Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Celebrities And Opioids; America's Abortion Capital; And Guideline.gov
The Village Voice: Dying To Entertain Us: Celebrities Keep ODing On Opioids And No One Cares
When mid-century matinee idol Rock Hudson appeared alongside Doris Day at a press conference in July 1985 looking glassy-eyed and skeletal, the scattered members of the early AIDS activism movement cautiously rejoice. (Benjamin Ryan, 7/17)
The New York Times: Before Roe, New York Was America’s ‘Abortion Capital.’ Where Will Women Turn If Access Shrinks?
In 1971, Pamela Mason was a college freshman living in Ohio when she got pregnant. She knew immediately that she wanted an abortion, but the procedure was heavily restricted in her state. Still, she wanted to find a way. The clinic near her university’s campus referred her to an abortion clinic in Manhattan, and when she was about 10 weeks along, Ms. Mason and her boyfriend scraped together enough money to drive to New York City. (Jacobs, 7/19)
Vox: Federal Budget Cuts Are A Blow To Evidence-Based Medical Training
You might never have heard of Guideline.gov, the online home of the National Guidance Clearinghouse, but Bonnie Jerome-D’Emilia sure had. She’s a nursing professor at Rutgers University. She used it to help teach her nurse practitioner training programs. (Dylan Scott, 7/17)
Wired: Crispr Can Speed Up Nature—And Change How We Grow Food
What makes this greenhouse different—what makes it arguably an epicenter of a revolution in plant biology that may forever change not just the future of the tomato but the future of many crops—is that 90 percent of the tomato plants in the building had been genetically altered using the wizardly new gene-editing tool known as Crispr/Cas-9. (Stephen S. Hall, 7/17)
The Atlantic: What Role Do Herpes Viruses Play In Alzheimer’s?
In 1907, the German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer published a description of a 50-year-old woman who suffered from memory problems, hallucinations, and delusions. In the woman’s brain, Alzheimer noticed unusual lumps, or “plaques,” which “were caused by the deposition of an unusual substance.” Eight decades later, the mystery substance was finally identified as a protein called amyloid beta. (Ed Yong, 7/12)
