Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
The New York Times: It’s Never Too Late To Pivot From N.F.L. Safety To Neurosurgeon
It had been one month without football for Myron Rolle, an N.F.L. safety, and he was foundering. Mr. Rolle was just 25, and his pro football career looked grim: He was released in 2011 after three unremarkable seasons with the Tennessee Titans and had failed in his attempt to make the Pittsburgh Steelers’ roster. Without the structure and rigor of a football career, he struggled to make sense of what would come next. Mr. Rolle had always had a Plan B. He had been a hot-tempered kid, but at 11, his older brother, Marshawn, gave him a copy of “Gifted Hands,” Dr. Ben Carson’s popular 1990 memoir that detailed how Dr. Carson went from being an inner-city youth with poor grades to the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. (Bergeron, 10/11)
Scientific American: A Supersmeller Can Detect The Scent Of Parkinson's, Leading To An Experimental Test For The Illness
A Scottish woman named Joy Milne made headlines in 2015 for an unusual talent: her ability to sniff out people afflicted with Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative illness that is estimated to affect nearly a million people in the U.S. alone. Since then a group of scientists in the U.K. has been working with Milne to pinpoint the molecules that give Parkinson’s its distinct olfactory signature. The team has now zeroed in on a set of molecules specific to the disease—and has created a simple skin-swab-based test to detect them. (Kwon, 10/11)
The Washington Post: Fighting Ebola In The Age Of Covid
Perhaps the most crucial change since the 2014 Ebola outbreak is obvious: The world suffered through a global pandemic with coronavirus. On paper, Ebola may look like a far scarier prospect than the coronavirus that began spreading from Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Even during the first wave of the pandemic, its fatality rate peaked at less than 15 percent in the worst-hit countries and, it is now below 1 percent in much of the world. But the coronavirus traveled far more easily than Ebola. It could spread through droplets in the air, whereas Ebola required spreads through physical contact with bodily fluids from someone who is sick or has died from the virus. (Taylor, 10/12)
Undark: A New, Transparent AI Tool May Help Detect Blood Poisoning
Each year in the United States, sepsis kills over a quarter million people — more than stroke, diabetes, or lung cancer. One reason for all this carnage is that sepsis isn’t well understood, and if not detected in time, it’s essentially a death sentence. Consequently, much research has focused on catching sepsis early, but the disease’s complexity has plagued existing clinical support systems — electronic tools that use pop-up alerts to improve patient care — with low accuracy and high rates of false alarm. That may soon change. Back in July, Johns Hopkins researchers published a trio of studies in Nature Medicine and npj Digital Medicine, showcasing an early warning system that uses artificial intelligence. (Bajaj, 10/12)
The New York Times: How Social Media Amplifies Misinformation More Than Information
It is well known that social media amplifies misinformation and other harmful content. The Integrity Institute, an advocacy group, is now trying to measure exactly how much — and on Thursday it began publishing results that it plans to update each week through the midterm elections on Nov. 8. The institute’s initial report, posted online, found that a “well-crafted lie” will get more engagements than typical, truthful content and that some features of social media sites and their algorithms contribute to the spread of misinformation. (Myers, 10/13)
