Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Cyclosporiasis Outbreak Is Evidence Of System Failure; Hunger Can Trigger A Psychiatric Emergency
Every summer now, it seems, we get the same headline: a cluster of cyclosporiasis cases traced to fresh produce, a recall, a brief wave of concern and then silence until next year. The news coverage almost always frames this as a food safety story 鈥 contaminated basil, bad lettuce, a supplier that slipped through the cracks. I want to offer a different diagnosis, because I've watched this exact pattern before, in a very different disease, and I recognize it immediately. (Dr. Tyler B. Evans, 7/16)
The patient had come in for suicidal ideation. When I asked about his eating habits beforehand and access to food 鈥 routine for a psychiatric nutrition consult 鈥 he told me he鈥檇 lost his SNAP eligibility a few weeks earlier. (Cole Hanson, 7/16)
The trump administration is implementing the most sweeping rollback of social spending in American history. Millions of Americans are being thrown off Medicaid. The president and his Republican allies in Congress refused to extend enhanced subsidies for people buying individual health insurance on Affordable Care Act exchanges, which Democrats have warned since last year will cause millions more to lose coverage while health-insurance premiums spike for those still enrolled. Last week, as Democrats predicted, insurers on the exchanges announced premium increases averaging 14 percent, coming atop a 20 percent hike the previous year. (Jonathan Chait, 7/15)
All too often, Americans go to the pharmacy and are stunned by what they鈥檙e asked to pay. The question is simple: 鈥淚sn鈥檛 there a cheaper option?鈥 Frequently, there聽is. But patients aren鈥檛 making the final call and neither are their doctors. (Robert Zirkelbach, 7/15)
What I know now about cannabis, especially what it does to a teenager鈥檚 brain, I learned the hard way. When the Trump administration moved to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I 鈥 a designation that includes heroin and PCP 鈥 to Schedule III, alongside less addictive drugs, I applauded the decision. After all, I鈥檇 been arguing that case since high school. But now, months after medical cannabis was rescheduled, and with a formal Drug Enforcement Administration hearing on broader rescheduling underway, I鈥檝e been digging into the research, and I鈥檝e been forced to rethink everything I thought I knew. Here鈥檚 what I wish I鈥檇 realized at 13. (Monica Romano, 7/14)