kill them. Minuscule silver particles coated with anti-seizure drugs one day may be adapted to halt Naegleria fowleri, an exceptionally lethal microbe that invades through the sinuses and feeds on human brain tissue. (Baumgaertner, 1/14)

Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center has ousted its president, its chief nursing officer and a top physician following numerous reports of substandard care, including a recent mistake that led to a patient’s death, the Houston hospital announced Monday. The departures come in the wake of a yearlong investigation by the Houston Chronicle and ProPublica that documented an outsized number of deaths and unusual complications following heart transplants at St. Luke’s. (Hixenbaugh and Ornstein, 1/14)

Colorado sends about $2.9 billion annually in state and federal dollars to hospitals across the state, but the agency that regulates the hospitals doesn’t really know how it’s being spent. Lawmakers from both parties have wanted to change that for years, but they could never agree on the details. Now, Democrats see their control of the statehouse as an opportunity to unravel some of health care’s mysteries as well as some of its costs. (Staver, 1/14)

Minnesota's pioneering health insurance program for lower-income residents, MinnesotaCare, would be expanded to a much broader swath of the population under two DFL proposals introduced last week in the House. The proposals, known as MinnesotaCare buy-in, would leverage the purchasing power of government health programs to offer coverage with lower premiums and out-of-pocket costs than commercial insurance in the private market for Minnesotans who make more than the program's current income limits. (Howatt, 1/14)

Gov. Laura Kelly has fought for years to help fix Kansas’ troubled foster care system, where kids have gone missing and slept in offices because there were no beds. Now that she’s leading the state, the former senator faces pressure to turn around the system that serves the state’s most vulnerable children. (Bauer, 1/15)

The owner of a long-term care facility in Arizona where a patient in a vegetative state was impregnated and gave birth last month has hired a former Maricopa County Attorney to lead an internal investigation into the "facts and circumstances" leading up to the sexual assault. On Sunday, Phoenix-based Hacienda Healthcare confirmed in a statement that it had recruited Rick Romley "to ensure a comprehensive, objective and transparent review of the facts of this deeply disturbing matter." (Romo, 1/14)

The city of Denver and the Mental Health Center of Denver will create a new facility where dozens of people can recover from mental health crises in the Sun Valley neighborhood, despite neighbors’ opposition. To its supporters, it’s a groundbreaking step toward a new model of mental health care for people experiencing homelessness. To some of Sun Valley’s community leaders, it was one more burden for a long-neglected neighborhood. (Kenney, 1/15)

While Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that Mary Mayhew will take the helm at the state Agency for Health Care Administration, it hasn’t been made clear when she will begin the job or how much she will earn. What is crystal clear, though, is DeSantis is thrilled that Mayhew, who for three months headed the federal Medicaid program, is Florida-bound. (Sexton, 1/14)

Cuyahoga County’s Board of Control on Monday approved up to $300,000 to keep more nurses at the county jail until MetroHealth takes over all jail health-care operations. The money continues a contract with Cleveland-based Educare Medical Staffing to temporarily provide nurses at times when the county’s permanent jail nurses are understaffed and unable to meet the needs of inmates. (Astolfi, 1/14)

As Texas’ Republican leadership calls for property tax cuts and a school finance overhaul, the Texas House on Monday pitched a bold proposal: Pump roughly $7 billion more state funds into public schools — but only if lawmakers can satisfactorily overhaul the school finance system to slow the growth of property taxes. ...Included in school safety funding would be about $12 million for children’s mental health programs. (Walterns, 1/14)

One SHBP wellness plan, launched by Atlanta-based digital health company Sharecare, would reward members who meet goals this year with a $150 Walmart gift card, and Walmart will contribute an additional $75 for members to use on prescription medications and vision products. Another potential reward is a $150 Visa gift card, in a plan also administered by Sharecare. Employees who have Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield or UnitedHealthcare are eligible for the rewards, and state workers’ covered spouses get a chance to qualify for their own gift cards. (Miller, 1/14)

The Equity Indicators report found black children are 10 times as likely as white children to visit the emergency room for asthma-related health problems, making it the lowest-scoring indicator of the 72 measures studied by the city. The report is part of the city’s larger Equity Indicators Project, which measures racial disparities in health care, education, employment and other areas. (Fentem, 1/14)

Last September, the U.S. Department of the Interior ruled that it could no longer hold land in trust for the tribe. ... That would mean the tribe would basically have to create a new private school, which adheres to state regulations. They would have to get approval from the Mashpee Public Schools committee. The tribe would also have to create systems for gathering and reporting student health, attendance and other data. (Jung, 1/14)

An attorney representing the families of two children in litigation against DCYF says a new report from the Office of the Child Advocate doesn't go far enough. Rus Rilee represents the families of Brielle Gage and Sadee Willott, two toddlers who were killed by abusive mothers in separate incidents in 2014 and 2015. (Moon, 1/14)

As Atlanta readies for the Super Bowl, the school system is amping up efforts to train teachers and inform students about the risk of human trafficking. Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said students are in danger of being sexually exploited every day, and the Super Bowl is one more event that increases that risk. (McCray, 1/14)

With one of his chief advisers tweeting the hashtag “NoSmokeIsAJoke,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday he will “very soon” announce changes in how the state is carrying out a constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana. DeSantis, a Republican, said many voters believe the state has been “foot dragging” in implementing the amendment, largely bankrolled by Orlando trial lawyer John Morgan and approved by more than 71 percent of voters in 2016. (Kam, 1/15)

Despite a relentless eight-year Republican campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act, it remains largely intact. Through it, nearly 20 million Americans gained health insurance. Many others benefited from new protections, such as ensuring that people can’t be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions and the elimination of limits on lifetime benefits that has protected thousands of vulnerable Americans from bankruptcy. Unable to achieve legislative success, Republicans have found a new strategy to remake health policy: deploying administrative burdens to make it harder for millions of Americans to gain access to health care. (Pamela Herd and Donald P. Moynihan, 1/15)

Like every other business, health care goes where the money is. The latest local example: walk-in urgent care centers. Chestnut Hill has three within a 15 minute drive. Cambridge has four. “But no companies have rushed to open urgent care centers in Dorchester, Roxbury, or other low-income neighborhoods in Boston,” reported the Globe’s Liz Kowalczyk and Priyanka Dayal McCluskey. It’s more proof — as if more is needed — of America’s two-tiered health care system, and the growing divide between the haves and the have-nots. (Joan Vennochi , 1/14)

At first glance, the new Gallup data showing that 70 percent of Americans view the U.S. healthcare system as having "major problems" or being in a "state of crisis" suggests a remarkable amount of stability on the question.With all the changes that have taken place in healthcare since 2002 — most notably, the introduction of the prescription drug benefit to Medicare and Obamacare — the number of Americans seeing at least major problems with the healthcare system has been relatively constant. It's reached as low as 65 percent during that time and as high as 73 percent, but always basically within the range of seven in 10 people. (Philip Klein, 1/14)

As a nurse working in the health-care system in Chicago, I have witnessed many  homeless patients who weeks after discharging them, are nearby on the street holding cardboard signs with the words, “No home, no food, no job.” Knowing what some of these patients were treated for, I also know they can add, “No way to pay for medications.” What puts these people in this position is a failure in the system—not just locally, but nationwide — to address lack of access to health care as a factor of homelessness. (Tricia Kierny, 1/14)

About 100 Americans die every day from gun violence. While deaths continue to rise, an endless debate pits “gun control” against “gun rights” advocates.  As a primary care physician and epidemiologist, I think we’re having the wrong conversation.  If we’re serious about saving lives, physicians need to promote gun safety literacy— an understanding of the risks and benefits of gun ownership and of what we, as a society, can and should do to make our communities safer. (Gregory Engel, 1/11)

Last summer I took part in a 24-hour fast, as part of a “Break Bread Not Families” prayer and fasting chain. I spent a day not eating, in spiritual solidarity with the 2,400 children who had been separated from a parent at the border. Many of these children were being detained a few miles from my house in McAllen, Tex., where their parents were signing deportation papers on the promise of reunification — and where President Trump visited last Thursday. The hosting organization was LUPE (La Unión del Pueblo Entero), a nonprofit organization that works on local issues in South Texas and was founded by the labor activists Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez in 1989. (Mariana Alessandri, 1/14)

Today, mental illnesses are considered shameful. We are associated with depravity, with uncleanliness, with being “druggies” or we are thought to be dangerous. Society is harsh toward people with a mental illness. Being on the receiving end of this is rough. Although my behavior has not always been pristine, I try my best to do the right thing. (Jack Bragen, 1/11)

Are we underestimating the harms of legalizing marijuana? Those who hold this view have been in the news recently, saying that research shows we are moving too far too fast without understanding the damage. America is in the midst of a sea change in policies on pot, and we should all be a bit nervous about unintended consequences. (Aaron E. Carroll, 1/14)

Any assumption that vaping is safer than smoking has been dispelled by many studies, including one at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Vaping is not safe, and there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. (John Michael Pierobon, 1/11)

No governor has grasped the evidence so firmly: Nurturing the health and cognitive growth of children before they start school yields the strongest returns to public investment. Suffering from dyslexia as a child, [Gavin] Newsom felt the pain of falling behind at school and in everyday life. ...Newsom must now work with legislative leaders, children’s advocates and labor chieftains to mix the bricks and mortar, bringing his pro-family village to life. They already face prickly dilemmas. (Bruce Fuller, 1/13)

A cost-of-living refund to put money back in the pockets of low-income Californians who need it most is one solution. Delivered as a tax refund based on earnings, the Earned Income Tax Credit is one of the most powerful mechanisms to address affordability and inequality, while giving people the ability to put resources toward their most pressing needs. (Natalie Foster and Chris Hoene, 1/14)

By transitioning retired employees to Covered California (the state’s excellent health care exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act), unblending the medical insurance premium rates paid by active and retired employees, and limiting subsidies to retirees with less than $50,000 in household income, Glendale reduced in 2015 its retiree health liabilities and spending by more than 90 percent. If that model was applied to the state’s 2017 retiree health liability, it would allow the state to reduce its liabilities by more than $80 billion and to save more than $2 billion per year. (David Crane, 1/14)

Both educators and the police have important roles to play in protecting public safety. But confusing those roles can do more harm than good. Children learn best when they are in a trusting, supportive environment. (Sara Collins and Amelia Vance, 1/11)