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The Louisiana Supreme Court rejected the state attorney general’s request to allow immediate enforcement of state laws against most abortions in a 4-to-2 ruling late Wednesday. The majority said only that the court declined to get involved “at this preliminary stage.” (McConnaughey, 7/7)

Attorneys for Kentucky’s two abortion clinics sought an injunction in court Wednesday to block the state’s near-total ban on the procedure, one of numerous such efforts across the country following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry issued a temporary restraining order blocking the state’s abortion ban last week, and the two clinics, both in Louisville, resumed performing abortions. If granted, the injunction would suspend the state law while the case is litigated. (Lovan, 7/6)

An abortion rights hacktivist group says it launched cyberattacks against Arkansas and Kentucky state governments and leaked files from their servers to protest their bans on abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The group, which calls itself SiegedSec, said it hacked the two states because it was angry about their bans. (Bergal, 7/6)

A protest rally planned for the special session was moved to July 25, but dozens of abortions rights activists gathered Wednesday anyway to share their thoughts in an effort to let lawmakers know how they feel. Chants of “Pro life is a lie, you don’t care if women die,” “Hey, hey, mister, mister, get your laws off my sister” and “Silence is violence” could be heard in unison throughout the crowd. (Kane, 7/6)

Ohio physicians are speaking out in response the the overturning of Roe. v. Wade. Over 1,100 doctors have joined together to form a new organization, Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, dedicated to championing the reproductive freedom of their patients. (Kroen, 7/6)

A young Ohio girl who was sexually assaulted and had to travel out of state for an abortion wasn't the only one, but she's one of a shrinking number of minors getting the procedure. The 10-year-old girl sought care in Indianapolis following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on June 24 to overturn Roe v. Wade and Ohio's move later that day to ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. (Filby, 7/6)

KHN: Montana Clinics That Provide Abortions Preemptively Restrict Pill Access For Out-Of-State Patients

The four states bordering Montana have “trigger laws” in effect or pending now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ended federal protections for abortion, making conservative Big Sky Country an unlikely haven for women seeking to end their pregnancies. But Montana’s potential to become an abortion refuge has been diminished — not by the lawmakers and governor whose attempts to restrict abortions have been stymied by the state constitution’s right to privacy, but by the operators of at least four of the state’s five clinics, which are preemptively limiting who can receive abortion pills. (Houghton and Zionts, 7/7)

For Wendy Vargas, the recent elimination of a constitutional right to abortion — and the banning of the procedure in many Republican-controlled states — is an affront to her values as both a woman and an American. “This is supposed to be a first-world country,” said the 32-year-old Colombian immigrant and independent voter who leans Republican. “We’re supposed to have more freedoms here.” (Jarvie, 7/6)

A Virginia woman says her doctor has stopped prescribing a medication she uses for symptoms of lupus in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on abortion access. Becky Schwarz was diagnosed with Lupus in 2020 and got COVID last year leading to a diagnosis of long COVID. She relies on a drug called Methotrexate to treat her symptoms, and now her doctor is saying they can't prescribe it at the moment. (7/6)

After the U.S. Supreme Court revoked the federal right to an abortion that's been in place for half a century, companies like Amazon, Disney, Apple and JP Morgan pledged to cover travel costs for employees who live in states where the procedure is now illegal so they can terminate pregnancies. But the companies gave scant or no details on how they will do this and it's not clear if they will be able to — legally — while protecting employees' privacy and keeping them safe from prosecution. (Ortutay and Durbin, 7/6)

When the US Supreme Court ruled to end federal protection for abortions last month, many people wanted to find a way to help. Some hosts on Airbnb Inc. offered to open their homes to guests who needed to travel to states that will still allow the procedure, similar to how the vacation-rental company has been generous with a policy to shelter refugees in the past.  (Tobin and Ceron, 7/6)

North Carolina may become a destination for women who are seeking abortion care and coming from states with more restrictive laws since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month. Gov. Roy Cooper on Wednesday said he’ll continue to fight for abortion rights and signed an executive order aimed to protect access to services in the state. He said states are “taking our country backward to the ‘50s and ‘60s where women died in back alleys.” (Baumgartner Vaughan, 7/6)

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order Wednesday saying the state will protect people who seek abortions and those who provide them, including those in other states. (Fish, 7/6)

The Department of Defense (DOD) said Wednesday that it will allow its networks to access abortion-related websites, permitting military and civilian personnel to access those sites on the agency’s computers. (Williams, 7/6)

The effort to enshrine abortion access in Michigan's Constitution has likely gathered enough signatures to make the Nov. 2 ballot. Driving the news: The Reproductive Freedom for All ballot initiative is nearing 800,000 signatures, Ann Arbor Council Member Linh Song, who co-chairs the ballot committee, said at a council meeting Tuesday. (Robinson, 7/7)

The battle over access to abortion in Georgia is poised to shift to local officials who see themselves as a last line of defense after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. Prosecutors covering some of Georgia’s most densely populated areas have vowed they won’t seek charges against violators of the state’s anti-abortion law. Police agencies are under pressure to focus on violent crimes rather than abortion cases. (Bluestein and Papp, 7/6)

Access to abortion became easier in Australia on Thursday as decriminalization took effect in South Australia state, part of a wave of liberalization that contrasts with recent moves in the United States. For the most part, abortion is not the subject of polarizing national debate Down Under, as it often is in American politics. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade shocked many Australians, leading thousands to attend rallies in support of abortion rights. (Vinall, 7/7)

Kemlin Nembhard, head of the Women's Health Clinic in Winnipeg, Manitoba, says there has been no way to plan for a post-Roe world. No signal of how many Americans might look for abortion services in Winnipeg, a little over an hour's drive from the U.S. border, now that the Supreme Court ruled Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade. "Are people going to be coming north? Or Are they going to go to another state? We don't know," she said. (Jacobs, 7/5)

Dr. Savita Halappanavar, 31, an Indian-born dentist, died in 2012 in Galway, on Ireland’s west coast, after she was denied an abortion by doctors who cited the country’s strict laws, even though there was no chance her baby would survive, according to Ireland’s official report on the case. Her death shook the foundations of the traditionally conservative and predominantly Roman Catholic country and catalyzed its pro-abortion rights movement. In a 2018 referendum, Irish people voted by a two-thirds majority to legalize the procedure. (Smith, 7/4)

House Republicans are weighing what kind of national-level abortion ban legislation to pursue if they win the House majority next year, with a 15-week ban or further on the table. But even as they cheer the Supreme Court overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights bill, GOP congressional leaders have made few promises on specific measures they would pursue. Some Republicans advocate leaving abortion restrictions to the states. (Brooks, 7/7)

Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision demolishing the constitutional right to an abortion, Republicans have signaled that they plan to take further action to limit, if not eradicate, abortion rights by imposing federal restrictions. You don’t need a crystal ball to glimpse their game plan if they gain control of Congress and the White House. You simply have to look at the legislation GOP lawmakers have introduced over the past few years. Together, these bills would amount to a near-total abortion ban. Here is a non-exhaustive list. (Vesoulis, 7/1)

Republicans are torn between their policy goals and political ones in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, with activists’ rush to capitalize on the ruling running into the political reality that abortion rights remain popular in many of this year's midterm battlegrounds. “I don’t think this alters the midterm advantage for Republicans because of Biden’s economic woes,” said former Virginia Republican Rep. Tom Davis. “But in a cycle that is all about turnout, it is a net benefit for Democrats. Angry voters vote.” (Seitz-Wald and Allen, 7/6)

A majority of Americans disapprove of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling overturning the Roe v. Wade decision, which had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly 50 years. Public support for legal abortion remains largely unchanged since before the decision, with 62% saying it should be legal in all or most cases. (7/6)

Long before the Supreme Court rescinded abortion rights, gun control and environmental regulations, President Joe Biden commissioned a body of academics and judicial experts to study the structure and composition of the nation’s high court. The recommendations issued by that bipartisan commission were moderate in scope, focusing on matters of transparency and ethics. Ultimately, they were brushed aside, ignored by a president largely resistant to large-scale reforms. Half a year later, some of the members who called for that bold action are saying, I told you so. (Daniels, 7/7)

An online petition that calls for the removal of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has attracted more than 1 million signatures. ... The petition description cited Thomas’s vote to overturn Roe v. Wade as reasoning for his removal. “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—who sided with the majority on overturning Roe—made it clear what’s next: to overturn high court rulings that establish gay rights and contraception rights,” the petition read. (Oshin, 7/6)

President Biden conceded Wednesday that Democrats “don’t have the votes to change the filibuster” to codify abortion rights into law in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. The list of Senate Democrats who don’t support lifting the rule that allows a minority of members to block legislation not only includes perennial opponents Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. It appears to include California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. (Garofoli, 7/6)

As the sun bore down around 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Dale Gibson began affixing signs to the iron fence surrounding Mississippi’s only abortion clinic. “The fight is not over,” one read. In cursive script, another vowed: “This is not the end.” (Harris, 7/7)

On Wednesday evening, after some of the last patients to receive a legal abortion in Mississippi had left Jackson Women's Health Organization, the last abortion clinic in the state closed its doors. On Thursday, abortion will become illegal in Mississippi, the state with the highest infant mortality and teen birth rates in the nation, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Perlis, 7/6)

As the owner of Mississippi's only abortion clinic, Diane Derzis has seen many patients come through the doors of the Pink House. For her, the toughest ones to treat have been the ones who never believed in the right to abortion. "Many of these young women were home-schooled by evangelical parents. Most of them have never received any sex education," Derzis told Newsweek in an interview last week. "They're actually the ones that are some of the saddest because they never got that information." (Fung, 7/6)

Austin-based Whole Woman’s Health began winding down its Texas operations after a ruling Friday by the Texas Supreme Court forced an end to abortions in that state. Now, the provider wants to establish a new clinic in a New Mexico city near the state line to provide first and second trimester abortions. (7/6)

Typically, a pair of volunteers don bright pink vests and open rainbow umbrellas in front of Eastland Women's Clinic, a Detroit clinic that provides abortions. Last Saturday, nearly a dozen clinic escorts showed up. (Sampson, 7/6)

Crisis pregnancy centers are, in many ways, the antithesis of abortion clinics. Run by antiabortion activists, the facilities offer pregnancy tests, counseling, and baby supplies to encourage people to continue their pregnancies. Yet a quick search for abortion services online will inevitably yield an array of crisis pregnancy centers, which now outnumber abortion clinics nationwide and in Massachusetts. Critics charge the centers are not upfront about their intent to discourage abortions and mislead and manipulate vulnerable women. (Ebbert, 7/6)

Pregnant people who get routine prenatal screening may be at greater risk of prosecution in states with strict, new abortion bans, even if they plan to continue the pregnancy, bioethicists write in the journal Cell Reports Medicine. It's another way the overturning of Roe v. Wade is subsuming other forms of reproductive health care. (Bettelheim, 7/6)

Unlike in years before Roe v. Wade in 1973, when women sometimes died from seeking unsafe and illegal abortions, Dr. Nisha Verma says patients now have more options. "We know that people can safely manage their own abortions with pills when they have the information and support that they need," Verma said. "We do expect that we will see more people that are self-managing their abortions." (McCammon, 7/7)

Pharmacists will be permitted to prescribe Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid under a move by US regulators aimed at providing prompt access to the widely used Covid treatment. State-licensed pharmacists can prescribe Paxlovid to eligible patients, subject to certain limitations to assure appropriate treatment, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday in a statement. (Langreth, 7/6)

Six months after regulators issued an emergency use authorization for Paxlovid, physicians say they still have significant questions about prescribing guidelines for the leading treatment for high-risk Covid patients. (Chen, 7/7)

A drug initially developed in hopes of treating cancer patients could significantly cut the risk of death among hospitalized COVID-19 patients who are at high risk of severe disease, results published on Wednesday suggest. The findings on the drug, called sabizabulin, were first announced in early April by drugmaker Veru, which submitted an emergency use authorization request last month. If the Food and Drug Administration signs off, it could add another option to the stable of drugs doctors turn to for treating hospitalized cases. (Tin, 7/6)

COVID-19 deaths in 2020 led to the biggest life expectancy drop in the United States since World War II, according to a new reports from a federal research group. In global COVID developments, cases rose for the fourth week in a row, led by the more transmissible BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today in its weekly pandemic update. (Schnirring, 7/6)

Utahns who practice intermittent fasting — as prescribed by Latter-day Saints — have potentially been unknowingly lowering their risk of suffering severe effects from COVID-19 infection. That’s the conclusion of a study by doctors at Intermountain Healthcare. “People who report in these studies that they fast routinely ... tend to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” said Dr. Benjamin Horne, director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at Intermountain Healthcare. (Pierce, 7/6)

Yellowstone National Park will now require visitors 2 years and older to wear face masks in its indoor facilities, citing a rise in COVID-19 cases. Several other parks have similar restrictions, and the National Park Service has implemented a mask mandate on public transit in all of its parks. (Reardon, 7/6)

Norwegian Cruise Line is dropping a requirement that passengers test negative for COVID-19 before sailing unless it is required by local rules. The company said Wednesday that it will drop the testing requirement Aug. 1 except on ships sailing from places with local testing rules, including in the United States, Canada, Bermuda and Greece. (7/6)

A study in Ontario suggests that, compared with a third dose of mRNA COVID vaccine, a fourth dose improved protection against infection and severe outcomes among long-term care residents during the Omicron wave. The study was published today in The BMJ. (7/6)

In a laboratory study, the scientists found that the highly transmissible BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages of the virus, which are now dominant in the U.S., were at least four times more resistant to three doses of vaccine — the original shots plus one booster — than was the earlier BA.2. (The study group didn’t include people with two booster shots.) (Vaziri, 7/6)

The latest Omicron subvariants behind new COVID-19 surges in the United States and abroad have an enhanced ability to escape immunity conferred by three vaccine doses and all but one antibody therapy tested, finds a laboratory study published yesterday in Nature. ... Relative to BA.2, the BA.2.12.1 subvariant was about 80% more resistant (1.8-fold) after three vaccine doses, but BA.4 and BA.5 were at least 4.2 times more resistant, increasing the likelihood of breakthrough infections. (Van Beusekom, 7/6)

A proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would limit vaccine mandates imposed by businesses, health care providers and governments is a step closer to the statewide ballot. The proposal would prohibit those entities from discriminating against people based on vaccination status or mandating any vaccine, medical procedure, treatment or medical device. (Hendrickson, 7/6)

For the second time, a California judge has ruled that the state — not individual school districts — has the authority to require students get the COVID-19 vaccine to attend classes on campus, putting in doubt similar mandates in the Bay Area that have been delayed. (Woolfolk, 7/6)

New Yorkers struggled mostly in vain to book appointments for one of the city’s scarce monkeypox vaccines Wednesday in a botched roll-out that the health department is blaming on technological glitches. ... The website was supposed to launch Wednesday afternoon, but some people were able to get access prematurely. It later became inaccessible, and when the city officially opened the portal later in the day, it quickly went down again — prompting frustration, one advocate said. (Eisenberg, 7/6)

Health Department officials said the state has received 357 doses of the vaccine for monkeypox from the federal government so far and is distributing them to close contacts of people who have contracted the virus. The vaccine is also being made available to those at high risk of exposure. Deputy State Epidemiologist Dr. Nathan Tan told reporters Wednesday that the state has seen six confirmed cases of monkeypox so far amid a nationwide outbreak. All of the cases are linked. (Blair, 7/6)

The first probable case of monkeypox has been announced in Idaho. The Idaho Division of Public Health and Central District Health on Wednesday said it appears this infection was acquired during travel to a country experiencing a monkeypox outbreak. (7/6)

The number of monkeypox cases confirmed in Texas climbed to 20, according to the latest data shared by the federal government. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported eight new cases in the state Wednesday on its map tracking infections nationwide. Only one case has been confirmed in Travis County so far, but Austin Public Health shared Tuesday that five others potentially have monkeypox, too. (DuPree, 7/6)

Dallas County Health and Human Services announced Wednesday it had identified its first locally transmitted case of the virus after an individual tested positive for monkeypox after attending the Daddyland Festival. Federal public health authorities are reporting the number of monkeypox cases in Texas has risen to 23 as the state and elsewhere see efforts to ramp up testing and vaccinations. The local transmission case involved an out-of-state visitor who was in Dallas to attend Daddyland over the Fourth of July weekend, according to county health officials. The festival's website describes the event as a four-day dance party at multiple venues. (Thomas, 7/6)

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the global outbreak of monkeypox has grown to more than 6,000 cases, with 80% in European countries. ... "Testing remains a challenge, and it's highly probable that there are a significant number of cases not being picked up," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned during a speech. (Soucheray, 7/6)

“The thought of a full three-week quarantine is pretty scary,” said John, 32, a New York City tech worker who believes he contracted monkeypox from a guy he hooked up with during a recent trip to Los Angeles for the city’s Pride events. “I’m just feeling disappointed and bummed out. It was a bummer to miss celebrating Pride” in New York. (Ryan, 7/6)

Federal health regulators are devising plans that would let overseas baby formula makers market their products in the U.S. long term beyond the current baby formula shortage. To ease shortages of baby formula, the Food and Drug Administration has been temporarily allowing foreign manufacturers to ship their products to the U.S. (Armour, 7/6)

The Food and Drug Administration and Juul agreed Wednesday to put their court fight on hold while the government reopens its review of the company’s electronic cigarettes. The agreement comes one day after the FDA placed a hold on its initial order banning Juul’s products from the market, saying that Juul’s application warranted “additional review.” (Perrone, 7/7)

Illinois-based AbbVie Inc. makes the bulk of its profits from arthritis drug Humira on sales in the U.S., but the company reports almost all its taxable income in foreign subsidiaries, according to a Senate Finance Committee report that criticizes the pharmaceutical company’s use of entities in Bermuda and Puerto Rico to reduce its tax burden. (Rubin, 7/7)

Senate Democrats have put final tweaks on their drug pricing proposal, as they race to achieve one of their signature domestic policy promises ahead of the midterm elections. (Cohrs, 7/7)

KHN: Seeking To Kick-Start Biden’s Agenda, Schumer Unveils A Bill For Medicare Drug Price Negotiations 

Democratic senators on Wednesday took a formal step toward reviving President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, starting with a measure to let Medicare negotiate prices with drugmakers and to curb rising drug costs more broadly. A similar proposal died in December when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) decided to oppose Biden’s $1.9 trillion Build Back Better bill, which also included provisions allowing for Medicare drug negotiations. (McAuliff, 7/7)

Doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have concluded that a man who received a first-of-its-kind pig-heart transplant in January died two months later of heart failure. The reasons for the failure remain under investigation. The man, David Bennett, was able to get out of bed, begin rehabilitation and spend time with his family in the weeks after the transplant at the University of Maryland Medical Center. His doctors say that makes the effort a success. (Cohn, 7/6)

The White House is zeroing in on former DARPA officials as candidates to lead the Biden administration’s new high-stakes science agency, ARPA-H. (Facher, 7/7)

Hartford Healthcare said Wednesday it is reviewing its legal options after the state Office of Health Strategy this week denied the health system’s application to permanently close the decades-old maternity ward at Windham Hospital. (7/6)

Attorney General William Tong, who submitted comments to the Office Health Strategy expressing his concerns about the application to close the unit, applauded the initial decision Wednesday. “This is the right decision for the health and safety of mothers and babies in the Windham area. Asking parents to travel another 25-45 minutes to undergo a major medical procedure at a different hospital would have created an additional burden and risk. I thank the Office of Health Strategy for carefully considering these critical factors, and for this draft decision,” Tong said.  (Golvala, 7/6)

Most of St. Anthony’s patients are on Medicaid, a government-run program for the poor and disabled. The hospital claimed at the time of its original suit that it was in financial distress, losing about 98% of its cash reserves, allegedly because managed care organizations had delayed and reduced Medicaid payments. As of February 2020, St. Anthony said it was missing more than $20 million in payments. (Davis, 7/6)

A new study found most network directory listings in Oregon’s Medicaid program were “phantom” providers that didn’t take Medicaid payments. The findings outlined in a study in Health Affairs published Tuesday comes as the Senate is exploring how to tackle pay parity between mental and behavioral health as well as network adequacy for mental health providers. (King, 7/6)

KHN: Feds Want A Policy That Advocates Say Would Let Hospitals Off The Hook For Covid-Era Lapses 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is responding to the chaos of the covid-19 pandemic by proposing to hide from the public a rating that lets consumers compare hospitals’ safety records and to waive approximately $350 million in financial penalties for roughly 750 hospitals with the worst patient-safety track records. CMS’ chief medical officer, Dr. Lee Fleisher, said those safety metrics were not designed to properly account for how a pandemic, with its patient surges and workforce shortages, might affect hospital systems. (Weber, 7/7)

The court order filed Friday marks the latest chapter in the electronic health records vendor's legal fight against India-based information-technology services and consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services. In 2016, a jury awarded Epic Systems $940 million, but subsequent court actions have substantially reduced the amount Tata must pay. A federal appeals court previously ruled that punitive damages should not exceed the amount of compensatory damages, which is also $140 million. (Kim Cohen, 7/6)

That grim reality of the recent large-scale killings, and the ongoing epidemic of gun violence in many American cities, raises two questions: What to do in the still-unlikely event you find yourself someplace where an armed person has opened fire? And how can you keep from being paralyzed by the possibility of that happening? (Jacobs, 7/6)

A tip from a concerned citizen helped Richmond police thwart a potential mass shooting targeting the July Fourth celebration in Virginia’s capital, authorities said Wednesday. Officers arrested two men on weapons charges and recovered guns and ammunition in connection with the planned attack, which was to occur at the Dogwood Dell amphitheater, Richmond Police Chief Gerald M. Smith said at a news conference. The motive is still under investigation. (Jouvenal, 7/6)

Two days after a mass shooting at the Highland Park Independence Day parade shocked the country and put renewed focus on weaknesses in Illinois’ gun laws, authorities continued to hash out how alleged gunman Robert Crimo III apparently bought a high-powered rifle despite troubling episodes in his background. (Crepeau and Sweeney, 7/6)

Under Illinois law, there are several opportunities for the authorities to intervene if a gun owner is deemed to pose a dangerous risk. This begins with the application process for a gun license, known in Illinois as a Firearm Owner’s Identification card. The application includes a long list of questions about past felony convictions, failed drug tests or recent hospitalizations for mental illness. It is submitted to the State Police, where it goes through dozens of steps, involving electronic and manual checks of national and state databases. At any point in that process, the state could determine that a person is not eligible. However, a vast majority are approved. (Smith, Robertson, Robles and Kovaleski, 7/6)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., shared a doctored image that she falsely claimed showed the suspect in the Highland Park, Illinois, mass shooting was in a “in jail or rehab or a psychiatric center” before he opened fire on the Chicago suburb’s July 4 parade. ... Greene posted the altered image of Crimo twice, using it to make a political point about guns and mental health.(McCarthy, 7/7)

KHN: Gun Safety ‘Wrapped In A Mental Health Bill’: A Look At Health Provisions In The New Law

The gun safety law forged through tense bipartisan talks in the Senate last month has been heralded as the first federal legislation in 30 years to combat rising gun violence. But what often falls below the radar is the new law’s focus on improving mental health services. News coverage has largely centered on the law’s provisions to enhance background checks for younger buyers, encourage states to implement their own “red flag laws,” and close the “boyfriend loophole.” Less attention has been paid to the mental health programs that most of the estimated $13 billion is earmarked for. (Knight, 7/7)

None of the four Republican candidates for governor of Michigan endorsed additional gun control measures or "red flag" laws during a debate in Grand Rapids on Wednesday, despite a recent rash of mass shootings around the nation, including one at a Fourth of July parade near Chicago that killed seven people. (Egan, 7/6)

The average American tells 11 lies a week. Lying less actually improves our mental and physical health. That's according to a recent study by researchers at Notre Dame. (Pandey, 7/7)

The parents of two girls who said their children died as a result of a “blackout challenge” on TikTok are suing the company, claiming its algorithm intentionally served the children dangerous content that led to their deaths. The girls were 8 and 9 when they died last year after viewing the challenge, which encouraged users to choke themselves until they passed out, according to the lawsuit, which was filed on Thursday in Superior Court in Los Angeles County. (Levenson and Rubin, 7/6)

For those with menstrual periods, they’ve likely noticed empty shelves where tampons are usually sold. According to market research firm NielsenIQ, that was especially true for Mountain West states like Montana and Utah this spring. Utah had the lowest access nationwide at the time. (Beck, 7/6)

A commonly used treatment for people with knee osteoarthritis is barely more effective than the placebo effect in reducing pain and improving function, a new review of 50 years of data found. Yet despite decades of mounting evidence showing hyaluronic acid injections don’t help most osteoarthritis patients, the shots have become more widely used. (Cueto, 7/6)

Near the corner of busy Santa Monica Boulevard and Corinth Avenue, underneath lines of skinny palm trees and against an almost perpetually bright-blue sky, a hot pink billboard declared: Hot girls have IBS. (Cueto, 7/7)

North Carolina lawmakers passed their state budget compromise last week, and there was a noticeable change in the way they described funding to help people with substance use disorder. In the latest budget, state lawmakers defined treatment for opioid use disorder and included the medications that have been most helpful for people. (Knopf, 7/7)

A small, largely rural county west of Florida’s capital experienced an unheard-of spike in deadly drug overdoses believed to be caused by fentanyl over the July 4 weekend, with nine people dying in the latest sign that a national crisis is becoming even more far-reaching. In all of 2021, Gadsden County had just 10 overdoses, Sheriff Morris Young said. He couldn’t recall any being fatal. (Farrington, 7/7)

San Francisco plans to create a six-month pilot program to have community workers instead of police respond to low-level emergency calls about homelessness — a year after supervisors set aside $3 million for the initiative. But the program is still up to a year away from launching, officials said. (Moench, 7/6)

A nearly identical version of Prop. 29 appeared on the state’s 2020 ballot and failed. Voters also rejected Prop. 8, a related measure, in 2018. All three were filed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), an Oakland-based union that represents medical workers. (Pak, 7/6)

One note submitted to the federal judge sentencing a 38-year-old California woman for embezzlement claimed that a biopsy had revealed “cancerous cells” in her uterus. Another indicated that she was undergoing a surgical procedure, and her cancer had spread to the cervix. Yet another letter warned she “cannot be exposed to COVID-19” because of her fragile state. But federal officials say the notes and cancer were all fake, and now Ashleigh Lynn Chavez is headed to prison for three times as long. The court this week added an additional two years to her initial, one-year prison sentence. (7/6)

In a stern letter, the Environmental Protection Agency warned the company dismantling the decommissioned Pilgrim nuclear power plant against proceeding with a plan to dump waste water into Cape Cod Bay. The letter, dated June 17 and released by Senator Edward J. Markey’s office Wednesday, was the latest salvo in a controversy that has roiled South Shore and Cape Cod communities since last fall. That’s when the company, Holtec, floated the possibility of dumping approximately 1 million gallons of radioactive waste water into the bay. (Damiano, 7/6)

D.C. Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt will resign at the end of the month, she told The Washington Post Wednesday, ending a near-eight-year run for one of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s longest-serving cabinet members who played an instrumental role in the city’s day-to-day response to the coronavirus pandemic. (Brice-Saddler, 7/6)

The spike in food, fuel and fertilizer prices sparked by the war in Ukraine is threatening to push countries around the world into famine, bringing “global destabilization, starvation and mass migration on an unprecedented scale,” a top U.N. official warned Wednesday. David Beasley, head of the U.N. World Food Program, said its latest analysis shows that “a record 345 million acutely hungry people are marching to the brink of starvation” — a 25% increase from 276 million at the start of 2022 before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. The number stood at 135 million before the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. (Lederer, 7/6)

“We are seeing a much more intense wave of the disease passing through Europe again,” Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said at a media briefing Wednesday. “And we will see it happen elsewhere -- we are already seeing it in South East Asia and in the eastern Mediterranean region as well.” (Hipwell, 7/6)

“We are now throwing doses in the garbage,” Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in May. “It’s sad to say.” ... In some low-income countries, access to doses remains an issue. Some of the countries lacked the healthcare infrastructure to handle and store the shots at low temperatures, while others had difficulty planning and rolling out vaccination campaigns because supplies were unpredictable and lagged behind wealthier countries. (Loftus, 7/6)

A British man's overdose on vitamin D is a cautionary tale for people who are considering adding supplements to their lives, according to a paper published Tuesday in the journal BMJ Case Reports. (LaMotte, 7/5)

Tuberculosis (TB) treatment and prevention advocates today released a plan they hope will achieve the goal of eradicating the infectious disease as a public health threat by 2030. The Global Plan to End TB 2023-2030, released today by the Stop TB Partnership, calls for a global investment of $250 billion from 2023 to 2030 to boost early TB diagnosis and treatment, develop and distribute a new TB vaccine, and accelerate the development of new TB medicines and diagnostics. (Dall, 7/6)

3M Co. still faces the prospect of additional costs to resolve contamination liabilities in Belgium after reaching an agreement to clean up and remediate PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals used in many consumer goods, a government official said. (Baker, 7/7)

Researchers definitively linked the function of a specific domain of proteins important in plant-microbe biology to a cancer trigger in humans, knowledge that had eluded scientists for decades. (DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 7/5)

Though widely given to severely ill patients hospitalized with COVID-19 during the pandemic, convalescent plasma did not improve the ability to survive or recover, according to a national clinical trial published today in Chest. (7/5)

A study of US hospital data found that fewer than 10% of COVID-19 patients had bacterial or fungal co-infections, but they had a higher risk of antibiotic-resistant, healthcare-associated infections than flu patients, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers reported late last week in Clinical Infectious Diseases. (7/5)

A new study shows that the proportion of children diagnosed as having COVID-19 and croup was significantly higher during the Omicron surge than in earlier waves dominated by other variants. Croup is an upper airway infection generally affecting children. It causes swelling around the larynx, trachea, and bronchi, resulting in labored breathing and a "barking" cough. (7/5)

In its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court made clear that its new majority rejects the interpretation of the right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution that made Roe v. Wade and a host of other Supreme Court precedents possible. In permitting Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks, the majority in Dobbs declared the ground on which the right to privacy stands to be sand — shifting and unsound. (Lisa A. crooms-Robinson,

A few days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, Boston IVF, a fertility company with centers in six states, posted a statement that speaks to the havoc this decision will wreak not just for abortions, but for other forms of reproductive care. (Lisa C. Ikemoto, 7/7)

As state abortion bans snap into effect after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, one group who will be most affected seems to be least discussed: women under criminal court control. For these women — the vast majority of whom are poor and disproportionally Black or Latina — state surveillance and control of their bodies are not new. (Kate Weisburd, 7/5)

Have public health officials and the news media been less than candid in their explanations of the risk factors in the worldwide monkeypox outbreak? Are we seeing a replay of why people are losing confidence in doctors and journalists who have not been forthright about the public in the COVID-19 pandemic? (Cory Franklin and Robert Weinstein, 7/6)

More than 7,200 cases of monkeypox have been reported this year in dozens of countries, including over 600 cases in the United States, largely but not exclusively in men who have sex with men. While it is not as contagious as COVID-19, monkeypox could easily gain a foothold in communities now suffering from the latest spread of the disease. (Zain Rizvi and Gregg Gonsalves, 7/7)

On June 17, the Food and Drug Administration finally authorized the use of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, based largely on advice from a panel of outside experts. By my accounting, it could have — and should have — made it possible for young children to be vaccinated much sooner. (Jorge A. Caballero, 7/6)

Many of our patients struggle to afford their medicines, and it’s agonizing to have a front-row seat to this injustice. Despite politicians’ frequent promises to lower drug prices, Congress has failed to pass any meaningful reforms in decades. As different states experiment with their own solutions, one approach spearheaded by Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has attracted growing attention. (Hussain S. Lalani, Benjamin N. Rome and Aaron S. Kesselheim, 7/7)

More than 100 million Americans have medical debt, according to a recent Kaiser Health News-NPR investigation. And about a quarter of American adults with this debt owe more than $5,000. This isn’t because they’re uninsured. More often, it’s because they’re underinsured. (Aaron E. Carroll, 7/7)

Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics released an updated policy statement on breastfeeding that suggested increasing the duration of breastfeeding to two years or more from one year or more. As my Times colleague Catherine Pearson explained, this is the first update to the breastfeeding recommendations in a decade. (Jessica Grose, 7/6)

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rulings are creating fundamental, swift changes in how healthcare is delivered in this country and how the industry will operate. We won’t know for some time just how seismic those shifts will be. (Mary Ellen Podmolik, 7/5)

“There are no words.” That grief-stricken statement echoed throughout the world as yet another mass shooter ripped apart a community, this time in Chicago on our nation’s birthday, July 4, 2022. It had been just six weeks since our country suffered an elementary school shooting in Texas that echoed the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012. (Patricia Gail Bray and Wendy Ward, 7/7)

Nonprofit hospitals in the U.S. are exempt from most taxes. To earn this status, they are supposed to engage in activities that benefit their communities, such as providing free care to uninsured people or programs to improve neighborhood health. For many, though, their real community contributions fall far short of the tax breaks they receive. (Judith Garber and Vikas Saini, 7/7)

I am a resident physician, a brand-new doctor. I am just beginning my residency training. The process of becoming a doctor is long and tedious and involves a tremendous amount of work and dogged commitment. We complete undergraduate education, four years of medical school, and three to five years of residency. The hardest part, though, is not academics or occupational stamina — but rather developing a personal and professional identity as you bear witness to the suffering of your fellow man. (Kathryn Tabor, 7/6)

America’s economically disadvantaged patients can point in two directions when talking about what is wrong with the 340B Drug Pricing Program, which is designed to help hospitals caring for underserved communities — and the patients they treat — keep necessary medicines reasonably priced: large supposedly “nonprofit” hospitals and for-profit pharmacy benefit managers that serve as 340B contract pharmacies, which together divert billions of dollars in savings that should be helping patients in need. (Ted Okon, 7/7)