First Edition: February 6, 2019

Kaiser Health News: In State Of The Union Address, Trump Vows To Lower ‘Unfair’ Drug Prices
It was not the centerpiece, but health was a persistent theme in President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address at the Capitol on Tuesday night. Although the administration has focused more on issues of trade, taxes and immigration, the president laid out a series of health-related goals, including some that even Democrats indicated could be areas of bipartisan negotiation or compromise. Trump vowed to take on prescription drug prices, pursue an end to the HIV epidemic and boost funding for childhood cancers. (Rovner, 2/6)

Kaiser Health News: Utah And Idaho Lawmakers Seek To Scale Back Voter-Approved Medicaid Expansions
The pushback shows the limits of the ballot referendums — otherwise called “direct democracy,” said Craig Burnett, an assistant professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. The reaction from Idaho and Utah lawmakers could chill other potential Medicaid expansion ballot referendums planned for 2020 in Florida and other states, said Jamila Michener, an assistant professor of government at Cornell University. (Galewitz, 2/5)

Kaiser Health News: Scooter Madness In Austin Puts Safety Concerns In High Gear
University of Texas star baseball shortstop David Hamilton hit a pothole riding an electric scooter, tearing his Achilles tendon and requiring surgery. He’ll miss the season. Cristal Glangchai, the CEO for a nonprofit, hit a rock riding her scooter, landing her on the pavement just blocks from home. “I lost control and ended up getting a concussion and a broken rib,” said Glangchai, a 41-year-old mother of four. (Jayson, 2/6)

The New York Times: Trump Plan To Stop Spread Of H.I.V. Will Target ‘Hot Spot’ Areas
President Trump’s plan to stop the transmission of H.I.V. in the United States will focus on 48 counties where about half of new infections occur, administration officials said on Tuesday. The goal is to reduce new infections by 75 percent over five years and to “end the H.I.V. epidemic in America” by 2030, said Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, who coordinated development of the ambitious plan, outlined by Mr. Trump in his State of the Union address. New infections in recent years have remained at roughly the same level, around 40,000 a year. (Pear, 2/5)

The Washington Post: Trump Announces Goal Of Ending HIV/AIDS Epidemic By End Of Next Decade
In his State of the Union address, President Trump went beyond the promises of any of his predecessors since AIDS appeared as a deadly scourge nearly four decades ago. He announced a strategy to stop the spread of HIV by 2030 by concentrating as-yet-unspecified resources on 48 counties and other “hot spots” where half the nation’s new infections occur. “Scientific breakthroughs have brought a once-distant dream within reach,” the president said in the latter part of his annual agenda-setting speech to both chambers of Congress. “Together, we will defeat AIDS in America and beyond.” (Goldstein, 2/5)

The Associated Press: Trump Plan To Stop HIV Epidemic Targets High-Infection Areas
Briefing reporters ahead of Trump’s State of the Union speech, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and senior public health officials said the campaign relies on fresh insights into where about half of new HIV cases occur — 48 out of some 3,000 U.S. counties, and Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and seven states with at-risk rural residents. “We’ve never had that kind of ‘This is the target,'” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s pre-eminent AIDS warrior and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The government has “been trying to address HIV, but never in such a focused way,” he said. (2/5)

Politico: Trump’s State Of The Union Pledge: Ending HIV Transmissions By 2030
The State of the Union historically has been a platform for presidents to make bold public health proclamations — many of which haven’t come to pass. Former President Barack Obama used his final address in January 2016 to call for an end to cancer. While the cancer rate has continued to decline, more than 600,000 U.S. residents were estimated to have died from cancer last year. (Diamond, 2/3)

Stat: Can The U.S. End The HIV Epidemic In A Decade, As Trump Pledged?
President Trump confirmed Tuesday that his administration will attempt to end the HIV epidemic in the United States within the next decade — but experts have warned that’s a harder task than his simple pledge suggests. Trump’s decision to emphasize the pledge in his State of the Union address, as Politico first reported this weekend, triggered excitement among public health experts who know that with adequate funding for medications and other scientific tools that great inroads could be made in at least reducing the number of infections that occur in the country each year. In 2017, nearly 39,000 Americans contracted HIV. (Branswell, 2/5)

Reuters: Trump Asks U.S. Congress To Prohibit Late-Term Abortion
U.S. President Donald Trump called for curbs on late-term abortion in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, citing controversies over the issue in New York and Virginia. Using emotive language, Trump waded into what has long been a divisive issue in American politics, even though the procedure was legalized in a Supreme Court ruling more than 40 years ago. (2/6)

The Hill: Trump Calls On Congress To Ban ‘Late-Term’ Abortions 
“To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb,” Trump said during his speech. (Hellmann, 2/5)

Stat: In State Of The Union, Trump Tells Congress: ‘Do More’ To Lower Drug Prices
In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Trump touted his administration’s work to reduce the price of prescription drugs and called on Congress to take further action. But his remarks on the issue were light on specifics — and in some cases, misleading. “Already, as a result of my administration’s efforts, in 2018 drug prices experienced their single largest decline in 46 years,” Trump said. …Trump was instead referring to a little-known statistical measurement called the consumer price index for drugs, which did show such a decline. However, researchers have found that particular measure diverges with other ways of estimating drug spending. (Swetlitz, 2/5)

The Associated Press: Fact Check: Trump On Prescription Drug Pricing
Trump is selectively citing statistics to exaggerate what seems to be a slowdown in prices. A broader look at the data shows that drug prices are still rising, but more moderately. Some independent experts say criticism from Trump and congressional Democrats may be causing pharmaceutical companies to show restraint. The Consumer Price Index for prescription drugs shows a 0.6 percent reduction in prices in December 2018 when compared with December 2017, the biggest drop in nearly 50 years. The government index tracks a set of medications including brand drugs and generics. (2/5)

The Washington Post: Fact-Checking President Trump’s 2019 State Of The Union Address
“Nearly 5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps.” About 3.6 million people (not nearly 5 million) have stopped receiving food stamps since February 2017, according to the latest data. But experts say the improvement in the economy may not be the only reason for the decline. Several states have rolled back recession-era waivers that allowed some adults to keep their benefits for longer periods of time without employment. Reports have also suggested immigrant families with citizen children have dropped out of the program, fearing the administration’s immigration policies. Moreover, the number of people collecting benefits has been declining since fiscal 2014. (Kessler, Rizzo and Kelly, 2/5)

The New York Times: Trump Asks For Unity, But Presses Hard Line On Immigration
Republicans jumped to their feet at the president’s calls to curb immigration, limit late-term abortions and ensure that the United States does not turn to socialism, even chanting “U-S-A, U-S-A” a couple of times as if at a Trump campaign rally. “That sounds so good,” he exulted. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, sitting behind Mr. Trump for the first time, and other Democrats largely remained in their seats without applauding and expressed only tepid enthusiasm even for his mention of goals intended to appeal to them, like infrastructure and paid parental leave. Ms. Pelosi maintained a polite, even amused smile on her face for much of the speech. But the evening was filled with political theater as the president introduced World War II veterans, Holocaust survivors, the Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, a 10-year-old cancer survivor, a police officer shot seven times at last fall’s synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh and the teary-eyed relatives of a couple killed by an illegal immigrant, all sitting with the first lady, Melania Trump. (Baker, 2/5)

The Washington Post: In Dissonant State Of The Union Speech, Trump Seeks Unity While Depicting Ruin
Rare moments of joint applause came when Trump touted the bipartisan criminal justice law he signed in December, vowed to fight childhood cancer and committed to eliminating HIV in 10 years. Trump began and ended his 82-minute speech with a unifying tone that was in conflict with many of his own actions and statements, especially over the past month, one of the more contentious of his presidency. (Rucker and Olorunnipa, 2/5)

NPR: State Of The Union: 7 Takeaways From President Trump’s Address
Each of the past three presidents had lost the House at some point during their presidency. And every one of them that came before Trump — Bill Clinton in 1995, George W. Bush in 2007 and Barack Obama in 2011 — nodded to that change. Not Trump. Instead, he barreled ahead with pitching his agenda. (Montanaro, 2/6)

Politico: Trump Calls For Unity — On His Terms
The Democrats in the audience — many of whom wore white, the color of the suffragettes, in protest of Trump — spent much of the speech on their hands, shaking their heads and even groaning aloud. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) was caught sighing and rolling her eyes — and immediately pounced on the moment to raise money for her presidential campaign. (Restuccia and Caygle, 2/5)

The Hill: Pelosi Knocks Trump Speech: ‘Completely Ignored The Gun Violence Epidemic’ 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) panned President Trump’s State of the Union address late Tuesday, noting that for all his warnings about threats against the United States, he did not discuss “the gun violence epidemic.” “It will take days to fact-check all the misrepresentations that the President made tonight,” Pelosi said in a statement after Trump’s speech. “Instead of fear-mongering and manufacturing a crisis at the border, President Trump should commit to signing the bipartisan conference committee’s bill to keep government open and provide strong, smart border security solutions. (Samuels, 2/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Abrams Targets Trump’s Immigration Policy In Democratic Response
Ms. Abrams sought to draw a contrast between Democrats’ support for border security with some of the administration’s most controversial practices, including separating families that cross into the U.S. illegally. “We know bipartisanship could craft a 21st century immigration plan, but this administration chooses to cage children and tear families apart,” she said. “Democrats stand ready to effectively secure our ports and borders. But we must all embrace that from agriculture to health care to entrepreneurship, America is made stronger by the presence of immigrants—not walls.” (Peterson and Andrews, 2/5)

The Associated Press: Fact Check: Abrams On Children In Cages
A look at one of Democrat Stacey Abrams’ statements from her response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night and how it compares with the facts. “We know bipartisanship could craft a 21st century immigration plan but this administration chooses to cage children and tear families apart,” [Abrams said.] The cages that Abrams mentions are actually chain-link fences and the Obama administration used them, too. (2/5)

Stat: Democrats Can’t Decide How To React To Trump’s Call For ‘More’ On Drug Pricing
President Trump on Tuesday left Congress a two-syllable mandate on the issue of prescription drug pricing: “Do more.” To some Democrats, the words presented an open invitation to collaborate. Others were left confused as to what, exactly, the White House wants. In conversations with reporters following Trump’s second State of the Union address, the divide among Trump’s opposition party was apparent — between lawmakers prepared to cross partisan lines, those entirely opposed to Trump’s approach, and others waiting for more detailed direction. (Florko and Facher, 2/6)

Politico: Democrats Bat Away Trump’s Olive Branch On Drug Pricing
President Donald Trump keeps telling Democrats he wants a big bipartisan drug pricing deal. But Democrats don’t believe him — and are rolling out a series of bills that would set the framework for talks far to the left, defying Trump to stand in the way. At the center of that effort is empowering Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices — a top liberal priority that’s faced near-universal opposition from Republicans, yet won Trump’s support when he ran for president. (Cancryn and Owermohle, 2/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Amplify Income Inequality Message
Several prominent Democrats are pressing for redistributing wealth to low-income families in a bid to make income inequality a defining term of the 2020 presidential elections. Democrats often seek to raise taxes on the wealthy or increase spending on programs that touch low-income households, such as education, health care or housing. The latest effort is more far-reaching and aims to move supplemental cash directly into the hands of low-income Americans. (Hackman, 2/6)

The Associated Press: House Democrats Getting Down To The Grunt Work Of Governing
A House committee will hold its first hearing on gun violence in years. Two others will gavel in to address climate change. And three more will debate protecting pre-existing health conditions and the Affordable Care Act. That’s before noon on Wednesday. (2/6)

The Hill: Red States Move To Limit Medicaid Expansion Approved By Voters 
Just months after voters in Utah and Idaho approved ballot measures meant to expand Medicaid coverage to more low-income residents under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), legislators in both states are moving to place restrictions on the number of new people who would be covered. Utah’s state Senate on Monday advanced a measure to cover those who make up to 100 percent of the federal poverty limit under Medicaid. (Wilson, 2/5)

The New York Times: How Trump’s Latest Plan To Cut Drug Prices Will Affect You
The Trump administration has made lowering drug prices one of its top priorities, and last week it unveiled a proposal that could vastly rewrite the way drugs are sold in the United States. The proposal takes aim at the secret deals that drug companies strike with pharmacy benefit managers, the industry intermediaries that negotiate the price of drugs for insurers and large employers. These after-the-fact discounts, called rebates, have come under harsh criticism and are blamed for helping to push up the list price of drugs, which consumers are increasingly responsible for paying. (Thomas and Abelson, 2/5)

The Hill: Bipartisan Senators Ask Industry For Information On Surprise Medical Bills
A bipartisan group of senators is asking industry groups for information as they plan legislation to prevent patients from getting massive, unexpected medical bills. The lawmakers sent letters on Tuesday to a variety of insurers and medical providers asking detailed questions about data on their billing and payment procedures. (Sullivan, 2/5)

The New York Times: Making New Drugs With A Dose Of Artificial Intelligence
You can think of it as a World Cup of biochemical research. Every two years, hundreds of scientists enter a global competition. Tackling a biological puzzle they call “the protein folding problem,” they try to predict the three-dimensional shape of proteins in the human body. No one knows how to solve the problem. Even the winners only chip away at it. But a solution could streamline the way scientists create new medicines and fight disease. (Metz, 2/5)

Stat: Prominent ‘Right-To-Try’ Advocate Is Getting Treatment Under The New Law
One of the namesakes of the federal “right-to-try” law confirmed Tuesday that he gained access to an experimental treatment thanks to the new law. Matt Bellina, who has ALS, thanked the drug company BrainStorm for providing the treatment on Facebook. “Many of you read last June that Brainstorm would be treating me with the experimental treatment of [NurOwn] under the new federal Right to Try law. Today I want to thank the company and CEO Chaim Lebovitz for following through and keeping their word.” (Florko, 2/5)

The Associated Press: Appeals Court To Weigh Planned Parenthood’s Texas Case
The full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will reconsider whether Texas can eliminate Planned Parenthood from the state Medicaid program. The New Orleans-based court’s decision Monday comes after a three-judge panel of the court lifted a February 2017 preliminary injunction that prevented the state from eliminating Planned Parenthood from the program. (2/5)

The Associated Press: Mississippi Considers Abortion Ban After Fetal Heartbeat
Mississippi lawmakers are considering what could become one of the strictest abortion laws in the country. Bills that passed legislative committees Tuesday would ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Republican Gov. Phil Bryant has said he will sign either House Bill 732 or Senate Bill 2116 , which are moving to the full House and Senate for more work. Supporters and opponents anticipate a court fight. (Pettus, 2/5)

The Washington Post: Federal Judge Orders Chemical Safety Board To Require Disclosure Of Chemical Emissions From Accidents
In a lawsuit filed after Hurricane Harvey, a federal judge has ordered the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board to force the disclosure of chemical emissions resulting from accidents. More than 1,000 industrial chemical accidents take place every year. The biggest include the explosions that killed 15 people at a fertilizer plant in West, Tex., and the explosions that took place at the Arkema chemical plant in the Houston area after unprecedented flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey. (Mufson, 2/5)

The New York Times: ‘A Match Into A Can Of Gasoline’: Measles Outbreak Now An Emergency In Washington State
Measles, declared eliminated as a major public health threat in the United States almost 20 years ago, has re-emerged this winter in the Pacific Northwest and other states where parents have relatively broad leeway over whether to vaccinate their children. Seventy-nine cases of measles have been reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since the start of this year. Fifty cases of the highly contagious disease were in Washington State. (Johnson, 2/6)

The New York Times: When Religion Leads To Trauma
“We think of church as a place of healing and transformation, and it is,” says Michael Walrond Jr., co-pastor of the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem. But for some, he says, “religion has been more bruising and damaging than healing and transformative. ”Pastor Mike, as he is called, leads services in a renovated art deco movie palace on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. Under his direction, the church has taken a lead in confronting an issue that few other religious institutions have tackled: what some call religious trauma syndrome. (Schiffman, 2/5)

The New York Times: Can You Get Too Much Exercise? What The Heart Tells Us
Many middle-aged marathon runners and other endurance athletes are familiar with concerns from their loved ones — and occasionally their physicians — that they might be exercising too much and straining or harming their hearts. For all of them, a large-scale study published recently in JAMA Cardiology should be mollifying. It finds that middle-aged men who work out often and vigorously do tend to develop worrisome plaques in their cardiac arteries. But those men also are less likely than more sedentary people to die prematurely from a heart attack or other cause. (Reynolds, 2/6)

The New York Times: Screen Use At Bedtime May Impair Children’s Quality Of Life
Using screens before bedtime impairs children’s sleep and may diminish their quality of life. British researchers studied 6,616 children, average age 12, who reported their use of screens — mobile phone, tablet, e-reader, computer, portable media player, television or game console — during the hour before bedtime. They also filled out a well-validated 10-item questionnaire measuring worries and stresses, social functioning and other determinants of quality-of-life. (Bakalar, 2/5)

The New York Times: New York City Cracks Down On CBD Edibles, Saying The Cannabis Derivative Is Unsafe
For months, the top-selling item at Fat Cat Kitchen was a cookie packed with chocolate chunks, dusted with salt flakes and infused with the stylish cannabis derivative cannabidiol, or CBD. But as of last week, customers won’t find the cookie on the Manhattan restaurant and bakery’s menu. On Friday, a health inspector sealed up the restaurant’s supply of CBD-infused baked goods in a plastic bag and told Fat Cat Kitchen to stop selling them as part of a citywide embargo on food products containing CBD. (Gold, 2/5)

The Wall Street Journal: NYC Cracks Down On Businesses Selling CBD-Infused Food And Drinks
It is unknown how many restaurants in New York City serve products containing CBD, which is a nonintoxicating derivative of the cannabis plant, but more are offering it in drinks and food for their purported therapeutic benefits. The crackdown began in January and has only affected a handful of restaurants. A spokeswoman for the health department said restaurants in New York City aren’t permitted to add anything to food or drink that isn’t approved as safe to eat. The department is following guidelines issued in December from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (West, 2/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Texas Hospital Giants Cancel Plans To Merge
Two Texas hospital giants called off their planned merger Tuesday, the latest combination to get scuttled in the rapidly-consolidating sector. Baylor Scott & White Health in Dallas and Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston, both nonprofits, announced in October plans to create one of the biggest U.S. health systems, by number of hospitals, with 68 hospitals and nearly $15 billion in yearly revenue. Executives touted the benefits and efficiencies that would come from the combination. (Evans, 2/5)

NPR: Texas Offers Mediation For Surprise Medical Bills
In Texas, a growing number of patients are turning to a little-known state mediation program to deal with unexpected hospital bills. The bills in question often arrive in patients’ mailboxes with shocking balances that run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. When patients, through no fault of their own, are treated outside their insurers’ network of hospitals, the result can be a surprise bill. Other times, insurers won’t agree to pay what the hospital charges, and the patient is on the hook for the balance. (Lopez, 2/5)

The Washington Post: Hawaii Bill Aims To Ban Cigarettes For People Younger Than 100
Lawmakers in Hawaii have proposed legislation that would begin phasing out cigarettes in the state, banning them altogether within the next several years. At least, for people younger than 100. The bipartisan bill, H.B. 1509, aims to raise the legal minimum age to use cigarettes to exclude everyone but centenarians by 2024 to “keep people healthy and alive in the Aloha State,” state Rep. Cynthia Thielen (R), one of the sponsors of the bill, said Tuesday afternoon in a phone interview with The Washington Post. (Bever, 2/5)

The Associated Press: Accused Doc’s Wife Among Nurses Named In Wrongful-Death Suit
A wrongful-death lawsuit against an Ohio doctor accused of ordering potentially fatal doses of pain medication for hospital patients alleges a nurse now married to him administered one of the excessive doses he ordered in 2015. It’s among the growing list of at least a dozen cases brought since the Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System found intensive care doctor William Husel ordered potentially fatal doses for at least 28 patients over several years, mostly at Mount Carmel West hospital. (2/5)

The Washington Post: Vape Pen Explodes In Face: Fort Worth Man Dies After E-Cigarette Explodes In His Mouth
William Brown had errands to run on a chilly Texas evening, and his grandmother was happy to lend him her light-blue Lincoln Town Car. Brown stopped at a store selling vaporizer smoking pens outside Fort Worth on Jan. 27. He sat alone in the parked car, put his lips to a pen, and soon after, an explosion sent shards of metal into his face and neck, said Alice Brown, his grandmother. (Horton, 2/5)

The Associated Press: Ex-Tennessee Nurse Accused Of Fatal Drug Swap Error Indicted
A former hospital nurse in Tennessee has been indicted on accusations that she accidentally gave a drug used in executions to a patient who then died. News outlets cite a statement from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation saying 35-year-old Radonda Leanne Vaught was indicted Friday on reckless homicide and impaired adult abuse charges. The statement says the former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse’s actions were responsible for the death of 75-year-old Charlene Murphey. (2/5)