Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Ways To Outmaneuver Antibiotic-Resistant TB; ACAM2000 Monkeypox Shots Could Be Risky
NPR: TB Is Good At Resisting Antibiotics. Here Are Some New Ideas To Outsmart The Bacteria
Tuberculosis, or TB, is a bacterial infection of the lungs that can be fatal. The World Health Organization estimates 1.5 million people died of the disease worldwide in 2020. It remains a persistent foe in large part because the bacteria can mutate and evolve to develop resistance to our antibiotics (often within a patient, which can lead to relapse). (Ari Daniel, 8/11)
Stat: ACAM2000 Needs Full Review Before Being Used Against Monkeypox
The Food and Drug Administration licensed ACAM2000 in 2007 to immunize people at high risk of smallpox infection. There is moderate evidence the vaccine will also work against monkeypox, which is closely related to smallpox. (Caitlin Rivers and Tom Inglesby, 8/11)
The Washington Post: Gay Men Should Change Our Sexual Behavior To Fight Monkeypox
In March 1983, writer-activist Larry Kramer published a legendary screed in the New York Native entitled “1,112 And Counting” — a chilling reference to the U.S. AIDS case count two years into the plague. (Benjamin Ryan, 8/11)
San Diego Union-Tribune: Monkeypox Is Not A Sexually Transmitted Infection, Nor Is It Specific To The LGBTQ Community
In June, I remember seeing my friends in Europe starting to post on social media about this illness I hadn’t heard of before, monkeypox. Without shame or stigma, these men posted about how they believed they were exposed, discussed their symptoms and sent out compassionate warnings to their friends and followers. (Fernando Zweifach Lopez, 8/10)
Los Angeles Daily News: Pass Senate Bill 519, Decriminalize Psychedelics
With pending FDA trials almost certain to provide legal access to once-demonized drugs like MDMA (known as “ecstasy”) and psilocybin (the active compound in “magic mushrooms”) in the coming years, as well as the rise of microdosing, there is growing interest in psychedelic drugs and the laws around them. (8/10)
Stat: Psychedelics Research Should Focus On Delivering Therapy, Not Drugs
“How To Change Your Mind,” a new four-part documentary about psychedelics, has been hovering around Netflix’s Top 10 this summer. As someone who benefited immensely from therapeutic psychedelics, I am encouraged each time a documentary like this emerges into the mainstream, another sign that these important and beneficial medicines are gaining wider social acceptance. (Michael Pollack, 8/12)
The Boston Globe: Dying Of A Disease I Never Knew Existed
By this time next year, if the medical forecasts are correct, I will probably be dead, another casualty of a fatal illness that most people have never heard of. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), the condition from which I suffer, has been described by Michael J. Stephen in his 2021 book “Breath Taking” as the “most frustrating and disheartening of all the diseases in pulmonary medicine.” (Richard B. Woodward, 8/12)
