Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Measles Is Back, Thanks To Low Vaccination; Here's How To Halt The Physician Shortage
In 2022, there were 941 reported cases of measles in the World Health Organization’s European region. Over just the first 10 months of last year, according to an alarming bulletin the W.H.O. issued in mid-December, there were more than 30,000. (David Wallace-Wells, 2/1)
The U.S. is facing a dire shortage of physicians, especially in primary care and some of the most critically needed specialties. The statistics are daunting, with the Association of American Medical Colleges projecting a deficit of 37,800 to 124,000 physicians over the next decade. (Dr. Jay Feldstein and U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, 2/2)
While it might not seem to be a military issue, the Supreme Court will soon decide a case that will affect the armed forces and hundreds of thousands of women who serve in uniform — as well as those civilians we need to recruit. The question before the court is whether to severely limit access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medication abortions up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. Medication abortions make up over half of the cases in the United States. (Louis Caldera, Ray Mabus and Deborah James, 2/1)
In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court catastrophically impacted women’s lives and health across the nation by overturning Roe v. Wade and leaving it up to elected officials to decide whether residents have the right to abortion. As part of that decision, the court also overruled one of my cases from 1992, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. (Kathryn Kolbert, 2/1)
Globally, 45 million children are experiencing the worst type of malnutrition—known as wasting—which for some means literally starving to death. More than 1 million children die of wasting each year. At the same time, two out of three women of reproductive age lack the key vitamins and minerals they need to survive and thrive, and 3 billion people cannot afford a nutritious diet. (Matt Freeman, William Moore and Anna Hakobyan, 2/1)
There’s a saying in many hospitals: The nicer a patient is, the worse their prognosis. This was unfortunately true when I treated a recent hospitalized patient with metastatic breast cancer. (Dr. Thomas K. Lew, 2/2)
