Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
False, Misleading Information On Cancer 'Cures' Thrives On YouTube, Ensnaring Patients At Their Most Vulnerable Time
Mari pressed kale leaves through the juicer, preparing the smoothie that she believed had saved her life. “I’m a cancer-killer, girl,” Mari told her niece, who stood next to her in the kitchen. The pair were filming themselves for a YouTube video. Mari said she was in remission from a dangerous form of cancer, and the video was meant as a testimony to what she believed was the power of the “lemon ginger blast.” In went some cucumber, some apple, some bok choy, a whole habanero pepper. (Ohlheiser, 6/25)
Federal and state authorities on Tuesday announced that they had targeted dozens of robocallers accused of placing an estimated 1 billion spam calls to consumers, a crackdown they said should send a signal about the government’s heightened attention to Americans harmed by such scams. Some of the robocallers sought to deceive people into paying fees or surrendering their personal information for fraudulent services, such as lowering their credit card interest rates or providing help with health insurance, according to the Federal Trade Commission, which worked alongside state attorneys general and other local law enforcement officials. (Romm, 6/25)
Momentum is growing on Capitol Hill to provide more protections for personal medical information as lawmakers work on drafting the first national data privacy law. Recent health data breaches have put a spotlight on the issue, which is likely to grow in importance as medical professionals shift more of their work online and increasingly turn to data and analytics to treat patients. (Miller, 6/26)
Chronic diseases are costly in every sense of the word. Not only are they expensive to treat but they are the leading cause of death and disability in the United States, where more than half of U.S. adults have at least one of them. The CDC cites chronic diseases as a leading driver of the nation’s $3.3 trillion in annual health care costs. Type 2 diabetes is one of the most common and expensive to treat chronic conditions. Nearly 30 million people in the United States are living with it, and 84 million have prediabetes, which can lead to the full-blown disease, though 90% of them don’t know they have it. (Flaherty, 6/26)
