Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Cherokee Nation's Aggressive Program For Treating Hep C Eyed As Potential National Treatment Model
The Associated Press: Cherokee Nation Lauded For Hepatitis C Elimination Effort
Recovering addict Judith Anderson figures if she hadn't entered a program that caught and treated the hepatitis C she contracted after years of intravenous drug use, she wouldn't be alive to convince others to get checked out. The 74-year-old resident of Sallisaw, Oklahoma — about 160 miles (257 kilometers) east of Oklahoma City near the Arkansas border — said the potentially fatal liver disease sapped her of energy and "any desire to go anywhere or do anything." (Juozapavicius, 5/16)
The Associated Press: More US Adults Try Vaping But Current Use Is Down, Data Show
New research shows 1 in 7 U.S. adults have tried electronic cigarettes. That's an increase but it's offset by a small decline in the number currently using the devices. About 3 percent of adults were current users in 2016, down from almost 4 percent in 2014, the study found. Adults who said they have tried vaping at least once reached just over 15 percent in 2016, versus 12.6 percent in 2014. That means an estimated 33 million U.S. adults have tried e-cigarettes, said University of Iowa researcher Dr. Wei Bao, the lead author. (Tanner, 5/15)
The Washington Post: Exploding Vape Pen Death: Man Dies After Pieces Strike His Head, Autopsy Says
A 38-year-old man in Florida was killed when his vape pen exploded, sending projectiles into his head and causing a small fire in his house, in what is believed to be one of the first deaths from an e-cigarette explosion. Tallmadge D’Elia was found May 5 in the burning bedroom of his family’s home in St. Petersburg, according to the Tampa Bay Times. An autopsy report released his week blamed a vape pen explosion for his death, according to local news media outlets. The cause of death was listed as “projectile wound of head” — the pen exploded into pieces, at least two of which were sent into his head, the report said — and he suffered burns on about 80 percent of his body. (Rosenberg, 5/16)
The Washington Post: More Men With Low-Risk Prostate Cancer Are Forgoing Aggressive Treatment
American doctors are successfully persuading increasing numbers of men with low-risk prostate cancer to reject immediate surgery and radiation in favor of surveillance, a trend that is sparing men's sexual health without increasing their risk of death. The latest evidence that more men are postponing aggressive therapy unless their symptoms worsen came in a large study published Tuesday that involved more than 125,000 veterans diagnosed with nonaggressive prostate cancer between 2005 and 2015. (McGinley, 5/15)
The New York Times: Broke Your Right Arm? Exercise Your Left. It May Help, Really.
If you sprain an ankle or break a wrist this summer and cannot use one of your limbs, the muscles there will weaken and shrink — unless you exercise those same muscles in your other limb. According to a fascinating new study, working out the muscles on one side of our bodies can keep the muscles on the other side strong and fit, even if we do not move them at all. The finding has implications for injury recovery and also underscores how capable and confounding our bodies can be. (Reynolds, 5/16)
NPR: Children Get Fewer Antibiotics
Children and adolescents are getting fewer prescription drugs than they did in years past, according to a study that looks at a cross-section of the American population. "The decrease in antibiotic use is really what's driving this overall decline in prescription medication use that we're seeing in children and adolescents," says Craig Hales, a preventive medicine physician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics and lead author of a study published Tuesday in JAMA. (Harris, 5/15)
The New York Times: Yanny Or Laurel: Which Do You Hear? You’re Right
Three years ago, the internet melted down over the color of a dress. Now an audio file has friends, family members and office mates questioning one another’s hearing, and their own. Is the robot voice saying “Yanny” or “Laurel”? The clip picked up steam after a debate erupted on Reddit this week, and it has since been circulated widely on social media. (Salam, 5/15)
The New York Times: Scientists Made Snails Remember Something That Never Happened To Them
Transferring memories from one living thing to another sounds like the plot of an episode of “Black Mirror.” But it may be more realistic than it sounds — at least for snails. In a paper published Monday in the journal eNeuro, scientists at the University of California-Los Angeles reported that when they transferred molecules from the brain cells of trained snails to untrained snails, the animals behaved as if they remembered the trained snails’ experiences. (Greenwood, 5/15)
