Health care

The Texas Attorney General's Office says Purdue Pharma fueled "the nation's opioid epidemic by deceptively marketing prescription painkillers," including OxyContin.

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Smith, executive commissioner for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, will step down at the end of May after weeks of intense scrutiny over how the commission handles contracts.

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Four congressional Democrats objected to the pamphlet this week, saying it includes "blatant lies about the safety of abortion."

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The state's highest civil court said uninsured patients suing hospitals can access records detailing how much insurance companies paid for similar procedures.

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We livestreamed our conversation in Tyler on women's health and maternal mortality in Texas. Watch some clips or read the highlights.

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Despite rising numbers, it's still not known whether the number of women accessing such services has returned to the levels that preceded massive budget cuts during the 2011 legislative session.

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The Texas Health and Human Services Commission's Office of the Inspector General is investigating how a former agency employee was mailed a box full of private client information.

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Rice University, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Houston Health Department announced an information-gathering initiative on Wednesday that seeks to better understand the impact of the historic storm on Houston-area residents, including by linking health problems to environmental exposures.

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Financial barriers and limited access to providers are keeping women at the state's community colleges from getting the effective contraceptives they prefer, according to a new report from the University of Texas at Austin.

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For Texans with severe epilepsy, a new treatment recently became legal: medical cannabis oil. As the state’s first dispensaries open, we followed two families trying the medication to reduce seizures. Watch our video documentary, “Out of Options.”

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Ron Pigott, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission's deputy executive commissioner for procurement and contracting services, is the latest person to leave the agency amid a shake-up over contract mismanagement.

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Heather Griffith Peterson, chief operating officer for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, resigned amid continued criticism from auditors over mismanagement of state contracts.

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The State Auditor’s Office released a 30-page report on Monday showing the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and the Department of State Health Services bungled a contract with Genesis Systems Inc.

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A new report says current and former Texas foster youth face greater pregnancy risks and calls on the state to provide health care and education to at-risk teens.

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A study published this week in a medical journal revealed that a new state methodology drastically reduced the count of maternal deaths in Texas for 2012. What will that mean for state policy on maternal mortality?

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Some of the state’s top health experts released a report in the medical journal Obstetrics & Gynecology on Monday that used a new method for counting — and found that the number of women who died dropped from 147 to 56.

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Problems arose with the scoring tool used to decide which company should win a contract to administer the Children’s Health Insurance Program in rural parts of the state.

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Ahead of a Texas House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Wednesday to discuss Medicaid therapy rate cuts and the state’s Early Childhood Intervention program, some providers are considering ending services due to financial struggles.

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The number of Texas children dying from abuse and neglect decreased by 22.5 percent in fiscal year 2017, according to a state report, but drug and alcohol use among caregivers is still leading to deaths from trauma, accidental smothering while sleeping and auto accidents, among other causes.

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Local officials across Texas are hearing from lawyers who want to help them sue pharmaceutical companies over the nation's deadly opioid crisis.

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