Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: The Reality Of Living With Long Covid; A Report On Excess Mortality Should Be Retracted
Stat: Long Covid: Disease Expert On Living With A Disease With No Cure
I have spent my career studying infectious diseases that fall under the heading of neglected tropical diseases. Now I have a neglected disease — long Covid — an incurable (for now and for me) disease. As a medical anthropologist working in global health, I thought I understood the despair of poor health. I didn’t. (Rachel Hall-Clifford, 6/18)
CIDRAP: Misleading BMJ Public Health Paper On COVID-19 Excess Mortality Needs To Be Retracted
In a publication in BMJ Public Health on June 3, Saskia Mostert, MD, PhD, and colleagues discuss excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this paper has already led to much debate and confusion on both traditional and social media and has been used as fodder for anti-vaccine advocates. The paper's results have been taken to mean that vaccines are dangerous, and this has led to critical commentaries from other researchers as well as some of the authors who felt their work was not cited correctly. We give a brief summary of some of this criticism, add some additional concerns about the paper, and make the case for retraction of the paper. (Lone Simonsen and Rasmus Kristoffer Pedersen, 6/17)
The New York Times: Two Years After Roe V. Wade: ‘They’re Taking The Power From Us.’
I remember the hollowing sensation I felt on June 24, 2022, the day that the Supreme Court deemed that abortion was not a protected right under the U.S. Constitution. Everyone — on both sides of this debate — knew that women’s lives across the country were going to be drastically transformed. Since then, a lot of attention has been paid to the most heart-wrenching cases, but this decision affects all women’s bodily autonomy across the country. (Lynne Sachs, 6/18)
Stat: Marijuana Rescheduling Won't Help FDA Regulate Cannabis Products
The Food and Drug Administration has done a generally exemplary job of executing its mandate throughout its 118-year modern history. But the federal rescheduling of cannabis, which President Biden recently confirmed is moving forward, will pose unique challenges to FDA regulators. (Deb Tharp, 6/18)
