Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
How CTE Unraveled The Life Of A Young Football Player
The New York Times: A Football Player’s Descent Into Pain And Paranoia
As Daniel Te’o-Nesheim’s sister picked through her brother’s belongings after the former N.F.L. defensive lineman died last year, she came across a plastic container filled with several pages from a journal he kept during his days in pro football — a scrawled catalog of his seemingly endless injuries and attempted treatments. The entries are a sad coda to a life cut tragically short. (Belson, 9/27)
Stat: Can Genetic Tests Gauge How Well Antidepressants Will Work?
It can be notoriously difficult for psychiatrists and patients to determine which antidepressant might be most effective, or which might cause side effects. And so Color Genomics, a company that already sells genetic tests to determine someone’s risk of developing certain cancers, said this week that it will also begin to offer a DNA test to determine how well widely used antidepressants are likely to work for patients. (Robbins, 9/28)
The New York Times: Caffeine May Increase Pain Tolerance
Consuming caffeine regularly may increase the ability to withstand pain, a small study suggests. Researchers recruited 62 men and women, ages 19 to 77, and had them record their daily caffeine intake from coffee, tea, soda, energy drinks and chocolate. They averaged 170 milligrams of caffeine a day, about the amount in two cups of coffee, although 15 percent of the group consumed more than 400 milligrams a day. The study is in Psychopharmacology. (Bakalar, 9/27)
The Washington Post: For Back Pain, The Subtle Moves Of The Feldenkrais Method Can Help Some People Find Relief
In my first Feldenkrais class, we lay on our backs with eyes closed and drifted our eyeballs left to right and back again. We shifted our heads from side to side as our eyes followed in their sockets. Then we changed it up, moving our eyes in the opposite direction from our heads. This may sound like a simple sequence. It’s deceptively challenging. And it continued for an hour, with sitting variations, eyes alternately open and shut, a brain workout that included tracking our thumbs as our bent arms moved at eye level from left to right and back again. (Rein, 9/27)
Stat: You Have Questions About How To Analyze Clinical Trials. We Have Answers
The other day, we hosted an hourlong webinar on how to analyze clinical trials to best spot red flags before they cause trouble. The response was terrific and we thank you for your interest. But because we only had a limited time for the webinar, we weren’t able to address all of your questions. We have collected some more and compiled the responses below. (Feuerstein and Begley, 9/28)
Politico Pro: DEA Clears Cannabis-Based Seizure Drug For Sale
The Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday morning categorized a cannabis-based seizure medicine as a schedule V drug, clearing the path for the FDA-approved drug to go to market. GW Pharma’s Epidiolex was approved by FDA in June to treat two rare types of childhood epilepsy. (Owermohle, 9/27)
Reveal: 5 People Died From Eating Lettuce, But Trump’s FDA Still Won’t Make Farms Test Water For Bacteria
For more than a decade, it’s been clear that there’s a gaping hole in American food safety: Growers aren’t required to test their irrigation water for pathogens such as E. coli. As a result, contaminated water can end up on fruits and vegetables. (Shogren and Neilson, 9/27)
Kaiser Health News: KHN Conversation On Overtreatment
From duplicate blood tests to unnecessary knee replacements, millions of American undergo screenings, scans and treatments that offer little or no benefit every year. Doctors have estimated that 21 percent of medical care is unnecessary — a problem that costs the health care system at least $210 billion a year. Such “overtreatment” isn’t just expensive. It can harm patients. (9/27)
