State Highlights: University Of Michigan President Apologizes For Deceased Doctor’s Abuse; Jury Clears Boston Children’s Hospital In Controversial Case

The Associated Press: Another Man Accuses Late U. Of Michigan Doctor Of Sex Abuse
The president of the University of Michigan apologized Thursday to “anyone who was harmed” by a school doctor who has been accused by several former students of molesting them during medical exams, including one man who said the university did not respond when he reported the abuse decades ago. One of those students, Gary Bailey, told The Associated Press that the late Dr. Robert E. Anderson dropped his pants and asked him to fondle his genitals in a medical exam during Bailey’s senior year in 1968 or 1969. (2/20)

The Wall Street Journal: University Of Michigan President Apologizes To Any Victims Of Abuse By Deceased Doctor
From 1968 until 2003, Dr. Robert E. Anderson was a team physician at the University of Michigan’s athletic department as well as the director of the university’s health service. Five of his former patients recently reported that he committed sexual misconduct from the 1970s until 2002, school officials said. (Belkin, 2/20)

The Associated Press: Jury Clears Hospital In Controversial Medical Abuse Case
Boston Children’s Hospital wasn’t medically negligent in its treatment of a Connecticut teen who spent nearly a year in state custody after doctors suspected her parents of medical child abuse, a jury in Boston concluded Thursday. The verdict in the medical malpractice lawsuit brought by the family of Justina Pelletier capped a high profile dispute that drew national media attention and sparked a broader debate over parental rights. (2/20)

Boston Globe: Justina Pelletier’s Family Loses Their Civil Suit Against Boston Children’s Hospital
After less than six hours of deliberation, a Suffolk County jury on Thursday found that Boston Children’s Hospital was not negligent in its treatment of Justina Pelletier, a Connecticut teenager whose plight sparked an emotional debate about parental rights in medical decisions. Pelletier spent nearly a year in the hospital’s child psychiatric ward in 2013 after doctors told state authorities they suspected her parents of medical child abuse. (Alanez, 2/20)

The CT Mirror: Access Health Sees Dip In Enrollment
Fewer residents signed up for coverage through Access Health CT, the state’s health insurance exchange, during the enrollment period that ended in January than during previous year, officials said Thursday. The exchange reported 107,833 people had elected health plans for 2020. That’s a 3 percent drop from the 111,066 enrollees recorded last year. (Carlesso, 2/20)

Colorado Sun: Colorado Lawmakers Failed To Pass A Bill To Improve Immunization Rates In 2019. What’s New This Year?
After three siblings were diagnosed with measles at Children’s Hospital Colorado in December, public health officials began tracking down 258 other patients who visited the emergency department that day and were potentially exposed to the disease. …It took most of a week, an estimated 3,600 hours of staff time and about $300,000. The coordinated effort to make sure no one else contracted measles was described to state lawmakers Wednesday during an into-the-night hearing on a bill aimed at improving Colorado’s lowest-in-the-nation immunization rates. (Brown, 2/20)

CBS News: Vaccine Bill: New Illinois Bill Aims To Remove Religious Exemptions For Vaccines In State 
A bill filed in the Illinois state Senate last week aims to remove the option for parents to opt out of vaccinating their children on religious grounds. The legislation would also do away with most medical exemptions for vaccines required to attend schools in the state. (Garrand, 2/20)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia Lags U.S. In Battle To Reduce Maternal Mortality
The U.S.’s maternal mortality rate is among the highest of the developed world. Georgia has consistently ranked among the worst of U.S. states and more often than not – 60% of the time, according to one recent state estimate – those deaths were preventable. Most fatalities happen not during childbirth, but in the months following. Last month a bipartisan state House committee that studied the deepening crisis delivered 19 recommendations. Its top ask: for the state to extend Medicaid coverage for poor mothers to one year after childbirth, up from two months currently. (Hallerman, 2/21)

St. Louis Public Radio: Gun Control Advocates Rally At Missouri Capitol For Red Flag Laws
Hundreds of gun-restriction advocates visited the Missouri Statehouse on Tuesday to encourage lawmakers to pass stricter gun control measures. The specific legislation Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action want would prohibit anyone with a domestic offense conviction or an order of protection from purchasing a firearm. Colleen Coble, executive director of the Missouri Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, said that because legislators aren’t doing their jobs, Missouri ranks 13th in the nation for the highest number of women killed by men. (Driscoll, 2/18)

The New York Times: Gynecologist Spared Prison In ’16 Sex-Crime Plea Faces New Inquiry
In an interview last fall, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, and his chief assistant defended their decision to strike a plea deal in 2016 that allowed a gynecologist accused of sexually abusing 19 patients to avoid going to prison. The chief assistant, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said the case against the doctor, Robert A. Hadden, was “not a slam-dunk.” Among other things, she said, some of the women were pregnant when they say the assaults occurred and so they could not see what was happening. (Ransom, 2/20)

Charlotte Observer: Accessible Housing For Charlotteans With Disabilities Lags
Only a sliver of Charlotte’s housing stock is accessible to people with disabilities, with far fewer units than the number of households who need them, according to a new report. Just 5.5% of the Charlotte metro’s housing stock meets a federal accessibility standard for residents with mobility disabilities, according to real estate listing site Apartment List, which used Census data to compare supply and demand of accessible units. (Lindstrom, 2/21)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: A Plea For Help: Centreville’s Sewage And Drainage Problems Pose Health, Safety Risks 
In Lincoln and Hazel LeFlore’s front yard, near the street, is what appears to be a fountain, poking out of the ground. It flows continuously, carving a trench that runs alongside their home and into the woods out back. Look closer, though, and take a breath — and it’s clear this is no fountain, but rather an open pipe that leads to a sewer. (Munz, 2/20)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Inaction For Another Year On Rape Kit Legislation Looks Likely
Wisconsin lawmakers are on track to go another year without passing legislation aimed at preventing sexual assault victims from waiting years before evidence is tested. The inaction comes after such delays were at the center of a campaign against the former attorney general — a contest he ultimately lost — and as sexual assault victims and their advocates have lobbied for legislation to ensure evidence is properly analyzed. (Beck, 2/20)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Fight Rages Over Pennsylvania Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Rages As Report Fails To Settle Dispute
In 2003, with the state’s health-care industry warning that doctors were fleeing in record numbers as a result of soaring malpractice insurance costs, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to make a highly controversial move. For the first time, patients would be allowed to sue for medical malpractice only in the county where the alleged injury happened. Previously, they could sue in any county where the provider operated, allowing them to choose the venue where a jury might be most sympathetic. Now, more than 15 years later, a new independent study casts doubt on the underlying reason for the change, concluding that the number of doctors practicing in Pennsylvania does not appear to be closely tied to the cost of malpractice insurance. (Keith, 2/20)

Concord (N.H.) Monitor: N.H. Sexual Assault Survivors Call For Statute Of Limitations Reform
For more than two decades, David Ouellette did not disclose the sexual abuse he had suffered at the hands of his priest when he was just 15. He silently lived with the pain until 2002, the same year the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team reported on sexual assault crimes and cover-up by the Boston Archdiocese. (Dandrea, 2/20)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: More Georgia Teens Attempting Suicide
As Georgia leaders began setting budget priorities for the coming fiscal year, Voices for Georgia’s Children, a statewide, nonprofit child policy and advocacy organization, seized on the moment to bring awareness to what seems to me is a shameful blight on our children. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death behind unintentional injury for children ages 10-17 in Georgia, Sitkoff said. Not illness. Suicide. (Staples, 2/21)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Philadelphia Tobacco Retailers Down By 20% Three Years After New City Regulations
Three years after new tobacco license regulations went into effect, the density of tobacco retailers in Philadelphia has been reduced by 20%, according to a new study by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. That amounts to 659 fewer licensed tobacco retailers in Philadelphia, a city that has had the highest density of tobacco sellers compared with other major U.S. cities, according to the study, published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health. (Giordano, 2/20)