Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Meta Ordered To Pay $567M To Remediate Harm Its Apps Caused To Kids
A New Mexico judge branded Facebook and Instagram owner Meta a “public nuisance,” and ordered the company to pay $567 million into a fund to remediate harms its apps caused to children. Judge Bryan Biedscheid found in his ruling late Thursday that teenagers in the state were in the midst of a mental health crisis and that Meta’s platforms were a “significant contributing cause.” (Duncan, 8/6)
More health and wellness news —
Amid a summer when wildfire smoke has often filled the skies, a new study is adding to the body of research about the growing impact of fire-fueled air pollution, this time raising the alarm about prenatal health. Wildfire pollution has become an increasing proportion of the pollution that pregnant mothers and their unborn babies are exposed to, according to a study published Friday. (Wu, 8/7)
The threat of heart disease, and of dying from it, is rising among young women. Recent research has suggested that nearly one-third of all women ages 20 to 44 will have heart disease in 2050, up from one-fourth today. And women under 55 are more likely to die from heart attacks than men under 55. (Agrawal, 8/6)
In the past year, the U.S. has seen a jump in frequent marijuana users going to the hospital with a nausea and vomiting condition, according to a report released Thursday. “The abruptness and sustained magnitude of the increase” is largely due to the condition getting its own diagnosis code last fall, which is providing a more accurate picture of what was an underrecognized problem, the authors of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report wrote. (Stobbe, 8/6)
After Ariana Grande released the music video for “Petal” last week and the internet lit up with criticism over how thin she looked, mental health clinicians say they’ve been inundated with calls from people struggling with eating disorders. (Yurcaba, 8/6)
Sydney Towle, a social media memoirist who mixed anguish, optimism and unabashed wanderlust as she challenged TikTok viewers to reconsider how a cancer patient should look and live, died on Wednesday at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. She was 26. Her death, from complications of metastatic bile duct cancer, was announced on her social media channels. Earlier this week, her family said that she had entered hospice care. (Rosman, 8/6)
