Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Deaths In Maria; The Apple Watch; And A Fake Town For Dementia
Quartz: How Many People Died In Hurricane Maria? An Investigation
Thousands of people were killed by Hurricane Maria. But the Puerto Rican government has only publicly identified 64 victims.An investigation by Quartz, Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism, and the Associated Press has identified 487 victims of Maria. It is the most extensive record yet of who died and why. Many families say that the real cause of death was government inaction. (Ana Campoy & Omaya Sosa Pascual, 9/14)
The Atlantic: How Useful Is The Apple Watch's Heart-Monitoring Feature?
It seems like the most obvious thing in the world: Generating more data about how your heart is working must be good, right? But in many cases—prostate cancer being the most famous example—checking (and monitoring and treating) people for a disease does not make their health outcome better. (Alexis C. Madrigal and Lolade Fadulu, 9/13)
BuzzFeed News: A Prison Study Aims To End The “Salt Wars.” It Turns Out The Salt Industry Wants To Help Fund It.
A huge study that aims to end a fierce debate over salt — by experimenting on prisoners — has undisclosed financial support from the salt industry, BuzzFeed News has learned.In the fall of 2017, the Salt Institute, an industry trade group, put funding toward early planning for the study, an apparent conflict of interest that was not disclosed in a May essay that proposed the idea and drew widespread media coverage. (Stephanie Lee, 9/18)
CityLab: What A Fake Town For Dementia Tells Us About Urban Design
On August 13, a brand-new town in Southern California welcomed its first residents. They trickled through the doors of a generic beige warehouse on a light-industrial stretch of Main Street in Chula Vista, a San Diego suburb. Then they emerged in Town Square®—a 9,000-square-foot working replica of a 1950s downtown, built and operated by the George G. Glenner Alzheimer’s Family Centers. Unlike the businesses around it hawking restaurant supplies and tires, Town Square trades in an intangible good: memories. (Amanda Kolson Hurley, 9/17)
Vox: Lower Sperm Counts Don’t Mean The Reproductive Apocalypse — Yet
It’s not just a sci-fi scenario in The Handmaid’s Tale: Actual scientists are worrying about a coming reproductive apocalypse.You heard me right. (Julia Belluz, 9/17)
