Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Prescription Pads Need To Also Include Advising Patients To Vote; Lessons On Navigating Health Care
The New York Times: Doctors Should Tell Their Patients To Vote
In the winter of 1847-48, a typhus epidemic raged through Upper Silesia. The Prussian king dispatched a young Dr. Rudolf Virchow to investigate the outbreak. Dr. Virchow would later achieve scientific sainthood for disposing of Hippocrates’ idea that humors caused disease, solidifying the idea that cells were the basis of biology and coining terms like leukemia, spina bifida, thrombosis and embolism. But in 1848, he was a 26-year-old lecturer in pathology at the Charité hospital in Berlin — a disposable junior faculty member who could be banished to the hinterlands. (Ofri, 10/20)
The New York Times: Advice From Health Care’s Power Users
If the health care system seems confusing to you, you are not alone. In a large recent survey of the most seriously ill people in America, we learned that they, too, find it difficult to navigate. But they have developed a few strategies for getting through. Here are some tips and pitfalls about how to be sick from a group with lived experience. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 10/20)
Stat: Wider Use Of Psychiatric Drugs Could Boost The Global Burden Of Mental Illness
To reduce the rising burden of mental disorders around the world, the Lancet Commission on Global Mental Health and Sustainable Development has declared a need to increase psychiatric services globally, which should include an effort to “reduce the cost and improve the supply of effective psychotropic drugs for mental, neurological, and substance use disorders.” While reducing the burden of mental disorders is certainly a laudable goal, we believe that implementing this plan will increase the global burden of mental disorders rather than decrease it. (Robert Nikkel and Robert Whitaker, 10/22)
The Hill: World Osteoporosis Day: 10 Million Americans Unnecessarily Suffer From The Pain
While we once had prompt diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis, we now have elderly patients suffering from more common bone fractures and, in many instances, death from their complications. It is time to reverse this frightening trend. Women’s health across the country has been jeopardized by Medicare’s shortsighted policy on bone health. (Claire Gill, 10/20)
The Washington Post: Dealing With Anxiety Is Normal Part Of Grieving.
A few years ago, I began seeing a surge in anxious clients to my private practice as a grief therapist. They were reporting panic attacks and debilitating anxiety following the death of a loved one. Some of them had experienced anxiety before the loss, but the majority of them had never had anxiety before. Granted, anxiety is on the uptick in our society. Xanax prescriptions are on the rise, more college students than ever are reporting anxious symptoms, and a proliferation of books and apps are hitting the shelves to address this prevalent symptom. (Claire Bidwell Smith, 10/21)
The New York Times: The Problem With Probiotics
Even before the microbiome craze — the hope that the bacteria in your gut holds the key to good health — people were ingesting cultures of living micro-organisms to treat a host of conditions. These probiotics have become so popular that they’re being marketed in foods, capsules and even beauty products. Probiotics have the potential to improve health, including by displacing potentially harmful bugs. The trouble is that the proven benefits involve a very small number of conditions, and probiotics are regulated less tightly than drugs. They don’t need to be proved effective to be marketed, and the quality control can be lax. (Aaron E. Carroll, 10/22)
Austin American-Statesman: How Texas Can Lead On Mental Health Parity And Treatment Access
In reality, few individuals who have a mental health need obtain care—just one in 10 individuals who need substance use treatment accessed it at a specialty facility in 2016. And, the state’s health care system—like the rest of the country—is fragmented, with mental health seen as a separate and distinct element from physical care. (Benjamin Miller, 10/19)
San Francisco Chronicle: Vote 'Yes' On Prop. 11 To Ensure Ambulances Come Quickly
For the past 50 years, private emergency medical technicians and paramedics have been paid to be reachable during their work breaks in case there is a nearby emergency. ...But trial attorneys are trying to end this long-standing practice and require private, but not public, EMTs and paramedics to be completely unreachable during work breaks, putting patient care at risk. (Adan Dougherty, 10/20)
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohio's Fight Against Drug Abuse Is Saving Lives - If Issue 1 Passes, More Ohioans Will Die
Should Issue 1 pass, we lose the progress we've made. And, worst of all, we leave thousands of addicted Ohioans without the incentive to get treatment, stay sober and to live.If Issue 1 passes, Ohioans will die needlessly. (Maureen O'Connor, 10/21)
San Antonio Press-Express: State Should Expand Meds Available For Opioid Addiction
As a specialist in addiction psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine, I have devoted my professional life to studying addiction, including opioid addiction, and developing medical treatments that help patients fight it. Texas can do far more to combat this scourge that has afflicted so many families and communities here and across the country. (Thomas Kosten, 10/21)
