Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Pig Heart Recipient Has Violent Past — Should That Matter? Doctors Say No
The New York Times: Patient In Groundbreaking Pig Heart Transplant Has A Criminal Record
An ailing Maryland man who received a pig’s heart last week in a pioneering transplant procedure has a criminal record stemming from an assault 34 years ago in which he repeatedly stabbed a young man, leaving him paralyzed. The victim, Edward Shumaker, spent two decades in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down, and suffered numerous medical complications including a stroke that left him cognitively impaired, before he died in 2007 at age 40, according to his sister, Leslie Shumaker Downey, of Frederick, Md. (Rabin, 1/13)
The Washington Post: The Ethics Of A Second Chance: Pig Heart Transplant Recipient Stabbed A Man Seven Times Years Ago
Leslie Shumaker Downey was at home babysitting her two grandchildren Monday when a message pinged on her cellphone. Her daughter had sent a link to a news article about a 57-year-old man with terminal heart disease. Three days earlier at the University of Maryland Medical Center, he had received a genetically modified pig heart. The first-of-its-kind transplant was historic, saving the man’s life and offering the possibility of saving others. What a great breakthrough for science, Downey thought, reading the headline. Then her phone pinged again. (Johnson and Wan, 1/13)
In other public health news —
Axios: Democratic Reps, LGBTQ Advocates Call On FDA To Revise Blood Donation Policy For Gay Men
LGBTQ advocates and Congress members are calling on the Food and Drug Administration to revise its blood donor policy on sexually active gay and bisexual men as the country faces a blood shortage. The FDA requires gay and bisexual men abstain from same-sex sexual activity for 90 days in order to donate blood. The FDA announced in 2020 that gay men, bisexual men and their female partners could donate blood after a three-month waiting period instead of a 12-month period. On Tuesday, the American Red Cross declared its first-ever national blood crisis amid the surge of the Omicron variant. (Frazier, 1/13)
Fox News: Lung Cancer Mortality, Incidence Fell Ahead Of COVID-19 Pandemic: Report
The American Cancer Society (ACS) in a new report said lung cancer incidence and mortality were declining. The group used incidence data through 2018 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program, the National Program of Cancer Registries and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. Mortality data through 2019 was collected by the National Center for Health Statistics. Lung cancer incidence reportedly fell for advanced disease, while rates for localized-stage increased suddenly by 4.5% annually, "contributing to gains both in the proportion of localized-stage diagnoses (from 17% in 2004 to 28% in 2018) and 3-year relative survival (from 21% to 31%)." (Musto, 1/13)
PBS NewsHour: Overdose Deaths Hit A Historic High In 2020. Frustrated Experts Say These Strategies Could Save Lives
As evidence-based drug treatment and interventions became increasingly difficult to obtain during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, fatal overdoses in the United States skyrocketed to their highest level ever. While the Biden administration has said it will broaden access to harm reduction and treatment, experts say the money that has been set aside isn’t doing enough to slow the rising pace of overdose deaths in this country. U.S. policies have long skewed toward punishing people struggling with substance use rather than looking for ways to treat them – a strategy that has not been enough to prevent dramatic loss of life. Compared to decades of punitive policy, greater understanding has emerged among lawmakers and the public in recent years, but action at the federal level hasn’t fully caught up. (Santhanham, 1/13)
The New York Times: Doctors Debate Whether Trans Teens Need Therapy Before Hormones
An upsurge in teenagers requesting hormones or surgeries to better align their bodies with their gender identities has ignited a debate among doctors over when to provide these treatments. An international group of experts focused on transgender health last month released a draft of new guidelines, the gold standard of the field that informs what insurers will reimburse for care. (Ghorayshi, 1/13)
Also —
The Washington Post: The Past Seven Years Have Been The Hottest In Recorded History, New Data Shows
In the middle of a historically sweltering summer, a NASA researcher stood before Congress and declared the unvarnished, undeniable scientific truth: “The greenhouse effect has been detected,” James Hansen said. “And it is changing our climate now.” The year was 1988. Global temperatures were about 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit) above the preindustrial average. It was, at the time, the hottest 12-month period scientists had ever seen. None of us will ever experience a year that cool again. (Kaplan and Muyskens, 1/13)
