Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: The Loss Of Peter Marks Is Tremendously Troubling; Does The Wellness Industry Make Us Unwell?
Stat: Why The Ouster Of FDA's Peter Marks Is A Huge Deal, Whether You Liked Him Or Not
The forced resignation of Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration official in charge of regulating vaccines, gene therapies, and the blood supply, led to panic over the weekend in the worlds of public health and biopharmaceuticals — two worlds that often agree on very little aside from their belief in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. (Matthew Herper, 3/31)
The Washington Post: Is Our Health And Wellness Obsession... Healthy?
We’ve had fitness influencers and wellness influencers for a long time. We may not all remember Jane Fonda or Richard Simmons in the ’80s, taking advantage of what was then a very new technology: VHS tapes. But we’ve all heard about them. (Drew Goins, Molly Roberts and Theodore R. Johnson, 3/31)
The New York Times: I.V.F., Gene Selection And Embryo Screening: Is This The Future Of Making Babies?
Orchid screens embryos’ DNA for hundreds of conditions, such as retinitis pigmentosa, which can be traced to a single genetic variant. But the company also goes further, offering what is known as polygenic screening, which gives parents what is essentially a risk profile on each embryo’s propensity for conditions such as heart disease, for which the genetic component is far more complex. (Anna Louie Sussman, 4/1)
Bloomberg: Will US Tariffs Lift The Veil On India’s Drug Safety Problem?
The pharmaceutical industry — which is well known globally for churning out generic drugs that are the backbone of many countries’ health systems — should be particularly worried. Over 30% of Indian pharma exports go to the US, and it provides an even larger proportion of earnings. (Mihir Sharma, 3/31)
Stat: End Patent Extensions For Drugs With ‘One-And-Done’ Monopolies
In 2024, total U.S. spending on prescription drugs was almost $800 billion. Although low-cost generic drugs filled 91% of all prescriptions, the 9% of prescriptions filled with a branded medicine accounted for 84% of drug spending. The monopolies on new drugs last so long, launch prices are so high, and price increases are so steep that they more than wipe out the savings Congress hoped to achieve by encouraging robust generic competition. (Alfred Engelberg, 4/1)
