Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Prenatal Testing Update Overdue; Health Care Disparities Discovered In Cervical Cancer Care
The New York Times: Our Prenatal Testing System Is Broken
Our 16-year-old daughter, Penny, wakes up to the beeping of her alarm. On her way downstairs, she picks up her iPhone to check her texts. She eats breakfast, gathers her sneakers and pompoms for cheerleading and heads to school. When Penny was diagnosed with Down syndrome a few hours after she was born, I didn’t expect our mornings to feel so ordinary. (Amy Julia Becker, 2/1)
NBC News: Black Women Can Rewrite The Narrative Around Cervical Cancer
The common narrative around Black women and cervical cancer is that we are “disproportionately” affected by it. Astonishingly, Black women are twice as likely to die from cervical cancer than white women, but it’s not because of biology — it’s because of health care disparities, systemic racism and long-held inequities. This must change. (Ciara, 1/31)
The Baltimore Sun: Expand Medicaid To Cover Adult Dental Care In Maryland
One by one, medical providers, social workers, dentists and health care advocates gave their brief but sobering accounts to the Senate Finance Committee during a virtual hearing last week with one common theme: They all knew of adults living in Maryland who suffered serious, often debilitating oral health problems and could not get the care they desperately needed. The reason? They lacked the ability to pay. And in Maryland, unlike 47 other states, Medicaid — the taxpayer-subsidized public health program that is supposed to help low-income individuals afford health care — simply did not cover their needs. As a result, they suffered or turned to illegal narcotics or ended up with problems so serious they had to be admitted to hospital emergency rooms, or, in extreme cases, they died from infections that might otherwise have been routinely treated. (2/1)
Stat: The Karikó Problem: Lessons For Funding Basic Research
New scientific institutes are springing up all over the place these days: Arcadia Science, New Science, Arc Institute, Activate, Actuate, Astera, Convergent Research, and more. They’re usually funded by Silicon Valley and have bold ambitions to advance scientific progress more quickly. Why this flurry of activity? After all, the National Institutes of Health spent nearly $43 billion on biomedical research in 2021, and the National Science Foundation spent nearly $8.5 billion on other areas of science. Why would anyone want to bother with funding a small fraction of a percent of that? Because they are convinced that the current system of science funding is uncreative and inflexible and that it’s time to try new approaches. (Stuart Buck, 2/1)
USA Today: What Justice Stephen Breyer's Retirement Spells For Abortion Access
We might not see Roe v. Wade last beyond this year, but what we can do is push for a justice who is devoted to making sure access to abortion is available for everyone. And hopefully, we will see the first Black woman, so that the makeup of who we are as people is more represented on the nation's highest court. The battle for Roe could be over, but the battle for the post-Roe future is just beginning. (Anna Rupani, 1/30)
The CT Mirror: CT Advocates Present Misleading Case On Abortion Access
When the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments recently in the Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, which could place reasonable restrictions on abortion after 15 weeks of gestation, the Connecticut abortion lobby went into abject hysteria, incorrectly claiming that access to ending innocent life was now at risk. If only that were the case. The reaction was an exercise in preserving its relevance while cynically asking for donations to fill the coffers of the abortion industry. It speaks to a growing desperation within the abortion industry that hearts and minds are changing about an issue that strikes at the very core of being human. (Christopher Healy, 1/31)
