Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Pharmacists Warned Walmart For Years About Opioid Sales, Documents Show
NPR: Walmart And Opioid Crisis: Former Pharmacists Say Company Ignored Red Flags
Internal company documents made public last month as part of a Justice Department lawsuit against Walmart show pharmacists all over the country warned Walmart executives about opioid sales that appeared unsafe. Pharmacists complained that dangerous "pill-mill" doctors were sending patients to Walmart after other chains stopped filling their opioid prescriptions. Pharmacists sent emails to Walmart executives saying they feared losing their licenses and their jobs because of opioid sales. According to the DOJ complaint, patients often paid in cash, also considered a red flag by the DEA. A pharmacist at a Walmart store in Texas said filling opioid prescriptions "is a risk that keeps me up at night." (Mann, 1/3)
In other public health news —
NBC News: Larry King Hospitalized With Covid-19
Broadcast journalist Larry King was moved Sunday from the ICU at a Los Angeles hospital, where he continues to be treated for Covid-19, a source close to the family said. The source said King, 87, has been in the hospital for about 10 days, and that King believes he contracted the virus from a health care worker who went to his home. (Goldstein and Romero, 1/4)
USA Today: When Teachers Brought Free Lunch To Kids Amid COVID-19, They Saw Poverty Up Close
First-grade teacher Shiela Garland had long known that 100% of students in Arizona’s Stanfield Elementary School District, where she has taught for 16 years, ate free meals. Garland did not really know what those numbers meant until this spring, when the coronavirus pandemic hit and schools closed across the United States. Suddenly, she and other Stanfield staff found themselves in masks and gloves, riding up to 150 miles a day on school buses traversing gravel and dirt roads to hand out food and homework packets to children. (Hernandez, 1/3)
Fox News: 2020’s Oddest, Non-Coronavirus Health News
Shortly after the world welcomed in the new decade, COVID-19 began to dominate headlines, from the moment the pandemic was declared to recent news of two separate but promising vaccines against the virus receiving emergency use approval in the U.S. But there were some instances where health news didn’t involve the coronavirus. Read on for a look at some of the oddest health news that 2020 had to offer. (Farber, 12/29)
