addiction
Salvation Army faces a class-action lawsuit over denying care
Elaine Thompson/AP
The Salvation Army finds itself at the center of a legal fight that could set a precedent for all Americans seeking treatment for opioid addiction using methadone and buprenorphine, two common and effective medications. The case centers on a Massachusetts man who alleges he was denied access to addiction treatment services because of his medication use. But a judge's ruling late last month gave the go-ahead for a class action lawsuit.
"The case has the potential to quite dramatically change the access situation for people with opioid use disorder," said Janet Herold, an attorney with the nonprofit Justice Catalyst Law, which sued The Salvation Army on behalf of three plaintiffs.
As STAT's Lev Facher found in his investigative series The War on Recovery, many recovery-focused groups — including The Salvation Army, other rehabilitation centers, and 12-step recovery organizations — remain opposed to the medications' use despite the overwhelming evidence of their medical benefit. Read more from Lev on the lawsuit.
one big number
5,000,000
In states that expanded Medicaid, that's about how many people could lose coverage next year if Congress were to enact a federal work requirement, according to new analysis from the Urban Institute and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In California, the number could be as high as 1.2 million, and in New York, nearly a million could go off the Medicaid rolls. At least 10,000 adults would lose coverage in nearly every expansion state, but the report emphasizes that this isn't because people don't, or won't, work. About nine in 10 adults who would be subject to these requirements do already work, the authors write. Loss of coverage would be due to low levels of awareness or confusion about the policy. Enrollment levels could also vary based on each state's administrative capacity and how the requirements are implemented.
Proposed Medicaid cuts will "decimate" the care of low-income people and those with disabilities, writer Rachel Litchman argued in a recent First Opinion essay. Especially work requirements. Read more.
first opinion
Cuts to an unsung agency, cats at risk
The CDC's occupational safety institute has been almost completely wiped out by this month's unprecedented cuts at HHS. Those outside of the public health space may not recognize the name or what they do, but people at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have worked for more than 50 years to research and recommend occupational practices to maintain the health and well-being of the nation's workforce.
"When you remove a keystone from an arch, the whole thing will collapse," a group of academic experts write in a new First Opinion essay, arguing that the same is true for agencies like NIOSH. They add that the cuts are particularly concerning because they come during one of the largest avian influenza outbreaks ever to threaten the safety of the U.S. food supply and its workers. Read more.
And after you read the essay, take a listen to this week's episode of the First Opinion Podcast with one of the authors, veterinarian and epidemiologist Meghan Davis. She spoke with editor Torie Bosch about the lack of surveillance of bird flu in pets, why cats seem to be at particular risk for the virus, the danger of feeding pets raw milk and raw meat, and veterinary medicine's key role in human health.
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