Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: How Much Medical Privacy Do Celebrities Really Have?; SCOTUS FDA Case A No-Brainer
There was a time when the last thing a celebrity would do would be to go public with details of a major illness. After all, it’s hard enough dealing with a grave diagnosis and often complicated treatments than to also announce them to the world. And health information has always been treated as confidential, shared between patients and their doctors. But things began to change in the early 20th century. (Barron H. Lerner, 3/24)
The Supreme Court declared nearly two years ago, when it overruled Roe v. Wade, that the rules on abortion were now up to the states — but as the justices hear a critical case this week regarding the pill mifepristone, reproductive rights rest yet again in their hands. The good news is, this isn’t a hard one. (3/23)
A politicized Supreme Court disregarded science and evidence by overturning Roe v. Wade, so there is cause for concern that after hearing oral arguments on March 26 in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the court will stray further from established law and rule that the FDA’s authority to approve mifepristone, a drug used in medication-induced abortions, does not take precedence over restrictive state laws. (Terry M. McGovern and Ayman El-Mohandes, 3/25)
Since the Food and Drug Administration approved methadone for treating opioid use disorder in 1972, its distribution has been strictly regulated. The regulations were put in place to ensure public and patient safety. But they made it hard for people to get the treatment they need. (Rebecca Arden Harris and David S. Mandell, 3/25)
A tide of dangerous legislation has swept across the Midwest, and it’s now reached Missouri. As the General Assembly contemplates Senate Bill 956 and House Bill 1963, a critical decision looms over the future of eye care in our state. This legislation threatens to relax the standards that currently safeguard the well-being of patients and could expose many Missourians to substantial risks by allowing completely unqualified people — without even a medical degree — to perform laser eye surgery. (Jonathan Schell, 3/24)
