Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Bad Flu Season Still Claiming Lives, CDC Reports, But It Is Tapering Off As Coronavirus Continues
NPR: U.S. Flu Season Tapering Off, But Still Claiming Lives
While health officials in the United States wait to see just how bad a public health challenge COVID-19 will pose, they still have to deal with an all-too-familiar challenge: flu. It's been a bad flu season. Not the worst ever, but bad. "It started very early this year," says Emily Martin, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collecting statistics about flu. (Palca, 3/9)
CBS News: Flu Has Killed 20,000 Americans So Far This Season, Including 136 Children, CDC Says
As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided a grim reminder of the toll that the flu has taken on Americans. The CDC said that so far this season, about 20,000 people have died of the flu, including 136 children. The CDC's most recent flu report says that as of February 29, hospitalization rates among children aged 4 and under were the highest on record at this point in the season, surpassing rates reported during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. The 136 children's deaths also mark the highest on record since the 2009 pandemic. (Smith, 3/9)
The Wall Street Journal: New Intelligence On How The Female Brain Works
Lisa Mosconi, a neuroscientist and director of the Women’s Brain Initiative at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, focuses her research on what she says is one of the most under-researched, underdiagnosed and underrated fields in medicine: the female brain and women’s brain health. In her new book, “The XX Brain,” which comes out March 10, she explains the differences between the female and male brains and explores the different ways the brain affects women’s health. She offers practical tips on how to optimize brain health and discusses the unique risks women have for developing Alzheimer’s disease and actions they can take to help prevent it. (Reddy, 3/9)
The Washington Post: Obesity Now Affects 42 Percent Of U.S. Adults, CDC Says
Some 42.4 percent of U.S. adults now qualify as obese, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with no real difference in prevalence between men and women. People who are obese have a body mass index (BMI) — which is an indicator of body fatness calculated from a person’s height and weight — of 30 or higher. Those with a BMI of 40 or higher, described as having extreme obesity, represent 9.2 percent of the adult population, with women outnumbering men. (Searing, 3/9)
Kaiser Health News: As Youth Suicides Climb, Anguished Parents Begin To Speak Out
Alec Murray was 13. He enjoyed camping, fishing and skiing. At home, it was video games, movies and books. Having just completed middle school with “almost straight A’s,” those grades were going to earn him an iPhone for his upcoming birthday. Instead, he killed himself on June 8 — the first day of summer break. (Jayson, 3/10)
Kaiser Health News: Heart Association Puts Halt To Bayer’s Giant Displays Of Baby Aspirin
The large red-and-white bins at Walmart pharmacies across the country read, in bold all-caps type: “Approximately every 40 seconds an American will have a heart attack. ”Inside the 3-foot-tall cartons, adorned with the American Heart Association and Bayer logos, were dozens of boxes of low-dose Bayer aspirin.The implication was that everyone could reduce their heart attack risk by taking a “baby aspirin.” But recent studies have found that’s not the case. (Galewitz, 3/10)
