Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
When Dr. Nir Barzilai met the 100-year-old Helen Reichert, she was smoking a cigarette. Dr. Barzilai, the director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, recalled Mrs. Reichert saying that doctors had repeatedly told her to quit. But those doctors had all died, Mrs. Reichert noted, and she hadn鈥檛. Mrs. Reichert lived almost another decade before passing away in 2011. How much of a person鈥檚 longevity can be attributed to lifestyle choices and how much is just luck 鈥 or lucky genetics? It depends on how long you鈥檙e hoping to live. (Smith, 1/8)
German researchers, led by Georg Schett, achieved lupus remissions using CAR-T therapy, offering new hope for other autoimmune disease treatments. (Joseph, 1/9)
Zyn represents success for Philip Morris鈥 鈥渟mokeless鈥 strategy and also a major challenge: How can the company sell cigarette alternatives that aren鈥檛 so tempting it gets in trouble for hooking kids? (Huet, 1/2)
Break your leg hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital or have a heart attack, and you might not be so pleased to be offshore. Of course, every cruise ship has a medical center 鈥 but how big is it 鈥 and what do they do in there? Are the doctors general practitioners or is it more like the ER? And if worst comes to worse 鈥 what happens if a passenger dies onboard? Dr. Aleksandar Durovic, who鈥檚 spent the past 20 years as a medic on cruise ships, says that a doctor鈥檚 life on the high seas is very different from one on terra firma. (Buckley, 1/8)
Washingtonians are likelier to live alone than residents of any other major U.S. city, according to a recent study 鈥 a recipe for loneliness that one European company sees as a business opportunity. Brussels-based Cohabs is buying up properties in D.C. with the aim of converting them into 鈥渃o-living鈥 spaces, where as many as 36 housemates will share common areas, events and 鈥 according to the firm鈥檚 marketing 鈥 a cure for urban loneliness. (Wiener, 1/7)
The best and worst new health products 鈥
Here鈥檚 what stood out at CES 鈥 the most useful, weird and wonderful new tech from the world鈥檚 largest consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. (Hunter, 1/7)
Not all innovation is good, according to a panel of self-described dystopia experts that has judged some products as 鈥淲orst in Show.鈥 (Parvini, 1/9)