Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Weight Loss Industry Ramping Back Up; Fixing The Broken Mental Health Care System
The New York Times: As Covid Lockdowns End, Diet And Wellness Profiteers Move In
As the pandemic has raged, we have been told to sequester ourselves to stay well and safeguard others. For many of us, that has meant living a more housebound life than normal. We have developed an intimate familiarity with the textures of our couch. We have grown deeply attached to the softest items in our wardrobe. We have pounded vitamin D supplements to compensate for our vampiric relationship to the sun. Now as we slowly emerge from our collective hibernation, it’s unsurprising that many of our bodies have changed. (Tala Schlossberg, 5/26)
Stat: The Mental Health Care System Failed My Brother And Many Like Him
On February 25, I got the phone call I had been dreading for years: My brother Louis was dead. I was dumbfounded. We had just spoken 48 hours earlier. My sister and I had finally found a rehabilitation program that would treat all three of his afflictions — manic depression, anxiety, and alcoholism — and not just one of them, as had happened so often in the past. For the first time in a long time, we had hope that Louis would finally get the help he needed and deserved. (Lizzy Feliciano, 5/26)
Bloomberg: Texas Abortion Ban Is Both Devious And Doomed
When a state adopts a flatly unconstitutional anti-abortion law, as Texas did last week, it ordinarily never takes effect. Activists immediately ask a federal court to order state officials not to enforce it, and the court does. What’s unusual — and scary — is that this time, Texas is trying to get around this hurdle through legal trickery. Its efforts are likely to fail, but seeing how and why requires going through a bit of detail. (Noah Feldman, 5/25)
Stat: Passing The Dr. Lorna Breen Act Will Support Health Care Workers
Some people are vaguely aware of the story of Dr. Lorna Breen. Among physicians and frontline caregivers, she has become the face of health care workers overwhelmed by Covid-19... Lorna cared for countless Covid-19 patients at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital before contracting the coronavirus herself. After recovering, she once again donned personal protective equipment and went back into the fray to help fight this plague. But as happened with so many frontline workers, the sea of patients and the overcrowded hospital began to take a toll on Lorna. (Jennifer Breen Feist and Corey Feist, 5/25)
San Francisco Chronicle: Of Course California Should Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms
It has to be acknowledged that after more than half a century of drug demonization and criminalization, the idea of legalizing substances as powerful and fabled as LSD and psilocybin mushrooms can come off as hallucinatory. That is partly because Americans have become so inured to the prohibition and punishment of drug use, a skewed reality that — despite the growing exception for marijuana — we continue to inhabit in the face of all the evidence that its benefits are imagined and its harms all too actual. (5/23)
