Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Stem Cell Scientists Worry Unregulated Clinics Undermine Actual Progress In Field
Stat: On The Cusp Of Payoffs For Patients, Stem Cell Therapy Faces Threat From Unregulated Clinics
Stem cells scientists have for some time been fighting back against the rise of these largely unregulated clinics, urging federal regulators to step in and lobbying on the state level against policies that they see as lending legitimacy to the clinics. But it was notable that the society devoted part of its messaging — Temple also raised the issue in her main address — to shoddy applications of stem cells at its annual conference celebrating the field and its new discoveries. (Joseph, 6/16)
NPR: Becoming A Grandparent With Alzheimer's Disease
"They're not gonna want me to play 'babies in space'," says Greg O'Brien. "You know, where I pick 'em up in my hands and I swirl them around over my head like a rocket ship. I always say 'Babies! In! Spaaaaace!'" It's October 2016, and he is musing about the latest O'Brien family news. His daughter, Colleen, is due to have a baby in November, and ever since he found out, Greg has been struggling with competing emotions. (Hersher, 6/17)
The Washington Post: He Underwent Surgery To Remove His Right Testicle. When He Woke Up, His Left One Was Missing.
In 2013, Steven Hanes visited his urologist, complaining of persistent pain in his right testicle. An ultrasound revealed that the testicle had atrophied, with scarring and damage from a previous injury, according to court documents. And so the doctor scheduled an orchiectomy — or surgical removal of the testicle — to help alleviate Hanes's pain. The good news? The orchiectomy was successful. The bad news? The doctor removed the wrong testicle during the surgery. (Wang, 6/18)
Stat: As She Operated On Babies' Birth Defects, A Doctor Hid Her Own Diagnosis
[Dr. Mary] Austin, a pediatric surgeon, helps counsel couples through that agonizing decision. She walks them through the potential risks and benefits. She describes each step in the hours-long surgery, from slicing open the uterus to closing the gap around the spinal cord with tiny stitches through developing fetal tissue so fragile, it’s almost “like tissue paper,” she said, vulnerable to tearing. What she doesn’t tell them: She herself has spina bifida. (Huff, 6/19)
The Washington Post: Childhood Brain Injury Tied To Adult Anxiety, Depression
Children who sustained traumatic brain injuries may experience such psychological effects as anxiety, phobias and depression more than a decade later, researchers say. “The study suggests that brain injury is in some way related to longer-term anxiety symptoms, while previously it was thought that brain injury only leads to short-term effects,” lead author Michelle Albicini said in an email. (Kennedy, 6/17)
The Washington Post: A Dog Bite Sent Him To The ER. A Cascade Of Missteps Nearly Killed Him.
Becky Krall hurried through the sliding-glass doors of the hospital emergency room around 8 a.m. on Sept. 25, 2015, expecting to see her feverish husband, David, sitting among the patients waiting to see a doctor. Instead Krall, who had left him for about 15 minutes while parking their car, was met by a nurse with an urgent message: Her 50-year-old husband had suddenly become unresponsive. Krall recalls with frightening clarity the words of a critical care specialist. “She put her hand on my knee and said, ‘Your husband is very, very sick. You need to be prepared for him not to make it through the day.’ ” (Boodman, 6/16)
San Francisco Chronicle: Transgender Child, Parents Sort Through New Reality
Today, as politicians fight over which bathroom transgender people are legally allowed to use, health care professionals find themselves having to develop what is essentially a new field for a growing number of transgender children. This is a difficult task because, while there is considerable evidence that transgender adolescents, when given the space to transition early, go on to have health outcomes similar to nontransgender peers, there’s little empirical data to help guide the way for very young transgender children. (Kost, 6/18)
The Washington Post: Why You Need To Know About Mice, Ticks, Warm Temperatures And Lyme Disease
Twice in the same week, Lois Wood woke to find ticks crawling over her bare leg in her New Hampshire home. A few nights later, she spotted a mouse running across her bed. A mother of seven, Wood tries to shrug off her tiny bedfellows. “It’s a common rural problem,” she says, although she admits that she has “never experienced anything like this in my own bed.” The recent appearance of vermin and pests in Wood’s bedroom coincides with the warming temperatures related to climate change. The past three years have been the planet’s hottest on record, and it is in this changing climate that many pests thrive, negatively affecting human health. (Banigan, 6/18)
The Washington Post: Benefits Of White Or Whole-Grain Bread May Depend On What Lives In Your Gut
Whether standard white bread or an artisanal sourdough loaf is healthier depends on the microbes living in a person’s intestines, a new study suggests. Averaging results from 20 people who ate white and whole-wheat sourdough bread for one week each, researchers found no difference in people’s response to the breads, which includes changes in blood sugar levels. (Saey, 6/18)
Sacramento Bee: Extreme Heat Can Bring On Dehydration, Heat Exhaustion
As scorching temperatures usher the Sacramento region into summer, local emergency room doctors expect to see plenty of patients walk in with the types of complaints that many don’t normally associate with dehydration or heat exposure. Generally, people will directly link their sunburn or high body temperature to the heat, doctors said, but they are less likely to make that same connection to symptoms such as fatigue, muscle cramps, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, constipation or headaches. In the worst cases, people are either unconscious or too confused to fully grasp the gravity of their condition. (Anderson, 6/18)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Sun Tan Drug Could Prevent Cancer, Study Says
A new kind of “tan in a bottle” could give you the sun-kissed skin you want while lowering your risk of skin cancer, the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States... The drug, which is in liquid form, mimics the effect of sunlight on the skin without the sun’s harmful UV rays, tricking the skin into producing a brownish pigmentation of melanin. (Pirani, 6/16)
