Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Abortion Must Be Legalized Nationwide; A New Way To Discuss Gender Identity
In the two years聽since Roe v. Wade was overturned, women in Texas have been robbed of their freedoms. They are understandably scared聽鈥 and we physicians are too.聽(Kim D. Vernon and Anita Beasley, 7/8)
Talking about gender understandably brings up a lot of feelings. We鈥檙e having heated discussions around bathroom bills, gender-affirming medical care and transgender athletes. Politicians opine about the dangers of 鈥済ender ideology鈥 in schools and children being 鈥渕utilated and sterilized.鈥 Others have decried the rise in adolescents identifying as transgender and nonbinary as a 鈥渟ocial contagion,鈥 likening gender diversity to a disease. (Jack Turban, 7/8)
Nonprofit hospitals and health systems recognize that their tax-exempt status comes with the responsibility to deliver on their mission to care for the communities they serve. Reflective of that responsibility, those organizations provided nearly $130 billion in total benefits to their communities in 2020, based on the most recent data available. That鈥檚 a $20 billion increase from the prior year despite it being during one of the most significant and challenging periods in healthcare history. (Sister Mary Haddad and Rick Pollack, 7/9)
Late last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly introduced a regulation that may be one of the most important shifts in how non-profit and for-profit U.S. institutions, both at home and abroad, conduct future medical and public health research. It represents an erosion of personal medical choice and threatens to undermine the public's trust in scientific investigations in biomedicine. (Tom Nicholson & Jay Bhattacharya, 7/8)
Neurological diseases are now the leading cause of poor health and disability worldwide. An estimated 3.4 billion people, or 40% of the world鈥檚 population, are affected by neurological disorders such as Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and other dementias, stroke, migraine, depression, anxiety, neonatal encephalopathy, and more. Efforts to expand research that can lead to new and more effective treatments for neurological diseases are sorely needed. So are new strategies to address the many unique challenges that often limit progress in developing therapies for these diseases. (Bruce Leuchter, 7/9)