Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Gottlieb, An Exception To Trump's Mediocre Hires, Did The Right Thing For Americans' Health; New Depression Drug Isn't A Sure Thing, But Has Life-Changing Abilities
Stat: Scott Gottlieb Showed Real Leadership At The FDA
Alot can be said of Washington in 2019. Talk of government dysfunction and party politics clouds even the simplest conversations and policies. Working in government, once held up as a way to serve our country, has turned into a partisan attack line. But there are some exceptions. Scott Gottlieb, through his deep respect for the agency he was entrusted to run, set himself apart from this political wrangling and did what was right for Americans. As he steps away from the Food and Drug Administration, he will be sorely missed. (Ellen V. Sigal, 3/6)
The Washington Post: Scott Gottlieb’s Departure Leaves The Health Of Millions At Stake
One of the Trump administration’s most competent, careful and effective senior officers will soon leave government. At stake is the health of millions of Americans. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb will depart within a month. He heads one of the nation’s most powerful government agencies, responsible for overseeing a fifth of the U.S. economy. Many of President Trump’s early hires were mediocrities or worse. Mr. Gottlieb quickly proved himself an exception. He deserves credit for bucking the administration’s otherwise pervasive penchant for knee-jerk deregulation and reality denial. (3/6)
Bloomberg: J&J Ketamine-Like Spravato Depression Drug Isn't A Surefire Hit
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval Tuesday evening of Johnson & Johnson’s depression drug Spravato, a nasal spray that is a close cousin to the anaesthetic and party drug ketamine, is a big deal for patients. The depression medicines available now aren’t always effective and can take weeks to have an impact even when they are. Spravato is the first fast-acting medicine of its kind and works in an entirely different way than current options. The new drug could help people with severe depression and those who don’t respond to conventional treatment. It’s not a silver bullet: The spray has produced mixed data and has significant side effects and abuse potential, which has led to FDA restrictions on its use. Even so, it addresses a large unmet need and has life-changing potential. (Max Nisen, 3/6)
The Hill: Trump, GOP Continue To Undermine Protections For People With Pre-Existing Conditions
In the next few weeks, the House of Representatives will start voting on health-care legislation, and we will soon see if the Republican party has learned any lessons from their defeat in the 2018 midterms. So far, the answer is a resounding no. Last November, the American people examined the Republican record on health care, and delivered their verdict by electing a Democratic majority to the U.S. House of Representatives, with the biggest gains since Watergate. (Leslie Dach, 3/6)
Stat: Health Care Price Tags Offer No Information About Quality Of Care
Say you want to know which baseball players provide the most value for the big dollars they’re being paid. A Google search quickly yields analytics. But suppose your primary care physician just diagnosed you with cancer. What will a search for a “high value” cancer doctor tell you? Not much. Public concern over bloated and unintelligible medical bills has prompted pushback ranging from an exposé by a satirical TV show to a government edict that hospitals list their prices online. But despite widespread agreement about the importance of high-value care, information about the clinical outcomes of individual physicians, which can put cost into perspective, is scarce. Even when information about quality of care is available, it’s often unreliable, outdated, or limited in scope. (Michael L. Millenson, 3/7)
The Wall Street Journal: We’re Overmedicating Our Children
A couple came to my psychotherapy office because their 8-year-old son was having trouble at school. He couldn’t sit still or focus on class work, and sometimes he’d act disruptively to get attention. The school had labeled the boy as having attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder and urged the parents to see a psychiatrist—who immediately prescribed a stimulant. American children have a drug problem. The use of psychiatric drugs to treat ADHD, depression and anxiety in children and teens has been increasing and is excessive. The family I saw was a case in point. The medication suppressed the boy’s behavior, but it also made him anxious, irritable and sleepless. His parents came to me seeking an alternative. (Erica Komisar, 3/6)
Los Angeles Times: How Badly Are We Being Ripped Off On Eyewear? Former Industry Execs Tell All
Charles Dahan knows from first-hand experience how badly people get ripped off when buying eyeglasses. He was once one of the leading suppliers of frames to LensCrafters, before the company was purchased by optical behemoth Luxottica. He also built machines that improved the lens-manufacturing process.In other words, Dahan, 70, knows the eyewear business from start to finish. And he doesn’t like what’s happened. (David Lazarus, 3/5)
The Hill: Anti-Choice Movement Is Like Reproductive Coercion, But On A Broader Scale
Anti-choice rhetoric continuously includes a healthy amount of victim blaming and messaging that is misogynistic. One of the phrases that we often hear is, “birth control is available so people shouldn’t have unplanned pregnancies.” Another is, “well you shouldn’t have sex if you don’t want to get pregnant or aren’t prepared for pregnancy.” Both of these statements are fraught with condescension for people experiencing unplanned pregnancies and a lack of understanding of the reality of the reproductive experiences of most people. Birth control is not widely available in many parts of the United States. There are also states stripping funding from family planning clinics or denying them the ability to accept Medicaid; it ignores the reality of reproductive coercion. (Julie Burkhart, 3/6)
Boston Globe: Cap On Kids A Failed Welfare ‘Experiment’
The truly pernicious part is that the cap penalizes all siblings who then need to be fed and clothed with the same size benefit. Children’s Health Watch reported, “From 2010-2016, almost one-third of 1,358 caregivers receiving TAFDC [Temporary Aid to Families with Dependent Children] with children under the age of 4 interviewed at Boston Medical Center reported a child not supported on the family’s TAFDC budget because of the family cap rule.” (3/6)
Columbus Dispatch: As Studies Spotlight Ohio, DeWine Promises To Fight Drug Ills
A new study published Feb. 22 in the Journal of the American Medical Association cites Ohio as a public-health leader for employing a multifaceted fight credited with decreasing overdose deaths in the first half of 2018. Still, as alarming as Ohio’s notoriety for overdose deaths has been, another new study casts the state in a disturbing-but-not-surprising role: having some of the nation’s steepest increases in rates of children needing foster care due to parents’ drug problems. (3/7)
Detroit News: Right To Health Care Gives Gov't Power
Every American should have access to quality, affordable health care. This is not a controversial claim. Almost everyone, on the right and left of the political spectrum, can agree with this statement. However, recently it has become fashionable to proclaim that health care access isn’t just something we should strive for, it’s a human right. Unfortunately, those who oppose this statement have been branded as hateful and uncaring. Before one reflexively endorses the notion that health care is a right, he or she should think carefully about the meaning of these words and their possible application. (Chad Savage, 3/6)
