Overnight Health Care — Presented by Better Medicare Alliance — Federal judge blocks Trump from detaining migrant children indefinitely | Health officials tie vaping-related illnesses to ‘Dank Vapes’ brand | Trump to deliver health care speech in Florida
Welcome to Friday’s Overnight Health Care.
A busy end to a long week… CDC officials have linked most vaping illness to marijuana products a federal judge blocked the administration from implementing a rule to indefinitely detain migrant children, and President Trump will travel to Florida to talk health care next week.
We’ll start with a court ruling.
Federal judge blocks Trump administration from detaining migrant children indefinitely
The Trump administration was dealt a blow to its immigration policy Friday when a federal judge blocked officials’ attempt to indefinitely detain migrant families.
Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ruled that the administration will not be allowed to enforce new rules that would end the Flores Agreement, a decades-old court settlement that requires migrant children to be held no longer than 20 days.
Gee, who was appointed by former President Obama, said that the administration would violate the very agreement it is attempting to overturn.
The administration’s policy would establish new standards for conditions in detention centers while simultaneously removing the 20-day maximum detention limit that has existed since the original 1997 court ruling.
Administration officials and congressional Republicans have cited the Flores agreement as one of the primary reasons for the failed “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in thousands of children who were separated from their families at the border.
CDC, health officials tie vaping-related illnesses to ‘Dank Vapes’ brand in Illinois, Wisconsin
A number of patients in Illinois and Wisconsin who became sick after vaping reported using THC products sold under the brand name “Dank Vapes,” according to a new report published by state health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Friday.
Of the 86 patients interviewed by researchers in those two states, 66 percent said they used pre-filled THC cartridges sold under the name Dank Vapes.
While researchers said no single brand name was reported by all patients, Dank Vapes was the most commonly reported.
But, researchers said, Dank Vapes doesn’t appear to be a legitimate manufacturer, but a label or packaging that is used by sellers for counterfeit products.
“Dank Vapes appears to be the most prominent in a class of largely counterfeit brands, with common packaging that is easily available online and that is used by distributors to market THC-containing cartridges with no obvious centralized production or distribution,” researchers wrote in their report.
Why it matters: This indicates black market products might be the culprit. Eighty-nine percent of the THC products patients got were obtained through “informal sources,” including off the street or through dealers.
Still, health officials don’t know what is actually making people sick. It could be the THC, but it could also be the other chemicals and additives found in illicit vapes. The Food & Drug Administration and state health officials across the country have found vitamin E acetate a product found in lotion and dietary supplements that can be harmful if inhaled into the lungs, in many of the vaping products tested.
Update: NJOY Vape says it will cease advertising
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, chairman of Oversight’s Economic and Consumer Policy subcommittee, said NJOY responded to his committee’s request to stop advertising its e-cigarettes.
Krishnamoorthi made the request Wednesday in letters to several e-cigarette companies after Juul announced it would stop advertising as the Trump administration prepares to ban flavored products.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee directs state health board to ban flavored vape products
Inslee, a Democrat, issued an executive order Friday that would ban flavors and require the disclosure of ingredients in vaping products. Inslee noted flavored vape products appeal to children.
Preliminary data from the federal government shows youth vaping rates are up over last year.
“We aren’t waiting for Big Tobacco to tell us what is in their products,” Inslee said in a statement.
“We aren’t going to take health guidance from them, because we know that their goals are to make money and create new customers. That is what they are interested in. We are interested in ensuring that adults and young people have known and regulated ingredients in vaping products. Everyone deserves to know what is in the vaping liquid they are inhaling into their lungs.”
Michigan and New York have also banned most flavored e-cigarette products while Massachusetts has banned the sale of all e-cigarette products.
Read more from The Seattle Times here and read the executive order here.
Trump to make health speech in Florida
President Trump will travel to Florida on Thursday to discuss his health care agenda and sign an executive order on Medicare, the White House said Friday.
Trump will give the speech at The Villages, a massive retirement community where he can appeal to older voters in a key swing state in the 2020 election.
Democrats, even amid their newly opened impeachment inquiry of Trump, are touting health care as a key election issue, which Trump has sought to counter by making announcements of his own on the issue.
Trump will sign an “Executive Order in relation to protecting and improving the Medicare program in the United States,” while there, the White House said. The executive order is expected to make relatively minor changes to the program, but it also allows Trump to contrast his views with Democrats’ “Medicare for All” plans.
Attacking Medicare for All is a key part of Trump’s campaign against Democrats.
Colbert questions Sanders on middle-class tax hike for ‘Medicare for All’
Tax increases are a central issue in the debate over Medicare for All, and late night host Stephen Colbert has now pressed Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on the issue.
“Nobody in America will pay any more premiums, just talked to a woman the other day who pays $1,700 a month, $20,000 a year, gone. No more co-payments, gone, no more out-of-pocket expenses, gone, nobody will go bankrupt,” Sanders told Colbert.
“Now having said that, is health care free? No, it is not,” he added. “So what we do is exempt the first $29,000 of a person’s income, you make less than $29,000, you pay nothing in taxes. Above that, in a progressive way, with the wealthiest people in this country paying the largest percentage, people do pay more in taxes.”
The central point: Both Sanders and Warren argue middle class people’s total costs would go down under Medicare for All, since higher taxes would be offset by no more premiums or deductibles. But Sanders has been willing to acknowledge explicitly that taxes will go up as part of that equation, while Warren has avoided that.
What we’re reading
What impeachment means for a deal on drug prices (Axios)
Flu season threatens to complicate diagnoses of vaping-related illness (Stat)
Mylan agrees to pay $30M in SEC EpiPen settlement (Associated Press)
State by state
Staring down Trump: The day Republican congressman Charlie Dent won his high-stakes standoff with the president (Allentown Morning Call)
Tennessee’s abortion waiting period trial goes to judge (Associated Press)
States target vaping with bans. In California, the action is local (California Healthline)
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