Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Beneath The Bright, Tantalizing Promises Of Stem Cell Industry Festers A Dark Underbelly
ProPublica: The Birth-Tissue Profiteers
Their shoulders and backs and knees were giving out. Pills and steroid injections hadn’t eased their pain. They were scared of surgery. So, one afternoon last October, two dozen men and women, many of them white-haired, some leaning on canes, shuffled into a meeting room at Robson Ranch, a luxury retirement community in Denton, Texas. Sipping iced tea and clutching brochures that promised a pain-free tomorrow, they checked off their ailments on a questionnaire. They were there to see a presentation by Dr. David Greene, who was introduced as a “retired orthopedic surgeon.” Atlas Medical Center, a local clinic that specializes in pain treatment, hosted the event. Greene, a short, trim man with his hair slicked up, ignored the stage and microphone and stood close to his audience. After warming up the crowd with a joke about his inept golf skills, Greene launched into his sales pitch. A tiny vial no larger than the palm of his hand, he told the group, contains roughly 10 million live stem cells, harvested from the placenta, amniotic fluid, umbilical cord or amnion, the membrane that surrounds the fetus in the womb. Injected into a joint or spine, or delivered intravenously into the bloodstream, Greene told his listeners, those cells could ease whatever ailed them. (Chen, 5/7)
Los Angeles Times: Luke Perry And John Singleton Remind Us That Strokes Can Strike Younger Adults Too
Sudden weakness on one side of the body. Slurred speech. Loss of vision. Trouble with balance. Severe headaches. These are signs of a stroke. If it happened to someone close to you, would you know what to do? After the age of 55, the risk of a stroke doubles every decade, but younger people can be at risk too. In recent weeks, both 52-year-old actor Luke Perry and 51-year-old director John Singleton died after suffering a stroke. (Miller, 5/6)
The New York Times: Is Conference Room Air Making You Dumber?
You’re holed up with colleagues in a meeting room for two hours, hashing out a plan. Risks are weighed, decisions are made. Then, as you emerge, you realize it was much, much warmer and stuffier in there than in the rest of the office. Small rooms can build up heat and carbon dioxide from our breath — as well as other substances — to an extent that might surprise you. And as it happens, a small body of evidence suggests that when it comes to decision making, indoor air may matter more than we have realized. (Greenwood, 5/6)
CNN: Heart Failure Deaths Are On The Rise In Younger US Adults, Researchers Say
A recent decline in heart failure-related deaths in the United States has reversed, and those types of deaths are now climbing nationwide, especially among adults ages 35 to 64. The trend, which also revealed some racial disparities, was found in a research paper published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on Monday. The paper points to an increase in the prevalence of obesity and diabetes as possibly driving a parallel rise in heart failure deaths. (Howard, 5/6)
NPR: Anesthesia Gases Add To Global Warming, But Some Much Less Than Others
It's early morning in an operating theater at Providence Hospital in Portland, Ore. A middle-aged woman lies on the operating table, wrapped in blankets. Surgeons are about to cut out a cancerous growth in her stomach. But first, anesthesiologist Brian Chesebro puts her under by placing a mask over her face. "Now I'm breathing for her with this mask," he says. "And I'm delivering sevoflurane to her through this breathing circuit." (Foden-Vencil, 5/6)
CNN: Tyson Chicken Recall: Almost 12 Million Pounds Of Chicken Strips Might Have Metal
Tyson Foods has significantly expanded a recall of its chicken strips over concerns that some might be contaminated with pieces of metal, federal food safety officials said Friday. The recall now affects more than 11.8 million pounds of frozen, ready-to-eat chicken strip products that were shipped nationwide, up from more than 69,000 pounds when the recall initially was issued in March, the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a statement. (Hanna, 5/4)
The Washington Post: Rachel Evans Suffered From Brain Swelling Before She Died, Suggesting Encephalitis
The death of best-selling author Rachel Held Evans this past weekend came so quickly and mysteriously that it left many struggling to understand how such a young and vital person could come to her end after what seemed like such a routine diagnosis. Evans was widely admired for her willingness to wade into theological battles over the role of women, science, LGBT issues and politics, and her death has led to an outpouring of tributes and support for her family. The symptoms experienced by the 37-year-old writer do not fit into an easily explainable diagnosis, medical experts say. (Wan, 5/6)
