Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Clinical Trials; Soldiers On Drugs; 'Hollywood's Medicine Man'
The Wall Street Journal: Trials: A Desperate Fight To Save Kids And Change Science
Chris Hempel sometimes goes to the room of her 9-year-old twin girls, Addi and Cassi, to watch them sleep. In the doorway, she looks past a small table stacked with medicine and listens to them breathe. No one would ever guess. Even their mother forgets for a moment. When they sleep, they look like regular little girls. (Amy Dockser Marcus, 4/7)
The Atlantic: The Drugs That Built A Super Soldier
Since World War II, little research had determined whether amphetamine had a positive impact on soldiers’ performance, yet the American military readily supplied its troops in Vietnam with speed. “Pep pills” were usually distributed to men leaving for long-range reconnaissance missions and ambushes. The standard army instruction (20 milligrams of dextroamphetamine for 48 hours of combat readiness) was rarely followed; doses of amphetamine were issued, as one veteran put it, “like candies,” with no attention given to recommended dose or frequency of administration. (Lukasz Kamienski, 4/8)
The Boston Globe: For Parents Of Autistic Kids, 22nd Birthday Often Arrives With Dread
A child’s birthday is supposed to be a happy occasion. But for parents of children with autism, one birthday — the 22nd — is often a source of dread. (Beth Teitell, 4/13)
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Question Of Risk: Medtronic's Lost Study
For two years, Medtronic employees pored over the medical records that came flooding in from doctors and hospitals. They documented what happened to 3,600 patients who had received the firm’s pioneering bone-fusion product, called Infuse. The biotech device had won government approval for one specific type of back surgery. Medtronic hoped the records would build a case for a government blessing for a much wider use of Infuse in the multibillion-dollar spinal surgery field. (Jim Spencer, Joe Carlson and MaryJo Webster, 4/10)
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Read Medtronic's Response To The Star Tribune's Article On Its Infuse Device
This weekend, an article was published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that criticized Medtronic's handling of data collected during a retrospective chart review (RCR) of INFUSE Bone Graft between 2006-2008. The article makes insinuations that are false, and fails to include important information regarding the RCR and Medtronic's actions. (4/11)
STAT: Steven Soderbergh, Hollywood's Medicine Man, Explains How Science Became A Muse
Against his better judgment, Steven Soderbergh bought the brain pills. A filmmaker often described as cerebral and clinical doesn’t seem like an obvious mark for an “all-natural smart pill.” But when he saw an online ad last month promising to boost his brainpower, he couldn’t resist. (Dylan Scott, 4/12)
U.S. News And World Report: Fat? Your Doctor Can’t Help
When doctors diagnose health problems in patients, they tend to offer solutions: antibiotics for an infection, surgery to remove a tumor, insulin for diabetes. But for the most part that doesn't happen when the diagnosis is obesity. (Kimberly Leonard, 4/12)
BuzzFeed: Who Gets To Be The “Good Schizophrenic”?
Every morning, I take a small pink pill; every night, I take one-and-a-half of the same pink pill. This is, my psychiatrist reasons, what has kept me functioning for the last two years without hallucinations or delusions. But for most of 2013, I was a psychotic wreck. I refer to it as My Death Year. (Esmé Weijun Wang, 4/7)
