Viewpoints: Pass This Smart Pain Bill Creating A Safer Path For Temporary Use Of Opioids; Lack Of Trust In Government, Science Fuels Anti-Vaxxers

The Hill: There's A Pain Bill That's Actually Sensitive To Patients — Let's Pass It
Viewed in its own right, the recently re-introduced John S. McCain Opioid Addiction Prevention Act (S. 724/H.R. 1614) reflects simultaneous allegiance to patients with chronic or ongoing pain, to patients with acute or temporary pain who may be at risk of addiction and eventual overdose, to children and others who may find excess opioid medications and abuse them and to those who care for these individuals. U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and U.S. Reps. John Katko (R-N.Y.) and Thomas R. Suozzi (D-N.Y.) took great care in assuring that approach. (Steven C. Anderson, 4/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Pain Patients Get Relief From Regulation
In a span of 24 hours, the prospects for chronic pain patients treated with opioid medication vastly improved. On April 9, the Food and Drug Administration made official what hundreds of doctors have been saying for years: Patients whose intractable pain is being treated with opioids should move off them slowly, if they are to be tapered at all. The agency said it received reports of “uncontrolled pain, psychological distress, and suicide” among patients who have become dependent on opioids when that medication is suddenly “discontinued or the dose rapidly decreased.” (Sally Satel, 4/14)

The Washington Post: The Anti-Government Ideas Fueling Anti-Vaxxers
Last week, New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced extraordinary measures to counter the growing measles outbreak among the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The decision to declare a health emergency and order mandatory vaccinations of the whole community represents the strongest state response to a mounting public health crisis in decades. The controversy over measles outbreaks among ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in New York City and its surrounds has become a flash point amid the growing national controversy over the resurgence of the anti-vaccination movement. (Julia Bowes, 4/15)

Axios: For Low-Income People, Employer Health Coverage Is Worse Than ACA 
There has been appropriate handwringing since 2010 about the affordability of Affordable Care Act plans in the marketplaces. But new data show that health insurance is decidedly less affordable for lower income people who get coverage at work than for their counterparts with similar incomes in the marketplaces. Why it matters: It’s another example of how, when we focus so much on the ACA markets, we lose sight of problems in the employer-based health system where far more people get their coverage. For lower-wage workers, their coverage is decidedly worse than ACA coverage is. (Drew Altman, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: The Individual Mandate Is Here To Stay
Believe it or not, America may be debating ObamaCare yet again. “Repealing but not replacing”—a terrible idea, you may remember—has come bouncing back like a bad penny. This time the effort is judicial rather than legislative, but it will run up against the same wall: The logic of American health care still pushes in the directions President Obama chose. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act 5-4 in 2012 because Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s liberals. But the grounds were narrow: The chief justice appealed to Congress’s taxing power viewing the ACA’s penalty for not purchasing health insurance as a tax. Odd, many ACA supporters thought at the time, but we’ll take it. (Alan S. Blinder, 4/14)

Stat: Health Care Needs Less #Innovation
While some health systems have successfully reduced medical errors, improved their use of evidence-based guidelines, and coordinated care across doctors, most continue to struggle — and patients pay the price.With grossly uneven quality and a body of existing solutions, does health care need more imitation and less innovation? As Anna M. Roth and Thomas H. Lee suggested in the Harvard Business Review, maybe we should be anointing more chief imitation officers — people who scour the literature and the country for effective practices to bring home — and fewer chief innovation officers. (Dhruv Khullar, 4/12)

The Washington Post: Five Myths About Psychology 
Many of psychology’s concepts and terms have, in recent decades, entered our vernacular. Political pundits speak casually of “confirmation bias” — the way people focus selectively on evidence that backs up their existing beliefs — and many laypeople know the purported role of serotonin in producing a sense of well-being. Psychological discoveries continue to sharpen and refine our understanding of human suffering and of the human condition more broadly. Nonetheless, many myths about psychology persist.  (Stephen Hardi, 4/15)

Stat: He Jiankui's Gene Editing Experiment Ignored Other HIV Strains 
When He Jiankui announced the birth of twin girls whose DNA he had modified when they were embryos using the CRISPR gene-editing tool, he justified his actions on the ground that he had given the two girls lifetime immunity from HIV infection. The Chinese scientist claimed that he had altered a gene called CCR5, which allows the AIDS-causing virus to infect an important class of cells in the human immune system.Not only was He ethically wrong in doing this work, but its scientific basis was even weaker than generally recognized. (Henry T. Greely, 4/15)

The New York Times: Don’t Let A Killer Pollutant Loose
PM 2.5 kills people. There has been little dispute that microscopic particulate matter in air pollution penetrates into the deepest parts of the lungs and contributes to the early deaths each year of thousands of people in the United States with heart and lung disease. One recent study called PM 2.5 “the largest environmental risk factor worldwide,” responsible for many more deaths than alcohol use, physical inactivity or high sodium intake. (John Balmes, 4/14)

The New York Times: This Editorial Is Not About Designer Babies
Leigh syndrome is a terrible disease. In the worst cases, it emerges shortly after birth and claims one major organ after another. Movement becomes difficult, and then impossible. A tracheotomy and feeding tube are often necessary by toddlerhood, and as the disease progresses, lungs frequently have to be suctioned manually. Most children with the condition die by the age of 5 or 6. Leigh syndrome is one of hundreds of so-called mitochondrial diseases, which are caused by defects in the specialized cellular compartments — called mitochondria — that produce 90 percent of the body’s energy. (4/12)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Re Heartbeat Bill, Time Was When The Ohio Legislature Would Leave Matters Of Conscience To The Individual
The legislature’s passage last week of an anti-abortion “heartbeat” bill became inevitable in November. That’s when the state’s voters elected Mike DeWine Ohio’s governor and when they decided that Republicans should stay in charge of the state Senate and Ohio’s House.DeWine signed the heartbeat bill Thursday. It’s sponsored by Sen. Kristina Roegner, a Hudson Republican. Next, a federal judge will almost certainly forbid Ohio to enforce the measure. (Thomas Suddes, 4/14)

Columbus Dispatch: Ending Pregnancy Is Sometimes Critical For Health Concerns
The Ohio legislature and Gov. Mike DeWine have acted to deny women in the state the ability to make their own decisions about their health and families. Last week, DeWine signed a bill that, if allowed to go into effect, would outlaw abortion care at or after six weeks, before most women even know they are pregnant. That our state’s politicians would criminalize patient care should alarm all Ohioans and sets a concerning precedent for the practice of medicine. (David Hackney, 4/15)

Sacramento Bee: Homeless Is Often About Mental Health, Not Just A Lack Of Housing
The very symptoms causing desperately ill patients to spill into our streets are being protected in the name of compassion. This is dialing back to a Medieval understanding of psychiatric illness and is absolutely outrageous, particularly in the era of effective treatments which can restore patients to stability. (Drew Pinsky, 4/13)