Youth dying from alcohol; drugmakers manipulate Medicaid; health data privacy flouted

A large increase deaths from alcohol-related liver disease has hit the young particularly hard.

South_agency/Getty Images Why Are Some Young People Drinking Themselves To Death? Dr. Elliot Tapper has treated a lot of patients, but this one stood out. "His whole body was yellow," Tapper remembers. "He could hardly move. It was difficult for him to breathe, and he wasn't eating anything." The patient was suffering from chronic liver disease. After years of alcohol use, his liver had stopped filtering his blood. The man was only in his mid-30s – much younger than most liver disease patients. It's patient stories like this one that led Tapper to research liver disease and he learned that fatal liver disease has risen, young people have been hit the hardest, and alchol is to blame. The question is, why are the young drinking so heavily? Read more on Shots.   Paul Blow for NPR How Drugmakers Secretly Sway Medicaid To Pay For Their Drugs Her code name was Pampers.The whistleblower, a pharmaceutical sales rep, was eight months pregnant when she wore a wire to help the FBI collect evidence about ethically questionable practices her employer was using to get Medicaid to pay for their drugs. "I remember thinking I can't do this anymore," she said."This company needs to be held accountable.” The company she worked for pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed in to pay a settlement in 2015. But many other companies use questionable tactics to  manipulate states' efforts hold down drug costs for taxpayers, as a Center for Public Integrity and NPR investigation found.   Drug companies have infiltrated nearly every part of the process that determines how their drugs will be covered by taxpayers: lobbying; giving free dinners and consulting gigs to doctors who advise state Medicaid programs; and paying for state Medicaid officials to attend conferences where they can mingle with drug reps. Read more on Shots.   Justin Volz for ProPublica Health Insurers Are Watching Your Online Behavior The health insurance industry has joined forces with data brokers to vacuum up personal details about hundreds of millions of Americans. The companies are tracking your race, education level, TV habits, marital status, net worth. They're collecting what you post on social media, whether you're behind on your bills, what you order online. Then they feed this information into algorithms that spit out predictions about how much your health care could cost them. Insurers contend that data isn’t used to set prices. But as a research scientist from one company said: "I can't say it hasn't happened." And this data gathering runs counter to federal patient privacy law. "We have a health privacy machine that's in crisis," said Frank Pasquale, a professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law. Read more about it on Shots. Your Shots editor, Carmel Wroth You received this message because you're subscribed to our Health emails. |  Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy | NPR 1111 N. CAPITOL ST. NE WASHINGTON DC 20002