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1 week ago | 
northcarolinahealthnews.org | Grace Vitaglione |Rachel Crumpler
State lawmakers at the North Carolina General Assembly are pondering another bill that would affect transgender people — the latest in a string of legislation targeting this population that has been introduced in recent years. Some of it has become law. Senate Republicans added language to House Bill 805, which was originally written to regulate online pornography, that would recognize only two sexes in state government rules and public policies. The language echoes President Donald Trump’s Jan.
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1 week ago | 
buff.ly | Grace Vitaglione |Rachel Crumpler
State lawmakers at the North Carolina General Assembly are pondering another bill that would affect transgender people — the latest in a string of legislation targeting this population that has been introduced in recent years. Some of it has become law. Senate Republicans added language to House Bill 805, which was originally written to regulate online pornography, that would recognize only two sexes in state government rules and public policies. The language echoes President Donald Trump’s Jan.
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1 month ago | 
wunc.org | Grace Vitaglione |Rachel Crumpler
Update May 6: The House voted 68-41 to pass House Bill 519. Republican lawmakers in the state House of Representatives have introduced a bill seeking to limit confidentiality between minors and their health providers — and to grant parents greater access to their children’s medical records and decision-making. Lead bill sponsor Rep. Jennifer Balkcom, R-Hendersonville, introduced House Bill 519 at the House Rules Committee on May 5, where it passed.
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1 month ago | 
northcarolinahealthnews.org | Grace Vitaglione |Rachel Crumpler
Republican lawmakers in the North Carolina House of Representatives considered several bills affecting transgender youth this week. House Bill 606, which passed the House on May 6, would extend the statute of limitations for medical malpractice claims for minors who underwent a gender transition. House Bill 560 would prevent abuse or neglect allegations from being based on not accepting a children’s gender identity.
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2 months ago | 
northcarolinahealthnews.org | Rose Hoban |Rachel Crumpler |Taylor Knopf |Grace Vitaglione
When federal health officials announced late last month what top officials called a “dramatic restructuring” of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the department’s secretary, claimed: “Over time, bureaucracies like HHS become wasteful and inefficient even when most of their staff are dedicated and competent civil servants.
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Mar 28, 2025 | 
northcarolinahealthnews.org | Grace Vitaglione |Rachel Crumpler
Some weeks at the North Carolina General Assembly are busier than others. This week was one of those, in part because of the March 25 Senate deadline for filing bills. Senators filed 283 bills just on that day, bringing the Senate’s tally for this session to 760 legislative proposals. Each chamber has its own deadlines for filing policy bills, which come pretty early in the legislative session. That means lawmakers need to get busy drafting and filing policy bills in February and March.
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Jan 9, 2025 | 
northcarolinahealthnews.org | Rachel Crumpler
Overdose is a significant cause of maternal death in North Carolina, according to the state’s latest maternal mortality review. Among the 76 pregnancy-related deaths that occurred in North Carolina in 2018 and 2019, a little over one quarter — 20 deaths — were from overdoses. Nearly all of the deaths were related to opioids, with fentanyl involved in 14. “That’s shockingly horrific,” said David Ryan, an OB-GYN and addiction medicine doctor at ECU Health.
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Jan 2, 2025 | 
northcarolinahealthnews.org | Rose Hoban |Jaymie Baxley |Will Atwater |Jennifer Fernandez |Grace Vitaglione |Rachel Crumpler | +3 more
When we last gave our predictions of the issues we’d be following in the coming year, I wrote that North Carolina had yet to see the “true impact” of what was perhaps the state’s biggest health story of 2023: the decade-in-the-making passage of Medicaid expansion.
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Dec 31, 2024 | 
northcarolinahealthnews.org | Rose Hoban |Will Atwater |Jaymie Baxley |Anne Blythe |Michelle Crouch |Charlotte Ledger | +3 more
When the NC Health News team took a stab at the start of the year at predicting what health-related issues would guide our coverage throughout 2024, there was no question that politics and the campaigns for president, governor and other state offices would play a large role. And they did. But we had no idea about the devastation that Hurricane Helene would bring to western North Carolina and all the news the catastrophic storm would generate the last quarter of this year.
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Dec 19, 2024 | 
northcarolinahealthnews.org | Rachel Crumpler
Ninety-five percent of incarcerated people in North Carolina will eventually be released back into the community — roughly 18,000 people return home each year from state prisons and thousands more from county jails. It’s a day that people yearn for, but also a day met with trepidation and fear. “When you first go in, especially if you’ve never been to prison before, that’s the most stressful time,” said Scott Brooks Jr., who spent nearly 23 years in federal prison.
