Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Examining Racial Bias In eGFR Testing; Could We See The End Of Roe?
Stat: A Racially Biased Kidney Disease Test Delayed My Transplant
For the past few years, experts have criticized — and defended — the use of race in calculating an important number for people with kidney disease: the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). As a Black woman who has lived with kidney disease for decades, I learned the hard way that race should not be part of this equation. (Glenda V. Roberts, 11/1)
The New York Times: Roe Is As Good As Gone. It’s Time For A New Strategy
For the first time in a generation, the Supreme Court appears likely to overturn Roe v. Wade. The end of Roe need not herald the end of an era of reproductive freedom. It may instead launch a new strategy that protects the fundamental human right to decide whether to have children and raise them in safety and dignity. (Kathryn Kolbert and Julie F. Kay, 11/1)
East Bay Times: Texas Abortion Law Would Recreate Wild West Law Enforcement
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday on whether to allow a Justice Department suit to proceed against Texas’ near ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The final outcome is pivotal not only to women’s basic right to an abortion but also to sanctioning an unwelcome new era of citizen law enforcement. (10/30)
Seattle Times: Children Deserve Better: Increase Funding Of Pediatric-Cancer Research
Bald heads, children laughing, riding bicycles in the hall … these are the images I think of as a day in my life as a pediatric oncology nurse at Seattle Children’s Hospital. These are the moments I have ingrained into my memory when the dark days haunt me. Many of the days are not filled with laughter but rather tears from needle sticks, chemotherapy or bone marrow biopsies. Hard conversations and delivering bad news have become all too normal in my life. I remember holding the hand of a parent when they cried inconsolably after hearing, “Your child has cancer.” (Kristen Benjamin, 10/29)
Los Angeles Times: How Supply And Demand Have Driven The U.S. Drug Crisis Into The 'Synthetic Era'
At a party in Venice in September, four people overdosed from what they thought was cocaine, three of them dying before paramedics arrived. The cocaine they used reportedly contained fentanyl. The deaths were another example of what has taken place across the U.S. over the last few years as we have entered what I call the synthetic era of drugs — street dope made with chemicals; no plants involved. Synthetic drugs of various kinds have been around for decades, but none have come close to the supply and threat of the two staples now coming up from Mexico: fentanyl and methamphetamine. And with synthetic drugs, as with most other products both legal and illegal, supply shapes demand. (Sam Quinones, 10/31)
