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Strict new abortion restrictions failed to advance in two conservative-dominated legislatures on Thursday, signaling a mounting fear among some Republicans that abortion bans could lead to political backlash. A near-total ban on abortion failed in South Carolina, just hours before a six-week ban fizzled in Nebraska. Abortion remains legal in both states until 22 weeks of pregnancy. (Shammas, Rosenzweig-Ziff, Roubein and Kitchener, 4/27)

The Vermont Legislature passed reproductive and gender-affirming health care bills on Thursday with a late addition aimed at protecting access to a medication widely used in abortions even if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration withdraws its approval of the pill, mifepristone. The bills protect providers from discipline for providing legally protected reproductive and gender affirming health care services. Legislators recently tacked on medicated abortion to the definition of legally protected reproductive health care services, and believe the state is the first to do so. (Rathke, 4/27)

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) on Thursday signed a first-of-its-kind bill into law that creates new protections for reproductive data, responding to concerns that sensitive data collected and sold by tech companies could be used to aid prosecutions related to abortions. (Zakrzewski, 4/27)

Surrounded by advocates and supporters of LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights, Gov. Tim Walz signed three bills into law Thursday. They are meant to make Minnesota a refuge for those seeking gender-affirming care and abortions, and to ban what's called conversion therapy for youth and vulnerable adults in the state. (Moini, 4/27)

When Jennifer Hendricks steps to the front of a classroom, she’s used to being able to answer students’ questions. Hendricks is a law professor at the University of Colorado, the co-director of the school’s juvenile and family law program. One of her specialties is reproductive rights law, meaning she knows the judicial record around abortion better than most anyone. When a first-year law student asks her a question about abortion law, she should be able to answer it easily. Except, this year, 10 months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the Dobbs case, she can’t — not always. (Ingold, 4/28)

The Biden administration on Thursday rolled out proposals to set national standards for care in Medicaid and children’s health care plans, amid upheaval for millions of Americans’ coverage in both programs. (Owermohle, 4/27)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Thursday proposed new reporting rules for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Programs health plans, that would, among other things, set national standards for appointment wait times and require disclosure of provider payment rates. (Dreher, 4/28)

CMS issued two notices of proposed rulemaking that it says would boost access to care and promote price transparency. States would provide CMS with provider payment rate analyses every year that compare Medicaid fee-for-service and managed care payments to Medicare rates. State Medicaid agencies also would have to publish the rates on their websites. (Turner, 4/27)

At the Clarity Child Guidance Center in San Antonio, some 200 children covered by Medicaid have been waiting as long as three months to see a mental health therapist. That’s because few mental health professionals will accept the federal insurance coverage for low-income individuals. The main reason? In Texas, Medicaid pays between $60 and $122 for a 50-minute session with a therapist who can charge $180 or more for that visit. (Simpson, 4/28)

With a deadline to change Medicaid plans just days away, Nationwide Children's Hospital remains out of network for thousands of Columbus-area kids covered by Anthem. Anthem has extended another offer to Nationwide Children's, both the hospital and insurer have confirmed. But a deal has yet to be reached to cover care for some 5,600 kids in central and southeast Ohio who are on Anthem's Medicaid plan at Nationwide Children's. (Filby, 4/27)

This week’s vote by House Republicans to couple deep spending cuts with an agreement to raise the debt limit for one year has put President Biden on the defensive, forcing him to confront a series of potentially painful choices at a perilous economic moment. Mr. Biden has long maintained that he would not negotiate spending cuts or other efforts to reduce the federal debt as part of discussions over raising the nation’s debt limit, which must be raised in order for the United States to keep borrowing money to pay its bills. (Tankersley, 4/27)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: �������ýҕ�l Health News' 'What the Health?': Dancing Under The Debt Ceiling

If Congress fails to raise the nation’s debt ceiling in the next few months, the U.S. could default on its debt for the first time in history. Republicans in Congress, however, say they won’t agree to pay the nation’s bills unless Democrats and President Joe Biden agree to deep cuts to health and other programs. Among the proposals in a bill House Republicans passed April 26 is the imposition of new work requirements for adults who receive Medicaid. (4/27)

A bipartisan group of US senators and representatives today reintroduced a bill to boost the antibiotic development market. The Pioneering Antimicrobial Subscriptions to End Upsurging Resistance (PASTEUR) Act, which was introduced in 2020 and 2021 but never received a vote despite bipartisan support, would establish a subscription-style payment model for new antibiotics. Under the model, companies that develop innovative new antibiotics for drug-resistant infections would receive contracts from the federal government valued between $750 million and $3 billion to make the antibiotics available at no charge for patients covered by federal health insurance programs. (Dall, 4/27)

House lawmakers are kick-starting the legislative process for a number of health care bills at the same time their Senate counterparts are shaping their own package on drug pricing, and members appear to be finding common ground on pharmacy benefit managers. (Clason and Hellmann, 4/27)

A pair of senators is pushing to expand the program that allows veterans to see doctors outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs despite moves by VA officials to rein in the program's costs after years of efforts to privatize some VA-funded care. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., the Veterans Affairs Committee ranking member, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., are introducing a bill that would codify existing guidelines for when patients can seek non-VA care so the department cannot skirt its own rules, as critics allege it is doing. (Kheel, 4/27)

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a measure that would have allowed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to be added to the Constitution. Senators voted 51 to 47 to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed, falling short of the 60 votes it it needed. (Weaver and Schnell, 4/27)

In 2021, 1 in 5 high school students said they witnessed violence in their communities, and 3.5 percent said they carried a gun. Nearly 9 percent of students said they’d been forced into sex in their life. A third of female students said they had considered suicide in the past year, and over 13 percent said they’d attempted suicide. A sweeping series of surveys of U.S. high school students released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have an urgent message for parents and policymakers: America’s kids are in crisis. (Mahr, 4/27)

The percentage of teenage girls considering and attempting suicide rose in 2021, a sign of declining mental health during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 30 percent of female students in grades 9-12 seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021, up from 24.1 percent in 2019. The amount of teen girls who made a plan for suicide also rose from 19.9 to 23.6 percent, and the percentage who attempted suicide rose from 11 to 13.3 percent. (Gans, 4/27)

The first years of the pandemic saw a huge decline in high school students having sex, according to a government survey. Teen sex was already becoming less and less common before COVID-19.About three decades ago, more than half of teens said they’d had sex, according to a large government survey conducted every two years. By 2019, the share was 38%. In 2021, 30% of teens said they had ever had sex. That was the sharpest drop ever recorded by the survey. (Stobbe, 4/27)

The parents of the Louisville gunman sought help for their son as he reported a mental health crisis the week before he committed a mass shooting, they said Thursday in an emotional interview with “Today.” Todd and Lisa Sturgeon, who last saw their 25-year-old son Connor the day before he killed five people at the downtown Louisville bank where he worked, said they believed he was improving after seeing a psychiatrist and that Connor seemed happy at an Easter gathering that day. (Wu, 4/28)

More U.S. voters support banning assault weapons over arming citizens to reduce gun violence, according to a Fox News poll released on Thursday. While 45 percent of those surveyed said they would encourage more citizens to carry guns to defend against attackers, 61 percent said they favored banning assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons. (Shapero, 4/27)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is relaxing COVID-19 restrictions on international travelers as the national public health emergency is set to expire next month. The CDC said in an update on its website posted Thursday that it will consider anyone who has received a single dose of a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine on or after Aug. 16, 2022, to meet the requirements for boarding an airplane to the United States. (Gans, 4/27)

Massachusetts’ highest court overruled a lower court judge Thursday and reinstated criminal neglect charges against two top former officials at a veterans’ home. Nearly 80 veterans died at the Veterans’ Home in Holyoke after contracting the coronavirus in one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in a long-term care facility in the nation. The ruling allows the case against Bennett Walsh, the former superintendent at the facility, and Dr. David Clinton, its former medical director, to move forward. (4/27)

California wildlife officials have confirmed the state’s first case of COVID-19 in a wild animal, detected in a mule deer killed in 2021 in El Dorado County. The coronavirus has been confirmed in pets and zoo animals, but the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said this is the first case of COVID-19 confirmed in “free-ranging California wildlife,” according to a news release from the agency. (Toohey, 4/27)

A maker of rapid coronavirus tests has revealed plans to chop hundreds of jobs in the Bay Area, a grim disclosure that suggests tech and biotech layoffs in the region have yet to run their course. Cepheid, a medical devices and biotech company, has told state labor officials that it has decided to cut 625 positions in the Bay Area, according to official government filings. (Avalos, 4/27)

In a second large study, the drug Mounjaro, now used to treat diabetes, has shown its effectiveness at helping people lose weight. The drug is not yet approved for weight loss, but likely will be later this year, now that two trials have found it effective with similar side effects as other weight loss medications. (Weintraub, 4/27)

Later this spring, a little girl in California who essentially has no immune system will receive a lifesaving treatment for “bubble boy disease” thanks to the persistence of a dogged group of parents, a pediatrician, a veteran newsman and a few episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy.” Five-year-old Seersha Sulack has the same rare disease portrayed in the 1976 John Travolta movie, “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.” A germ – even a common cold – could kill her, and so she stays away from anyone outside her immediate family. (Cohen and Mascarenhas, 4/27)

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the U.S., with an expected 288,000 cases and 34,700 deaths expected in 2023, per the American Cancer Society. As artificial intelligence-based health technologies continue to advance, a growing number of medical tech firms are looking to use AI to improve patient outcomes. One of these is ArteraAI, a firm in Jacksonville, Florida, that develops medical AI tests that help personalize therapy for cancer patients. (Rudy, 4/28)

The Food and Drug Administration warned health care providers Thursday that a security vulnerability in DNA sequencers made by Illumina could allow unauthorized users to access or alter potentially important medical data. (Herper, 4/27)

Political pressure is nothing new for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency has frequently come under fire for its drug approval decisions, but attacks on its decision-making process and science itself have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent challenges to the FDA’s authority have emerged in the context of reproductive rights. (Coughlin, 4/28)

More than 1 in 5 U.S adults without access to a vehicle or public transportation missed or skipped a medical appointment in the previous year, according to a new study that sheds light on a key social driver of health equity. (Bettelheim, 4/28)

As the world of artificial intelligence blooms, some players in the health care industry are looking to make a major difference in public health. HMNC Brain Health — a Munich, Germany-based health tech company — is one of those. It's attempting to use novel AI-powered technologies to address mental health issues. (Stabile, 4/26)

In public, hospitals rave about artificial intelligence. They trumpet the technology in press releases, plaster its use on billboards, and sprinkle AI into speeches touting its ability to detect diseases earlier and make health care faster, better, and cheaper. But on the front lines, the hype is smashing into a starkly different reality. (Ross, 4/27)

A German scientific journal has issued a correction to a 2008 brain study co-authored by Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, The Chronicle has learned. The study is one of at least six scholarly articles under investigation by the university’s trustees for potentially falsified data. The correction issued by the EMBO Journal concerns a study by 11 authors, including Tessier-Lavigne, showing how two proteins signal nerve cells in the brain to stop growing or to change direction. The study’s purpose was to shed light on how brain damage might be repaired. (Asimov, 4/27)

A bill that calls for prosecuting fentanyl deaths as murder won early approval from the Texas House on Thursday, even as protesters chanted from the gallery in opposition. Such a move is needed to crack down on dealers amid a surge of fentanyl deaths across the state, Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, said. The bill ratchets up penalties for making or distributing the powerful synthetic opioid, including allowing murder charges if the drug leads to someone’s death. (Torres and Morris, 4/27)

California Democrats this week blocked several fentanyl bills amid concerns they would lead to mass incarceration, even as they face pressure to act amid a rising overdose crisis. (Bollag, 4/27)

Pennsylvania lawmakers are set to pass a new ban on supervised drug consumption, effectively ending a Philadelphia nonprofit’s long-running effort to offer a sanctioned substance-use site meant to prevent overdose and death. (Facher, 4/28)

Abbott said fentanyl deaths are the leading cause of death for Americans 18 to 45, and a range of sources point to that statement being accurate. The CDC said it is "likely" true because, according to its data, the leading cause of death for that age range is unintentional drug overdoses due to other synthetic narcotics. Fentanyl comprises about 90% of synthetic narcotic deaths, the CDC said. Medical experts also said it is likely true but could not be sure because of the lack of CDC data. (Torres, 4/27)

Ketamine use is surging as veterans and people with persistent depression look for alternative treatments. But the industry that's sprung up around that demand is showing signs of buckling, leaving some patients stranded without support. (Moreno, 4/28)

Altria Group Inc., maker of Marlboro cigarettes, said a ban on flavored tobacco in California is hurting sales more in that state, as consumers turn to the illicit market or add their own menthol to products. (Kary, 4/27)

A group of people with disabilities is suing to upend California's assisted suicide law, saying the bias they faced trying to get health care during the pandemic shows the system is too quick to offer death as an appropriate outcome. (Shapiro, 4/27)

With less than 24 hours before a major legislative deadline, the Oklahoma House passed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, bringing the state one step closer to joining other conservative states who have adopted similar legislation this year. Because the House amended the legislation, Senate Bill 613 now goes back to the Senate for final approval. In February, the bill passed the Senate by an overwhelming majority. Gov. Kevin Stitt asked for this kind of legislation in his State of the State speech at the beginning of session. (Denwalt, 4/27)

Laura Levis died at age 34, alone on a bench outside a hospital emergency room, unable to get inside, desperately phoning 911 during an asthma attack, until she fell back and the phone dropped from her hand, glowing in the shadows. (Freyer, 4/27)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Montana Considers Requiring Insurance To Cover Fertility Preservation For Cancer Patients 

Katie Beall was diagnosed with breast cancer on March 1, 2022. Two days later, doctors told her the chemotherapy she needed would make her infertile. The next day, she started looking into how she could freeze her eggs, which would give her the option of becoming a mother in the future. Twenty-three days after her cancer diagnosis, the 36-year-old Helena resident said, she had put $7,579 on three credit cards to pay for her out-of-pocket fertility preservation costs. (Larson, 4/28)

A bat found in a home here last week has tested positive for rabies in what is the first confirmed case of the virus in St. Louis County this year, health officials said Thursday. While rabies is rare among healthy bat populations, the case serves as a reminder to stay away from wild animals, the St. Louis County Department of Public Health said, and that rabies can be a fatal disease to humans if untreated. (Benchaabane, 4/27)

The Mediterranean diet has already been shown to help protect the aging brain and may significantly lower risk of heart disease. A new study has now found a much stronger link than previously realized between the Mediterranean diet — which is filled with whole grains, fish, fruits and olive oil — and a reduced risk of Type 2 diabetes. (Carroll, 4/28)

Along with regular exercise and not smoking, a healthy diet is a key way to keep heart disease at bay. But which diet best meets the dietary guidelines of the American Heart Association? In a new scientific statement, leading experts in nutrition ranked 10 popular diets on their ability to meet the AHA’s evidence-based dietary guidance for heart health, published in 2021. (LaMotte, 4/27)

Eleni Tsigas likens her first experience with preeclampsia to a plane crash. She was in the midst of what she thought was a healthy first pregnancy, with low risk for complications. But at 29 weeks, she was rushed to the emergency room with what she now knows are classic signs of preeclampsia: very high blood pressure, a pounding headache, nausea, blurred vision. She lost her first child while being transported between hospitals. (Gaffney, 4/28)

Adults in the United States who reported feeling discriminated against at work had a higher risk of developing high blood pressure than adults who reported less discrimination at work, according to a new study. The researchers defined discrimination as “unfair conditions or unpleasant treatment at work because of personal characteristics, particularly race, sex, or age.” (Russell, 4/26)

Doctors are zapping the heart with radiation normally reserved for cancer, a bid to better treat people with life-threatening irregular heartbeats who’ve exhausted other options. While it’s highly experimental, surprising early research suggests it may reprogram misfiring heart cells to control heartbeats more like younger, healthier cells do. “It may actually rejuvenate sick tissue, and that’s pretty exciting,” said Dr. Stacey Rentschler of Washington University in St. Louis. (Neergaard, 4/27)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Some Private Companies Charge Hefty Fees To Help Veterans With Disability Claims 

When Glenn Janssen decided to file a claim for disability benefits with the Veterans Affairs Department last year, he dreaded the prospect of dealing with federal bureaucracy and paperwork. Janssen, 57, lives in Portugal with his wife and has worked as a government contractor since leaving the Army in 2004. The Gulf War-era and Louisiana National Guard veteran wanted to put in a claim for tinnitus and back and shoulder problems from his years in the service. But he worried that trying to manage the process from overseas would be a nightmare. (Andrews, 4/28)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: How To Increase Your Social Network As You Age

Friends sitting around a table, talking and laughing. A touch on the arm, as one of them leans over to make a confiding comment. A round of hugs before walking out the door. For years, Carole Leskin, 78, enjoyed this close camaraderie with five women in Moorestown, New Jersey, a group that took classes together, gathered for lunch several times a week, celebrated holidays with one another, and socialized frequently at their local synagogue. (Graham, 4/28)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Readers And Tweeters Defend The Rights Of Adults With Disabilities

�������ýҕ�l Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories. (4/28)

As people enter their 80s, and even their mid-to-late 70s, some standard age-related shifts tend to occur, like muscle loss and a drop in bone strength, that make people more prone to disease and injury. Here’s a head-to-toe snapshot of the body and mind of an octogenarian and the potential problems doctors look out for. (Wenner Moyer, 4/25)

For years, doctors and patients thought there was little to do when dementia was diagnosed, even at an early stage. Now, potentially sweeping changes loom. (McGinley, 4/24)

The voice on the phone in 1966 was gruff and abrupt: “Do you want the Chevy, the Cadillac or the Rolls Royce?” A Chevy abortion would cost about $200, cash in hand, the voice explained. A Cadillac was around $500, and the Rolls Royce was $1,000.“You can’t afford more than the Chevy? Fine,” the voice growled. “Go to this address at this time. Don’t be late and don’t forget the cash.” The voice disappeared. (LaMotte, 4/23)

Brenna Gatimu, 34, of Casper, Wyo., was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in 2020. She quickly had chemoradiation, and both her breasts and ovaries were removed. She now takes a medication that suppresses any remaining estrogen in her body. “I feel as if my body has betrayed me, like all the things that make me biologically a woman — the estrogen, the progesterone, my ovaries and my breasts — everything had to be removed and stopped,” Gatimu said. (Markovitz, 4/24)

Despite decades of advancements in genomics, we still don’t know what most of our DNA does. But an ambitious international research collaboration is providing new answers about how genetics shapes human health and disease, with help from an unlikely source — a menagerie of mammals. (Wosen, 4/27)

Just 3 percent of all Covid-19 vaccine doses delivered in 2021 went to Africa, home to a fifth of the world’s population, according to the World Health Organization. In the vast debacle of global vaccine inequity, it was Africa that was left furthest behind as the pandemic raged, and that had the least leverage to negotiate contracts. African leaders vowed to make sure that never happened again. (Nolen, 4/25)

One of the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s has gone from ice cream to ‘blunts,’ promising a line of marijuana products with a social mission. Ben Cohen has started Ben’s Best Blnz, a nonprofit cannabis line with a stated mission of helping to right the wrongs of the war on drugs. The company says on its website that 80% of its profits will go to grants for Black cannabis entrepreneurs while the rest will be equally divided between the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and the national Last Prisoner Project, which is working to free people incarcerated for cannabis offenses. (4/25)

As more states and countries legalize recreational marijuana, incorporating weed into your vacation is becoming as normal as sampling craft beer at a brewery or a flight of wine at a local vineyard. However, unlike bars and wineries, the weed culture is governed by a set of manners and rules that you likely won’t pick up from your grandparents. (Sachs, 4/25)

Eli Lilly & Co. has notched another victory in the obesity drug wars. The latest Phase 3 study for Mounjaro shows the drug is effective in helping people with diabetes lose a substantial amount of weight. (Lisa Jarvis, 4/27)

Unlike most things in the House Republicans’ debt-limit bill — such as those across-the-board spending cuts — there is one measure that might secure widespread support: adding work requirements to Medicaid. In past surveys, even a significant share of Democratic voters appeared amenable to the idea. (Catherine Rampell, 4/27)

The story of ADHD in America today is a window into how our fractured health-care delivery system — and hyper-connected culture — can make people feel simultaneously better and worse. (Kate Woodsome, 4/27)

The Food and Drug Administration recently amended its authorizations for Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to modify its COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. (Saad B. Omer, 4/28)

We understand now that the word “hospice” means more than just care for the last few days of life. My mother-in-law needed to be released from the futile round of hospitalization followed by rehab followed by more hospitalization. She wasn’t yet actively dying, but she was no longer fixable. (Joan Wickersham, 4/28)

A data-driven interactive tool launched earlier this year in Dallas County can predict the risk of asthma in children and is already yielding some results. (4/28)

More than 400 Americans undergo major amputation of a leg, either above or below the knee, every day. Many of them suffer from what’s known as chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI), a form of peripheral artery disease that narrows people’s arteries. (Mehdi Shishehbor, 4/28)