Viewpoints: TBI And Its Long-Term Effects; Source Of Burkholderia Pseudomallei In Texas A Mystery

CNN: A Brain Injury Turned My Life Upside Down, And I'm Still Finding My Way Forward
In the middle of winter, in January 2021, I got into a car accident in Oregon. I'm a producer for CNN, so my life is divided into the stories I cover -- and this happened right after President Joe Biden's inauguration, when New York City was reaching out to vaccinate seniors who didn't know how to sign up online. It was snowing that day. Local news in Oregon said it was the first significant snowfall in months, and reported a handful of other car slippages and accidents. (Anne Lagamayo, 7/26)

USA Today: Lylah Baker Of Texas May Never Know Source Of Foreign Bacteria: CDC
A medical mystery emerging in three states took a concerning turn over the weekend as seven family members in Texas tested positive for potential exposure to a deadly type of bacteria that isn’t supposed to be found in the continental United States. Disease detectives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have told the family of Lylah Baker, a 4-year-old girl hospitalized in Dallas, that blood tests show several of them have antibodies to the bacteria, called Burkholderia pseudomallei, that has sickened Lylah with devastating consequences. (Alison Young, 7/26)

Stat: On Compounding, The FDA Marches To The Beat Of Its Own Biases 
The FDA’s approval of the drug Aduhelm as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease — despite the recommendation of its own advisory committee against approval — came as a surprise to many. But to me, that decision is the latest in an ongoing pattern of FDA keeping its own counsel and doing things its own way. I’ve seen this firsthand in its oversight of pharmacy compounding, where the agency has a track record of cutting corners, manipulating processes, and even defying Congress to implement its own agenda. (Scott Brunner, 7/27)

The Star Tribune: A New Mpls. Response On Mental Health Calls 
When the Minneapolis Police Department is called to respond to a mental health problem, dispatchers will soon have an alternative to sending sworn officers. City leaders recently announced a pilot program that will deploy civilian crisis teams to take care of certain types of emergencies. It's a welcome move that holds promise to reduce the number of arrests, injuries and fatal shootings of people in crisis, while also freeing up time for officers to do other work. Instead of police, whose presence in uniform can make some situations worse, mobile response teams will take some behavioral health calls. Mental health advocates have long supported alternatives for situations that don't necessarily require armed responders. (7/26)

Newsweek: The Limits Of Government Disease Control
It seems an unquestionable orthodoxy in discussions of what can be done to limit the spread of COVID-19 that government policies have a central role to play. Economic research indicates, however, that this view has its limits; it does not take into account the private-sector incentives that can spread disease and mute government prevention efforts. Evidence suggests that after a disease is introduced into a population, some level of damage through the disease itself and the costs of prevention is unavoidable, and less influenced by policy than commonly believed. Few would claim that non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, are spread or stymied primarily by government policy. Rather, private economic incentives drive many such diseases. In the case of obesity, such incentives include the falling price of calories caused by agricultural innovation and the widespread presence of sedentary work rather than manual labor. (Casey B. Mulligan and Tomas J. Philipson, 7/27)

USA Today: San Francisco Drug Laws Keep People Addicted To Fentanyl In Bondage
Fentanyl is killing my son, Corey. There was a time when I wouldn’t admit that. Shame kept me silent. But things have changed. I am desperate now. For years he suffered addiction to opiates, including heroin. More recently, my adult son has started to use fentanyl. He has deteriorated more in a few months on fentanyl than he ever did in 10 years on heroin. I’m scared I will lose him. He tells me that so many of his street friends have died of overdoses. My son has overdosed numerous times. Narcan saved his life. He says he doesn’t want to die. He said his friends didn’t want to die either. (Jacqui Berlinn, 7/27)

Stat: ARPA-H's First Challenge: Electronic Health Record Migration 
Most new, high-profile initiatives start with something splashy. President Biden’s proposed transformative biomedical agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), should start with something mundane: revamping the now-ubiquitous electronic health record (EHR). Once hailed for their potential to transform U.S. health care into a modern, data-driven enterprise, electronic health records have instead increased the burden of data entry, contributed to physician burnout, and had a nebulous impact on the quality of care. (Gopal Sarma, 7/27)