Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Treating Parkland Victims; Fraudulent Food Science; And Russia's HIV Epidemic
The Atlantic: What I Saw Treating the Victims From Parkland Should Change the Debate on Guns
As I opened the CT scan last week to read the next case, I was baffled. The history simply read “gunshot wound.” I have been a radiologist in one of the busiest trauma centers in the United States for 13 years, and have diagnosed thousands of handgun injuries to the brain, lung, liver, spleen, bowel, and other vital organs. I thought that I knew all that I needed to know about gunshot wounds, but the specific pattern of injury on my computer screen was one that I had seen only once before. (Heather Sher, 2/22)
BuzzFeed: The Inside Story Of How An Ivy League Food Scientist Turned Shoddy Data Into Viral Studies
In the summer of 2013, Özge Siğirci, a young scientist in Turkey, had not yet arrived at Cornell University for her new research stint. But she already had an assignment from her future boss, Brian Wansink: Find something interesting about all-you-can-eat buffets.As the head of Cornell’s prestigious food psychology research unit, the Food and Brand Lab, Wansink was a social science star. (Stephanie Lee, 2/25)
BuzzFeed: Passengers Who Call Uber Instead Of An Ambulance Put Drivers At Risk
Ride-hail drivers are, by and large, untrained, self-employed workers driving their own cars on a part-time basis. They’re not medical professionals. But as health care costs have risen and ride-hail has become more pervasive, people are increasingly relying on Uber and Lyft drivers to get them to the hospital when they need emergency care. (Caroline O'Donovan, 2/26)
Politico Magazine: How Social Conservatism Fueled Russia’s HIV Epidemic
Nika Ivanova was 18 when she first learned about HIV. By then, it was too late. Sitting in a sterile clinic here on a sunny winter day—the late singer Freddie Mercury’s birthday, of all days—the doctor told her she would likely die, and that it was her own fault. (Sophia Jones, 2/25)
The Washington Post: Fentanyl: The Deadly Drug Haunting America
Fentanyl was created to treat severe pain — particularly for cancer patients — and for use as an anesthesia. Then dealers started cutting it with heroin. (Katie Zezima and Kolin Pope, 2/22)
Vox: Trump Is Setting Up The US To Botch A Pandemic Response
In the best of times, predicting the next outbreak is a fool’s game: No one could have seen H1N1, a.k.a. “swine flu,” emerging from Mexico or Ebola turning up in West Africa. But these are not the best of times. (Julia Belluz, 2/23)
