Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Trump's Decision To Restrict Fetal Tissue Research Is Wrong; Detention Centers For Immigrants Are Really Concentration Camps
Bloomberg: The Case Against Trump's Fetal-Tissue Research Restrictions
After years of attacks from abortion opponents, scientists who conduct fetal-tissue research tend to keep a low profile. When the journal Nature contacted 18 such researchers for an article on “The Truth About Fetal Tissue Research,” only two agreed to speak. That’s a shame, because their research has saved countless lives and could save countless more. Most people who’ve benefited simply don’t know it. Last week the Trump administration moved to restrict this vital research. It’s more important than ever that advocates explain loudly and clearly why it matters. (6/9)
Los Angeles Times: Call Immigrant Detention Centers What They Really Are: Concentration Camps
If you were paying close attention last week, you might have spotted a pattern in the news. Peeking out from behind the breathless coverage of the Trump family’s tuxedoed trip to London was a spate of deaths of immigrants in U.S. custody: Johana Medina Léon, a 25-year-old transgender asylum seeker; an unnamed 33-year-old Salvadoran man; and a 40-year-old woman from Honduras.Photos from a Border Patrol processing center in El Paso showed people herded so tightly into cells that they had to stand on toilets to breathe. (Jonathan M. Katz, 6/9)
Stat: Court Paves The Way For Addiction Treatment In Prisons And Jails
A ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston that an inmate is entitled to receive medication for her opioid use disorder was a big win in the ongoing battle against the stigma that those with substance use disorders face on a daily basis. The controversy spawned by the decision underscores how much more work needs to be done to ensure that individuals with these disorders receive the treatment they need and are not judged simply as people of poor character making bad choices. (Kevin Doyle, 6/10)
The New York Times: The Business Of Health Care Depends On Exploiting Doctors And Nurses
You are at your daughter’s recital and you get a call that your elderly patient’s son needs to talk to you urgently. A colleague has a family emergency and the hospital needs you to work a double shift. Your patient’s M.R.I. isn’t covered and the only option is for you to call the insurance company and argue it out. You’re only allotted 15 minutes for a visit, but your patient’s medical needs require 45.These quandaries are standard issue for doctors and nurses. Luckily, the response is usually standard issue as well: An overwhelming majority do the right thing for their patients, even at a high personal cost. (Danielle Ofri, 6/8)
Stat: Doctors Should Use Social Media With Restraint
More than a century ago, Sir William Osler — probably the most celebrated doctor in modern history — gave a lecture to medical students in which he referred to doctors as belonging to “the great army of quiet workers” whose voices are not heard in the streets but who offer “consolation in sorrow, need, and sickness.” The best doctor, Osler noted, is often the one of whom the public hears the least.Nowadays, doctors are heard loud and clear by all and sundry. Social media is brimming with doctors and medical students opening their hearts, sharing their frustrations, and venting their anger. (Daniel Sokol, 6/10)
Great Falls Tribune: Focus Should Be On Improving Affordable Care Act
It is important to recognize individuals when they set aside their differences to solve a bigger problem, especially when it comes to health care.Our Legislature accomplished that this session by passing an important bill to protect and expand Medicaid coverage in Montana. They did so through moderate but important improvements to work that they started in a previous session. It wasn’t easy, but they accomplished it and should be congratulated. I hope, too, that it serves as a lesson and road map for how America should address our larger health care issues. (Angela McLean, 6/8)
The Washington Post: Compassion Fatigue Is Real. Here Are Its Symptoms
My lifelong friend Vicki had finally hit the wall. For a long time, she’d tried to lighten the load of a friend who was facing a terminal illness. “As she got sicker, I tried to relieve every burden I could imagine,” Vicki, 61, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons, told me recently. “I figured that compared to what this family was going through, no service I could offer would be too much for me.” She did this while also caring for her parents throughout their illnesses and deaths. After her friend died, Vicki says she continued to “jump to action” every time someone close to her needed help. That’s when she confessed to “compassion fatigue.” She just felt “weighed down, tired and sad,” she said, after taking care of so many loved ones. (Steven Petrow, 6/9)
The Hill: 10,000 Steps A Day: Is It Necessary For Better Health?
It seems everyone now has a fitness tracker, either on a wristband, as a clip-on or as part of a smartwatch or smartphone. One of the commonalities of these devices is that they buzz or vibrate when the wearer reaches 10,000 steps. As a result, 10,000 steps has become a daily goal for many. The fitness industry has perpetuated this idea without much questioning — until recently.A recently published paper in the highly respected Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that 4,400 steps a day was strongly related to lower mortality rates when compared to 2,700 steps. As the steps increased, risk of dying decreased, until about 7,500 steps a day, when the risk benefit started to level off. (William S. Yancy Jr. and Jared Rosenberg, 6/8)
Los Angeles Times: Three Things You Think You 'know' About Homelessness In L.A. That Aren't True
To our dismay, we in Los Angeles have become increasingly familiar with homelessness. But some of the things we “know” about the phenomenon are simply untrue. Dealing with the problem requires knowing the facts and dismissing the myths.It also requires understanding why those myths persist.Begin with the falsehood that most homeless people come from out of town, drifting here from colder climates or meaner streets in order to live a life of relative ease on L.A. sidewalks and freeway medians. (6/10)
The Wall Street Journal: Medicaid Expansion Has Louisianans Dropping Their Private Plans
If any state can serve as the poster child for the problems associated with ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion, it’s Louisiana, which joined the expansion in 2016, after Democrat John Bel Edwards became governor. An audit released last year exposed ineligible Medicaid beneficiaries, including at least 1,672 people who made more than $100,000. But Louisiana’s Medicaid expansion has revealed another waste of taxpayer funds, both in the Pelican State and nationwide: the money spent providing coverage to people who already had health insurance. (Chris Jacobs, 6/7)
San Jose Mercury News: Governor Must Get On Board With Vaccinations Bill
Gov. Gavin Newsom needs to get on board with the effort to close a loophole in California’s vaccination law. The governor inserted himself into the public health debate Saturday by voicing concern over proposed legislation that would give government officials the final say on whether a child should be granted a vaccine exemption. (6/9)
WBUR: Mass. Should Follow California's Example And Sue Lead Paint Companies
Lead paint, the longest-lasting childhood health hazard in United States history, poisons generation after generation. As a state, we must do more to prevent these tragedies from occurring — and to hold the perpetrators accountable. (Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, Laura Maslow-Armand and Fiona Danaher, 6/10)
