Viewpoints: Require Brain Exams For Presidents’ Physicals; Ensure Healthy Life For Babies; Are We Ready To Halt Spread of Disease?
A selection of opinions on health care from news outlets around the country.
Bloomberg:
Presidential Physicals Should Include The Brain
Right now, the technology exists to detect the very early stages of Alzheimer’s disease -- as well as to flag abnormal protein deposits that can grow in peoples’ brains long before symptoms of dementia become apparent. No tests of this sort will apparently be featured in Donald Trump’s Jan. 12 physical, according to those in the know, but some brain experts and medical ethicists argue they should be. Such early evaluations might one day become important for ordinary citizens, if drugs now in the pipeline prove effective in forestalling dementia symptoms. In the meantime, it behooves us all to have more information when the brain in question belongs to someone with access to classified information and nuclear codes. (Faye Flam, 1/12)
Miami Herald:
The United States Must Be Prepared To Respond To Deadly Infectious Diseases
Miami knows better than most what the spread of disease can do. Thousands of Chikungunya cases still plague the city, something it has in common with New York City and San Juan. The city was on guard for Zika before much of the rest of the country and its experience with biological weapons goes back to the anthrax events of 2001. The healthcare providers here in Miami and throughout the state are among the best in the nation. However, business as usual will not work against a widespread outbreak. Former U.S. Rep. Jim Greenwood and I are taking up this issue at a meeting of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense on Jan. 17 at the University of Miami. We will address state, local, tribal and territorial ability to respond to large-scale biological events. As former Secretary of Health and Human Services, I know that the federal government would move resources to affected areas throughout the United States. (Donna Shalala, 1/15)
Cleveland Plain Dealer:
More Fed Oversight Needed To Ensure Accurate Genetic Testing
This year, over 200,000 Americans will order genetic tests to see if they're at risk for more than 2,000 hereditary diseases, including cancer. Patients and their doctors can choose tests from over 500 different laboratories. Most people don't think twice about their choice of lab. They figure all lab tests are of similar quality. They're wrong. (Jill Levy-Fisch, 1/14)
St. Louis Post Dispatch:
The Most Dangerous Wealthy Nation To Be Born Into? The U.S.A.
As funding renewal for the Children’s Health Insurance Program continues to languish in Congress, a study published last week in the journal Health Affairs illustrates how badly the United States takes care of its children. Compared with 19 other economically developed nations, the study says, the United States is the most dangerous of wealthy nations for a child to be born into. Among the 20 industrialized nations studied, the United States ranked worst in childhood mortality. A child born here is 70 percent more likely to die before his 20th birthday than a child born in the 19 economic peer nations. (1/14)
Columbus Dispatch:
Broad Efforts Will Save Babies' Lives
If a society is measured by how it protects its most vulnerable citizens, Ohio’s latest poor showing in infant-mortality rankings is a terrible badge of shame. In a new national report based on birth and death statistics from 2013 through 2015, Ohio was one of just three states — along with Alabama and Indiana — in which infant-mortality rates overall and for the three subsets noted were all higher than the national rates. For African-American babies in particular, Ohio’s high mortality rate of 13.46 deaths for every 1,000 births was second only to Wisconsin’s. ... Reducing infant mortality in central Ohio long-term will come from what may seem to be unrelated efforts, but in truth, the solution requires a broad and deep focus. (1/16)
Lexington Herald Leader:
Raise Ky. Cigarette Tax By $1 For Healthier Babies
As a certified nurse-midwife, I see the negative effects of smoking on women and babies on a daily basis. Twenty-four percent of women in Kentucky smoke, giving us the distinction of being ranked the 49th-worst state in the nation. Fifteen percent of pregnant women in Kentucky smoke. Tobacco-exposed pregnancies result in increased rates of miscarriage, fetal death, stillbirth, preterm birth, low birth-weight, respiratory problems in newborns and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Low birth-weight, preterm babies require extended stays in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit which costs, on average, $3,000 per day. (Kendra Adkisson, 1/12)
Cleveland Plain Dealer:
When It Comes To Opioid Addiction, Prevention Is Key
Ohio's opioid overdose rate has increased at an alarming rate over the last 17 years. A recent report from The Ohio State University paints a stark picture of its social and economic cost in our state and communities. Overdose deaths involving other drugs, including alcohol and cocaine, are also increasing. Each year as the death toll increases, families and communities are torn apart. ... At The Center for Community Solutions, we have sought to identify and explore next steps. It is clear that it is not enough to treat the symptoms of the crisis; the root causes must also be addressed. Prevention of substance abuse plays a major role in quelling the opioid crisis and sparing future generations from suffering and loss. (Brie Lusheck, 1/14)
Lexington Herald Leader:
Economic Inequality Produces Sickness And A Politics Of Rage
Kentucky citizens need to be reminded of the out-of-state corporate plutocrats and their homegrown enablers making Kentucky one of the most unequal as well as most unhealthy states. Independent studies of economic and physical well-being consistently rank Kentucky as one of the poorest and unhealthiest states. Kentuckians are literally dying of inequality. Inequality, high poverty and ill health are closely connected. In 2016 Kentucky’s 18.5 percent poverty rate was one of the highest in the nation. Almost a third (30.8 percent) of African-Americans and just over one in four children living in poverty. Kentucky ranks second in the rate of abused children, double the national average. (Ron Formisano, 1/12)
St. Louis Post Dispatch:
Self-Dealing By Nursing Home Owners Threatens Patient Care
The outsourcing of logistical support services, which became commonplace in the U.S. military in the 1990s and later was adopted by state prison systems, has now come to dominate the nursing home industry. And while nursing homes, unlike the military or prisons, are not part of federal or state governments, Medicaid pays for the care of 62 percent of all nursing home patients, amounting to $55 billion in 2015. So the question of who’s profiting from meeting — or not meeting — their needs is a matter of great public import. People’s lives can and do hang in the balance. (1/14)
The New York Times:
Britain’s N.H.S. In Crisis: ‘We Might Break’
Britain’s National Health Service, put in place by the country’s post-World War II Labour government, holds a unique place in the country’s psyche as both source of constant frustration, object of affection and — somehow — a central pillar of arguments both to leave and remain in the European Union. In a country riven over Brexit, at least most people can agree on the importance of the N.H.S. What its future should be is less clear. (1/6)