Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
In The Wake Of A Hurricane: Public Health Threats Linger Long After Wind And Rain Dies Down
The Washington Post: The Health Dangers Don’t Stop With A Hurricane’s Churning. They Can Get Worse.
In coming weeks, long after Hurricane Florence’s winds and rains have faded, its aftermath will still pose life-threatening hazards: snakes, submerged sharp objects, bacterial infections and disease-carrying mosquitoes. People are trapped by floodwaters and facing dwindling supplies of medicines, food and drinking water. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a danger as people crank up portable generators, and respiratory viruses will circulate in crammed shelters. (Wan, Sun and Johnson, 9/17)
Stat: In Florence's Path, Drug Plants Avoided Worst-Case Scenarios
Before Florence pummeled the East Coast, ultimately killing at least 17 people and causing untold millions in damage, some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies wrestled with a major dilemma: Should they suspend operations at manufacturing plants in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, risking shortages of important drugs and vaccines? GlaxoSmithKline chose to close a plant that makes asthma inhalers, while Novartis shut down a facility that manufactures oral-dosage generic drugs. Pfizer and Merck, meanwhile, decided to scale back operations at multiple North Carolina facilities, closing some entirely. (Blau, 9/17)
The Washington Post: Trapped In A Flood, She Struggled To Hold Onto Her Baby Son — Then The Waters Ripped Him Away
When Dazia Lee tries to bring order to the disorder of that night, it helps her to think in numbers. She thinks of the exact times of every decision, every call, every bit of bad news — reference points leading until the very last when, at 10:20 a.m. on Monday, she received a call from a county detective saying that the body of her 1-year-old son, Kaiden, had been found 15 feet underwater. (McCoy, 9/17)
The Washington Post: Rivers, Death Toll And Environmental Hazards Still Rising In Carolinas As Flooding Sets Records
The death toll from Hurricane Florence rose Monday to 32, and the misery in the Carolinas might be many days from cresting. The historic storm has disrupted life for millions of people, and the surging floodwaters have spawned an environmental calamity across a vast region pocked with manure ponds and coal ash pits. (Sullivan, Siegel, Berman and Achenbach, 9/17)
The Washington Post: For Farmworkers And Homeless, Florence Has Been Especially Harsh
Stephen Smith spent Sunday night sleeping in the stairwell of a parking garage as Florence continued to lash this city, days after the hurricane made landfall nearby. He hadn’t eaten for two days, and his feet ached from walking to and from the homeless shelter where he usually sleeps, to check whether it had reopened. He had stayed in a hotel for three nights, but his money ran out. His preferred park bench at a nearby lake was covered with tree branches. So he opted for the stairwell. (Siegel, Zezima and Phillips, 9/17)
