Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
The Atlantic: Now Is The Perfect Time To Role-Play A Pandemic
In October 2019, just a few months before a novel coronavirus sparked a deadly pandemic, a group of government officials, business leaders, and academics convened in New York City to role-play a scenario in which a novel coronavirus sparked a deadly pandemic. Their imagined virus leaped from livestock to farmers in Brazil, then spread to Portugal, the United States, and China. Soon, it was everywhere. Eighteen months later, 65 million people were dead. (Stern, 5/30)
The Washington Post: A Catatonic Woman Awakened After 20 Years. Her Story May Change Psychiatry
The young woman was catatonic, stuck at the nurses’ station — unmoving, unblinking and unknowing of where or who she was. Her name was April Burrell. Before she became a patient, April had been an outgoing, straight-A student majoring in accounting at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. But after a traumatic event when she was 21, April suddenly developed psychosis and became lost in a constant state of visual and auditory hallucinations. The former high school valedictorian could no longer communicate, bathe or take care of herself. (Sima, 6/1)
The New York Times: What Is Binge Eating Disorder? What To Know About Causes And Treatment
At 2 or 3 a.m., David Tedrow would hide the empty cardboard cereal box, shoving it into the bottom of the trash can or the back of the cupboard, where his wife wouldn’t notice it. Mr. Tedrow was in his 60s and retired, and he often slept until the afternoon so he could stay up late, after everyone else had gone to bed. During frantic late-night bursts, he would eat an entire box of cereal — Oatmeal Squares, Frosted Mini-Wheats, whatever was around — and then dispose of the evidence. He had eaten compulsively throughout his life, he said, but after months of going through a box of cereal each night, he decided to try to get help. (Blum, 5/31)
Military.Com: Poisoned Water: How A Navy Ship Dumped Fuel And Sickened Its Own Crew
Barely clothed Marines huddled exhausted next to their coffin-style bunks stacked to the ceiling below deck on the USS Boxer after midnight in March 2016. They were extremely tired after a long day resupplying their ship, moving crate after crate dropped off by helicopter. A couple of the Marines got up from their ad hoc campfire -- gathered around a flashlight -- to grab a drink from a nearby water fountain. But something was off. The pungent smell of diesel fuel radiated from the tap. The poison was flowing from their sinks and permeating the laundry machines, the odor filling the mess hall. They’d been told the water was safe, but the Marines reached another conclusion. (LaPorta, Toropin and Kime, 6/1)
The New York Times: A Poisonous Cold War Legacy That Defies a Solution
From 1950 to 1990, the U.S. Energy Department produced an average of four nuclear bombs every day, turning them out of hastily built factories with few environmental safeguards that left behind a vast legacy of toxic radioactive waste. Nowhere were the problems greater than at the Hanford Site in Washington State, where engineers sent to clean up the mess after the Cold War discovered 54 million gallons of highly radioactive sludge left from producing the plutonium in America’s atomic bombs, including the one dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in 1945. (Vartabedian, 5/31)
The New York Times: ‘Lots of Explosions and Shooting Outside’: Giving Birth in Wartime Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, and wounded many thousands more. The mental burden of the war has also exacted a heavy toll. For pregnant women, the stress can be particularly dangerous, with doctors and hospital officials warning about a sharp increase in maternal health problems such as premature births. (Varenikova, 6/2)
