Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Supreme Court Set To Consider Free Speech Issues Around Covid Misinfo
The Wall Street Journal: Covid-Era Case On Free Speech To Test Supreme Court
When Hank Aaron died in 2021, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested in a tweet that the baseball legend’s death was caused by a Covid vaccine. The next day, a White House employee asked Twitter, now known as X, to take down Kennedy’s post. “Wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP,” the White House’s Covid-19 digital director wrote to two Twitter employees. The social-media platform did so. Meta Platforms went further, later suspending Kennedy, a nephew of John F. Kennedy and now a long-shot presidential candidate, from Instagram and Facebook. ... The Supreme Court this week will consider whether the administration’s zeal crossed a constitutional line. (Wolfe and Gershman, 3/17)
USA Today: How COVID-19 Misinformation Is Still Hurting Some Americans' Health
Jesse Ehrenfeld, an anesthesiologist at a Wisconsin hospital, asked a patient about to have heart surgery if she would consent to a blood transfusion should it become necessary. It's a standard question. But the patient refused. It was 2021, and the COVID-19 vaccine had become publicly available only a few months earlier. This patient, though, made it clear she did not want it – or blood from anyone who already had it. "It was at that moment I knew we were in for it," Ehrenfeld said. (Mueller, 3/15)
The New York Times: Health Misinformation Is Evolving. Here’s How to Spot It
Keep an eye out for instances where claims online jump to conclusions without evidence, or appeal to your emotions, advised Tara Kirk Sell, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. When you see a piece of medical content online, ask yourself: Does any aspect of the message seem designed to hook you? Does the message seem engineered to make you upset or concerned? Does the source correct itself when it makes a mistake? (Blum, 3/16)
WMFE: CDC Director Cohen Makes Another Orlando Visit Hoping To Build Trust
Dr. Mandy Cohen spoke with Orlando health leaders as part of her tour of the country's local health facilities. Her message: "We all need to keep working as a team." (Pedersen, 3/14)
Fox News: Lockdowns And Masking Heavily Criticized In New COVID Report
A new report has sharply criticized the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, writing that lockdowns, school closures and vaccine mandates were "catastrophic errors" resulting in many Americans losing faith in public health institutions. The report, published this week by the non-profit Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CTUP), paints a damning indictment of the government’s role in the crisis and offers ten lessons that must be learned, to avoid the same mistakes from being repeated. (Dorgan, 3/16)
Military.com: Pentagon Complied With COVID-19 Waiver Rules According To Watchdog But Services Moved Slowly
A Pentagon watchdog review of the military's COVID-19 vaccine exemption process found that each of the branches largely complied with policies and, in some cases, even went beyond what was required to consider service members' requests for religious accommodation. While rejecting a number of accusations that the services hadn't properly reviewed waiver requests, the Pentagon's inspector general did fault the Army and Air Force for taking too long to process the requests and wrote in a report released Thursday that discharges were inconsistent, leaving some service members with full benefits while others were left with partial benefits. (Toropin, 3/15)
