Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: The American Diet; Naloxone For The Masses; Right-To-Die Laws
Vox: How Michelle Obama Quietly Changed What Americans Eat
Shortly after President Obama was elected to the White House in 2008, first lady Michelle Obama divulged some sensitive, personal details: The Obama children, Malia and Sasha, were gaining weight. In interviews and speeches, she described her worry about her family’s health and a pediatrician’s warning that her daughters’ body mass index (BMI) was creeping up. (Julia Belluz, 10/3)
Stat: Naloxone, The Antidote For Opioid Overdoses, Is Being Pushed To The Masses
After two decades of sending a needle exchange van around this city, officials here last year started doing something new. They wouldn’t just hand out clean syringes; they would distribute the antidote to the opioid overdoses ravaging local communities. (Andrew Joseph, 10/3)
The Economist: More States Are Considering Laws Granting The Terminally Ill The Right To Die
On October 5th the health committee of Washington, DC’s state council will vote on a Dignity in Dying Act brought forward by one of its Democratic members, Mary Cheh. Like many proposed doctor-assisted-dying laws debated across America in the past year, it is modelled on that of Oregon, which in 1997 became the first American state to make doctor-assisted dying legal in some circumstances. It allows terminally ill patients whom doctors expect to live no more than six months to be prescribed life-ending medicine, subject to checks of mental health and capacity. Four other states have since followed, most recently California, where a doctor-assisted-dying law came into force in June. (10/4)
Bloomberg: How To Hack Your Medicare Costs, With A Retirement Guru's Help
Philip Moeller is that rare person who gets two streams of income from Social Security. Like millions of other older Americans, he gets a monthly benefit. But he also gets an additional income stream from the unlikely bestseller he co-authored, Get What's Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security. That book's runaway success—it spent 25 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list—got Moeller, 70, thinking about another complex and crucial government safety-net program: Medicare. His new book, Get What's Yours for Medicare: Maximize Your Coverage, Minimize Your Costs, comes out on Tuesday.(Suzanne Woolley, 10/4)
Stat: Potent Painkiller Fentanyl, And A Drive To Sell It, Faulted In Woman's Death
There was a stranger waiting for Sarah Fuller when she visited her doctor to discuss switching medications for her back and neck pain — a saleswoman pitching a prescription version of the potent opioid fentanyl. The drug, called Subsys, is so powerful, and the risk of addiction and overdose so formidable, that the Food and Drug Administration requires doctors to undergo special training before they are allowed to prescribe it. And it has approved Subsys only for cancer patients who suffer intense flares of pain. (David Armstrong, 9/30)
