Viewpoints: Patients Should Know If A Doctor Is On Probation; Keep FDA’s Powers Strong

Los Angeles Times: Patients Have A Right To Know When A Doctor Is On Probation For A Serious Violation
Before you schedule a physical for your teenage daughter, wouldn’t you like to know if her physician has been put on probation by the state medical board for inappropriately touching young female patients? Similarly, wouldn’t you want to know if the surgeon who’s about to operate on you had been sanctioned for operating while under the influence of drugs? (7/27)

Boston Globe: Don’t Limit The Powers Of The FDA
Repeated scandals helped create the Food and Drug Administration we know today: a thriving agency that effectively protects consumers and patients from unsafe food and drugs. However, Congress is overdue in passing legislation necessary to keep the FDA running, with one senator threatening further delay to force adoption of a policy that limits the powers of the agency. (Alison Bateman-House and Ameet Sarpatwari, 7/27)

Slate: Transgender Service Members’ Medical Costs Are Not A “Burden”
The word to focus on in this statement is burdened. Not only does the president think transgender service members would be a distraction, but he also believes their health care would be so exorbitantly expensive that their service to our country would not be worth it. A 2016 paper by the Rand Corporation titled “Assessing the Implications of Allowing Transgender Personnel to Serve Openly” estimated that about 2,450 transgender people are on active duty (out of 1.3 million active-duty service members altogether), and of that number, around 29 to 129 service members would seek care related to a gender transition in any given year. The total cost of their health care would increase overall expenditures on health care by between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually, which amounts to a 0.04 to 0.13 percent increase in total active component health care expenditures. (Jonathan Foiles, 7/26)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: For The Sake Of Human Trafficking Victims, Don't Rescind Medicaid Expansion
As we saw with Amy, the need for services doesn't end once a victim is removed from a trafficking situation. People like her rely on Medicaid to recover and heal, and they require ongoing trauma-informed mental health and addiction services. (Anne Victory, 7/26)

The Des Moines Register: Iowa Pays Price For Republicans’ Political Games On Family Planning
Among the most short-sighted measures approved this year by Iowa lawmakers and Gov. Terry Branstad was one giving up federal family planning money. Politicians wanted to prevent Planned Parenthood from being paid to provide health services, including counseling and birth control. (7/26)

JAMA Forum: 'America’s Health First': A Misnomer
On July 7, Tom Price, MD, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced the appointment of Brenda Fitzgerald, MD, as the 17th director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). To this position, Dr Fitzgerald brings her experience as Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, a role in which she championed infant health and survival, tobacco control, and obesity prevention. Other significant choices of individuals to head agencies that affect the public’s health include the recent nomination of Jerome Adams, MD, MPH, as surgeon general, and reappointment of Francis Collins, MD, PhD, as National Institutes of Health director. (Lawrence Gostin, 7/25)

JAMA: Practical Improvements For Medical Device Evaluation
Passage of the Medical Device Amendments Act in 1976 confirmed the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) primary responsibility for evaluating the safety and effectiveness of medical devices in the United States. Although there have been modest legislative updates in the ensuing decades, the broad structure of the FDA’s risk-based framework for premarket evaluation has remained largely unchanged. High-risk (“class III”) devices (such as pacemakers and insulin pumps) are subject to stringent premarket requirements including demonstration of clinical effectiveness, typically done through the Premarket Approval pathway. Medium-risk devices (such as glucose monitors and CT scanners) generally earn marketing clearance through the “510k” pathway, which assesses whether a given device raises new safety or effectiveness concerns compared with a currently-marketed device to which the technology being evaluated is deemed “substantially equivalent.” (Daniel B. Kramer and Robert W. Yeh, 7/25)

JAMA: Advances And Gaps In Understanding Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major public health concern, affecting an estimated 10 million people worldwide per year and more than 40% of US residents over the course of a lifetime. Mild TBI, also referred to as concussion, is defined as blunt, nonpenetrating head trauma associated with transient symptoms (eg, headache, nausea, dizziness, visual changes, confusion, or difficulty concentrating) and accounts for more than 80% of all TBI cases. Beyond the morbidity of the immediate trauma, patients who experience mild TBI are at increased risk of developing neurological and psychiatric disorders later in life. The majority of TBI is caused by motor vehicle crashes and falls, although brain injuries also occur during participation in contact sports, with an estimated 1.6 million to 3.8 million sports-related concussions occurring in the United States per year. (Gil D. Rabinovici, 7/25)

Seattle Times: Stop Exploiting Student Athletes
Seattle school administrators and coaches were misusing the system designed to help homeless students to bolster their sports teams. [Claudia] Rowe found that some schools labeled student-athletes as homeless so they could bypass normal playing restrictions based on grades or residency. (7/27)

The Washington Post: Why It’s So Hard To Die In Peace
For those of us who had hoped that American attitudes toward death were shifting in ways that would promote a wider reconstruction of the health-care system, there’s discouraging news from Health Affairs, the preeminent journal of health policy. It devotes its latest issue to “end-of-life” care and finds that — at least so far — the power to make health care more compassionate and cost-effective is limited. (Robert J. Samuelson, 7/26)

The New York Times: No Insurance, But For 3 Days, Health Care Is Within Reach
For a man who needed 18 teeth pulled, Daniel Smith was looking chipper. Anxious, too, for he was facing a pair of forceps. But Smith, 30, a contractor with no health or dental insurance, who hadn’t seen a dentist in more than 20 years, was looking forward to an imminent end to the pain and rot in his mouth. (Nicholas Kristof, 7/27)

Stat: To End HIV, Discriminatory Laws Must Be Repealed
More than 30 states have laws that can be used to prosecute people living with HIV. Some of these laws criminalize HIV transmission. That means individuals can be thrown into jail if they don’t disclose their status prior to sex, whether or not they transmit HIV. The legislation is aimed at vulnerable populations, such as people who use drugs or sex workers, all of whom have a higher risk of being infected with HIV. But it is counterproductive, because it actually heightens their risk of contracting the disease: Increased stigma leads to people not getting tested. That delays treatment, which reduces the likelihood of transmitting HIV to almost zero. (Chris Beyrer, 7/26)

Stat: Dear Sen. McCain: Here’s What I’ve Learned From Living With Glioblastoma
Dear Sen. McCain, I was saddened to hear that you received a diagnosis of glioblastoma. I also live with this particularly aggressive type of brain cancer. On the surface, you and I are very different. I am a 35-year-old dad with three sons aged 5 and under. I have a beard and listen to indie rock. I hold undergraduate and graduate degrees in philosophy. My home is in the heartland, though in my childhood I lived in your beautiful state of Arizona. You are 80, a distinguished member of the U.S. Navy, a war hero, and a long-serving U.S. senator at home in the Southwest and Washington, D.C. Yet we’re now connected by this terrible brain cancer. (Adam Hayden, 7/26)