Viewpoints: Put Alzheimer’s Funding On Par With AIDS Or Cancer Research; Take Care Of Children On The Border

The Hill: Here's Why We Should Put More Money Into Alzheimer's Research
In April, the Congressional Budget Office reported the U.S. annual budget deficit will reach $1 trillion by 2020. That’s a troubling trajectory, but no one in Washington seems to care enough to stop spending money. I only see one answer. Washington needs to spend more money. Spending in one area now might actually help avert a fiscal apocalypse later. A single disease, Alzheimer’s, costs America $277 billion per year; a figure projected to quadruple — to over $1 trillion (that’s one thousand billion dollars annually)— by midcentury. That would cost Medicare and Medicaid $750 billion; the equivalent of one-fifth of the federal government’s entire current budget. (Andrew Tisch, 6/17)

The New York Times: Why The Medical Research Grant System Could Be Costing Us Great Ideas
The medical research grant system in the United States, run through the National Institutes of Health, is intended to fund work that spurs innovation and fosters research careers. In many ways, it may be failing. It has been getting harder for researchers to obtain grant support. A study published in 2015 in JAMA showed that from 2004 to 2012, research funding in the United States increased only 0.8 percent year to year. It hasn’t kept up with the rate of inflation; officials say the N.I.H. has lost about 23 percent of its purchasing power in a recent 12-year span. (Aaron E. Carroll, 6/18)

The Washington Post: Laura Bush: Separating Children From Their Parents At The Border ‘Breaks My Heart’
On Sunday, a day we as a nation set aside to honor fathers and the bonds of family, I was among the millions of Americans who watched images of children who have been torn from their parents. In the six weeks between April 19 and May 31, the Department of Homeland Security has sent nearly 2,000 children to mass detention centers or foster care. More than 100 of these children are younger than 4 years old. The reason for these separations is a zero-tolerance policy for their parents, who are accused of illegally crossing our borders. I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart. (Former first lady Laura Bush, 6/17)

The Washington Post: Immigrant Children: What A Doctor Saw In A Texas Shelter
The small shelter along the Texas border to Mexico held 60 beds and a little playground for children. Rooms were equipped with toys, books and crayons. To Colleen Kraft, this shelter looked, in many ways, like a friendly environment for children, a place where they could be happy. But the first child who caught the prominent pediatrician’s attention during a recent visit was anything but happy. Inside a room dedicated to toddlers was a little girl no older than 2, screaming and pounding her fists on a mat. One woman tried to give her toys and books to calm her down, but even that shelter worker seemed frustrated, Kraft told The Washington Post, because as much as she wanted to console the little girl, she couldn’t touch, hold or pick her up to let her know everything would be all right. That was the rule, Kraft said she was told: They’re not allowed to touch the children. (Kristine Phillips, 6/16)

The Hill: I’m An Abortion Provider — Trump Administration’s Gag Rule Is An Attack On Poor Women
The Trump administration’s announcement that it will prohibit federal funding to any medical entity that provides or refers women for abortion care — the gag rule — is a straight-up attack on low-income women. And it is an attack on my obligation as a physician to give my patients unbiased advice on their health care options. (Sara Imershein, 6/15)

Bloomberg: This Anti-Salt Narrative Needs A Shakeup
When it comes to public health in the developed world, the perfect can be the enemy of the good. The American Heart Association urges every American to reduce sodium intake to an “ideal” level of less than 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day – a goal that fewer than 1 percent of the world’s population achieves. No wonder: 1,500 milligrams represents the inescapable amount of sodium that’s embedded in the amount of food we need to avoid starving. Setting that as the “ideal” is really a zero-tolerance policy toward sodium: You can’t add salt when cooking, let alone eat anything from packages or restaurants. (Faye Flam, 6/15)

The Washington Post: Advanced Ovarian Cancer Made Me Decide On Experimental Treatment
I’m glad I was lying down when the doctor told me the true cause of my stomach pains. “Well, you’ve got a tumor” were his first words to me. I had just awakened in a hospital bed on the morning after emergency surgery. It was Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017. Halloween. The doctor’s scary outlook came after two agonizing trips to the emergency room that had begun the preceding Friday night. After looking at abdominal X-rays, an ER doctor said constipation was making me feel as though a drawer full of forks was trying to pierce through my belly. He recommended an over-the-counter laxative. (Susan Lisovicz, 6/17)

The Hill: Can We Stop The Gun Violence Epidemic? Yes, By Treating It As A Health Crisis 
After each new episode in our nation’s worsening gun violence epidemic, the same two things happen: First, our screens and social media feeds are saturated with hauntingly familiar images — and then we’re told that it’s too soon to talk about gun laws. We need to break this cycle. For physicians, this is particularly poignant. While the rest of the country sees the television coverage from a distance, we see the trauma up close. Audiences see the vigils; we see the victims. And after audiences turn their attention to the next news story, we see patients through their long and painful roads to recovery. And for all these reasons, it is time for physicians and nurses to speak out. (Kenneth L. Davis, 6/16)

WBUR: Pills With Embedded Computer Sensors To Treat Mental Illnesses Raise Troubling Questions
Moments after Neo eats the red pill in “The Matrix,” he touches a liquefied mirror that takes over his skin, penetrating the innards of his body with computer code. When I first learned about the controversial new digital drug Abilify MyCite, I thought of this famous scene and wondered what kinds of people were being remade through this new biotechnology. (Anthony Ryan Hatch, 6/15)

Columbus Dispatch: Lawmakers Must End PBMs’ Tax-Funded Excess Profits
State lawmakers should be working on ways to bring transparency to prescription-drug pricing, and Sunday’s Dispatch report on secret practices of pharmacy benefit managers shows why. For months, pharmacy owners have been telling reporters that PBMs — hired to negotiate price rebates with drug manufacturers and save money for insurers and patients — instead rake off much of the savings for themselves, shorting taxpayers and starving the pharmacies in the process. (6/18)

The Hill: Unless We Take Action Now, Suicide Will Shadow The Next Generation
We call them deaths of despair — and they’re increasing. Recent data show suicide deaths have risen 25 percent over the past 20 years. The root cause cannot be tied to one problem or one issue, but rather a myriad of factors ranging from social determinants to health-related issues. But, no matter how you break it down, the rise in deaths appear to be grounded in despair and hopelessness. This makes the new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, released today, alarming: 1 in 3 teens reports persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, according to the most recent annual survey of high school students; and 1 in 5 teens has seriously considered suicide, according to that same report. Among these students, all races and genders seem at risk. But girls are almost twice as vulnerable as boys. And, perhaps most disturbing, one in four lesbian, gay and bisexual students report they have not just thought about suicide — they have actually attempted suicide. (John Auerbach and Benjamin F. Miller, 6/16)

Stat: After A Decade, New Gardasil Ad Campaign Gets It (Mostly) Right
While clicking through Snapchat the other day, an ad for Merck’s new Versed campaign for Gardasil, its vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV), stopped my thumb in its tracks. As a researcher interested in how gender and science interact in the realm of health policy, I knew what a controversial blunder its earlier marketing had been. I clicked with caution, was directed to the campaign’s website, and was surprised: a diverse, coolly confident group of 20-year-olds — female and male — dressed in beanies, snapbacks, neutrals, and raw denim were telling me “to get versed about HPV.” Although it was clearly trying very hard to be hip, perhaps overcompensating for Merck’s previously unpopular marketing, the website did highlight important facts about HPV and also mentioned that the virus could be transmitted by sex. (Ashley Andreou, 6/18)