Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: More Research Needed On ALS; California's CARE Court For Mentally Ill Has Too Many Flaws
Newsweek: Why You Should Care About ALS
My mother told me she was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, the weekend that I graduated from law school. At the time I didn't even know what it was. I quickly learned that ALS is a fatal, neurological disorder. The progressive degeneration of motor neurons leads to death while a person's cognition remains intact. It is estimated that 5,000 Americans are diagnosed with ALS annually. On average a person dies within 3-5 years after symptoms first appear. (Katie C. Reilly, 5/26)
Los Angeles Times: 'CARE Court' Is No Solution For Unhoused People In California
In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a proposed framework to force some people living with mental health conditions to undergo treatment under court order. On Wednesday the California Senate passed a bill to enact this framework and create the deceptively named Community Assistance Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court. There is nothing empowering about involuntary treatment. (Olivia Ensign and John Raphling, 5/27)
Scientific American: Antifatness In The Surgical Setting
It was 6:30 A.M., and I was getting ready to head down to the operating room (OR) for the first case of the day: an abdominal wall hernia repair. In preparation for the case, I logged on to the electronic health record portal and read through the patient’s medical history and the preoperative notes written by the surgical team. In many of the physician notes, the first line noted the patient’s body mass index (BMI) of 41. The patient’s ventral hernia was estimated to be 30 centimeters by 20 cm, one of the largest hernias ever repaired by the surgeon I was working with. The CT scan showed sections of the large intestine protruding through the hernia, which posed a high risk for bowel twisting, which can lead to perforation and sepsis or tissue deoxygenation and necrosis. The patient’s condition had reached a critical point. (Ashley Andreou, 5/27)
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: Proposed Federal Law Would Give Older Ohioans More Choices For Health Care
The trauma of the last two years during the pandemic has reminded us to be cautious. This is particularly true for older individuals and their families. While Ohio’s COVID-19 situation seems to have finally turned a corner, older adults still remain at higher risk of contracting chronic illnesses, diseases, and injuries. This is especially true for older adults who have been hospitalized. As we return to more normalcy, it will be critical to respect seniors’ wishes and empower them with greater options when it comes to their health. (Joseph Russell, 5/27)
Also —
The Boston Globe: Gun Violence Is A Disease. Health Care Can Help.
If an infection killed a dozen or more people at one time in a specific location, health care workers, epidemiologists, and other scientists would rush in to try to find the cause. We would provide support, prevention measures, any mitigation possible to reduce spread of the infection. If we couldn’t find the cause, we would work to protect those most at risk. Whether the cause was environmental, genetic, microbial, or psychiatric, we would feel compelled to intervene in the most effective and compassionate way. This is exactly what has happened with COVID-19 and with other horrible infectious conditions, such as Ebola, tuberculosis, and SARS. The strategy is always to manage the most acutely affected, reduce the likelihood of further contamination, study the condition to understand its most dangerous characteristics, and begin to look for a cause. (Alex Johnson, 5/26)
The Washington Post: Demands Not To ‘Politicize’ Tragedy Are Themselves Political Demands
Humans beings generally recognize how and when to allow people to grieve. A parent losing a child in an act of random violence deserves some modicum of privacy and support. That can be tricky for reporters, tasked with telling the stories of such acts but wary of exacerbating a family’s pain. We, reporters and everyone else, evaluate boundaries and balance needs. One thing on which everyone would probably agree is that no one should force a parent, friend or family member who has lost a loved one to engage in a political discussion about their loss — or, for that matter, any other discussion. Often, though, we’re told that any such discussion is somehow an unacceptable intrusion, that talking abstractly about political factors to those not directly affected by a tragedy is “politicizing” what occurred in a disrespectful way. (Philip Bump, 5/26)
The New York Times: On Uvalde, Caring About Gun Control Is All We Seem Able To Do
The problem is not one of caring. Even the people with whom I vehemently disagree probably care. I concede that. The problem is what they care about more and how little it matters how much the rest of us care. We post pictures of the dead and the bereaved. We do this because we cannot or will not accept that others know the same facts that we know but care less about them than we do. In these moments, we struggle to make the other side care. Parents know that children are murdered. Religious faithful know that the elderly are murdered in church. Politicians know that their constituents live in fear of being gunned down. But other things matter more to them. Winning an argument. Owning a gun. Making money. Never having to think of distasteful things. And winning more arguments. Theirs is a challenge for a priest, not politics. (Tressie McMillan-Cottom, 5/26)
