Blood

How a Hospital Chain Used a Poor Neighborhood to Turn Huge Profits

RICHMOND, Va. — In late July, Norman Otey was rushed by ambulance to Richmond Community Hospital. The 63-year-old was doubled over in pain and babbling incoherently. Blood tests suggested septic shock, a grave emergency that required the resources and expertise of an intensive care unit.

But Richmond Community, a struggling hospital in a predominantly Black neighborhood, had closed its I.C.U. in 2017.

It took several hours for Mr. Otey to be transported to another hospital, according to his sister, Linda Jones-Smith. He deteriorated on the way there, and later died of sepsis. Two people who cared for Mr. Otey said the delay had most likely contributed to his death.

the hospital’s financial data.

More than half of all hospitals in the United States are set up as nonprofits, a designation that allows them to make money but avoid paying taxes. Although Bon Secours has taken a financial hit this year like many other hospital systems, the chain made nearly $1 billion in profit last year at its 50 hospitals in the United States and Ireland and was sitting on more than $9 billion in cash reserves. It avoids at least $440 million in federal, state and local taxes every year that it would otherwise have to pay, according to an analysis by the Lown Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

In exchange for the tax breaks, the Internal Revenue Service requires nonprofit hospitals to provide a benefit to their communities. But an investigation by The New York Times found that many of the country’s largest nonprofit hospital systems have drifted far from their charitable roots. The hospitals operate like for-profit companies, fixating on revenue targets and expansions into affluent suburbs.

borrowing tricks from business consultants, have trained staff to squeeze payments from poor patients who should be eligible for free care.

John M. Starcher Jr., made about $6 million in 2020, according to the most recent tax filings.

“Our mission is clear — to extend the compassionate ministry of Jesus by improving the health and well-being of our communities and bring good help to those in need, especially people who are poor, dying and underserved,” the spokeswoman, Maureen Richmond, said. Bon Secours did not comment on Mr. Otey’s case.

In interviews, doctors, nurses and former executives said the hospital had been given short shrift, and pointed to a decade-old development deal with the city of Richmond as another example.

In 2012, the city agreed to lease land to Bon Secours at far below market value on the condition that the chain expand Richmond Community’s facilities. Instead, Bon Secours focused on building a luxury apartment and office complex. The hospital system waited a decade to build the promised medical offices next to Richmond Community, breaking ground only this year.

‘Glorified Emergency Room’

founded in 1907 by Black doctors who were not allowed to work at the white hospitals across town. In the 1930s, Dr. Jackson’s grandfather, Dr. Isaiah Jackson, mortgaged his house to help pay for an expansion of the hospital. His father, also a doctor, would take his children to the hospital’s fund-raising telethons.

Cassandra Newby-Alexander at Norfolk State University.

got its first supermarket.

according to research done by Virginia Commonwealth University. The public bus route to St. Mary’s, a large Bon Secours facility in the northwest part of the city, takes more than an hour. There is no public transportation from the East End to Memorial Regional, nine miles away.

“It became impossible for me to send people to the advanced heart valve clinic at St. Mary’s,” said Dr. Michael Kelly, a cardiologist who worked at Richmond Community until Bon Secours scaled back the specialty service in 2019. He said he had driven some patients to the clinic in his own car.

Richmond Community has the feel of an urgent-care clinic, with a small waiting room and a tan brick facade. The contrast with Bon Secours’s nearby hospitals is striking.

At the chain’s St. Francis Medical Center, an Italianate-style compound in a suburb 18 miles from Community, golf carts shuttle patients from the lobby entrance, past a marble fountain, to their cars.

after the section of the federal law that authorized it, allows hospitals to buy drugs from manufacturers at a discount — roughly half the average sales price. The hospitals are then allowed to charge patients’ insurers a much higher price for the same drugs.

The theory behind the law was that nonprofit hospitals would invest the savings in their communities. But the 340B program came with few rules. Hospitals did not have to disclose how much money they made from sales of the discounted drugs. And they were not required to use the revenues to help the underserved patients who qualified them for the program in the first place.

In 2019, more than 2,500 nonprofit and government-owned hospitals participated in the program, or more than half of all hospitals in the country, according to the independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

in wealthier neighborhoods, where patients with generous private insurance could receive expensive drugs, but on paper make the clinics extensions of poor hospitals to take advantage of 340B.

to a price list that hospitals are required to publish. That is nearly $22,000 profit on a single vial. Adults need two vials per treatment course.

work has shown that hospitals participating in the 340B program have increasingly opened clinics in wealthier areas since the mid-2000s.

were unveiling a major economic deal that would bring $40 million to Richmond, add 200 jobs and keep the Washington team — now known as the Commanders — in the state for summer training.

The deal had three main parts. Bon Secours would get naming rights and help the team build a training camp and medical offices on a lot next to Richmond’s science museum.

The city would lease Bon Secours a prime piece of real estate that the chain had long coveted for $5,000 a year. The parcel was on the city’s west side, next to St. Mary’s, where Bon Secours wanted to build medical offices and a nursing school.

Finally, the nonprofit’s executives promised city leaders that they would build a 25,000-square-foot medical office building next to Richmond Community Hospital. Bon Secours also said it would hire 75 local workers and build a fitness center.

“It’s going to be a quick timetable, but I think we can accomplish it,” the mayor at the time, Dwight C. Jones, said at the news conference.

Today, physical therapy and doctors’ offices overlook the football field at the training center.

On the west side of Richmond, Bon Secours dropped its plans to build a nursing school. Instead, it worked with a real estate developer to build luxury apartments on the site, and delayed its plans to build medical offices. Residents at The Crest at Westhampton Commons, part of the $73 million project, can swim in a saltwater pool and work out on communal Peloton bicycles. On the ground floor, an upscale Mexican restaurant serves cucumber jalapeño margaritas and a Drybar offers salon blowouts.

have said they plan to house mental health, hospice and other services there.

a cardiologist and an expert on racial disparities in amputation, said many people in poor, nonwhite communities faced similar delays in getting the procedure. “I am not surprised by what’s transpired with this patient at all,” he said.

Because Ms. Scarborough does not drive, her nephew must take time off work every time she visits the vascular surgeon, whose office is 10 miles from her home. Richmond Community would have been a five-minute walk. Bon Secours did not comment on her case.

“They have good doctors over there,” Ms. Scarborough said of the neighborhood hospital. “But there does need to be more facilities and services over there for our community, for us.”

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

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Amended Autopsy: Black Man Died Due To Sedative, Restraint

Despite the finding, the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, was still listed as undetermined, not a homicide.

A Black man died after a police encounter in a Denver suburb in 2019 because he was injected with a powerful sedative after being forcibly restrained, according to an amended autopsy report publicly released Friday.

Despite the finding, the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, was still listed as undetermined, not a homicide, the report shows. McClain was put in a neck hold and injected with ketamine after being stopped by police in Aurora for “being suspicious.” He was unarmed.

The original autopsy report that was written soon after his death in August 2019 did not reach a conclusion about how he died or what type of death is was, such as if it was natural, accidental or a homicide. That was a major reason why prosecutors initially decided not to pursue charges.

But a state grand jury last year indicted three officers and two paramedics on manslaughter and reckless homicide charges in McClain’s death after the case drew renewed attention following the killing of George Floyd in 2020. It became a rallying cry during the national reckoning over racism and police brutality.

The five accused have not yet entered pleas and their lawyers have not commented publicly on the charges.

In the updated report, completed in July 2021, Dr. Stephen Cina, a pathologist, concluded that the ketamine dosage given to McClain, which was higher than recommended for someone his size, “was too much for this individual and it resulted in an overdose, even though his blood ketamine level was consistent with a ‘therapeutic’ blood concentration.”

He said he could not rule out that changes in McClain’s blood chemistry, like an increase in lactic acid, due to his exertion while being restrained by police contributed to his death but concluded there was no evidence that injuries inflicted by police caused his death.

“I believe that Mr. McClain would most likely be alive but for the administration of ketamine,” said Cina, who noted that body camera footage shows McClain becoming “extremely sedated” within a few minutes of being given the drug.

Cina acknowledged that other reasonable pathologists with different experience and training may have labeled such a death, while in police custody, as a homicide or accident, but that he believes the appropriate classification is undetermined.

Qusair Mohamedbhai, attorney for McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, declined a request for comment.

Dr. Carl Wigren, a forensic pathologist in Washington state, questioned the report’s focus on ketamine, saying all the available evidence — including a highly critical independent review of McClain’s death commissioned by Aurora last year — point to McClain dying as a result of compressional asphyxia, a type of suffocation, from officers putting pressure on his body while restraining him. He was struck by one passage in the city’s review citing the ambulance company’s report that its crew found McClain lying on the ground on his stomach, his arms handcuffed behind his back, his torso and legs held down, with at least three officers on top of him.

That scene was not captured on body camera footage, the report said, but much of what happened between police was not because the officers’ cameras came off soon after McClain was approached. The cameras did continue to record where they fell and captured people talking.

Just because McClain, who said he couldn’t breathe, could be heard making some statements on the footage, does not mean he was able to fully breathe, Wigren said. Ketamine, which slows breathing, could have just exacerbated McClain’s condition, but Wigren does not think it caused his death.

However, another pathologist, Dr. Deborah G. Johnson of Colorado, said McClain’s quick reaction to ketamine suggests that it was a cause of McClain’s death, but she said its use cannot be separated from the impact that the police restraint may have had. McClain may have had trouble breathing because of the restraint and having less oxygen in your system would make the sedative take effect more quickly, she said.

Both thought the death could have been labeled as a homicide — a death caused by the actions of other people — which they pointed out is a separate judgment from deciding whether someone should be prosecuted with a crime for causing it.

McClain got an overdose of ketamine, Johnson said, noting that the paramedics were working at night when it is hard to judge someone’s weight.

“Was that a mistake to send someone to prison for? I don’t think so,” she said.

The updated autopsy was released Friday under a court order in a lawsuit brought by Colorado Public Radio, joined by other media organizations including The Associated Press. Colorado Public Radio sued the coroner to release the report after learning it had been updated, arguing that it should be made available under the state’s public records law.

Coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan said she could not release it because it contained confidential grand jury information and that releasing it would violate the oath she made not to share it when she obtained it last year.

But Adams County District Judge Kyle Seedorf ordered the coroner to release the updated report by Friday, and a Denver judge who oversees state grand jury proceedings, Christopher Baumann, ruled Thursday that grand jury information did not have be redacted from the updated report.

Cina noted that the report was updated based on extensive body camera footage, witness statements and records that he did not have at the time of the original autopsy report, which were not made available to the coroner’s office at all or in their entirety before. Last year, Cina and Broncucia-Jordan received some material that was made available to the grand jury last year, according to court documents, but they did not say what exactly that material was.

McClain’s death fueled renewed scrutiny about the use of the ketamine and led Colorado’s health department to issue a new rule limiting when emergency workers can use it.

Last year, the city of Aurora agreed to pay $15 million to settle a lawsuit brought by McClain’s parents. The lawsuit alleged the force officers used against McClain and his struggle to survive it dramatically increased the amount of lactic acid in his system, leading to his death, possibly along with the large dose of ketamine he was given.

The outside investigation commissioned by the city faulted the police probe into McClain’s arrest for not pressing for answers about how officers treated him. It found there was no evidence justifying officers’ decision to stop McClain, who had been reported as suspicious because he was wearing a ski mask as he walked down the street waving his hands. He was not accused of breaking any law.

Police reform activist Candice Bailey had mixed emotions about seeing the amended autopsy.

“I do believe that it does get us a step closer to anything that is a semblance of justice,” said Bailey, an activist in the city of Aurora who has led demonstrations over the death of McClain.

But Bailey added that she is “extremely saddened that there is still a controversy around whether or not the EMTs and officers should be held responsible for what they did, and as to whether or not this was actually murder.”

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Don Bolduc Declares Victory In GOP New Hampshire Senate Primary

Don Bolduc will face incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan in the November midterms.

The Republican stage for retaking the Senate majority this coming November is finally set, as retired Army Gen. Don Bolduc declared himself the winner Tuesday night.

Chuck Morse, the Senate president in New Hampshire, who was viewed as the mainstream, more moderate Republican choice, announced that he was conceding in a tweet saying “It’s been a long night and we’ve come up short. I want to thank my supporters for all the blood sweat and tears they poured into this team effort. I just called and wished all the best to General Don Bolduc.”

Bolduc’s focus this fall now needs to be on defeating Maggie Hassan; Bolduc is the candidate Democrats preferred, as they immediately wasted no time in blasting him as someone who is far-right with his positions.

Democratic voters in New Hampshire appear to be galvanizing over the Supreme Court’s move overturning nationwide access to abortion.

“I think that women across our whole country are energized because of the overturning of Roe, which we thought they would never see, so I think people realize what they can do is vote,” said Heather Krans, a New Hampshire voter.

“We’ve got to get the women back their rights. I mean, this is ridiculous,” said George Drinkwater of Newfields, New Hampshire.

But Democrats aren’t the only party saying they are motivated to vote in November.

“The people in New Hampshire are tired of what’s happening with this administration and it’s time to hold this administration accountable,” said Kevin Ray, who voted in the GOP Primary.

Bolduc says he’s the best option to recall Hassan from Washington.

“I will be able to go to Washington, D.C., be beholden to nobody but Granite Staters. That’s what they want. That’s the difference they’re looking for,” said Bolduc.

Bolduc tried to paint Hassan as out of touch with voters.

“Their No. 1 issues are inflation, energy, and safety and security. All those things that Maggie Hassan has failed at, for Granite Staters and Americans,” Bolduc said.

But with control of the Senate hanging in the balance, President Joe Biden’s Granite State favorability ratings hit just 22% in the latest poll, meaning Hassan may have to rely on voters looking past the president.

“The issues on the ballot are really going to drive the people out — abortion, Supreme Court, stuff like that — not that Biden’s going keep them away,” said Guy Cayton of Exeter, New Hampshire.

But Tuesday morning, before Don Bolduc was declared the winner of the Republican primary, the first-term Democratic senator told Newsy she expects to fight for survival.

“This will be a close race because it always is in New Hampshire. Everybody takes their responsibility very, very seriously here as voters. And I’m looking forward to making my case about my bipartisan record of results. And I will draw a sharp contrast with my opponent,” Hassan said.

: newsy.com

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In A Nod To JFK, President Biden Pushing ‘Moonshot’ To Fight Cancer

The president is seeking to rally the nation around developing treatments and therapeutics for the pervasive diseases.

President Joe Biden is set to channel John F. Kennedy on the 60th anniversary of the former president’s moonshot speech, as the incumbent tries to set the nation’s sights on “ending cancer as we know it.”

President Biden was traveling to Boston on Monday to highlight a new federally backed study that seeks to validate using blood tests to screen against multiple cancers — a potential game-changer in diagnostic testing to dramatically improve early detection of cancers. He also planned other announcements meant to better the lives of those suffering from cancer.

His speech at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum comes as President Biden seeks to rally the nation around developing treatments and therapeutics for the pervasive diseases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks as the second-highest killer of people in the U.S. after heart disease. President Biden hopes to move the U.S. closer to the goal he set in February of cutting U.S. cancer fatalities by 50% over the next 25 years and to dramatically improve the lives of caregivers and those suffering from cancer.

Danielle Carnival, the White House cancer moonshot coordinator, told The Associated Press that the administration sees huge potential in the commencement of the blood diagnostic study on identifying and treating cancers.

“One of the most promising technologies has been the development of blood tests that offer the promise of detecting multiple cancers in a single blood test and really imagining the impact that could have on our ability to detect cancer early and in a more equitable way,” Carnival said. “We think the best way to get us to the place where those are realized is to really test out the technologies we have today and see what works and what really has an impact on extending lives.”

In 2022, the American Cancer Society estimates, 1.9 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed and 609,360 people will die of cancer diseases.

The issue is personal to President Biden, who lost his adult son Beau in 2015 to brain cancer. After Beau’s death, Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act, which dedicated $1.8 billion over seven years for cancer research and was signed into law in 2016 by President Barack Obama.

Obama designated President Biden, then vice president, to run “mission control” on directing the cancer funds as a recognition of President Biden’s grief as a parent and desire to do something about it. President Biden wrote in his memoir “Promise Me, Dad” that he chose not to run for president in 2016 primarily because of Beau’s death.

Despite President Biden’s attempts to hark back to Kennedy and his space program, the current initiative lacks that same level of budgetary support. The Apollo program garnered massive public investment — more than $20 billion, or more than $220 billion in 2022 dollars adjusted for inflation. President Biden’s “moonshot” effort is far more modest and reliant on private sector investment.

Still, President Biden has tried to maintain momentum for investments in public health research, including championing the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, modeled after similar research and development initiatives benefiting the Pentagon and intelligence community.

On Monday, President Biden will announce Dr. Renee Wegrzyn as the inaugural director of ARPA-H, which has been given the task of studying treatments and potential cures for cancers, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and other diseases. He will also announce a new National Cancer Institute scholars’ program to provide resources to early-career scientists studying treatments and cures for cancer.

Experts agree it’s far too early to say whether these new blood tests for finding cancer in healthy people will have any effect on cancer deaths. There have been no studies to show they reduce the risk of dying from cancer. Still, they say setting an ambitious goal is important.

Carnival said the National Cancer Institute Study was designed so that any promising diagnostic results could be swiftly put into widespread practice while the longer-term study — expected to last up to a decade — progresses. She said the goal was to move closer to a future where cancers could be detected through routine bloodwork, potentially replacing more invasive and burdensome procedures like colonoscopies, and therefore saving lives.

Scientists now understand that cancer is not a single disease, but hundreds of diseases that respond differently to different treatments. Some cancers have biomarkers that can be targeted by existing drugs that will slow a tumor’s growth. Many more targets await discovery.

“How do we learn what therapies are effective in which subtypes of disease? That to me is oceanic,” said Donald A. Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. “The possibilities are enormous. The challenges are enormous.”

Despite the challenges, he’s optimistic about cutting the cancer death rate in half over the next 25 years.

“We can get to that 50% goal by slowing the disease sufficiently across the various cancers without curing anybody,” Berry said. “If I were to bet on whether we will achieve this 50% reduction, I would bet yes.

Even without new breakthroughs, progress can be made by making care more equitable, said Dr. Crystal Denlinger, chief scientific officer for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a group of elite cancer centers.

And any effort to reduce the cancer death rate will need to focus on the biggest cancer killer, which is lung cancer. Mostly attributable to smoking, lung cancer now causes more cancer deaths than any other cancer. Of the 1,670 daily cancer deaths in the United States, more than 350 are from lung cancer.

Lung cancer screening is helping. The American Cancer Society says such screening helped drive down the cancer death rate 32% from its peak in 1991 to 2019, the most recent year for which numbers are available.

But only 5% of eligible patients are being screened for lung cancer.

“It’s tragic,” said Dr. Roy Herbst, a lung specialist at Yale Cancer Center.

“The moonshot is going to have to be a social fix as well as a scientific and medical fix,” Herbst said. “We’re going to have to find a way that screening becomes easier, that it’s fully covered, that we have more screening facilities.”

President Biden planned to urge Americans who might have delayed cancer screenings during the pandemic to seek them out swiftly, reminding them that early detection can be key to avoiding adverse outcomes.

He was also set to highlight provisions in the Democrats’ health care and climate change bill that the administration believes will lower out of pocket drug prices for some widely used cancer treatments. He will also celebrate new guarantees for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, that cover their potential cancer diagnoses.

Dr. Michael Hassett of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said President Biden’s goal to reduce cancer deaths could be met by following two parallel paths: one of discovery and the other making sure as many people as possible are reaping the advantages of existing therapies and preventive approaches.

“If we can address both aspects, both challenges, major advances are possible,” Hassett said.

In breast cancer, for example, many women who could benefit from a hormone-blocking pill either never start the therapy or stop taking it before the recommended five years, Hassett’s research has found.

“Those are big gaps,” Hassett said. “That’s a treatment that’s effective. But if many people aren’t taking that medication or if they’re taking it but stopping it before concluding the course of therapy, then the benefits that the medicine could offer aren’t realized.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Biden Defends FBI, Pushes Assault-Style Weapons Ban

The speech Tuesday continued President Joe Biden’s aggressive rhetoric against the GOP ahead of the midterms in November.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday railed against the “MAGA Republicans in Congress” who have refused to condemn the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and now are targeting the FBI as he tried to portray Democrats as the true pro-law enforcement party ahead of the November midterms.

In remarks initially billed as a crime-prevention speech, President Biden seized on comments from allies of former President Donald Trump who have called for stripping funding from the FBI since it executed a search warrant at Trump’s Florida residence. President Biden’s remarks were the first substantive defense he has made of the FBI since the Aug. 8 search at Mar-a-Lago, which triggered not just withering criticism of the agency but threats of violence against its employees.

“It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI, threatening the life of law enforcement and their families, for simply carrying out the law and doing their job,” President Biden said before a crowd of more than 500 at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania. “I’m opposed to defunding the police; I’m also opposed to defunding the FBI.”

It was a notably different tack for President Biden, who has steered clear of extensively commenting on any element of the Justice Department’s investigation since federal agents conducted the search at Trump’s estate. President Biden also appeared to call out — without naming him — recent comments from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who warned of “riots in the streets” should Trump ultimately face prosecution.

“The idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying, ‘If such and such happens there’ll be blood on the street’?” President Biden said. “Where the hell are we?”

The speech Tuesday continued President Biden’s aggressive rhetoric against the GOP ahead of the midterms, as Democrats enjoy a slightly brighter political environment buoyed by significant legislative accomplishments and a presidential approval rating that has trended slightly upward. During a political rally in the Washington suburbs last week, President Biden likened Republican ideology to “semi-fascism.” He is set to deliver a democracy-focused speech on Thursday in Philadelphia that the White House has said “will make clear” who is fighting for democratic values.

As he has done before, President Biden on Tuesday criticized GOP officials who have refused to denounce the pro-Trump rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol nearly 20 months ago. Referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, President Biden said, “Let me say this to my MAGA Republican friends in Congress: Don’t tell me you support the law enforcement if you won’t condemn what happened on the 6th.”

The campaign-style speech near President Biden’s birthplace was the first of three visits by the president in less than a week to the state that is home to a competitive governor’s race and a U.S. Senate contest that could help determine whether Democrats will keep their majority in the chamber. Trump is hosting his own rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Democrats believe Pennsylvania is their strongest opportunity to flip a Senate seat currently held by Republicans. Meanwhile, the open race for governor will give the winner power over how 2024’s presidential election is run in a battleground state that is still buffeted by Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats fraudulently stole the 2020 election from him.

President Biden’s comments on the FBI come as his son Hunter faces a federal investigation for tax evasion. He has not faced any charges, and he’s previously denied wrongdoing.

The president also used his remarks Tuesday to promote his administration’s crime-prevention efforts and to continue to pressure Congress to revive a long-expired federal ban on assault-style weapons. Democrats and Republicans worked together in a rare effort to pass gun safety legislation earlier this year after massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. They were the first significant firearm restrictions approved by Congress in nearly three decades, but President Biden has repeatedly said more needs to be done.

“We beat the NRA. We took them on and beat the NRA straight up. You have no idea how intimidating they are to elected officials,” an animated President Biden said. “We’re not stopping here. I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country! Determined. I did it once before. And I’ll do it again.”

As a U.S. senator, President Biden played a leading role in temporarily banning assault-style weapons, including firearms similar to the AR-15 that have exploded in popularity in recent years, and he wants to put the law back into place. President Biden argued that there was no rationale for such weapons “outside of a war zone” and noted that parents of the young victims at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde had to supply DNA because the weapon used in the massacre rendered the bodies unidentifiable.

“DNA, to say that’s my baby!” President Biden said. “What the hell is the matter with us?”

Democrats are trying to blunt Republican efforts to use concern about crime to their advantage in the midterms. It’s a particularly fraught issue in Pennsylvania, a key swing state.

The Republican candidate for governor, Doug Mastriano, accuses Democrat Josh Shapiro of being soft on crime as the state’s twice-elected attorney general, saying Shapiro “stands aside” as homicides rise across Pennsylvania.

Homicides have been increasing in Pennsylvania, but overall crime seems to have fallen over the last year, according to state statistics.

“The real heroes here are the people who put on the uniform every single day,” said Shapiro, who spoke shortly before President Biden’s remarks at Wilkes University. “We know that policing is a noble profession, and we know that we need to stand with law enforcement.”

In the U.S. Senate race, heart surgeon turned television celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee, has tried to portray the Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, as extreme and reckless on crime policy.

Fetterman has endorsed recommendations that more geriatric and rehabilitated prisoners can be released from state prisons without harming public safety. Oz and Republicans have distorted that into the claim that Fetterman wants to release “dangerous criminals” from prisons or that he’s in favor of “emptying prisons.”

Fetterman’s campaign on Tuesday released a new 30-second ad emphasizing that Fetterman — as mayor of the tiny, impoverished western Pennsylvania steel town of Braddock from 2006 through 2018 — has dealt with street-level crime, and Oz hasn’t. In the ad, Fetterman said he ran for mayor “to stop the violence” after two of his students in an after-school program were murdered and “I worked side by side with police.”

Fetterman was not in Wilkes-Barre with President Biden on Tuesday, but he’s expected to march in Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade when the president visits Sept. 5. President Biden also will be in Pennsylvania on Thursday for a prime-time speech that the White House said will address “the continued battle for the soul of the nation” and defending democracy.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Abortion Bans Have Unintended Medication Consequences

Laws to ban abortions have had unintended consequences for patients with autoimmune diseases.

Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, doctors have been sounding the alarm about post-Roe affecting patients’ medications.

“We’re also aware of patients having difficulty accessing methotrexate just because it happens to be a very effective alternative surgery for the treatment of ectopic pregnancies. I’m a dermatologist, I use it to treat certain autoimmune diseases, cancers, psoriasis — and some pharmacists and some states are refusing to stock or dispense methotrexate and other drugs,” said Dr. Jack Resneck, the president of the American Medical Association.

Since that warning from the American Medical Association, some patients still struggle to get their meds like methotrexate.

The drug slows down inflammation and cell growth.

Patients take it most often in a low dose pill.

It’s also given as an IV or injection.

“It is something they take long-term unless they develop side effects or it is no longer clinically beneficial to them,” said Dr. Scott Joy, the chief medical officer of HCA Healthcare Physician Services Group.

Doctors use methotrexate for a variety of health conditions, including breast, lung, head, neck and blood cancers.

It’s also used to treat autoimmune diseases like MS, Crohn’s and lupus — conditions that can be chronic and often life-altering.

Just ask Kamai Wright.

Doctors diagnosed her with systemic lupus at 13.

She’s suffered a stroke and lupus hurts her kidneys.

She has a team to help her manage.

“I have to have a lot of appointments and a lot of different doctors… I have rheumatologists, hematologists, nephrologists,” said Wright.

So why is this drug in question? Because it can be used to end pregnancy, even for people not seeking abortions.

Methotrexate is considered a teratogenic medicine; meaning it can cause fetal or embryonic developmental issues.

Experts say the drug can be given to terminate ectopic pregnancies by stopping fetal cells from growing.

“It’s something that we use in extreme caution, if not at all, in women who may be pregnant,” said Joy.

Methotrexate is among a handful of drugs under scrutiny.

Others include seizure prevention meds or acne treatments.

Some of these medications have stricter rules for getting a prescription.

“It makes the pharmacist understand the indication for the drug. That may be something that we start doing for patients with methotrexate. Clearly, good practice is to always do a pregnancy test and a younger patient before you’re starting methotrexate,” said Joy.

Dr. Joy’s concern for patients is all about cost.

“If someone was stopping methotrexate. We would have to jump to some of the more expensive medicines. But the price difference between a medicine like that and methotrexate is very significant and oftentimes is cost prohibitive for the patient to either start to continue,” said Joy.

A month’s course of methotrexate pills can cost about $6.50. An alternative Dr. Joy suggests costs more than $6,000.

–

: newsy.com

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2 Top House Democrats Battle In New York Primary

By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
August 23, 2022

Voters will choose Tuesday between U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler and U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney in a rare face-off between incumbents due to redistricting.

He helped lead the fight to impeach Donald Trump. She battled for people sickened by clouds of toxic soot after the Sept. 11 attacks.

At least one of New York City’s most veteran members of Congress will be voted out of office Tuesday in a Democratic primary pitting U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler against U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney in a race both hoped to avoid.

At least one of New York City’s most veteran members of Congress will be voted out of office Tuesday in an unusual Democratic primary between incumbents.

Neither was willing to run in another part of the city.

Nadler and Maloney are joined in the race by 38-year-old Suraj Patel, a lawyer and lecturer at New York University who also challenged Maloney in Democratic primaries in 2018 and 2020. A fourth candidate, Ashmi Sheth, a former Federal Reserve Bank of New York employee, is on the ballot but did not meet fundraising benchmarks to qualify for debates.

Nadler, 75, was first elected to Congress in 1992. As chair of the House Judiciary Committee, he led both impeachments of Republican former President Donald Trump. He was buoyed in the last weeks of the campaign by endorsements from The New York Times and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Maloney, 76, was also first elected in 1992. She is the first woman to chair the House Oversight and Reform Committee. She is known for her longtime advocacy for Sept. 11 first responders seeking compensation for diseases they attribute to contamination from the destruction of the World Trade Center. She wore a firefighter’s jacket on Capitol Hill and at the 2019 Met Gala.

Few policy differences between Nadler, Maloney and Patel emerged during the primary campaign.

All support abortion rights, the Green New Deal and tighter restrictions on gun ownership. Patel argued that Nadler’s and Maloney’s generation failed to achieve Democratic goals like codifying Roe v. Wade and should cede to new blood.

Nadler and Maloney countered that their seniority in Congress brings clout that benefits New Yorkers.

Friends for many years, the two Democrats lamented having to run against each other — something that only happened after a court redrew the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts after concluding the legislature botched the process.

“I didn’t want to run against my good friend, Jerry Nadler,” Maloney said at a recent debate. “We have been friends and allies for years. Unfortunately, we were drawn into the same district.”

Still, on the campaign trail Maloney said that as a woman, she would fight harder to protect abortion rights than Nadler.

Asked at a debate how his record differed from that of Maloney, Nadler cited his votes against the Iraq War and the Patriot Act, and in favor of the Iran nuclear deal. Maloney, also elected to Congress in 1992, voted the other way on all three.

Maloney also came under fire from her opponents for her past positions on vaccines, including in 2006 when she introduced legislation directing the federal government to study the debunked theory that vaccines can cause autism. Maloney insisted that she supports vaccines and regretted ever questioning vaccine safety.

The primary winner in the overwhelmingly Democratic district will face Republican Michael Zumbluskas in the November general election.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Celebrities: The Climate Consequences Of Their Private Jet Use

By Rodney Young
August 14, 2022

Taylor Swift isn’t the only celebrity facing backlash for their private jet usage.

There may be bad blood between environmentalists and pop princess Taylor Swift.

Yard, a sustainability marketing agency based out of the United Kingdom, found Swift to be the biggest celebrity polluter of the year based on her private jet usage in the first seven months of 2022.

After pulling data from Celebrity Jets, a source for tracking the use of private jets by celebrities, Yard found Swift’s private jet flew 170 times out of the first 200 days this year.

A spokesperson for Swift released a statement after that report was released, saying, “Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals, to attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect.”

However, Swift isn’t the only celebrity facing backlash for their private jet usage.

Yard’s top celebrity carbon dioxide offenders are:

Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather comes in second on the list, emitting more than 7,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide this year.

Mayweather is followed by Jay-Z, whose jet has taken 136 flights.

A-Rod with 106 flights.

Blake Shelton, with more flights than A-Rod at 111 but with longer flying times.

Steven Spielberg, Kim Kardashian, Mark Wahlberg, Oprah Winfrey, and rapper Travis Scott also made the list.

Additionally, Kylie Jenner and Drake garnered intense public criticism after it was revealed that their private jets logged trips as short as 17 minutes and 14 minutes.

Deputy Director of UNC Institute for the Environment, Dr. Sarav Arunachalam, joins Newsy to explain the environmental cost of owning and overusing a private jet.

: newsy.com

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Anne Heche Declared Dead A Week After Fiery Crash In Los Angeles

A fiery crash into a home put Anne Heche into a coma, then she was kept on life support to allow for possible organ donation.

Emmy Award-winning and Tony-nominated actress Anne Heche is dead at 53, her son told several outlets.

A darling of the small and big screen And a trailblazer for equality, she leaves an indelible legacy of kindness on an industry often mired in cruelty.

Heche found fame in the 1990s through a series of film and TV roles, including opposite Al Pacino and Johnny Depp in “Donnie Brasco,” a role in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and a leading role in “Six Days Seven Nights” with Harrison Ford.

But, it was her life off screen that she says iced her out of the industry for years.

Her three-year relationship with Ellen Degeneres, who reacted to the news Friday, generated endless headlines and hate.

She said she wasn’t allowed to bring Degeneres to the premiere for her movie “Volcano.” She did anyway and was kicked out.

In 2020, Heche told Entertainment Tonight how she thinks about those years.

“What I was talking about was a little bit more of a concept that love is a choice,” Heche said. “I made one, and it was one of the most life-changing choices of my life. And I stand up for that… I would do the same thing all over again.”

Her later relationships gave her two sons, now ages 20 and 13.

Her older son gave a statement to People Magazine saying, “After six days of almost unbelievable emotional swings, I am left with a deep, wordless sadness. Hopefully my mom is free from pain and beginning to explore what I like to imagine as her eternal freedom.”

It was a fiery crash into a home last week that put the actress in a coma. She was kept on life support until Friday afternoon to allow time for possible organ donation. Under current California law, death can be determined by the loss of all brain function and in accordance with accepted medical standards.

Authorities had previously said she was under investigation for DUI related to the crash, and police say a blood test reveals she had narcotics in her system.

Heche had lived with mental health challenges for years, saying in her 2001 memoir childhood sexual abuse triggered mental illness that left her thinking she was two people – one being from another dimension.

The woman whose home was destroyed in the crash publicly greived for Heche on Instagram Friday, saying in a video post, “Her family and her friends and her children especially really have suffered a great loss, and my heart goes out for them. This entire situation is tragic, and there really just are no words. I’m sending love to everybody involved.”

It’s a terrible end to a life challenged by darkness, but remembered for its love and joy.

: newsy.com

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Actor Anne Heche ‘Not Expected’ To Survive After Fiery Car Crash

By Associated Press
August 12, 2022

Heche is being investigated for driving under the influence of drugs and is being kept on life support to see if her organs are viable for donation.

Anne Heche is on life support after suffering a brain injury in a fiery crash a week ago and her survival isn’t expected, according to a statement from a representative.

The actor, who is in a coma and in critical condition, is being kept on life support for possible organ donation, according to the statement released Thursday night on behalf of her family and friends.

Heche, who’s been hospitalized at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills hospital north of Los Angeles, suffered a “severe anoxic brain injury,” the statement said. Such an injury is caused by a sustained lack of oxygen to the brain.

“She is not expected to survive,” the statement said. “It has long been her choice to donate her organs and she is being kept on life support to determine if any are viable.”

On the morning of Aug. 5, Heche’s car smashed into a house in a neighborhood in west Los Angeles and a fire erupted with the car embedded inside the home.

Earlier Thursday, police said they were investigating Heche for driving under the influence. Detectives with a search warrant took a sample of her blood and found narcotics in her system, LAPD spokesperson Officer Jeff Lee said.

Toxicology tests, which can take weeks to complete, must be performed to identify the drugs more clearly and to differentiate them from any medication she may have been given for treatment at the hospital.

Evidence is still being gathered from the crash, police said, and they would present a case to prosecutors if it is warranted when the investigation is complete.

A representative for Heche declined comment on the investigation.

On Tuesday, Heche spokesperson Heather Duffy Boylston said she had been in a coma since after the accident, with burns that required surgery and lung injuries that required the use of a ventilator to breathe.

“Anne had a huge heart and touched everyone she met with her generous spirit. More than her extraordinary talent, she saw spreading kindness and joy as her life’s work — especially moving the needle for acceptance of who you love,” Thursday’s statement said. “She will be remembered for her courageous honesty and dearly missed for her light.”

Heche, 53, was among the most prominent film stars in Hollywood in the late 1990s, playing opposite actors including Johnny Depp (“Donnie Brasco”) and Harrison Ford (“Six Days, Seven Nights”). In a 2001 memoir, she discussed her lifelong struggles with mental health.

She recently had recurring roles on the network TV series “Chicago P.D.” and “All Rise,” and in 2020 was a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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