Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Oprah Takes On Racism In Health Care; It's Time To Reassess Menopausal Hormone Therapy
USA Today: A Story In USA TODAY Sparked Oprah Winfrey's New Documentary On - And Battle Against - Racial Bias In Health Care
In late March 2020, Gary Fowler, 56, went to three Detroit emergency rooms looking for care. His father had COVID-19 and was in the hospital on a ventilator. Now Fowler had a fever and was feeling ill as well. He wanted a coronavirus test, and he needed help with his breathing. Three times, he was turned away. Fowler's son, Keith Gambrell, explained what happened in interviews with reporter Kristen Jordan Shamus of the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network. (Nicole Carroll, 4/29)
The Washington Post: Where The National Institutes Of Health Went Wrong On Menopause Research
Twenty years ago, the National Institutes of Health abruptly terminated research on the effect of hormone therapy on postmenopausal women. The decision resulted in a cascade of harms to millions who have undergone menopause in the United States. And it remains uncorrected two decades later. (Sharon Malone and Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, 4/28)
Miami Herald: Women In Medicine Are Giving Up Hopes Of Having Children
“I would love to be a surgeon, but I worry about not being able to have the family I always wanted. ”As an advisor for premedical and medical students, I hear this too often from my female advisees. We have all come to accept the challenges of juggling a demanding profession with the needs of a family. What we have failed to reckon with is that, for many of us, it may be improbable to even start a family. Studies suggest that one in four female physicians will experience infertility, nearly twice the incidence in the general population. It is exciting to see an increase in women entering medical school, but saddening to know this may come at a cost — infertility. (Shweta Akhouri, 4/29)
The CT Mirror: Flu Is A Growing Risk In Connecticut. Get Vaccinated
While most of us probably associate springtime with seasonal allergies rather than the flu, this year could change that. Until the last several weeks, flu season has been relatively mild across most of the U.S. and Connecticut, however, according to the Department of Public Health, flu activity is on the rise across the state. Why now? There are several potential reasons, but the most likely culprit is the slow rollback of COVID mitigation measures (e.g., masking) and our general return to pre-pandemic activities such as gathering with loved ones and traveling. Measures put in place to protect against COVID also worked to limit flu transmission for the past two years. This is why we saw fewer cases of flu than normal during the pandemic. (Serese Marotta, 4/28)
Newsweek: It's Not Just Student Loans. Americans Are Drowning In Medical Debt. Biden Must Help
There has been a lot of talk recently about student loan forgiveness—and rightfully so. It's become a rallying cry across the country, and this week, President Biden signaled to lawmakers that he was open to considering federal loan forgiveness. But there's another form of debt that the White House should stay focused on, one that's devastating families across the nation: medical debt. (Emily Stewart, 4/27)
Stat: CMS Needs To Include Measures For Social Drivers Of Health
Every day, physicians encounter patients in their practices who show the toll of skipping meals to feed their children, or who cannot refrigerate their insulin because they have no electricity. They know that improving their patients’ health is achievable only by addressing these and other social drivers of health (SDOH), but are often limited in their ability to do that. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) could change that by enacting the first-ever measures in a federal quality or payment program that offers incentives to physician practices and hospitals to engage their patients around these issues. (Michael Darrouzet, Jennifer Hanscom and Chip Baggett, 4/29)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Guns Become Leading Cause Of Child Deaths, But Missouri Looks The Other Way
A dubious distinction about children and guns was noted in a medical journal last week with little of the fanfare or fear or loathing that it deserved. In a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, three researchers from the University of Michigan wrote that in 2020 guns became the leading cause of death among children and teens for the first time, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The increasing firearm-related mortality reflects a longer-term trend and shows that we continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death,” the researchers wrote. (Tony Messenger, 4/28)
