Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
The Washington Post: How The 1918 Flu Pandemic Changed America: Working Women, Germaphobia
In 1920, Sen. Warren G. Harding campaigned for president on one of the blandest platforms in U.S. history. He promised neither hope nor change, nor making America great again. Instead, his slogan — which would help him win an unprecedented 60 percent of the popular vote — was a “return to normalcy.” "America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration; not agitation but adjustment; not surgery but serenity,” he told Americans in a speech four months before his victory. (McHugh, 11/13)
Dallas Morning News: What Hispanic Publications Reveal About The 1917-18 Influenza Pandemic
The 1917-18 flu pandemic was one of the most deadly infections, killing approximately 50 million people at its peak. Despite its severity and impact, information surrounding the pandemic was limited because of the heavy censorship during World War I. However, Hispanic publications of the time allow us to have a better understanding of the impact of this disease. (Lopez-Herrera, 11/15)
Vogue: What Is It Like To Have A Medication Abortion? 5 People Share Their Stories
Vogue recently spoke to five people who have had medication abortions—while making sure to protect their anonymity, given the increased criminalization of people seeking abortions in the U.S. over the last year—about why they opted for a medication versus surgical abortion, what their experiences were like, and what they wish they’d known beforehand. (Specter, 11/13)
The New York Times: Bringing Sexy Back — To Fight H.I.V.
Efforts to make sex safer almost always focus on the bad stuff: what to do to avoid a terrible infection or potentially deadly virus. They rarely acknowledge the good stuff: usually the reason people have sex in the first place. And that’s why safe sex campaigns throughout the world aren’t as effective as they could be. Research shows that when safe sex campaigns acknowledge pleasure — by talking about sex as something that makes life good, or showing how condoms can be erotic — more people use a condom the next time they have sex. (Nolen, 11/15)
The Wall Street Journal: How Meth Worsened The Fentanyl Crisis. ‘We Are In A Different World.’
When Jeannette Martinez hugged her grandson on the last night of his life, she could feel his heart pounding. “Rio, are you doing meth?” she asked. The powerful stimulant methamphetamine can cause cardiac strain, and Rio Ryan had complained of chest pains. Also alarming that evening in March: pinholes Ms. Martinez saw between Mr. Ryan’s fingers, where she said the 21-year-old injected drugs. He giggled in response. He died the next morning in his basement bedroom at his grandmother’s house. (Kamp and Campo-Flores, 11/14)
Harvard Public Health: Redressing The Racial Health Gap: A Harvard Symposium Examines The Public Health Case For Reparations To Black Descendants Of Slavery
As reparations to Black Americans for harms from centuries of slavery and structural racism has gained currency, it has mostly been discussed as monetary compensation for descendants of the formerly enslaved. A Nov. 3 symposium co-hosted by Harvard’s FXB Center for Health & Human Rights and Harvard Public Health magazine considered the issue from a different perspective—health. (Blanding, 11/15)
Also —
The Wall Street Journal: Stressed Out? Grab A Shovel And Dig A Hole
People around the world have discovered the joy of digging holes. TikTok is peppered with people showing the holes they’ve dug, often five or more feet deep. The video clips they upload often involve men—sometimes students on spring break—stripping to their waists and putting their backs into one physical, real-world thing for an extended period. Artists and scientists praise the benefits of digging holes for the raw focus it provides in a world full of distractions. (Hookway, 11/7)
The New York Times: How To Save Your Knees Without Giving Up Your Workout
Researchers have lately begun to rethink long-held dogmas about the properties of cartilage, the smooth layer of tissue that cushions the bones of the knee and other joints and whose breakdown is the primary cause of osteoarthritis. “Since cartilage doesn’t have a blood or nerve supply, we used to think it couldn’t adapt or repair itself,” said Michaela Khan, a doctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia and the lead author of the new review on running and cartilage, which was published in the journal Sports Medicine. But that’s not the case. (Hutchinson, 11/19)
Fortune: 10 Innovators Shaping The Future Of Health
Many of this year’s winners are finding creative solutions to systemic healthcare problems, from dramatically lowering the costs of prescription medication, and creating greater access to mental health services for communities of color, to building an easy-to-access opioid addiction recovery program with incredible retention rates. They’re business leaders, entrepreneurs, inventors, influencers, educators, and problem solvers. Each finalist has had a major accomplishment over the last year and is using their influence to increase health and wellness access and equity. (Brabaw, 11/16)
The Washington Post: Before FTX Collapse, Founder Poured Millions Into Pandemic Prevention
When the coronavirus pandemic hit and the world shut down in the spring of 2020, many mourned the loss of life, jobs and normalcy. Sam Bankman-Fried, then a 28-year-old cryptocurrency entrepreneur, and his brother Gabe, a 25-year-old congressional staffer, said the pandemic provided them with something else: an opportunity to make a difference. Harnessing the enormous wealth created by FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that Sam Bankman-Fried had founded, they undertook a project to spend potentially billions of dollars on pandemic prevention, a long-neglected priority on Capitol Hill even amid the coronavirus crisis. (Diamond, 11/16)
