Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
FTC Files Complaints Against Two Stem Cell Clinics Offering 'Miracle' Treatments For Autism, Parkinson's
Stat: Feds Crack Down On Stem Cell Clinics That Touted Autism Treatments, Blindness Cures
For the first time, the Federal Trade Commission has cracked down on stem cell clinics for overzealous marketing claims, filing a complaint against two California clinics that promoted their treatments for everything from autism to Parkinson’s despite a lack of evidence. As part of a proposed settlement announced Thursday, the FTC is requiring the clinics — Regenerative Medical Group and Telehealth Medical Group — and their owner, Dr. Bryn Jarald Henderson, to stop making such claims and to inform past and current patients about the settlement. (Joseph, 10/18)
The Washington Post: Scientists Argue Heart Stem Cell Trial Should Be Paused
Days after Harvard Medical School said it found extensive falsified or fabricated data from the laboratory of a prominent heart researcher, doctors and scientists are urging a halt to a medical trial based in part on his work. They say that sick people should not be subjected to the risks of an experiment whose underlying science has been called into question. In the ongoing, taxpayer-funded trial, cardiac stem cells are injected into the hearts of people with heart failure, in the hopes that those cells — alone or in combination with others — will improve patients’ heart function. (Johnson, 10/18)
Bloomberg: Biohackers Are Implanting Everything From Magnets To Sex Toys
Research house Gartner Inc. identified do-it-yourself biohacking as one of five technology trends—others include artificial intelligence and blockchain—with the potential to disrupt businesses. The human augmentation market, which includes implants as well as bionic limbs and fledgling computer-brain connections, will grow more than tenfold, to $2.3 billion, by 2025, as industries as diverse as health care, defense, sports, and manufacturing adopt such technologies, researcher OG Analysis predicts. “We’re only at the beginning of this trend,” says Oliver Bendel, a professor at the University of Applied Sciences & Arts Northwestern Switzerland who specializes in machine ethics. (Nicola, 10/19)
Stat: With Genome Sequencing, Some Sick Infants Are Getting A Shot At Healthy Lives
When babies become intensely ill, it can be difficult to know what has gone wrong. But the answer, quite often, is hidden somewhere in their genes. Whole-genome sequencing — in which scientists can read the nearly 3 billion chemical letters in DNA — can help turn up that answer. And scientists, increasingly, are laying out a case for using that tool in an intensive care setting, despite the upfront costs. (Keshavan, 10/19)
The Washington Post: Parents Of Children With AFM Warn About Rare Polio-Like Condition
It started with a sinus infection. Then 4-year-old Camdyn Carr couldn’t move the right side of his face or lift his arm to scratch his nose. His parents decided to take him a couple of hours away to see doctors who might be able to figure out what had afflicted their young boy. But as they drove from their Roanoke home to the University of Virginia, Carr’s whole body seized up and he was suddenly paralyzed. (McDaniels, 10/18)
Stat: An Ebola Outbreak Presents A New Mystery Involving Children
Epidemiologists working on the world’s latest Ebola outbreak are racing to try to solve a mystery. Why have so many children — some still infants — been infected with the virus? The disproportionate number of recent infections among children in the Democratic Republic of Congo — specifically in Beni, the outbreak’s current hot spot — has come as a surprise; typically young children don’t make up a big proportion of cases during an Ebola outbreak. (Branswell, 10/19)
Los Angeles Times: The More Equal Women And Men Are, The Less They Want The Same Things, Study Finds
Imagine an egalitarian society that treats women and men with equal respect, where both sexes are afforded the same opportunities, and the economy is strong. What would happen to gender differences in this utopia? Would they dissolve? The answer, according to a new study, is a resounding no. The findings, published Thursday in Science, suggest that on the contrary, gender differences across six key personality traits — altruism, trust, risk, patience, and positive and negative reciprocity — increase in richer and more gender-equal societies. Meanwhile, in societies that are poorer and less egalitarian, these gender differences shrink. (Netburn, 10/18)
NPR: Letting Sunlight Indoors Kills Disease-Causing Bacteria
Even before Florence Nightingale advised that hospitals be designed to let daylight in, people observed that sunshine helps keep you healthy. But there was not much research to explain why that's the case, especially inside buildings. Researchers at the University of Oregon set up a study of dusty, dollhouse-size rooms to compare what happens in rooms exposed to daylight through regular glass, rooms exposed to only ultraviolet light and those kept dark. They used a mix of dust collected from actual homes in the Portland area and let the miniature rooms sit outdoors while keeping the insides at a normal room temperature. (O'Neil, 10/18)
The Oregonian: Facebook Bad For Your Mental Health? New OHSU Study Says In-Person Is Better
A new study says that face-to-face contact may buffer people from mental illness in a way that Facebook and other social media won't. An Oregon Health & Science University study said that a large group of veterans were found to experience mental health issues 50 percent less if they spent more time around loved ones over those who mostly socialized online. The science about whether social media is making us more anxious or depressed is mixed. Some doctors say there is a clear link between increased rates of youth mental illness and social media culture. (Harbarger, 10/18)
