A Philadelphia judge on Friday slashed a $8 billion jury verdict in a lawsuit over the marketing of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, reducing the punitive damages to $6.8 million. The verdict, in October, was the first to award punitive damages against Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary. It found that the company had played …
Fish Oil Supplements Tied to Sperm Health
Taking fish oil supplements may improve sperm quality in healthy young men, a new analysis suggests. Researchers studied 1,679 Danish men taking physical examinations for compulsory military service. Their average age was 19, and 98 of them reported taking fish oil supplements during the previous three months. Compared with those who took none, men who …
Viewpoints: It May Be Expensive To Buy Insulin But It Is Cheap To Buy A Senator; Plight Of Children Far More Important Than Warren, Sanders Spat
Opinion writers tackle these and other health issues. Boston Globe: Forget Medicare For All — Americans Are Being Overcharged For Health CareIn sharp contrast to how German legislators behave, despite drug prices in the United States rising 139 percent between 2000 and 2016, Congress continues to forbid the Department of Health and Human Services from …
Longer Looks: Schizophrenia, ‘Forever Chemicals,’ The Story Behind The Ebola Vaccine And More
Each week, KHN finds interesting reads from around the Web. The Washington Post: What Schizophrenia Does To Families — And Why The Mental Health System Can’t Keep UpAlissa Dumsch flips through her high school yearbook, pausing on a photo of a hulking young man with sandy hair and a chiseled jaw. “There’s Aaron,” she says, …
Judge Approves Bankruptcy Plan For Opioid-Maker Insys
The case was being closely observed because it could predict Purdue Pharma’s fate. News on the epidemic is also on Minnesota’s new efforts to treat overdoses and save lives. The Wall Street Journal: Opioid-Maker Insys Wins Court Approval Of Bankruptcy PlanInsys Therapeutics Inc., the first drugmaker driven to bankruptcy by fallout from the opioid crisis, …
State Highlights: Denver, D.C. Clear Homeless Camps; Utah Governor Abruptly Ends Distribution Of Condoms With Suggestive Phrases On Wrappers
Media outlets report on news from Colorado, District of Columbia, Utah, Massachusetts, California, Georgia, Tennessee, Iowa, South Dakota, Connecticut, Florida, Texas, New York, Missouri, and Ohio. Colorado Sun: “Where Are We Going To Go Now?” Denver Closes Park Near Capitol, Clears Homeless Camp Citing Rats, Health HazardsDenver health officials see Lincoln Park across from the …
Tensions Escalate Over Planned Pro-Gun Rally In Virginia’s Capital After FBI Arrests 3 Suspected Neo-Nazis
Gov. Ralph Northam has already declared a state of emergency and has temporarily banned firearms from Capitol Square in Richmond ahead of Monday’s gun rally, which has drawn national attention among the pro-gun rights movement. The New York Times: Virginia Capital On Edge As F.B.I. Arrests Suspected Neo-Nazis Before Gun RallyAlarming calls online for a …
Can House Ways And Means Committee Break Through Gridlock On Hill Over Surprise Medical Bills?
The issue of protecting patients from surprise medical bills has been looked at as a rare problem that may draw a bipartisan compromise. But lawmakers have yet to settle on who gets stuck with the bill if not the patients. The House Ways and Means committee is just the latest to try put forward legislation. …
HHS Rule Would Roll Back Requirement That Faith-Based Services Inform Patients Of Services They Don’t Provide
The proposed rule would also remove the regulation that the faith-based services have to refer patients to other providers. Ethics experts warned that rolling back the Obama-era rule could deprive patients and social service clients of information and options in seeking needed services. Modern Healthcare: HHS Proposes Ending Referral Requirement For Faith-Based ProvidersHHS on Thursday …
Donations After Cardiac Death Are Starting To Show Promise For Thousands Of People Who Desperately Need Heart Transplants
Strict rules outline how and when organs can be transplanted but if this new trial method proves to be successful and safe, researchers say it could revolutionize transplantations. Other public health news is on inactive adults, millennials’ thoughts on vaccines, blood pressure, body temperature, binge drinking, surgical gown recalls, health research on mice, sepsis deaths, …
Rep. Ayanna Pressley Bares Insecurities As She Details Her Experience With Alopecia, Baldness
“I felt naked, exposed, vulnerable,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). She also felt that she was participating in cultural betrayal because of all the young girls who looked up to her as a congresswoman who wore braids. “I felt like I owed those little girls an explanation.” Scientists are not sure what causes the immune …
Second Death From Pneumonia-Like Illness In China Confirmed As Public Health Officials Tensely Watch Outbreak
Meanwhile, Japan confirmed a case of the illness in a traveler who had been to Wuhan, the area in China where the virus originated. Public health officials are closely monitoring the spread of the illness, braced for the worst as memories linger of SARS and MERS, which are relatives of this current virus. Reuters: China …
First Edition: January 17, 2020
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations. Kaiser Health News: Employers’ Dream Of Controlling Health Costs Turns To Workers’ SleepCharlie Blakey had a sense he was sleeping poorly since he often would wake up tired and hear from his wife how loudly he breathed during the night. So he jumped at the chance …
Medi-Cal’s Very Big Decade
Use Our Content This story can be republished for free (details). Medi-Cal had a big decade. The number of Californians enrolled in the state’s health insurance program for low-income residents swelled by 5.5 million from 2010 to 2019. It now covers 1 in 3 Californians and 40% of children. The program’s annual budget — a …
Employers’ Dream Of Controlling Health Costs Turns To Workers’ Sleep
This story also ran on USA Today. This story can be republished for free (details). Charlie Blakey had a sense he was sleeping poorly since he often would wake up tired and hear from his wife how loudly he breathed during the night. So he jumped at the chance when his employer, Southern Co., an …
With Fate Of Roe V. Wade Unsure, Abortion Fight Shifts To New Territory
About HealthBent KHN’s chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, who has covered health care for more than 30 years, offers insight and analysis of policies and politics in her regular HealthBent columns. Send questions to jrovner@kff.org. Jan. 22 marks the 47th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that legalized abortion nationwide. Those on both sides …
Weekly Health Quiz: Running, Body Temperature and a Deadly New Virus
1 of 7 People who trained and ran a first marathon, many of them older, showed arteries that looked about how many years younger? 1 year 2 years 4 years Running a marathon did not affect blood vessel health 2 of 7 Since 1851, when the 98.6 normal body temperature was established, body temperatures appear …
After Losing My Sight, Struggling to Be Seen
At the kickoff dinner for a five-week retreat in the Catskills, I said to my fellow writers, “I suck at being blind.” This is only partly true. I’m good with the technology that allows me to be a writer, but I’m not so good at the mobility thing, which is where my sighted partner, Alabaster, …
A (Former) Night Owl’s Guide to Becoming a Morning Person
The world isn’t made for night owls. You struggle into work in the dark hours before 10 a.m. — or your morning coffee — and you’re greeted by some chipper person who has already been to the gym and is six items into his to-do list. I used to fantasize about fitting punishments for such …
Listen: How High-Deductible Plans Hurt Rural America
KHN senior correspondent Markian Hawryluk joined Colorado Public Radio’s Avery Lill on “Colorado Matters” to discuss his recent story on how high-deductible health plans are especially hurting rural America. (His segment begins at 11 minutes and 40 seconds in, after you click on the link for the full show.) Such insurance plans are more prevalent …
Ayanna Pressley Opens Up About Living With Alopecia
Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts revealed in a video released Thursday that she has alopecia and is now bald. In the video, published on The Root, Ms. Pressley detailed her hair journey, from the time she most felt like herself in her signature Senegalese twists to the moment last year that she realized she had …
KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Trump Takes Credit Where It Isn’t Due
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud. The final debate for Democratic presidential candidates before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses did not delve as deeply into health care as some earlier debates. But it did include discussion of several health issues that have received relatively little attention, including prescription drug prices and …
The New Generation of Self-Created Utopias
THE EAST WIND COMMUNITY is hidden deep in the Ozarks of southern Missouri, less than 10 miles from the Arkansas border, surrounded by jagged hills and tawny fields. Getting there requires traversing country roads that rise, dip and twist through chicken-wire-fenced farmsteads and grazing pastures cluttered with rusty agricultural equipment until you reach 1,145 acres …
I Thought This Was an All-Inclusive Resort
My husband and I took our family to a resort hotel in Hawaii. After leaving the pool one afternoon, I realized I had left my hat on a chaise. So, I dumped my stuff in my room and trekked back to the pool. The pool attendant had put my hat in the towel hut. I …
Viewpoints: History Is Repeating Itself In A Dangerous Way Over Disability Eligibility Restrictions; Health Care Helps Draw Philosophical Differences Between Warren, Sanders
Opinion writers tackle these and other health issues. The New York Times: Another Disability Disaster In The MakingOn Nov. 18, the Social Security Administration announced its proposal to conduct roughly 2.6 million additional eligibility reviews of adults and children currently receiving Social Security disability benefits in the next decade. If undertaken, the change would be …