Morning Break: ‘Gag Rule’ Suit; Stark Law Reform; Pathologists’ Job Security

Note that some links may require subscriptions.

Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia announced suits against the Trump administration over its abortion “gag rule” issued in February. (HuffPost)

CMS Administrator Seema Verma promised a hospital group that changes are coming to so-called Stark Law restrictions on referrals, which will allow more physicians to participate in value-based payment arrangements. (Modern Healthcare)

The FDA was widely expected to approve esketamine nasal spray for depression on Monday, as NPR reported in its afternoon program, yet it wasn’t — no word (as of 9:30 a.m. Tuesday) from either the FDA or drugmaker Janssen despite yesterday being the PDUFA date.

Two untimely deaths in the entertainment world: “Beverly Hills 90210” star Luke Perry (age 52, massive stroke) and Keith Flint, frontman for musical group The Prodigy (age 49, apparent suicide). (CNN, New York Times)

A Boston-based company will soon release a voice-recognition program that can transcribe doctors’ verbal instructions into electronic health records. (STAT)

Another threat to pathologists’ job security? Dartmouth researchers reported developing a machine learning program that performed as well as humans in classifying subtypes of lung adenocarcinoma. (Nature)

Meet the ErgoJack “smart vest,” which monitors workers’ posture and alerts them to unhealthy back positioning. (Medgadget)

New data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging found one in three elderly patients were lonely, leaving them at a higher risk for heart attacks, depression, and early death. (Time)

And less than a third of seniors have ever been assessed for cognitive problems, according to a new survey from the Alzheimer’s Association. (AP News)

A 12-year-old boy starts to bleed profusely into the sink while brushing his teeth, with few other symptoms. What’s his diagnosis? (KevinMD)

Morning Break is a daily guide to what’s new and interesting on the Web for healthcare professionals, powered by the MedPage Today community. Got a tip? Send it to us: [email protected]