Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Where Is The Line Between Getting A Suicidal Person Help And Their Right To Privacy? Experts Wonder If Facebook Is Toeing It
Stat: Experts Raise Questions About Facebook's Suicide Prevention Tools
Over the past few years, Facebook has stepped up its efforts to prevent suicide, but its attempt to help people in need has opened the tech giant to a series of issues concerning medical ethics, informed consent, and privacy. It has also raised a critical question: Is the system working?Facebook trained an algorithm to recognize posts that might signal suicide risk and gave users a way to flag posts. A Facebook team reviews those posts and contacts local authorities if a user seems at imminent risk. First responders have been sent out on “wellness checks” more than 3,500 times. (Thielking, 2/11)
NPR: Gov. Northam's Blackface Scandal Points To Medicine's Racism Problem
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is embroiled in controversy for admitting that he wore blackface at a party in the 1980s and for a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page. But the governor, a pediatric neurologist by training, told CBS he isn't resigning, because "Virginia needs someone that can heal. There's no better person to do that than a doctor." NPR spoke with another doctor, Damon Tweedy, about what message it sends to black patients to hear a prominent doctor tell the country that he has worn blackface. Tweedy is the author of Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine and is an associate professor of psychiatry at Duke University. (Kelly and Gordon, 2/11)
New Hampshire Union Leader: How To Tell The Difference Between A Cold And Pneumonia
The CDC recommends adults over 65 get vaccinated for pneumonia. Officials estimate that close to 70 percent of people within that age group have gotten the vaccine. Since pneumonia is still the leading infectious cause of death in children younger than 5 years old worldwide, they should not be exposed to people who have an infection of the lungs. (Haas, 2/11)
CNN: Nearly 1 In 7 US Kids Has A Mental Health Condition, And Half Go Untreated, Study Says
Half of children with a mental health condition in the United States go without treatment, according to a study published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The researchers analyzed data from the 2016 National Survey of Children's Health, a nationwide survey administered to parents of children and teens. Of the 46.6 million children ages 6 through 18 whose parents completed the survey, 7.7 million had at least one mental health condition -- such as depression, anxiety or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder -- and only half received treatment or counseling from a mental health provider in the 12 months prior to the survey. (Brancho-Sanchez, 2/11)
The New York Times: The Best Exercises To Prevent Falls
A large review of studies confirms that exercise can be a good way to help reduce the frequency of falls in the elderly. The analysis, in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, included 108 randomized controlled trials with more than 23,000 participants. Their average age was 76, and 77 percent were women. As controls, the trials used either educational information about fall prevention, or no intervention at all. (Bakalar, 2/12)
Boston Globe: Mother Champions Bill For Better Food Allergy Awareness In Restaurants
Eating out is hard for Tripp. He has a severe peanut allergy. But the family tries to live as normally as possible, communicating Tripp’s allergy with servers and always carrying an EpiPen. In part, the family is buoyed by Massachusetts’ already strong food allergy law. (Baskin, 2/11)
CNN: Eating 'Ultraprocessed' Foods Accelerates Your Risk Of Early Death, Study Says
The quick and easy noshes you love are chipping away at your mortality one nibble at a time, according to new research from France: We face a 14% higher risk of early death with each 10% increase in the amount of ultraprocessed foods we eat. "Ultraprocessed foods are manufactured industrially from multiple ingredients that usually include additives used for technological and/or cosmetic purposes," wrote the authors of the study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. "Ultraprocessed foods are mostly consumed in the form of snacks, desserts, or ready-to-eat or -heat meals," and their consumption "has largely increased during the past several decades." (Scutti, 2/11)
Stat: MilliporeSigma CEO Udit Batra On Gene Editing, China, And More
In a list of gene-editing companies jotted down by your average CRISPR enthusiast, MilliporeSigma likely wouldn’t appear. Sangamo, sure. The numerous commercial spinoff companies from the Broad Institute and the University of California, certainly. But MilliporeSigma has at least one patent that it believes every company applying the technology will need to license — and some companies are already doing that. (Sheridan, 2/12)
The Washington Post: Mother’s Friendships May Be Good For Babies’ Brains
New mothers who have friends ready to step in and help them, tend to have toddlers who score better on cognitive tests than the babies of women with smaller social support networks, a U.S. study suggests. Strong social ties to friends and family have long been linked to better behavioral and physical health outcomes for adults. And plenty of previous research also indicates that infants’ and toddlers’ bonds with caregivers can have a lasting impact on children’s emotional, intellectual and social development. (Rapaport, 2/12)
The New York Times: Why Do South Asians Have Such High Rates Of Heart Disease?
Mahendra Agrawal never imagined he would have a heart attack. He followed a vegetarian diet, exercised regularly and maintained a healthy weight. His blood pressure and cholesterol levels were normal. But when Mr. Agrawal experienced shortness of breath in June 2013, his wife urged him to go to a hospital. There, tests revealed that Mr. Agrawal, who was 63 at the time, had two obstructed coronary arteries choking off blood flow to his heart, requiring multiple stents to open them. (O'Connor, 2/12)
NPR: The 'Strange Science' Behind The Big Business Of Exercise Recovery
From sports drinks to protein powders, from compression therapy to cupping — there's a whole industry of products and services designed to help us adapt to and recover from exercise. But does any of it work? That's the question science writer Christie Aschwanden set out to answer in her new book, Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery. A former high school and college athlete, Aschwanden is the lead science writer for the website fivethirtyeight and was previously a health columnist for The Washington Post. (Gross, 2/11)
