174. The Week in Public Health. Guests, Ross Silverman and Alexandra Phelan.

A welcome back to my friend and collaborator Ross Silverman. He is Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI, and holds a secondary appointment as Professor of Public Health Law at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. And a first time welcome to Alexandra Phelan. Dr. Phelan is a member of the Center for Global Health Science and Security and a Faculty Research Instructor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown University. She also holds an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. We started with a “lighting round.” First, SCOTUS not taking the Flint water lead contamination case. Second, the doubts cast on wraparound services by the NEJM hot-spotting study. Third, a quick update on the opioid litigation, including the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy proceedings Oklahoma’s new lawsuits against three large drug distributors. Hunter has also filed for almost half-million in litigation costs from J&J, the defendant pharmacies in the Cleveland litigation are arguing that doctors are responsible for any improper distribution of opioids to patients, not pharmacists who are obliged to fill those prescriptions. Finally, the first major criminal actions have now run their course with several Insys executives sentenced to jail time. The rest of the episode is a deep dive into the 2019-nCoV or Wuhan Coronavirus, of course with the caveat that this is a daily shifting landscape.