Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Hospital's Hopeless Choice On Trans Care Lays Bare The Ruthlessness Of HHS; Psych ER Burdened With Issues It Wasn't Built For
The Colorado Sun: Children’s Hospital’s Impossible Choice Is A Product Of Trump Cruelty
There will not be any winners in the ongoing dispute between Children’s Hospital of Colorado, the doctors who work there and the families who need gender-affirming care to protect their children’s well-being. There will only be hurt, pain and suffering. That is the point for the Trump Administration that weaponizes cruelty. (Mario Nicolais, 6/21)
Stat: The Psychiatric ER Fills In Social Services’ Many Gaps
Dark purple. I see the chat bubble in the top left corner of the electronic health record on my screen flip colors. The change in hue represents a new message: urgent, perhaps, or just another patient who cannot sleep. As one of only two psychiatry providers overnight in the psychiatric emergency room, I know it is most likely a message beamed into the ether by a nurse located 15 feet away from me, locked inside a fishbowl similar to mine. (Ashley Andreou, 6/22)
The Washington Post: Pete Hegseth's Reckless Vaccine Policy Backfires With Flu Outbreak
The Defense secretary is forcing society to relearn costly lessons of history. (6/19)
Stat: The Pancreatic Cancer ‘Miracle Drug’ Is Just A Baby Step
On May 31, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago, an international study co-led by a UCLA research team reported that patients with pancreatic cancer who took the drug daraxonrasib lived substantially longer, for an average of 13.2 months, compared with 6.6 to 6.7 months for patients who had chemotherapy alone. (Andrea Califano and Gideon Bosker, 6/19)
Stat: Clinical Trials Are Collecting Far Too Much Data
The clinical research ecosystem has never been more technologically capable — or more burdened by its own ambition. In December 2025, the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development and our team at TransCelerate published research that suggests nearly 30% of the data collected in clinical trials do not directly inform key decisions, yet patients are still asked to provide it. Additionally, since 2005, the number of procedures per protocol has increased by nearly 140%, endpoints by more than 200%, and data points collected by over 600%. (Janice Chang, 6/22)
