Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Syphilis In St. Louis Is Surging To Record Levels
St. Louis Public Radio: Record Numbers Of Syphilis Cases In St. Louis Spur Health Officials To Action
Missouri last year reported the highest number of congenital syphilis cases in the state since 1994. St. Louis and St. Louis County each reported 11 congenital syphilis cases in 2021 — a sharp increase from five years ago. In response, the St. Louis and St. Louis County health departments are urging people who are pregnant to get tested for syphilis so they do not pass it to their children. “It's really heartbreaking because every single case of congenital syphilis is 100% preventable,” said Nebu Kolenchery, director of communicable disease response for the St. Louis County Health Department. (Anderson, 6/30)
In news from California —
AP: California Late Start Law Aims To Make School Less Of A Yawn
Beginning this fall high schools in the nation’s most populous state can’t start before 8:30 a.m. and middle schools can’t start before 8 a.m. under a 2019 first-in-the-nation law forbidding earlier start times. Similar proposals are before lawmakers in New Jersey and Massachusetts. Advocates say teens do better on school work when they’re more alert, and predict even broader effects: a reduction in suicides and teen car accidents and improved physical and mental health. (Thompson, 6/30)
San Francisco Chronicle: SF Ranks Worst In California For Police-Caused Hospitalization Rates For Black Residents
A new UCSF study is drawing a sharp link between lingering racial segregation and the increased threat of police violence against Black residents. The study, published Wednesday in the JAMA Network, an online medical journal, also reveals something else: Out of 52 California counties included in the study, San Francisco had the highest injury rate for Black residents. (Narayan, 6/29)
KHN: California May Require Labels On Pot Products To Warn Of Mental Health Risks
Liz Kirkaldie’s grandson was near the top of his class in high school and a talented jazz bassist when he started smoking pot. The more serious he got about music, the more serious he got about pot. And the more serious he got about pot, the more paranoid, even psychotic, he became. He started hearing voices. (Dembosky, 6/30)
In other health news from across the U.S. —
AP: Dental Coverage To Expand To More Than 200K Maine Residents
A state that has among the fewest dentists in the Northeast will soon expand dental care access. Maine has about 55 dentists per 100,000 residents, which is below the national average of about 61 and well below New England states such as Massachusetts and Connecticut. State officials said Wednesday more than 200,000 Maine residents will start getting access to dental care coverage on Friday. (6/29)
North Carolina Health News: Streamlined Medicaid For NC Foster Kids Hits A Wall
A few years ago, Gaile Osborne and her husband took in several foster children. Osborne, a special education teacher, should have been the perfect foster parent. There was one problem. Osborne and her family lived in Buncombe County. The children were originally from Alamance County. That meant Osborne was unable to get the mental health services her foster children needed from Vaya, the local mental health management entity (known as an LME-MCO) that covers western North Carolina. Hoban, 6/30)
Bloomberg: New York To Bolster Concealed-Carry Laws To Blunt Supreme Court Gun Decision
“We take this deadly seriously. This Supreme Court decision was a setback for us, but I would call it a temporary set back,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said at a Wednesday news conference. The governor and the Democratic-dominated Legislature negotiated the details of the new gun legislation to speed its passage in votes scheduled for Thursday. (Clukey and Cutler, 6/29)
KHN: Montana’s Blackfeet Tribe To Use Dogs To Sniff Out Disease And Contaminants
Kenneth Cook used a mallet and a chisel to crack into a pig’s skull in the gravel driveway outside his home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana. Cook planned to use the pig’s brains in brain tanning, practiced by Indigenous people for thousands of years. (Bolton, 6/30)
Las Vegas Review-Journal: $3.8M Grant Aims To Help Rural Mental Health In Nevada
When Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee first joined the sheriff’s office more than three decades ago, he says there was a mental health call roughly once a month. Now, Lee says his deputies deal with mental health calls weekly, if not daily. “I have never seen law enforcement being asked to do more than they are right now,” Lee said. “Officers are being asked to do things that we were never trained to do.” (Longhi, 6/29)
AP: Ski Resort To Retire Name To Avoid Mental Health Connotation
A small ski area in Vermont has announced that it’s retiring its name, Suicide Six, this summer amid growing concerns about the insensitive nature of the historical name. The resort said on its website on Tuesday that it shares those concerns and “embraces the increasing awareness surrounding mental health.” (6/29)
