Requesting access to experimental, unapproved treatments from the FDA can sometimes save a patient’s life when no other treatment has worked. But as STAT’s Sheila Kaplan writes, there is a dark side to “compassionate use.”

National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, told a crowd of medical researchers in Chicago he has a “sense of optimism” about the ability to offer more grants through the agency, while encouraging them not to shy away from bold projects.

A study of Liberian men found previous estimates of how long the Ebola virus could remain in semen were significantly too low, as one man was found to still carry the virus 565 days after he recovered from the illness.

Two members of Congress from California, Democrat Reps. Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier, are calling for a congressional investigation into manufacturers of opioid painkillers.

Mylan, manufacturer of the allergic reaction treatment EpiPen, has announced it will sell a generic version of the autoinjector at half the price of the branded device after federal lawmakers and consumer groups questioned why its price has gone up 400 percent since Mylan acquired it.

CMS proposed a series of adjustments it intends to strengthen the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges for 2018, including some initiatives insurers have been pushing for, such as pooling high-cost enrollees and adjusting for special enrollment customers. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says states should get rid of laws which allow children to go unvaccinated for diseases like measles for non-medical reasons and advises individual physicians to consider excluding families who continually refuse immunizations from their practice.

Government cuts to state- and federally funded mental healthcare are causing troubles for patients, families and their communities, according to a report by the Boston Globe’s famous investigative Spotlight Team.