Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Device Promises Relief From 'Suicide Headaches,' But Is It All Hype?
Cluster headaches, as the聽rare condition is known, are characterized by bursts of聽severe pain in cyclical patterns. They鈥檙e often misdiagnosed and undertreated. But on Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration cleared聽a new,聽first-of-its kind option for such patients:聽a handheld device, designed to be used by patients to zap their own necks with a mild electrical signal to relieve symptoms. The hitch:聽It鈥檚 not clear聽how much difference the 鈥済ammaCore鈥 device聽will make聽for the several hundred thousand people in the United States with the condition. (Robbins, 4/18)
Most people recognize Parkinson's patients through tremors, slow body movements and other motor problems. Yet up to half of patients develop psychosis at some time during the disease's course, often in the later stages and sometimes as a side effect from drugs prescribed to help motor skills. Tackling the psychosis has proved difficult, in part because doctors struggled for decades to address the motor problems, [Dr. Rajesh] Pahwa said. As gains happened there, the nonmotor problems became a bigger and bigger challenge to manage, he said. (McGuire, 4/18)
Routes are聽planned. Speakers are announced.聽But there鈥檚 still one question about this weekend鈥檚 March for Science that is begging to be answered: Who exactly is going to show up?聽The march has carved a wide mandate for itself as a non-partisan 鈥渃elebration of science,鈥 leaving the door open for many different groups to gather under its umbrella. Now,聽in recent weeks, the organizers of the Washington march and the hundreds of satellite marches across the US and overseas have been trying to anticipate聽who is聽going to turn up on April 22, including surveying social media and asking marchers to RSVP. (Sheridan, 4/19)
Dr. Jon Hallberg is having fewer conversations with vaccine skeptics at his Minneapolis practice now. He credits that to the spread of information that vaccines are safe and the debunking of any false claims otherwise. Still, as of Tuesday, there have been nine recent cases of measles in Minnesota kids 鈥 all of them unvaccinated. (Crann and Nelson, 4/18)
A compound found in marijuana halves the risk of certain seizures in people who have a severe form of epilepsy, a new study shows. Researchers at Nationwide Children鈥檚 Hospital gave a liquid form of a compound called cannabidiol to young people with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. (Viviano, 4/18)
