Viewpoints: We Need More Diversity In Health Workforce To Undercut Institutional Racism; Fat Gene Test Could Scare People Into Unhealthy Choices

The Hill: Institutional Racism In Health Care
Research shows that institutional racism is a root cause of poor health outcomes. In addition, data generated since 2004 have consistently shown the ethnic diversity the health-care workforce is directly linked to health outcomes for people of color and that lack of workforce diversity is a root cause of institutional racism. Institutional racism is not about whether an individual health-care provider behaves in a racism manner. Rather institutional racism is about how the system is structured and how the stereotypes health-care providers bring to the job become institutionalized in the system. Presence of people of color in the workforce alters the dynamics that allow racist structures to persist. (Linda Phillips, 5/20)

Bloomberg: A Test For The ‘Fat Gene’? Results Are Worse Than Worthless
Like many genetic tests, a new one that uses several million genes to “predict” obesity is unlikely to do anyone’s health any good, and might do harm. The news of the finding, published in the journal Cell, looked like a good piece of science, with the potential to improve scientists’ understanding of why people exposed to the same or similar diets end up at very different weights. There’s also an important message to society – that obesity isn’t a failure of willpower. Some people have to struggle much harder than others to maintain a healthy weight. (Faye Flam, 5/21)

The New York Times: What Superbug Hunters Know That We Don’t
Antibiotic-resistant superbugs are everywhere. If your hospital claims it doesn’t have them, it isn’t looking hard enough. Hospitals are losing an important public relations battle over the expanding threat of superbugs, including the deadly fungus Candida auris. Though states are tasked with conducting outbreak investigations, they aren't required to disclose their findings to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (and in many cases they haven’t). Grieving families are pushing for more transparency, while patient advocates smell a cover-up, likening the scenario to a restaurant failing to report an outbreak of food poisoning. In the midst of all this mistrust, hospital spokesmen are declining to comment. This is a mistake. (Dr. Matt McCarthy, 5/20)

Stat: Ignoring Evidence Begot Medicare's Harmful Readmissions Penalty
Federal programs designed to cut costs and improve health by penalizing doctors and hospitals are failing at an alarming rate. Some of them actually harm patients, and many don’t cut costs. One in particular, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), may have caused thousands of deaths instead of preventing them, and probably hasn’t saved money during its seven years in operation. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began reviewing the safety of this program on Jan. 19. It shouldn’t take CMS nearly four months to err on the side of caution and pull the plug on it. (Stephen Soumerai and Kip Sullivan, 5/21)

USA Today/Tallahassee Democrat: Florida Guardian Program Arming Teachers: More Guns Is Not A Solution
Fred Guttenberg recently made a grim prediction on Twitter. “The next school shooter may be a teacher,” the Parkland dad wrote. It was May 8, the day Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill allowing trained teachers to carry guns in Florida classrooms. Guttenberg called it "a terrible idea." (Eve Samples, 5/18)

The Washington Post: The Justice Department Boosts Lethal Injection In A Big Way
The Office of Legal Counsel offered more cause for concern last week that politics is playing an undue role at the Justice Department. The office, which is charged with providing the executive branch neutral legal advice, issued an opinion that the Food and Drug Administration has no authority to regulate drugs used in lethal injection. The OLC opinion was clearly designed to break through the legal logjam that has prevented states from using lethal injection drugs in executions — and it uses Evel Kneivel-style logical leaps to get there. (Harry Litman, 5/20)

RealClearPolitics: GOP Needs A Health Care Plan, Not An Immigration Plan
Trump isn’t wrong to highlight immigration. A broad-based restructuring of our immigration system is a laudable goal, and we do have a crisis on our southern border – as some Democrats now begrudgingly admit. So immigration, legal and illegal, is an important issue, particularly to the president’s political base. The problem is that it’s not the most important issue for a most Americans, including many Republicans. It’s not even close. On the issue that is considered the most important – health care –Trump and the Republican Party have no plan at all. (Tom Bevan, 5/20)

The Hill: We Can Curb Potential Pandemics By Investing In Prevention Tactics
Along with the Ebola outbreak that’s already infected more than 1,600 people, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is fighting another battle: An epidemic of fear and mistrust. Community members are afraid to seek treatment, including a promising experimental vaccine. The murder of an epidemiologist on assignment from the World Health Organization on April 18, on top of attacks on several health centers, makes an already complex situation far more dire. Internal conflict is exacerbating the chaos, with aid organizations calling for a cease-fire until the disease is contained. (Ashley Arabasadi, 5/20)

Nashville Tennessean: How To Ensure Children's Mental Health
May 9 was National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day. At Tennessee Voices for Children, we believe that access to health care services can be the difference between life and death for a child with mental health needs.  Rates of youth suicide are rising, and 80% of children who need help will not get it.  Sources say that one in three children on TennCare has a mental health condition, a higher than average prevalence rate. (Rikki Harris, 5/19)

USA Today: Georgia Foster Reform: Kinship Preference Limits Are Good For Children
Earlier this month, Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp signed a groundbreaking piece of foster care legislation. While the local media has described it as a bill that would keep more children with extended family instead of putting them into foster care with nonrelatives — by requiring caseworkers to report on their efforts to find kin at each custody hearing — the revolutionary aspect of the law is that it would actually put some limits on what’s commonly referred to as kinship preference. (Naomi Schaefer Riley, 5/20)