Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
How Do Companies Offer Mail-Order DNA Without Inadvertently Playing Part In Creation Of Biological Weapons?
Stat: In The Age Of Mail-Order DNA, Firm Seeks To Balance Safety And Progress
Imagine being a store owner who sells machines without knowing exactly what they do. Some of your products could help farmers grow more nutritious crops while a few others could spread disease among thousands of people. Part of your inventory would do nothing at all. This is the quandary facing many biotech companies that specialize in synthesizing or printing DNA. By selling genes, they have empowered synthetic biologists seeking to genetically engineer organisms capable of fighting disease or producing industrial materials. (Chen, 7/6)
Reuters: U.S. Private Citizen Cites Mystery Illness Symptoms After China Visit
A U.S. private citizen who visited China has reported symptoms like those of U.S. diplomats afflicted with a mysterious illness in Havana and Guangzhou, a U.S. State Department official said on Thursday. The person, who was not named by the department official, is the first non-official American known to have experienced the symptoms following a trip to China. Nineteen private U.S. citizens have reported similar symptoms after traveling to Cuba. (Mohammed, 7/5)
Stat: New Approach To Breast Cancer Screening May Save Lives And Money
Preventive care experts have been divided for years on how to best counsel women on when to get breast cancer screenings. But a new study suggests that women might benefit from individualized approaches to mammograms rather than from universal guidelines. The study, published Thursday in JAMA Oncology, looks at personalized screening protocols tailored to each woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. The study showed that not offering mammograms to women at low risk for breast cancer might reduce the harms associated with screening, while still maintaining the benefits. And it might even be more cost-effective. (Farber, 7/5)
Los Angeles Times: To Reduce Your Risk Of Obesity, It Helps To Have A Mom Who Follows Five Healthy Habits
Mothers lead the way for their children. And new research finds that the paths that moms walk (or the couches they sit and smoke on) make a powerful difference in their children’s propensity to become obese. A study that tracked close to 17,000 female nurses and their 24,289 kids has found that women who practiced five healthy habits — maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly, eating a nutritious diet, consuming no more than moderate quantities of alcohol and not smoking cigarettes — had adolescents that were 75% less likely to be very overweight than the children of moms who practiced none of those healthy habits. (Healy, 7/5)
NPR: Family Caregivers Need Support, Too, Say Alzheimer's Advocates
Vicki Bartholomew started a support group for wives who are caring for a husband with Alzheimer's Disease because she needed that sort of group herself. They meet every month in a conference room at a new memory care facility in Nashville called Abe's Garden, where Bartholomew's husband was one of the first residents — a Vietnam veteran and prominent attorney in Nashville. "My husband's still living, and now I'm in an even more difficult situation — I'm married, but I'm a widow," she says. (Farmer, 7/6)
The New York Times: Airline Crew Have Higher Cancer Rates
Working as a flight attendant may increase the risk for cancer. Flight attendants are exposed to several factors known to increase cancer risk, including disrupted sleep patterns and exposure to the increased levels of cosmic ionizing radiation at high altitudes. (Bakalar, 7/5)
The New York Times: It’s Hot Out. Here Are Some Tips To Stay Cool.
In Boston, some women are using parasols for shade. In New York City, children frolic in the spray of opened sidewalk fire hydrants. And in Lexington, Ky., people celebrating the Fourth of July clutched battery-operated hand-held fans. Americans expend as much effort improvising ways to escape the heat of summer as they do reveling in its rituals at pools, picnics and beaches, and in outdoor activities. (Hauser, 7/6)
Atlanta Journal Constitution: Type 2 Diabetes, Type 1 Diabetes Risk Higher For Overworking Women
New research published Monday in the journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research and Care suggests another diabetes risk factor for women: overworking. ...They found that women who worked an average of 45 hours or more had a 63 percent higher risk of developing diabetes compared to those working 35-40 hours per week. (Pirani, 7/5)
Health News Florida: Are You A Carrier? JScreen Wants To Test People For Genetic Diseases — Before Kids Enter The Picture
JScreen is a non-profit public health initiative dedicated to preventing Jewish genetic diseases. It is based at Emory University in Atlanta. For $149, the test will tell you if you are a carrier for more than 200 genetic diseases. (Haden, 7/5)
NPR: Discovering Charles Dickens' Medical And Public Health Legacy
In London, there's a museum dedicated to Charles Dickens, housed in his old, lovingly preserved home near the King's Cross rail station. There are over 200 museums in London. This one wasn't anywhere near the top of my list. I hated the compulsory Dickens assignments in high school. To teenage me, slogging through the unremitting hopelessness of Great Expectations was absolutely agonizing. Bleak House? I couldn't get past the name. And as for the 743 pages of The Pickwick Papers? I was so traumatized by the other novels that I skipped the book and went straight to a study guide. (Silberner, 7/5)
