Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: EPA Shouldn't Hold Back Any Longer From Taking On Unsafe Drinking Water; Lessons On How Sick Our Food Choices Are Making Us
The Washington Post: Flint’s Water Crisis Wasn’t Just A Blip. Our Water Standards Need Bold Change.
The public exposé of severe lead contamination in the tap water of Flint, Mich., has prompted national soul-searching, legal battles, some of which are ongoing, and beefed-up state rules governing lead in drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose an update to the federal Lead and Copper Rule soon, a long-overdue step in strengthening federal regulation of drinking water. (Mekela Panditharatne, 8/26)
The New York Times: Our Food Is Killing Too Many Of Us
The Democratic debate on health care has to date centered around who should be covered and who should pay the bill. That debate, which has been going on for decades, has no clear answers and cannot be easily resolved because of two fundamental realities: Health care is expensive, and Americans are sick. Americans benefit from highly trained personnel, remarkable facilities and access to the newest drugs and technologies. Unless we eliminate some of these benefits, our health care will remain costly. (Dariush Mozaffarian and Dan Glickman, 8/26)
The New York Times: ‘It’s The Way We Were All Born Eating’
Ten years ago, when I was studying to become a dietitian and public-health professional, the idea of stepping outside of our culture’s weight-centric dieting paradigm was almost unthinkable. Most of us have lived our entire lives in “diet culture” — a belief system that views being thin as a mark of health and moral virtue, promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status and better health, demonizes some foods while elevating others and oppresses people who don’t match culture’s image of health and beauty. (Christy Harrison, 8/26)
The New York Times: This New Rule Will Extend Migrant Kids’ Suffering
The Trump administration last week announced a new regulation that would allow the government to indefinitely detain migrant families who cross the border. If it goes into effect, it would terminate an agreement known as the Flores settlement that has been in place since 1997 to ensure that children are kept in the least restrictive setting possible, receive certain standards of care, have access to lawyers, and are generally released within 20 days. The effect would be to extend the well-documented suffering of migrant children in detention centers. (Leah Hibel and Caitlin Patler, 8/27)
The Washington Post: Withholding Flu Shots From Detained Migrants Isn’t Just Cruel. It’s Dangerous.
Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez, 16, “is seen lying on the floor, vomiting on the floor, and walks over to the commode, where he sits and later lies back and expires.” This is how Norma Jean Farley, a contract forensic pathologist for Hidalgo County, Tex., described this Guatemalan boy’s last moments in her autopsy report, after she reportedly reviewed a video from the detention facility. The autopsy attributed the death to the virus responsible for 3,000 to 49,000 U.S. deaths each year: influenza. (Saad B. Omer, 8/26)
The Hill: The Ideological Divide On Vaping Has A Clear Winner: Smokers
Renowned economist Robert J. Shapiro is a Democrat. He served in the Clinton administration and advised Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Al Gore. The Progressive Policy Institute started in 1989 and still considered in D.C. circles “Bill Clinton’s think tank.” Shapiro’s report for PPI, The Impact of Electronic Cigarettes on Cigarette Smoking by Americans and Its Health and Economic Implications, is objectively and meticulously researched and comes to firm conclusions — vaping is the most effective method for smoking cessation and is not a gateway to cigarette use. Vaping improves health, saves health-care costs and adds to economic productivity. (Kerri Houston Toloczko, 8/25)
Stat: FDA Should Approve Transplants Of Islet Cells For Type 1 Diabetes
The term “type 1 diabetes” generally conjures up images of insulin. That makes sense, because insulin is the main treatment for this common disease. But it isn’t a cure. A type of cell transplant that comes close to a cure for some people with type 1 diabetes, a technique pioneered and tested in the United States, is now available in many countries but is still deemed an experimental procedure in the U.S., making it almost impossible to get. That doesn’t make sense to us. (Camillo Ricordi and Anthony Japour, 8/27)
The Hill: When A Chronic Illness Is Political — It Can Kill
Unfortunately, many people with Parkinson’s or other chronic diseases have no health insurance, usually because they can no longer work and afford the premiums. Typically, they have not received approval for Social Security disability insurance (SSDI). Initial applications may take six months or longer to consider, and only 36 percent receive initial approval. Those denied enter a series of lengthy appeal processes. (Allan Hugh Cole Jr., 8/26)
The New York Times: Living With H.I.V. Isn’t A Crime. Why Is The United States Treating It Like One?
Michael Johnson, a former college athlete convicted in 2015 of not disclosing his H.I.V.-positive status to sexual partners, was released on parole from a Missouri prison last month. Mr. Johnson, who is gay and black, had maintained his innocence, and there was no proof that he had transmitted the virus. And yet that didn’t seem to matter in the court of public opinion, or in the court of law. On Dec. 20, 2016, a Missouri appeals court ruled that Mr. Johnson’s trial had been “fundamentally unfair.” H.I.V. nondisclosure is inherently difficult to prove yet seemingly easy to condemn, as shown time and again by judges and juries worldwide. (Chris Beyrer and Robert Suttle, 8/26)
Cincinnati Enquirer: Congress Must Look At All Facts Before Rushing New Gun Laws
Congress is notorious for passing legislation without reading it, but the urge to rush legislation reached a new level in Washington this month. Some members of Congress have announced support for gun control bills that haven’t even been written yet! What’s already clear from their vague proposals, however, is that none of these measures would have stopped any recent mass public shooting. For the safety of the general public, perhaps we should have a mandatory waiting period for lawmakers who rush to pass unconstitutional and unhelpful legislation. (Thomas Massie and Jim Jordan, 8/26)
