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Trump signs bill giving patients ‘right to try’ experimental drugs. President Trump signed the Right to Try Act on Wednesday, cementing a major policy priority. The bill will allow terminally ill patients to access experimental drugs that finished the first of three clinical trials required for Food and Drug Administration approval. The first clinical trial is to determine the safety of a new drug, but not its effectiveness. Critics and Democrats have said the measure would create false hope for patients, but proponents say that it provides an important avenue for patients to get the drug. The FDA already has a program called compassionate use that approves 99 percent of requests from patients for access to experimental products. Right to try would bypass that program.

But will drug makers share their experimental meds? Sometimes the biggest obstacle patients face isn’t FDA approval, but actually getting experimental drugs from manufacturers. Manufacturers are not required under compassionate use or the new law to provide experimental products, and companies often don’t want to provide treatments outside of a clinical trial for fear it could endanger full FDA approval. Advocates say the law contains sweeteners for the manufacturers to participate, but only time will tell.

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Ambien maker to Roseanne: Racism isn’t a known side effect. The maker of popular sleep aid Ambien told Roseanne Barr on Wednesday that she shouldn’t blame the drug for her racist tweet that led to the cancellation of her network sitcom. ABC Entertainment canceled the revival of “Roseanne” on Tuesday after Barr tweeted that former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett was a product of the “Planet of the Apes” and the Muslim Brotherhood. Barr blamed her use of the powerful sleep aid Ambien for her remarks. Sanofi, the French drugmaker, joined the fray with a Wednesday morning tweet, “People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.”

Where things stand on Obamacare repeal’s revival. Several senators and outside conservative groups aren’t giving up hope for repealing Obamacare before the 2018 midterms, even as the outcome for any action in the Senate looks bleak. The Heritage Foundation and former Sen. Rick Santorum are leading a group that is crafting their own repeal bill set to be released this year. But the effort has received some criticism. Four outside conservative groups — FreedomWorks, Club for Growth, Conservative Partnership Institute and Senate Conservatives Fund — released a list of principles that any repeal bill should include. The principles include ending the Medicaid expansion, a per capita cap or block grant funding for Medicaid, and purchasing plans across state lines. A source familiar with the letter told the Washington Examiner that the list was meant to be a marker for the groups in endorsing any plan coming out of Congress, amid concerns that the product may not be conservative enough.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he is building a coalition for a new repeal bill that would be coming out in “weeks” rather than months. But Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who worked with Graham in the fall on a failed bill that would have sent Obamacare money to states through block grants, said he doubts a GOP bill can get through the Senate. “We don’t have the votes,” he said, noting that the Senate only has 50 Republicans with the absence of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is recuperating from brain cancer treatment.

Cassidy instead is making push to revitalize bipartisan reforms to Obamacare. He released a paper on Tuesday featuring several ideas to improve healthcare affordability. Among the ideas are several changes to Obamacare, including implementing a bipartisan stabilization act that collapsed in Congress last year because of a disagreement over abortion funding. Cassidy also calls for giving states the option to combine the Medicaid expansion and individual market risk pools.

Utah to vote on Medicaid expansion, medical marijuana this fall. Utah voters will decide on ballot measures to expand Medicaid and to legalize medical marijuana in November. A measure to expand Medicaid under Obamacare received enough signatures to make it onto the ballot. Activists behind the measure are hoping to have the same success as Maine, which approved the Medicaid expansion in a ballot measure last year. However, Republican Maine Gov. Paul LePage has vowed to not abide by the ballot measure, prompting a lawsuit. If Utah wins and the expansion is implemented, it would become the 34th state to do so, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Federal judge rules HHS illegally nixed teen pregnancy prevention grant. A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the Department of Health and Human Services illegally terminated a teen pregnancy prevention grant two years early. King County, Washington, which includes Seattle, sued HHS because the federal agency terminated the grant over ideological purposes. “We sued the federal government because they are attempting to eliminate funding for programs based on science and evidence in favor of right-wing ideology that is out of touch with reality,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine. All grants under the HHS program were terminated in 2017. The ruling from Reagan appointee John Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for Washington means HHS must process the county’s new application for a teen pregnancy prevention grant, the county executive’s office said. It can deny funding only for good cause or if the county has not complied with the terms of the grant.

Five ways states are expanding Obamacare. State governments that support Obamacare are resisting efforts by the Trump administration and Congress to scale back the law, and are moving to either expand it or reinstate provisions that were rolled back. While many red states have tried to loosen Obamacare rules or offer their residents less expensive alternatives, blue states in particular are stepping in with their own proposals. Here are five examples of ways states are looking at expanding Obamacare to further reduce the number of people who are uninsured.

Virginia Senate could vote today to expand Medicaid. Virginia’s state Senate is expected to vote Wednesday to expand Medicaid for 400,000 low-income residents as part of a larger budget vote, according to the Washington Post. The planned vote came after Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment Jr. made an unsuccessful bid late Tuesday to block the expansion for another year. So far 31 states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid. Former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe tried for years to expand it, but the effort was always stymied in the GOP-controlled General Assembly. But Republicans in the House passed a Medicaid expansion bill in April. The General Assembly has hammered out its plan during a special session because it also hasn’t approved a budget. It will need to do so by July 1 or face a government shutdown. Lawmakers arrived at a compromise on Medicaid and on other parts of its budget partly by setting a tax on hospitals.

RUNDOWN

Creators/Veronique de Rugy E-cigs: Are health officials strangling the lesser of two evils?

Modern Healthcare Wellcare to buy Meridian for $2.5 billion, boosting its Medicaid membership

Axios Experts divided on trend towards smaller, targeted clinical trials

NPR Get screened earlier for colorectal cancer, American Cancer Society warns

Nature Reprogrammed stem cells approved to mend human hearts for the first time

Bloomberg Pharma companies race to find wonder drug for obesity-linked liver disease

STAT News Allergan recalls birth control packs with out-of-order placebos