Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Teaching Complicated Information About Vaccines Isn't A Job For Celebs; American Lives Plus Democracy Threatened By Shooter's Manifesto
The New York Times: Who Cares What Celebrities Think About Vaccines?
Last week, just ahead of back-to-school season, New York State health officials issued emergency regulations limiting medical exemptions from vaccination requirements for kids attending schools or day care centers. What do celebrities think about this development? Hopefully, the public won’t find out — because it doesn’t matter. (Carolyn Kylstra, 8/23)
St. Louis Post Dispatch: The Anti-Vaccination Movement Is Now Claiming Lives.
The recent death of an Israeli flight attendant from measles should serve as a tragic reminder of something too many people in the U.S. and elsewhere have forgotten: This is a dangerous disease, and those driving its resurgence with anti-vaccination movements around the world are playing with fire. (8/25)
Boston Globe: The Conspiracist Logic Of Massacre
Many factors stand behind the recent El Paso shootings, in which 22 people were killed, including racism, personal demons, and the easy availability of guns. But something more — a conspiracist mindset — makes this brew uniquely toxic. And conspiracism is what made a massacre seem, to the alleged perpetrator’s eyes, an act of collective self-preservation. The shootings and his manifesto were a call to arms. Familiar conspiratorial tropes are always with us — there are always new variations on a secret plot by a despised group whose covert goal is to deny America as a Christian nation, or depreciate America as a white nation, or cede sovereignty to the “new world order.” (Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, 8/26)
Fox News: Solution To Gun Violence Isn't What You Think, Says Former Police Officer
Our baser nature clearly is not changed by passing more laws. The promises of security through more government restrictions will only serve to erode our freedoms while providing little protection. Rather, the solution to the gun violence plaguing our nation will be found in a willingness to recognize, as did the Founders, that as a people we are dependent upon and accountable to an omniscient God. It is only from such an understanding that morality and public virtue become commonplace, which is essential for freedom.As Americans, we must carefully consider the path we take in addressing this present and growing crisis. New gun laws never achieve what a commitment to the Golden Rule can accomplish. America will be safer if all of us do unto others as we want them to do unto us. (Tony Perkins, 8/25)
The Washington Post: Trump Just Won A Battle With Planned Parenthood. Thousands Of Women Will Pay.
The Trump administration just won a victory over Planned Parenthood. Thousands of women will pay the price. Planned Parenthood announced this month that it was leaving the federal government’s Title X program, which pays for family planning services for low-income Americans. As many as 1.6 million women and girls who currently rely on Planned Parenthood for things such as birth control pills and health screenings could be affected. The Trump administration argues there will be alternatives available to this vulnerable population. In some areas, that is not clear. Planned Parenthood is the only Title X provider in Utah. The organization serves about 90 percent of Minnesota’s Title X patients. Without Title X funding, clinics will have to charge co-pays, draw on financial reserves or shut down. (8/24)
Stat: Stop Treating Medical Residents Like Indentured Servants
In recent months, the announcement that Hahnemann University Hospital would be closing in September has cast a pall of uncertainty over the future of hundreds of residents who suddenly did not know how or whether they would complete their training. Instead of helping residents find new hospitals that would best support their education, Hahnemann executives, in dealing with Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, simply auctioned its 550 residency slots to the highest bidders, a consortium of regional hospitals, for a sum of $55 million.The hospital’s recent “sale” of medical residents and their residency slots showcases how some teaching hospitals have subordinated their training mission in favor of the pursuit of profits. (Kim-Lien Nguyen, 8/26)
The Washington Post: The Government Doesn’t Have To Take Over Everything. But It Should Expand Choice.
Complaining about government — its failures, its corruption and, in the worst cases, its capacity to oppress — is both an American pastime and a right to be treasured. But a wholesome desire to preserve ourselves from foolish or tyrannical rule often devolves into disdaining government altogether. The underlying assumption (I exaggerate only a little) is that everything government undertakes is doomed to be less effective, less beautiful, less innovative and less useful than the work of the private sector. (E.J. Dionne, 8/25)
Stat: Clinical Trial Recruitment, Diversity Depend On Community Engagement
Clinical trials in the United States have been plagued for years by two well-known problems: They don’t recruit enough people and they fail to reflect the diversity of our nation.The good news is that solving the diversity problem can resolve both issues. Two birds, one stone. (Bobby Clark and Ronnie Tepp, 8/23)
Boston Globe: Protecting The Vulnerable From Abuse
For the parents of those with intellectual disabilities, the worry never stops. Their adult children — many of whom are in group homes or day programs — remain ever-vulnerable to abuse and neglect at the hands of their caregivers. Massachusetts, through the independent Disabled Persons Protection Commission (DCCP), maintains a hotline to report such abuse or neglect as well as State Police investigators on its team to follow up. But in many instances, even when the commission substantiates allegations of abuse, the abuser simply moves on to the next facility. (8/26)
The New York Times: I Couldn’t Say ‘My Mother’ Without Crying
This month on CNN, Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert engaged in a candid conversation about the long-term effects of childhood grief. Mr. Cooper was 10 years old when his father died from a heart attack. Mr. Colbert also was 10 when his father died in a plane crash that also took two of his brothers’ lives. Their early losses, both men agreed, shaped their priorities, their worldviews and the adults they ultimately became. “I was personally shattered,” Mr. Colbert recalled. “And then you kind of re-form yourself in this quiet, grieving world that was created in the house.” (Hope Edelman, 8/25)
St. Louis Post Dispatch: Whatever Happens With Missouri's Abortion Law, Proponent Lawmakers Should Pay
Missouri’s draconian new law to restrict women from exercising their constitutionally protected abortion rights is a step closer to taking effect Wednesday. It will add the state to a small but growing list of jurisdictions in which women’s right to control their own bodies will be newly threatened as tribute to ideological extremism. (8/25)
