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David Lazarus January 13, 2017 Los Angeles Times One focus of the planned repeal of Obamacare is maintaining coverage for people with preexisting conditions. Republican lawmakers say the current law’s safeguards won’t change, but they have yet to explain how they’ll accomplish this without also keeping the mandate that everyone buy insurance. What isn’t... read more
Experts have only a hazy idea of marijuana's myriad health effects, and federal laws are to blame
Melissa Healy Jan. 12, 2017 Los Angeles Times More than 22 million Americans use some form of marijuana each month, and it’s now approved for medicinal or recreational use in 28 states plus the District of Columbia. Nationwide, legal sales of the drug reached an estimated $7.1 billion last year. Yet for all its ubiquity, a comprehensive... read more
Neighbors Treating Neighbors For Depression And Alcoholism
December 15, 20164:22 PM ET Heard on NPR Morning Edition Joanne Silberner Audio Link to article It's a problem around the world: People who need mental health care don't get it. A new kind of treatment strategy in India — delivered by nonprofessionals — offers a potential solution. And it's one that could be adopted... read more
Doctors Say Parents Shouldn't Smoke Pot Around Kids
December 19, 2016 4:40 AM ET Heard on NPR Morning Edition Jane Greenhalgh Audio Link to article With more states legalizing recreational marijuana, parents are facing the question of whether they should smoke pot around their children. "I have never smoked and would never smoke around my child," says one mother who lives in San... read more
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE DEC. 31, 2016 New York Times BROOKLINE, Mass. — When Michael Dukakis lost the presidential election in 1988, his wife, Kitty, felt as if she had been squashed in a compactor, all the air forced out of her. Her even-keeled husband went back to work as governor of Massachusetts; she started... read more
Carrie Fisher Put Pen and Voice in Service of 'Bipolar Pride'
By BENEDICT CAREY DEC. 28, 2016 New York Times She was all there, all the time: exuberant in describing her mania, savage and tender when recalling her despair. And for decades, she gracefully wore the legacy of her legendary role as Princess Leia, worshiped by a generation of teenage girls as the lone female warrior... read more
Cures Act Gains Bipartisan Support That Eluded Obama Health Law
By ROBERT PEAR DEC. 8, 2016 New York Times WASHINGTON — With self-congratulatory zeal and smiles all around, huge bipartisan majorities in Congress have just passed legislation to speed the discovery of cures for killer diseases. At the same time, Republican leaders have been devising a strategy to undo the Affordable Care Act, which has... read more
By Pranay Sinha, MD Los Angeles Times December 8, 2016 I have been appalled by the swastikas, homophobic propaganda and lynching references mushrooming across the country, but the danger felt theoretical until recently, when I became a victim of hate speech from a patient. My patient's kidneys were failing and we needed to know... read more
House Passes Major Mental Health Legislation
American Psychiatric Association December 1, 2016 The House of Representatives last night passed the 21st Century Cures Act by a vote of 392-26. This wide-ranging, $6 billion bipartisan health legislation includes significant mental health components and had the support of the Obama administration. The new act embeds medical leadership in the Substance Abuse and... read more
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy: Addiction Is A Chronic Brain Disease, Not A Moral Failing
Erin Schumaker Nov. 17, 2016 Senior Healthy Living Editor, The Huffington Post In 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry issued a landmark report on tobacco and health that changed the course of American history, spurring the decline of smoking in the United States. More than 50 years later, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy hopes... read more