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.”

A federal mediator has called Allina Health and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) back to the bargaining table in a late attempt to avoid 4,800 nurses striking beginning on Labor Day, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

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.

With the opioid addiction epidemic only getting worse, researchers and developers are working together fight misuse with medical technology. So has using medical technology helped at least slow the rise in opioid addiction?

As local Zika transmissions continue to pop up in the U.S., HHS is ramping up efforts to combat the virus through awareness of its symptoms, its effects and how to stop its spread. Various agencies under the HHS umbrella held a Twitter Q&A surrounding these topics Aug. 30 using the hashtag #AtoZika. 

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.