Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Mental Health Care Needs An Overhaul; Why Is FDA Stalling On New Sunscreens?
San Diego Union-Tribune: Voluntary Outpatient Care Key To Mental Health Treatment
In the late 1960s, there was a mass deinstitutionalization of psychiatric care in the United States. Hundreds of psychiatric hospitals (so-called “asylums”) were closed in the name of freedom and human rights for their populations. In those asylums, mentally ill patients were kept in locked wards, often involuntarily, and sometimes in inhumane conditions, making it more of a mass incarceration than a compassionate treatment program. (Charles Murchison, 7/30)
Stat: FDA Slow To Act On Better Sunscreens To Prevent Skin Cancer
A decade after Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) authored the Sunscreen Innovation Act, which became law in 2014, Americans are still waiting for newer, more effective sunscreen products due to the Food and Drug Administration’s chronic inaction. (Darrell Rigel, 8/1)
Bloomberg: Trump's Anti-Vax Agenda Will Kill Americans
Of all the dangers that Donald Trump both threatens and embodies, from seedy criminality to sprawling authoritarianism, perhaps no threat is more acute than the one he poses to public health. “I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate,” Trump said at a rally in Minnesota last weekend. The former president used the same language — not “one penny” for schools that require vaccines or masks — at a rally in May. (Francis Wilkinson, 8/1)
Stat: PBMs Put Profits Over Patients When It Comes To Biosimilar Drugs
The Federal Trade Commission presents on Thursday its interim staff report, “Pharmacy Benefit Managers: The Powerful Middlemen Inflating Drug Costs and Squeezing Main Street Pharmacies.” It reveals how pharmacy benefit managers intentionally force people onto high-cost, high-rebate drugs. (Juliana M. Reed, 8/1)
