Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Connecticut Sued For Using IQ Scores To Determine Aid For People With Intellectual Disabilities
Connecticut Public: Residents Sue CT For Using IQ Score To Deny Disability Services
Trumbull resident Edna Borchetta wants for her 20-year-old daughter Carriella what most parents dream of for their children: the chance to go to college, work and explore new opportunities. But since Carriella lives with intellectual disabilities, she needs extra support to reach her full potential. (Marceles, 10/26)
KANW New Mexico Public Radio: Kratom Derivatives Raise Alarm In The Mountain West As Overdose Risks Grow
Products sold as energy drinks, gummies or herbal supplements at gas stations and convenience stores may contain potent opioid-like compounds, putting people at risk of addiction, overdose and death, according to health experts. (Kinsey, 10/26)
ProPublica & The Frontier: This Oil Company Is Linked To 1,000 Pollution Incidents And Other Violations. Oklahoma Never Punished It.
Staff at an Oklahoma regulatory agency spent over a year building a case against Citation Oil & Gas, a company notorious for oil field pollution. Instead of disciplining the company, agency leaders chose to let it resume operations. (Bowlin, 10/27)
The Washington Post: States Move To Take Ultra-Processed Foods Off The School Lunch Menu
The issue of food safety has prompted a major political realignment since the start of the second Trump administration, with the right-wing Make America Healthy Again movement forming an uneasy alliance with progressives to rid the nation’s food system of ultra-processed snacks, sweets, lunch meats and other products. Public schools are their first target. (Wolfson, 10/26)
The Marshall Project and Catchlight: In Prison, Wheelchair Basketball Offers A Chance At Reinvention
At California Medical Facility, playing a sport helps men practice new ways of thinking and form bonds that remain outside of prison walls. (Frank and Abdullahi, 10/26)
KFF Health News: Jacksonville, Florida’s Gun Violence Is Rooted In Redlining And Homes Built On Toxic Waste
In a Florida county with a startling rate of child firearm injuries, a boarded-up elementary school named for famed educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune sits in a 250-acre site once called “Brown’s Dump.” The dump emerged in an era of redlining, systematic racism that divided American cities large and small. From the late 1940s until the mid-1950s, the city operated a landfill here, heaping toxic ash from nearby municipal incinerators. (Clasen-Kelly, Chang, Pierce and Gavino, 10/27)
