Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: How Did Aduhelm Get FDA Approval?; Will The Supreme Court Uphold Abortion Rights?
Scientific American: Alzheimer's Inc: When A Hypothesis Becomes Too Big To Fail
Aducanumab, marketed as “Aduhelm,” is an antiamyloid monoclonal antibody and the latest in a procession of such drugs to be tested against Alzheimer’s disease. Over the last several decades, billions have been spent targeting the amyloid that clumps together to form the neuritic plaques first documented by German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer in 1906. This class of drugs has reduced amyloid aggregation; however, since 2000, there has been a virtual 100 percent fail rate in clinical trials, with some therapies actually worsening patient outcomes. (Daniel R. George, Peter J. Whitehouse, 8/25)
The New York Times: How The Supreme Court Could Slowly Sabotage Roe V. Wade
A major confrontation on the abortion battlefield looms this fall, when the Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments on whether Mississippi can ban abortion after 15 weeks. That’s roughly nine weeks before viability, the point at which states are now allowed to forbid abortion. To uphold Mississippi’s law, the court would have to eliminate its own viability rule or reverse Roe v. Wade altogether. (Mary Ziegler, 8/26)
Stat: Why The U.S. Needs To Expand Its Domestic Public Health Supply Chain
One of the many hard lessons learned from Covid-19 has been that a robust and resilient domestic public health industrial base is essential to the health and security of the United States. Early in 2020, as the pandemic emerged in the U.S., hospital executives; nursing home directors; clinicians; federal, state, and local officials; and so many others scrambled to get shipments of masks, gowns, and other personal protection supplies from around the world. Companies racing to develop diagnostic tests, therapeutics, and vaccines competed against each other for raw materials and supplies necessary for manufacturing. (Gary Disbrow and Ian Watson, 8/26)
The Atlantic: Not Everyone Can Afford To ‘Learn To Live With’ COVID-19
For most of human history, the majority of people died of infectious disease. Scourges like tuberculosis, typhoid, plague, smallpox, and (in some places) malaria carried most people to their graves, many as infants or children. As public health and biomedicine advanced, cancers and organ diseases replaced microbes as the main causes of mortality. The control of infectious disease, and consequent doubling of average life expectancy, helped to bring the modern world as we know it into being. But paradoxically, the control of infectious disease also helped to widen health inequities, both within and between societies. (Kyle Harper, 8/25)
Modern Healthcare: Medicare Graduate Medical Education Is Key To Improving Access To Care
Where you live shouldn't dictate the care you receive, but unfortunately, that's the reality of our healthcare system. A large part of our health is determined by our ZIP codes—not our genetic codes. A major cause of this trend is a critical shortage of primary-care physicians—the doctors patients rely on as the first point of comprehensive care. (Dr. Margot L. Savoy, 8/25)
Stat: My Aunt's 'Kafkaesque Journey' To Get The Home Care She Needed
As an attorney who has concentrated in elder law and long-term care rights for more than two decades, I was only too happy to help my aunt, who suffers from numerous illnesses and requires significant assistance with all of her activities of daily living, to apply to Medicaid for the home care services she greatly needs. Little did I know that her request would lead us to file a class action lawsuit in a New York federal court seeking to obtain fair treatment for hundreds of thousands of New York Medicaid recipients, and to an appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. (Aytan Y. Bellin, 8/26)
