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It may take years to know whether children growing up in Houston’s Fifth Ward will have lead coursing through their bloodstreams at levels high enough to affect them for the rest of their lives. Too few children across Texas are being tested for lead, despite laws requiring it, according to a federal inspector general’s report this week. (10/21)

While there has been a growing recognition that housing and health are intertwined, current research and policy debates around these two emergent issues remain woefully siloed. There are, however, existing policies, that — as our recent research shows — demonstrate the relationship between affordable housing and better population health. (Gregory Squires and Antwan Jones, 10/20)

Bringing down the cost of prescription drugs ought to be ripe for bipartisan cooperation. Members of both parties talk about how drug prices are too high. And seniors don’t see this as a partisan issue—they see it as a dire budget issue, and sometimes even a life-or-death issue. Yet during the previous administration, despite a lot of lip service from President Donald Trump and some of his allies in Congress, nothing got done. In the first half of 2019 alone, the price of 3,400 drugs increased. And despite bipartisan efforts by the Senate Finance Committee, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refused to bring the committee-passed legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs to the Senate floor for consideration and a vote—yet again choosing to stand on the side of big pharmaceutical corporations over American families. (Sen. Sherrod Brown, 10/19)

The serious health risks associated with smoking tobacco have been too well established for too long to harbor any doubts about that link. On average, studies show, people who smoke die about 10 years earlier than those who do not. It’s the leading preventable cause of death. And smoking is linked to about 30% of all cancer deaths in the United States. As a result, virtually any public policy choice — from public education and outreach programs that warn against smoking to state laws banning tobacco sales to teens —can be relied upon to pay enormous public health dividends. Tobacco is linked to about 480,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. That is COVID-19 pandemic territory. (10/19)

Tesla is in the midst of conducting an unprecedented social experiment: testing drivers of its cars to see if they are safe enough operators to receive the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software update, which expands the car’s autonomous capabilities, most notably on city streets. The company is automatically evaluating humans based on a safety score composed of five factors, including forward collision warnings per thousand miles driven, aggressive turning, and forced autopilot disengagements. (Arjun K. Manrai and Isaac S. Kohane, 10/21)

Another year, another damning report for American medicine. In August, the Commonwealth Fund ranked U.S. health care dead last among 11 of the world's wealthiest nations (for the seventh time in seven reports since 2004). Compared with its global peers, the United States is home to the lowest life expectancy, highest infant- and maternal-mortality rates, and most preventable deaths per capita. Worse, Americans spend twice as much on medical care as their international counterparts in exchange for these rock-bottom clinical outcomes. (Robert Pearl, 10/20)

Here in Texas, the Heartbeat Act is causing quite the stir. The pro-life community embraces it as progress toward protecting unborn lives, abortion rights advocates view it as an outrageous affront to Roe v. Wade and analysts on both sides wonder how it will fare in the courts. The legal tug-of-war is already underway. Days after the measure went into effect, a federal judge blocked its enforcement. Then an appeals court reinstated it. Then the Biden Justice Department asked that court for a stay, to prevent the law's implementation. On Thursday, that motion was denied. (Mark Davis, 10/20)