Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
'Brain Hackers' Turning To Smart Drug To Enhance Cognitive Abilities
The Washington Post: Tweaking Brains With ‘Smart Drugs’ To Get Ahead In Silicon Valley
George Burke has a talent for tossing back his daily cocktail — which contains vitamins, minerals, muscle-building compounds, some little-known research drugs and a microdose of LSD — in almost a single gulp. It’s a weird but handy trick for someone who swallows 25 pills a day, most of them purchases off the Internet. Burke credits the regimen with giving him the cognitive edge he needs to thrive in California’s Silicon Valley, where he’s the co-founder of a food service that caters to athletes and fitness devotees. (Solovitch, 6/11)
NPR: Will Baby Boxes Really Keep Children Safer?
When Maisha Watson heard about baby boxes, her first reaction was: "Why would I want to put my baby in a box?" She was talking with Marcia Virgil — "Miss Marcia" to her clients — a family support worker with the Southern New Jersey Perinatal Cooperative. True, it's a cardboard box, Miss Marcia told her. But it's also a safe place for a baby to sleep: It comes with a firm mattress and a snug sheet, in line with American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations meant to protect against sleep-related deaths, including sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. (Pao, 6/12)
The New York Times: Michigan Case Adds U.S. Dimension To Debate On Genital Mutilation
As more details emerge about the first-ever charges of female genital mutilation in the United States, the case is opening a window onto a small immigrant community, while stirring impassioned discussion about genital cutting among women who have experienced it. At a hearing in Michigan this past week, a federal prosecutor said the defendants — two doctors and a clinic manager from a small Shiite Muslim sect — were believed to have arranged cutting for up to 100 girls since 2005. The prosecutor, Sara Woodward, said investigators had so far identified eight girls. (Belluck, 6/10)
The Baltimore Sun: Day Passes For Vulnerable Patients Of Psychiatric Hospitals Can Have Dangerous, Even Fatal Consequences
The use of day and overnight passes, sometimes called home passes, trial passes, leave of absence or convalescent leave, by psychiatric hospitals is part of a patient's recovery process, even in cases where the patient is in long-term care, said Vaile Wright, a psychologist and director of research at the American Psychological Association. Spending time outside the hospital can prepare patients for returning to independent life...But such passes are not without risk. On occasion, patients out on a pass either seriously harmed or killed themselves or others, or committed violent assaults and other crimes. Other patients used the passes to escape the treatment facilities and evade being returned. (Woodruff, 6/9)
Stat: CRISPR Pioneer Doudna Foresees World Of Woolly Mammoths And Unicorns
A biochemist who co-led a breakthrough 2012 study of CRISPR-Cas9, [Jennifer] Doudna repeatedly emphasized in interviews the challenges of repurposing the molecular system, which bacteria use to fend off viruses, to edit human genomes. The U.S. patent office, in a February ruling that let the Broad keep its CRISPR patents (for now), relied heavily on those statements — “We weren’t sure if CRISPR/Cas9 would work in … animal cells,” for example — to conclude that when scientists at the Broad CRISPR’d human cells in 2013, it was a non-obvious advance and therefore deserving of patents. (Begley, 6/11)
NPR: Got Cancer Questions? This Little-Known Hotline Can Help
If you were worried you had cancer, who would you call for information? Chances are a federally-funded cancer helpline isn't the first place that pops into your mind. But for 40 years, a helpline funded primarily by the National Cancer Institute has been answering people's questions about cancer. (Columbus, 6/9)
Kaiser Health News: Why Many Cancer Patients Don’t Have Answers
In the past four years, Bruce Mead-e has undergone two major surgeries, multiple rounds of radiation and chemotherapy to treat his lung cancer.Yet in all that time, doctors never told him or his husband whether the cancer was curable — or likely to take Mead-e’s life. “We haven’t asked about cure or how much time I have,” said Mead-e, 63, of Georgetown, Del., in a May interview. “We haven’t asked, and he hasn’t offered. I guess we have our heads in the sand.” (Szabo, 6/12)
