Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads For The Holiday Break
The New York Times: Behind The Shortage Keeping Cancer Patients From Chemo
Stephanie Scanlan learned about the shortages of basic chemotherapy drugs this spring in the most frightening way. Two of the three drugs typically used to treat her rare bone cancer were too scarce. She would have to go forward without them. Ms. Scanlan, 56, the manager of a busy state office in Tallahassee, Fla., had sought the drugs for months as the cancer spread from her wrist to her rib to her spine. By summer it was clear that her left wrist and hand would need to be amputated. (Jewett, 12/19)
The New York Times: Possible Ways To Ease Drug Shortages
At several congressional hearings this year, ideas to fix drug shortages were as numerous as the number of scarce drugs. The rationing of key chemotherapies added urgency to the crisis. Two of these drugs, carboplatin and cisplatin, are inexpensive and are used to treat up to 20 percent of cancer patients, according to the National Institutes of Health. (Jewett, 12/19)
The Washington Post: Flashes, Shimmers And Blind Spots: Here’s What Migraine Aura Looks Like
Blurred vision. Shimmering lights. Blind spots. Zigzag lines. This is what migraine aura looks like. Migraine is a neurological disorder characterized by severe, even debilitating, pain on one side of the head, and can be accompanied by other symptoms such as aura, a sensory disturbance that can cause temporary visual impairment. The Washington Post spoke to four chronic-migraine sufferers about living with migraine aura. Based on their vivid descriptions, we created video illustrations to show what migraine auras look like through the eyes of people who suffer from them. (Ard and Monroe, 12/21)
Politico: ‘Sex Is A Normal Activity And Part Of Our Human Experience’
Dr. Leandro Mena has plenty of reasons to lie awake at night. Over the two years he led the CDC’s Division of STD Prevention, he’s seen sexually transmitted infections hit record levels, including the highest number of syphilis cases since the Truman administration. Then there’s the deeply troubling evolution of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea and the spate of outbreaks of the new virus mpox in LGBTQ communities. And don’t forget that Congress is eager to slash funding to combat all these crises. Meanwhile, stigma around sex and STDs remains pervasive — even in the medical community — which only makes it harder for people to get the help they need. “We, as a society, have a tremendous difficulty talking about sex and recognizing that sex is a normal activity and part of our human experience,” he said in an interview. (Ollstein, 12/17)
The New York Times: Is Biological Age Testing Accurate Or Useful?
If you’ve ever been to a high school reunion, you know that some people seem to age faster than others. Twenty-five years after graduation, one classmate can appear a decade younger than the rest, another a decade older. “People know that intuitively,” said Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, “but they don’t understand that it’s a biology that we’re trying to discover.” Scientists are working to quantify this phenomenon and put a number to a person’s “biological age” by looking at their cellular health instead of how many years they’ve been alive. (Smith, 12/19)
In global health news —
Bloomberg: World’s Oldest Lab Rats Contribute To Anti-Aging Research
In medical research, lab mice and rats die for us in great numbers. Sacrificed during or after experiments, they leave us with information that, over the years, has helped us understand diseases, develop medicines and map the functions of particular genes. But some aging-focused research projects require something else from these animals: that they stay alive, and healthy, for as long as possible. So in labs from North Dakota to Mumbai, select rodents grow old under heavy scrutiny.
AP: The War Took Away Their Limbs. Now Bionic Prostheses Empower Wounded Ukrainian Soldiers
When Alexis Cholas lost his right arm as a volunteer combat medic near the front lines in eastern Ukraine, his civilian career as a surgeon was over. But thanks to a new bionic arm, he was able to continue working in health care and is now a rehab specialist helping other amputees. The 26-year-old is delighted with his sleek black robotic arm — he described it as “love at first sight” — and realizes how lucky he was to get one. “There are fewer (bionic) arms available than lost ones,” Cholas said. (Arhirova, 12/22)
Stat: In Spain, A Hospital Brews Its Own CAR-T Therapy
Some of the patients waiting in the oncology ward of a hospital here, with its green-tiled floor and white walls, had arrived for a newfangled remedy for blood cancers, what’s known as a CAR-T therapy. The patients were not here for one of the brand-name medicines — a Kymriah or Yescarta — that have shown the power of these cell-based approaches and helped reap their makers hundreds of millions of dollars. Rather, they would be receiving a CAR-T brewed up right here at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. (Joseph, 12/19)
The New York Times: Mystery Amid An Anthrax Outbreak In Africa
Five African countries are battling outbreaks of anthrax, with nearly 1,200 people affected so far and 20 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. But the official tally belies confusion about the exact nature and scale of the outbreaks, which may complicate the efforts needed to contain them. Of the 1,166 presumed anthrax cases in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, only 35 have been confirmed with lab tests. That is not unusual or unreasonable, experts said, especially in regions with limited resources. But at least in Uganda, many of the presumed cases have resulted in negative tests for anthrax, raising the possibility that a second disease is circulating. (Mandavilli, 12/19)
The New York Times: New Hope — And An Old Hurdle — For A Terrible Disease With Terrible Treatments
Three years ago, Jesús Tilano went to a hospital in a thickly forested valley in Colombia with large open lesions on his nose, right arm and left hand. He was diagnosed with leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that is spread in the bite of a female sand fly and which plagues poor people who work in fields or forests across developing countries. He was prescribed a drug that required three injections a day for 20 days, each one agonizingly painful. Mr. Tilano, 85, had to make repeated expensive bus trips to town to get them. Then his kidneys started to fail, which is a common side effect of the drug, as are heart failure and liver damage. “The cure was worse than what I had before,” Mr. Tilano said. (Nolen, 12/19)
