Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Doctors' Offices Are Overbooking Multiple Patients; What Needs To Happen With Kids' Social Media?
When I arrive for a medical appointment, I鈥檓 not sure whether other patients are scheduled to see the doctor at the same time as me, but my suspicions mount with every 15 extra minutes spent in a waiting room. (Mary Ellen Podmolik, 6/5)
The U.S. surgeon general released an advisory this past month warning that the country鈥檚 children 鈥渉ave become unknowing participants in a decades-long experiment鈥 of social media use. The trouble is, the results aren鈥檛 in yet. (6/5)
Ozempic is just part of a new arsenal of medications being used to treat obesity. In June 2021, the Food and Drug Administration gave the go-ahead to an identical formulation, at higher doses and a higher price, under the brand name Wegovy. (Ruth Marcus, 6/6)
Deployed in the desert Middle East, confined to a military base ringed by Hesco barriers and razor wire, Dr. Rita Gallardo鈥檚 only escape from the horrors of the combat-shattered bodies of young service members was dreaming of the life she might build later. But in the span of five years, Rita left two jobs when she struggled to get her patients the care they deserved, with the specialists she thought were best for their situation, all in the interests of corporate profits. (Wendy Dean, 6/7)
鈥淣o one gets out of life alive.鈥 That鈥檚 certainly not what I expected to hear from the hospice nurse upon hearing that a doctor who treated my father suspected foul play in his death. (Valerie Rouviere Harper, 6/7)
Right now, it鈥檚 possible that cells from my body are growing in a lab somewhere and are being used to test new cancer drugs. After I was聽diagnosed with neuroendocrine tumors, a rare type of cancer, I went through surgery to remove the tumors and chose to donate them to a biobank. I gave consent for the cells from my tumors to be used to create cell lines and organoids (three-dimensional tissue cultures) as models to study neuroendocrine tumors, since it is a poorly understood, under-investigated disease with limited treatment options. (Kimberly M. Baker, 6/7)