First Edition: February 25, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Needy Patients ‘Caught In The Middle’ As Insurance Titan Drops Doctors
For five years, Rasha Salama has taken her two children to Dr. Inas Wassef, a pediatrician a few blocks from her home in this blue-collar town across the bay from New York City. Salama likes the doctor because Wassef speaks her native language — Arabic — and has office hours at convenient times for children. “She knows my kids, answers the phone, is open on Saturdays and is everything for me,” she said. (Galewitz, 2/25)

California Healthline: The Golden State’s Mixed Record On Lung Cancer
It was a bewildering moment for Zach Jump, the American Lung Association’s national director of epidemiology and statistics. The numbers leaped off the computer screen and prompted an immediate question: How could California, a leader in reducing lung cancer cases, fall so short on early diagnosis and treatment of the disease? “It’s like you’d found the needle in the haystack of results,” said Jump. “I don’t know if anyone knew this was going to show up.” (Kreidler, 2/24)

The New York Times: White House Asks Congress For Billions To Fight Coronavirus
The Trump administration, after weeks of pleading from lawmakers, asked Congress on Monday to allocate $1.25 billion in new emergency funds to bolster its coronavirus response. The request from the White House, which also called for $1.25 billion in money diverted from other federal programs, is a significant escalation in the administration’s response to the outbreak of the virus and a sign of how long the fight to stop it may be. The White House budget office also said it intended to move $535 million allocated for the prevention and treatment of the Ebola virus during the current fiscal year. (Weiland, Cochrane and Habberman, 2/24)

The Washington Post: White House Asks Congress For $1.8 Billion To Bolster Coronavirus Response
The request includes $1.25 billion in new funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the ability to transfer an additional $535 million set aside to fight Ebola and use it for the coronavirus response instead. “To this point, no agency has been inhibited in response efforts due to resources or authorities. However, much is still unknown about this virus and the disease it causes,” acting White House Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought wrote to congressional leaders. “The administration believes additional federal resources are necessary to take steps to prepare for a potential worsening of the situation in the United States.” (Werner, Stein and Sun, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Seeks $2.5 Billion To Fight Coronavirus
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) criticized the request in a statement, indicating a possible political battle over the funding package. “The President’s request for coronavirus response funding is long overdue and completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency,” she said. Mr. Trump, who is traveling in India, wrote in a series of tweets on Monday that the disease was under control. (Duehren, 2/24)

Reuters: Republicans Raise U.S. Drug Supply Concerns After Coronavirus Outbreak
Republicans raised concerns this week about the security of the U.S. drug supply chain in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak in China, where a significant portion of the ingredients used to make prescription drugs is manufactured. The outbreak highlights “severe, longstanding, and unresolved vulnerabilities in our capacity to produce life-saving pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices for our own citizens,” Missouri Senator Josh Hawley wrote in a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “This is unacceptable.” (2/24)

The New York Times: Wall Street Is (Finally) Waking Up To The Damage Coronavirus Could Do
For weeks, there has been a strange divergence among those trying to predict what coronavirus might mean for financial markets and the world economy. People in the trenches of global commerce — supply chain managers, travel industry experts, employers large and small — warned of substantial disruptions to their businesses. And public health authorities feared that the disease could spread far beyond Wuhan in China. (Irwin, 2/25)

Reuters: Health Insurer Shares Pummeled By Sanders Surge, Virus Worries
As concerns over the spreading coronavirus outbreak hammered U.S. stocks, one corner of the market was confronted with another potentially game-changing prospect: a Bernie Sanders nomination. The S&P 500 managed healthcare index of health insurance stocks tumbled over 7% early Monday afternoon, compared to a 3.5% fall for the overall S&P 500. Shares of industry bellwether UnitedHealth Group Inc dropped 7.6% and were the biggest individual drag on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, while shares of Centene Corp fell more than 10%. (2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Fear Of Coronavirus, Rather Than Virus Itself, Hits Economies
The body’s immune response to infection is often more painful than the infection itself. The same is true of epidemics and the economy. As with terrorist attacks and financial crises, epidemics generate widespread uncertainty and sometimes panic. Government authorities and private individuals often respond by drastically reducing exposure to the shock, amplifying its global economic impact. (Ip, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Market Plunge Over Coronavirus Fears Underscores Political Risk To Trump
As President Trump spent Monday sightseeing in India, the U.S. stock market plunged amid growing concerns about a deadly virus spreading quickly across continents — a split screen that brought into stark relief how the coronavirus is testing the White House and undercutting Trump’s central reelection message. The Trump administration’s disjointed handling of the outbreak has faced mounting criticism as the president’s allies have scrambled to take preventive steps while seeking to reassure the public, at times struggling to explain their decisions and offer a consistent message. (Olorunnipa and Costa, 2/24)

Politico: Trump Faces ‘Black Swan’ Threat To The Economy And Reelection
With the possibility of a U.S. outbreak growing by the day, Trump allies and advisers have grown increasingly worried that a botched coronavirus response will hit the U.S. economy. Even Donald Trump Jr. has mused to associates he hopes the White House does not screw up the response and put the president’s best reelection message at risk, said two individuals with knowledge of his comments. “Trump’s reelection effort is so closely tied to the strength of the stock market and the economy,” said Moore, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and 2016 Trump campaign adviser. “Anything that shakes us off of that pro-growth track is a concern, but I think the view of officials in the White House is that this will be contained.” (Diamond and Cook, 2/24)

Reuters: Judge Orders Talks Over Plans To Move Virus Patients To A California City
A U.S. judge barred the government from relocating coronavirus patients to southern California for another week on Monday and ordered it to discuss the move with state officials. U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton had on Friday halted the government’s plans to send infected cruise ship passengers to a state-owned facility in Costa Mesa, after the Orange County city of 113,000 filed a legal action against the proposal. (2/25)

The Washington Post: U.S. Judge Delays Decision On Moving Coronavirus-Exposed Americans To Costa Mesa, Calif.
She said she would not make a decision in the city’s lawsuit based on people’s fears, but was also critical of state and federal officials for not doing more to allay people’s concerns. She urged them to answer residents’ questions about who would care for people who tested positive or were potentially exposed to the virus, how many quarantined individuals might be moved to Costa Mesa and what would happen if they developed symptoms and required hospitalization. (Rowe and Abutaleb, 2/24)

The New York Times: As Fears Of A Pandemic Mount, W.H.O. Says World Is Not Ready
As new cases of the coronavirus spiked on two continents, the World Health Organization warned on Monday that the world was not ready for a major outbreak, even as it praised China’s aggressive efforts to wrest the epidemic under control. After two weeks on the ground in China, a team sent by the W.H.O. concluded that the draconian measures China imposed a month ago may have saved hundreds of thousands of people from infection. Such measures — sealing off cities, shutting down businesses and schools, ordering people to remain indoors — have provoked anger in China and could be difficult to replicate in democratic countries with a greater emphasis on protecting civil liberties. (Myers and Wee, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus’s Global Spread May Not Be Contained, WHO Says
The WHO said it isn’t yet clear whether a world-wide spread is inevitable. The virus could be contained, develop a regular pattern of continual or seasonal transmission, or become a pandemic, said Michael Ryan, the WHO’s chief of health emergencies, speaking at a news conference. The agency said the outbreak doesn’t currently qualify as a pandemic—defined as widespread transmission on multiple continents, with impacts on society—and new cases are on the decline in China, where the majority of illnesses have occurred. (McKay, Stancati and Yoon, 2/24)

Stat: WHO Tells Countries To Prepare For Possibility Of A Coronavirus Pandemic
The World Health Organization said the coronavirus outbreak that has swept from China to a number of countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe is not yet a pandemic, but it urged countries to prepare for its arrival on the assumption that a declaration may come. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said countries should be working to protect health workers, engaging groups that are at highest risk — for instance, the elderly — and striving to contain spread of the virus to the highest degree possible to slow its arrival in countries that don’t have the means to respond to its threat. (Branswell, 2/24)

CIDRAP: WHO Notes COVID-19 Pandemic Potential As 5 More Mideast Nations Affected
At a media telebriefing in Geneva today, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said the team learned more about the transmissibility of the virus, its severity, and the measures China took. He said the decline in China’s cases is real, and that the epidemic peaked and plateaued between Jan 23 and Feb 2 and has been steadily declining since then. He said the group found that the fatality rate ranges from 2% to 4% in Wuhan, but is lower at 0.7% outside of the city. For people with mild disease, recovery takes about 2 weeks, but patients who experience severe or critical disease it may take 3 to 6 weeks to recover. (Schnirring, 2/24)

The New York Times: ‘Recipe For A Massive Viral Outbreak’: Iran Emerges As A Worldwide Threat
Religious pilgrims, migrant workers, businessmen, soldiers and clerics all flow constantly across Iran’s frontiers, often crossing into countries with few border controls, weak and ineffective governments and fragile health systems. Now, as it struggles to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Iran is also emerging as the second focal point after China for the spread of the disease. Cases in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates — even one in Canada — have all been traced to Iran, sending tremors of fear rippling out from Kabul to Beirut. (Kirkpatrick, Fassihi and Mashal, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Virus Outbreak In Italy Disrupts One Of Europe’s Powerhouse Regions
The two Italian regions most affected by the virus—Lombardy, where Milan is the capital, and Veneto, home to Venice—account for almost a third of the country’s economic output and about 40% of Italy’s exports. The northern part of Italy is the country’s most affluent area and a large market for other European countries’ goods, meaning that dislocation in Italy is likely to affect its neighbors. (Sylvers and Fairless, 2/24)

The New York Times: Spanish Hotel Is Latest Site Of Possible Outbreak
A hotel on the Spanish resort island of Tenerife was placed under a police cordon on Tuesday after an Italian guest tested positive for the new coronavirus, the authorities said. According to local news reports, about 1,000 guests are booked at the hotel, the H10 Costa Adeje Palace, a resort popular with British tourists. It was initially unclear the extent to which the hotel had been locked down and whether an official quarantine had been put in place. (2/25)

Reuters: South Korea’s Moon Says Situation ‘Very Grave’ As Mass Virus Tests Get Going
South Korean health authorities said on Tuesday they aim to test more than 200,000 members of a church at the center of a surge of new coronavirus cases as President Moon Jae-in said the situation was “very grave”. South Korea’s tally of cases of coronavirus cases rose to 977, fuelling fears the outbreak, which is thought to have begun in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December, is developing into a pandemic. (2/25)

Reuters: South Korea To Launch Mass Coronavirus Testing, U.S. Pledges $1 Billion For Vaccine
About 68% of South Korea’s cases are linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, where the outbreak is believed to have begun with a 61-year-old woman. It is not known how she became infected. The church said it would provide authorities with the names of all members in South Korea, estimated by media at about 215,000 people. The government would test them all as soon as possible, the prime minister’s office said.”It is essential to test all of the church members in order to contain the spread of the virus and relieve public anxiety,” it said in a statement. (2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: South Korea Plans ‘Maximum’ Quarantine Steps In Coronavirus-Struck City
Shincheonji’s founder, Lee Man-hee, said in a statement posted on the group’s website that it would provide the government a complete membership list, though former members said that is unlikely. Shincheonji Church dispatches undercover “reapers” to other churches to recruit new members, they said, and revealing their identities would sabotage the church’s mission of expanding. Members often hide their religion from their families, they said. (Martin and Yoon, 2/25)

Reuters: All 16 Of Vietnam’s Coronavirus Sufferers Cured
All 16 people in Vietnam infected with a new coronavirus have been cured, the health ministry said on Tuesday, adding that no new cases have been recorded since Feb. 13. The last known patient, a 50-year-old man infected by his daughter who returned from China’s central city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, has recovered and is in good condition, the ministry said in a statement. (2/25)

The New York Times: Westerdam Passengers At Low Risk Of Coronavirus Infection, C.D.C. Says
Passengers aboard the cruise ship Westerdam who have returned to the United States no longer need to isolate themselves and can resume normal activities, despite the fact that one passenger tested positive for the new coronavirus in Malaysia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised. A spokesman for the agency said on Saturday that the passenger’s diagnosis, confirmed twice by health officials in Malaysia, was a false-positive and noted that no other infections among passengers aboard the ship had been reported. (Rabin, 2/24)

Reuters: China Bans Trade, Consumption Of Wild Animals Due To Coronavirus
China’s top legislature said it will immediately ban the trade and consumption of wild animals, in a fast-track decision it says will allow the country to win the battle against the coronavirus outbreak. The announcement, made late on Monday according to the official Xinhua News Agency, comes after an initial suspension of the trade and consumption of wildlife in January. (2/24)

Stat: Health Worker Infections Underscore The Chaos Of Coronavirus Response
Thousands of health care workers, largely in China, have been infected amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, a sign of the immensely difficult working conditions for medical staffers, who should be among those best protected against infection. The infections, along with the deaths of several doctors in China, underscore the deeply challenging, chaotic environment that health care workers confront when toiling on the front lines of a major outbreak. (Thielking, 2/25)

The New York Times: Hong Kong Says It Will Begin Evacuating Residents From Wuhan
The Hong Kong government, which has faced growing demands to evacuate its residents from mainland China after one died of the coronavirus, said on Monday that it would begin bringing people back from Hubei Province, the center of the outbreak. Thousands of Hong Kong residents have been unable to return after much of Hubei was put on lockdown last month. Their worries were heightened when officials said on Sunday that a 77-year-old Hong Kong man who was infected with the coronavirus had died in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei. (Ramzy, Yu and May, 2/24)

The New York Times: ‘I Felt Like Crying’: Coronavirus Shakes China’s Expecting Mothers
The hospital waiting room was filled with dozens of women wearing homemade hazmat suits. Their hair was tucked tightly under shower caps. Their rain ponchos zipped taut over winter coats. All of the women, anxious and pregnant during the coronavirus outbreak, had been waiting hours to see the same doctor. “I don’t feel at ease,” said Vigor Liu, who is five months pregnant with her first child. After waiting for three hours, Ms. Liu finally saw the doctor for a brief 10-minute conversation. His advice: stop reading the news. (Alexandra Stevenson, 2/25)

The New York Times: New Genomic Tests Aim To Diagnose Deadly Infections Faster
Ryan Springer’s mystery illness began last summer with a dull ache in his chest. Over the next few days, the symptoms grew more alarming: sharp pain with every breath, a rapid heartbeat and a spiking fever. Emergency room doctors at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Ill., were stumped. They ordered up a lung biopsy and started Mr. Springer, 47, on a broad-spectrum antibiotic. But his condition worsened, and doctors feared he might not survive the five or more days it would take to get the lab results back. (Jacobs, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Drugmaker Moderna Delivers First Experimental Coronavirus Vaccine For Human Testing
Drugmaker Moderna Inc. has shipped the first batch of its rapidly developed coronavirus vaccine to U.S. government researchers, who will launch the first human tests of whether the experimental shot could help suppress the epidemic originating in China. Moderna on Monday sent vaccine vials from its Norwood, Mass., manufacturing plant to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., the company said. (Loftus, 2/24)

The New York Times: How To Quarantine At Home
“You’ll be so lonely,” says Nicole Gadon, 68, who was required to stay inside her house after testing positive for tuberculosis in 2014. If you come down with (or are exposed to) certain communicable diseases, including cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fever, SARS or a pandemic influenza, the state and federal governments can force you into quarantine and isolation. Often you will be told to hole up in your house or apartment until you are no longer deemed a threat. (Wollan, 2/25)

The Associated Press: Epidemic Vs. Pandemic? Glossary Of Terms For Virus Outbreak
COVID-19 is the name of the new illness caused by a coronavirus that was first identified in China in late 2019. (2/24)

The New York Times: Bernie Sanders Outlines Funding For His Plans, But It May Not All Add Up
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, under growing pressure to explain how he would pay for his very expensive policy agenda, released a checklist on Monday evening that he described as a full explanation of how he would finance all of his proposals. The actual document is somewhat limited, and in some cases the revenue Mr. Sanders identifies doesn’t match the costs of his plans. For example, he estimated Sunday night on “60 Minutes” that the price tag for his “Medicare for all” plan would be about $30 trillion over 10 years, but the revenue he identifies for it in the new outline totals about $17.5 trillion. It is possible that the gap could be filled by existing appropriations for Medicare and Medicaid, but Mr. Sanders did not mention those in his outline or in the Sunday interview. (Astor, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Candidates Refuse To Release Detailed Health Records Amid An Aging Presidential Field
In the run-up to the 1976 presidential campaign, Sen. Frank Church of Idaho revealed that cancer had claimed his left testicle. Jimmy Carter disclosed that he had trouble swallowing due to an allergy to beans and Swiss cheese. And when he ran for president in 2000 and 2008, John McCain released more than 1,000 pages of medical records, including a psychiatric report that divulged his “histrionic personality.” “At that moment in time, the idea of telling the national media to pound sand on the matter of his medical records was not reality,” said former McCain adviser Steve Schmidt. “There was a sense of obligation and responsibility still attached to the pursuit of the presidency.” (Viser and Bernstein, 2/24)

The Associated Press: Crackdown On Immigrants Who Use Public Benefits Takes Effect
Pastor Antonio Velasquez says that before the Trump administration announced a crackdown on immigrants using government social services, people lined up before sunrise outside a state office in a largely Latino Phoenix neighborhood to sign up for food stamps and Medicaid. No more. “You had to arrive at 3 in the morning, and it might take you until the end of the day,” he said, pointing behind the office in the Maryvale neighborhood to show how long the lines got. But no one lined up one recent weekday morning, and there were just a handful of people inside. (2/24)

Reuters: New U.S. Rule Targeting Poor Immigrants Sows Fear, Confusion, Advocates Say
The Trump administration rolled out a new immigration policy on Monday that bars people deemed likely to require government benefits such as housing and food assistance from obtaining permanent residency in the United States. Local and state officials overseeing public health and social services in New York said that some immigrants were disenrolling from certain food assistance programs and Medicare even if they might not be affected by the rule, which places new limits on eligibility for green cards. (2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Fewer Immigrants Sign Up For Food-Subsidy Program
New federal rules that could prevent some noncitizens from getting lawful permanent-resident status if they use public benefits is depressing the number of low-income immigrant women who enroll in a program to provide food and other assistance, New York City officials said. Enrollment in the federally funded Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC, is available to low-income pregnant women and children up to the age of five, regardless of immigration status. It provides nutrition education, food and breast-feeding support. (West, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Trump Says Sotomayor, Ginsburg Should Recuse Themselves From All ‘Trump Related’ Cases
President Trump attacked Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a pair of tweets late Monday night, days after Sotomayor issued a dissent critical of both the Trump administration’s legal strategy and the court’s majority for enabling it. Tweeting just before appearing in a welcome ceremony at the Indian ceremonial president’s residence in New Delhi, Trump cited a Laura Ingraham segment on Fox News titled, “Sotomayor accuses GOP-appointed justices of being biased in favor of Trump.” He then called on Sotomayor and also Ginsburg to recuse themselves in “all Trump, or Trump related, matters!” (Flynn, 2/25)

The Associated Press: US Appeals Court Upholds Trump Rules Involving Abortions
In a victory for the Trump administration, a U.S. appeals court on Monday upheld rules that bar taxpayer-funded family-planning clinics from referring women for abortions. The 7-4 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned decisions issued by judges in Washington, Oregon and California. The court had already allowed the administration’s changes to start taking effect while the government appealed those rulings. (2/24)

The Washington Post: Appeals Court Upholds Trump Ban On Abortion Referrals By Family Planning Clinics
Monday’s ruling is the first substantive court decision on a move by the Department of Health and Human Services that heightened a long-brewing antagonism between social conservatives on one side and Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other family planning groups on the other. Under federal law, health-care groups were already barred from using federal funds for abortion services. The rule issued by HHS a year ago went further, forbidding health centers that provide abortions or refer patients for abortions elsewhere from receiving any money through the half-century-old family planning program — a change critics lambasted as a “gag rule.” The rule also requires health centers to erect “clear physical and financial separation” between services funded by the program and other activities. (Goldstein, 2/24)

Los Angeles Times: U.S. Court Upholds Trump’s Rule Involving Abortion Cases
Monday’s ruling was a sign of just how much the 9th Circuit has changed since President Trump replaced 10 judges, more than one third of the active jurists. Randomly drawn panels that decide challenges to Trump policies are now much more likely to have Republican majorities. “The Supreme Court has long recognized that abortion need not be treated the same as other medical procedures,” Judge Sandra S. Ikuta, appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote for the majority. (Dolan, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Juul Pitches Locked E-Cigarette In Bid To Stay On U.S. Market
Juul Labs Inc. plans to present to federal regulators a new version of its vaporizer designed to unlock only for users at least 21 years old, according to people familiar with the matter. The controversial e-cigarette maker will propose the next-generation device as part of an application that the company must file to keep its products in the U.S. market. All manufacturers must submit their vaping products for Food and Drug Administration review by May 12 to continue selling them in the U.S. after that date. The companies must demonstrate that their e-cigarettes present a net benefit to public health—in other words, that the benefit of helping adult cigarette smokers switch to a safer alternative outweighs the potential harm of hooking young people on nicotine. (Maloney, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Get Ready For Round Two Of The Vaping Wars
Robert Arnold has spent years building his company, Saffire Vapor, which cranks out 5,000 bottles of nicotine e-liquid a week including Red October (banana nut bread and strawberries), Naughty or Nice (sugar cookie) and Engineer (buttery cinnamon toast). He sells the “vape juice,” worth about $65,000, at his 24 vape shops in Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as online. But now, Arnold is worried he might lose everything. (McGinley, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Lawmakers Pressure U.S. Indian Health Service To Release Sex Abuse Report
Lawmakers who oversee the U.S. Indian Health Service are demanding the health care agency release a report on its mishandling of a pedophile doctor that it wants to keep confidential, saying the agency must be held accountable. On Monday, Sen. Tom Udall, (D., N.M.), vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, said in a statement that the IHS ran the risk of an “appearance of a desire to avoid accountability” if it didn’t disclose “as much of the report as is possible, as soon as possible.” The report focused on the IHS’s failure to protect children during the nearly 30-year-career of staff pediatrician, Stanley Patrick Weber, who was later convicted of sexually abusing Native American boys. (Frosch and Weaver, 2/24)

The Washington Post: U.S. Passports: Bill Seeks To Add Gender-Neutral ‘X’ To Male And Female Categories
While filling out a passport application more than five years ago, Dana Zzyym didn’t want to lie. Instead of checking the box labeled “M” or “F” for gender, Zzyym — who is intersex and identifies as neither male nor female — wrote down an “X.” The application was denied, prompting Zzyym to begin a lengthy, landmark court fight with the State Department, arguing that the limited gender options violated their constitutional rights. (Schmidt, 2/24)

Stat: Google’s Labors To Anonymize Patient Data Suggest Its Uphill Battle 
Google has been exploring creative ways to protect sensitive health data, even as it has drawn criticism and federal scrutiny over the possibility its employees had access to identifiable patient information from one of the nation’s largest hospital systems. The tech giant’s researchers described their work in a recent paper, but also candidly laid out the magnitude of one of the biggest challenges facing health care: Even their best efforts to de-identify health data, or to render it anonymous, would leave some people exposed. (Brodwin, 2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Predators Use The Internet To Hide—AI Is Trying To Unmask Them
When Rhiannon McDonald was 13, she was chatting online one night with someone she thought was a female modeling scout. In a matter of hours, from the computer in her bedroom, she was coerced into sending numerous photos of herself unclothed—and providing her home address. The next day, the person who had been writing to her showed up at her house. It was a man. He sexually assaulted her. (Jargon, 2/25)

Los Angeles Times: State Justice Department Announces New Technology To Identify Unknown Persons
The state’s top law enforcement agency has gained the ability to fully sequence mitochondrial DNA, an advancement that justice officials hope will better enable investigators to identify the bodies of missing persons. “Anything we can do to help families find closure is critical,” California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said in a statement Monday. “We’re proud of the work our scientists and technicians do every day at our Bureau of Forensic Services to help protect Californians, including our work with local law enforcement to help families locate their missing loved ones.” (Cosgrove, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Tennessee Psychiatrist Richard Farmer Found Guilty In First Conviction For Appalachian Opioid Task Force
A Tennessee psychiatrist who prescribed more than 1,200 pills to three sisters in three years was found guilty in federal court Friday of distributing powerful opioid painkillers without a “legitimate medical purpose,” according to a statement from the Justice Department. The verdict against Richard Farmer, 83, marks the first conviction for a federal task force formed in 2018 to crack down on illegal opioid prescriptions in the Appalachian region amid the federal government’s sometimes-controversial effort to stem the opioid epidemic through prosecution. (Bellware, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Mallinckrodt Pitches At Least $1.6 Billion Opioid Settlement, Generics Unit Bankruptcy
Drugmaker Mallinckrodt PLC is finalizing a settlement proposal worth at least $1.6 billion that would place its U.S. generic-drug business into bankruptcy to address coming debt maturities and liabilities stemming from the opioid crisis, according to people familiar with the matter. The Ireland-based drugmaker is close to a proposed deal that includes a chapter 11 filing covering its U.S. generics business and a resolution of claims from hundreds of state and local governments stemming from the cost of combating opioid addiction, the people said. (Gladstone, Hopkins and Chung, 2/24)

The New York Times: Mental-Health Researchers Ask: What Is ‘Recovery’?
For years, Claire Bien, a research associate at Yale, strained to manage the gossipy, mocking voices in her head and the ominous sense that other people were plotting against her. Told she had a psychotic disorder, she learned over time to manage her voices and fears with a lot of psychotherapy and, periodically, medication. But sometime in late 1990, she tried something entirely different: She began generating her own voices, internal allies, to counter her internal abusers. “I truly felt I was channeling my father, my ancestors, a wise psychiatrist, giving me advice,” said Ms. Bien, who has written a book about her experience, “Hearing Voices, Living Fully.” (Carey, 2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: An Unexpected New Diagnosis In Older Adults: ADHD
Many seniors get diagnosed with conditions like dementia or heart disease. Not Timothy McMichael. At the age of 60, he was diagnosed with a condition most often associated with school children: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. He started taking a low dose of a stimulant about a year-and-a-half ago and says his attentiveness and concentration at work have never been better. (Reddy, 2/24)

Reuters: Mammograms Not Helpful In Women 75 And Older, Study Finds
Women 75 and older do not benefit from regular screening mammograms, researchers reported on Monday, offering some of the first evidence on whether screening makes sense in these women. Although studies clearly show mammograms starting at age 50 prevent breast cancer deaths, until now, doctors have had little evidence about when to end screening, Dr. Otis Brawley of Johns Hopkins University and former chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, wrote in editorial in the Annals of Internal Medicine. (2/24)

Reuters: Keeping Up Regular AMD Treatment Visits Tied To Less Vision Loss Over Time
People with a common age-related eye disease who show up regularly for their doctor’s visits get to keep more of their sight than those who skip appointments or stretch the time between visits, a new analysis suggests. Researchers examined data from a two-year study that compared different treatments for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of vision loss in the United States. (2/24)

The New York Times: New Jersey May Raise Cigarette Taxes To Highest Level In Nation
Zahir Shabazz smokes about three packs of cigarettes each week. Each time, he hands a cashier $10, give or take, and a slim pack of Newports appears, feeding a habit of nearly 30 years. He said he knows it is time to quit. “It’s too much,” he said. But Mr. Shabazz, 42, of Union, N.J., could soon wind up paying even more. Gov. Philip D. Murphy is expected to release a proposed budget on Tuesday that includes a $1.65 increase in New Jersey’s cigarette tax, two policy advisers said. (Tully, 2/25)

The Associated Press: Rural Georgia Hospital Is Reborn But Without Its Costly ER
For years, the hospital in this small, south Georgia city was in grave financial trouble. Like other rural American hospitals, Cook Medical Center was saddled with an outdated building, trouble recruiting doctors and a patient population short on health insurance. In 2017, hospital officials shut down the emergency room, and the 60-bed hospital itself was next, local officials say, unless the city and county could cover some of the cost of a new building. (2/25)

Los Angeles Times: Anti-Vaccine Protesters Receive Assurances From Siebel Newsom
California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom told anti-vaccine protesters rallying outside her Sacramento-area home that her husband’s administration is looking into their concerns about California’s new laws limiting who can be exempted from shots required for school, while also saying she believes there needs to be more dialog about whether some immunizations are unnecessary. In a video taken Monday, Siebel Newsom is seen talking with the protesters about the vaccine laws signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year before she asks that they not post the video online. (Gutierrez, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: More States Consider Free Tampons In School Bathrooms
In schools around the country, more girls are making the same request: free tampons. Fueled by a wave of youth activism, students are raising money, lobbying their state representatives and school boards, holding schoolwide assemblies and launching Instagram accounts to help make tampons and other menstrual products free and accessible in their school bathrooms. Lawmakers have taken notice. (Calfas, 2/25)

The Washington Post: Virginia Senate Panel Advances Seven Gun Control Bills
A state Senate committee on Monday advanced seven of the eight gun-control bills advocated by Gov. Ralph Northam, a week after killing a proposed assault weapons ban that several Democrats said was going too far. Two of Monday’s bills were scaled back to help preserve support among more centrist members of the Democratic caucus, and another has already failed once on the floor of the Senate. But the Northam administration took the votes as a victory in the wake of last week’s disappointment. (Schneider, 2/24)