How one patient used data to change his health care

Personal stories illustrate the very real effects of health policies in today's Daily Briefing.

Future View: Jon Cohen at Technology Review tells the fascinating story of Larry Smarr, a data-savvy patient who discovered a new way to think about health care. Here's a taste:

Over the past decade, he has gathered as much data as he can about his body and then used that information to improve his health. And he has accomplished something that few people at the forefront of the "quantified self" movement have had the opportunity to do: he helped diagnose the emergence of a chronic disease in his body.

Bracelets are Nice: But tattoos are better, at least for some of the people in Maria Sudekum's report for the Associated Press about the use of medical tattoos.

Responding to Rhetoric: "I'm so grateful that Ronan is my child," writes Emily Rapp in Slate. "I also wish he'd never been born; no person should suffer in this way-daily seizures, blindness, lack of movement, inability to swallow, a devastated brain-with no hope for a cure." Rapp's essay challenges to Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's positions on prenatal testing and abortion.

Beautiful Video: A moving video accompanies a thought-provoking story about dementia and inmates in a California prison, by Pam Belluck in The New York Times.

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