Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Leqembi May Not Be All It's Cracked Up To Be; Can A State Ban Federally Approved Pills?
This month, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug, lecanemab, for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The drug, sold under the brand name Leqembi, was developed by Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai and will be marketed commercially in partnership with American pharmaceutical company Biogen. (Anand Kumar, 1/26)
GenBioPro, a pharmaceutical company that makes the drug mifepristone, has asked a federal court to declare that West Virginia’s anti-abortion law is inconsistent with the Federal Drug Administration’s determination that the pill is safe and effective. (Noah Feldman, 1/26)
Among participants at this year’s March for Life, it was beginning to sink in that ending abortion would never be as simple as they might have hoped. A new question was in the air as various factions in the antiabortion movement began to contemplate their next steps. After Roe, what would it take to actually end the practice of abortion in the United States? I asked some of the marchers to write down their ideas. (Christine Emba, 1/26)
After the U.S. Supreme Court recklessly overruled Roe v. Wade last year, Minnesota lawmakers are laudably focused on protecting abortion access within the state. (1/26)
After starting medical school and learning a thing or two about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, I began to question whether this obsessiveness with strangers’ and friends’ mental health was akin to a symptom of PTSD. I realized I check some of the boxes – intrusive thoughts, avoiding things that might trigger certain memories, trouble sleeping at night, and hypervigilance. (Matthew Ponticiello, 1/26)
The Food and Drug Administration needs a new Covid vaccine policy that follows the latest immunology and vaccine efficacy data. (Faye Flam, 1/26)
When institutions in the United States and other high-income countries embark on collaborations to improve health or the delivery of health care in low-income countries, they do it with the best of intentions. But intentions aren’t good enough. (Yap Boum II and Sunil Parikh, 1/27)
When my daughter was born, I was just a year out of fellowship training, working hard within my hospital’s medical hierarchy. Fearful of burdening my colleagues with extra work, I did not use the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a national law requiring employers to provide job-protected, unpaid leave for personal reasons. Instead, I took three weeks of unpaid vacation time masquerading as my paternity leave. (Charles Feng, 1/26)
