Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Expensive ERs; Ending HIV; And Gun Injury Data
NPR's Fresh Air: Why An ER Visit Can Cost So Much — Even For Those With Health Insurance
Vox reporter Sarah Kliff spent over a year reading thousands of ER bills and investigating the reasons behind the costs, including hidden fees, overpriced supplies and out-of-network doctors. (3/13)
The New Yorker: The London Patient And A Plan To End The H.I.V. Epidemic In The United States
Stunning success in medicine can be born from abject failure. This week, researchers reported in the journal Nature what they hope will be a triumph: a man in London who had H.I.V. and may have been cured of the infection. (Jerome Groopman, 3/9)
WIRED: When It Comes To Disease, Why Wait For A Pandemic To Respond?
At approximately 2:05 pm on March 23, 2018, the first death occurred. The victim was just 14 years old, a student at Sarasota Military Academy Prep in Florida. He had a rasping cough and spiked a fever, and soon became so weak that he had to be taken out on a stretcher as classmates looked on in terror. Stunned teachers tried to allay the students’ fears, but two more students soon fell ill, and chaos overcame the school. (Andres Colubri, Todd Brown & Pardis C Sabeti, 3/19)
FiveThirtyEight: The CDC’s Gun Injury Data Is Becoming Even Less Reliable
Every year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues an estimate of the number of people nonfatally injured by guns, but even by the agency’s own standards, its recent numbers may not be trustworthy. This year’s estimate is less reliable than ever. (Sean Campbell and Daniel Nass, 3/11)
The New York Times: The Tragedy Of Baltimore
On April 27, 2015, Shantay Guy was driving her 13-year-old son home across Baltimore from a doctor’s appointment when something — a rock, a brick, she wasn’t sure what — hit her car. Her phone was turned off, so she had not realized that protests and violence had broken out in the city that afternoon, following the funeral of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old man who drew national attention eight days earlier when he died after suffering injuries in police custody. As she saw what was happening — fires being set, young people and police officers converging on the nearby vortex of the disorder — she pushed her son, Brandon, down in his seat and sped home. (Alec MacGillis, 3/12)
Vox: Abortions By Mail: The FDA Is Going After Online Pill Providers
The US Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on organizations that sell medical abortion pills over the internet. In a warning letter released Tuesday, the agency requested that the online abortion pill provider AidAccess.org immediately stop selling unapproved versions of the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol and respond to FDA concerns within 15 working days outlining how it will correct its regulatory violations. (Julia Belluz, 3/12)
