Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
U.S. Life Expectancy Expected To Drop For Third Straight Year As Heart Disease Improvements Plateau
The Associated Press: With Death Rate Up, US Life Expectancy Is Likely Down Again
The U.S. death rate rose last year, and 2017 likely will mark the third straight year of decline in American life expectancy, according to preliminary data. Death rates rose for Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, flu and pneumonia, and three other leading causes of death, according to numbers posted online Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Full-year data is not yet available for drug overdoses, suicides or firearm deaths. But partial-year statistics in those categories showed continuing increases. (5/23)
Stat: National Cancer Institute Head Sees Potential In AI, Personalized Medicine
Ned Sharpless has been in cancer research for decades, most recently as the director of the University of North Carolina’s Lineberger Cancer Center. But when he took the helm of the National Cancer Institute in October, he realized it would take time to get to know the $5.5 billion federal agency. So he embarked on a listening tour that ended up lasting six months, talking to investigators, patients, research advocates, and agency administrators. Nearly a year into his tenure at NCI, Sharpless sat down with STAT on Wednesday to talk about his new role, using artificial intelligence in cancer care, and how the NIH’s “All of Us” precision medicine project could play into the NCI’s big data aspirations. (Facher, 5/24)
The Wall Street Journal: Colleges Bend The Rules For More Students, Give Them Extra Help
As many as 1 in 4 students at some elite U.S. colleges are now classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues, entitling them to a widening array of special accommodations like longer time to take exams. Under federal law, students can be considered disabled if they have a note from a doctor. That label requires schools to offer accommodations depending on the student’s needs. A blind student, for example, would have access to specialized software or a reader for an exam. (Belkin, 5/24)
Los Angeles Times: Can Simulating Evolution On A Computer Explain Our Enormous Brains?
Compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, the human brain is way out of whack.Our brains are roughly six times larger than what you would expect for a placental mammal of our stature, scientists say. And no other animal has a brain as large as ours relative to body size.So why did humans evolve to have such large brains when other animals did not? (Netburn, 5/23)
NPR: Resilience Training Helps Kids With Trauma
Sometimes 11-year-old B. comes home from school in tears. Maybe she was taunted about her weight that day, called "ugly." Or her so-called friends blocked her on their phones. Some nights she is too anxious to sleep alone and climbs into her mother's bed. It's just the two of them at home, ever since her father was deported back to West Africa when she was a toddler. B.'s mood has improved lately, though, thanks to a new set of skills she is learning at school. (We're using only first initials to protect students' privacy.) Cresthaven Elementary School in Silver Spring, Md., is one of growing number of schools offering kids training in how to manage emotions, handle stress and improve interpersonal relationships. (Simmons-Duffin, 5/23)
NPR: Diverse, Bike-Friendly Cities Have Happier Residents
Every year, Gallup ranks U.S. cities for well-being, based on how residents feel about living in their communities, and their health, finances, social ties and sense of purpose. Perhaps unsurprisingly, places like Naples, Fla., and Boulder, Col., tend to top the list, while Southern and Midwestern towns including Canton, Ohio, and Fort Smith, Ark., often come in last. But what hard data underpin the differences between these communities? (Bate, 5/23)
Concord (N.H.) Monitor: Doctors Discuss Concerns About Diseases Resistant To Antibiotics At Concord Symposium
When more than 300 health care providers showed up in Concord on Wednesday for a conference about antibiotic resistance, they encountered something unexpected: a pop quiz. Standing at the front podium, Dr. Benjamin Chan, the state epidemiologist, described a classic case of a common type of pneumonia and asked people to use the clickers on their tables to choose which of five antibiotics they would prescribe. The top choice of the crowd was erythromycin. That seems reasonable since this is one of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics around. (Brooks, 5/24)
WBUR: What Happens When Someone On Your Flight Has A Medical Emergency
If there's a medical emergency on a flight, some planes will make an emergency landing so the passenger can get treatment. But on others, sick passengers are treated on board by flight attendants or medical personnel who happen to be on the same flight and volunteer to help. (Hobson, 5/23)
Stat: A New VC Firm Will Invest In Your Startup — And Your Health And Wellness
This is the land of Soylent and productivity hacks, a place so work-obsessed in some quarters that “hustle” is half-seriously described as the dominant religion. Now, a new venture capital firm here is betting that overworked, unhealthy startup founders are bad for the bottom line. (Robbins, 5/23)
PBS NewsHour: This Digital Pill Wants To Make Following Your Prescription Easier
A new clinical study is underway at 16 health centers around the country to see if a pill with an ingestible sensor can improve medication adherence rates for Hepatitis C drugs. Proteus Digital Health, the inventor of this so-called digital pill, is part of an emerging field of medicine and one of a handful of companies designing these high-tech pills. (Wise, 5/23)
Kaiser Health News: Now More Of Us Can Count On More Time Dodging The Dementia Bullet
You’ve turned 65 and exited middle age. What are the chances you’ll develop cognitive impairment or dementia in the years ahead? New research about “cognitive life expectancy” — how long older adults live with good versus declining brain health — shows that after age 65 men and women spend more than a dozen years in good cognitive health, on average. And, over the past decade, that time span has been expanding. (Graham, 5/24)
The New York Times: The Boundary Between Abuse And B.D.S.M.
“You want to make sure that you narrate what is going to be happening,” a blond woman in a skintight nurse’s costume said. She had just demonstrated how to safely, and consensually, stick a willing partner with hypodermic needles. The subject of her class was “medical play” and the crowd was standing-room-only. The event was hosted by the Eulenspiegel Society in Manhattan, which describes itself as the “oldest and largest B.D.S.M. support and education group” in the country. (Safronova and Van Syckle, 5/23)
