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Morning Briefing

Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

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Friday, May 17 2019

Full Issue

Longer Looks: The Threat To Abortion, Trump And Drug Prices & What CBD Can Do

Each week, KHN's Shefali Luthra finds interesting reads from around the Web.

Both the Georgia and Alabama laws are sure to be challenged in court, but the legal climate surrounding abortion is different than it was just last year. After the replacement of the Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy with Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Chief Justice John Roberts is the swing vote, and many conservatives have reason to hope that the Court will rule in favor of new restrictions on abortion and eventually even overturn Roe v. Wade. (Isaac Chotiner, 5/14)

Drug prices are still increasing. While growth in spending on drugs has slowed in recent years, total national spending continues to grow. Americans spend more than anyone else in the world. The average person spends $1,025 per year on medication—an inflation-adjusted increase of elevenfold since 1960. (James Hamblin, 5/10)

The political aim of so-called heartbeat bills is pretty clear. Some Americans would like to ban abortion altogether, but the Supreme Court says that’s unconstitutional. So they advocate for increasingly draconian laws that walk up to that line. Less straightforward, though, is the science. What the bills call a heartbeat—it's not that. (Adam Rogers, 5/14)

When Catherine Jacobson first heard about the promise of cannabis, she was at wits’ end. Her 3-year-old son, Ben, had suffered from epileptic seizures since he was 3 months old, a result of a brain malformation called polymicrogyria. Over the years, Jacobson and her husband, Aaron, have tried giving him at least 16 different drugs, but none provided lasting relief. They lived with the grim prognosis that their son — whose cognitive abilities never advanced beyond those of a 1-year-old — would likely continue to endure seizures until the cumulative brain injuries led to his death. (Velasquez-Manoff, 5/14)

Wherever you go in the art world, you’ll run into one prominent name: the Sackler family. The Smithsonian has the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a Sackler Wing; the Louvre does, too (the Sackler Wing of Oriental Antiquities). There’s a Sackler Museum at Harvard and a Sackler Center for Arts Education at the Guggenheim. (Kelsey Piper, 5/15)

This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
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