WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to plunge into the abortion debate in the midst of the 2020 presidential campaign, taking on a Louisiana case that could reveal how willing the more conservative court is to chip away at abortion rights. The justices will examine a Louisiana law requiring...
Newsom Wants Fixes to Contentious Vaccine Exemption Bill
SACRAMENTO — California's state Assembly approved legislation Tuesday designed to crack down on doctors who sell fraudulent medical exemptions for vaccinations. But Gov. Gavin Newsom's office said immediately after the vote that he will seek additional amendments affecting one of this legislative session's most hotly debated issues. The bill by...
Sex Misconduct Complaints Against Calif. Doctors Up Sharply
LOS ANGELES — The number of complaints against California physicians for sexual misconduct has risen 62% since fall of 2017 — a jump that coincides with the beginning of the #MeToo movement, according to a newspaper investigation published Monday. A Los Angeles Times analysis of California medical board data found complaints of...
Democrats' Internal Battle Over Health Care Goes Back Decades
WASHINGTON — Seventy years ago, before Medicare existed to inspire "Medicare for All," a Democratic president wrestled with a challenge strikingly similar to what the party's White House hopefuls face today on the issue of health care. Harry Truman, then in his fourth year of pressing for a national health...
Doctors, Lawyers Portray Dire Conditions for Child Migrants
CLINT, Texas — Immigrant advocates are asking a federal judge to immediately require inspections and let doctors into border detention facilities where they say sleep-deprived, flu-stricken children are languishing in filthy conditions. Doctors and lawyers who visited the facilities in recent weeks outlined several damning examples in a court filing...
California Raised Taxes to Pay Doctors for the Poor. It’s Still Waiting for Them.
It’s been two years since Californians voted to raise tobacco taxes so the state could pay doctors and dentists more when they treat low-income patients. But it’s unclear if the money is achieving a related purpose: getting more medical providers to accept the government’s health plan for the poor. The Department of...
Drug Company Used Rap Video to Push for Higher Doses, Sales
BOSTON — Employees at a drug company accused of bribing doctors rapped and danced around a person dressed as a bottle of the highly addictive fentanyl spray in a video meant to motivate sales reps to push the drug. The video was shown to jurors this week in the closely...
No Stethoscope for Pain: Scientists Seek Real Way to Measure
WASHINGTON — Is the pain stabbing or burning? On a scale from 1 to 10, is it a 6 or an 8? Over and over, 17-year-old Sarah Taylor struggled to make doctors understand her sometimes debilitating levels of pain, first from joint-damaging childhood arthritis and then from fibromyalgia. "It's really...
Physicians Criticize State Lawsuits Over Pelvic Mesh
SEATTLE — Doctors who specialize in female pelvic medicine say lawsuits by four states, including Washington and California, over products used to treat pelvic floor disorders and incontinence might scare patients away from the best treatment options — or maybe even push the products off the market. Sixty-three Washington surgeons signed...