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LUNCH BREAK READS

01 • 18 Minute Read
The Wall Street Journal Christopher Weaver, Tom McGinty, and Anna Wilde Mathews
The Boom in Autism Therapy Is Medicaid’s Fastest-Growing Jackpot
Direct state Medicaid payments for autism therapy jumped from $660 million in 2019 to $2.2 billion in 2023, the fastest-growing service in the program. In Indiana, Piece by Piece Autism Centers collected $29 million in 2023 to treat 84 patients, about $340,000 a child, after raising rates to $1,600 an hour. Workers with a high-school diploma often deliver the care. Federal auditors found billing errors in every sampled claim across four states, including charges for children watching videos. Owner Meghann Mitchell said she broke no rules, and investigators are only beginning to reach the industry's biggest billers.
Unlocked for LBR Readers →
02 • 39 Minute Read
The New Yorker Adeline Goss
Was Ray Howell Responsible for His Crimes?
Ray Howell ran a rural Indiana family clinic, taught Sunday school, and went on medical missions to Haiti. In 2011 police arrested him for distributing opioids, sometimes in exchange for sex. Four patients died. He pleaded guilty and drew four years. Then genetic testing revealed a C9orf72 mutation tied to frontotemporal dementia, a disease that can erode moral control while leaving moral knowledge intact. Prosecutor Tim Bookwalter argued the misconduct predated any symptoms. After Howell died, his donated brain lacked the marker his disease almost always leaves, deepening a question no one can answer: Ray, or the disease?
Read the Story (Might be Paywalled) →
03 • 24 Minute Read
KFF Health News Amy Maxmen
Anguished Parents. Doctors in Tears. Utah’s Long Measles Outbreak Takes a Toll.
Measles has spread through Utah for nearly a year, the longest outbreak in a generation. More than 950 people across Utah and northern Arizona have tested positive since August, and officials abandoned containment for "mitigation" once cases outran contact tracing. Vaccination has slipped well below the 95% needed for herd immunity, pushed down by religious isolation, online misinformation, and a booming supplement industry. Pediatrician Nathan Money teared up describing children gasping for breath. A wrestling tournament seeded cases statewide. No one in Utah has died yet, but doctors say they are watching the start of something, not the end.
Read the Story →
04 • 15 Minute Read
The Washington Post Mark Johnson and Saumya Khandelwal
Humans killed millions of vultures. Now people are paying the price.
A cheap cattle painkiller called diclofenac destroyed the kidneys of India's vultures, collapsing three species from roughly 4 million to 32,000 between 1992 and 2007. As the birds vanished, free-ranging dogs swarmed the carcasses they once cleaned, and rabies followed. One study tied the loss to 47,000 extra human deaths. In Hyderabad, a 7-year-old named Maniteja lies unresponsive after a bite, fed through a tube by relatives who watch in shifts. India banned the drug, but the birds are barely returning, and scientists say what doomed them could doom species long thought too common to lose.
Unlocked for LBR Readers →

Dig Deeper: Screwworm

CNN
Flesh-eating screwworm has reached the US — a comeback driven by organized crime
Texas Tribune
Screwworm was found in a dog in Texas. What does that mean for your pets?
National Geographic
What to know about the outbreak of flesh-eating flies in Texas

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