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The Government Accountability Office will investigate whether members of Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida, improperly influenced the Department of Veterans Affairs, including over a $10 billion contract to modernize veterans’ health records, according to a letter from the watchdog office released by Democratic lawmakers Monday. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) had requested an investigation in August following reports that Trump confidant Ike Perlmutter, chairman of Marvel Entertainment, and Bruce Moskowitz, a West Palm Beach doctor, used their access to the club — and the president — to delay and shape a plan to overhaul digital health records at the VA. (Woellert, 11/26)

For an estimated 500,000 veterans, being put out of the military with an other than honorable discharge is a source of shame and an obstacle to employment. "Bad paper," in most cases, means no benefits or health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs — even when the problems that got them kicked out were linked to PTSD, traumatic brain injury or military sexual assault. But last month, Connecticut opened state VA resources to vets who can show that one of those conditions is linked to their discharge. For veterans like Thomas Burke, now a youth minister at Norfield Congregational Church, it's part of a long path to recovery. (Lawrence, 11/26)

Ever since scientists created the powerful gene editing technique Crispr, they have braced apprehensively for the day when it would be used to create a genetically altered human being. Many nations banned such work, fearing it could be misused to alter everything from eye color to I.Q. Now, the moment they feared may have come. On Monday, a scientist in China announced that he had created the world’s first genetically edited babies, twin girls who were born this month. (Kolata, Wee, and Belluck, 11/26)

The ethical debate over “designer babies” has focused on using gene-editing to select such traits as eye color, intelligence or athletic prowess. But He focused on another trait that is highly prized in China: resistance to HIV. He had recruited seven couples in which the prospective father was HIV-positive and the mother was not. The couples were offered free fertility treatments and the chance to have a gene called CCR5 disabled in their embryos. The edit was made when the woman’s eggs were fertilized with her husband’s sperm in a laboratory dish. Of 22 embryos created, 16 got the experimental treatment. Eleven of those embryos were implanted into six women before the twin pregnancy was achieved, He told the Associated Press. (Healy, 11/26)

He is now facing investigation by a local medical ethics board to see whether his experiment broke Chinese laws or regulations. The university where He worked issued a statement that officials were "deeply shocked" by the experiment, which it stressed was conducted elsewhere. He, the statement says, has been on unpaid leave from the university. (Stein, 11/26)

No one knows exactly how He Jiankui, on leave from Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, did it. Scientists gathered in Hong Kong at an international summit on human genome editing will have to wait until Wednesday to hear He describe his work in more detail. Here’s what we do know. (Cooney, 11/26)

More than 100 scientists, most of them in China, have condemned as "crazy" and unethical altering human genes after a geneticist claimed he had changed the genes of twin girls to create the first gene-edited babies. In an open letter circulating online, the scientists said the use of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to edit the genes of human embryos was risky, unjustified and harmed the reputation and development of the biomedical community in China. (11/27)

There is wide scientific agreement that rewriting DNA before birth — to prevent an inherited disease or to give a baby some "designer" trait — isn't yet safe to try outside laboratory experiments that do not lead to human births. "Grossly premature and deeply unethical," is how noted U.S. bioethicist Henry Greely of Stanford University characterized the claim. (Neergaard and Ritter, 11/26)

The unverified claim by He came on the eve of an international summit dedicated to discussing the emerging science and ethics around powerful tools that give scientists unprecedented potential to tweak traits and eliminate genetic diseases — but that have raised fears of “designer babies.” By editing the DNA of human embryos, scientists change not just the genes in a single person, but also their potential offspring — in effect, altering the human species. (Johnson, 11/26)

“I am trying to understand what may have motivated the work he describes,” said a scientist who helped organize a major Hong Kong summit on human genome editing that starts Tuesday and who asked not to be named. “As far as I can tell, it was a combination of hubris, naivete, and perhaps a genuine desire to help people in need. He does not seem to have anticipated the profound public backlash against his work and the way it was conducted and publicized.” He clearly knew the attention that his announcement would get. He reportedly worked with an American public relations specialist; gave advance interviews to the Associated Press, which has a global reach; timed the big reveal to the start of the summit; and posted a series of YouTube videos in English celebrating the achievement. (Joseph, Robbins and Begley, 11/26)

Rice University said Monday that it had opened a “full investigation” into the involvement of one of its faculty members in a study that purportedly resulted in the creation of the world’s first babies born with edited DNA. Michael Deem, a bioengineering professor at Rice, told the Associated Press in a story published Sunday that he helped work on the research in China. (Joseph, 11/26)

A Chinese scientist’s claim that he used a powerful new gene-editing technique to change the embryonic DNA of twins drew fire Monday from ethicists and doctors in Massachusetts and from a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped invent the tool. The scientist’s work was carried out in secrecy, and the results were not published in a peer-reviewed journal, prompting some to question the claim. But if it’s true, several ethicists and physicians said, the experiment could threaten the babies’ health and represent an alarming step toward a new world of so-called designer babies. (Saltzman and Freyer, 11/27)

It’s O.K. to eat romaine lettuce again, federal health officials said on Monday — as long as you’re sure it wasn’t grown on California’s north and central coast. The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said investigators had traced the romaine lettuce associated with an outbreak of E. coli that has sickened 65 people in 12 states and Canada to “end of summer” romaine lettuce harvested from that region. (Kaplan, 11/26)

People shouldn’t eat romaine that doesn’t have the label information, the FDA said. For romaine that doesn’t come in packaging, grocers and retailers are being asked to post the information by the register. Romaine harvesting recently began shifting from California’s Central Coast to winter growing areas, primarily Arizona, Florida, Mexico and California’s Imperial Valley. Those winter regions weren’t yet shipping when the illnesses began. The FDA also noted hydroponically grown romaine and romaine grown in greenhouses aren’t implicated in the outbreak. (Choi, 11/26)

The new warning from the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came as the number of people sickened by the outbreak grew to 43 people in 12 states. Sixteen of those people have been hospitalized, including one person with severe kidney failure. No deaths have been reported. The updated information follows an unusually broad warning that federal health officials issued two days before Thanksgiving, telling consumers to throw away any romaine lettuce they may already have purchased. (Sun, 11/26)

The current E. coli outbreak is the third linked to leafy greens within the past year. The FDA said 11 more people had been sickened in the outbreak, bringing the total to 43 people in 12 states. Sixteen people have been hospitalized, and one has developed a form of kidney failure, according to the CDC. Twenty-two people have also fallen ill in Canada, and officials in that country have advised people in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick to avoid eating the lettuce. (Newman, 11/26)

Over the last decade, Ayoub, who is 59, has become one of the most active expert witnesses in the United States on behalf of accused child abusers. ...Ayoub, though, doesn’t specialize in treating children. He is not a pediatrician or a pediatric radiologist. Much of his knowledge about rickets in infants comes from reading studies and textbooks, he has said on the stand, rather than formal training. (Armstrong, 11/27)

One argument for rolling back environmental regulations — as is occurring under the Trump administration — is that a lighter touch on industry will lift investment and economic growth. But increased pollution can also have long-term negative economic consequences. The effects on health are bad enough on their own, and are well understood. ... Less well understood is how this can affect things like educational and economic outcomes. Many studies, some focused on regions of the United States, others on cities elsewhere, have documented this kind of relationship: It’s harder to perform well at work or school if you don’t feel well. Additionally, if school performance suffers as a result of health problems, that threatens long-term work and earnings prospects. (Frakt, 11/27)

Otis Grimm is squealing with joy as he swings, lying belly-down in a blue net swing, trying to reach the ladder before him. The 7-year-old’s goal: to pull himself up a few rungs and grab a bean bag from the bucket dangling enticingly above him. This isn’t gymnastics class or a playground—it’s a therapy session. Otis is part of a study at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Health System where researchers are testing two autism therapies and how they affect the brain. “The bean bags are all the way up there. How are you going to go up there?” Tim Conly, a senior occupational therapist at Montefiore, asks Otis. (Reddy, 11/26)

Probiotics, the beneficial bacteria that live in our digestive tracts, are widely used to treat gastroenteritis or “stomach flu,” an inflammation of the stomach and intestines usually caused by a virus or bacterium. But a randomized clinical trial has found that the treatment is ineffective. Researchers studied 971 children 3 months to 4 years old who arrived in emergency rooms with the typical symptoms of gastroenteritis — nausea, vomiting, watery diarrhea and dehydration, stomach pain and cramps. They were randomly assigned to a five-day course of Lactobacillus rhamnosus, a commonly studied probiotic, or a placebo. (Bakalar, 11/26)

Therapists often use a technique that involves exposing patients to the source of their fears to conquer them, but a new study suggests that guided imagining of the source of fear can be just as effective. The traditional method, called threat extinction, relies on triggering areas of the brain involved in perception, memory, learning and imagination, and the authors of the new study show the same processes occur when the fear source is “simulated” by imagining it. (Carroll, 11/27)

In 2003, Jay Siegel was up for a new challenge. Siegel was a tenured professor of chemistry at the University of California, San Diego, but he took a job at the University of Zurich. "When I first moved, people said, 'Oh, you're crazy to leave San Diego; it's a paradise. Why would you go to Europe? Blah, blah blah,' "recalls Siegel. "And after 10 years people were saying, 'Oh, man, that was the smartest thing you ever did. Zurich is wonderful.' " (Palca, 11/27)

She strolled slowly through the neighborhood, a down-to-earth sprawl of sun-blasted ranch houses, and Sandra Lee was in her element. In contrast to her high-gloss public persona, Ms. Lee wore a simple, loose-fitting dress, no makeup, the only thing adorning her face a pair of oversized sunglasses. Still, she could not contain her inner rah-rah: Whenever a jogger passed, she stopped to cheer them on. And then she resumed the conversation, back to the art of the undersell. (McKinley, 11/27)

Pfizer recalled six lots of eight-hour Thermacare HeatWraps, used for joint, muscle and menstrual pain, after finding the wraps might leak. ... If this sounds familiar, Publix announced the recall of the lots it sells Oct. 3 after Pfizer told retailers of the recall. (Neal, 11/26)

Diabetes is taking a harsher-than-recognized toll on young adults, who struggle with blood sugar control and end up in hospital care more often than older adults with the chronic disease. The finding, reported Monday by the Minnesota Department of Health, didn’t surprise doctors who work daily with young and old patients, but it suggests that health officials may need to rethink the state’s diabetes support programs, which tend to target people 45 or older. (Olson, 11/26)

Kaiser Health News: One Twin’s Difficult Birth Puts A Project Designed To Reduce C-Sections To The Test

The tiny hand and forearm slipped out too early. Babies are not delivered shoulder first. Dr. Terri Marino, an obstetrician in the Boston area who specializes in high-risk deliveries, tucked it back inside the boy’s mother. “He was trying to shake my hand and I was like, ‘I’m not having this — put your hand back in there,'” Marino would say later, after all 5 pounds, 1 ounce of the baby lay wailing under a heating lamp.This is the story of how that baby, Bryce McDougall, tested the best efforts of more than a dozen medical staffers at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., that day last summer. (Bebinger, 11/27)

Children with concussions should be able to continue exercising and using electronics, according to new treatment guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics. For years, doctors have recommended children who suffered a concussion stay in a dark room with few distractions with the belief it would speed up healing. The new guidance encourages pediatricians to recommend that children engage in moderate exercise and electronics use. (Fentem, 11/26)

President Donald Trump is falsely asserting that the federal policy that split migrant families at the border was practiced by his predecessor, Barack Obama, as well. The Obama and Trump administrations operated under the same immigration laws but the "zero tolerance" policy that drove children from their parents was Trump's. (Woodward, 11/27)

In one government facility for immigrant youth, a 20-year-old woman who had lied that she was 17 sneaked a needle out of a sewing class and used it to cut herself. In another, cameras captured a boy repeatedly kicking a child in the head after they got into an argument on the soccer field. One 6-year-old tried to run away from the same facility after another boy threw his shoes into the toilet. Three employees had to pull the boy off a fence and carry him back into a building. (Merchant, 11/24)

Local nonprofits worry that a growing number of foreign-born residents are forgoing health care, fearing medical help could jeopardize their immigration status. It’s difficult to quantify the number of immigrants who are choosing to decline health care because evidence is anecdotal. But OLE Health, the Napa Valley’s second-largest health care provider behind Kaiser Permanente, says it may have statistics that offer a glimpse into the problem. The organization serves many immigrants. More than 900 OLE Health clients have disenrolled from Partnership Health Plan, a Northern California health care organization that manages benefits for 560,000 low-income residents on the state-run insurance plan Medi-Cal. Most of those patients were children. (Teague, 11/25)

Nevada Health Link staff members are fielding calls from Obamacare health plan consumers who worry that accepting subsidies on their otherwise expensive plans could affect their chances to obtain citizenship. It’s one side effect of the Trump administration’s proposed public charge rule, which would consider use of public programs as a basis for denial of an immigrant’s petition to legally enter the United States, obtain a green card or adjust their immigration status. The rule wouldn’t apply to subsidies on the health insurance exchange, which sells plans through the Affordable Care Act, nor would it apply to green card holders seeking citizenship. (Bekker, 11/25)

U.S. health officials said Monday they plan to overhaul the nation's decades-old system for approving most medical devices, which has long been criticized by experts for failing to catch problems with risky implants and related products. The Food and Drug Administration announced plans aimed at making sure new medical devices reflect up-to-date safety and effectiveness features. The system targeted by the actions generally allows manufacturers to launch new products based on similarities to decades-old products, not new clinical testing in patients. (Perrone, 11/26)

“It’s time to fundamentally modernize an approach first adopted in 1976, when Congress considered the vast diversity of devices” entering the U.S. market, senior FDA officials said in a statement disclosed Monday. The officials are FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and Jeffrey Shuren, director of the agency’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. Drs. Gottlieb and Shuren said the agency plans to drive companies “toward reliance on more modern predicate devices or objective performance criteria.” Their plan is to shift companies, if they continue with the use of predicate devices, toward those no older than 10 years rather than the 40-year precedents now. (Burton, 11/26)

For nearly two decades, health advocates have pushed to standardize the way medical devices are tracked and studied. They eventually landed on a solution that others, including other parts of the medical industry, already had adopted — a unique code to help track the type, manufacturer and other key information about a device. In 2007, Congress asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to create the system, and the FDA passed a final rule establishing it in 2013. (Hoyer, 11/26)

To all the world, it looked like breast implants were safe. From 2008 to 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration publicly reported 200 or so complaints annually — a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of implant surgeries performed each year. Then last fall, something strange happened: Thousands of problems with breast implants flooded the FDA's system. More than 4,000 injury reports filed in the last half of 2017. Another 8,000 in the first six months of 2018. (Hoyer, 11/26)

Shares of CVS Health and Aetna are rising with the companies now saying they expect to close their $69 billion tie-up later this week. The companies say in regulatory filings that they have the final regulatory approval needed and expect to close on or around Wednesday. CVS Health Corp. had told investors earlier this month that it expected to close the deal for the nation's third-largest health insurer before Thanksgiving. But its shares slipped last week after the drugstore chain and pharmacy benefit manager said it still lacked approval from two states. (11/26)

On Monday, the New York State Department of Financial Services announced it would approve the deal after CVS and Aetna Health Insurance Co. of New York agreed to a range of consumer protections and said they would spend $40 million on health insurance education measures. CVS said in a securities filing Monday it may complete the deal on Nov. 28. A CVS spokeswoman confirmed the company now has all state-level permissions for the merger in place. (Maidenberg, 11/26)

Aetna and CVS say that the merger will improve health-care outcomes and reduce costs immediately. They have plans to turn CVS’s 10,000 pharmacies and clinics into community-based sites of care with nurses and other health professionals available to give diagnoses or do lab work. The merger also means that there will no longer be any independent pharmacy benefit managers in the U.S. (Weixel, 11/26)

The deal was cleared by the U.S. Justice Department in October with the condition that Aetna divest its Medicare prescription drug business. On Monday, New York—one of the remaining regulatory holdouts—approved the combination with several conditions, including limits on raising health insurance premiums and a promise to invest in insurance education and enrollment activities. (Livingston, 11/26)

Doctors who are opposed to abortions don't have to provide them. Since the 1970s, a series of federal rules have provided clinicians with "conscience protections" that help them keep their jobs if they don't want to perform or assist with the procedure. Religious hospitals are also protected. Catholic health care systems, for example, are protected if they choose not to provide abortions or sterilizations. Doctors who work for religious hospitals usually sign contracts that they'll uphold religious values in their work. (Gordon, 11/26)

When Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court this year, the bench tipped to the right, leading abortion rights supporters and opponents to wonder about the fate of the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision. Mary Volcansek, a political science professor at Texas Christian University, said despite abortion being legal for the last 45 years, many states — including Texas — have passed highly restrictive laws, making Roe almost irrelevant. (Stone, 11/26)

As Baby Boomers reach retirement, a perfect storm is set to hit nursing homes as a surge in the number of aging Texans, known as the Silver Tsunami, is projected to affect long term care services across the state. More than 12 percent of the Texas population is over 65, and that number is growing. According to the Texas Demographic Center, the over-65 population across the state is projected to increase by more than 262 percent by 2050. (11/27)

Seven inmates died from June 10 to Oct. 2, including three who committed suicide. The U.S. Marshals issued a scathing report Wednesday that said the conditions in the jail are “inhumane” and dangerous for both inmates and corrections officers. The understaffing of mental health providers at the jail has drawn criticism from Cuyahoga County judges and scrutiny from FBI agents, who are looking into possible civil right violations at the jail, according to two people interviewed by the FBI. (Ferrise and Astolfi, 11/26)

The doctor who publicly criticized the operation of Georgia’s prison hospital when he resigned earlier this year has filed a lawsuit accusing state officials of forcing him out of his job for previously leaking information to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The federal lawsuit filed by Dr. Timothy Young asserts that those responsible for managing Augusta State Medical Prison suspected that he was a source for AJC articles about the facility and made his already “deplorable” working conditions so difficult he had to resign. (Robbins, 11/26)

After a recent slew of damning headlines regarding conditions within Texas prisons, reform advocates and lawmakers are hopeful that the timing is right to get legislation passed creating independent oversight of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. State Rep. Jarvis Johnson, D-Houston, and state Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, filed identical bills in their respective chambers last week calling for a governor-appointed, independent ombudsman's office to oversee and investigate complaints against the prison agency. (Wiley, 11/26)

The West Allis emergency room started offering patients acupuncture as an option in January 2017. The more than 50 percent of patients who accepted acupuncture treatments reported pain reduction of up to 50 percent, said John Burns, manager of acupuncture for the Aurora Healthcare system. That's up there with Oxycodone in terms of effectiveness, although it would take a head-to-head study to do a scientific comparison, he said. (Ford-Stewart, 11/26)

Warren County's mobile crisis response team responded to 44 cases in its first four months of operation. The unit was launched in July by Central Iowa Community Services, a mental health and disability services agency that operates in 11 counties. ...The team is staffed by therapists, nurses and social workers from Eyerly Ball Community Mental Health Services, who respond to calls for support from local police and family members concerned a loved one might be experiencing a mental health crisis. (Albertson, 11/26)

CentraCare expects to close in January on a deal that would transfer ownership of Redwood Area Hospital to a subsidiary of the St. Cloud-based health care system, in a transaction that calls for a $60 million capital investment over the next 10 years. First announced earlier this year, the deal for the hospital in the town of Redwood Falls is the latest in a series of transactions that has grown the size and scope of CentraCare, which includes St. Cloud Hospital. (Snowbeck, 11/26)

Every year, federal OSHA conducts an audit of all 28 state plans to ensure they are "at least as effective" as the federal agency at identifying and preventing workplace hazards. According to this year's audit of Kentucky, which covered fiscal year 2017, KY OSH is not meeting that standard. In fact, federal OSHA identified more shortcomings in Kentucky's program than any other state. (Kibanoff, 11/26)

For years, a bacteria known as Clostridium difficile that can cause intestinal infections, crippling diarrhea and even death was thought to be a problem confined to hospitals and care facilities. But some evidence suggests that more cases of C. diff, as it's more commonly known, are occurring outside of hospital settings, posing a challenge for health care professionals working to prevent its spread. (Marohn, 11/26)

The Santa Rosa City Schools District started the center temporarily in an empty school building during the holidays last year after the Tubbs fire when it was clear families were going to continue to need help during the school break. It's since become a permanent community clinic of sorts, open three days a week after school. (McEvoy, 11/26)

Tired of quick turnover and of losing nurses to other employers, Ramsey County will start providing in-house health care for inmates at the county jail and other detention facilities. The county will essentially create a new health division for its four correctional facilities, adding five full-time nurses, three mental health professionals, four clerical workers as well as a part-time physician and part-time psychiatrist to its existing staff. (Stanley, 11/26)

Austin-based technology company ClearData has raised $26 million to help the company continue to modernize health care through its cloud computing platform. ClearData, which moved its headquarters from Tempe, Arizona to Austin in 2016, provides cloud computing services to health care companies, helping them store and protect patient data and other applications. (Cobler, 11/26)

The program at the Delaware Kroger this month was funded by the OhioHealth Foundation Home in Ohio initiative with a $7,000 grant that also funded a cooking demonstration at the OhioHealth Delaware Health Center. The goal was to help cancer patients learn tricks for finding healthy foods that they can make and eat when treatment leaves them underweight, malnourished, fatigued, nauseated or with new sensitivities to smells or tastes, said Maria Tucker, an administrative nurse manager in oncology and infusion care at the Delaware Health Center. (Viviano, 11/27)

Access to birth control is crucial to ensuring women can control their lives, plan their families and, in many cases, manage ongoing medical conditions. Yet by pushing to let more employers deny insurance coverage for contraceptives, the Trump administration is treating birth control as some kind of novelty, rather than the medical necessity it is for millions of women. Final rules issued by the federal government this month will let many more employers claim religious or moral exemptions from providing birth-control coverage. (11/25)

The incoming 116th Congress will contain not only the highest ever number of women, but also a record number of women veterans. As they consider what issues to take on, expanding reproductive health care access for women veterans should be a priority: currently, women veterans do not receive equitable care on multiple fronts. Increasing their coverage goes beyond symbolic moves to change VA’s motto by providing tangible benefits. There are three key areas requiring Congressional attention: in vitro fertilization (IVF), contraception, and abortion. (Kayla Williams, 11/26)

A federal judge last week struck down a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Even supporters of abortion rights may wonder why a woman would need an abortion so late.I was 24 when I accidentally got pregnant. I come from a family of well-educated New York feminists who had babies in their 30s, and many of my friends were scandalized by the idea that I would carry the child to term. Some even suggested I have an abortion. But by the time I went to the obstetrician, I was prepared to be a mother. I was delighted to see the fetal heartbeat and that little round smudge of a nose. The doctor did some routine blood work. Later I got a call from a nurse: I needed to come in. (Molly Jong-Fast, 11/26)

A scientist in China claims to have produced the world’s first genome-edited babies by altering their DNA to increase their resistance to HIV. ...If true, this is a significant advance in genetic science, but there are some very serious problems with this news. First, the research has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal so we cannot be sure of the exact details of what has been done. Instead, the scientist made the claims to the Associated Press, and the journalists involved haven’t been able to independently verify them. The parents of the allegedly gene-edited babies declined to be interviewed or identified. (Joyce Harper, 11/27)

A scientist on mainland China claims to have altered the DNA of twin girls in an attempt to make them more resistant to HIV, the AIDS virus. He says he's been tinkering with DNA for several couples, resulting in that one pregnancy. Gene editing is banned in the United States, but that's not keeping scientists awake at night in China. ..If what this scientist claims is true, then mankind could be looking at a revolution of sorts. Of course the practice of ethics will have to be revolutionized, too. Or should we think about that minor detail? Can we safely leave all of that up to scientists, or lawmakers in various countries? Yes, some will see this as a form of medicine, and genetic diseases will be a thing of the past, like polio. Others see a slippery slope--and eugenics. (11/27)

Gene drive and other methods of editing the genomes of wild organisms could save millions of lives and prevent billions of animals from suffering each year. But advances that are intended to alter the shared environment must be developed and used wisely, if at all. For the foreseeable future, that means by nonprofits. Gene drive is a ubiquitous natural phenomenon in which genetic elements are inherited more often than usual, allowing them to quickly spread through wild populations even if they don’t help organisms reproduce. Engineered gene drives use modern genome editing tools such as CRISPR to duplicate this effect. Unlike a normal edit, gene drive systems could lastingly alter or suppress local or global populations of a target species, potentially eradicating insect-borne diseases, healing damaged ecosystems, and preventing animal suffering. (Kevin M. Esvelt, 11/27)

The meeting with my patient’s family is about to start. Her father smiles hopefully in my direction while her mother clutches her purse to her chest. They must be anxious. Their daughter, Nohely, is nearly 30 years old, with cerebral palsy and learning disabilities. It sounds like she had a good life before things went downhill: a day program that she enjoyed during the week, friends and teachers who cared about her, Zumba class with her father on the weekends, and loving parents. Then a cough turned into pneumonia. (Daniela Lamas, 11/27)

Candidate Gavin Newsom promised the people of California that he would get them universal health care. Gov. Gavin Newsom is not going to fulfill that promise. And that’s fine. He won’t be the first politician to make a commitment on the campaign trail that didn’t happen once he took office. He certainly won’t be the last. (Dan Schnur, 11/26)

As many as 670,000 North Carolinians could gain sorely needed Medicaid coverage if Gov. Roy Cooper and members of both parties in the legislature will work together to help them.Now that voters have restored some balance to the state’s power structure, that idea isn’t so far-fetched anymore. Voters elected enough Democrats on Nov. 6 to break the Republican supermajorities in the legislature, meaning that Cooper now has a credible threat of veto and Republicans won’t necessarily get their way on every issue. (11/25)