Viewpoints: Sen. Hawley Flip-Flops On His Promise To Protect Medicaid; H. Pylori May Have Positive Benefits
Editorial writers tackle these public health topics.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Hawley Vowed To Protect Medicaid. Now He’s Voting To Gut It.
Josh Hawley over the weekend did what anyone who knows anything about his brand of faux-populist politics should have known he was ultimately going to do: Missouri’s senior senator — who has spent months preening as that rare Republican who will steadfastly protect federal health care services for the poor — announced that he will vote to eviscerate federal health care services for the poor. (6/30)
Bloomberg:
H. Pylori Might Help Protect Brain Against Alzheimer's Disease
Biologist Martin Blaser of Rutgers University has been one of the most vocal advocates for understanding the pros and cons of H. pylori, which he describes in his 2014 book, Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling Our Modern Plagues. He said every mammal has some stomach bacteria — a relative of our H. pylori. (F.D. Flam, 6/29)
Stat:
Messy Project Investigating Cord Blood, Autism Offers Valuable Lessons
For a time, cord blood banker Cryo-Cell International and its partner Duke University seemed to be flying high together on the hope of using cord blood for pediatric neurological conditions. Yet in the past few months, the partnership has all come crashing down. Now, the deal with Duke is dead, and Cryo-Cell says it’s suffered more than $100 million in damages. I saw their collaborative plan as questionable from the start. (Paul Knoepfler, 7/1)
Stat:
How To Become A Trusted Scientific Messenger On Social Media
It’s a strange reality when more people recognize you from your videos on social media than from your peer-reviewed papers or “professional” work. During grad school, I could never have predicted that a casual one-minute video about immunology would rack up orders of magnitude more views in an hour than my published research papers would accumulate in ten lifetimes. But this is the reality of science communication in 2025: Dry data analysis is out, storytelling is in, and the implications for public health and the public perception of science are existential. (Morgan McSweeney, 7/1)
The CT Mirror:
Flying Ailments -- Jet Lag Is The Least Of It
Think air travel is just about delays and lost luggage? Your body has other plans. Forget plane crashes and fights about who gets the armrest. If you survive TSA, a middle seat, and boarding group 9, now you have to make it through the flight itself without your body unraveling like cheap luggage on a baggage carousel. (Jim Cameron, 6/29)
