Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Time To Remove Misleading Cancer Warnings From Labels?; Bad Doctors Still Slip By Despite Reporting System
The Wall Street Journal: A Cancer Scare Defeat In California
Cancer is a scary disease, but Californians have been determined to scare themselves more than most with warnings about the supposedly cancer-causing material in everything from shoes to cat litter. Now a federal judge says these mandatory fright signs may violate the First Amendment when not backed by accurate science. (3/14)
USA Today: How Dangerous Doctors Escape Despite National Data Bank
While practicing medicine in Illinois, Jay Riseman was called an “imminent danger to the public” by a state medical board attorney and was placed on indefinite probation in 2002. The doctor also racked up a dozen malpractice suits, including one involving the death of a 2-month-old infant a day after he prescribed a heavy dose of a laxative, twice the allowance for adults. (3/14)
USA Today: Medical Boards: Data On Doctors Should Be Free
The mission of the nation’s 70 state medical boards is to protect the public from the unprofessional or incompetent practice of medicine. To fulfill that mission, they rely on hospitals, insurers, peers and the public — and tools such as the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) and the Federation of State Medical Boards’ Physician Data Center — to provide them with relevant information to investigate professional misconduct. The national data bank is a valuable tool, but it is far from the only resource the boards utilize and not without its limitations. (Humayun Chaudhry, 3/14)
Bloomberg: The Blood Unicorn Theranos Was Just A Fairy Tale
It seems like Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes really wanted to build devices that would actually do these things, and thought she could, and tried to. But it didn't work, and Theranos ran out of time: It talked Walgreens into offering Theranos tests at its stores, but "it became clear to Holmes that the miniLab would not be ready" in time for the Walgreens rollout. So she went with Plan B. (Matt Levin, 3/14)
Miami Herald: Parkland student activists must remain committed
Are the students who walked out of class Wednesday morning serious about doing something about mass shootings, particularly advocating for restrictions on gun ownership where they face a formidable foe in the National Rifle Association? If so, it will take a lot more than an extended recess, it will take commitment, it will require a great deal of homework, and it will mean sacrifice and doggedness. As we’ve noted before, the outspoken student leaders from Parkland seem to have that fire and urgency. ...The grownups have surely failed to do much about the problem. (3/14)
The Washington Post: Students Walking Out Of School Taught The Nation A Lesson
And in Newtown, Conn., where 26 people — most of them children just 6 and 7 years old — were slaughtered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, students, parents and teachers gathered in a parking lot to recite the names of gun violence victims. These were but a few of the poignant scenes Wednesday as tens of thousands of students, many joined by parents and teaching staff, participated in an extraordinary nationwide demonstration for safer schools and stronger gun control. “Unprecedented in recent American history” was how Post reporters Joe Heim, Marissa J. Lang and Susan Svrluga described Wednesday’s protests. (3/14)
WBUR: New Depression Screening For Teens Could Reduce The Stigma Of Mental Illness
To address mental health concerns early and often can help them become matter-of-fact rather than a matter of shame. The more we can accept and not hide, the more likely we are — as individuals and as a country — to live healthier and happier lives, not depression-free for those of us touched by it, but more compassionately and graciously. (Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, 3/15)
The New York Times: Many Drugs And Many Doctors Lead To Many Mistakes
I am a home hospice nurse, and when I get new patients after they have been discharged from the hospital, the list of drugs included in their paperwork is always wrong. Some mistakes are minor: The list includes a relatively harmless drug the patient no longer needs or it leaves off a minor dose adjustment. But other mistakes are more serious — the list may include an important prescription the patient never knew to fill or may have the patient on two medications that can be dangerous when taken together. (Theresa Brown, 3/14)
WBUR: Family Caregivers, Whose Care Is Valued At $500B, Are Finally Gaining More Formal Notice
This nation includes over 40 million people — most of them family members — who provide care to loved ones that is valued at half a trillion dollars each year, nearly on par with what the federal government spends on Medicare or Medicaid. The informal, non-professional care we give accounts for as much as 80 percent of the total value of "long-term services and supports" for older adults, a category that includes assistance with routine daily activities. (Tom Riley, 3/14)
Sacramento Bee: Republicans Are Asking For Single Payer Health Care
Republicans in Congress have worked hard to sabotage the Affordable Care Act. In so doing, they are creating an opening for the kind of health care system they will detest. (Tom Epstein, 3/14)
Bloomberg: The Stephen Hawking I Knew
Most of us spend most of our lives without any sense of the imminence of our mortality. This wasn't true for Stephen Hawking. He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at age 21 and given months to live. ...Once, when we were alone, Stephen spoke to me about his condition. He said that, actually, it was an advantage! (Nathan Myhrvold, 3/14)
The New York Times: Stephen Hawking, Force Of Nature
The scientific community rightly makes much of one of his miracles, a discovery he made in 1974 of something now known as Hawking radiation: the phenomenon in which black holes — so named because nothing can escape them — actually allow radiation to get out. In popular culture Stephen (Hawking) was another kind of miracle: a floating brain, a disembodied intellect that fit snugly into the stereotype of the genius scientist. ...But to me Stephen was also the everyday miracle of an ordinary embodied human — albeit one who had to battle in heroic ways within the confines of his particular shell. (Leonard Mlodinow, 3/14)
The Washington Post: The Real Down Syndrome Problem: Accepting Genocide
In Iceland upward of 85 percent of pregnant women opt for the prenatal testing, which has produced a Down syndrome elimination rate approaching 100 percent. ...An Iceland geneticist says “we have basically eradicated” Down syndrome people, but regrets what he considers “heavy-handed genetic counseling” that is influencing “decisions that are not medical, in a way.” One Icelandic counselor “counsels” mothers as follows: “This is your life. You have the right to choose how your life will look like.” She says, “We don’t look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended.” (George F. Will, 3/14)
Sacramento Bee: Don’t Play Politics With Dying Californians Who Are Using New Medical Aid-In-Dying Law
Among the needless mandates are two provisions that are not even in Oregon’s 20-year old Death with Dignity Act, the model for California’s new law. SB 1336 would require patients to justify why they want to use the law verbally and in writing, and would also mandate doctors identify their specialty. SB 1336 is a thinly veiled attempt by opponents of medical aid in dying to make it impossible for patients to use the law and to gather data that they believe will help them to overturn the law entirely. (Kim Callinan, 3/14)
