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Senate sends opioid legislation to Trump’s desk. Legislation aimed at reducing addiction and deadly overdoses from opioids sailed through its final congressional hurdle on Wednesday, and was headed to President Trump’s desk for his signature. The Senate passed the legislation, called the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, on Wednesday afternoon following months of hearings and negotiations that spread across multiple committees. The bill passed nearly unanimously, with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, the only one to vote against it. The move represents a bipartisan win both parties can leverage heading into the Nov. 6 midterm elections, since it shows they can work across the aisle to tackle a harrowing public health crisis. The bill is meant to address several aspects of the opioid crisis — which involves overdose deaths from prescription painkillers and heroin — through medical research, expanding access to treatment, giving more tools to law enforcement, and allocating roughly $8.5 billion in funding authorized in appropriations bills passed earlier this year. The legislation easily cleared the House Friday.

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More than a third of Americans get fast food on a given day, CDC finds. More than a third of Americans now consume fast food on a given day, with higher earners taking more frequent trips to the drive-thru, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From 2013 to 2016, approximately 37 percent of adults got fast food on a given day, the study released Wednesday said. It is the first federal analysis illustrating the prevalence of fast food in adults’ diets. The CDC found that black Americans are more likely to consume fast food than other races, with 42.4 percent chowing down on burgers or pizza every day. In comparison, 37.6 percent of whites ate fast food every day, versus 35 percent of Hispanics and 30 percent of Asians. “Fast food is a part of the American diet and has been associated with high caloric intake, and poor diet quality,” CDC said.

EPA slams Associated Press for reporting that radiation ‘may be healthy.’ The Environmental Protection Agency says the Associated Press got it wrong when it reported the agency claimed a “little radiation may be healthy” in a proposal to roll back radiation standards. “If you used AP’s inaccurate reporting from October 2nd on EPA’s radiation standards you should want to immediately correct your stories to stop the spread of alarming misinformation,” EPA warned Wednesday in a statement after the AP issued a correction. EPA said it demanded a retraction, but AP agreed to a headline “correction” instead. “The AP finally provided a correction to their article over 20 hours later and after numerous outlets used their false wire report,” EPA said. In the correction, AP admitted that it reported “erroneously” in the Oct. 2 story’s headline that “EPA says a little radiation may be good for you.”

Republican who voted against Obamacare now touts support for pre-existing condition protections. California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher highlighted his daughter’s fight with leukemia in a new ad Wednesday touting his commitment to protections for sick people, an attempt to fend off Democratic attacks on his vote to repeal Obamacare. Rohrabacher is just the latest House Republican in a tight race positioning himself as a champion of health insurance protections for pre-existing conditions despite voting to repeal Obamacare. Democrats have attacked the GOP on the grounds that they would endanger coverage for pre-existing conditions by undoing the health law. The experience of his daughter’s illness was “devastating to my family, but we got through it, and today she’s doing great,” Rohrabacher says in the ad. Rohrabacher’s ad was released a day after Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and 18 other House Republicans introduced a resolution expressing support for protecting pre-existing conditions in any replacement of Obamacare.

Mitch McConnell sets up final Kavanaugh vote for Saturday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took steps Wednesday that will set up a Saturday afternoon vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. McConnell filed a motion to end debate on Kavanaugh’s nomination, and that motion will get a vote on Friday. Assuming at least 50 senators agree to end debate, Kavanaugh’s final confirmation vote will come Saturday.

McConnell has pledged that Kavanaugh would get an up or down vote this week. “It looks like we have to be here this weekend,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters Wednesday. Four key lawmakers remain undecided, including three Republicans, two of which are needed to get Kavanaugh through. McConnell set up the vote as lawmakers await a supplemental FBI background report on Kavanaugh.

Anti-alcohol activists divided over beer-drinker Brett Kavanaugh. The leaders of two of the nation’s most prominent anti-alcohol organizations differ on Kavanaugh, who defiantly told senators “I still like beer” as he denied sexually assaulting women while drunk. The embattled nominee received an unsolicited endorsement this week from the leader of the historically influential Prohibition Party, which deems alcohol “America’s #1 narcotic drug problem.” “Confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” Prohibition Party Chairman Rick Knox wrote on Facebook Monday, after Kavanaugh and accuser Christine Blasey Ford testified Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Knox, taking a break from campaigning against Sunday alcohol sales in Cherokee County, Ga., added, “I think some people at last weeks hearings need to be charged with perjury.” Knox made clear he wasn’t talking about the judge, who some Democrats accused of lying when he denied ever experiencing a blackout. The Prohibition Party leader shared a cartoon calling Ford a “leftist liar.” Some anti-booze activists aren’t happy about Kavanaugh’s testimony, however. “I don’t appreciate anyone who stands up and says, ‘I like to drink,'” Woman’s Christian Temperance Union President Sarah Ward told the Washington Examiner.

‘Pot-smoking agitators’ injure Republican lawmaker. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., said he was injured this week when “aggressive, pot-smoking agitators” burst into his Capitol Hill office to protest his opposition to legal recreational marijuana. “They attempted to shove open a private door, throwing their shoulders into it and injuring my wrist in the process (thank goodness not seriously),” he said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Some from the crowd were arrested. Also thankfully, my staff and innocent bystanders weren’t injured. But it could have been much worse.” Harris, Maryland’s only GOP member of the House, is one of several Republicans who complained this week about violence and possible violence against Republicans to protest their policy positions. On the Senate floor, Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., accused Democrats of encouraging Nazi tactics against Republicans, and said accosting his wife at the airport this week went ” too far.” And Sen. Rand Paul’s wife asked Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., in an open letter to retract his call for activists to “get up in the face” of lawmakers they oppose.

Things getting worse for e-cigarette maker JUUL Labs. The controversial e-cigarette maker JUUL Labs filed complaints against 18 companies it claims is making copycat products and infringing on their patents, Reuters reported. The complaints released on Thursday were the latest headache for the popular e-cigarette maker. The Food and Drug Administration raised JUUL’s headquarters and seized more than 1,000 documents earlier this week on its sales and marketing tactics. The raid is part of a larger crackdown by the FDA to curb the skyrocketing use of e-cigarettes among minors. JUUL e-cigarettes are very popular among kids because they resemble USB drives and can fool teachers and parents. JUUL’s complaints are filed against companies based mostly in China and in the U.S., according to Reuters.

Trump administration warns against fentanyl test strips. The Trump administration warned on Wednesday that the use of test strips by opiod addicts to detect the presence of powerful opioid fentanyl could have a major downside. The purpose of the test strip is for an individual about to abuse an opioid to first detect the presence of fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, according to a blog post from Elinore F. McCance-Katz, assistant secretary for mental health and substance abuse at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. She said that if fentanyl is detected then the idea is that the individual will either change the way they use the drug or not use it at all. Fentanyl has become a major contributor to opioid deaths in recent years, fueled in part by illicit versions of the drug shipped to the U.S. mostly from China. McCance-Katz said that on the surface the drug test strip seemed like a good idea, but it has massive drawbacks. “The entire approach is based on the premise that a drug user poised to use a drug is making rational choices, is weighing pros and cons, and is thinking completely logically about his or her drug use. Based on my clinical experience, I know this could not be further from the truth,” she wrote. Mccance-Katz said that people addicted to opioids aren’t making a rational choice on their drug use and may use a fentanyl drug anyways, she said.

A small study released on Wednesday looked at the use of the test strips by addicts. It distributed the strips to 126 opioid addicts. An online survey found that more than 80 percent of the addicts used the strips and 63 percent got a positive result on an opioid they were about to abuse. Of the people that got a positive result, 43 percent changed their drug use behavior and 77 percent took steps to ensure their safety in chances of an overdose, according to the study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy.

RUNDOWN

Politico House Democrats plan investigations blitz over Trump health policies

The Hill Researcher: ‘Selfie deaths have become a major public health problem’

Axios Employers embrace health apps

Roll Call New York race spotlights national clash over healthcare

Washington Post GOP candidates pay the price for attempts to kill Obamacare and its guarantee of coverage for pre-existing conditions

Wall Street Journal Some Democrats want ‘Medicare for all,’ others not so sure

Reuters J&J, Arrowhead in gene-silencing drug deal worth up to $3.7 billion