Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Mpox Infection Led To Myocarditis In 3 Men, Study Finds
A new case study from France described three men who contracted mpox and then developed myocarditis a few days after initial symptom development. The study is published in Clinical Microbiology and Infection. ... The men had no history of heart problems, and all were hospitalized and subsequently recovered. Only one patient was treated with the antiviral tecovirimat (Tpoxx). (Soucheray, 12/9)
On mental health 鈥
Though military suicide has been a problem for decades, critics say the Pentagon hasn鈥檛 come to terms with the fact that anyone can potentially be at risk. (Walsh, 12/9)
If you are in need of help 鈥
Dial 9-8-8 for 24/7 support from the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. It's free and confidential.
There were a million things running through James Slaugh鈥檚 mind as an ambulance rushed him to a nearby hospital after the deadly rampage in Club Q, in Colorado Springs, last month. Among them: what kind of bills he would be facing. (Maxouris, 12/11)
In other health and wellness news 鈥
Even in this easygoing, subtropical city, the onset of winter and the stress of the holidays can test the mettle of anyone trying to quit opioids. 聽鈥淎s soon as temperatures start to drop and it gets chilly in the mornings, we see more people coming into the emergency department looking for help,鈥 said Dinah Collins, a peer support specialist at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. (Vestal, 12/9)
KHN: In Rural America, Deadly Costs Of Opioids Outweigh The Dollars Tagged To Address Them聽
Tim Buck knows by heart how many people died from drug overdoses in his North Carolina county last year: 10. The year before it was 12 鈥 an all-time high. Those losses reverberate deeply in rural Pamlico County, a tightknit community of 12,000 on the state鈥檚 eastern shore. Over the past decade, it鈥檚 had the highest rate of opioid overdose deaths in North Carolina. (Pattani and Bichell, 12/12)
Chronic disease is omnipresent in the United States. Trillions of dollars are devoted to and hundreds of thousands of lives are taken by chronic conditions each year. So why does it feel like we are going backward, with falling life expectancy, and higher prevalence of chronic diseases?聽(Cueto, 12/10)
When Jennifer Medina of Queens learned she had uterine fibroids, benign tumors that grow in and around the walls of the uterus, her gynecologist suggested two treatments known to work 鈥 getting a hysterectomy, the surgical removal of her uterus that would make it impossible for her to get pregnant, or waiting until menopause when fibroids usually shrink or disappear. Neither option was appealing. (Cimons, 12/11)
Several years ago at age 51, Jeanne Chung鈥檚 memory started to slip. 鈥淚 noticed recall issues like forgetting certain words on the spot,鈥 says Chung, CEO of a health company. So to give her brain a workout, she started playing word games. Her spotty memory wasn鈥檛 caused by a head injury or an illness; it was clearly triggered, said Chung, now 54, by the changes accompanying her transition to menopause, a common experience for many women, experts agree. (Fraga, 12/11)
Medical experts are sounding the alarm on the unfavorable effects that long bathroom visits have on the body, and it appears that mobile devices might be causing prolonged rest stops. Two separate cell phone habit surveys suggest that seven in 10 Americans use the bathroom while using their phones.聽(Moore, 12/9)