Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: What Will Politics Make Of Post-IVF Tech?; Elle Macpherson Puts Cancer Diagnoses In The Spotlight
There was immediate backlash when Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled in February that embryos created through in vitro fertilization qualified as children under the state’s wrongful death law. But it was a backlash as much from the right as from the left: The state’s overwhelmingly Republican government took just weeks to pass a law to shield fertility clinics from liability when embryos are damaged or destroyed. (Ari Schulman, 9/9)
When celebrities go public with their diagnoses of cancer or other diseases, they’re often lauded as courageous for raising awareness and making people who share their diagnosis feel less alone. Other times, they’re chastised in the media for setting a bad example. (F.D. Flam, 9/7)
I’ve spent most of my medical career treating people who’ve tried to take their own lives or who are at risk of dying by suicide. What I’ve learned from my patients and research conducted in my lab is that the conventional approach to suicide prevention has been absolutely wrong. (Igor Galynker, 9/9)
One of the biopharma industry’s marvels of the 2020s has been the enormous medical and financial success of the GLP-1 class of drugs. But the path to commercialization of these therapies was far more complex than most understand, and some of the earliest history has never been presented. (Jeffrey Flier, 9/9)
Duchenne muscular dystrophy has seen more progress in the past 15 months (give or take) than in the last couple of decades combined. In that time, the Food and Drug Administration has approved three new therapies: Elevidys (delandistrogene moxeparvovec-rokl), the first micro-dystrophin gene therapy; Duvyzat (givinostat), a non-steroidal HDAC inhibitor; and Agamree (vamorolone), a new corticosteroid. But the currently available treatments all have limitations, many patients are not eligible, and we still have no cure. (Michelle C. Werner, 9/9)