Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Here's The Real Reason Behind High Drug Prices; How Worried Should We Be About Bird Flu?
The Washington Post: No, Big Pharma’s High Prices Don’t Drive Innovation
This year, for the first time, a handful of prescription drug manufacturers will negotiate with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services over how much taxpayers will pay for their costly drugs. Big pharmaceutical companies have long argued that such price negotiations will lower their profits, reducing their ability to innovate. But is that true? (Avik Roy and Gregg Girvan, 4/4)
Newsweek: The USDA Isn't Inspiring Confidence With Its Bird Flu Response
he government is freaking us out on bird flu. It's not what they're saying—it's what they are not saying. (Andrew deCoriolis and Gail Hansen, 4/4)
Bloomberg: Bird Flu In Cows And A Human Worries Scientists. Time For Vigilance
The bird flu keeps catching the world off guard by finding new ways to spread — this time finding an unexpected host in cows. (Lisa Jarvis, 4/4)
The Washington Post: Republicans Down, Abortion Up. What Did Overturning Roe Achieve?
The Florida Supreme Court’s go-ahead on Monday for a November abortion referendum sets in motion the most significant electoral contest on the issue since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Floridians will decide whether to override the legislature’s six-week abortion ban, which the court upheld, with a constitutional amendment allowing unfettered abortion access until about 24 weeks of pregnancy. (Jason Willick, 4/5)
Stat: Personalized Medicine: We're Not There Yet
When Francis Collins, then-director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, testified before Congress in 2003 about the significance of sequencing the human genome that year, he introduced personalized medicine as a new concept. He predicted that in 10 years personalized medicine would allow physicians to employ “predictive genetic tests … so that each of us can learn of our individual risks for future illness and practice more effective health maintenance and disease prevention.” Collins didn’t stop there. (Edward Abrahams and Christopher J. Wells, 4/5)
