Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: What Makes Parents Anti-Vaccine?; Biden Wants To Help Children By Tackling Lead Poisoning
The New York Times: The Kind Of Moms Who Fall For ‘Make America Healthy Again’
In 2020, I followed a lot of Covid-skeptical momfluencers on social media. I wanted to see how they voiced their concerns about mask-wearing and disease spread. I hoped that over time I could somehow reverse-engineer the information pathway that led some women from Covid skepticism to anti-vaccine activism and then, in some cases, to other fringe and conspiratorial beliefs. (Jessica Grose, 10/23)
The New York Times: Will This New U.S. Project Make The World’s Children Smarter?
Lead is a neurotoxin, and the dangers aren’t new. Benjamin Franklin warned in 1786 about the perils of drinking rainwater that had trickled off a lead roof. (Nicholas Kristof, 10/23)
The New York Times: Abortion Pills Are Safe. Post-Roe America Isn’t.
Once, when I was the obstetrician-gynecologist assigned to cover Christmas at my hospital, I was called to the emergency department for a patient undergoing a first-trimester pregnancy loss. Early pregnancy losses are common and generally uncomplicated. But this patient showed signs of possible infection. (Chavi Eve Karkowsky, 10/24)
Stat: Long Covid Patients Deserve To Try Off-Label Drugs
Imagine, for a moment, that you wake up one morning with a debilitating illness that won’t let go. Weeks and months pass, but the crushing fatigue, constant headaches, and aching muscles remain. You can’t think straight. Simply showering or doing the dishes leaves you floored for days at a time, and the unpredictable symptoms — shortness of breath, dizziness, a racing heart — ebb and flow without warning. You find your life as you knew it slipping away. (Julia Moore Vogel and Charlie McCone, 10/24)
Stat: Vitriolic Harris-Trump Mental Health Rhetoric Trivializes A Larger Issue
Among the reasons the 2024 presidential campaign has become one of the most extraordinary in American history is how Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are trading direct and unrelenting vitriolic attacks on each other’s mental health. The personal venom is obscuring and trivializing the suffering of millions of Americans with mental health issues. (Lawrence K. Altman, 10/24)
