Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Are Cancer Tests Worth The Cost?; Worries Over Concussions In Youngest Football Players
Patients and their doctors count on cancer screening tests to save lives, and yet a number of large, controlled studies are showing disappointing results for mammography and other mass screening tests. (Faye Flam, 10/24)
During a child鈥檚 early years, the brain is developing and is most vulnerable to trauma. Deferring contact football shortens the time that children are taking hits to the head and lessens their lifetime risk of CTE. (Leana S. Wen, 10/24)
Imagine that you are the parent of an 11-year-old soccer player who dreams of competing in the Women鈥檚 World Cup one day. You want to support her love for the sport while keeping her safe from harm. You are particularly concerned about brain injuries in youth sports, so you look up information about concussion protocols online. (Kathleen Bachynski, 10/25)
What protects better from future COVID-19 infection, previous infection or vaccination? (Cory Franklin, 10/24)
In March 2020 I contracted a mild COVID infection. I had just turned 30, was in perfect health and living 鈥渕y best life.鈥 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told me it would take two weeks to bounce back. But it鈥檚 been 2陆 years, and I鈥檝e spent my entire 30s disabled by a post-infection illness 鈥 housebound and barely holding onto what little I can of my former life. I truly cannot relay the misery. (Charlie McCone, 10/24)
As MacArthur Foundation fellow Jennifer Richeson noted in The Atlantic in 2020, Americans love to perpetuate narratives of racial progress, regardless of whether that narrative is aligned with reality. We saw this in a recent New York Times essay that claimed the change in Covid-19 death rates is a laudable example of the U.S. overcoming racial injustice. (Marina Del Rios, Nathan T. Chomilo and Neil A. Lewis, Jr., 10/25)
While many Americans are familiar with the devastating impact of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, few understand the cruel disparity with which it strikes. Black Americans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with this mind-robbing disease and bear the greatest costs of caring for loved ones suffering with it. (Linda Goler Blount, 10/24)
Now I鈥檓 almost 77 years old, and since losing my mother and older brother to Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, I have been on the lookout for small clues that might make me the next victim. (Mike Lindsay, 10/21)