Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Forget The Tough Love Policy During Opioid Epidemic And Really Help Sufferers; Think Climate Change Won't Make Us Sick? Think Again.
The Washington Post: The Incredibly Unpopular Idea That Could Stem Opioid Deaths
Prescription heroin? Remember, I said you might not like the solution. I don’t like it, either — and frankly, neither do the drug policy researchers who told me it may be necessary. But when fentanyl took over the U.S. illicit drug markets, it also got a lot of addicts as hostages. We’ll never be able to rescue them unless we can first keep them alive long enough to be saved. (Megan McArdle, 12/4)
The Hill: Here's How Climate Change Is Going To Make You Sick
It is convenient to ignore issues that seem invisible. Such apathy among people has been observed repeatedly in social and environmental issues that otherwise could have been averted by strong preemptive policies. Similar is the case with climate — and in some ways, the internet tends to promote picture of false equivalency between believers and deniers of our climate changing. But this might change now; mostly because these issues are affecting individual lives and not a distant cold continent. (Junaid Nabi, 12/4)
USA Today: Female Genital Mutilation: We Need New Laws
For more than two decades, underage girls in this country have been federally protected from the horrific practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). The ritualistic cutting or removal of a young girl’s external genitalia is an anachronistic act that occurs mostly in parts of Africa, the Middle East and a few countries in Asia. Last month, during a trial of a Michigan doctor accused of performing FGM on nine minor girls, a federal judge ruled that the law banning FGM is unconstitutional. Now, Congress and the states must act immediately to re-enact FGM protections. (Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, 12/4)
Stat: When Women Are Denied An Abortion, Their Children Fare Worse Than Peers
For the past decade, I have been leading the nationwide Turnaway Study at the University of California, San Francisco. My colleagues and I have followed more than 200 women who were denied abortions because they showed up at abortion facilities too late in pregnancy. More than two-thirds of these women carried the unwanted pregnancy to term and gave birth. Our study shows that denying a woman a wanted abortion has a negative impact on her life and the lives of her children. (Diana Green Foster, 12/5)
The Hill: Your Tax Dollars Are Going To 'Humanized Mice' Experiments
The apparently widespread acceptance in the scientific community of using aborted baby parts in the name of science should alarm citizens and lawmakers alike. Scientific progress should not be accepted as sacrificing the life of one for the alleged benefit of another. The very idea is counterintuitive to a nation devoted to protecting and preserving life. The White House and those at the Department of Health and Human Services should demand more transparency from those awarded our hard-earned taxpayer dollars and cancel contracts like the NIH-UCSF humanized-mice study, just as they cancelled a much smaller contract with ABR. (Jeanne Mancini, 12/5)
The New York Times: George Bush And The Obituary Wars
On Twitter over the weekend, the television writer Bryan Behar did something unconscionable.He praised George H.W. Bush. The former president had just died. In Behar’s view, it was a moment to recognize any merit in the man and his legacy. Many of his followers disagreed. They depended on Behar for righteous liberal passion, which left no room for such Bush-flattering adjectives and phrases as “good,” “decent” and “a life of dignity.” How dare Behar lavish them on a man who leaned on the despicable Willie Horton ad, who nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, who did too little in the face of AIDS, whose privilege often blinded him to need. (Frank Bruni, 12/4)
Huffington Post: The Media Is Erasing George H.W. Bush's Catastrophic Harm To LGBTQ People
Perhaps that was what Bush “believed,” but it was far from the truth. Bush was as captive to the evangelical right on social issues — and thus a decidedly Republican president — as was his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, who cultivated religious conservatives as a potent political force and bowed to their anti-LGBTQ agenda as the AIDS epidemic mushroomed in the 1980s. (Michelangelo Signorile, 12/2)
Los Angeles Times: How To Improve California's Emergency Alert System
California’s alert system is, in reality, 58 county alert systems duct-taped together, with 58 different processes and capabilities. The problem with this set-up, as we learned last month, is that local officials are inevitably overwhelmed in the early minutes of a catastrophe.As the frequency of extreme weather events increases with climate change, California and the rest of the country need to bring more order to the chaos of our sprawling and fractured public warning systems. (Kelly McKinney, 12/5)
Miami Herald: Denying Citizenship For Being Poor In Miami-Dade Is Unfair
While the reprehensible family-separation policy rightly commanded our attention for much of the year, the administration announced another, stealthier policy proposal, one that pursues, mostly, immigrants who are in this country legally. These are people who are following the rules, hewing to the process to become naturalized citizens. The proposal would deny citizenship to immigrants who use certain public benefits, including food stamps, housing assistance and Medicaid. (12/4)
Columbus Dispatch: NO: Heartbeat Bill Would Punish Doctors, Their Patients
To attract highly qualified doctors in all regions of the state, Ohio must stop advancing legislation that would allow doctors to face felony charges if they perform an abortion after a heartbeat is detected, which usually occurs around six weeks into a pregnancy. The Ohio House of Representatives already passed the six-week ban. (Alice Frazier, 12/5)
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohio Lawmakers Need To Consider The Serious Implications Of Their Heartbeat Bill Vote For Ohio Women And Reproductive Freedoms
As Ohio legislators consider whether they will pass the six-week ban, and ultimately try to override outgoing Gov. Kasich’s veto, individual state legislators have more power over the future of abortion access than ever before. The implications of their decisions are serious. Forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy against her will is dangerous, especially for low-income women and women of color who are already subject to inadequate health care access. (Kellie L. Copeland, 12/5)
San Jose Mercury News: East Bay Makes Some Progress On Opioid Epidemic
The opioid epidemic continues to ravage communities across the nation. According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prescription and illicitly obtained opioids killed more than 49,000 people in 2017, more than any year on record. Behind these numbers are countless family members, friends and neighbors devastated by the loss of a loved one and those patients still struggling with opioid-use disorders. (Tom Sugarman and Kathleen Clanon, 12/4)
