Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Are The 'Blue Zones' A Fraud?; Oversight Is Necessary For FDA's Fast-Track Of Psychedelics
Stat: Are 'Blue Zones' Real? A Science And Wellness Industry Clash
When French geneticist Jean-Francois Deleuze first launched the AGENOMICS study in 2022, he hoped to identify genetic patterns among 1,200 French citizens who’d lived more than 100 years and to compare those to centenarians hailing from one of the world-famous “blue zones.” Then he started having doubts. (Shelley Wood and Eric J. Topol, 5/4)
Bloomberg: Psychedelics’ Trip To Mainstream Medicine Comes With Risk
The attention to psychedelics is overdue, and there’s a real opportunity to build a stronger scientific base for a promising field. Yet this area of medicine also demands extra care — or the US risks unleashing complex therapies into an infrastructure unprepared to support them. (Lisa Jarvis, 5/4)
The New York Times: This Is The Biggest Culprit For High Health Care Spending
Prices at hospitals have grown faster than prices in virtually any other sector of the economy. (Zack Cooper, 5/4)
The Washington Post: The $37 Billion Tax Subsidy Propping Up 'Nonprofit' Hospitals
They operate like big businesses while not providing enough charity care. (Scott Hodge, 5/4)
Stat: Western Biotech, Pharma Companies Face New Threat In China
A recently published paper delivers a finding that should be well known to every executive in Western pharma: China has gone from accounting for less than 8% of global clinical trials in 2010 to surpassing the United States in annual registered trial volume by 2020, reaching more than 5,000 trials per year in 2024. Eighty-eight percent of that growth, among private-sector sponsors, was driven by domestic Chinese firms, not multinationals relocating R&D. (Dennis Kwok, 5/4)
