Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
There's A Long List Of What We Don't Know About 'Superbug' Candida Auris--And A Growing Urgency To Find Answers
Stat: The Superbug Candida Auris Is Giving Rise To Warnings — And Big Questions
What’s known about the fungus Candida auris confounds the scientists who study it, the doctors who struggle to treat the persistent infections it causes, and the infection control teams that endeavor to clear it from hospital rooms after infected patients leave. But the list of what’s not known about this highly unusual fungus is longer still — and fascinating. Experts say there’s an urgent need for answers and for funding with which to generate them. (Branswell, 7/23)
The Associated Press: Study: Millions Should Stop Taking Aspirin For Heart Health
Millions of people who take aspirin to prevent a heart attack may need to rethink the pill-popping, Harvard researchers reported Monday. A daily low-dose aspirin is recommended for people who have already had a heart attack or stroke and for those diagnosed with heart disease. But for the otherwise healthy, that advice has been overturned. Guidelines released this year ruled out routine aspirin use for many older adults who don't already have heart disease — and said it's only for certain younger people under doctor's orders. (7/22)
The New York Times: Discrimination Is Hard To Prove, Even Harder To Fix
When it comes to lawsuits alleging discrimination, the wheels of justice sometimes turn even more slowly than usual. “It’s a difficult process, more difficult than it needs to be,” said Jeff Vardaro, a civil rights attorney in Columbus, Ohio. These cases can become complex and expensive, and defendants and their attorneys have incentives to drag them out. Over the past year or so, I have reported on several suits involving older adults’ complaints of discrimination based on age, sex and disability status, all of which are prohibited under federal law. (Span, 7/22)
CNN: Boys Are Hitting Puberty Earlier, Partially Due To Rise In BMI, Study Shows
Girls aren't alone in hitting puberty earlier -- boys are, too, according to a study published Monday in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics. And boys' body mass index as children might play a role. Researchers looked through school health records and assessed trends in height and growth for 4,090 boys born in Sweden from 1947 to 1996. Boys born later in that 50-year time period hit puberty sooner. For every decade born later, boys reached peak height velocity, or PHV -- the study's marker for puberty -- 1.5 months earlier. (Nigam, 7/22)
The Associated Press: Weight Loss Among Fat-Acceptance Influencers A Fraught Topic
Fashion and lifestyle blogger Maui Bigelow has always been curvy and built a social media presence by embracing every pound. Until the worst happened. At nearly 380 pounds, her health took a dive. She was diagnosed with a blood cancer and multiple uterine fibroids that couldn't be treated due to her weight. That's when she decided to have bariatric surgery, a weight loss procedure. (7/22)
CNN: Eating A Plant-Based Diet Might Help Prevent Diabetes, Study Suggests
Sticking to a plant-based diet could help lower your risk of type 2 diabetes, a new paper suggests. That link between plant-based eating habits and type 2 diabetes is even more beneficial when only healthy plant-based foods -- such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and nuts -- are included in your daily diet, as opposed to refined grains, starches and sugars, according to the study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine on Monday. (Howard, 7/22)
Vox: Who Should Get The HPV Vaccine? The Recommendations Keep Changing.
When the HPV vaccine first came on the market in 2006, the CDC recommended it for a relatively narrow slice of the population: just girls and young women, ages 11 to 26. Over the years, though, that recommendation has broadened dramatically, and for good reason. There’s more and more evidence that the shot protects against the human papillomavirus, and prevents cervical, anal, and other cancers. (Belluz, 7/22)
The Wall Street Journal: For Kids, Free Time Equals Screen Time—So Parents Fight Back
Children whining about being bored is an annoyance as old as time, but fewer parents these days are willing to push the kids out the door and yell, “Come back at dinner time!” The new parenting advice: Structure your child’s unstructured time. It’s a backlash against the advice that started bubbling up a decade ago to let children have unfettered downtime. The idea then was that boredom is a good thing, that it fosters in kids imaginative ways to fill the time. But that was before phones and “Fortnite” became ubiquitous. We all know now that when left to their own devices kids will, well, turn to their devices. (Jargon, 7/23)
California Healthline: Child Drowning Rates Drop As Communities Adopt Stricter Building Codes
Some welcome news at the height of summer swimming season: Children are far less likely to drown in California than they were in the 1980s — and child drowning rates have continued to fall even in the past decade, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The nation as a whole has experienced a similar, though less dramatic, decline, with drowning rates for children age 14 and younger now about one-third of what they were in the early 1980s. (Reese, 7/22)
