Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Mental Illness And Homelessness; Death By Bacon; The End Of Mall-Walkers
The New York Times: A ‘Bright Light,’ Dimmed In The Shadows Of Homelessness
Sandra Burton and P.J. Dearden were bookends to a promising life derailed by mental illness and homelessness. But their paths never crossed. One woman held answers to Nakesha’s past, the other to her present. What had happened in between? (Benjamin Weiser, 3/3)
The Guardian: Yes, Bacon Really Is Killing Us
For a few weeks in October 2015, half the people I knew were talking about the news that eating bacon was now a proven cause of cancer. You couldn’t miss the story: it was splashed large in every newspaper and all over the web. (Bee Wilson, 3/1)
Wired: Inside Cryoport, The Company Delivering Next-Gen Cancer Immunotherapies
Last year, the FDA approved the first CAR T-cell treatments—a new class of promising therapies that train the body’s immune cells to seek and destroy cancers in the blood. To work, cells have to be extracted from a patient and shipped to a pharma lab to be modified before being shipped back to the hospital for infusion through an IV. And every one of those treatments makes its cross-country journey inside liquid nitrogen-cooled containers with “Cryoport” stamped on the side. That’s the name of the leader in a cottage medical industry—one devoted to delivering next-generation medicines on time and intact. (Megan Molteni, 3/1)
Racked: But Where Will The Mall Walkers Go?
It’s 8 a.m. and peppered throughout The Westchester shopping mall in White Plains, New York, are maintenance workers, store employees, and a handful of speed walkers with their arms pumping and hips swinging like they’ve got somewhere to be — but they don’t. They are mall walking, the suburban phenomenon of exercising in one of America’s large consumer venues. (Aditi Shrikant, 3/6)
The Cut: Doctors Don’t Know How To Deal With Women’s Pain
In her book Ask Me About My Uterus, writer Abby Norman explains that this fear is rooted in that vague, age-old affliction called hysteria. Derived from hystera, the Greek word for uterus, it was once the typical catchall explanation for any unexplained ailment experienced by a woman. Ask Me About my Uterus, Norman’s memoir of her struggle with chronic pain and endometriosis, spends several chapters recounting its long, scream-worthy history and influence on modern medicine. (Deanna Pai, 3/7)
Vox: Trump’s Hidden War On Medicaid
The story of Medicaid so far has been of gradual expansion, from the absolutely most vulnerable Americans to a broader social safety net for all Americans in or near poverty. But now, under Trump, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have signaled that they are open to unprecedented policy changes, most notably requirements that many Medicaid beneficiaries either work or look for work. (Dylan Scott, 3/5)
The Atlantic: Why So Many Of Us Die Of Heart Disease
Haider Warraich, a fellow in cardiovascular medicine at the Duke University Medical Center (and an occasional Atlantic contributor), is at work on a book about how heart disease came to be such a big threat to humanity. We recently spoke about some of the insights he’s come across in his research and practice. An edited transcript of the conversation follows. (Olga Khazan, 3/6)
