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New CDC director sworn in. Robert Redfield, who was a former HIV/AIDS expert at the University of Maryland Medical Center, was sworn in Tuesday as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Today I swore in Dr. Robert Redfield as the 18th Director of @CDCgov. He has dedicated his entire life to promoting #publichealth & providing compassionate care to his patients. We’re proud to welcome him to the #HHS family,” tweeted Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. Redfield co-founded and directed the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland, which seeks to discover cures and treatments for deadly viruses and immune disorders, particularly HIV. He was a career Army doctor who was one of the military’s chief AIDS researchers. Former President George W. Bush had also considered Redfield for the CDC post and for director of the National Institutes of Health. Redfield was not selected for either role but did serve on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS during Bush’s time in office. Some controversy follows Redfield’s long career in the field. According to a 2002 article in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Redfield had “clashed” with AIDS treatment advocates over whether to collect the names of people who test positive for HIV, rather than use anonymous codes. The Washington Post reported that in 1991 Redfield was linked to a controversial effort in Congress to make healthcare employees test for HIV if they are involved in invasive procedures such as surgeries. The effort failed. The agency’s current acting director is Anne Schuchat, who has been at the CDC since 1988. The job did not require congressional confirmation.

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Aetna to give customers drug price rebates. Aetna will give its customers new pharmacy rebates at the time of sale, amid continuing outcries over high drug prices. The decision to provide rebates comes after scrutiny from the Trump administration on how drugmakers and middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers negotiate the discounts. Critics say consumers don’t benefit enough from them. Aetna said greater transparency is needed throughout the drug supply chain in response to “nearly 25 percent increase in drug prices between 2012 and 2016.” “We have always believed that consumers should benefit from discounts and rebates that we negotiate with drug manufacturers,” Aetna CEO Mark T. Bertolini said in a statement. “Going forward, we hope this additional transparency will encourage these companies to rationalize their pricing and end the practice of annual double-digit price increases.”

DEA deploys 250 more officers to fight opioid epidemic. The Drug Enforcement Administration announced Tuesday it will send an additional 250 officers and a few dozen analysts to regions across the country that have been most affected by the opioid epidemic. DEA Acting Administrator Robert W. Patterson said the reinforcements would strengthen agents already in cities that have been hardest hit by heroin and fentanyl addiction. “Positioning more robust resources such as task force officers in areas hardest hit by this epidemic will provide the strength and support needed to tackle this crisis in regions that need it most,” Patterson said. The task force will take on the drug trafficking organizations bringing narcotics into the country. On Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the use of a new technology that can detect more than 14,000 chemicals. It will be used at Detroit’s international airport in an effort to stop dangerous opioids from entering the country.

Dentists urged to prescribe fewer opioids for tooth pain. The American Dental Association is asking dentists to drastically cut back on prescribing opioid painkillers. The association is recommending that dentists do not prescribe opioids for pain for longer than a week and supports mandatory training on using other painkillers. It also supports that dentists register with prescription drug monitoring programs, which allow for tracking of medications to make sure patients aren’t receiving opioids from multiple doctors, either to sell them or for personal use. Dental procedures can cause acute pain, so dentists sometimes prescribe opioids such as Vicodin or Percocet for relief after a root canal or tooth extraction.

Indiana passes abortion bill requiring more reporting. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb on Monday signed a bill into law that would require abortion providers to report adverse events to the state about women who have the procedure. The law sets up a detailed list of complications, such as infections, blood clots and hemorrhaging and mental health issues. Supporter say the law helps to ensure women are safe, but abortion rights group say it will further limit and stigmatize abortion, and that the procedure is safe. The American Civil Liberties Union has said it might challenge the law in court.

Certain smokers struggled to quit when they used e-cigarettes: Study. Occasional e-cigarette use may not help smokers quit, results from a government-funded study suggest. The study, from researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Tobacco Research and Treatment Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, followed 1,357 adult smokers who were hospitalized and said they wanted to quit smoking. They were randomly assigned a smoking cessation aid or were told to call a phone hotline for advice on how to quit. Six months later, about 10 percent of people who said they used e-cigarettes over the first three months after discharge had successfully quit smoking traditional cigarettes, compared with 27 percent of those not using e-cigarettes. Researchers say one of the study’s limitations was assessing how regularly people smoked e-cigarettes.

Retired military officers say transgender policy forces troops to ‘hide in the shadows.’ A group of 26 retired military officers came out against Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ proposed transgender policy on Tuesday, calling it a “troubling move backward.” The policy proposal announced last week echoes the earlier ban on gay and lesbian troops under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and would force transgender troops to hide who they are for fear of being discharged, the former officers said in a statement released by the Palm Center, which supports transgender rights. President Trump has given Mattis the greenlight to pursue a new personnel policy that would ban most transgender people from serving.

Pharmaceutical industry launches new ad targeting drug middlemen. The pharmaceutical industry began a new campaign aimed at insurers and pharmacy benefit managers. The campaign called “Let’s Talk About Cost” is part of a larger effort by the drug lobby group Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Researchers of America to place the blame of high drug prices onto insurers and the pharmacy benefit managers that oversee drug plans for employer-sponsored plans. The campaign said that while drug companies set a list price, “more than one-third is rebated back to payers and the supply chain. Insurers negotiate large rebates, but do not share these discounts with patients who pay a deductible or coinsurance.” The campaign includes a “cost quiz” and series of digital ads.

Florida governor signs legislation mandating nursing homes have backup power after tragedy. Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed into law a bill on Monday that requires nursing homes to have backup power. The decision comes after several residents died in a nursing home because of power loss after a hurricane last year. During Hurricane Irma, a dozen residents overheated and died at Hollywood Hills nursing home. Scott had issued an emergency rule to require each nursing home have a generator to keep residents safe. The legislation would make the rule permanent.

RUNDOWN

Axios U.S. Digital Service sees progress under Trump administration

Politico Inside the collapse of a bipartisan Obamacare deal

NPR Surge in antibiotics is a boon for superbugs

CNN Prince had an ‘exceedingly high’ amount of fentanyl in his body when he died

Tennessean Healthcare insurance market may soon split according to healthy, sick

Bloomberg GSK gets full control of Sensodyne maker from Novartis for $13 billion

ProPublica Here’s one issue blue and red states agree on: Preventing deaths of expectant mothers