Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
The Wall Street Journal: McDonald’s Starts Making Self-Service Easier For Blind Diners
McDonald’s Corp. is upgrading some of its self-service kiosks to make them more accessible to blind people. Company-owned McDonald’s restaurants are mounting new keypads and headphone jacks onto the touch-screen kiosks it introduced in 2015 as alternatives to ordering at the counter. Blind users can connect their headphones to the system and browse the digital menu using screen-reader technology and tactile arrow buttons, adding items to their basket by pressing a central button. (Deighton, 9/17)
The New York Times: Specialty Pharmacies Cater To The Blind And Those With Impaired Vision
During the pandemic, Curtis Chong has avoided the 2-½ hour journey to his grocery store pharmacy — including a round-trip bus ride — to pick up his prescription. Even though Mr. Chong, a retiree in Aurora, Colo., said he is readily identifiable as a blind person, because he uses a white cane for mobility, his pharmacist never suggested he could have his medications labeled in an accessible way. Through a Zoom meeting, Mr. Chong learned about Accessible Pharmacy Services, a start-up, that now delivers his medication with labels that convert text to speech. (Brockman, 9/21)
Also —
NBC News: Denver Husbands Are 'a Perfect Match' In Love — And Kidneys
Plenty of couples think they’re made for each other, but Denver husbands Reid Alexander and Rafael Díaz have medical proof. When Alexander, 24, needed a new kidney, Díaz, 28, turned out to be an ideal donor for the lifesaving organ. “It just feels like it was meant to be,” Díaz said. Alexander had been diagnosed at 17 with Alport syndrome, a genetic condition that scars the kidneys and eventually leads to renal failure. (Avery, 9/23)
The New York Times: Taking The ‘Shame Part’ Out Of Female Anatomy
Allison Draper loved anatomy class. As a first-year medical student at the University of Miami, she found the language clear, precise, functional. She could look up the Latin term for almost any body part and get an idea of where it was and what it did. The flexor carpi ulnaris, for instance, is a muscle in the forearm that bends the wrist — exactly as its name suggests. Then one day she looked up the pudendal nerve, which provides sensation to the vagina and vulva, or outer female genitalia. The term derived from the Latin verb pudere: to be ashamed. The shame nerve, Ms. Draper noted: “I was like, What? Excuse me?” (Gross, 9/21)
The Washington Post: On World Alzheimer’s Day, The Black Doctor Who Helped Decode The Disease
As the world’s population ages, the number of people suffering from dementia — 50 million in 2020 — is expected to nearly double every 20 years. Alzheimer’s, the most prevalent form of dementia, understandably commands the most attention, as does the doctor, Alois Alzheimer, for whom it is named. The history of Alzheimer’s, however, has one curiously neglected figure: Solomon Carter Fuller, a neurologist, the first U.S. psychiatrist of African descent — and the person who, in the early stages of Alzheimer’s research, arguably did the most to reveal the true nature of the disease. (Cavanaugh, 9/21)
Bozeman Daily Chronicle: Death Café In Livingston Provides A Space To Talk About Mortality
White paper signs provided a sort of bread-crumb trail up to the second floor of the Shane Lalani Center for the Arts. In a room next to a darkened rehearsal space, Mariana Olsen and her husband Will Bernard were busy putting out coffee and snacks. On a small table next to Oreos and other treats was a plastic skull that Bernard named Edward wearing a flat-brimmed hat, silently welcoming visitors to the town’s first ever Death Café. The purpose of a Death Café is not to focus on the macabre or gruesome aspects of dying. Rather, it serves as a communal space where people can discuss all things death-related, from the immediate feelings of losing a loved one to funeral expenses and the administrative side of death, all while enjoying coffee, tea and snacks. (Miller, 9/20)
The Washington Post: Thousands Of Bodies Go Unclaimed In The United States Every Year
Twenty miles outside Phoenix in a desolate cemetery, a funeral director opened the door of a black minivan, dusty from the desert dirt. He lifted out the remains of Marjorie Anderson, her ashes inside a plastic urn transported in a cardboard Costco box. An Episcopal chaplain and a few county workers were on hand for her burial, but nobody was there who knew Anderson, a 51-year-old mother of two. Her urn looked exactly the same as 13 others placed alongside the edge of a freshly dug trench. (Jordan and Sullivan, 9/17)
The Wall Street Journal: Antivaping Campaign Highlights Mental Health By Pitching ‘Depression Sticks’
Antitobacco organization Truth Initiative recently hawked a new vaping product to stores and ad agencies, but it wasn’t actually looking to make any sales. The product, the Depression Stick, wasn’t real. It was fabricated to be used as part of a larger marketing campaign titled “We’re Messing With Your Heads,” which aims to convince teenagers that there is a correlation between nicotine products and anxiety and depression. (Bruell, 9/19)
NBC News: How Televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker Became An Unlikely Ally In The AIDS Crisis
On Nov. 15, 1985, just two months after President Ronald Reagan finally uttered the word “AIDS” publicly, the televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker did something considered bold and fearless at the time: She interviewed a gay man living with HIV on live television and treated him with compassion. “How sad that we as Christians — who are to be the salt of the earth, we who are supposed to be able to love everyone — are afraid so badly of an AIDS patient that we will not go up and put our arm around them and tell them that we care,” Bakker said tearfully during her 24-minute interview with Steve Pieters. (Kacala, 9/17)
In stories from around the globe —
The Atlantic: The Cult Of Virginity Just Won’t Let Go
This fall, Britain is poised to ban virginity tests—and will consider banning hymen-repair surgery too. That would be an impressive victory, because in an era that prioritizes novel and sensational issues, feminists find it hard to sustain interest in slow, incremental campaigns against harmful traditions. (Lewis, 9/16)
The New York Times: In Spain, Abortions Are Legal, But Many Doctors Refuse To Perform Them
Dr. Mercedes Sobreviela, a gynecologist in this city in northeast Spain, believes it is a woman’s choice whether she has an abortion. She says the “right decision” for a woman is “always the one she wants.” But as a physician in Spain, Dr. Sobreviela believes she has the right to choose as well, and she has chosen not to perform abortions. Her public hospital, University Clinic Hospital of Zaragoza, does not perform them either. In fact, no public hospital in the surrounding region of Aragón, which includes 1.3 million people, will do the procedure. (Casey, 9/21)
AP: China Keeps Virus At Bay At High Cost Ahead Of Olympics
The Beizhong International Travel Agency in the eastern city of Tianjin has had only one customer since coronavirus outbreaks that began in July prompted Chinese leaders to renew city lockdowns and travel controls. Most of China is virus-free, but the abrupt, severe response to outbreaks has left would-be tourists jittery about traveling to places they might be barred from leaving. (McDonald and Wu, 9/21)
The New York Times: How to Vaccinate a Siberian Reindeer Herder
The Nenets are one of the few Indigenous minorities on the Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia. Their lifestyle is nomadic, following the seasonal migrations of the reindeer they herd. While Covid brought travel to a halt in much of the world, the Nenets of Yamal kept moving. (Babenko, 9/20)
