Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: New Organ Transplant Rule Needs To Be Reconsidered; Public Health Costs Of Climate Change
Kansas City Star: Kansas, Missouri Export Organs For Transplants Elsewhere
A nationwide rule implemented last year has sent increased numbers of locally donated livers elsewhere. And as we were warned would happen, area recipients are suffering and even dying as a result. Transplants are down, patients waiting for a liver are sicker, and the costs and logistical problems associated with transporting the organs have increased. In the 16 months since the rule change in February 2020, transplants at the University of Kansas Health System dropped from 93 in the prior 16 months to 67 — a nearly 30% drop. Two additional patients on the wait list also died, as compared with the previous 16 months. (Michael Ryan, 6/25)
The Baltimore Sun: Climate Change Threatens More Than The Environment; It’s A Public Health Crisis
Heat waves are occurring more often in the United States. Their frequency has increased from an average of two heat waves per year in the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s. Global temperatures are rising: 2016 was the hottest year on record, and the 2010-2020 was the hottest decade ever recorded. And sea levels are rising along most of the U.S. coastline, by as much as 8 inches in some locations. Left unaddressed, rising global temperatures, driven by carbon pollution, threaten to make extreme weather events more frequent and severe. Human health will suffer as a consequence, and Black communities will bear the brunt of this harm. (Leon McDougle, 6/24)
Stat: Wealthy Hospitals Should Be Last In Line For The New Residency Slots
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that President Biden signed into law in March includes funding for the creation of an additional 1,000 residency slots for newly minted physicians at hospitals across the country. The provision is one of many in the bill that aims to help health systems provide essential care to their patients and communities. While this important ramp-up is long overdue, an inequitable allocation of these residencies will defeat its purpose. (David Lenihan, 6/25)
The CT Mirror: Terminally Ill Patients Don't Want To Die
The opinion piece by Dr. Barry Wu and Dr. Andre Sofair published on June 22 was so UNfair that I felt compelled to write a response. Their letter, like so much of what I hear from opponents of medical aid in dying, was just misleading, starting with the misuse of the term “assisted suicide,” which seems to be the obligatory bumper-sticker sound bite. Terminally ill patients don’t want to die. They want to live, but that’s not going to happen, regardless of good doctors’ thoughts and prayers. They just don’t want to live out their last days without dignity. (Paul Bluestein MD, 6/24)
Newsweek: In Health Care, Not Discriminating Is Not Enough
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed social fissures in virtually every aspect of American life, revealing, for some, a gulf of inequity among different populations and their health outcomes all too well known to many. As one study found, social determinants account for a jaw-dropping 80 percent of health care disparities. In America, we increasingly saw these disparities—especially during the pandemic—pronounced along racial and ethnic lines. Importantly, they also exist along sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) lines. (Mandi L. Pratt-Chapman, 6/24)
The New York Times: What I Saw In My First 10 Years On Testosterone
Ten years ago this month, on an otherwise ordinary lunch break from my job as an editor at a local newspaper, I received my first testosterone injection from a no-nonsense doctor at a hospital in Boston. I was 30 years old and desperate to be known. I also wanted it known that despite the media fixation on a trite narrative about what it meant to be trans, I was not “a man trapped in a woman’s body or any cliché like that,” as I emailed my friends and family. I was a man and I was born trans, and I could hold both of those realities without an explanation that could be written on the back of a napkin. (Thomas Page McBee, 6/25)
Bloomberg: Eli Lilly Donanemab Approval Push Tests FDA Standards
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Biogen Inc.'s controversial Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm earlier this month without firm evidence that the drug helps patients, it created concern that other unproven treatments might follow. That scenario is already here. Eli Lilly & Co. announced Thursday that it plans to file for accelerated approval for its experimental Alzheimer's treatment donanemab this year based on its ability to clear amyloid brain plaques believed by some to cause the disease. That's the same unprecedented justification and pathway the FDA used for Aduhelm. Lilly is clearly reacting to the agency's shifted goalposts; in April, the company told investors it wouldn't seek a quick approval because the regulator said there wasn't enough data. (Max Nisen, 6/24)
