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Teen girls reported record levels of violence, sadness, and thoughts of suicide in 2021, experiencing distress at twice the rate of teen boys, according to new federal data released Monday. The nearly 3 in 5 teen girls who felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 was a 60% increase compared to a decade earlier. (Joseph, 2/13)

The researchers also analyzed the data by race and ethnicity, finding that Black and Hispanic students were more likely to report skipping school because of concerns about violence. White students, however, were more likely to report experiencing sexual violence. The increase in sadness and hopelessness was reported across all racial groups over the last decade. Though Black students were less likely to report these negative feelings than other groups, they were more likely to report suicide attempts than white, Asian or Hispanic adolescents. (Ghorayshi and Rabin, 2/13)

The report also found that 52% of teens identifying as LGBTQ+ experienced poor mental health in the past year, with 1 in 5 saying they had attempted suicide during that period of time. Among racial and ethnic groups Native American teens were the most likely to have attempted suicide in the year before, followed by Black youth, at 14%. (Chatterjee, 2/13)

Almost 15 percent of teen girls said they were forced to have sex, an increase of 27 percent over two years and the first increase since the CDC began tracking it. “If you think about every 10 teen girls that you know, at least one and possibly more has been raped, and that is the highest level we’ve ever seen,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health who said the rise of sexual violence almost certainly contributed to the glaring spike of depressive symptoms. “We are really alarmed,” she said. (St. George, 2/13)

In 30 years of collecting similar data, “we’ve never seen this kind of devastating, consistent findings,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of CDC’s adolescent and school health division. “There’s no question young people are telling us they are in crisis. The data really call on us to act.” (Tanner, 2/13)

Aidan’s tics erupted one day after school in early 2021, about a month after the long pandemic lockdown had ended. The 16-year-old convulsed while walking into the house, head snapping and arms swinging, sometimes letting out high-pitched whistles and whoops. Aidan’s parents looked up from the living room couch with alarm. They had been worried about the teenager’s ratcheting anxiety — related to Covid, gender dysphoria, college applications, even hanging out with friends. But they were not prepared for this dramatic display. (Ghorayshi, 2/13)

One company advertised the names and home addresses of people with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress or bipolar disorder. Another sold a database featuring thousands of aggregated mental health records, starting at $275 per 1,000 “ailment contacts.” For years, data brokers have operated in a controversial corner of the internet economy, collecting and reselling Americans’ personal information for government or commercial use, such as targeted ads. But the pandemic-era rise of telehealth and therapy apps has fueled an even more contentious product line: Americans’ mental health data. (Harwell, 2/13)

The Biden administration today called for nursing homes to provide a complete picture of their owners and operators, proposing a new federal rule central to the president’s plans to improve the quality of care and contain healthcare costs at the facilities. The announcement comes a month after a report from the federal Government Accountability Office called for Medicare and Medicaid regulators to collect more information about nursing home ownership and to share it, in plain terms, with consumers. (Fraser, 2/13)

Nursing homes would have to disclose whether private equity firms or real estate investment trusts own or help operate their facilities under a proposed rule the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued Monday. President Joe Biden's administration contends that promoting transparency in nursing home ownership would improve safety and quality. Research has linked private equity and REIT ownership to lower staffing levels and subpar quality care. (Kacik, 2/13)

The proposal also would require nursing homes that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement to share more information about individuals or organizations that provide administrative services or clinical consulting to nursing homes. Currently, families often don’t know what companies may provide care in nursing homes. The information would be made public, administration officials said. They said the data is important because there are mounting concerns about the quality of care of nursing facilities that are owned by private-equity companies and other types of investment firms—an ownership relationship that has grown since 2011. President Biden in his 2022 State of the Union address criticized private-equity ownership of nursing homes, saying the arrangements drive down quality and raise costs. (Armour, 2/13)

“President Biden has made clear: improving our nation’s nursing homes is an urgent priority, and this Administration is not afraid to take bold action to tackle this head-on,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. Last month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report in which it found that nursing home ownership information is not structured in a way that allows consumers to know if different nursing homes share the same owners. (Choi, 2/13)

The federal government notched the second highest number of False Claims Act settlements in history and judgments in the last fiscal year, and two legal experts said the long-term care industry should be warned that that pace will likely continue. The Department of Justice announced that settlements and judgments in False Claims Act cases exceeded $2.2 billion with the vast majority — $1.7 billion — stemming from healthcare cases. In addition, the department’s press release noted that $1.9 billion of the total was related to qui tam, or whistleblower, cases. (Towhey, 2/13)

President Joe Biden’s push to ban noncompete agreements that limit a worker’s ability to leave their job for a competitor could cause a major shake-up in the health care industry, where the agreements have become pervasive among doctors and nurses. The Biden administration is in the final stages of issuing a rule that would ban employers across industries from putting provisions in an employment agreement barring workers from moving to a competitor or starting their own enterprise, a move he touted during his State of the Union address last week. (Pettypiece, 2/13)

The massacre that ripped apart 17 families in Parkland, Florida, five years ago on Valentine’s Day ignited a wave of student-led protests and bipartisan legislation to combat the plague of school shootings devastating the country. ... But five years after the bloodbath in Parkland, the scourge of US mass shootings continues nationwide, including one Monday that again terrified an American campus, with three dead and five wounded at Michigan State University. (Yan, 2/14)

Five years after a mass shooting that shook Florida, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Parkland remain inextricably linked to the ghastly day when a troubled teenager in less than four minutes killed 14 students and three staff members, injured 17 more and traumatized an untold number of children and families. But the Feb. 14, 2018, tragedy also sparked a national movement created and led by young people, spurred changes in state law aimed at making schools safer and led to new firearm restrictions in what had been dubbed the “Gunshine State.” “It still feels like five minutes ago,” Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was among the victims, told The News Service of Florida in a phone interview Thursday. (Kam, 2/11)

"It feels like a lifetime has gone by," said David Hogg. It was February 14, 2018, when Hogg, then 17, and other terrified students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, sheltered in classrooms and closets as a 19-year-old gunman rampaged through their school. "I was really, really scared, and I kind of felt like the adrenaline had rushed down my spine. But I immediately heard in the back of my head my dad's voice: 'If anything ever happens, you have to stay calm.'" So, locked down with other students, Hogg started recording videos, in case they didn't survive. (Braver, 2/12)

A gunman who opened fire at Michigan State University killed three people and wounded five, setting off an hourslong manhunt as frightened students hid in classrooms and cars. The shooter eventually killed himself, police announced early Tuesday. Officials do not know why the 43-year-old man, whose name was not immediately released, targeted the campus. He was not a student or employee and had no affiliation with the university, according to campus police. The shooting began Monday night at an academic building and later moved to the nearby student union, a popular gathering spot for students to eat or study. As hundreds of officers scoured the East Lansing campus, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northwest of Detroit, students hid where they could. Four hours after the first shots were reported, police announced the man’s death. (Cappelletti and Kusmer, 2/14)

Michigan does not allow concealed firearms on college campuses or at schools. Although obtaining handguns and other firearms requires a background check, the state is missing several key safety measures, according to Everytown Research and Policy, a U.S. gun violence prevention organization. People carrying concealed firearms in public are required to obtain a permit, but the state does not bar domestic abusers or convicted stalkers from accessing guns. The state allows the purchase of “assault” weapons designed for military use and does not ban high-capacity magazines. (2/14)

The Justice Department is sending out more than $200 million to help states and the District of Columbia administer “red-flag laws” and other crisis-intervention programs as part of the landmark bipartisan gun legislation passed by Congress over the summer, officials said Tuesday. Red-flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, are intended to temporarily remove guns from people with potentially violent behavior and prevent them from hurting themselves or others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have red-flag laws. (Whitehurst, 2/14)

Axios Today and Axios Latino asked readers and listeners to tell us how their lives have changed amid the rise of mass shootings. In emails and emotional voicemails, they told us they look for exits at the grocery stores, just in case. They say goodbye to their children at school with the fear they may lose them to a mass shooting that day. (Ortiz, Boodhoo and Contreras, 2/14)

The sounds of gunshots, the ringing of a fire alarm and the breaking of glass echo in Kevin Stromberg’s memory. When a shooter opened fire at Northern Illinois University, Stromberg remembers, the smell of gunpowder hung in the air. Fifteen years ago Tuesday, Stromberg was in class when a former NIU student burst in through a door behind the lecture stage and opened fire with a shotgun and semi-automatic pistols, killing five and injuring 21. As a senior in psychology, the tragedy cemented his decision to become a therapist and pushed him to work with trauma victims. (McCoppin, Syed and Lourgos, 2/13)

The state of Alaska joined a federal lawsuit Friday that seeks to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s decades-old approval of a pill used for abortions. The lawsuit was filed in a Texas federal court in November by the anti-abortion group Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. It seeks to revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, which is commonly used in conjunction with misoprostol to induce abortions. (Maguire, 2/13)

Attorneys general representing nearly two dozen Republican states are backing a lawsuit that would remove the abortion pill from throughout the United States after more than two decades, eliminating the option even in states where abortion access remains legal. The state of Missouri filed its own brief in the case Friday while Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch filed a brief on behalf of her state as well as Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. (Shutt, 2/13)

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey are urging a federal judge to effectively ban medication abortion nationwide, a decision that would have a profound impact in Kansas, where pills are used to induce most abortions. (Shorman, 2/13)

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein won’t defend state restrictions on dispensing abortion pills that are being challenged in a lawsuit and instead will argue the restrictions are preempted by federal regulations protecting access to the pills, Stein’s office said Monday. The decision by Stein, a Democrat, means Republican legislative leaders who want to keep the restrictions would have to seek to formally intervene in the federal lawsuit, which was filed by Amy Bryant, a physician who prescribes the drug mifepristone. (Robertson, 2/14)

Lisa Matsubara, general counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said misoprostol is an alternative to current two-drug abortions. “For the antiabortion folks, they are not going to be satisfied until abortion is banned nationwide,” Matsubara said. Some congressional Republicans have proposed such legislation, but the proposals, like Democratic-sponsored bills to legalize abortion nationwide, have little prospect of passage in a divided Congress. (Egelko, 2/13)

It's a somewhat familiar story: A group of religious leaders last month filed an abortion-related lawsuit. They argued their religious freedoms were being violated. But, instead of challenging abortion rights, they wanted to see an abortion ban overturned. The leaders are seeking to reverse Missouri's abortion ban, arguing lawmakers imposed their religious beliefs on others through passing it. (Fernando, 2/13)

On Jan. 5, South Carolina became the first state to uphold a constitutional right to abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Justice Kaye Hearn, the only woman on the state’s Supreme Court, wrote the majority opinion in the case, arguing that South Carolina’s constitution includes a right to privacy and “few decisions in life are more private than the decision whether to terminate a pregnancy.” The 3-2 decision struck down a 2021 ban on abortions after cardiac activity is detected — roughly six weeks into pregnancy. The ruling made national headlines for the rebuke it appeared to deliver to a Republican legislature in a deeply conservative state. (Rab, 2/14)

House Republicans kicked off an investigation Monday into the origins of COVID-19 by issuing a series of letters to current and former Biden administration officials for documents and testimony. The Republican chairmen of the House Oversight Committee and the subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic requested information from several people, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, surrounding the hypothesis that the coronavirus leaked accidentally from a Chinese lab. ... The letters to Fauci, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera and others are the latest effort by the new Republican majority to make good on promises made during the 2022 midterms campaign. (Amiri and Merchant, 2/13)

The new Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic essentially seeks to bring more emphasis to theories that the spread of Covid-19 originated out of laboratory experiments in Wuhan, China, possibly backed by US money, rather than at a Wuhan market. (House, 2/14)

In interviews with Axios, Republicans expressed a wide range of views on how they want to approach the investigations into vaccines. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she wants to hold hearings with people who experienced side effects and look at VAERS reports — a public database of unverified reports of post-vaccination health effects often seized on by anti-vaccine groups. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), by contrast, said the goal shouldn’t necessarily be to dent public trust. "We should see if there's any correlation between the vaccination and people dying," she told Axios, "And if there isn't ... we should disprove it." (Solander and Knight, 2/13)

A bill targeting progressive prosecutors whom Republicans have long considered too lenient is facing a wall of opposition from libertarian-leaning members of Congress. Hard-right lawmakers have effectively blocked legislation that would require law enforcement officials running background checks on firearm purchasers to report if a prospective buyer is in the United States illegally. (Edmondson and Karni, 2/13)

Sen. Tammy Baldwin on Monday blasted Ascension for service cuts at hospitals in Wisconsin and questioned whether returns from the Catholic health system’s for-profit investments are actually being used to help patients. (Cohrs, 2/13)

The U.S. government has agreed to buy 1.5 million more doses of Novavax Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine, the company said, part of efforts preparing for the end of government purchases and the start of a commercial market for the shots. Novavax wouldn’t provide the monetary value of the deal or the price that the federal government would pay per dose. The Biden administration has said it plans to end in May the national public-health emergency for the pandemic. It is also telling Covid-19 vaccine makers that they will need to start selling their shots commercially. (Whyte and Armour, 2/13)

A little over three years ago, a Johns Hopkins University civil engineering professor stayed up late with one of her graduate students, building a dashboard in the student’s Google Drive to map the budding spread of a highly contagious virus in Asia. In the months that followed, the site created by the professor, Lauren Gardner, and her student, Ensheng Dong, evolved into a robust hub of information about the COVID-19 pandemic that informed big public policy decisions, as well as more personal ones, such as whether it’s safe to go to the grocery store or see a friend. But on March 10, Hopkins’ Coronavirus Resource Center — which launched on March 3, 2020, about a month and a half after Gardner and Dong’s original site — will update its maps and charts one last time. (Roberts, 2/14)

COVID-19 survivors have a 66% higher risk of developing type 1 or type 2 diabetes following their diagnosis compared to those who were not infected with the coronavirus, according to a study by Penn State College of Medicine researchers published Monday. The researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — binds to an enzyme receptor found on the surface of many organs and tissues, including cells found in the pancreas, small intestine and kidneys, affecting insulin levels. (Vaziri and Beamish, 2/13)

The total number of coronavirus cases reported in California has topped 12 million. That milestone — reached last week, according to data compiled by The Times — comes as California is seeing increased circulation of the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, which has been described as perhaps the most infectious strain of the coronavirus. (Money, 2/13)

A large group of experts from around the world say they warned the World Health Organization (WHO) at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that SARS-CoV-2 spreads through airborne particles, but their concerns weren't acknowledged until 3 months later, according to an account published late last week in Clinical Infectious Diseases. ... The two aerosol experts wrote a commentary calling for acknowledgement and communication of the risk, but two influential journals rejected it, saying authorities already knew how SARS-CoV-2 spread. Two months later, Environment International published the article. (Van Beusekom, 2/13)

In the early spring of 2020, the condition we now call long COVID didn’t have a name, much less a large community of patient advocates. For the most part, clinicians dismissed its symptoms, and researchers focused on SARS-CoV-2 infections’ short-term effects. Now, as the pandemic approaches the end of its third winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the chronic toll of the coronavirus is much more familiar. (Wu, 2/13)

When was the last time you walked into a public space and didn’t hear someone coughing? After three years of flinching at the sound, it can be disarming to hear so many people coughing – and embarrassing if it’s you. (Enfield, 2/13)

South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem on Monday signed a bill into law that will ban both surgical and non-surgical gender-affirming treatments for transgender minors in the state. HB 1080 outlaws the prescription and administration of puberty-blocking medication in patients under the age of 18, as well as sex hormones and surgery related to gender transition. (Kashiwagi, 2/13)

Nearly two years after Arkansas became the first state to enact a now-blocked ban on gender-affirming care for minors, Republican lawmakers are trying to effectively reinstate the ban with a proposal Monday to make it easier to file malpractice lawsuits against doctors who provide such care. The proposal, which has been endorsed by a Senate committee, would allow someone who received gender-affirming care as a minor to file a malpractice lawsuit against their doctor for up to 30 years after they turn 18. Under current Arkansas law, medical malpractice claims must be filed within two years of what the law refers to as an “injury.” (DeMillo, 2/14)

Tennessee’s Republican-led Senate approved a measure Monday that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors, spurring civil rights groups to promise an immediate lawsuit if and when it becomes law. The Senate’s 26-6 vote keeps the bill on a fast track to passage even though there’s more work to be done on the House side. GOP legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Bill Lee spoke favorably about the ban even before a bill was filed. (Mattise and Kruesi, 2/14)

Courtesy Lindsey SperoLast Friday, Lindsey Spero woke up early to make the four-hour drive from St. Petersburg to Tallahassee to testify in front of Florida’s boards of medicine and osteopathic medicine. They and a dozen other trans organizers expected a ban on gender-affirming care for minors to be approved, but they had been angered by Gov. Ron DeSantis’s increasing attacks on trans kids and wanted their voices to be heard. Spero, who is 25 and nonbinary, waited through three hours of testimony from dozens of youth and their families before it was his turn to speak. ... Spero then opened up his supply kit, which he had laid out on the podium, took out his syringe, and placed the cap in his mouth. He drew back the needle before placing the subcutaneous shot in his stomach. (Kalish, 2/13)

British authorities are investigating the killing of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey, who was stabbed to death in a park in northwestern England this past weekend. Ghey, who was transgender, maintained a popular TikTok account with thousands of followers where she posted dance and lip-synching videos. She posted her final video hours before she was killed in Cheshire on Saturday.  (Kalish, 2/13)

Cigna Corp. will be the Cigna Group, Cigna Healthcare the insurance arm and Evernorth Health Services the pharmacy and care delivery division that includes the pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts. The company's ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchanges remains unchanged as CI. Shares will begin trading as the Cigna Group Feb. 23, the company reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday. (Berryman, 2/13)

The Federal Trade Commission’s skepticism of tech-fueled healthcare mergers could spell trouble for Amazon and One Medical, experts say. For years, the FTC has tried to thwart mergers between large hospital systems. Recent action reveals its focus could be widening to include mergers involving digital health providers and big tech companies. (Turner, 2/13)

Behavioral health issues were third among hospital CEOs’ top concerns, rising from fourth in the 2021 survey. Respondents noted a lack of appropriate facilities, not enough dedicated funding and insufficient reimbursement levels as hospital operators have been forced to treat patients in their emergency departments for long stretches because their traditional outpatient and residential referral partners at capacity. (Kacik, 2/13)

At the end of 2019, Memorial Regional Health reached a crisis. The hospital in Craig is the sole hospital in Moffat County, a vital lifeline to health care services in a corner of the state nearly the size of Connecticut. But, as the year came to a close, the hospital was staring at a grim number in its bank account: It had zero days cash-on-hand left. (Ingold, 2/14)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday said it would not take up a case filed by a Wisconsin health care system seeking clarity on whether it could voluntarily recognize its nurses' unions. The court's decision halts an attempt by the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Authority to bypass lower state courts in deciding whether voluntary union recognition is allowed under state law. (Van Egeren, 2/13)

RIP Medical Debt has found a working formula to relieve medical debt for millions of people. It still has room to grow. The New York nonprofit uses donations to buy medical debt in bulk from hospitals and debt collectors for pennies on the dollar. It mostly targets the debt of people with low incomes and then forgives the amounts. Founded in 2014, the organization says that it has relieved more than $8.5 billion in medical debt so far. (Murphy, 2/13)

The internet is buzzing with news about ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence large language model developed by OpenAI, and its potential uses in medical practice and education. Doximity, a digital platform for medical professionals, rolled out a beta version of a ChatGPT tool for doctors that helps streamline some of their time-consuming administrative tasks, such as drafting and faxing pre-authorization and appeal letters to insurers. (Landi, 2/10)

When we think of notable civil rights issues in medicine, the best-known cases might be Henrietta Lacks, whose cells were taken without consent for research, or the participants of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study who were subject to unethical experiments. These are important events that changed the course of medicine, but they’re also examples in which Black people were unknowingly harmed as patients. Vanessa Northington Gamble, a physician and researcher at George Washington University, wants us to know more stories of Black people actively resisting racism within medicine. (Gaffney, 2/14)

A jury in Philadelphia on Monday awarded former Eagles player Chris Maragos $43.5 million after he sued the medical team in charge of treating his injured knee. Maragos had accused orthopedic surgeon James Bradley and Rothman Orthopaedics of neglecting to address a torn meniscus he suffered during his playing days, leading to the premature end of his NFL career and causing ongoing pain and physical limitations. (Bieler, 2/13)

One in 10 new drugs were cleared by federal drug regulators in recent years based on studies that didn't achieve their main goals, a new study shows. The study by Harvard and Yale researchers found that of 210 new therapies approved by the Food and Drug Administration from 2018 through 2021, 21 drugs were based on studies that had one or more goals, or end points, that weren't achieved. Those 21 drugs were approved to treat cancer, Alzheimer's and other diseases. (Alltucker, 2/13)

The CAR-T cancer therapy called Abecma reduced the risk of multiple myeloma relapse by half compared to standard treatment, according to results of a Phase 3 clinical trial published Friday. (Feuerstein, 2/10)

A popular Chinese vape company says it is donating thousands of dollars to the American Cancer Society in an effort to stop youth vaping, but the cancer organization says it never agreed to the partnership, and it’s ordering the company to stop. (Florko, 2/14)

Martin Shkreli on Friday urged a U.S. judge not to hold him in civil contempt for failing to provide federal and state regulators with information to determine whether he is violating a lifetime ban from working in the pharmaceutical industry. In a filing in Manhattan federal court, Shkreli said he has complied with the February 2022 ban "as extensively as possible and in good faith," and has provided the materials sought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and seven states. (Stempel, 2/10)

Buzz from celebrities and social media influencers around the off-label use of diabetes drugs for weight loss is prompting a spike in prescriptions and concerns about cost and possible shortages. More than 5 million prescriptions were written for Novo Nordisk's Ozempic or Eli Lilly's Mounjaro for weight management in 2022, up from about 230,000 in 2019, per Komodo Health. (Reed, 2/13)

When Tom's epileptic seizures could no longer be controlled with drugs, he started considering surgery. Tom – who asked that we not use his last name because he worries that employers might be alarmed by his medical history – was hoping doctors could remove the faulty brain tissue that sometimes caused him to convulse and lose consciousness. (Hamilton, 2/14)

Diagnosing gastrointestinal disorders is an uncomfortable process. It might involve sticking a long tube with a camera attached down a patient’s throat, or inserting a small catheter through a patient’s nostril. A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology, and New York University, looking to explore more comfortable options, has designed an ingestible device that doctors can monitor as it moves through the GI tract. (Lawrence, 2/13)

The biotech industry is in shake-out mode after the ranks of public drug developers swelled in recent years amid an IPO boom. A scrum for capital among the expanded pool of companies and the make-or-break nature of clinical trials drove a contraction in the number of public biotechs last year, with some scooped up by larger rivals while others shuttered. As the sector stabilizes after last year’s slump, a divergence in fortunes is taking center stage. (Bradham, 2/13)

Greg Bowman, a University of Pennsylvania biophysicist, had the kind of idea biotech venture capitalists salivate over. His lab had been working on how to drug “cryptic sites” on proteins that were previously thought unreachable by drug molecules. Machine learning, he believed, would make new types of medicine possible. The idea seemed ready to be spun out of his lab and into a company. (DeAngelis and Herper, 2/14)

When biologist Alysson Muotri started tinkering with tiny balls of nerve cells in the lab more than a decade ago, his goal was simply to understand early brain development and neurological disease. He didn’t realize he was stumbling into an ethical minefield. His University of California, San Diego team found that when human stem cells were grown into so-called brain organoids in the lab, these tiny 3D structures produced regular waves of electrical activity that resembled what researchers see in a full-size human brain when they place electrodes along a person’s scalp. (Wosen, 2/13)

KHN: Your Money Or Your Life: Patient On $50,000-A-Week Cancer Drug Fears Leaving Behind Huge Medical Debt

After several rounds of treatment for a rare eye cancer — weekly drug infusions that could cost nearly $50,000 each — Paul Davis learned Medicare had abruptly stopped paying the bills. That left Davis, a retired physician in Findlay, Ohio, contemplating a horrific choice: risk saddling his family with huge medical debt, if he had to pay those bills from the hospital out-of-pocket, or halt treatments that help keep him alive. “Is it worth bankrupting my family for me to hang around for a couple of years?” Davis pondered. “I don’t want to make that choice.” (Schulte, 2/14)

A medication marketed as a nonaddictive nerve-pain reliever and anticonvulsant is finding its way into Maine’s illicit drug market. A seizure of gabapentin, like the 1,253 pills recently in Old Town, is a rarity in the state, but is part of a growing national trend of the drug being found in fatal overdoses. At the same time, prescription rates for gabapentin continue to climb. (Loftus, 2/13)

A veterinary tranquilizer that can cause serious wounds for regular users is spreading menace within the illicit drug supply. Xylazine, authorized only for animals, is one ingredient in an increasingly toxic brew of illicit drugs that killed a record of nearly 107,000 people in the U.S. in 2021. It is typically mixed with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that itself has broadly infiltrated U.S. drug supply, including in supplies of cocaine and methamphetamine. Taken together, the volatile mixing means drug users often don’t know what’s in the substances they take. (Kamp and Wernau, 2/12)

A bipartisan panel of governors from Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico and North Dakota said they agreed on elements of each other’s ideas to address addiction and the fentanyl crisis, speaking Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “That is probably going to be the nexus of real bipartisan work,” Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said to North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican, after he described treating addiction as a disease. The governors were in Washington, D.C., for the National Governors Association conference, and dealing with fentanyl was one area where they clearly found common cause. (Olander, 2/12)

U.S. cities and counties spent years battling the pharmaceutical industry over the opioid crisis. Now that billions of dollars in settlement funds are beginning to flow, the experiences of two Ohio counties highlight a new challenge: how to spend the money. Many state and local governments are starting to receive funds from national legal settlements expected to total roughly $50 billion over the next two decades. Cleveland-based Cuyahoga County and neighboring Summit County, where Akron is located, got a head start. (Mulvaney, 2/13)

As a child welfare specialist for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma more than a decade ago, Juli Skinner saw firsthand the impact of the opioid crisis on Cherokee families. Parents who began using the powerful painkillers after a surgery or injury became hooked and were losing custody of their children, babies were being born addicted and young people who ended up in foster care were aging out of the system and becoming addicted themselves, resulting in a generational impact. (Murphy, 2/13)

Medication used to treat opioid use disorder has become cheaper over the last several years, but affordability can still be a problem, depending on a patient's insurance, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. Experts have called for improved access to medication-assisted treatment like buprenorphine to fight the substance use crisis. But there's uneven access based on cost. (Moreno, 2/13)

In San Francisco, it’s well documented that the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods are experiencing the brunt of the opioid epidemic. But state data shows other Bay Area counties have their own hotspots. Most of the nine counties had a few ZIP codes with a fatal opioid overdose rate several times the county figure, according to the California Overdose Surveillance Dashboard’s 2021 data, the latest year with finalized numbers. (Leonard, 2/10)

To really understand opioid addiction, researcher Ming-Fen Ho is getting down to the cellular level. “If we have a better understanding of biology, then we can develop better drugs to treat the disease,” she said. That's where the tiny bits of brain tissue — nicknamed mini brains — come in. (Richert, 2/14)

Three more chemicals have been found on the Norfolk Southern train that derailed in Ohio just over a week ago, and they are being described as dangerous. ... The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to Norfolk Southern stating that ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate and isobutylene were also in the rail cars that were derailed, breached and/or on fire. ... Sil Caggiano, a hazardous materials specialist, said ethylhexyl acrylate is especially concerning since it’s a carcinogen and contact with it can cause burning and irritation of the skin and eyes. (Rodriguez, 2/13)

For days, authorities have been telling residents of the area around East Palestine, Ohio, that it is safe to return home after a 150-car train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed Feb. 3. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources said the chemical spill resulting from the derailment had killed an estimated 3,500 small fish across 7½ miles of streams as of Wednesday. (Bendix and Li, 2/14)

Some business owners affected by a chemical leak at the 99 Cent Only Store warehouse in Katy that resulted in a shelter in place said Monday that authorities mishandled how the public was alerted to the safety concern. (Goodman, 2/13)

After the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed Ameren as the source for two toxic chemicals found in St. Charles groundwater wells, the city is demanding the power company bear the cost for cleanup. The city already had known the power company’s Huster Road Substation was the source of vinyl chloride and dichloroethene, which are linked to cancer and other negative health effects. These chemicals are byproducts of a cleaning solvent for heavy metal equipment called TCE (trichloroethylene), according to the EPA. (Cordera, 2/13)

The time of the year a private well’s water quality is tested can make a difference in the results, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire. A new study co-authored by Ranjit Bawa, a visiting assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire, investigated water samples from wells across the state of North Carolina and found that the highest level of bacteria in those wells was found during warm spells. Bawa said the bottom line for homeowners is that they should test wells in summer months, when the risk is highest. (Hoplamazian, 2/13)

The case of a homeless man who froze to death in Alaska’s second-largest city of Fairbanks has exposed a hole in the safety net of care provided to a vulnerable population in one of the coldest places in the country. The city has no low-barrier shelter to provide help and a warm place to stay on an unconditional basis. The body of Charles Ahkiviana, 55, was discovered frozen in a snowbank near a busy department store, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The day his body was found, two days before Christmas, it was minus 32 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 35 degrees Celsius) and at one point, the wind chill was minus 54 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 47 Celsius). Ahkiviana died of hypothermia, Alaska State Troopers said. (2/14)

A winter storm is passing through Los Angeles on Tuesday evening with fierce winds of up to 70 miles per hour in the mountains and perhaps a smattering of precipitation. The storm will move out early Wednesday morning, leaving clear but cold weather in its wake, according to the National Weather Service in Oxnard. (Goldberg, 2/13)

Last September, when Baltimore resident Tzu Yang went grocery shopping for his intellectually disabled daughter with a food benefits card that he thought was worth about $300, he discovered at the checkout that the card had no value left. The same thing happened in October, November and December. (Povich, 2/13)

Life was upended for LaShonia Ingram over the last year, and a shadow still follows her around. Search her name online, and the first result includes the words "fraud" and "most wanted." "It was horrible. I couldn't get a job," says the 42-year-old mother from Memphis, Tennessee. "All doors were being closed in my face." (Farmer, 2/13)

Disability Rights North Carolina wasted no time in developing a new plan after suffering a setback last week in the organization’s six-year court battle to push the state to provide more home and community services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. (Blythe, 2/14)

KHN: It Takes A Village: Foster Program Is A New Model Of Care For Indigenous Children 

Past a gravel road lined with old white wooden buildings is a new, 8-acre village dotted with colorful houses, tepees, and a sweat lodge. The Simply Smiles Children’s Village, in this small town on the Cheyenne River Reservation, is home to a program aimed at improving outcomes and reducing trauma for Indigenous foster children. All foster programs seek to safely reunite children with their families. The Children’s Village goes further. (Zionts, 2/14)

A study released Monday offers even more evidence of the harmful health effects of sugar. The research, published in the journal BMC Medicine, found that diets higher in free sugars — a category that includes sugar added to processed foods and sodas, as well as that found in fruit juice and syrups — raise one's risk of heart disease and stroke. (Ede-Osifo, 2/14)

A 2010 federal law that boosted nutrition standards for school meals may have begun to help slow the rise in obesity among America’s children — even teenagers who can buy their own snacks, a new study showed. The national study found a small but significant decline in the average body mass index of more than 14,000 schoolkids ages 5 to 18 whose heights and weights were tracked before and after implementation of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. (Aleccia, 2/13)

When Dr. Sandra Nichols had a massive heart attack, she didn't tell anyone outside her immediate family. At the time, she was working too much, not sleeping enough and says she felt the burden of being everything to everyone. "I was embarrassed," she said. Despite her medical training, she didn't realize symptoms of congestion and shortness of breath meant a heart attack was around the corner. (O'Donnell and Hastey, 2/13)

Amber Romero’s son, Max, has known nothing but a formula shortage. He was born in February 2022, the same month that the largest formula plant in the country closed down due to a recall. This has left Romero, a breast cancer survivor who had to rely on formula, in an impossible situation. Her son’s only food source is routinely missing — and only through perseverance, a network of friends and strangers on the Internet have they been able to piece together a steady supply as long as they have. (Carrazana, 2/13)

From "mom brain" to "mommy brain," "momnesia," "baby brain" and "pregnancy brain," the terms used to describe the brain fog many moms say they experience during pregnancy and after are plentiful. One of the terms, "baby brain," even made it into Prince Harry's memoir "Spare" as he described how the use of the term once caused a confrontation between his wife, Duchess Meghan, and his sister-in-law, Princess Kate. (Kindelan, 2/14)

KHN: Special Delivery: Heart-Heavy Health Policy Valentines 

This year’s health policy valentine submissions were full of compassion for patients and concern over the nation’s health care system. KHN’s readers and tweeters are among the most creative news consumers, sending in poetic valentines about physician assistants, the looming Medicaid unwinding, the Affordable Care Act, the upcoming end to the covid-19 public health emergency, and more. (2/14)

The reason for the affordability crisis is clear: rising prices for health care services and prescription drugs. Simply stated, rising costs result in higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs. According to the Health Care Cost Institute, health care prices increased at roughly double the rate of general inflation between 2016 and 2020. (Kim Keck, 2/14)

The loneliness epidemic may be a societal issue, but it can be solved, at least partly, at the level of individual bedrooms. Those of us in a position to be having more sex ought to be doing so. (Magdalene J. Taylor, 2/13)

The war over abortion rights has moved from the sidewalks in front of medical clinics to pharmacies and mailboxes. (2/13)

On Jan. 22, 1973, seven Supreme Court justices paved the way for legal abortions. That day we danced in the streets, so thrilled by our new freedom. Roe v. Wade almost made it to 50 years, but the high court shut it down on June 24, 2022. This recent court ruling negated our right to choose. (Susyn Almond, 2/11)

Minnesota lawmakers have moved with astonishing speed to pass abortion rights and other important legislation early in the 2023 session. The same sense of urgency is vital in handling a massive health care challenge looming in the months ahead — preventing coverage gaps or loss of coverage altogether for the 1.5 million Minnesotans reliant on medical assistance programs. (2/12)

Better mental health care has become a bipartisan rallying point in recent years, yet a crisis in Texas county jails persists. Backlogs in state psychiatric hospitals and in criminal courts are leaving hundreds of defendants with mental illness in the care of county jails, where their mental state often deteriorates. (2/14)