Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
One Of The Best Weapons To Fight Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia: A Toothbrush
The Wall Street Journal: In Hospitals, Pneumonia Is A Lethal Enemy
At a time when the public is concerned with drug-resistant superbugs, researchers have identified another danger of going to the hospital: contracting pneumonia. Hospital-acquired pneumonia is more pervasive and urgent than most people realize, a new study warns, and hospitals in America aren’t adequately addressing prevention. “Given the mortality, hospitals should be doing a lot more,” says Dian Baker, lead author of the study, which was published in January in the American Journal of Infection Control. (Lagnado, 2/17)
The New York Times: Doctors Said Immunotherapy Would Not Cure Her Cancer. They Were Wrong.
No one expected the four young women to live much longer. They had an extremely rare, aggressive and fatal form of ovarian cancer. There was no standard treatment. The women, strangers to one another living in different countries, asked their doctors to try new immunotherapy drugs that had revolutionized treatment of cancer. At first, they were told the drugs were out of the question — they would not work against ovarian cancer. (Kolata, 2/19)
NPR: Synthetic Horsepox Research Raises Questions Of Ethics And Safety
In the brave new world of synthetic biology, scientists can now brew up viruses from scratch using the tools of DNA technology. The latest such feat, published last month, involves horsepox, a cousin of the feared virus that causes smallpox in people. Critics charge that making horsepox in the lab has endangered the public by basically revealing the recipe for how any lab could manufacture smallpox to use as a bioweapon. (Greenfieldboyce, 2/17)
CNN: Potential Test For Autism Offers Hope Of Earlier Diagnosis
UK and Italian scientists are getting closer to developing blood and urine tests for autism, which could lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment of the condition, a new study suggests. The tests look for damage to certain proteins, shown to be higher in children with autism spectrum disorders. The team from the University of Warwick and the University of Bologna tested 38 children with autism and 31 children without, ages 5 to 12. (Mahmood, 2/19)
The Washington Post: Giving Teens Occasional Drinks To Teach Responsible Drinking May Backfire
Parents may be tempted to give teens an occasional taste of alcohol to teach responsible drinking habits, but a new study from Australia suggests this may have the opposite effect. Compared with adolescents who don’t get beer or wine from Mom and Dad, teens who do are more likely to access alcohol from other sources, the study found. And when parents supply the drinks, teens are more than twice as likely to binge-drink or show symptoms of alcohol use disorder as youth who don’t have easy access to alcohol. (Rapaport, 2/19)
Stat: The Virus Hunter: How C.J. Peters Learned How To Bend The Rules
Drive a few minutes from the seawall here, where the Gulf of Mexico crashes into this island city, and follow some meandering streets through a subdivision of graceful, low-slung homes. Look for the one with the Mardi Gras doll hanging beside the front door. There you will find a scientific mind of the first order. (Branswell, 2/20)
NPR: To Prevent Cancer, Teens Should Get HPV Vaccine Before They're Sexually Active
Each year, about 31,000 men and women in the U.S. are diagnosed with a cancer caused by an infection from the human papillomavirus, or HPV. It's the most common sexually transmitted virus and infection in the U.S. In women, HPV infection can lead to cervical cancer, which leads to about 4,000 deaths per year. In men, it can cause penile cancer. HPV also causes some cases of oral cancer, cancer of the anus and genital warts. (Aubrey, 2/19)
NPR: How Some Breast Cancer Survivors Escape Lymphedema
After Virginia Harrod was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 2014, she had a double mastectomy. Surgeons also removed 16 lymph nodes from under her armpit and the area around her breast, to see how far the cancer had spread and to determine what further treatment might be needed. Then she underwent radiation therapy. As it turned out, the removal of those lymph nodes, along with the radiation, put Harrod at risk for another disorder — lymphedema, a painful and debilitating swelling of the soft tissue of the arms or legs, and/or an increased vulnerability to infection. (Neighmond, 2/19)
CNN: Why Heart Attack Symptoms Are Missed In Women
Among adults 55 and younger, women may be more likely than men to experience lesser-known acute heart attack symptoms in addition to chest pain, a new study has found. And more than half of the doctors seeing women who seek care for those symptoms, prior to being hospitalized, might not even realize that the symptoms are heart-related, the study suggests. (Howard, 2/19)
The Washington Post: Strange Gait Troubled This Woman But The Reason Was Hard To Find
“What are you doing ?” Laura Hsiung’s friends asked as she slowly loped across a Maryland handball court, her ankle off-kilter so that she was walking on the outside of her left foot. Hsiung recalls wondering the same thing. One minute she was walking normally, and then all of a sudden, she wasn’t.“I couldn’t figure it out,” Hsiung said. “I hadn’t rolled my ankle. But my left foot just would not function normally.” (Boodman, 2/19)
