Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Secret Shopper Study Raises Concerns Over Online GLP-1 Prescriptions
A secret shopper study has pulled back the veil on the practices of nearly 50 telehealth sites that prescribe popular GLP-1 medications for weight loss. (Palmer, 7/6)
A fierce debate is underway over who needs treatment with GLP-1s and who should pay for that treatment. New research aims to get closer to the answer. (Thomas, 7/6)
In other health and wellness news —
The influencer-driven craze for peptides — the heavily hyped but loosely regulated proteins — may be turning into an unexpected bonanza for Chinese manufacturers of fentanyl precursors. (Reed, 7/7)
The bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, commonly used against tuberculosis, changed how immune cells behaved and altered markers linked to Alzheimer's disease in a pilot study involving two open-label trials. In a year-long study, BCG vaccination induced persistent, trained immunity-like changes in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), including enhanced innate immune responsiveness, reported Steven Arnold, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and co-authors in Communications Medicine. (George, 7/6)
Fatty liver disease can fuel the most aggressive form of colon cancer, a new study says. People with fatty liver disease are more prone to have their colon cancer travel to their liver as well, causing their survival odds to plummet, researchers reported recently in the journal Nature. (Thompson, 7/7)
People who’ve been severely injured in an accident might have a lower risk of death if doctors pump them full of vitamin C, a new evidence review says. High doses of intravenous (IV) vitamin C appear to reduce the risk of death and sepsis in trauma patients, researchers reported recently in the journal BMJ Military Health. Vitamin C might even shorten hospital stays following an injury, researchers said. (Thompson, 7/7)
In early June, Ally Betchan and her family made the monthly trek from their small central Texas town to a therapy center in Austin, hoping that she could learn to communicate. Like nearly 30 percent of people with autism, Ally is severely disabled and does not speak. Ally, 22, sat quietly in a small room next to her instructor, Soma Mukhopadhyay, a sprightly 63-year-old who, by contrast, talked almost nonstop. More than 30 years ago, Ms. Mukhopadhyay taught her nonspeaking autistic son, Tito, to write and type independently, creating a communication method that supporters hailed as transformative and critics have challenged ever since. (Ghorayshi, 7/6)
