Questions Over Retrieving A Deceased Person’s Sperm Pit Grief-Stricken Families Against Medical Ethicists

Stat: Efforts To Save The Sperm Of The Dead Bring Heartache And Tough Questions
The child would be born to a father who was dead before his sperm fused with an egg. That egg — and the womb in which the child was carried — would belong to women who might not be a part of the child’s life. And it would all happen because of the determination of the child’s grandparents, enabled by the fateful signature of a judge. In the case in question, a New York judge earlier this month ordered a medical center to save the sperm of Peter Zhu, a 21-year-old cadet at West Point Military Academy who died after a ski accident. His parents sought an emergency court order on March 1, the day his organs were going to be removed for donation, and just a few days after the accident, when their “entire world collapsed,” as they wrote in a petition to the court. (Joseph, 3/13)

The New York Times: For Larger Customers, Eating Out Is Still A Daunting Experience
Rebecca Alexander’s worst experience dining while large happened just after she nailed a promotion at a nonprofit organization. She took her staff, and her new boss, to lunch at a promising downtown restaurant in Portland, Ore., where she lives. As the hostess led the group to a booth, Ms. Alexander, a 31-year-old who wears a size 30, knew in an instant there was no way she was going to squeeze into it. (Severson, 3/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Hysterectomy-Tool Warnings Didn’t Trigger Long-Term Return To Open Surgery
Warnings about the cancer-spreading risks associated with power morcellators and the subsequent decline in the devices’ use haven’t triggered a sustained rise in open surgery for hysterectomy patients as some critics feared, a new study has found. Surgeons once widely used power morcellators to slice tissue for removal through small incisions, often during hysterectomies for women with benign growths called fibroids. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned in April 2014 that the tools can inadvertently spread uterine cancer that can’t be reliably detected before surgery. (Kamp, 3/12)

Stat: Bill Aims To Balance Teen Authority And Parental Say In Mental Health
More than three decades ago, lawmakers in Washington state set the age of consent for mental health care at 13 to make it possible for teenagers to seek treatment without needing to involve their parents. That law also lets anyone over age 13 refuse mental health care — and keep all the details about their treatment private. ...Parents have pushed for change for years, arguing that the measure has hamstrung their ability to help their teenagers who urgently need mental health care, but aren’t willing or ready to go to treatment on their own. Now, Washington lawmakers are poised to give parents more rights — while still trying to strike a delicate balance that gives teens authority over their own mental health care. (Thielking, 3/13)

The New York Times: Children May Be Grown, But Parenting Doesn’t Seem To Stop
Bribing SAT proctors. Fabricating students’ athletic credentials. Paying off college officials. The actions that some wealthy parents were charged with Tuesday — to secure their children a spot at elite colleges — are illegal and scandalous. But they’re part of a broader pattern, albeit on the extreme end of the continuum: parents’ willingness to do anything it takes to help their grown children succeed. As college has become more competitive and young adults’ economic prospects less assured, parents have begun spending much more time and money on their children — including well after they turn 18. (Quealy and Miller, 3/13)

Stat: Immune System Study Points To Ways To Lower Newborn Health Risks
A study published Tuesday, from researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and colleagues in several other countries, used minute amounts of blood drawn in the first week of life to better understand what happens to the immune system in the hours and days after birth. The primary finding — that there are discernible and consistent patterns of change that occur — point to exciting possibilities, researchers believe. (Branswell, 3/12)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Snipping An Infant’s ‘Tongue Tie’ Can Improve Breastfeeding. But Is The Surgery Being Overused?
Frenotomies are being done by dentists, pediatricians, otolaryngologists (ear-nose-throat doctors) and other specialists. Some say more procedures are needed to spare women and babies from unnecessary frustration and discomfort. Others say too many surgeries are already being done because of the view that it can’t hurt and might help. (McCullough, 3/13)

The New York Times: Exercise Vs. Drugs To Treat High Blood Pressure And Reduce Fat
Exercise can lower blood pressure and reduce visceral body fat at least as effectively as many common prescription drugs, according to two important new reviews of relevant research about the effects of exercise on maladies. Together, the new studies support the idea that exercise can be considered medicine, and potent medicine at that. But they also raise questions about whether we know enough yet about the types and amounts of exercise that might best treat different health problems and whether we really want to start thinking of our workouts as remedies. (Reynolds, 3/13)

WBUR: Are Doctors Overpaid?
Baker estimates that the salaries of the roughly one million doctors in the U.S. account for about eight percent of total healthcare spending. He estimates that allowing an increased supply of doctors to lower their salaries to competitive levels would save Americans $100 billion a year — or roughly $300 per person. (Rosalsky, 3/12)

The New York Times: Pillsbury Flour Cases Are Recalled Over Salmonella Trace
The producers of Pillsbury Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, used by many home bakers, have voluntarily recalled 12,245 cases sold to retailers, after a random inspection revealed traces of salmonella in one bag. The cases, each of which contains about eight five-pound bags, were mostly sold to the Publix supermarket chain and to Winn-Dixie markets, both of which have branches throughout the Southeast. The cases have best if used by dates of either April 19, 2020, or April 20, 2020. (Hoffman, 3/12)

Kaiser Health News: How To Zero In On Your Final, Forever Home While Skirting Disaster
When Martha Powers and Larry Gomberg heard the news about Hurricane Florence bringing horrific winds and catastrophic flooding to Wilmington, N.C., they grimaced. Then, they felt relieved.“What if we had decided to build our retirement home there?” they said to each other in September, when the storm was making headlines. “What if our brand-new home had flooded?” (Lloyd, 3/13)

The New York Times: Capturing The Highs And Lows Of Bipolar Disorder Through Photography
When the medical journal The Lancet asked Matthieu Zellweger to photograph any psychiatric condition that intrigued him, he thought of a close friend who has been living with bipolar disorder. He knew how his friend lamented that it was an “invisible handicap” that you couldn’t just snap out of, as some well-meaning but frustrated people would suggest. But Mr. Zellweger also recognized something in his friend that led him to propose a photo essay on bipolar disorder. (Zellweger, 3/13)