Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed

The Washington Post: Scientists Begin To Unravel The Mysteries Of The Coronavirus And Brains 
In the coronavirus pandemic’s early weeks, in neuropathology departments around the world, scientists wrestled with a question: Should they cut open the skulls of patients who died of covid-19 and extract their brains? Autopsy staff at Columbia University in New York were hesitant. Sawing into bone creates dust, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had issued a warning about the bodies of covid patients — airborne debris from autopsies could be an infectious hazard. (Guarino and Sellers, 6/7)

The Washington Post: Vaccinated Travel: Is It Ethical To Visit Countries With Low Vaccination Rates? 
Like billions of people around the world, lockdowns throughout the pandemic caused Courtney Shay deep frustration. The American expat who has lived in Istanbul for nearly nine years wasn’t only exasperated by indefinite timelines or feeling trapped at home — it was the incoming tourists, too. By April 2021, all of her friends and family in the United States were getting vaccinated while she continued to deal with curfews and restrictions, waiting for her own shot. Unable to fly or drive out of town, Shay watched tourists stroll the city, sightseeing. (Compton and Sampson, 6/8)

The New York Times: Sweet Cherries, Bitter Politics: Two Farm Stands And The Nation’s Divides 
The two farm stands lie just 12 miles apart along Route 31, a straight, flat road running through a bucolic wonderland of cherry orchards and crystalline lakes in northwestern Michigan. Yet when one stand instituted a no mask, no service rule last July and the other went to court to combat the state’s mask mandate, they set in motion a split that still ripples across Antrim County. (MacFarquhar, 6/6)

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CNN: From 'Geriatric Pregnancy' To '35+ Pregnancy:' A Better Way To Talk To Pregnant People 
Ours is not a culture that makes life easy for pregnant people. There's the side-eye from busybody strangers, in disapproval of a coffee order or workout routine (or lack thereof). There are the bosses and colleagues who refuse to accommodate their pregnant employees, in ways subtle and not. ... One might hope that the doctor's office, a site of reason and science, would be an island of support and empathy amid the sea of judgment. So often, it's anything but. "Hostile uterus." "Geriatric pregnancy." "Failed pregnancy." "Lazy ovary." Peanut, a social network for mothers, has heard again and again the pain, frustration and anger these terms have caused its members. These are all relatively common sentiments, according to research. This spring, Peanut decided to try to help. Its staff convened a panel including a linguist, obstetrician and two psychologists and tasked them with rewriting the phrases used to describe pregnancy and early parenthood. The resulting glossary, which they're calling the Renaming Revolution, includes more than 60 new and improved, nonjudgmental medical terms. It's one piece of a broader, ongoing effort to make conception and pregnancy language more humane. (Strauss, 6/8)

ABC News: 'Sex After 6 Weeks' And Other Postpartum Consents Some Women Aren't Ready For 
A mother of two is addressing postpartum well-being and the care she says women actually need. "Birth is a major trauma to the body,” Jesse Truelove of Guymon, Oklahoma, told "Good Morning America." "Not only a C-section, because that’s obviously a major abdominal surgery, but giving birth vaginally is major trauma. There's stretching and tearing of ligaments and connective tissues, and you also carried a baby for nine months." (Pelletiere, 6/8)

The New York Times: We Could All Use A Health Coach 
Are you among the 133 million Americans suffering from one or more chronic health conditions? Conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, arthritis, respiratory or digestive disease, among others that can diminish the quality of your life? How well do you understand your condition and its treatment? Do you know how to minimize potentially disabling effects and delay its progression? Are you having difficulty following your doctor’s advice? Or maybe you’re currently healthy but one or more of your habits could ultimately undermine your health and result in a chronic disorder. In either case, you’d likely benefit from the help of a health coach. (Brody, 6/7)

The Washington Post: How To Jump Rope For Exercise, Safely And Effectively 
If you think jumping rope is for “girls in their skirts, jumping on a playground,” Alysia Mattson suggests you reconsider. “It’s way more of a badass sport than that,” said the 28-year-old Seattle jump-rope maven. When she was without access to the gym and sick of Zoom workouts during shutdowns in April 2020, she bought one of the few pieces of fitness equipment that hadn’t sold out — a jump-rope. Since then, Mattson has found camaraderie in the online jump-rope community, which she said has seen its numbers “skyrocket” since the pandemic started. (Moore, 6/2)

The New York Times: How To Be Happy
All humans have a tendency to be a bit more like Eeyore than Tigger, to ruminate more on bad experiences than positive ones. It’s an evolutionary adaptation — over-learning from the dangerous or hurtful situations we encounter through life (bullying, trauma, betrayal) helps us avoid them in the future and react quickly in a crisis. But that means you have to work a little harder to train your brain to conquer negative thoughts. Here’s how. (Parker-Pope, 6/8)

The Atlantic: Commuting Has Surprising Mental-Health Benefits 
Back when commuting was a requirement for going to work, I once passed through a subway tunnel so filthy and crowded that the poem inscribed on its ceiling seemed like a cruel joke. “overslept, / so tired. / if late, / get fired. / why bother? / why the pain? / just go home / do it again.” “The Commuter’s Lament,” which adorns a subterranean passage in New York City’s 42nd Street station, made the already grim ritual of getting to and from work positively Dante-esque. But no one questioned the gist of it. The commute, according to the Nobel Prize–winning economist Daniel Kahneman’s research, ranked as the single most miserable part of our day. A Swiss study held long commutes responsible for “systematically lower subjective well-being.” (Useem, 6/9)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Breast Cancer Patients Face Insurance Denials That Complicate Recovery: ‘The Emotional Toll Was Enormous’
Federal and state laws require that health insurance cover breast reconstruction following a mastectomy, as well as any follow-up procedures to restore symmetry between the breasts. But patients often struggle to get insurance coverage for surgery to restore the appearance of other parts of their bodies when tissue was harvested for reconstruction. The process of appealing insurance denials can be daunting, especially for people who are physically and emotionally exhausted after cancer treatment and recovery. Those unable to navigate the denials process may ultimately go without the followup care. “At a time when a woman is literally fighting for her life in receiving breast cancer treatments and a very disfiguring surgery, she should not have to fight her insurance company,” said Pat Halpin-Murphy, president of PA Breast Cancer Coalition. “She needs all her energy to heal.” (Gantz, 6/9)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Coffee Lovers Going Into The Hospital Might Consider Post-Surgery Caffeine Withdrawal
Given that 90% of adults are caffeine users, you’d think that hospitals might consider what those orders not to eat or drink before and after surgical procedures might mean for people who have to miss their daily doses of coffee, tea, or Diet Coke. Caffeine withdrawal = fatigue, nausea, muscle pain, and wicked headaches. Jeffrey Goldberger, a University of Miami cardiologist and electrophysiologist, admits that he, like other doctors he knows, didn’t give it much thought until last fall when he and his son-in-law discussed how 25 hours of fasting for the Jewish holidays affects coffee drinkers. “People get all kinds of crazy ideas about how to avoid the coffee withdrawal,” he said. (Burling, 6/9)

The New York Times: Looking To Tackle Prescription Overload 
The last straw, for Leslie Hawkins, was her mother’s 93rd-birthday gathering in 2018. Her mother, Mary E. Harrison, had long contended with multiple health problems, including diabetes and the nerve pain it can cause; hypertension; anxiety; and some cognitive decline. She was prone to falling. Still, she had been a sociable, churchgoing nonagenarian until Ms. Hawkins, who cared for her in their shared home in Takoma Park, Md., began seeing disturbing changes. (Span, 6/7)

The New York Times: A Multibillion-Dollar Plan To End Polio, And Soon 
As the world adjusts to the idea of coexisting with the coronavirus for the foreseeable future, global health organizations are laying plans to eradicate another scourge that has already lingered for thousands of years: poliovirus. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a public-private partnership led by national governments and health groups, on Wednesday released a $5.1 billion plan to eradicate polio by 2026. (Mandavilli, 6/9)