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The Trump administration is preparing a package of legislative measures responding to a spate of recent mass shootings, aides said Monday, even as White House and congressional staffs remain far apart on the best path forward. The package will include legislation that would expedite the death penalty for people found guilty of mass killings, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff told reporters. But it's unlikely to include new provisions expanding background checks on gun sales after President Donald Trump backed off support for such steps following outcry from the National Rifle Association and warnings about the political consequences. (Liptak, 9/2)

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has drafted legislation that would speed the death penalty for people who have committed mass murder, a White House official said on Monday. Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, told reporters on Air Force 2 that the measure would be part of a package of gun legislation that the White House intends to propose to Congress. (9/2)

Following Saturday’s shootings in West Texas, President Donald Trump on Sunday remained firm that his “administration is committed to working with Congress to stop the menace of mass attacks” but did not include universal background checks as part of the solution this time. Trump largely attributed the shootings to mental health issues and said the mass attacks have “been going on for a long time” and that he wants to reduce them. (Quilantan, 9/1)

Trump said at the White House that "for the most part, as strong as you make your background checks, they would not have stopped any of it." Last month, a gunman killed 22 people and wounded another 24 in El Paso, Texas, while another assailant killed nine and injured 27 in Dayton, Ohio. (Holland and Shalal, 9/1)

President Donald Trump expressed a commitment Sunday, hours after the latest deadly mass shooting, to work with a divided Congress to "stop the menace of mass attacks." He said any measures must satisfy the competing goals of protecting public safety and the constitutional right to gun ownership and seemed to cast fresh doubt on the merits of instituting more thorough background checks for gun purchases. Trump spoke shortly after the death toll in Saturday's rampage in West Texas rose to seven as authorities worked to understand why a man pulled over for a traffic infraction opened fire on state troopers and fled. He shot more than 20 people before he was killed by police. A motive has not been released. (Superville, 9/1)

Democrats on Sunday pleaded with President Trump and congressional Republicans to tighten gun restrictions in the wake of a mass shooting in West Texas that pushed the number of people killed in such incidents to more than 50 in August alone. Trump dismissed tougher background checks — “they would not have stopped any of it” — and suggested that Saturday’s shooting, which left seven dead and 19 wounded, had done little to change his calculus on gun control as talks continue between administration officials and some in Congress. (Sonmez and Winfield Cunningham, 9/1)

A day after the country's latest mass shooting, the fourth high-profile one since the House of Representatives went on recess at the end of July, President Donald Trump said lawmakers have "a lot of thinking to do" about ways to address gun violence. Saturday's deadly shooting in the area of Midland-Odessa, Texas, renewed lawmakers' demands for action on gun control once Congress returns from recess on Sept. 9. (Wu, 9/1)

In a tweet Monday, Governor Greg Abbott revealed the shooter responsible for the deadly shooting in Odessa previously failed a background check to buy a gun in Texas. In the same tweet, the Governor said the killer didn’t go through a background check for the gun he used in Saturday’s shooting. The Governor did not reveal other details and a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety didn’t return a call from CBS 11. (Fink, 9/2)

Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, two of the leading candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination, made the case on Monday for muscular new gun control proposals, but differed on whether it was possible to reach compromise with congressional Republicans. Mr. Biden said it was not. Ms. Warren seemed more open to the idea. As much of the Democratic field fanned out across Iowa and New Hampshire to campaign this holiday weekend, Mr. Biden told reporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that the only solution for major new gun control legislation was to defeat Republicans in the elections 14 months away — “flat-out beat them,” as he put it. (Epstein and Astor, 9/2)

Lawmakers return to Washington next week with both sides vowing a robust debate on gun reform following a pair of deadly mass shootings in Texas and another in Ohio. But the discussion promised by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is a far cry from assured action, and the GOP leader’s long history opposing tougher firearm laws has left many Democrats skeptical that any meaningful reforms will move through the Republican-controlled Senate. (Lillis and Wong, 9/2)

Several new firearm laws took hold in Texas on Sunday, loosening restrictions as to when and where weapons can be carried, one day after the state was rocked by a shooting in which a gunman killed seven and wounded at least 21. A man opened fire during a traffic stop in Midland, Texas, on Saturday afternoon, firing at random as he drove down the highway and into Odessa. The shootings came less than a month after a gunman killed 22 people in El Paso and wounded two dozen more. Texas has seen 4 of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern history. (Dugyala, 9/1)

Supporters of the new laws argue they empower law-abiding citizens who carry firearms legally and ensure they are not defenseless when violence breaks out. The backers also said these changes protect their constitutional right to bear arms. “It makes no sense to disarm the good guys and leave law-abiding citizens defenseless where violent offenders break the law to do great harm,” said Texas state Sen. Donna Campbell, a Republican, said earlier this year. Gun-control groups have criticized these laws, arguing that instead of protecting public safety, they put more people in danger. (Fung and Findell, 9/1)

Abbott has long been a staunch advocate for gun access. He has encouraged private gun ownership, at one point telling his fellow Texans to “pick up the pace” of their gun purchases because he was “embarrassed” that California led the US in gun sales. A pro-gun agenda has enjoyed support within the Republican-majority Texas state legislature, where ten bills became law at the end of the legislative session in June, and were signed into law by Abbott shortly thereafter. These went into effect on Sunday. (Van Wagtendonk, 9/1)

He said the law removing the limit on armed marshals at schools was prompted by a mass shooting in May 2018 at a high school in Santa Fe in which eight students and two teachers were killed. He also said the legislation allowing gun owners to bring their weapons to church resulted from a shooting rampage in November 2017 that left 27 dead at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs. But the governor added that there remains a "sense of urgency to arrive at solutions" to the rampant gun violence sweeping the state and country. (Hutchinson, 9/1)

“Four of the deadliest mass shootings in the last decade have taken place in Texas,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, a national group working to end gun violence, told NBC News. “Instead of following other states' lead and passing life-saving legislation, like background checks and strong red flag laws, Texas’ governor and legislature have made even more lax gun laws,” she said. (Kesslen, 9/1)

Here are the sweeping firearm laws going into effect. (9/1)

The 36-year-old man who terrorized two West Texas towns with an assault-style rifle Saturday had been fired from his trucking job a few hours before he led the authorities on a chaotic high-speed chase that ended with his death and the deaths of seven others. Along a 15-mile stretch between the sister cities of Midland and Odessa, the aftermath of the gunman’s rampage — in which he indiscriminately fired on motorists and police officers with an AR-15-style rifle while driving — clashed with the typically serene and dusty rural landscape of the region. (Holt and Fernandez, 9/1)

Monette Rodriguez remembers the oil field truck-driver who lived at the Peppertree Place Apartments. He had the phrase “Oilfield Mafia” displayed on the back window of his blue Dodge Challenger. And he liked to party — neighbors complained that women made frequent visits at all hours of the night to his apartment. The truck driver was Seth A. Ator, 36, the gunman who waged a mobile mass shooting that spread panic and bloodshed across the West Texas sister cities of Midland and Odessa on Saturday. (Mervosh, Holt and Fernandez, 9/2)

In a news conference Sunday, officials praised local law enforcement for stopping the shooter, speculating that he may have been heading into the Cinergy movie theater when he was killed. “Why would you go to a theater if you’re not planning on going into the theater?” Police Chief Michael Gerke said, adding that the movie theater is one of the most crowded places in Odessa on a Saturday. (Findell, 9/1)

The gunman in a West Texas rampage "was on a long spiral of going down" and had been fired from his oil services job the morning he killed seven people, calling 911 both before and after the shooting began, authorities said Monday. Officers killed 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator on Saturday outside a busy Odessa movie theater after a spate of violence that spanned 10 miles, injuring at least 25 people in addition to the dead, authorities said. (9/2)

Authorities said Monday that Seth Aaron Ator, 36, had reached out to police and to the FBI after he was let go from Journey Oilfield Services. He and his employer called the Odessa Police Department that morning, police said. When police officers arrived at the company’s office, Ator had left. “Basically, they were complaining on each other” over the firing, Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said. Ator did not make threats of violence. Later in the day, Ator left a “rambling” statement with an FBI tip line but did not make a specific threat, FBI special agent Christopher Combs said during a news conference Monday. (Guarino, 9/2)

"It was, frankly, rambling statements about some of the atrocities that he felt that he had gone through," explained FBI special agent Christopher Combs during a news conference in West Texas on Monday afternoon. "He did not make a threat during that phone call," Combs said. The agency initiated procedures "trying to figure out who he was, where he was," Combs said. "Unfortunately, it was only 15 minutes before the trooper was engaged." (Aubrey, 9/2)

The mother of a 17-month-old girl that was shot during the mass shooting in Odessa and Midland Saturday recently gave an emotional update on the status of her baby that is warming hearts across the state. Kelby Giesler Davis was sitting at a red light in Odessa when a bullet from the gunman, now identified as 36-year-old Seth Ator, went through her family's car, striking her baby girl Anderson in the mouth and chest. (Hennes, 9/2)

The names of the seven victims killed and the 25 injured in Saturday's mass shooting in Odessa and Midland are slowly being released to the public. The dead include a mail carrier and a high school sophomore. Among the wounded were a toddler, a father and members of law enforcement who were caught on the road when the gunman opened fire. (Emily, Branham and Steele, 9/2)

They gathered as the children they are near the statue of a cowboy-hat wearing Prairie Dog in Prairie Pete Playland Park. But they left radiating the best qualities of adulthood — defiance, determination and benevolence. Nearly 100 teens from two area high schools, Odessa High School and Permian High School, met Monday evening with the simple purpose of deciding how they could help the victims of Saturday’s mass shooting, which has left seven dead and 25 wounded. (Della Cava, Schroeder and Frank, 9/2)

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders plans to release a new proposal to cancel $81 billion worth of medical debt Americans are struggling to pay off, adding to a suite of ideas that would represent the largest expansion of the nation’s social safety net in decades and likely cost tens of trillions of dollars. The senator from Vermont is seeking the Democratic nomination on promises of enacting Medicare-for-all, wiping away student loan debt and aggressively combating climate change, initiatives that together would cost an estimated $48 trillion or more over a decade, a tally of campaign estimates shows. (Sullivan, 8/31)

Sanders, an independent U.S. senator from Vermont, said in a statement that under his plan, the government would negotiate and pay off past-due medical bills that have been reported to credit agencies. The proposal, he said, would also repeal some elements of the 2005 Bankruptcy reform bill and allow other existing and future medical debt to be discharged. (8/31)

A woman at the town hall stood up and asked, "Is there anything in your plan that would actually work for people that are drowning right now for their medical debt?" "We're looking at that right now," Sanders responded. "In another piece of legislation that we're going to be offering we will eliminate medical debt in this country. I mean, just stop and think for a second. Why should people be placed in financial duress? For what crime did you commit? You got a serious illness? That is not what this country should be about." Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir told CNN on Friday that "Sen. Sanders had previously asked us to pull together a plan to finally end the crisis of medical debt, and when asked directly about it tonight he was honest and candid in previewing his thinking on this important matter." (Grayer, 8/31)

“Health care is a human right, not a privilege,” he said Sunday night, pledging to also lower the cost of pharmaceuticals if elected and promising that no Americans would pay more than $200 for the prescriptions they need. He said the shooting in West Texas that left seven people dead Saturday and other recent shootings can be difficult to talk about, and while there is no one solution to reducing gun violence, there are a few things he would do if elected. Those include expanding background checks, ending gun show loopholes and ending the sale and distribution of assault weapons. (Ohm, 9/1)

White House hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Saturday previewed his upcoming plan to cancel all past-due medical debt. Sanders, who will unveil the plan in full next month, has made the country’s health care costs a focal point of his progressive policy proposals. Sanders's plan would cancel $81 billion in existing past-due medical debt, repeal parts of the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill and ensure that unpaid medical bills do not impact one’s credit score. (Axelrod, 8/31)

Health care was the focus of Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders' second day of campaigning in pivotal early-voting South Carolina, where lack of Medicaid expansion has left thousands unable to obtain health coverage. The Vermont senator focused on "Medicare for All," his signature proposal replacing job-based and individual private health insurance with a government-run plan that guarantees coverage for all with no premiums, deductibles and only minimal copays for certain services. (Kinnard, 8/30)

Science says age is only a number, not a proxy for physical and mental fitness. But with three Democrats in their 70s vying to challenge the oldest first-term president in American history, age's importance will be tested as never before. Only a few years separate President Donald Trump, 73, from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 77, and former Vice President Joe Biden, 76. But as Trump mocks Biden for verbal missteps, suggesting age has slowed his Democratic rival, both Sanders and Biden have conspicuously showcased their physical activity during the campaign. (Neergaard and Schor, 8/31)

The Trump administration on Monday announced that it would reconsider its decision to force immigrants facing life-threatening health crises to return to their home countries, an abrupt move last month that generated public outrage and was roundly condemned by the medical establishment. On Aug. 7, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, without public notice, eliminated a “deferred action” program that had allowed immigrants to avoid deportation while they or their relatives were undergoing lifesaving medical treatment. (Jordan, 9/2)

In August, the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) said it was “no longer entertaining” such requests from people outside the U.S. military, but on Monday said it would reopen and complete cases that were pending on Aug. 7, the day the new policy took effect. The agency said it still believed it was appropriate to hand over responsibility for such work to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), enabling its own staff to focus more efficiently on other legal immigration applications. (9/2)

On Monday, the agency appeared to slightly reverse course, saying that it would "reopen non-military deferred action cases that were pending on August 7." When asked about the change, a USCIS official said the agency "is taking immediate corrective action to reopen previously pending cases. "USCIS previously said that it would defer to ICE to determine if nonmilitary issues "warrant deferred action," according to a spokesperson. But USCIS and ICE procedures are not identical. (Alvarez, 9/2)

The unexpected move by the administration on Labor Day could be a stopgap reprieve to some immigrants and their families who recently applied for the relief, known as deferred action, which is designed to shield immigrants with serious medical conditions and other extraordinary circumstances from deportation. Hundreds of sick immigrants have benefited from the program, including children with life-threatening health conditions. But the program will still be closed to future applicants and to those who did not have a renewal petition pending on August 7. USCIS said Monday that its controversial decision to make the relief available only to U.S. service members and their families was "appropriate." (Montoya-Galvez, 9/2)

Ronnie Millar, executive director of the Irish International Immigrant Center, said the announcement gives some hope to families who had recently received denial letters. “They are relieved that USCIS will reconsider their deferred action applications,” Millar said in a statement. “But this announcement does little to correct the injustice of ending deferred action, and only delays the cruel effects of the government’s decision. We all remain concerned that the government is ending this life-saving program.” (Hilliard, 9/2)

The Sackler family, which grew into one of the nation’s wealthiest dynasties through sales of the widely abused painkiller OxyContin, could emerge from a legal settlement under negotiation with its personal fortunes largely intact, according to an analysis reviewed by The Washington Post and people familiar with the discussions. Under a novel plan to relinquish control of their company, Purdue Pharma, and resurrect it as a trust whose main purpose would be to combat the opioid epidemic, the Sacklers could raise most, if not all, of their personal share of the $10 billion to $12 billion agreement by selling their international drug conglomerate, Mundipharma, according to the documents and those close to the talks. (Bernstein, Davis, Rowland and Merle, 8/31)

Purdue Pharma’s negotiations to settle thousands of lawsuits over the company’s role in the opioids crisis have turned into a standoff between members of the Sackler family, who own the company, and a group of state attorneys general over how much the family should pay and whether it can continue selling drugs abroad. The Sacklers are deep in negotiations that, if finalized, would force them to give up ownership of Purdue, the company widely blamed for the onset of the opioid epidemic with its aggressive marketing of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. But they want to keep selling OxyContin and other drugs abroad for as many as seven more years, through another company they own, Mundipharma, based in Cambridge, England. (Goldstein, Hakim and Hoffman, 8/30)

Upcoming trials seen as test cases for forcing drugmakers to pay for societal damage inflicted by the opioid epidemic should be delayed until Ohio’s own lawsuits against the drugmakers can be heard, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost argued in a lawsuit. Yost, a Republican, said attempts to force drugmakers to pay should come in a single state action to allow equal distribution of money across Ohio. His lawsuit, filed Friday in federal appeals court in Cincinnati, comes amidst urgent negotiations over a potentially massive settlement between drugmakers and thousands of communities across the country. (Welsh-Huggins, 9/1)

Virtually every state has filed a lawsuit in the past two years, along with some 2,000 cities, counties and Native American tribes, alleging players in the pharmaceutical supply chain are to blame for fueling widespread opioid addiction. The situation has been particularly fractious in Ohio. Friday’s filing argues if the two counties are allowed to take their cases to trial, it “would fragment the State’s claims, pose a high risk of inconsistent verdicts, result in duplicative or overlapping damages, and misallocate funds in the State.” (Randazzo, 8/30)

Allergan said it agreed to pay $5 million to settle its part of a landmark federal opioid trial slated to begin in Cleveland in October. The Dublin-based pharmaceuticals company said it would pay $1.9 million to Summit County, Ohio, and $3.1 million to Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the two plaintiffs whose claims were chosen to serve as bellwethers in sprawling litigation over the opioid epidemic. Pharmaceutical company Endo International PLC earlier this month reached a $10 million settlement with the counties in the litigation. (Kellaher, 9/30)

A cluster of HIV cases in a rural West Virginia county represents what public health officials have long feared amid the nationwide opioid epidemic. Cabell County has reported 74 cases since January 2018, primarily among drug users sharing contaminated needles. The recent surge in infections represents the convergence of two major health epidemics, HIV and opioids, the Trump administration has pledged to fight. (Goldberg, 9/2)

After seeing dozens of patients in a hectic and long day in the clinic, when a doctor is faced with another patient in pain, it may be easiest to prescribe opioids and move on to the next one. New research suggests that doctors who practice with this habit could be contributing to the opioid epidemic. A study published in JAMA Network Open on Friday reveals that physicians were more likely to prescribe opioids later in the day and when appointments were running behind schedule. (Corley, 8/30)

Melissa and Daryl McKinsey first heard about “Mexican Oxy” last year when their 19-year-old son Parker called in tears. “I need to go to rehab,” he said. Several months earlier, a friend had given Parker a baby-blue pill that was stamped on one side with the letter M. It resembled a well-known brand of oxycodone, the prescription painkiller that sparked the American opioid epidemic. (Linthicum, 9/1)

The Hogan administration announced Thursday that it will award nearly $10 million in grants to counties for programs to combat the opioid crisis. In a news release, the state’s Opioid Operational Command Center wrote that the state will award $4 million in block grants to the counties as well as more than $5.6 million in competitive grants for specific programs that focus on “prevention & education, enforcement & public safety, and treatment & recovery programs." (Davis, 8/30)

Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig is demanding the state open more treatment and support options across New Hampshire for those suffering from opioid addiction and other substance abuse disorders. Craig and other Manchester officials said Friday they’re overwhelmed by the high numbers of people coming to their city from other communities to find help. They also expressed frustration with the governor's office. (Ernst, 9/1)

When onetime governor Mike Pence and consultant Seema Verma ran Indiana’s conservative health-care system, they found a creative way to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act when many other red states rejected it. Now, with Pence as vice president and Verma as the head of the federal Medicaid and Medicare programs, Indiana is again blazing its own path on health care, with the Trump administration’s avid encouragement. Like other states, Indiana recently imposed work requirements on some of the state’s 1.4 million Hoosiers who receive benefits under the health program for low-income Americans. (Winfield Cunningham, 9/1)

In recent months, eligible families across the state say they’ve been arriving at doctors’ appointments to learn their children have been unwittingly dropped from the program and are unable to receive the required medical care. ...Many parents say they never received re-enrollment paperwork before getting kicked off. Earlier this summer, the Department of Social Services did send Uchtman a postcard telling her to expect re-enrollment paperwork, she said. But it never came. (Fentem and Driscoll, 9/2)

On Aug. 20, the agency approved the county as one of California’s latest participants in the Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System Waiver, an amendment to federal statute requirements that allows the county to include more high-quality services for all eligible Medi-Cal patients — that’s over 500,000 people. In practice, that means Medi-Cal clients can now call a toll-free number any time of the day, seven days per week, and access a more inclusive list of addiction treatments and services, Oakland-based nonprofit California Health Care Foundation said in a brief. (Ghisolfi, 8/30)

The former head of the Iowa Department of Human Services is seeking $2 million for wrongful termination, claiming Gov. Kim Reynolds fired him for questioning whether the department should be paying one of her staffers to assist with the state's Medicaid program. Jerry Foxhoven was ousted from his job on June 17, a day after sending an email to 4,300 agency employees gushing about the late rapper Tupac Shakur, The Associated Press reported. (8/30)

A months-long debate over Medicaid expansion is still not over, even though the Idaho Legislature approved it last session - doing so with some restrictions. Some of those restrictions are now being rejected at a federal level. Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rejected the state's waiver that would have allowed Idahoans who make between 100 to 138 percent of the federal poverty level to be on the state exchange plans, rather than Medicaid, even though they qualify for it. (Inglet, 9/2)

By the time he and his wife Sara faced Veterans Affairs medical staff across a conference table in September, Kelly Copelin had lost 75 pounds and could swallow only small pieces of solid food. Radiation therapy had blistered his throat. This was the moment they would finally learn why their lives were so changed. Why when he went to the Fayetteville VA three years earlier with a severe earache, the biopsy came back negative — and he was given antibiotics instead of treatment for what was diagnosed 13 months later as late-stage neck and throat cancer. The pathologist who had misdiagnosed Copelin’s diseased tissue in 2015 was intoxicated, the hospital’s chief physician told the couple. He had failed to see the squamous cell carcinoma on the slide before him, the doctor said. (Rein, 8/30)

Federal prosecutors said Friday a sweeping criminal probe into a number of suspicious deaths at a Veterans Affairs hospital in West Virginia would be their "top priority." Bill Powell, the U.S. attorney in West Virginia, said his office is involved in a "comprehensive federal criminal investigation" into the deaths of up to 11 patients at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg. At least two of the deaths have been ruled homicides, according to attorneys representing families of men who died. (8/30)

The first time Carlsbad Medical Center sued Misti Price, she was newly divorced and working two jobs to support her three young children. The hospital demanded payment in 2012 for what Ms. Price recalled as an emergency room visit for one of her children who has asthma. She could not afford a lawyer, and she did not have the money to pay the bill. Ms. Price let the summons go unanswered, figuring she would settle the balance — with interest, about $3,600 — when she could. A few months later, she opened her paycheck and discovered the hospital had garnished her wages by $870 a month. (Beil, 9/3)

In the battle over what Congress should do to end surprise medical bills, both sides of the debate are pointing to California's experience—and drawing different conclusions. A law enacted in September 2016 put a cap on out-of-network charges, tied either to the median in-network contracted rates with insurers or 125% of Medicare—whichever is higher. Two major congressional health committees have approved a similar measure to protect people with employer insurance, except that they excluded any Medicare reference rate. (Luthi, 8/30)

Tuesday night was rough. A sharp scent drifted into Marjorie Salmon’s dream world at 4 a.m. She was still trying to rouse herself when its source, her 77-year-old client, pounded on her bedroom door, yelling that he wanted to go home. “You’re home, Bob. This is your home,” Marjorie told him. She calmed him down, cleaned him off, showered him, dressed him and put him back to bed, but could not get herself back to sleep. (Newman, 9/2)

An 18-year-old showed up in a Long Island emergency room, gasping for breath, vomiting and dizzy. When a doctor asked if the teenager had been vaping, he said no. The patient’s older brother, a police officer, was suspicious. He rummaged through the youth’s room and found hidden vials of marijuana for vaping. “I don’t know where he purchased it. He doesn’t know,” said Dr. Melodi Pirzada, chief pediatric pulmonologist at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., who treated the young man. “Luckily, he survived.” (Kaplan and Richtel, 8/31)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday warned people not to use vaping ingredients bought on the street, and to stop modifying either nicotine or cannabis e-cigarette devices, in an effort to curb the vaping-related lung sicknesses that have alarmed health officials in more than two dozen states this summer. Despite the lack of evidence pointing to a single flawed product or device common among many of the patients suffering respiratory problems, the agency took the unusual step of issuing several recommendations — including telling people worried about their health that they should not even use e-cigarettes and should consult a doctor if they are trying to quit smoking. (Kaplan, 8/30)

There does not appear to be a single product involved in all of the cases, but many of the patients reported through Aug. 27 said they vaped THC or cannabinoids like CBD, the agencies said in a news release. Expressing growing concern about the outbreak, the agencies said they were "working tirelessly" to investigate the illnesses, which resulted in at least one death, in Illinois. (Owermohle, 8/30)

State and federal health authorities are focusing on the role of contaminants or counterfeit substances as a likely cause of vaping-related lung illnesses — now up to 354 possible cases in 29 states, nearly double the number reported to be under investigation last week, The Washington Post has learned. Officials are narrowing the possible culprits to adulterants in vaping products purported to have THC, the component in marijuana that makes users high, as well as adulterants in nicotine vaping products. (Sun and McGinley, 8/30)

Patients, mostly teenagers and young adults, often first report symptoms like breathing difficulty, coughing, chest pain and fatigue, officials said, which gradually grow worse and have resulted in hospitalization. Some patients also experienced diarrhea and vomiting. Many patients needed assisted ventilation, and some had to be intubated, according to the CDC, and one adult in Illinois died after being hospitalized for severe respiratory problems linked to recent e-cigarette use. (Abbott, 8/30)

E-cigarette companies have been under fire lately as health authorities struggle to deal with what they have called an epidemic of vaping among young people. (Hellmann, 8/30)

Health officials in Missouri are warning residents about the potential dangers of vaping. The state’s Department of Health and Senior Services has issued a health advisory for severe lung conditions possibly related to e-cigarette use. It comes after Illinois reported what is believed to be the first vaping-related death in the United States. (Pratt, 9/2)

Every year, hundreds of thousands of obese Americans undergo weight-loss surgery in a last-ditch effort to shed pounds and control their Type 2 diabetes. Now a new study suggests that bariatric surgery may also have other significant health benefits, cutting the overall risk of serious cardiovascular events and premature death by almost half. (Rabin, 9/2)

Carolyn Auckerman is one of those people. The 57-year-old is now a bundle of energy — that's a far cry from more than two years ago, when her weight hit 310 pounds. "I got tired very easily, I had sleep apnea, diabetes," she told "CBS Evening News." Then she had gastric bypass surgery, where doctors shrink the size of the stomach so less food can be absorbed. Carolyn has lost 130 pounds and her Type 2 diabetes has disappeared. Dr. Steven Nissen and colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic wanted to know if bariatric surgery could also prevent the cardiovascular problems associated with diabetes. They followed nearly 2,300 people who had undergone bariatric surgery and compared them to more than 11,000 obese patients with similar symptoms who did not have the surgery. (Lapook, 9/2)

Analyzing the electronic health records over eight years of 13,722 obese patients with Type 2 diabetes and other high-risk health problems, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found that those who had bariatric surgery—also known as metabolic or weight-loss surgery—were 39% less likely to experience a heart- or stroke-related event than those who had standard medical care. The surgery patients were also 41% less likely to die from any cause. Those effects were huge, said Ali Aminian, a bariatric surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic and lead author. (McKay, 9/2)

“When diabetes gets better, when risk factors like high cholesterol and blood pressure decrease, we would expect improvement,” said Ali Aminian, the lead researcher and a bariatric surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. “But we didn’t expect it to this extent. That’s what’s surprising to us.” The findings come amid two critical trends in public health: a growing obesity epidemic and the slowing of progress made against heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. The two trends appear to be inextricably related, said Steve Nissen, head of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic and the senior author of the paper. (Cortez, 9/2)

Red, yellow, green. It's a system for conveying the healthfulness of foods, and at the center of a debate about how to approach weight loss for children. This month, the company formerly known as Weight Watchers provoked a backlash when it introduced a food tracking app for children as young as 8. The app uses a well-known traffic-light system to classify foods, giving children a weekly limit of 42 "reds," which include steak, peanut butter and chips. (Choi, 8/30)

Good news for the cheery: A Boston study published this month suggests people who tend to be optimistic are likelier than others to live to be 85 years old or more. That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life's length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors," the researchers from Boston University School of Medicine and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health say. Their work appears in a recent issue of the science journal PNAS. (Neighmond, 9/1)

Cancer patients with public health insurance were more likely to drop off the waitlist for a liver transplant than patients with private insurance, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open. Among 705 patients with a common type of liver cancer waiting for a transplant at the University of California, San Francisco, 46.7% of patients with public insurance dropped off the waiting list over a seven-year study period. (Livingston, 8/30)

Rates of congenital syphilis — which can cause miscarriages, stillbirths and severe birth defects — are rising in the United States, and the number of babies infected with syphilis during pregnancy is now the highest in decades. Health experts are pushing for better education, testing and access to health care, and some states with the most cases of congenital syphilis are beginning to respond to the crisis. (Bever, 8/30)

The only thing worse than feeling completely wired at 11 p.m. when you’re ready for sleep is being stark awake at 3 a.m. Blissfully passing out at an appropriate bedtime is cold comfort when the brain wakes up too soon and refuses to take advantage of those eight full hours. I toss and turn and scrunch up my pillow every which way, exasperated and fixated on the impending doom of the alarm clock set to go off at 6 a.m. (Chen, 8/30)

A growing number of states and companies are allowing people to designate their gender as “X” instead of male or female on driver’s licenses and other forms of identification. The changes are a response to transgender Americans who don’t identify as exclusively male or female and others who feel binary gender categories don’t accurately describe them. Two years ago, Oregon became the first state to officially accommodate such residents by allowing them to select an X in the gender field of their driver’s license to convey that their gender is nonbinary or unspecified. (Adamy, 9/1)

Tiffany Martinez was a 17-year-old college freshman when she began hearing voices, seeing shadowy figures and experiencing troubling, intrusive thoughts. Her friends at the University of Southern Maine, where she was majoring in psychology, noticed that she was acting strangely and urged her to get help. They most likely saved her from a crippling mental health crisis, prevented the derailment of her education and ultimately enabled her to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner who can help other young people avert a psychiatric crisis. (Brody, 9/2)

At the dawn of the new millennium, Ting Han, a graduate of Tsinghua University in Beijing, followed his dream of going to the United States to pursue a career in biology. He enrolled at the University of Michigan, and in 2013, earned his Ph.D. It was an important step for Han, who envisioned a career — and a life — here. “At that time, I was single-mindedly thinking I would be a professor in the U.S.,” he said. (Cai, 9/3)

It had been two agonizing years of not knowing what was wrong with their baby who, since birth, had frequent spells of eye flickering, uncontrollable muscle contractions, pain and temporary paralysis. Simon and Nina Frost had spared no expense, taking Annabel to all the best neurologists around the country. Finally a potential diagnosis emerged: alternating hemiplegia of childhood, an ultrarare genetic disorder. The Frosts’ initial excitement at having answers quickly waned, however. (Broder, 9/2)

To what extent, the researchers asked middle-aged adults, do your parents ignore suggestions or advice that would make their lives easier or safer? Ignore instructions from their doctors? Insist on doing things their own way, even if that makes their own or others’ lives more difficult, inconvenient or unsafe? (Span, 8/30)

Scientists warned for years about the ramifications of human-caused climate change. Now, those predictions are coming to pass as glaciers melt, wildfires rage and the global surface temperature continues to rise. But the polar ice caps and the Amazon rainforests aren’t the only things at risk. Climate change is expected to have a big influence on our health. (Blakemore, 8/31)

Biohackers have gained notoriety with provocative stunts like injecting themselves with CRISPR, an untested gene therapy, and an experimental herpes treatment. At a gathering of some 150 biohackers here on Saturday, nobody injected themselves on stage — though a few did get magnets implanted under their skin during the conference’s happy hour. To be sure, the Biohack the Planet conference featured plenty of the brash talk and rage-against-the-machine attitude that has characterized a community built around bucking the conventions of mainstream science. (Robbins, 9/1)

Destination: Bulgaria. It's a small country in Eastern Europe, often overlooked by American tourists. But my husband's father grew up in Bulgaria, so it's long been on our travel list. It's also on the list of countries with recent measles outbreaks. Bulgaria has had almost 800 cases this year, according to the World Health Organization. (Dembosky, 9/2)

There's an astonishing outpouring of new information linking genes and health, thanks to the efforts of humble Englishmen and women such as Chritopeher Fletcher. The 70-year-old man recently drove 90 miles from his home in Nottingham to a radiology clinic outside the city of Manchester. He is one of half a million Brits who have donated time, blood and access to their medical records to a remarkable resource called UK Biobank. (Harris, 8/31)

"Pumping" refers to a kind of underground plastic surgery. While cisgender people also get silicone injections, pumping in trans communities is largely done to help address gender dysphoria — a community-preferred term for the anguish of feeling a disconnect between the sex a doctor determined for you at birth and the gender you truly feel you are. Being unable to address dysphoria is linked with increased risk of mental health problems and suicide. (Nett, 9/1)

Americans love cheese. While U.S. dairy milk consumption has fallen, cheese consumption keeps on increasing year over year. According to an Agriculture Department report from 2018, per capita cheese consumption increased to a record 37.23 pounds. If you’re a die-hard cheese fan, you’re probably consuming your mozzarella and ricotta (Italian cheese are now the most popular in the United States) with a side of guilt. After all, cheese has long gotten a bad rap because of its high saturated fat content, which is considered bad for heart health. (Birch, 9/2)

Across Baltimore, the hottest areas tend to be the poorest and that pattern is not unusual. In dozens of major U.S. cities, low-income neighborhoods are more likely to be hotter than their wealthier counterparts, according to a joint investigation by NPR and the University of Maryland's Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. ...And living day after day in an environment that's literally hotter isn't just uncomfortable, it can have dire and sometimes deadly health consequences – a fact we found reflected in Baltimore's soaring rates of emergency calls when the heat index spiked to dangerous levels. (Anderson and McMinn, 9/3)

Kaiser Health News: How To Get Bargain Dentistry And A Vacation To Boot

“Do you want numbing gel?” the dental technician asked me as she prepared to plunge into my mouth. In the entire history of dentistry, from caveman days to now, who has ever said no to more painkiller? Smear that gel around like spackle! She did. And then ground and scraped. And scraped and ground, for a full hour and a half. (Salmon, 9/3)

After donating about 30 percent of his liver to his sister this summer, Ed Henry is amazed at what happened next. Not only is his sister on the road to a normal life, but almost all of his liver grew back in less than six weeks. (Free, 8/31)

Kaiser Health News: Starving Seniors: How America Fails To Feed Its Aging

Army veteran Eugene Milligan is 75 years old and blind. He uses a wheelchair since losing half his right leg to diabetes and gets dialysis for kidney failure. And he has struggled to get enough to eat. Earlier this year, he ended up in the hospital after burning himself while boiling water for oatmeal. The long stay caused the Memphis vet to fall off a charity’s rolls for home-delivered Meals on Wheels, so he had to rely on others, such as his son, a generous off-duty nurse and a local church to bring him food. (Ungar and Lieberman, 9/3)

Some health clinics that quit the federal family planning program over Trump anti-abortion policies are cutting staff, charging for services that had been free and making other austerity moves to avert a major hollowing out of reproductive health care for poor women. At least four state health departments, hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics and dozens of independent providers have withdrawn from the more than $250 million Title X program. Some have literally had to box up and return unused supplies bought with a government discount. They’re leaning on emergency funds, private donations and in some instances, state assistance. (Ollstein and Roubein, 9/1)

Public health advocates are warning that record-high rates of sexually transmitted diseases could worsen as Planned Parenthood, a major provider of STD testing and treatment, faces a loss of federal funding under a new Trump rule. Planned Parenthood’s loss of $60 million a year in government funding is seen by advocates as a huge setback in the fight against “epidemic”-level STD rates that could lead to more low-income people going untreated. (Hellmann, 8/31)

Two anti-abortion activists who secretly videotaped Planned Parenthood employees discussing fetal tissue are set to face trial this week, more than four years after their videos ignited a political firestorm. David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress and colleague Sandra Merritt are facing 14 felony charges of illegally recording Planned Parenthood employees. (Colliver, 9/3)

Americans may soon be able to get their medical records through smartphone apps as easily as they order takeout food from Seamless or catch a ride from Lyft. But prominent medical organizations are warning that patient data-sharing with apps could facilitate invasions of privacy — and they are fighting the change. The battle stems from landmark medical information-sharing rules that the federal government is now working to complete. (Singer, 9/3)

The personal information of as many as 122,000 customers of Providence Health Plan’s dental program in Oregon may have been compromised in a security breach at the program’s administrator, Virginia-based Dominion National. The timing of the breach? Dominion doesn’t really know, but said it may have started up to nine years ago. The company sent an ambiguous letter to Providence customers this month saying an unauthorized party may have accessed its computer servers and personal information. (Sickinger, 8/30)

Norovirus tends to makes the news when an outbreak occurs on cruise ships. But the virus affects many more people than ocean-going vacationers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates some 20 million people suffer acute intestinal illness from norovirus each year in this country. It's responsible for more than half of all cases of foodborne illness in the United States. (Palca, 9/30)

It often takes years and hundreds of millions of dollars to discover a novel drug candidate. It requires the identification of promising molecules that can grab on to the right protein, synthesizing a compound, and then testing it. The process is so complicated that it has defied most computational methods to shorten it. But a paper published Monday in Nature Biotechnology describes a new method using artificial intelligence that, within 46 days, generated compounds capable of hitting a specific disease target. (Ross, 9/2)

Medical regulators found evidence that an Ohio State University doctor had sexually abused students but inexplicably failed to punish him, a review panel said Friday. A working group, largely made up of state and local law enforcement officials, said that “for reasons that simply cannot be determined,” the State Medical Board of Ohio’s inquiry into Dr. Richard H. Strauss’s conduct essentially went dormant, even though it had, in 1996, yielded evidence of wrongdoing. It was ultimately closed years later without any penalties. (Blinder, 8/30)

California state lawmakers have just two weeks remaining in their session to sort through hundreds of bills, some addressing volatile topics such as vaccinating children and shootings by police. The session that began in January will end Sept. 13 after lawmakers pile bills on the desk of freshman Gov. Gavin Newsom. He'll have until mid-October to approve or veto the legislation. (9/2)

When New York lawmakers revoked a religious exemption for mandatory school vaccinations, the change sent thousands of the state's parents scrambling to get their kids shots — or get them out of the classroom entirely. Lawmakers did away with the exemption in June amid the nation's worst measles outbreak since 1992. More than 26,000 children in public and private schools and day care centers had previously gone unvaccinated for religious reasons, according to the state Health Department. (9/1)

Another top official at the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) has resigned, the second departure this week and the latest in an extraordinary string of changes in the agency’s upper ranks. Marie Zimmerman, the assistant commissioner for health care, said Friday she will leave her post in about 10 days. Zimmerman, who first started with the agency in 2011, has been one of the top officials overseeing Minnesota’s Medicaid program, a sprawling operation funded by federal and state dollars, with 1.1 million enrollees. (Howatt, 8/30)

September is shaping up as a worrisome time for thousands of Georgia patients. Consumers are being notified that on Sept. 30, the contract between the state’s largest health insurer, Anthem, and Northeast Georgia Health System is due to expire. That would make Northeast Georgia’s Gainesville hospital and other facilities out of network for Anthem members, who would face higher costs to continue to visit the medical system’s facilities. (Miller, 8/30)

The Georgia Board of Regents approved a proposal at its August meeting to impose a monthly $100 surcharge on employees whose spouses choose not to join the health insurance plan provided by their own employer. The fees, proposed by the University System of Georgia, take effect in January. (Stirgus, 9/3)

Now six years after Susan Guillaume’s death from a massive infection, her husband of 46 years was surprised to learn from a reporter that Missouri officials agree urologist Christel Wambi-Kiesse was out of his depth in the operating room. Missouri’s Board of Registration for the Healing Arts recently began seeking disciplinary action against the physician, who the board says was ill-equipped to perform minimally invasive surgical procedures while practicing at an Independence hospital in 2012 and 2013. (Hendricks, 9/1)

An unnamed hospital in Oklahoma used contaminated gastroscopes in procedures performed on nearly a thousand patients in recent months, device maker Pentax Medical told U.S. regulators last month, putting the patients at risk of exposure to bacteria that can cause infections. (8/30)

For nearly a quarter century, central Ohio hospitals and the Columbus Division of Fire have operated under a partnership that uses a protocol to ensure that critically ill patients receive hospital care quickly while trying to prevent individual emergency rooms from being overwhelmed. But other communities have moved away from the practice of diversion, citing concerns over patient safety. (Doyle, 9/1)

Minnesota’s interim Human Services commissioner is leaving the embattled agency with a parting recommendation: Split the department in two. In an email to staff members Friday, Acting Commissioner Pam Wheelock said the Department of Human Services should split off its health care system that deals with mental health, addiction and other treatment services from the agency’s other responsibilities, which range from licensing child-care providers to administering food stamps. The idea of splitting up the department isn’t new. The agency is the state’s largest, with a budget of nearly $18 billion and 7,200 employees. Its services reach more than 1 million Minnesotans. (Faircloth, 8/30)

A federal judge’s ruling earlier this week that the state is imprisoning former death row inmates under cruel and unusual conditions at Northern Correctional Institution could upend the way Connecticut treats prisoners who were originally sentenced to die. State officials would not say Thursday whether they intend to appeal the ruling by U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill. (Lyons, 8/30)

To Grady executives, the effort is synonymous with its drive to provide quality healthcare to Georgians. ...But a growing chorus of critics wonder if Grady’s widening business strategy for EMS has it veering away from its charitable purpose. (Berard, 8/30)

For many Ohioans, dental care is nothing to smile at. More than 3 million Ohioans lack dental insurance, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Those without coverage are far less likely to see a dentist for regular preventive checkups or treatment of pain or other problems. (Henry, 9/1)

Patients at hospitals throughout New England who are in need of intensive care can now turn to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Center for Connected Care’s Tele-Intensive Care Unit (TeleICU) Program. Located in a newly renovated, technologically innovative and dedicated space at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, the TeleICU hub is staffed with critical care nurses and board-certified physicians who have undergone advanced training in providing care for critically ill patients. (9/2)

The Worcester Recovery Hospital is one of six inpatient psychiatric hospitals overseen by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. Built in 2012, it was created to provide state-of-the-art, individualized mental health care.Since 2016, Labonte's overdose was the fifth — and only fatal — overdose at WRCH. In response to his death, DMH imposed new security restrictions. (Becker, 8/30)

A C-HIT analysis of the results from the recent DataHaven Community Wellbeing Survey found that residents in a number of midsize, blue-collar cities reported lower health ratings than residents of the state’s largest cities. The results are likely influenced by economic status, upending the long-held belief that urban centers, with concentrations of poverty, have the lowest health ratings. (Farrish, 9/1)

A major showdown in the bankruptcy of Hahnemann University Hospital and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children is slated for Wednesday afternoon, when a judge in Wilmington will be asked to approve the sale of Hahnemann’s medical residency programs to a consortium of six Philadelphia-area health systems for $55 million. The unexpectedly high price is potentially a “game-changer” for the bankruptcy, Mark Minuti, the bankrupt hospitals’ lead attorney, with Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP, said in court on Aug. 19. The children’s hospital will be subject to a separate sale process this month. (Brubaker, 9/3)

Katrina Dennis, a regent for the University System of Maryland, lawyer and prolific volunteer, has died after a battle with breast cancer that had led her to sue her doctor and the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center for malpractice. She was a week into what was expected to be a two-week civil trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court, but Dennis was hospitalized and unable to attend. Dennis was seeking about $24 million in damages, but the impact of her death is unclear. (Cohn, 9/1)

Kaiser Health News: Firing Doctor, Christian Hospital Sets Off National Challenge To Aid-In-Dying Laws

A Christian-run health system in Colorado has fired a veteran doctor who went to court to fight for the right of her patient to use the state’s medical aid-in-dying law, citing religious doctrine that describes “assisted suicide” as “intrinsically evil.” Centura Health Corp. this week abruptly terminated Dr. Barbara Morris, 65, a geriatrician with 40 years of experience, who had planned to help her patient, Cornelius “Neil” Mahoney, 64, end his life at his home. Mahoney, who has terminal cancer, is eligible to use the state’s law, overwhelmingly approved by Colorado voters in 2016. (Aleccia, 8/30)

As a hunter who has owned firearms since adolescence without breaking any laws or feeling under-gunned, I think I am equipped to offer a modest proposal that could produce a safer America and also break the maniacal hold of the National Rifle Association on the nation’s recreational shooters, not to mention Congress. My proposal is simply that we revert to the gun laws that prevailed in the United States around 1960. From a public-safety standpoint, that was far from a perfect world. The cheap revolvers called “Saturday night specials” ruled the night in many cities. Loopholes as to the sale and registration of long arms allowed the importation of the mail-order rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald used to kill President John F. Kennedy in 1963. (Howell Raines, 9/1)

Another day, another mass shooting. We grieve for Odessa, Tex., and we grieve for America. The aftermath of every mass shooting follows a now-routine pattern: Feverish coverage will be followed by politicians and pundits engaging in a predictable conversation about gun-safety legislation. All of which we know by now. Of course, we need universal background checks; we need to close all loopholes; we need to outlaw bump stocks; and we need to outlaw assault weapons and the bullets needed to shoot them. But politicians trotting out various forms of I-will-do-this-or-that neither gets to the heart of the matter nor breaks the logjam that has made this horrific and uniquely American problem so intractable. (Williamson, 9/2)

Virginia is one of four states facing legislative elections this fall, and the only one where control of both chambers, each run by Republicans holding tissue-thin margins, hangs in the balance. Small wonder, then, to see one of the most vulnerable Republicans, now clinging to a seat in Northern Virginia, struggling to do damage control on a key issue: guns. The state has suffered its share of firearms-induced carnage: 32 people massacred in 2007 by a gunman on the campus of Virginia Tech; an additional dozen killed this May by a shooter at a municipal building in Virginia Beach. (8/31)

If you look at the numbers, we're looking at an active shooter every other week in this country," said Christopher Combs, the lead FBI agent in charge of federal resources assisting in the investigation of Saturday's deadly mass shooting in Texas. His chilling comments about the state of violence in America come after seven people were killed and at least 22 injured when a gunman opened fire with an AR-type assault rifle along a West Texas stretch of highway. (Josh Campbell, 9/2)

Exactly how many dead Texans does it take for Gov. Greg Abbott to actually do something about the epidemic of gun violence sweeping his state? So far, no body count is too big for our governor, who seems determined to do exactly nothing. We Texans love to swagger, brag and boast that we are biggest, most and first. In the uniquely American horror story of mass shootings, we are closing in on all three. (Richard Parker, 9/1)

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released drug overdose statistics for 2018, and they are shocking. Of the estimated 47,000 deaths from opioids last year, roughly two-thirds involved potent synthetic opioids, most of them fentanyl. America’s fentanyl problem is far deadlier than past crises with other illegal drugs. It also has a fundamentally different character. For most victims, fentanyl was not their drug of choice. Rather, they were poisoned by dealers who mixed it into baggies of heroin or pressed into fake-opioid tablets. (Bryce Pardo, Jonathan P. Caulkins and Beau Kilmer, 9/1)

Every child has a right to housing, food and medicine. As physicians and humanists, we affirm this fundamental principle. By targeting our nation’s residents who access publicly funded programs to provide for these basic needs, the Department of Homeland Security’s final rule on public charge — set to take effect this October — is a direct threat to the health of our most vulnerable neighbors. As pediatricians practicing in New York City’s diverse Washington Heights neighborhood, we condemn this rule and applaud the efforts of states throughout the nation that have filed lawsuits to block the rule. (Avital Fischer, Sumeet Banker and Claire Abraham, 9/1)

As voters fume about the high cost of health care, politicians have been targeting two well-deserved villains: pharmaceutical companies, whose prices have risen more than inflation, and insurers, who pay their executives millions in salaries while raising premiums and deductibles. But while the Democratic presidential candidates have devoted copious airtime to debating health care, many of the country’s leading health policy experts have wondered why they have given a total pass to arguably a primary culprit behind runaway medical inflation: America’s hospitals. (Elisabeth Rosenthal, 9/1)

The endgame may be at hand for massive litigation pitting major pharmaceutical-makers against thousands of states, municipalities, tribes and other plaintiffs seeking accountability and compensation for the epidemic of prescription opioid overdoses that has ravaged the United States over the past two decades. An Oklahoma judge has held Johnson & Johnson liable for that state’s opioid problems, imposing a $527 million penalty. And Purdue Pharma, widely blamed for triggering overprescription of the OxyContin opioid through allegedly misleading marketing, is in talks to settle the cases for up to $12 billion. (9/2)

Are pro-lifers in bed with white supremacists? That’s Marissa Brostoff ’s contention in a Washington Post op-ed last week, wherein she alleged that “antiabortion politics” can provide “cover for white nationalist sentiments.” Her argument followed a Laurence Tribe tweet in which the Harvard law professor told his followers, “Never underestimate the way these issues and agendas are linked.” The timing is likely not accidental. The hope may be that tarring pro-lifers with white nationalism will distract attention from the agenda the Democrats have rallied around as they head into 2020. (William McGurn, 9/2)

The eugenic movement spearheaded by Francis Galton in England in the late Victorian period reached a culmination in the view that if you got rid of the misfits, you could breed a pure, advantaged race. The reach of the movement was reflected in the American campaigns to sterilize disabled people, supported in a 1927 Supreme Court decision in which Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” (Andrew Solomon, 9/2)

Recently, the U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams sounded the alarm on cannabis. There is nothing novel or altogether objectionable about the nation’s top public health official speaking out in an effort to discourage cannabis use, especially among young people and other potential higher-risk populations. However, the Surgeon General’s campaign launch emphasized a variety of questionable and inaccurate claims that not only undermine his credibility but also his cause. (Paul Armentano, 9/2)

“If time were short, where would you want to be?” As a palliative care physician, I regularly ask my patients, or their family members, where they want to die. The specific language I use depends on what they know, what they want to know and how they process information, but the basic premise is the same. Having asked this of hundreds of patients, I have come to expect most will tell me that they want to be at home. But recently I have struggled with the complex realities of dying at home, and the unintended consequences of our making it a societal priority. (Richard Leiter, 9/3)

The government funds important, basic research that expands scientific knowledge and helps lay the foundation for targeted or applied research. This early work is essential, but it’s only the beginning of a long, arduous, and highly risky process that is the domain of private-sector companies. (Michael Rosenblatt, 9/2)

People in this town are becoming increasingly disgusted with the behavior they have to deal with on the streets. When there is no law enforcement, even law-abiding people are going to stop being tolerant and humane. They may even take matters into their own hands. Whether it’s someone half out of his mind on meth or a mentally ill person throwing things around in a store or going off in a Starbucks, it’s just a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt — and it could be the one who’s acting out. (Willie Brown, 8/31)

September is National Recovery Month. Today, an estimated 180,000 Georgians are living with an opioid-use disorder. To put this staggering number into perspective, that means we have a population the size of Macon coping with the malicious effects caused by the opioid crisis. (Carr and Campbell, 8/30)

SB 464 aims to reduce adverse maternal health outcomes in California by mandating implicit bias training for perinatal health care workers and requiring rigorous tracking of pregnancy-related deaths and complications. The California Department of Finance opposes this bill, deeming it too costly and saying it should be considered as an addition to next year’s budget instead. As medical students, we strongly disagree. (Jazzmin Williams and Christina Schmidt, 8/30)