Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: RFK Jr.'s Anti-Vaccine Damage Will Outlast His Time In Office; People With Mental Illness Are Capable Of Being Good Parents
The New York Times: Kennedy’s Anti-Vaccine Legacy Will Outlast This Administration
Four are dead in Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak. But the C.D.C. isn’t yet convinced. (Jessica Grose, 9/23)
Stat: Mentally Ill Women Deserve To Become Parents
A friend once told me approvingly that someone she knew had talked his schizophrenic adult son into having a vasectomy. Though I read “talked into” as “coerced,” I didn’t say anything. Oh my god, I thought instead, maybe I shouldn’t be a mother. I’d had a break with reality after stopping my antipsychotic 10 years before, frustrated with weight gain. I had returned to taking medication and my mental health had stabilized long before this conversation. But I was now pursuing pregnancy. (Meg LeDuc, 9/23)
Stat: Why Heidi Overton Has The Right Experience For FDA Commissioner
Heidi Overton has been nominated to lead the Food and Drug Administration at a moment of significant opportunity, but also big challenges. Innovation in medicine has never moved faster, providing more ways for Americans to improve their health and for the United States to advance the health of its population. But the institutions that carry that progress forward are under strain. (Scott Gottlieb and Mark B. McClellan, 9/22)
The Washington Post: Why Melinda French Gates’s Philanthropy Is Shifting Toward Menopause
The philanthropist is investing in care for women in their midlife. (Leana S. Wen, 9/22)
Katie Couric Media: What Nobody Tells You When Your Spouse Is In A Coma
Sometimes humor is the only thing that allows you to reenter ordinary life, if only for 30 seconds. There is an expectation that catastrophe transforms you into a different species. The Wife of the Man in the Coma should presumably become grave, wise, and interested in meditation. (Juana Libedinsky, 9/22)
