Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Biogen Should Reevaluate Expanded ALS Drug Access; US Unprepared For Synthetic Pandemic
Stat: ALS Patient Who Died Should Force Companies To Anticipate Access Issues
It’s been two weeks since Lisa Stockman Mauriello passed away and a lingering question, in my mind, is whether she died in vain. I’d like to think not. During her final months, the 52-year-old former public relations executive battled Biogen, one of the world’s largest biotech companies, for access to an experimental treatment for ALS, a fatal neurological disease that gradually causes muscle weakness and paralysis. (Ed Silverman, 8/19)
Stat: A Synthetic Pandemic Could Be Far, Far Worse Than Covid-19
In 1988, as Russian scientist Nikolai Ustinov worked in the VECTOR lab, part of a Russian program to develop viral weapons, he accidentally infected himself with the Marburg virus, a deadly pathogen related to Ebola. He died weeks later. During his autopsy, a pathologist accidentally stuck himself with a needle and died as well. At its peak, the VECTOR lab was thought to be able to produce two tons of Variola virus (the microbe that causes smallpox) per year. The lab was eventually transitioned into a research institute after the Cold War and recently helped develop the Russian Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V. It currently holds one of the world’s two official repositories of smallpox. (Abraar Karan and Stephen Luby, 8/19)
Georgia Health News: Don’t Delay! Ban Menthol Cigarettes
Race has long been a key determinant of public health in this country, and as U.S. Surgeon General under President Bill Clinton, I saw those disparities – and worse outcomes for Black Americans – every day. In 1998, I released the first Surgeon General’s report on “Tobacco Use Among U.S. Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups,” detailing how every one of our country’s major racial and ethnic minority groups were using tobacco at alarming rates, impacting their long-term health. At the time, I wrote, “African-Americans currently bear the greatest health burden” from cigarette smoking. Unfortunately, African-Americans today continue to die at high rates from tobacco-related diseases like lung cancer, heart disease and stroke. (Dr. David Satcher, 8/18)
