Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Air Pollution In Northeast Threatens Lives Of Subway Riders, Workers
Millions of people in the northeast U.S. ride or work on subway systems every day. But while they're doing so, they are breathing in dangerously high levels of particles that may cause heart attacks, aggravate asthma or even lead to premature death, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. (Cohen, 2/10)
In other public health news 鈥
Nearly a year since COVID-19 crippled the U.S. economy, Americans are not alright. Almost half of full-time workers say they are experiencing mental health issues, including a majority of millennials and Gen Z employees, a recent survey shows. (Picchi, 2/10)
Every day when Oscar Barrett picked up his three young children from his mother鈥檚 house, his first question was 鈥渉ow was school today?鈥 Most times he received shrugs or non-committal and disinterested responses like 鈥渇ine鈥 and 鈥淥K.鈥 Anything beyond that came from 10-year-old Hallie, who had excelled at school since pre-K and tested into the gifted classes. (Newsome, 2/11)
While thousands of families grieved the loss of loved ones and the United States鈥 coronavirus death toll surpassed 350,000 in early January and continued to rise, a film parroting false claims about the pandemic began to spread to millions of social media users. The video, called 鈥淧lanet Lockdown,鈥 racked up more than 20 million views and engagements, according to the social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle, in late December and January. It went largely unnoticed by the social media platforms playing host to the misinformation until the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America published a detailed accounting of the film鈥檚 spread on Monday. (Shepherd, 2/10)
Instagram removed the account of prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the highest-profile steps in parent company Facebook Inc.鈥檚 intensifying effort to combat false and misleading information about Covid-19. ... Mr. Kennedy, the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy, is a longtime environmental activist who has criticized vaccines for years, including raising doubts about thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative used in some vaccines. (Herrera, 2/11)
Also 鈥
It鈥檚 counterintuitive, but catching cancer early isn鈥檛 always for the best. And the coronavirus pandemic might leave lessons for future cancer screening in its wake. (Cooney, 2/11)
The great hope of artificial intelligence in breast cancer is that it can distinguish harmless lesions from those likely to become malignant. By scanning millions of pixels, AI promises to help physicians find an answer for every patient far sooner, offering them freedom from anxiety or a better chance against a deadly disease. (Ross, 2/11)
KHN: Flurry Of Bills Aim To Set Limits On Transgender Kids 鈥 And Their Doctors
Sam Edelman felt like a girl for as long as he could remember, his dad said. As Sam鈥檚 18th birthday approached, and after years of researching hormone treatments, the high school senior scheduled an appointment with a doctor who treats transgender people. It was a big step for Sam, a musician, a runner, a snowboarder and a taekwondo black belt who still identified as a boy at that point and had shared his secret only with his family and closest confidants. (Loose, 2/11)