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A 6-year-old program that has reduced overdose deaths while simultaneously preventing new cases of HIV in one of the country’s biggest HIV hot spots is under attack by lawmakers. Its closure would be a public health disaster. Six and a half years ago, the worst drug-fueled HIV outbreak in U.S. history began to emerge in Scott County in southeastern Indiana. By June 2019, 235 people in Austin, a city of approximately 4,300 people in the county, had been diagnosed with HIV. But as devastating as the outbreak was, it could have been much worse. (William Cooke and Gregg Gonsalves, 6/1)

The federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (H.R. 1065) passed the U.S. House on May 14 by a vote of 315-101. This is an important measure that Georgia’s pregnant and postpartum employees need to thrive in safe working environments. To date, 30 U.S. states have instituted legislation to ensure working women are protected from discrimination while they are pregnant or after they have recently given birth. The seven states in our region that have passed such legislation are Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. (Amber Mack, 6/2)

This week on the “First Opinion Podcast,” I’m joined by two members of the National Academy of Medicine’s Committee on the Future of Nursing. Regina Cunningham is a registered nurse and chief executive officer of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and Marshall Chin is an internal medicine physician at the University of Chicago. We discuss the range of options for nurses, full practice authority, which gives advanced practice nurses the ability to diagnose, write prescriptions, and care independently for patients. It’s a contentious issue, but Cunningham and Chin believe that with more autonomy, nurses are capable of dismantling the country’s health inequities. (Patrick Skerrett, 6/2)