Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: A Cancer Survivor's Tale; CIA's Mind Control Experiments; And Antibiotic Resistance
The Wall Street Journal: My Tale As A Cancer Survivor
Every year at about this time, I head west to Seattle. Surrounded by mountains and water, with the backdrop of the majestic Mount Rainier, the city is ideal for a pleasure trip in late summer or early fall. But I’m there for another reason: my annual checkup at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. It has been 27 years since I chose the Hutch, as it is known, as the best place to have a bone-marrow transplant, after being diagnosed with the blood cancer chronic myelogenous leukemia. (Landro, 9/15)
Politico: The Secret History Of Fort Detrick, The CIA’s Base For Mind Control Experiments
In 1954, a prison doctor in Kentucky isolated seven black inmates and fed them “double, triple and quadruple” doses of LSD for 77 days straight. No one knows what became of the victims. They may have died without knowing they were part of the CIA’s highly secretive program to develop ways to control minds—a program based out of a little-known Army base with a dark past, Fort Detrick. (Kinzer, 9/15)
Cincinnati Enquirer: Why The Poor Stay Poor. Or How Nothing Keeps The Playing Field Level
America is a nation built on hard work. History teems with tales of self-made men and women, of entrepreneurs and astronauts and presidents who started with little and achieved their dreams.But there’s mythology in that story, too. Tens of millions of poor Americans spend lifetimes working hard, only to find it isn’t enough.Kids who grow up in poverty are as much as 75 times more likely to be poor in adulthood than those who don’t. And workers struggling to overcome those odds are rewarded less for their labor than they used to be. (9/18)
Wired: Farm Animals Are The Next Big Antibiotic Resistance Threat
Across the world, the antibiotics that farmers use to prevent illness in their animals are losing effectiveness as bacteria develop antibiotic resistance. According to new research, it’s a huge problem, one that’s been masked by a longstanding focus on the risk that resistant bacteria pose to humans instead. This trend in the animal world carries a double danger. Long term, these resistant bacteria could travel to people, creating untreatable, hard-to-contain infections. (McKenna, 9/19)
CNN: This Med Student Was Given Last Rites Before Finding A Treatment That Saved His Life. His Method Could Help Millions
It was just after Christmas in 2013 and David Fajgenbaum was hovering a hair above death. He lay in a hospital bed at the University of Arkansas, stricken with a rare disease. His blood platelet count was so low that even a slight bump to his body could trigger a lethal brain bleed. A doctor told him to write his living will on a piece of paper. Fajgenbaum was rushed to a CT scan. Tears streamed down his face and fell on his hospital gown. (Prior, 9/14)
Politico: There’s A Reason We Don’t Know Much About AI
Last year, when the Food and Drug Administration approved an Apple Watch feature that notified users if they had an irregular heart rhythm, the information tech industry hailed it as a watershed moment in consumer-focused health care. Cardiologists, on the other hand, warned that the app could lead to privacy violations, unwarranted worrying and wasteful or even dangerous medical care. It might have been good to have an authoritative assessment of the new technology’s pros and cons. But in the United States, at least, that no longer happens. (Allen, 9/16)
