Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Lawmakers Seek To Relax Gun Restrictions For Those Deemed Mentally Impaired
As part of an effort to roll back Obama-era regulations, Congress is expected to take up legislation as early as next week that would prevent the government from declaring some Social Security recipients unfit to own guns after they鈥檝e been deemed mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs. (Gaudiano, 1/25)
The kind of test used to diagnose Lauren, an IgM test, has long been rejected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention聽but is still used by some clinicians. Meanwhile, the CDC and the US Preventive Services Task Force concur that the most widely available herpes test, called HerpeSelect, should not be used to screen asymptomatic people because of its high risk of false positives: Up to 1 in 2 positive tests could be false, according to the USPSTF鈥檚 most recent guidelines. That high failure rate isn鈥檛, however, always communicated to patients. Online forums abound with stories like Lauren鈥檚, of people who request herpes tests alongside those of other STDs and are shellshocked by the results. (Wessel, 1/26)
Women who get their first period when they were 11 or younger are more likely to hit menopause before the age of 40, a study finds. And women with early menstruation who had no children were even more likely to have premature menopause. (Boddy, 1/25)
After a spate of deaths from bird flu among patients in China, the World Health Organization has warned all countries to watch for outbreaks in poultry flocks and to promptly report any human cases. Several strains of avian flu are spreading in Europe and Asia this winter, but the most worrisome at present is an H7N9 strain that has circulated in China every winter since 2013. (McNeil, 1/25)
The NFL has been criticized both for the amount of money it has donated for head trauma research and trying to manipulate how it is spent. But at least it has donated.The NHL has not given money to any of the four centers leading research into neurodegenerative diseases, specifically the question of why so many football and hockey players develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), USA TODAY Sports has found. (Armour, 1/25)
