Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
The Road To Curing HIV In South Dependent On Tackling Racism, Poverty And Homophobia
NPR: Racism, Poverty And Homophobia Are Still Big Obstacles To Ending HIV
Ending HIV transmission in America within the next decade — a stated goal of the Trump Administration — isn't a question of coming up with new medication. The medicines to prevent and treat HIV infections already exist. But the road to eliminating HIV and AIDS runs through the deep South, where racism, poverty, and homophobia can be formidable obstacles to testing and treatment, particularly for black gay men. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in 2017, more than half the new HIV diagnoses in the U.S. were in Southern states, where gay and bisexual black men make up a disproportionate share of people with HIV. (Shapiro and Blanchard, 3/16)
The Washington Post: Depression May Respond To Exercise
I hear it often: A friend swears that her running practice staves off bouts of low spirits. Another says going to the gym before work keeps him mentally steady. Perhaps you’ve heard similar stories; perhaps you believe it for yourself. Those anecdotes prompt some questions. Is there evidence to support the idea that exercise can have an effect on depression? (Adams, 3/17)
The Washington Post: Deciding Whether To Have Kids Has Never Been More Complex. Enter Parenthood-Indecision Therapists.
They arrive anxious for an answer. Or maybe, finally, a sense of peace. They arrive because they haven’t been able to resolve the biggest question of their lives: Do I want to be a parent? And so they come to the California therapy practice of Ann Davidman — by plane, by car, by phone — in the hope that the self-titled “motherhood clarity mentor” might deliver an epiphany. Next comes a simple instruction: Write down every fear, every loaded question, every disapproving comment and every panic-inducing headline that has coalesced into a stranglehold of indecision. (Gibson, 3/17)
The New York Times: Talking To Children About Terminal Illness
“One of the most difficult things we ever have to do is to tell a child he or she has a very serious condition and may not survive it, or that a parent has a condition they may not survive,” said Dr. Alan Stein, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Oxford. Dr. Stein is the senior author on two articles published last week in the British medical journal The Lancet, which suggested guidelines for talking to children about life-threatening illness, one on when the illness is the child’s own and the other on when a parent is ill. (Klass, 3/18)
Stat: China Is Reviving A Discredited AIDS Immunotherapy — For Cancer
American surgeon Henry Heimlich is best known for inventing a way to rescue choking victims, but a quarter-century ago, he was vilified for promoting a fringe treatment for AIDS and Lyme disease. Called malarial therapy, it involved injecting patients with the malaria-causing parasite, supposedly to stimulate their immune systems. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report saying the procedure “cannot be justified,” and another critic compared its use to the discredited practice of bleeding patients with leeches. Despite the criticism, Heimlich launched trials of the therapy in HIV patients in Mexico and China in the 1990s. Now, the scientist who led the Chinese study is using malarial therapy again — this time to treat cancer patients. And the still-unproven intervention is being hailed in China as a miracle cure. (Qiu, 3/18)
The New York Times: Ebola Epidemic In Congo Could Last Another Year, C.D.C. Director Warns
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is not under control and could continue for another year, Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview on Friday. “Let’s not underestimate this outbreak,” he said. (Grady, 3/16)
The New York Times: Older Americans Are Awash In Antibiotics
Last month, Caryn Isaacs went to see her primary care doctor for her annual Medicare wellness visit. A patient advocate who lives in Manhattan, Ms. Isaacs, 68, felt perfectly fine and expected a clean bill of health. But her doctor, who’d ordered a variety of blood and urine tests, said she had a urinary tract infection and prescribed an antibiotic. “The nurse said, ‘Can you take Cipro?’” Ms. Isaacs recalled. “I didn’t have any reason not to, so I said yes.” (Span, 3/15)
WBUR: As Parents And Grandparents Age, More And More Millennials Are Family Caregivers
According to a study by the AARP, there are some 40 million people in the United States considered to be family caregivers. Of the 40 million, 1 in 4 are millennials and more than half of those caregivers identify as African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic. (Mendoza, 3/16)
The New York Times: Can TV Dumb You Down?
Experts generally agree that watching a lot of television is bad for children. Now a new study suggests it may not be very good for adults, either. The British study, in Scientific Reports, included 3,590 people, average age 67, who were free of dementia at the start of the study. All reported their TV watching time at the study’s start. Participants took two tests. One was of verbal memory, in which they were asked to recall, after a short delay, a list of spoken words. (Bakalar, 3/15)
The Wall Street Journal: No Gym Can Match Her Hula Hoop
Marah Kabaservice jokes that she’s a closet exerciser. You won’t find the 50-year-old nurse practitioner at the gym or in spin class. She finds more motivation hula hooping and doing jumping jacks in the privacy of her home in Rutledge, Tenn., a town near Knoxville. As an unathletic teen, Ms. Kabaservice was turned off from fitness by the forced activities of high school gym class. She flailed through dodgeball, softball, even warm-ups. “I nearly flunked P.E. because I couldn’t run four laps around the track,” she says. “By my 20s, I was a complete slug, smoking a pack of cloves a day.” (Murphy, 3/16)
NPR: If Mouth Noise Like Chewing Or Swallowing Drive You Mad, You May Have Misophonia
For 18-year-old high school senior Ellie Rapp of Pittsburg, the sound of her family chewing their dinner can be ... unbearable. "My heart starts to pound. I go one of two ways. I either start to cry or I just get really intensely angry. It's really intense. I mean, it's as if you're going to die," she says. Rapp has been experiencing this reaction to certain noises since she was a toddler. She recalls a ride home from preschool when her mother turned on the radio and started singing, which caused Rapp to scream and cry hysterically. (Fulton, 3/18)
