Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Foreign Doctors Can Again Get Visas Allowing Them To Practice In US
The New York Times: Doctors From Countries Under Travel Ban Now Allowed to Stay in U.S.
Foreign doctors will be able to receive visas allowing them to practice in the United States, after the Trump administration quietly changed a policy to exempt them from a travel ban. A Department of Homeland Security policy stemming from a travel ban that was put in place in January had frozen decisions on visa extensions, work permits and green cards for citizens of 39 countries. As The New York Times reported last month, some physicians were subsequently placed on administrative leave by hospitals, and many others faced the imminent threat of being forced to stop working. (Jordan, 5/3)
Stat: Immigration Changes Are Driving Foreign Researchers To Leave The U.S. — Or Not Come To Begin With
The budding scientist had left India for the U.S. for her Ph.D., because as she saw it, no other country offered the same opportunities for researchers. Set to finish her doctorate this summer, she also had a postdoctoral fellowship lined up in America. Now those plans have changed. (Joseph, 5/4)
The Washington Post: Internal ICE Records Reveal Widespread Use Of Force In Detention Centers
The reports detail how guards have increasingly used chemical agents and physical tactics on detainees, including groups demanding adequate water, food and medical care. (MacMillan, Ba Tran, Cornejo and Melgar, 5/4)
Mississippi Today: The Population Of This Giant Mississippi ICE Facility Has Plummeted In 3 Weeks. ICE Says That’s Normal.
The number of detainees at Mississippi’s Adams County Correctional Center appears to have nosedived in the past few weeks, leaving several housing units vacant. (Joshi, 5/1)
More Trump administration updates —
Politico: The New Surgeon General Nominee Has A MAHA Problem
Leaders in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement are outraged over President Donald Trump’s surgeon general nominee switch. Since Trump announced on Thursday that Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News medical contributor, would replace Casey Means, a close ally of the health secretary, as the president’s pick for the nation’s “top doctor,” they’ve rushed to social media to share why they believe Trump’s decision is short sighted. (Friedman, 5/2)
KFF Health News: HHS’ Healthy Food Agenda Puts Hospitals On Notice About Patients’ Meals
Complaints about hospital food are certainly not new, and Jell-O and fruit juice are often the butt of related jokes. But the Trump administration has recently upped the ante. It is urging the public to report hospitals and nursing homes that serve sugary drinks, nutrition shakes, or meals that it says don’t meet dietary guidelines established last year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with officials vowing to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding if violations occur. (Armour, 5/4)
The New York Times: A Long, Strange Trip: How The G.O.P. Came To Embrace Psychedelic Drugs
Mindbending may be just the word to describe the Oval Office ceremony on April 18, when President Trump ordered federal agencies to speed up research into the potential therapeutic uses of illegal psychedelic compounds like LSD, peyote and MDMA. Here was a law-and-order Republican and lifelong teetotaler championing the hallucinogenic substances that a previous Republican president, Richard Nixon, had condemned as “public enemy No. 1.” (Jacobs, 5/3)
Also —
The Washington Post: Diagnosed With Colon Cancer At 36, She Spent Her Last Years Helping Others With The Disease
The daughter of Iranian immigrants, Asal Sayas worked in the White House and Senate, lobbied for AIDS research and became a tireless champion for people with cancer. (Smith, 5/2)
