Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
The Wall Street Journal: Cancer Runs In Families. Too Few Are Getting Tested.
Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider knew what her father’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis meant for his future. She didn’t realize what it meant for her own cancer risk. Steven Ungerleider’s doctors ordered genetic testing in 2022 to see if his cancer might respond to a new treatment. They found he had a mutation in the BRCA2 gene, which raises risks for cancers including pancreatic, breast and ovarian—and can be passed from parents to children. Ungerleider and her sister got tested and discovered they had the same mutation. (Abbott, 8/28)
The Wall Street Journal: How We Age—And How Scientists Are Working To Turn Back The Clock
Scientists obsessed with aging are sketching a road map of how our bodies change as we grow old in the hopes that it will lead to treatments that could help us live longer, healthier lives. They call this road map the “hallmarks of aging”—a set of biological features and mechanisms linked to our inexorable march toward death. Over the past decade, the hallmarks have helped guide the development of drugs that clear away cells that have stopped dividing and gene therapies that appear to restore cells to a more youthful state. (Mosbergen, 8/26)
The Wall Street Journal: A Sperm Donor Chases A Role In The Lives Of The 96 Children He Fathered
Dylan Stone-Miller took a 9,000-mile road trip this summer to see some of his 96 children. Emotionally, logistically, in all ways, it is complicated for the kids, their families and for Stone-Miller, a prolific 32-year-old sperm donor. His road trip is part of a larger odyssey—to figure out how he fits in the lives of the boys and girls he fathered in absentia. It began three years ago, when he first saw a photo of one of his biological children, a toddler named Harper who had his blue eyes and his sister’s blond curls. He got tears, he recalled, and unexpected feelings of kinship. (Marcus, 8/27)
The Washington Post: Millennials Are Tired Of Trying To Be Perfect Moms
For generations, mothers have shouldered the weight of an illusory ideal, the daunting societal standards that shape our perception of what motherhood should be. This pressure is particularly acute for millennial moms who arrived at parenthood in the age of social media, with a deluge of imagery and information constantly at their fingertips. There are parenting forums and TikTok stars and experts and influencers, discussing what the latest study reveals about screen time, how you should respond when your child has an emotional outburst, why the colors you choose to decorate a child’s bedroom might affect their mental health. There are friends and fellow parents, posting carefully curated snapshots of their family lives. (Gibson, 8/28)
The New York Times: The Unusual Legal Agreement Behind ‘The Blind Side’
Under Tennessee law, courts set up conservatorships to protect a person “with a disability who lacks capacity to make decisions in one or more important areas.” Conservators are often relatives or caretakers. But the Tuohys never said Michael Oher was disabled and couldn’t make his own decisions. Indeed, their petition stated that he had been examined by a physician and had “no known physical or psychological disabilities.” They didn’t specify a reason for the conservatorship, only that Oher had no assets and wanted to live with them, and that they had the means to take care of him. (Nerkar, 8/24)
