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Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is asking lawmakers to return to Des Moines for a special legislative session beginning July 11 to restrict abortion. In her announcement Wednesday, Reynolds did not specify what abortion law the Republican-majority legislature will pass when they convene. The special session is scheduled to begin less than a month after the Iowa Supreme Court deadlocked 3-3 on Reynolds’ request to reinstate the “fetal heartbeat” law she signed in 2018. That law never took effect. Last month’s Iowa Supreme Court decision kept abortion legal in Iowa until 20 weeks of pregnancy. (Sostaric, 7/5)

Groups hoping to enshrine abortion rights in Ohio’s constitution delivered nearly double the number of signatures needed to place an amendment on the statewide ballot this fall, aiming to signal sweeping widespread support for an issue that still faces the threat of needing a significantly increased victory margin. Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights said they dropped off more than 700,000 petition signatures on Wednesday to Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office in downtown Columbus. LaRose now will work with local election boards to determine that at least 413,446 signatures are valid, which would get the proposal onto the Nov. 7 ballot. (Smyth, 7/5)

A man who confessed to raping and impregnating a 9-year-old Ohio girl has been sentenced to life in prison in a case that became a national flashpoint on abortion rights because the girl had to travel out of state to end the pregnancy. Gerson Fuentes, 28, was sentenced to life in prison, but his plea deal stipulates that he can seek parole after serving 25 to 30 years. He would then have to register as a sex offender. (7/5)

The number of abortions being performed in Indiana has dropped steeply even before a court ruling that has a Republican-backed abortion ban set to potentially take effect in the coming weeks. New reports from the Indiana Department of Health show the state’s abortion total during 2022 jumped by 13% — an increase caused by out-of-state patients coming to Indiana for the procedure as tighter laws took effect in Kentucky and Ohio. (Davies, 7/5)

Clinical overuse of marijuana is linked to a variety of complications after major elective surgery, including blood clots, stroke, breathing difficulties, kidney issues and even death, a new study found. “Our findings complement previous studies that have identified significant associations between cannabis use disorders and perioperative complications,” the study’s authors wrote in the report. The research team is from the department of anesthesiology, critical care and pain medicine at McGovern Medical School, part of the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. (LaMotte, 7/5)

Federal officials warned six companies to stop selling cannabis products in packaging that is “almost identical” to that of popular children’s snacks like Doritos, gummy bears and Nerds candy. The copycat packaging being used to sell Delta-8 THC, a psychoactive substance sourced from hemp, can make it easier for children to accidentally ingest the product, according to the Federal Trade Commission. (Bhattacharya, 7/5)

A proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) would end cannabis testing for members of the military — both when they’re enlisting and accepting a commission. If the amendment is included in the NDAA, H.R. 2670 (118), it would address a growing issue in the U.S. military: the increasing number of recruits who test positive for marijuana use, particularly in states where it is legal. Nearly 33 percent more recruits tested positive in 2022 than in 2020, according to the New York Times. (Fertig, 7/5)

Ohioans may decide in November whether the state should legalize recreational marijuana. The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol submitted 222,198 signatures on Wednesday for a proposed law allowing adults to buy, possess and grow cannabis. Advocates have been working for over a year to put the proposal before voters as GOP leaders refuse to entertain an adult-use program. Ohio legalized medical marijuana in 2016. (BeMiller, 7/5)

The Food and Drug Administration is set to decide today whether to make a drug shown to have modest success delaying Alzheimer's disease widely available to the public — or whether cost and safety concerns justify limiting its availability. Leqembi, developed by Eisai and Biogen, is expected to cost around $26,500 a year. Full FDA approval would trigger expanded government coverage for it and a class of next-generation drugs that have raised hoped for millions with the condition. (Gonzalez, 7/6)

The Food and Drug Administration’s expected approval of Biogen and Eisai’s Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi, or lecanemab, is set to broaden access and accelerate a new class of treatments for the degenerative disease. A number of patient advocacy groups are eagerly awaiting the decision, which would trigger broader access under Medicare. But the drug still faces coverage restrictions, along with critics who don’t believe it should be on the market at all. (Clason, 7/6)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Why The Next Big Hope For Alzheimer’s Might Not Help Most Black Patients 

This week the FDA is expected to approve what many scientists and doctors believe is the first drug to show promise of slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. But while patient advocates are celebrating, critics see it as the unfortunate triumph of a flawed theory of the disease’s cause and predict the rollout of the drug will aggravate racial disparities in elder care. (Allen, 7/6)

The fact that having high cholesterol can cause health problems is well known. But a total cholesterol level that fluctuates a lot — either up or down within a five-year period — might also be problematic by raising the risk of later dementia, a new study found. (Rogers, 7/5)

New research published in the journal Neurology suggests that brushing your teeth boosts the brain — helping to reduce the risk of dementia. People with good dental hygiene had more neurons in the hippocampus, the study found; the hippocampus plays a role in memory. Gum disease and tooth loss were linked with less gray matter and declining mental health. (Mackey, 7/5)

Hurricane season brings special challenges for the more than 550,000 Floridians with Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers. Now a disaster guide - published shortly before Hurricane Ian - aims to help them prepare. (Byrnes, 7/5)

When children living with HIV are injected with neutralizing antibodies, the treatment can suppress cells that contain the virus and are capable of reactivating, an early-stage trial found. Details of the trial, documented in a study published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, show that broadly neutralizing antibodies can boost the protective effects of antiretroviral drugs. This suggests that antibody drugs can be used as supplements or even as alternative treatments for HIV in children. (Tsanni, 7/5)

Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs, an online pharmacy launched by the billionaire to sell drugs directly to customers at low prices, should soon begin selling Coherus BioSciences's biosimilar version of AbbVie Inc's blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira, Cuban said on Wednesday. "We should be getting it today or tomorrow," Cuban said in an email. (Erman, 7/5)

If you live in this city, you’re probably awash in pharmacy benefit manager ads — whether you’re listening to an NPR podcast, reading the New York Times, streaming “Yellowstone,” or watching the U.S. Open Golf Championships. It doesn’t matter if it’s 5 a.m., primetime, or 11 p.m.; in between ads for dog joint supplements and the “Barbie” movie, you will inevitably learn about these middlemen of the prescription drug market. (Bajaj, 7/6)

At some point this summer, the drugmaker Novo Nordisk will release results from a closely watched study that, if successful, could further uncork demand for new obesity medications, streamline insurance coverage for the therapies, and demonstrate long-lasting health benefits. The Select trial, as the study is called, is the first large, randomized trial to test whether long-term treatment with a weight loss drug can meaningfully improve patients’ cardiovascular health. Novo is testing Wegovy, a weekly injection also sold under the brand name Ozempic for type 2 diabetes, against placebo in the five-year study. (Garde, Joseph and Chen, 7/6)

More than 20 U.S. and European pharmaceutical and medical-device makers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to bar claims that the companies helped to fund terrorism that killed or injured hundreds of American service members during the war in Iraq. The companies, part of five corporate families — AstraZeneca, Pfizer, GE Healthcare USA, Johnson & Johnson and F. Hoffmann-La Roche — are challenging a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. (Scarcella, 7/5)

Federal officials have found that a longtime University of Pennsylvania scientist repeatedly engaged in research misconduct, falsifying results from experiments in which his lab tested drugs on pigs with brain injuries. William M. Armstead, who left Penn during the 2021-22 academic year, has agreed to a seven-year ban on conducting federally funded research as a result of the findings. (Avril, 7/5)

To prevent a repeat of last winter’s “tripledemic” of respiratory illnesses, Americans will be encouraged to roll up their sleeves not just for flu shots but for two other vaccines, one of them entirely new. Federal health officials have already asked manufacturers to produce reformulated Covid vaccines to be distributed later this year. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took an additional step, endorsing two new vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus for older Americans. (Mandavilli, 7/5)

Here’s who should get the flu, Covid and R.S.V. vaccines, and when. (Mandavilli, 7/5)

Moderna Inc. said on Wednesday it had started the application process to get an approval for its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine in older adults with regulators in the United States, Australia and Europe. The company said it had started rolling submission of data for the shot with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It is aiming to be the third vaccine maker to get an approval in the country after GSK (GSK.L) and Pfizer Inc. (7/5)

A post-infection inflammatory response has been a popular hypothesis used to explain long COVID, a condition defined as significant lingering COVID-19 symptoms present weeks and months following the initial infection. A new UK study, however, suggests that those suffering from severe long COVID symptoms did not have signs of higher cellular immune activation or pro-inflammatory cytokines after adjusting for age, sex, and disease severity. The results are published in the journal eLife. (Soucheray, 7/5)

A Salt Lake City-based company that provided Utah with COVID-19 tests in connection with a large no-bid contract during the pandemic was fined by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday, in part because of how it promoted its tests to investors and others early in the crisis. The SEC has ordered Co-Diagnostics, which develops and sells disease testing technology, to pay a civil penalty of $250,000, and to cease and desist its violations of federal law, including misleading investors and failing to disclose hefty payments to top executives’ relatives. (Anderson Stern, 7/5)

It’s the end of an era for Dr. Bob Wachter. Or, more accurately, a turning point. Wachter bid farewell to his COVID-specific Grand Rounds forum after a three-year run, leaving a lasting impact. Having amassed over 4 million YouTube views and 274,000 followers on Twitter with his diligent pandemic updates, the chair of medicine at UCSF said last week that he plans to revisit the subject as needed in the next academic year. However, he anticipates delving into other pressing medical topics as more Americans strive to resume their normal lives. (Vaziri, 7/3)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: CDC To Reduce Funding For States’ Child Vaccination Programs 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reducing funding to states for child vaccination programs, according to an agency email obtained by �������ýҕ�l Health News. The funding cut “is a significant change to your budget,” said the email to immunization managers, dated June 27 and signed by two CDC officials. (Miller, 7/5)

Almost half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with chemicals known as “forever chemicals,” according to a new study from the US Geological Survey. The number of people drinking contaminated water may be even higher than what the study found, however, because the researchers weren’t able to test for all of these per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, chemicals that are considered dangerous to human health. (Christensen, 7/5)

Utah once again has the nation's highest melanoma rate, according to updated data from the CDC. 38.4 per 100,000 Utahns were diagnosed with the cancer in 2020. That's a drop from 43.6 in 2019 — likely due to fewer diagnoses amid reductions in doctor visits during COVID. (Alberty, 7/5)

Black Americans who live in neighborhoods with lower levels of income and education may age faster than their white neighbors, according to a new study. This can be true even when an individual Black person has a higher income or education level — underscoring the extent to which a person’s surroundings can impact their health. (Castillo, 7/5)

“We have never seen anything like this before,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. He said any number of charts and graphs on Earth’s climate are showing, quite literally, that “We are in uncharted territory.” (Dance, 7/6)

People with private Medicare coverage may not be getting the mental health services they need because they cannot find a psychiatrist within their plan’s network, according to a new study. More than half of the counties the researchers studied did not have a single psychiatrist participating in a Medicare Advantage plan, the private-sector counterpart to traditional Medicare. Some 30 million people, just over half of all participants in the federal program, are enrolled in these private plans. (Abelson, 7/5)

Eli Lilly & Co. became the world’s biggest health-care company by market value, surging ahead of health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. The drugmaker gained 0.9% on Wednesday, extending its advance after four straight months of gains while adding more than $94 billion to its value this year. Lilly ended June at a record high. (Adegbesan, 7/5)

A new entree is on the menu for premature and fragile infants in Henry Ford Jackson Hospital: donated breast milk, made available through the health center’s freshly opened milk bank. The bank is only the second one in Michigan to be accredited by the Human Milk Banking Association of North America — and only the 32nd on the continent. (Brookland, 7/5)

Breakthrough research at Nationwide Children's Hospital has produced a long-awaited treatment for a rare genetic disorder seen in young kids. The FDA recently approved Elevidys, the first gene therapy meant to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in 4- and 5-year-old patients. (Buchanan, 7/5)

Nurses entering the workforce have access to more job opportunities than prior generations, putting many in a position to seek more specialized roles and higher pay. At the same time, nurses who received the bulk of their training during the COVID-19 pandemic have less hands-on experience, which can make them more prone to burning out. As experienced nurses retire and new ones come aboard, employers are offering competitive pay, career development opportunities and individualized support to recruit and retain clinicians. (Devereaux, 7/5)

Mercy Philadelphia Hospital was planning on shutting down. Losing Mercy, a safety-net hospital serving a predominantly low-income and Black community, would have created a health care desert in West Philadelphia. “It would have been easy for us to just absorb it into our existing hospital beds,” said Kevin Mahoney, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. “But we thought it was wrong that patients in a poor part of town would have to travel two bus routes, 20 city blocks.” (Bajaj, 7/6)

One of Maine’s major insurers and a Catholic health care system with hospitals in the state reached an agreement Wednesday after months of negotiations that left about 14,000 patients with questions about the future of their health care. Covenant Health, a family of Catholic health care organizations in New England and part of Pennsylvania, announced that it struck a “multi-year agreement” with insurer Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The contract will last through 2025, spokesperson Karen Sullivan said. (Royzman, 7/5)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: How Health Care May Be Affected By The High Court’s Affirmative Action Ruling 

Doctors are concerned that a Supreme Court ruling issued June 29 will have far-reaching effects not only on the diversity of doctors and other care providers in training but ultimately also on patient care. The decision found it is unconstitutional for colleges and universities to use race as a factor in student admissions, which will affect enrollment decisions at public and private educational institutions, including medical schools. (Andrews, 7/6)

The U.S. National Institutes of Health late last month halted further funding for a pair of malaria research facilities in Colombia after authorities filed charges against the operators for lacking permits to experiment on monkeys and causing “harm to wildlife.” The move came more than six months after the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals notified both the U.S. agency and Colombian authorities of problems at the Caucaseco Scientific Research Center and Malaria Vaccine Development Center. Both are run by a husband-and-wife team that has received more than $17 million in NIH funding since 2003, according to the animal rights group. (Silverman, 7/5)

A body mass index in the range considered overweight, or even obese, is not necessarily associated with a higher risk of death, a new study has found. The research is the latest addition to a growing body of evidence that suggests BMI alone is not an accurate indicator of a person's health. (Pandey, 7/6)

Depression after a traumatic brain injury, such as a concussion, may be a distinct condition, different from other types of depression, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The findings are a step forward in understanding how depression can be treated differently in people with traumatic brain injury, or TBI, who often do not respond to psychotherapy and medication. The researchers are even proposing a separate name for the condition: TBI affective syndrome. (Sullivan, 7/5)

Fewer than 40% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients receive CPR before EMS teams arrive, according to the American Heart Association. Even fewer patients are treated with an automated external defibrillator or AED. New initiatives and partnerships are working to change that, with the goal of doubling the survival rate for heart attacks. (Baier and Munneke, 7/5)

BelVita breakfast sandwiches were recalled because of possible peanut contamination, the company said, noting that there have been reports of allergic reactions to the biscuits. (Burke, 7/5)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Listen To The Latest ‘�������ýҕ�l Health News Minute’ 

This week on the �������ýҕ�l Health News Minute: Regulators struggle to keep candy-flavored e-cigarettes away from children and a �������ýҕ�l Health News investigation finds racial inequities in a federal program to help rural moms. (7/5)

Delaware health officials are piloting a first-of-its-kind drug test to protect people from xylazine, or tranq, a dangerous animal tranquilizer that has contaminated the Philadelphia region’s drug supply. The testing strips, small lengths of paper similar to a COVID-19 rapid test, can detect the presence of both xylazine and the synthetic opioid fentanyl in a drug sample, officials said. (Whelan, 7/5)

Newsom first became concerned about tranq about six months ago, he said, when he met with other governors for a conference and his East Coast counterparts warned that xylazine was responsible for a growing number of fatalities in their states. Increasingly, it’s being found in California, too. “We were asking our Border Patrol folks, and they, a number of months ago, said we started to see it on the Texas border, and now we’re seeing it in California,” Newsom said. “It’s moved very quickly.” (Bollag, 7/5)

The state of Nevada has reached a $285 million settlement with Walgreens regarding the pharmacy chain’s role in the opioid epidemic, the state’s top lawyer announced Wednesday. The last in a series of multiyear settlements with pharmaceutical companies, retailers and others, it pushes Nevada’s total anticipated payments stemming from opioid claims to $1.1 billion, state Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office said in a news release. Nevada is among numerous states that have reached settlements now totaling more than $50 billion nationwide. (7/5)

A physician with decades of experience working in emergency rooms in the southern West Virginia coalfields was on Wednesday named the first board director of a nonprofit tasked with distributing much of the state’s over $1 billion in opioid settlement money. Dr. Tony Kelly, an emergency physician with around 40 years of experience working in hospitals in historic coal mining communities like Beckley and Welch, will be the inaugural director of the 11-member West Virginia First Foundation board, according to unofficial results shared during a public meeting at the Raleigh County Courthouse in Beckley. Official results will be certified within a week. (Willingham, 7/5)

New Hampshire had begun to see progress in its efforts to reduce the number of people dying from opioids and other drugs. The state’s overdose death tally decreased two years in a row. But that was before the pandemic. Now the trendline has reversed. (Porter, 7/5)

After pleas from doctors and addiction experts, Gov. Ron DeSantis legalized the wide use of fentanyl test strips last week. The new law is a rare bipartisan victory that's relatively progressive, considering the strips are still considered illegal drug paraphernalia in half of U.S. states. (San Felice, 7/5)

Heather Beaubien doesn’t believe in rock bottom. Not when she dropped her son off at school in the morning and stopped at a liquor store five minutes later. Not during the moments she’d dig through clothing drawers for stashed drugs and liquor and light up with a Christmas-morning feeling upon finding it. And not when she went for months without a proper shower and found herself crawling naked to let the cops in at the door of her own home. (Salzman, 7/6)

North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed Wednesday a trio of bills aimed at LGBTQ+ youth that would ban gender-affirming health care for minors, restrict transgender participation in school sports and limit classroom instruction about gender identity and sexuality. (Schoenbaum, 7/5)

Max Adomat considers themself fortunate. Adomat, 26, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, has been on a steady regimen of feminizing hormones for the last six years. They also began their gender transition in New Jersey, a progressive state where clinics offering transition-related medical care are commonplace, and name changes are confidential, they said. (Rosenthal, 7/5)

Maryland Medicaid will start paying for some community violence prevention services, peer recovery support services in certain settings, and pregnancy and postpartum care for people whether or not they’re a U.S. citizen under benefits expansions announced earlier this week. (Roberts, 7/5)

Three months after the state agreed to cover basic dental care for adults on Medicaid, less than 15% of the state’s 850 dentists and oral surgeons have signed on. And fewer are actually taking patients. Almost half of those 125 providers in the state’s new New Hampshire Smiles Program have set limits on their participation. Some will take only five patients, and others want more time before taking any. (Timmins, 7/5)

Ohio will again ask the federal government in 2025 whether it can impose a work requirement on residents who get health insurance through Medicaid. Language contained in the state budget, which Gov. Mike DeWine signed Tuesday, requires Ohio to apply to the federal government to impose the new rule. If granted, able-bodied Ohioans 55 and younger would need to either work or study for at least 20 hours per week (with exceptions for the mentally ill and some others) as a term of enrollment for Medicaid, a state and federally funded program that provides insurance for lower-income Americans. (Zuckerman, 7/6)

A trade association that represents makers of generic medicines sued Wednesday over a new Minnesota law intended to hold down prescription drug price increases. The Association for Accessible Medicines sued in U.S. District Court, claiming the price-control law passed this year violates the federal commerce clause. The law took effect on Saturday. (Bakst, 7/5)

A bobcat that attacked a camper in a hammock at a Connecticut state park has tested positive for rabies. The man was among several adults leading a group of young campers last week in Selden Neck State Park, an island in the Connecticut River in Lyme, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said in a news release Monday. (7/5)

The spotlight is again on St. Louis’ beleaguered 911 system after the deaths of two people during severe thunderstorms over the weekend. Katherine Coen, 33, died Saturday after a tree fell on her car in the city’s Grove neighborhood. In Jennings, a 5-year-old boy, Robert Lawrence, died when a tree fell onto his family’s house. In both cases multiple calls to 911 went unanswered. The responses are now being investigated. (Lippmann, 7/5)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: Montana Adds Protections For Kids In Private Residential Treatment Programs

As a teenager attending Chrysalis Therapeutic Boarding School for Girls, a private, alternative therapeutic program in Eureka, Montana, from 2001 to 2004, Meg Applegate was subjected to emotional abuse and not given medical care for injuries from physical labor such as baling hay, chopping wood, and moving rocks, she said. Yet she couldn’t communicate what she was going through to her parents because she was not allowed unmonitored phone calls with them for over a year. Applegate, along with her parents, and other students who attended similar alternative, for-profit behavior modification programs in Montana testified about their experiences to help pass a new law that aims to bolster protections for teens in programs that are part of what is commonly referred to as the “troubled teen industry.” (Evans, 7/6)

Researchers have developed a soft, flexible, wireless device to monitor and treat heart disease and dysfunction in the days, weeks or months following traumatic heart-related events. And, after the device is no longer needed, it harmlessly dissolves inside the body, bypassing the need for extraction. (Northwestern University, 7/5)

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said today that the first clinical trial of a 3-month treatment regimen for tuberculosis (TB) is closing enrollment because of a high rate of unfavorable outcomes. The randomized controlled CLO-FAST trial sought to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a 3-month regimen containing clofazimine and high-dose rifapentine compared with the standard 6-month regimen. (Dall, 7/5)

A phase 1 clinical trial of Valneva's VLA15 Lyme disease vaccine candidate shows that it is safe and produces a strong but waning immune response against the six most common strains of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium in Europe and the United States. Valneva researchers led the trial, which was published yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.(Van Beusekom, 7/5)

A new study in The Lancet shows booster vaccine doses protect lymphoma patients from COVID-19 infection, especially after the fourth dose. The findings are based on outcomes seen in the PROSECO study, which enrolled 592 patients with lymphoma from nine hospitals in England from March 11, 2021, to September 9, 2022. Participants had blood sampling completed before and after one to four COVID-19 vaccine doses to measure antibody levels and T-cell responses. (Soucheray, 7/5)

When you look at rates of vaccination among young children for potentially dangerous infectious diseases, the data is encouraging. (Jessica Grose, 7/6)

Though medicine is a field where breakthrough innovation saves lives, doctors are — ironically — relatively slow to adopt new technology. (Daniela J. Lamas, 7/6)

Almost every day we read a new story detailing the horrific experience a woman went through when she was denied access to essential health care. Women from states such as Missouri, Tennessee and Texas are being denied care for life-threatening pregnancy complications, including ectopic pregnancies. (Dr. Caitlin Bernard, 7/2)

A new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, lecanemab, will likely receive traditional Food and Drug Administration approval on Thursday, marking a tremendous milestone for patients and their families. Unfortunately, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is closing the door to ready access of this new treatment. (Raymond Scott Turner, 7/6)

It’s increasingly difficult for transgender youth to get the health care they need. Over the past two years, a swath of US states have made it illegal for minors to receive gender-affirming treatments like puberty blockers and hormone treatments. (Lisa Jarvis, 7/5)

In 1855 Fredrick Douglas said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”  Over 150 years later, this quote is still poignantly relevant, as the mental challenges confronting American teens have slowly escalated into a national health crisis. (Shikhar Motupally, 7/6)

Tori Bowie, the former fastest woman in the world and three-time Olympic medalist, tragically died at age 32. Recent news revealed that her death was due to complications from childbirth while being eight months pregnant. The Associate Medical Examiner suggested that respiratory distress and eclampsia, a condition related to high blood pressure during pregnancy, may have contributed to her death. This incident serves as a reminder of the alarming rates of maternal death, particularly among Black and brown women, not only in Florida, where Bowie passed away, but also in Connecticut. (Venezia Michalsen, Anuli Njoku and Sadie Witherspoon, 7/6)

When then-Vice President Biden launched the Cancer Moonshot in 2016, there was reason to be optimistic. Decades of rigorous science had transformed many cancers from a death sentence to a manageable chronic disease. Unfortunately, while the president promised a war on cancer, he declared a war on the cure instead. (Stephen J. Ubl, 7/6)