Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
For Children With Food Sensitivities, Sometimes Isolation Can Be More Detrimental Than The Allergy Itself
The New York Times: In A Children’s Theater Program, Drama Over A Peanut Allergy
It seemed like the perfect setting for a shy, thoughtful 10-year-old boy’s first steps on stage: a kids’ Shakespeare program that doesn’t hold auditions, guarantees everyone a substantial speaking role, emphasizes community, and excludes no one. Unless, as Mason Wicks-Lim and his mother Ali discovered, you have a life-threatening nut allergy. (Rabin, 1/16)
In case you missed it: Will I Always Face The Threat Of A Peanut-Laden Kiss Of Death?
Stat: Trial Will Be First Human Test Of Nobel-Winning Stem Cell Technique
Curing diabetes with stem cells? Everyone knew that would be hard. Parkinson’s disease? Harder. Alzheimer’s? Probably impossible. But age-related macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness? That was supposed to be low-hanging fruit. The cause of AMD is well-known, the recipe for turning stem cells into retinal cells works like a charm, and the eye is “immunoprivileged,” meaning immune cells don’t attack foreigners such as, say, lab-made retinal cells. Yet more than a decade after animal studies showed promise, and nearly eight years since retinal cells created from embryonic stem cells were safely transplanted into nine patients in a clinical trial, no one outside of a research setting (or a rogue clinic) is getting stem cell therapy for macular degeneration. (Begley, 1/16)
The Associated Press: Life In Limbo: Leftover Embryos Vex Clinics, Couples
Tens of thousands of embryos are stuck in limbo in fertility clinics, leftovers from pregnancy attempts and broken dreams of parenthood. Some are outright abandoned by people who quit paying storage fees and can't be found. In other cases, couples are struggling with tough decisions. Jenny Sammis can't bring herself to donate nearly a dozen of her extras to research. She and her husband agreed to do that when they made their embryos 15 years ago, but her feelings changed after using some of them to have children. (1/17)
Boston Globe: Report Raises Alarm About Physician Burnout
Physician burnout has reached alarming levels and now amounts to a public health crisis that threatens to undermine the doctor-patient relationship and the delivery of health care nationwide, according to a report from Massachusetts doctors to be released Thursday. The report — from the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — portrays a profession struggling with the unyielding demands of electronic health record systems and ever-growing regulatory burdens. (Dayal McCluskey, 1/17)
Stat: FDA Is Urged To Mandate Disclosure Of Clinical Trial Summaries As Pilot Stalls
One year after the Food and Drug Administration launched a voluntary pilot program to release clinical study reports, which are summaries of clinical trial data, only one company has provided any information about a drug. As a result, a group of academics is concerned the effort has stalled and is calling on the agency to make such disclosures mandatory. Clinical study reports help form the basis for regulatory approval decisions, but disclosure has long been a flashpoint among researchers and drug makers, prompting heated debate about patient privacy, trade secrets, and improving medical research. (Silverman, 1/16)
The New York Times: High-Dose Vitamin D No Better Than Low-Dose
Low blood levels of vitamin D are tied to bone loss that can lead to falls and fractures. But taking vitamin D supplements in high doses showed no benefits over low-dose vitamin D, a randomized trial found. The study, in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, included 379 British men and women whose average age was 75. They were divided into three groups and given monthly doses of vitamin D, equivalent to 400, 800 and 1,600 IU a day; there was no placebo group. The groups were well matched at the start for vitamin D blood levels, bone mineral density, height, weight, blood pressure and other factors. (Bakalar, 1/16)
The New York Times: Sleeping Less Than 6 Hours A Night Tied To Heart Disease
Sleeping less than six hours a night, and sleeping poorly, are associated with hardening of the arteries, a new study has found. Researchers used accelerometers attached to the waists of 3,974 healthy men and women, average age 46, to monitor the duration and quality of their sleep over seven nights. All underwent physical exams and three-dimensional ultrasound, an imaging system that evaluates blood flow through the blood vessels. The study is in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. (Bakalar, 1/16)
Wyoming Public Radio: Many Parents Are In The Dark About Their Kids' Mental Health Struggles
Suicide is currently the second leading cause of death for adolescents in the country. And in the Mountain West, youth suicide rates are double, and in some cases triple, the national average. Now, a new study shows parents are often unaware that their kids are struggling. (Budner, 1/16)
NPR: Aging Brains Stay Sharper With Daily Housework And Exercise
Want to reduce your risk of dementia in older age? Move as much as you can. We've all heard about techniques to get us more physically active — take the stairs, park the car a bit further from your destination, get up and march in place for a minute or two when standing or sitting at a desk. Now a study finds even simple housework like cooking or cleaning may make a difference in brain health in our 70s and 80s. (Neighmond, 1/16)
PBS NewsHour: Why More Millennials Are Becoming Caregivers
More young Americans are becoming caregivers to elderly or disabled family members, according to a recent study from Genworth Financial, a company that researches long-term care options. That is putting them under considerable stress as they seek to balance their loved ones’ needs with their own work, finances and need to care for their children. (Rohrich, 1/16)
Boston Globe: Could Your Cellphone’s Electromagnetic Field Make You Sick?
A California health activist says the Massachusetts Department of Public Health may be withholding information about possible health risks posed by cellphones and other wireless technologies. Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California Berkeley, said the state agency is refusing to release fact sheets about the health effects of electromagnetic fields, or EMF, that it began drafting two years ago. (Bray, 1/17)
NPR: When A Trip To The Doctor Leads To A Chat About Antibiotics
Sniffles, sore throats and fevers seem to be all around lately. If things get bad enough for you or a loved one to seek care, what are your expectations about treatment? Do you want a prescription for an antibiotic if symptoms suggest an infection? We decided to ask Americans in the latest NPR-IBM Watson Health Poll. We found that visits for symptoms that could be from an infection were common and that most people who saw a health professional under those circumstances got a prescription for an antibiotic. (Hensley, 1/16)
