Viewpoints: Lessons From A Cancer Researcher On Anticancer Living; GOP Needs To Stop Surging Interest In Socialism
Editorial pages express views on these health care topics and others.
Houston Chronicle:
What Happens When A Cancer Researcher Gets Cancer?
As someone who has devoted most of my adult life to cancer research, I’ve long known exactly the kind of lifestyle I need to live to cultivate a body that is inhospitable to cancer growth and to prevent cancer from forming. But just knowing this wasn’t enough. In March, as my wife Alison and I were finishing up the final draft of our book “Anticancer Living,” I was diagnosed with advanced melanoma. (Lorenzo Cohen, 11/27)
The Wall Street Journal:
Stopping The Socialist Resurgence
Consider the arguments against “Medicare for All.” Do voters really want to abolish private insurance? After watching the Department of Veterans Affairs bungle the treatment of the nation’s warriors, do Americans want their personal health decisions made by the unwieldy, unresponsive federal government? Do they want the wait times, the decline in quality, and the slowing of innovation that would come with a takeover by a new federal bureaucracy? And how will the country pay the $32 trillion cost of the Medicare expansion? The average working couple already pay $158,000 in Medicare taxes over their careers. How would they like to see their taxes skyrocket and their care cut? Democrats should be forced to answer for their radicals’ wild ideas. (Karl Rove, 11/28)
The New York Times:
The Link Between August Birthdays And A.D.H.D.
The rate of diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder among children has nearly doubled in the past two decades. Rates of A.D.H.D. diagnoses also vary considerably across states, with nearly three times as many children getting the diagnosis in Kentucky (where one in five children are said to have the condition) as in Nevada. More than 5 percent of all children in the United States now take an A.D.H.D. medication. These facts raise the question of whether the disease is being overdiagnosed. (Jena, Barnett and Layton, 11/28)
USA Today:
Suicide: We Need To Talk About It, And The Media Needs To Cover It
We all know someone touched by suicide. Myself included.Nicole Carroll was raised by her paternal grandparents until about age 2. They remained close. Her grandfather, J.E. Carroll Jr., died by suicide in 2001. (Photo: Nicole Carroll)I lived with my grandparents until I was 2. I stayed close to my grandfather; he never stopped looking out for me, even as I started college, work, a family. Then, in 2001, he killed himself. It wasn’t a secret, but no one ever talked about it. That was 17 years ago. And still today, we just don’t talk about suicide.The media rarely share stories of suicide, in part because we don’t want to make things worse. The practice in newspapers for decades was not to write about suicide at all unless it was done in public or was a public figure. (Nicole Carroll, 11/28)
The Washington Post:
A Stunning Claim In China Highlights The Perils And Promise Of Gene Editing
The claim on Monday by a Chinese scientist that he successfully edited the genetic makeup of a human embryo followed by live births is a moment for serious worry. Rapid advances in gene editing have been pointing toward this for a few years. If confirmed, the research must trigger a fresh reexamination of the procedures for research that could alter the basic blueprint of humankind. Vigilance, transparency and oversight are vital bulwarks against dangerous research, and this experiment appears to have skirted them all. (11/28)
The Hill:
Veterans Have Been Deprived Of Their Earned Benefits For Two Decades
A volunteer grassroots effort educated Congress on the need to extend the presumption of agent orange exposure to those ships who serve in the bays, harbors and territorial sea of the Republic of Vietnam. Tens of thousands of sick and dying Navy veterans and their survivors, cheered the House vote and thought that they would finally receive their earned compensation and medical benefits. The tragedy of the so-called Blue Water Navy veterans began in 2002 when the VA Secretary, with a stroke of a pen, rescinded the presumption of exposure authorized by Congress in the 1991. (John B. Wells, 11/28)
New England Journal of Medicine:
Trauma-Informed Care — Reflections Of A Primary Care Doctor In The Week Of The Kavanaugh Hearing
In this time of increased awareness of the prevalence and impact of trauma, and as we are inundated with news about abuse, health care providers have an opportunity and responsibility to dig deep into ourselves and commit to actively resisting retraumatization, to develop the resources to support survivors, and to support each other as we do this work. We can strive to make our organizations trauma-informed places of healing. (Eve Rittenberg, 11/29)
New England Journal of Medicine:
Sit Back And Listen — The Relevance Of Patients’ Stories To Trauma-Informed Care
If there is one thing I have learned over 22 years of practicing pediatrics in an underresourced urban environment, it is that patients reveal their most personal and painful life experiences when we build trusting relationships and encourage open dialogue. The more we understand about the long-term effects of toxic stress due to adverse childhood experiences, the more important it becomes for us to absorb these stories. They form the crux of trauma-informed care. But how can we encourage open dialogue in today’s health care climate? (Dorothy R. Novick, 11/29)
Los Angeles Times:
California's Right-To-Die Law Needs High Court Intervention
A Riverside County appeals court upheld California’s right-to-die law this week, ending months of legal limbo after a Superior Court judge invalidated the law in May because he believed it had been improperly enacted.That’s great news for the state’s terminally ill patients whose doctors may have been reluctant to write a life-ending prescription while the law was being contested in the courts. The law is now officially valid again — at least until the plaintiffs file a new challenge. (11/29)
San Francisco Chronicle:
California Will Pay For Congress’ Health Care Failures
A new report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research projects a substantial increase in the statewide uninsured rate by 2020 and an even larger increase by 2023. Specifically, the researchers are projecting that 11.7 percent of Californians under 65 will lack insurance by 2020 — about 4.02 million people — and about 12.9 percent will lack it in 2023 — about 4.4 million people. (11/28)
