Latest Morning Briefing Stories
Editorial pages weigh in on these health policies and others.
Media outlets report on news from Massachusetts, Virginia, Utah, Texas, Ohio, New Hampshire, Texas, California and Michigan.
Any Kind Of Exercise Can Help With Mental Health, But Playing Team Sports Can Amplify That Boost
“If you just run on a treadmill for example, it’s clear that you’re getting that biological stimulation. But perhaps there are other elements of depression that you’re not going to be tapping into,” said Adam Chekroud, one of the study’s authors. In other public health news: memory, the polio-like illness that’s striking children, suicide, loneliness in HIV patients, and more.
With the campaign, CDC hopes to prevent a million heart attacks and strokes by the year 2022. The campaign would focus on small steps Americans can take to cut their risk factors, such as exercising the recommended amount and giving up smoking. Meanwhile, New York City wants to tackle Americans’ sugar addiction.
After losing its Medicare certification, the transplant center had temporarily suspended its program in June in order to review the deaths of patients following heart transplants. In a statement, the hospital said it will continue to make improvements in the program. The original director, Dr. Jeffrey Morgan, is still on staff and the hospital declined to describe his current duties.
VA Urged To Reconsider Stance Against Expanded Benefits For Vets Exposed To Agent Orange, Burn Pits
Veterans’ advocates have long been trying to get the VA to provide coverage for the negative effects experienced by soldiers who were exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. Now Congress has joined the push. The health impact from burn pits is also getting attention, but is a more recent issue so scientific studies are still being done.
Women Are Miscarrying After Employers Deny Their Light Duty Requests Even With Notes From Doctors
And it’s completely legal for the employers to do so. Under federal law, companies don’t necessarily have to adjust pregnant women’s jobs, even when lighter work is available and their doctors send letters urging a reprieve. The New York Times investigates the issue that’s affected women across the country. News on women’s health also focuses on fertility rates, abortion, and ovarian cancer.
In states that expanded Medicaid, the program already covers addiction treatment for nearly everyone who is poor and needs it, so they have to rely less heavily on extra opioid funding. In other news on the crisis: celebrities help fight addiction stigma; a look at a wildly successful Shanghai-based syndicate; why abuse-resistant opioid pills are failing to make strides on the market; and more.
“You can only see so many pictures on TV of broken homes and trees,” said one volunteer Norma Ward. “Then you start thinking, ‘O.K., everything’s all good again.’” Meanwhile, the storm’s mental toll mounts and medical services in the area are still on life support.
Maryland Wants Supreme Court To Review Ruling That Knocked Down State’s Drug Price Gouging Law
A federal appeals court last spring said the law — which allows Maryland’s Medicaid program to notify the state attorney general when an “essential” drug rises in price by 50 percent — gives Maryland officials the right to govern business outside the state, effectively providing “unprecedented powers to regulate the national pharmaceutical market.”
In Long-Awaited Breakthrough, Immunotherapy Drugs Show Promise Fighting Aggressive Breast Cancer
The therapy found some success against triple-negative tumors, which occur in only about 15 percent of patients with invasive breast cancer but account for up to 40 percent of the deaths. “These women really needed a break,” Dr. Ingrid Mayer, a breast cancer specialist at Vanderbilt University.
A look at some of the measures that will be in front of voters in Georgia, Massachusetts and California.
In Tight Georgia Race, Stacey Abrams Reframes Medicaid Expansion As A Smart Business Move
“Raise your hand if you would say no to someone who said, ‘Give me a dollar and I’ll give you $9 back,’” said Stacey Abrams, the Democrat in Georgia’s gubernatorial race. “It is economically false, a falsehood over all, to say we can’t afford to expand Medicaid.” The expansion would bring jobs to rural areas because it would save hospitals teetering on the brink of closure, she says. Abrams’ choice to focus on Medicaid expansion reflects a broader trend from Democrats on the trail who see health care as a winning issue.
Trump Administration Mulls Rule That Would Eradicate Government Recognition Of Transgender Americans
HHS is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that get government funds. “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposes in the memo obtained by The New York Times.
Perspectives: Health Care Sabotage; Patient-Centered Cancer Research; And Quality Nursing Home Care
Editorial writers focus on these health topics and others.
Energy Department Officials Making Shift To A Top Adviser Spot At Veterans’ Affairs
John Mashburn has previously served as the policy director of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Nearly 100 More Women Sue USC With Accusations Of Sexual Abuse By University’s Longtime Gynecologist
With the additions, the number of women now suing the University of Southern California with allegations against Dr. George Tyndall rises to over 400. Meanwhile, a respected research hospital in New York says it knew about allegations of child sexual misconduct against one of its pediatric doctors.
This is the first time the agency has cracked down on clinics saying, “There are no human clinical studies in the scientific literature showing that amniotic stem cell therapy cures, treats, or mitigates diseases or health conditions in humans.” In other public health news: cyborgs, whole-genome sequencing, a mysterious illness in children, Ebola, equality, sunlight and more.
Cancer Treatment Can Often Come Too Late, But What If You Could Get Ahead Of The Disease?
A new study, called Project Baseline, is trying to pinpoint the transition from normal health to disease. Researchers hope that the project could lead to the identification of new markers in the blood, stool or urine of healthy people that help predict cancer, cardiovascular disease and other leading killers of Americans. In other news, why don’t all cancer-linked mutations in cells turn into tumors?
Judge Orders Ohio Cities Suing Purdue Over Opioid Crisis To Come Up With Proof Of Specific Harm Done
The court has ordered that four Ohio cities and counties must identify 500 medically unnecessary prescriptions and 300 residents who became addicted or were harmed from opioid prescriptions. Meanwhile, the chair of a FDA panel is speaking out against his concern over the panel’s recommendation for a powerful opioid.
