Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
AP: Loved Or Hated, Fauci’s Parting Advice: Stick To The Science
In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he leaves excited by the prospect of advances such as next-generation coronavirus vaccines -- but worried that misinformation and outright lies mark a “profoundly dangerous” time for public health and science. “Untruths abound and we almost normalize untruths,” Fauci said. “I worry about my own field of health, but I also worry about the country.” (Neergaard, 12/19)
The Washington Post: Doctor Brings Smiles To Thousands Of Anxious NICU Parents By Playing Santa
Robert Sinkin was a doctor in training the first time he donned a fake white beard and a red velvet Santa suit in 1984. (Free, 12/22)
The Washington Post: 5 Easy Steps To Be Healthier In The New Year
Did you focus on self-care this year? Make and keep the necessary doctor’s appointments? Prioritize family and relationships? Here’s a checklist of five key areas of health, and easy-to-follow advice for how to make them a priority in the new year. (Parker-Pope, 12/22)
The Washington Post: Want To Drink Less In 2023? These Habit-Tracking Apps Can Help
This year, Mel Turnage decided to stop self-harming. Finding an easy-to-use “habit-tracking” app so she could log how often she cut herself was a priority. ... Now, it’s been 20 days since she cut herself. (Hunger, 12/21)
The Boston Globe: The ‘Mozart Effect’ Is Bunk. But Your Brain On Music Is Still A Wondrous Thing
In 1993, three dozen college students filed into a lab in Irvine, Calif., to take part in an unusual experiment. The lead researcher, Frances Rauscher, a red-haired woman in her late 30s and a former child prodigy, had abandoned her career as a concert cellist, burned out by the grind of performing gala recitals in Paris and New York. In her new life as an experimental psychologist, she dedicated herself to studying the cognitive benefits of music, especially Mozart. (Barton, 12/21)
NPR: Time Cells In The Brain Help Record Memories In The Right Sequence
Time is woven into our personal memories. Recall a childhood fall from a bike and the brain replays the entire episode in excruciating detail: the glimpse of wet leaves on the road ahead, the moment of weightless dread, and then the painful impact. This exact sequence has been embedded in the memory, thanks to some special neurons known as time cells. (Hamilton, 12/20)
The New York Times: Welcome To The Menopause Gold Rush
We’re in the middle of a menopause gold rush. The market is flooding with high-profile, well-funded menopause-related beauty products and telemedicine start-ups, as well as a growing roster of celebrities willing to admit it’s happening to them. There’s the potential not only for a big cultural shift to happen, but for some number of people to profit off it. (Larocca, 12/20)
Bloomberg: The Golden Age Of Cocaine Is Happening Right Now
The biggest cocaine boom in history has its origins outside towns like La Dorada, Colombia. Here, a few miles down a rutted track through the Amazon, cattle ranches and fish farms give way to endless fields of coca, the pale green shrub used for making the drug. (Bristow, 12/20)
Politico: Racist Doctors And Organ Thieves: Why So Many Black People Distrust The Health Care System
One Friday in 1968, a 54-year-old Black laborer named Bruce Tucker fell off a brick ledge, suffering what would prove to be a fatal head injury. The next afternoon, May 25, his heart was sewn into the chest of a white business executive named Joseph Klett, also 54, at the Medical College of Virginia. It was one of the first heart transplants in the country, and it gave the med school the status it had sought at the forefront of transplant science. Tucker’s family hadn’t consented. In fact, they didn’t even learn about the transplant until the funeral home in Stony Creek, Va., told them that there was something peculiar about the dead man’s body. It was missing its kidneys and its heart. (Kenen and Batchlor, 12/18)
The New York Times: How NYU’s Emergency Room Favors The Rich
In New York University’s busy Manhattan emergency department, Room 20 is special. Steps away from the hospital’s ambulance bay, the room is outfitted with equipment to perform critical procedures or isolate those with highly infectious diseases. Doctors say Room 20 is usually reserved for two types of patients: Those whose lives are on the line. And those who are V.I.P.s. (Kliff and Silver-Greenberg, 12/22)
News from around the world —
CBS News/AFP: Italian Police Use Lamborghini Supercar To Deliver Kidneys To Donor Patients Hundreds Of Miles Apart
Italian police used a specially adapted Lamborghini supercar to deliver two kidneys to donor patients on Tuesday hundreds of miles apart, they announced. "Traveling on the motorway to deliver the most beautiful Christmas present: life," they said in a statement posted on social media, alongside a picture of a medical cool box in a purpose-built compartment at the front of the Huracan. (12/20)
AP: Sidecar Ambulances Help Moms Give Birth In India
Motorbike ambulances are helping mothers give birth in Naryanpur district, in central India’s Chhattisgarh state. The heavily forested district is one of India’s most sparsely populated, with about 139,820 inhabitants spread over an area larger than Delaware. ... While authorities and health workers agree that bike ambulances don’t offer a long-term solution, they are making a difference. (Qadri and Ghosal, 12/22)
Reuters: China Lacked A 'Zero COVID' Exit Plan. Its People Are Paying The Price.
At the public hospital in Shanghai where Nora, a 30-year-old doctor, works, tension has spiraled since China relaxed its stringent zero-COVID policy on Dec. 7. Patients quarrel with doctors to access drugs that are in short supply, like cough medicines and pain killers. Medics are overloaded; infected staff continue to work because of a scarcity of personnel. (Master and Stanway, 12/22)
