First Edition: February 24, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Hormone Blocker Shocker: Drug Costs 8 Times More When Used For Kids
Dr. Sudeep Taksali, an orthopedic surgeon, became worried that his 8-year-old daughter had already grown taller than his 12-year-old son. And sometimes she had an attitude more befitting a teenager. Something seemed wrong. Taksali and his wife, Sara, realized their daughter had grown 7 inches in two years and was showing signs of puberty. They took her to the doctor, who referred her to a pediatric endocrinologist for a work-up. (Lupkin, 2/24)

Kaiser Health News: Getting To The Heart Of Presidential Fitness: How Much Do We Need To Know?
Differences in health policy weren’t the only bones presidential candidates had to pick last week. They also sparred over details of their personal health. And with the next debate and Super Tuesday primaries fast approaching, these skirmishes are likely to escalate. In the run-up to the Las Vegas Democratic presidential primary face-off, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ national press secretary, Briahna Joy Gray, told CNN that opponents are trying to use his October heart attack against him. (Appleby, 2/24)

California Healthline: Congressional Candidates Go Head-To-Head On Health Care — Again 
The California Democrats who fought to flip Republican congressional seats in 2018 used health care as their crowbar. The Republicans had just voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the U.S. House — and Democrats didn’t let voters forget it. Two years later, Democrats are defending the seven seats they flipped from red to blue in California. And once again, they plan to go after their Republican opponents on health care in this year’s elections. (Ibarra, 2/21)

Reuters: Despite Attacks, Sanders’ Medicare For All Boosts Early-State Triumphs
In the days leading up to Saturday’s Democratic presidential caucuses in Nevada, Bernie Sanders withstood one attack after another over his Medicare for All plan – both from his rivals and the state’s powerful hotel and casino workers’ union. But entrance polls from Edison Research showed more than 60% of caucus-goers favored replacing private insurance with a government-run plan, suggesting Sanders’ sweeping proposal helped deliver his decisive win in Nevada rather than damaging his bid. (2/23)

The Associated Press: Nev. Union Support For Sanders Shows Limits Of Labor Warning
Members of Nevada’s most politically powerful labor group were warned by union leaders that Bernie Sanders’ plan would doom their prized health care, but they voted for him anyway. The casino workers of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 are powerful enough in Nevada Democratic politics that special caucus sites are set up in Las Vegas Strip casinos to accommodate them. In at least four of those seven caucus sites Saturday, workers threw their support behind Sanders. (2/23)

The New York Times: What ‘Medicare For All’ Means After A Six-Year Strike For Health Benefits
They each remember that moment, just after dawn on a September day in 1991, when they walked out of the Frontier Hotel and Casino. There was music and singing — “Solidarity forever,” went the song. That first day, the atmosphere was more like a celebration than a work protest. But the strike would go on to last six years, four months and 10 days — one of the longest labor disputes in American history. There were fights along the picket line, with tourists throwing water and food at the strikers, who were more than willing to fight back. There were dozens of arrests. So much time went by that 107 babies were born to pickets and 17 people died during the strike. (Medina, 2/22)

Politico: How Elizabeth Warren Would Legalize Marijuana And Fight ‘Big Tobacco’
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she would reduce federal funding to states that refuse to legalize marijuana and prevent “Big Tobacco“ from dominating the burgeoning industry in her wide-ranging plan to overhaul the country’s drug laws, which she announced Sunday in Denver. Warren‘s plan is not as detailed and aggressive as the blueprint outlined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, who eviscerated the field in Saturday’s Nevada caucuses. (Fertig, 2/23)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Cases In The United States Reach 34, And More Are Expected
At least 34 people in the United States are infected with the coronavirus spreading from China, federal health officials said on Friday. “This new virus represents a tremendous public health threat,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said at a news briefing. But so far there has been no community spread of the infection in the United States, she added; all of the cases have been linked to overseas travel. (Grady, 2/21)

The New York Times: Trump Was Furious That Passengers With Coronavirus Were Brought Back To U.S.
President Trump was infuriated that 14 American citizens who had tested positive for coronavirus were permitted to return this week to the United States, said two senior administration officials. The decision had taken the president, a self-declared “germophobe,” by surprise. Officials at the State Department decided to bring back the citizens, who had been quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, after consulting with a senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services. (Wong and Rogers, 2/22)

Reuters: Trump Administration Backs Off Sending Coronavirus Patients To Alabama 
The Trump administration has backed off plans to quarantine patients from the Diamond Princess cruise ship stricken with coronavirus at a federal facility in Alabama, the state’s governor and a U.S. senator said on Sunday. The news came as worry grew over the spread outside China of the sometimes fatal virus, with a spike in the number of cases found in South Korea, Iran and Italy. Experts were baffled over outbreaks with no clear link to China. (2/24)

The Associated Press: Judge Halts Plan To Move Virus Patients To California City
A court temporarily blocked the U.S. government from sending up to 50 people infected with a new virus from China to a Southern California city for quarantine after local officials argued that the plan lacked details about how the community would be protected from the outbreak. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order late Friday to halt the transportation of anyone who has tested positive for the new coronavirus to Costa Mesa, a city of 110,000 in the heart of Orange County. U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Stanton scheduled a hearing on the issue Monday. (2/22)

The Washington Post: The City Of Costa Mesa Was Granted A Federal Restraining Order To Prevent The Transfer Of Coronavirus-Infected Patients
The lawsuit’s allegation that as many as 50 people were diagnosed with coronavirus does not match up with the number of confirmed cases reported by the federal government on Friday. It remains unclear whether the lawsuit conflates with actual confirmed cases the people at risk of contracting the infection because they were in environments with greater exposure to the virus. (Abutaleb, 2/22)

The New York Times: Don’t Send Them Here: Local Officials Resist Plans To House Coronavirus Patients
The scramble to find places to quarantine American coronavirus patients is beginning to run into resistance from local officials who do not want the patients housed in their backyards. The city of Costa Mesa, Calif., has gone to court to block state and federal officials, at least temporarily, from placing dozens of people evacuated from Asia in a state-owned residential center in their community. (Stockman, 2/23)

Los Angeles Times: Ventura County Naval Base Could Be Used To Quarantine Coronavirus Patients
Naval Base Ventura County at Point Mugu might be a landing spot for Americans suspected of being infected with the new strain of coronavirus. Late Sunday night, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that the base could house travelers coming through Los Angeles International Airport. There, doctors would assess whether patients had contracted the COVID-19 virus, which has killed more than 2,600 people — mostly in China. (Oreskes, 2/23)

Politico: White House To Ask Congress For Emergency Coronavirus Funding
The White House will soon ask Congress for emergency funds to fight the coronavirus outbreak, after weeks of hesitation by the administration to press for additional funding, said four individuals with knowledge of the pending request. However, the amount could be significantly lower than some public health officials have argued is necessary — potentially as little as $1 billion, said two individuals, which could be rapidly exhausted by development of potential vaccines, widespread lab tests and numerous other investments. (Diamond, 2/22)

Politico: White House Fears Coronavirus Could Shape Trump’s 2020 Fortunes
The Trump administration is bracing for a possible coronavirus outbreak in the United States that could sicken thousands — straining the government’s public health response and threatening an economic slowdown in the heat of President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. That stark realization has taken hold in high-level White House meetings, during which some administration officials have voiced concerns the coronavirus is already spreading undetected within U.S. borders, two officials told POLITICO. (Diamond and Cancryn, 2/21)

Reuters: U.S. Prepares For Coronavirus Pandemic, School And Business Closures: Health Officials
U.S. health officials on Friday said they are preparing for the possibility of the spread of the new coronavirus through U.S. communities that would force closures of schools and businesses. The United States has yet to see community spread of the virus that emerged in central China in late December. But health authorities are preparing medical personnel for the risk, Nancy Messonnier, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told reporters on a conference call. (2/21)

CIDRAP: CDC Warns Community COVID-19 Spread Could Take Place In US
“The day may come when we may need to implement such measures as seen in Asia,” Nancy Messonnier, MD, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a press conference, referencing the closing of businesses, schools, and churches in multiple countries where transmission is now occurring within the community. (Stephanie Soucheray, 2/21)

Los Angeles Times: Scientists Seek Upper Hand Against COVID-19 With Coronavirus Genome
The genetic code of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is only about 30,000 characters long, but what a story it tells. Those nucleotides conceal secrets of the virus’ past, including its origins, its passage among families and its journey to distant ports. They signal how long it has been at large and whether it can hide by infecting people who show no outward signs of illness. And they can point the way to medicines, vaccines and public health strategies that might bring a runaway crisis under control. (Healy, 2/22)

The Washington Post: China Delays Key Political Meetings As Xi Warns Of Crisis; Wuhan Backtracks On Easing Restrictions
China’s leaders postponed the biggest event on their political calendar, the National People’s Congress, as the country’s battle against the deadly coronavirus outbreak disrupts the ruling Communist Party’s agenda and hammers the domestic economy. Officials said Monday the key political meetings, originally due to take place from March 5, would be rescheduled. Analysts said the government in Beijing was worried about the optics of holding a large-scale public event while others lived under lockdown and thousands were sick. (Taylor, 2/24)

South China Morning Post: Coronavirus Is China’s Fastest-Spreading Health Crisis, Xi Jinping Says
In a meeting on an unprecedented scale, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the coronavirus epidemic was the country’s most serious public health crisis and promised more pro-growth policies to help overcome it. According to state news agency Xinhua, Xi’s address via teleconference on Sunday was open to every county government and every military regiment throughout the country. He said the epidemic was “the fastest spreading, with the most infected and was the most difficult to prevent and control” since the founding of the People’s Republic. (Zheng, 2/23)

The Hill: Xi Defends China’s Efforts To Stop ‘Grim And Complex’ Coronavirus Epidemic 
Chinese President Xi Jinping defended China’s efforts to contain the “grim and complex” coronavirus epidemic in the country Sunday. The Chinese president addressed officials leading anti-disease efforts in a video conference calling for them to take more steps to prevent the virus, revitalize the economy and stop the disease from affecting the planting of spring crops, according to the the Xinhua News Agency, The Associated Press reported. (Coleman, 2/23)

The New York Times: Religious Groups In China Step Into The Coronavirus Crisis
Earlier this month, the hard-hit town of Caohe, near the center of the coronavirus outbreak in central China, received an unexpected gift: a large donation from a Taoist nunnery 550 miles away. Another Taoist temple, this one in Caohe itself, contributed tens of thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment to help those sickened by the virus. “The moment believers heard the news, they called us and asked how to help,” said a nun who organized one of the fund-raising drives. (Johnson, 2/23)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Lockdowns Torment An Army Of Poor Migrant Workers In China
Clutching a gray plastic suitcase filled with most of his belongings — a blanket, a toothbrush, a pair of white sneakers and a comb — Wang Sheng goes from factory to factory in southern China begging for a job. The answer is always no. Mr. Wang, 49, used to be able to find work in Shenzhen, a sprawling industrial megacity. But factories are turning him away because he is from Hubei Province, the center of China’s coronavirus epidemic, even though he hasn’t lived there in years. (Hernandez, 2/23)

The New York Times: For China’s Overwhelmed Doctors, An Understanding Voice Across The Ocean
A nurse called the 24-hour hotline to complain about a constant headache. A doctor said he was feeling ostracized by the public, even as he worked to save patients from the epidemic. One caller said she was feeling suicidal. The volunteers at Yong Xin Kang Yi (“Use your heart to fight the virus”), a crisis line established for the overworked, overstressed medical staff on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak in China, listen to it all. (Kwai, 2/23)

Los Angeles Times: China’s Coronavirus Conundrum: Stay Home, Don’t Get Sick, Get Back To Work!
It wasn’t that Cai didn’t want to go back to work. The small factory owner had been anxious to get his 40 or so employees back to business, making electronic wires for sound systems, phone chargers and earphones. But the list of required documents to reopen his factory in Shenzhen in southeastern China was staggering: application for return to work, temperature records for every employee, protective equipment supply and distribution charts, records of workers’ travel, factory disinfection and inspection chart, case files on every employee’s disease prevention training. (Su, 2/21)

Stat: The Coronavirus Is Spreading Outside China, Narrowing Hope To Eliminate It
There are worrying signs the coronavirus outbreak is entering a new phase, with spread outside of China — until recently at low levels — beginning to rapidly pick up steam. Experts point to the sharp rise of the number of cases in South Korea, which went from 30 on Monday to 204 by Friday, and in Italy, which had no cases at the start of Friday and 16 at the end of it. Five of the infected people in Italy are health workers. (Branswell, 2/21)

The New York Times: Europe Confronts Coronavirus As Italy Battles An Eruption Of Cases
Europe confronted its first major outbreak of the coronavirus as an eruption of more than 150 cases in Italy prompted officials on Sunday to lock down at least 10 towns, close schools in major cities and cancel sporting events and cultural touchstones, including the end of the Venice carnival. The worrisome spike — from fewer than five known cases in Italy before Thursday — shattered the sense of safety and distance that much of the continent had felt in recent months even as the virus has infected more than 78,000 worldwide and killed more than 2,400, nearly all in China. (Horowitz and Povoledo, 2/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Tests Europe’s Open Borders As Italy Death Toll Rises
Most of the 200 people who have been infected in Italy are in the wealthy region of Lombardy, concentrated in an area south of Milan. In 11 towns at the center of the outbreak—10 of them in Lombardy with a combined population of 50,000—residents are banned from leaving the area. The virus had also spread to other northern regions, prompting authorities to ban or restrict activities in an attempt to limit new infections. The regions affected by restrictions are home to more than 25 million people and include Italy’s core industrial regions around Milan, Turin and the hinterland of Venice. (Stancati and Sylvers, 2/24)

The New York Times: South Korea Raises Threat Alert Level
President Moon Jae-in on Sunday put South Korea on the highest possible alert in its fight against the coronavirus, a move that empowers the government to lock down cities and take other sweeping measures to contain the outbreak. “The coming few days will be a critical time for us,” he said at an emergency meeting of government officials to discuss the outbreak, which in just days has spiraled to 763 confirmed infections and six deaths. “The central government, local governments, health officials and medical personnel and the entire people must wage an all-out, concerted response to the problem.” (2/23)

The Wall Street Journal: ‘The City Has Been Annihilated’: South Korea’s Coronavirus Epicenter Is A Virtual Ghost Town
Cafes here demanded orders must be takeout or delivery. A typically bustling market hollowed out. The rare flicker of activity occurred at stores selling face masks, though most had run out. These are the scenes of eerie silence unfolding in Daegu, South Korea’s fourth-largest city and an epicenter for a coronavirus outbreak that skyrocketed to 763 cases on Monday morning—a roughly 25-fold rise in just five days. In response, President Moon Jae-in raised the country’s virus-alert system to the highest of four levels, calling it a severe situation that requires “unprecedented, powerful” measures. (Yoon and Martin, 2/23)

Reuters: WHO Says No Longer Uses ‘Pandemic’ Category, But Virus Still Emergency
The World Health Organization (WHO) no longer has a process for declaring a pandemic, but the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak remains an international emergency, a spokesman said on Monday. Fears of a coronavirus pandemic grew on Monday after sharp rises in new cases reported in Iran, Italy and South Korea, although China relaxed restrictions on movement in several places including Beijing as its rates of new infections eased. (2/24)

Reuters: Fear Of Coronavirus Pandemic Grows But China Eases Curbs As New Infections Fall
The Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) said it no longer had a process for declaring a pandemic but the coronavirus outbreak remained an international emergency. “We are specially concerned about the rapid increase in cases in … Iran, Italy and the Republic of Korea,” WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Sweden via video link. (2/24)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Is Close To Becoming A Pandemic, WHO Warns
At the beginning of any disease outbreak, public health experts painstakingly trace the contacts of every person who becomes sick. The experts build a family tree of possible illness, with branches that include anyone who might have shaken hands with, or been sneezed on, by an infected person. But with confirmed infections approaching 80,000 people, tracing contacts on a case-by-case basis could soon be impractical. (Johnson, Sun, Wan and Achenbach, 2/22)

The Associated Press: Health Officials Worry As Untraceable Virus Clusters Emerge
In South Korea, Singapore and Iran, clusters of infections are leading to a jump in cases of the new viral illness outside China. But it’s not the numbers that are worrying experts: It’s that increasingly they can’t trace where the clusters started. World Health Organization officials said China’s crackdown on parts of the country bought time for the rest of the world to prepare for the new virus. (2/21)

Reuters: Iran Confirms Another Dead Because Of The New Coronavirus: Official
Iran said on Sunday an Iranian infected by the new coronavirus died in the country, head of the Medical Science University in the Mazandaran province was quoted as saying, bringing the number of deaths to seven in the Islamic Republic. (2/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Spreads Outside China As Officials’ Worries Mount
Pakistani officials said Sunday that the country had sealed its land border with Iran as a result of the outbreak there, though Islamabad made no official announcement. Pakistan is estimated to have the world’s second biggest Shiite population and about 500 people a day cross the border to Shiite-majority Iran. Travelers are being turned back by Pakistani authorities on the road as they approach the border, officials said. “This really is a new virus and we’re learning as we go along,” said Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization. “We’re seeing some cases that don’t have a clear epidemiological link,” she said. (Purnell, 2/24)

The Washington Post: How To Slow Epidemics Like COVID-19
Countries around the world are working to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Here’s how masks and quarantines fight the virus. (Fox, Shin and Emamdjomeh, 2/19)

The New York Times: In Case On Wealth Test For Green Cards, A Scathing Sotomayor Dissent
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to move forward with plans to deny green cards to immigrants who are thought to be likely to become “public charges” by making even occasional and minor use of public benefits like Medicaid, food stamps and housing vouchers. As in a similar case last month, the vote was 5 to 4, with the court’s conservative justices in the majority. As before, the court’s brief order included no reasons for lifting a preliminary injunction that had blocked the new program. (Liptak, 2/21)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Removes Last Remaining Obstacle To Immigrant ‘Wealth Test’
Critics say the rules, which the administration plans to begin enforcing Monday, replace decades of understanding and would place a burden on poor immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. A judge had blocked the administration from implementing the new standards in Illinois, and the Supreme Court’s decision dissolves that order. As is common in such emergency applications, the majority did not explain its reasoning. (Barnes, 2/21)

The New York Times: As Trump Barricades The Border, Legal Immigration Is Beginning To Plunge
President Trump’s immigration policies — like travel bans and visa restrictions or refugee caps and asylum changes — have begun to deliver on a longstanding goal: Legal immigration has fallen more than 11 percent and a steeper cut is looming. While Mr. Trump highlights the construction of a border wall to stress his war on illegal immigration, it is through policy changes, not physical barriers, that his administration has been able to seal the United States. Two more measures were to take effect by Monday, an expansion of his travel ban and strict wealth tests on green card applicants. (Kanno-Youngs, 2/24)

The New York Times: One Side Of A Nuclear Waste Fight: Trump. The Other: His Administration.
Before the 2018 midterm elections, Senator Dean Heller stood with President Trump in the glittering Trump International Hotel near the Las Vegas Strip, looking out from the top floor, and pointed. “I said, ‘See those railroad tracks?’” Mr. Heller, a Nevada Republican who lost his seat later that year, recalled in an interview. Nuclear waste to be carted to Yucca Mountain for permanent storage would have to travel along the tracks, within a half-mile of the hotel, Mr. Heller said. “I think he calculated pretty quickly what that meant,” Mr. Heller said. “I think it all made sense. There was a moment of reflection, of, ‘Oh, OK.’” (Haberman, 2/23)

The Associated Press: Cancer-Linked Chemical Found Inside Kansas Aircraft Hangar
More than 50 personnel at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas may have been exposed to dangerous levels of a compound linked to cancer that was found inside an aircraft hangar last year, according to internal memos. Contamination by hexavalent chrominium, the subject of the case featured in the movie “Eric Brockovich”, was documented in multiple base memos from October 2019 to January 2020, McClatchy reported. (2/21)

The Wall Street Journal: California Disputes Trump Administration’s Claim That Abortion-Coverage Mandate Violates U.S. Law
California disputed a Trump administration assertion that the state is violating U.S. law by requiring insurers to cover abortion, after federal officials threatened to withhold funding if it doesn’t change its policy. California Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra wrote in a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services that the state’s abortion-coverage requirement wasn’t in violation of federal law. It also noted that California provided a religious exemption in 2015 to the mandate. (Armour, 2/21)

The Associated Press: States Step Up Funding For Planned Parenthood Clinics
Severalstates have begun picking up the tab for family planning services at clinics run by Planned Parenthood, which last year quit a $260 million federal funding program over a Trump administration rule prohibiting clinics from referring women for abortions. States including New Jersey, Massachusetts and Hawaii already are providing new funding, and Democratic governors in Connecticut and Pennsylvania have proposed carving out money in state budgets to counter the effects of the national provider’s fallout with the Republican presidential administration. (Haigh, 2/21)

The Associated Press: FDA Approves Drug That Lowers Cholesterol In A New Way
U.S. regulators on Friday approved a new type of cholesterol-lowering drug aimed at millions of people who can’t tolerate — or don’t get enough help from — widely used statin pills like Lipitor and Crestor. The Food and Drug Administration approved Esperion Therapeutics Inc.’s Nexletol for people genetically predisposed to have sky-high cholesterol and people who have heart disease and need to further lower their bad cholesterol. The daily pill is to be taken in conjunction with a healthy diet and the highest statin dose patients can handle, the FDA said. (2/21)

The Washington Post: FDA Approves Bempedoic Acid For High Cholesterol, The First Non-Statin Pill Introduced In Two Decades
The drug, bempedoic acid, is the first in a new class of drugs to treat low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol, also called “bad” cholesterol, which causes the buildup of fatty deposits in the arteries, reducing blood and oxygen flow. Cardiologists said the new drug, which is taken as a pill once a day, will be used primarily as an add-on therapy for people who are taking as high a dose of statin medications as they can tolerate but still have higher-than-desired cholesterol. Studies showed that bempedoic acid reduced cholesterol by an average of 18 percent in patients taking moderate- or high-dose statins, compared with the placebo group, said the manufacturer, Esperion Therapeutics. (McGinley, 2/21)

Reuters: FDA Approves Lundbeck’s Migraine Prevention Therapy
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Lundbeck A/S’ migraine prevention therapy, which the Danish drugmaker acquired through its near $2 billion deal for Alder BioPharmaceuticals in 2019, the company said on Friday. For Lundbeck, the approval opens doors to a lucrative but competitive market dominated by already approved rivals from Amgen Inc, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd and Eli Lilly and Co. (2/21)

Stat: Esperion To Test Market For Cholesterol Pill Cheaper Than Some Competitors
A new cholesterol-lowering medication manufactured by Esperion Therapeutics was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, a decision that will allow the company to test whether price is the biggest barrier to new heart medications on the market… Esperion’s drug, formerly known as bempedoic acid and now called Nexletol, lowers low-density lipoprotein, the “bad cholesterol” that increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, by 17% over the course of 12 weeks of treatment, according to previously presented data. (Herper, 2/21)

Stat: With Data On Lead Drug, Kadmon And CEO Waksal Plot Their Redemption
Kadmon (KDMN), the New York-based biotech, is developing the first drug designed specifically to target chronic [graft-versus-host disease.] In new but still preliminary clinical trial results presented Sunday, the Kadmon drug, a pill called KD025, showed meaningful reductions of chronic GVHD in two-thirds of patients — nearly all of whom entered the pivotal clinical trial after current treatment options stopped working. (Feuerstein, 2/23)

The New York Times: At Walgreens, Complaints Of Medication Errors Go Missing
Pharmacy employees at Walgreens told consultants late last year that high levels of stress and “unreasonable” expectations had led them to make mistakes while filling prescriptions and to ignore some safety procedures. But when the consultants presented their findings at Walgreens’s corporate offices this month, there was no reference to the errors and little mention of other concerns the employees had raised. (Gabler, 2/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Chinese Military Turns To U.S. University To Conduct Covert Research
When a researcher from a Chinese military academy applied to study with celebrated Boston University physicist Eugene Stanley, he said her affiliation didn’t raise red flags. “I’m not interested at all in politics. I’m a scientist,” said Mr. Stanley, whose wide-ranging research has included using artificial intelligence to decode financial markets and applying statistical physics to prevent diseases. The recent indictment of the researcher, who is accused of lying on her U.S. visa application to conceal she is a lieutenant in the Chinese military, shows how U.S. universities’ openness to international collaboration in cutting-edge research leaves them vulnerable to potential exploitation. (O’Keeffe and Viswanatha, 2/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Physicians, Hospitals Meet Their New Competitor: Insurer-Owned Clinics
Some of the largest health insurers are capitalizing on recent massive deals by steering patients toward clinics they now own, controlling both delivery and payment for health care. The trend creates worries for rival doctor groups and hospital companies that have invested deeply in buying up physician practices, which now increasingly compete against offerings from insurers. (Wilde Mathews, 2/23)

The Washington Post: U.S. Drug Overdose Deaths Rise In West And Drop In East
Downstairs at the medical examiner’s office, the bodies lay side by side on stainless-steel tables and shelves, shrouded and anonymized in white bags, each person identifiable only by a protruding foot that had been toe-tagged. Upstairs, Luke Rodda, the chief forensic toxicologist, looked over his morning docket and the terse reports from first responders. Male, 33, “prior history of fentanyl overdose,” found at bus stop. (Achenbach, 2/21)

NPR: When Probation Rules Are An Obstacle To Opioid Addiction’s Best Treatment
She was in medical school. He was just out of prison. Sarah Ziegenhorn and Andy Beeler’s romance grew out of a shared passion to do more about the country’s drug overdose crisis. Ziegenhorn moved back to her home state of Iowa when she was 26. She had been working in Washington, D.C., where she also volunteered at a needle exchange. She was ambitious and driven to help those in her community who were overdosing and dying, including people she had grown up with. (Stone, 2/24)

Stat: Alzheimer’s Group Sees Signs Of Progress Against A Grim Disease. Is It Real?
In 1979, a man named Jerome Stone, frustrated with the lack of options and information about Alzheimer’s disease following his wife’s diagnosis, brought together experts and families affected by dementia to launch the Alzheimer’s Association. One of their goals: find a cure for the disease.Forty years later, an estimated 5.8 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, with a new person developing the condition about every minute of every day. There is still no treatment that slows progression of the disease, let alone stops or reverses it. (Joseph, 2/24)

The New York Times: Gunmakers Battle ‘Trump Slump’ With A Softer Sales Pitch
It was like any other convention in this city of neon and slot machines, except for all the guns. At the Shot Show, an annual gathering of the firearms industry in Las Vegas, flash drives shaped like military rifles were handed out. Influencers with large followings on Instagram and TikTok posed for selfies, Glocks in hand. Visitors took turns sitting in the “Freedom Throne,” an eight-foot chair made out of shell casings and other munitions from a company called Lucky Shot USA. (Hsu, 2/23)

The Washington Post: College Student Yeming Shen Died Of Flu In Troy, N.Y., After 911 Couldn’t Track His Location.
Yeming Shen called 911 on Feb. 10. He was alone in his Troy, N.Y., apartment, dying of the flu. But the garbled call was unintelligible to the operators, and police couldn’t pinpoint the phone’s location. For 45 minutes after Shen called 911, five police officers, three firefighters and a police dog searched in vain for the student. All they had was a general area encompassing two apartment buildings. They eventually gave up without finding Shen. Six hours later, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student’s roommate discovered his body, the Times Union first reported. (Kornfield, 2/22)

The New York Times: Debating The Value Of PSA Prostate Screening
We’ve long been schooled on the lifesaving value of early detection of a potentially deadly cancer. So when a simple blood test was introduced in 1994 that could detect the possible presence of prostate cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths among American men, it’s not hard to understand why it quickly became hugely popular. (Brody, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Synovial Chondromatosis: A Hard Fall Unmasked This Unusual And Painful Condition
If she hadn’t tripped over her neighbor’s dog, causing her to miss the step down into a sunken living room where she landed squarely on her left hip, Lynda Holland still might not know what was wrong. Holland scrambled to her feet, shaken and grateful she hadn’t been injured: Her puffy down coat had cushioned her fall onto the hardwood floor. Then she realized the pain that had dominated her life for the previous six years had suddenly diminished. (Boodman, 2/22)