Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Some New Parents Can't Get Hold Of Baby Formula
CBS News: Parents Scramble As Some Types Of Baby Formula Now Harder To Find In Parts Of U.S.
Some kinds of baby formula are getting harder to find in parts of the country, leaving parents of young children frustrated and scrambling for alternatives. "We've noticed it being difficult to find maybe a couple months ago — two, three months ago — and then just recently we can't find it," San Francisco resident Irene Anhoeck told CBS News. She and her husband, Mario Anhoeck are the parents of Marlo, a 10-month-old boy. And since she can't breastfeed, the couple have fed Marlo a liquid infant formula from Similac, which they said is now in short supply. (1/24)
MPR News: Formula Shortages Stressing Out Some Minnesota Parents
A steady stream of cars lined up outside of a U-Haul center in downtown Mankato on a cold Sunday afternoon as volunteers handed out infant formula, diapers and baby wipes to waiting parents. Carter Gilbertson, 24, of Arlington, Minn., drove nearly 40 minutes with a friend. He heard about the distribution event while in town and stopped by to see if there was a specific infant formula for his son that’s been hard to find on grocery shelves lately. (Yang, 1/19)
The Wall Street Journal: Baby Formula Is Hard To Find. Brands And Stores Are Divided Over Why.
Retailers and formula makers agree that out-of-stocks are a problem. They don’t agree on how severe it is and who is to blame. Chains like Walmart Inc. WMT 0.01% and CVS Health Corp. CVS 1.92% say the manufacturers are having supply issues; formula makers say retailers aren’t getting product to stores once it is delivered. “The shelves are just bare,” said Derval Kenny, 65, of Rye, N.Y., who has been trying to help find Similac formula for two infant grandsons who live in Connecticut and New Jersey. “To me, there should be an uproar.”Ms. Kenny, whose grandsons are five and six months old, said she has driven to stores across her county and into neighboring Connecticut and placed an order on Amazon last week that hasn’t yet been delivered. (Maloney and Terlep, 1/12)
And more about infant health —
NBC News: Giving Low-Income Families Cash Can Help Babies’ Brain Activity
Supporting low-income families with cash could protect infants from the deleterious effects poverty has on brain development, research published Monday finds. The preliminary results from an ongoing clinical trial found that infants whose families received an extra $4,000 in annual income were more likely to show brain activity patterns associated with the development of thinking and learning. (Sullivan, 1/24)
In other public health news —
The Washington Post: Supreme Court Takes EPA Case That Could Narrow Clean Water Act
The Supreme Court will take up a challenge to the Clean Water Act that could narrow the law’s reach in ways long sought by businesses and home builders. The justices said Monday that they will consider, probably in the term beginning in October, a long-running dispute involving an Idaho couple who already won once at the Supreme Court in an effort to build a home near Priest Lake. The Environmental Protection Agency says there are wetlands on the couple’s roughly half-acre lot, which brings it under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act, and thus requires a permit. The case raises the question of the test that courts should use to determine what constitutes “waters of the United States,” which the Clean Water Act was passed to protect in 1972. (Barnes, 1/24)
NBC News: Dry January Still Carries Benefits Even If You Slip Up, Experts Say
How is your Dry January going? If you’ve managed to abstain from alcohol so far, pat yourself on the back. But if your plans already have been derailed a time or two, don’t beat yourself up, experts say: When it comes to quitting drinking, a slip is not a fail. “It certainly doesn’t mean all is lost,” said Dr. Brian Hurley, a Los Angeles addiction specialist and president-elect of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. “People can absolutely get back on track.” (Stenson, 1/25)
The Atlantic: How A Rare Brain Mutation Spread Across America
Of the three Bowlin sisters, Margaret, the middle one, was the first to show signs. She began having seizures as a toddler. Then the eldest, Bettina, had a brief and mysterious episode of weakness in her right hand. In 1986, as an adult, she had a two-week migraine that got so bad, she couldn’t hold food in her mouth or money in her right hand. The youngest, Susan, felt fine, but her parents still took her for an exam in 1989, when she was 19. A brain scan found abnormal clusters of blood vessels that, as it turned out, were in her sisters’ brains too. These malformations in the brain can be silent. But they can also leak or, worse, burst without warning, causing the seizures, migraines, and strokelike symptoms Bettina and Margaret experienced. If the bleeding in the brain gets bad enough, it can be deadly. (Zhang, 1/24)
CNN: Fictional Peloton-Related Heart Attacks Undermine A Basic Reality About Exercise
First it was Mr. Big, the character from "Sex in the City," dying in Carrie Bradshaw's arms from a heart attack after a 45-minute ride on his Peloton. Then it was Mike "Wags" Wagner, the drug-abusing, sadistic right hand of Axe Capital's Bobby Axelrod in the Showtime series "Billions," who too suffers a heart attack after exercising on his elite bike. Wags, played by esteemed character actor David Costabile, survives. "I'm not going out like Mr. Big," he declares in his typical cynical style in this season's opening episode. The negative publicity caused by the fictional incidents may have some wondering: Is it safe for your heart to exercise intensely? (LaMotte, 1/25)
