Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Swallowing Risk For Powerful Magnet Toys Prompts Mandatory Recall
The Washington Post: Risk Of Children Swallowing Small Magnets Leads To Rare Mandatory Recall
Federal safety regulators announced Tuesday a recall for two brands of high-powered magnet sets — a surprise ending to a nearly decade-long court battle that pitted business interests against the pleas of doctors alarmed by the number of children injured after ingesting the tiny magnetic pieces. The Consumer Product Safety Commission said it was pulling from the market Zen Magnets and Neoballs, which are made up of numerous rare-earth magnetic balls usually sold as desk toys. (Frankel, 8/17)
In other public health news —
Los Angeles Times: Twitter Will Begin Letting Users Report Misinformation
Twitter Inc. is adding an option for users to report misinformation to the company, but says the expanded ability to flag tweets won’t necessarily lead to more fact-checking or labels on problematic posts. The test, available in only a few markets, will let users notify the company about alleged misinformation in the same way they can alert Twitter to spam or abuse. But the social media company, which doesn’t have a robust fact-checking operation, won’t review the legitimacy of each identified tweet or respond to users with updates as it does with other types of reports. (Wagner, 8/17)
Axios: U.S. Disparities Emerge In Health Spending Figures
The amount of per-person health care spending is highest among white individuals compared to patients of other races, even after adjusting for age and health conditions, according to a study led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle. The study, published Tuesday in JAMA, provides evidence of inequities by race and ethnicity "from how physicians respond to patients to bias that exists in the algorithms that assess health needs and determine the appropriate intervention," the researchers write. (Reed, 8/18)
North Carolina Health News: An Alternative To The Psych Hospital, Run By People In Mental Health Recovery
On a patio tucked behind an old brick two-story house, Susan Hart sat on a glider surrounded by lush green plants under the glow of string lights. She wondered aloud what it would have been like to check herself into a space like this instead of a psychiatric hospital 20 years ago. The space “like this” opened in early August when Promise Resource Network opened “Retreat @ the Plaza” in Charlotte, a place for people experiencing mental health distress that’s an alternative to hospitalization. It’s the first peer-run respite house in North Carolina, meaning it’s completely staffed by people who have experienced mental illness, psychiatric hospitalizations, homelessness, incarceration, substance use or a combination of these. (Knopf, 8/18)
The Washington Post: What Your Heart Rate Can — And Can’t — Tell You About Your Health
Before the rise in popularity of fitness trackers and smartwatches, cardiologist Sadiya Khan said patients rarely came in with questions about why their heart rates seemed high or low. But the growing interest in wearable devices, which some early research suggests can even detect coronavirus symptoms, means many people have a trove of real-time health information at their fingertips. “I see a lot more people asking about heart rate because you can track it, you can monitor it, you can make pretty graphs on your Apple Watch,” said Khan, an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. (Chiu, 8/17)
