Lots of interest shown for new marijuana dispensary licenses

The Boston Globe

More than 50 applications from companies eager to open medical marijuana dispensaries flooded the offices of state regulators this week, two years after Massachusetts launched its ill-fated licensing process. 

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Partners plans to cut jobs, consolidate services at North Shore hospitals

Boston Business Journal
The restructuring will move all inpatient services at Union Hospital in Lynn to Salem Hospital over the next three years. 
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Boston Globe

Mental health treatment in Massachusetts is uncoordinated and short on data, complicating efforts to control costs and get patients the care they need, a new report by Attorney General Maura Healey found. 

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California Mandates Vaccines for Schoolchildren

The New York Times

California became the largest state in the country to require schoolchildren to receive vaccinations unless there are medical reasons not to do so, as Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that ended exemptions for personal or religious reasons.

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Court Lets Some Charities Avoid Rules on Birth Control Coverage

The New York Times

The Affordable Care Act generally requires insurers and health plans to cover preventive services without co-payments or deductibles, and the administration has said that those services include all approved forms of contraception for women.

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Obama Aims to Change the Conversation Around Health Care Law

Associated Press

President Obama is aiming to use the momentum from a recent Supreme Court victory for his health care law to change the conversation from talk about undoing his signature domestic achievement to talk about how to improve it.

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OxyContin Maker Bows out of Meeting On Harder-to-Abuse Drugs

Associated Press

The makers of OxyContin have pulled out of a federal meeting to review the company's harder-to-abuse version of the much-debated drug.

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Cuba Wins W.H.O. Certification It Ended Mother-to-Child H.I.V. Transmission

The New York Times

Cuba became the world’s first country on Tuesday to win World Health Organization certification that it had eliminated mother-to-child transmission of both H.I.V. and syphilis. 

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Report Shows Widespread Mistreatment by Health Workers During Childbirth

The New York Times

A new report based on information from 34 countries, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, finds that many women globally experience poor treatment during childbirth, including abusive, neglectful or disrespectful care.

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Beware of animal diseases as biological weapons, health experts say

Reuters

History has shown that animal diseases have often been used as weapons before. Advances in genetics can now make them even more harmful. So we are calling for further investment to be made at national level on bio security," Vallat told reporters at a conference on biological threat reduction.

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Fireworks Pollute the Air, Study Says

Associated Press