Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
As Government Gives Green Light To Research That Could Make Flu Viruses More Dangerous, Scientists Remain Concerned
The New York Times: Studies Of Deadly Flu Virus, Once Banned, Are Set To Resume
Research that could make flu viruses more dangerous, and that the government suspended in 2014 because of safety concerns, has been approved to begin again, federal officials have confirmed. The government did not publicly announce its decisions in recent months to allow two labs to resume their projects. The new go-ahead was first reported in the journal Science. The lack of information about the decision and how it was made have provoked outrage from some scientists, who oppose the research because they say it could create mutant viruses that might cause deadly pandemics if they were unleashed by lab accidents or terrorism. The research sparked worldwide fears when it was first revealed in 2011. (Grady, 3/1)
The New York Times: Supplements Won’t Prevent Dementia. But These Steps Might.
Donna Kaye Hill realized that her 80-year-old mother was faltering cognitively when her phone suddenly stopped working. When Ms. Hill called the phone company, “they told me she hadn’t paid her bill in three months.” Finding other alarming evidence of memory gaps, she took her mother, Katie, to a memory clinic. A geriatrician there diagnosed dementia and recommended two prescription drugs and a dietary supplement, a form of vitamin E. (Span, 3/1)
The Washington Post: Black Women And HIV: Oral History Reveals Their Pain, Disenfranchisement And Endurance
Some 7,500 women were diagnosed with HIV in 2016 and the majority of them — 61 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — were black. HIV is just one of the health challenges, including breast cancer, diabetes and heart disease, that affects black women more often than women of other races. Thurka Sangaramoorthy, an HIV researcher and anthropologist, uses oral histories to learn more about the lives of black women living with HIV. In the past five years, the associate professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland has conducted ethnographic and oral history interviews with 45 women. (Blakemore, 3/2)
Stat: Voice-Recognition System Aims To Automate Data Entry By Doctors
Hands down, the one task doctors complain about most is filling out the electronic health record during and after patient visits. It is disruptive and time-consuming, and patients don’t like being talked to over the doctor’s shoulder. Now, amid an intensifying race to develop voice technologies for health care, a Boston-based company is preparing to release one of the first products designed to fully automate this process, by embedding artificially intelligent software into exam rooms. (Ross, 3/4)
Stat: CDC Director Planning To Travel To DRC As Country Battles Ebola Outbreak
Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is expected to travel next week to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a rare trip to the country by a U.S. official as it battles what is now the second largest Ebola outbreak on record. Redfield will make the trip with the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, according to a WHO statement. (Branswell, 3/1)
The Washington Post: The Danish Word 'Pyt' As An Antidote To Anxiety And Stress
Danes are some of the happiest people in the world, and they also happen to have a lot of cool words for ways to be happy. You may have heard about “hygge,” which has been the subject of countless books, articles and commercials. Often mistranslated to mean “cozy,” it really describes the process of creating intimacy. (Helweg-Larsen, 3/2)
NPR: A Positive Mindset Can Help Patients Handle Side Effects Of Treatments
Anxiety about side effects can keep people from starting or sticking to drug regimens or medical procedures. A group of researchers at Stanford University wanted to find out whether a simple mindset shift could help patients tolerate an uncomfortable treatment. They learned that when physicians make the effort to reframe potentially unpleasant symptoms in a positive light, it helped patients to stay calm and persevere. The researchers studied this approach with a group of families who, in a desperate search for relief from food allergies, signed their children up for a study testing the investigational treatment known as oral immunotherapy. (Landhuis, 3/1)
Boston Globe: Beaten Down By The Resistance? Activists Turn To Yoga For Sustenance In The Age Of Trump
A series of classes, called Yoga for Sustainable Activism, is being provided free to activists at Portland Community Squash through several donors and Sea Change Yoga, a Portland organization that provides trauma-informed yoga to people who might not otherwise get to indulge in self-care. (Ebbert, 3/4)
The New York Times: One Twin Committed The Crime — But Which One? A New DNA Test Can Finger The Culprit
One night in November 1999, a 26-year-old woman was raped in a parking lot in Grand Rapids, Mich. Police officers managed to get the perpetrator’s DNA from a semen sample, but it matched no one in their databases. Detectives found no fingerprints at the scene and located no witnesses. The woman, who had been attacked from behind, could not offer a description. It looked like the rapist would never be found. Five years later, there was a break in the case. A man serving time for another sexual offense submitted a DNA sample with his parole application. The sample matched DNA from the rape scene. (Zimmer, 3/1)
