Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
Stat: Inside The Looming Crisis In The Infant Formula Market
Danielle and Andrew West spent their first month as parents praying their child would live. Their son Owen, born six weeks early in November 2015, developed necrotizing enterocolitis a few days after birth. The condition kills bowel tissue and is most common in preterm babies, where it is often deadly. The illness was sudden and mysterious. Their doctor could not tell them precisely where it had come from. (Lawrence, 1/21)
AP: How Scientists With Disabilities Are Making Labs More Accessible
The path to Lost Lake was steep and unpaved, lined with sharp rocks and holes. A group of scientists and students gingerly made their way, using canes or a helping hand to guide them. For those who couldn’t make the trek, a drone brought the lake — blue and narrow — into view. The field trip was designed to illustrate the challenges disabled researchers often face and how barriers can be overcome. “Just because you can’t do it like someone else doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” said Anita Marshall, a University of Florida geologist leading the outing. (Ramakrishnan, 1/18)
AP: How Baltimore Is Saving Lives By Offering Young Men Resources When They Put Down The Guns
With his dad in prison and his mom suffering from alcoholism, Malik Grant faced abandonment and instability early on. ... Two years later, Grant has an apartment and a full-time job with the city’s Department of Public Works. ... Grant, 29, is among about 200 people receiving support through Baltimore’s relatively new Group Violence Reduction Strategy, which targets the root causes of gun violence: hopelessness, joblessness, poverty, mental health, substance abuse, housing instability, poor conflict resolution and more. (Skene, 1/19)
The New York Times: How Trump Was Persuaded to Pardon an Online Drug Kingpin
Libertarian and crypto allies of Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for distributing drugs on his Silk Road website, leveraged President Trump’s desire for political support to secure his release. (Yaffe-Bellany and Mac, 1/22)
Politico: What Samantha Power Regrets And Her Advice To The Trump Administration
For a self-proclaimed idealist like Samantha Power, the last four years have been tough. As administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, she’s been a key player in delivering U.S. assistance to Ukraine and managing responses to humanitarian crises in Armenia, Haiti, Sudan, Congo and other regions of the world. And of course, no humanitarian crisis in recent memory has been quite as devastating and all-consuming for the U.S. aid agency as the war between Israel and Hamas, which has left the Gaza Strip in ruins. In an exit interview with POLITICO Magazine, Power voiced regret that the Biden administration wasn’t able to stop the war more quickly. (Gramer and Bazail-Eimil, 1/19)
