Insights

<p>What we’re reading and listening to today:</p> <p><strong>Snail spit:</strong> This could be the best trade headline of the year: <a href="http://www.hcplive.com/pain-management/articles/snail_spit_painkiller">… Painkiller Made From Snail Spit Now Comes in a Pill</a>.</p>

<p>For your Monday, some items to keep you busy this week:</p><p><strong>Big Decision:</strong> Mary Carmichael has a "DNA Dilemma" over at her <em>Newsweek</em> blog. She begins a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/02/dna-dilemma-one-writer-s-week-long-q… social media-heavy process to decide whether or not to take a direct-to-consumer genetic test</a>:</p>

<p><p>Health authorities have declared the United States on alert, in response to increasing cases of type 2 diabetes in the country. Official reports refer to a threat of major proportions that makes a state of emergency public health, so much so that there is already talk of an emerging epidemic. The most affected are children and members of minorities, particularly Hispanics.</p>

<p>Health reform will greatly expand the existing Medicaid program to provide health care to millions more Americans below the poverty line. It seems like a good idea on its face, but under the current system, patients covered by Medicaid generally are the unhealthiest people in the country. It's a case where having insurance coverage does not necessarily mean that you have access to good care.</p><p>It begs the question: If we add more people to an already overloaded system, will this exacerbate existing problems?</p>

<p>It has been more than three years since my first report on the death of a homeless Maryland boy from complications of an untreated dental infection was published in The Washington Post.&nbsp; It was challenging and heartbreaking to write about the death of that gentle boy who I had gotten to know, along with his struggling mother in the last weeks of his life. Yet for me, the larger challenge of understanding the broken oral health care system in Maryland only began with that story.

<p>It's been 2 weeks since the National Health Journalism Fellowship Convening 2010. &nbsp;I've felt a burst of renewed energy since meeting and bonding with my fellow fellows and WONDERFUL presenters. &nbsp;I feel blessed to have been chosen to be part of such an esteemed group!&nbsp;</p>

<p class="MsoNormal">My project will explore how prescription drug abuse has changed West Virginia's communities and why it is such a hard problem to control. As a daily newspaper reporter, I've seen this issue from several angles and am excited to examine it in depth.</p>

<p>I'm honored to be a part of this year's fellows. I learned a lot during our week in Los Angeles and hope to apply that knowledge to my multimedia project. I will be looking at the obstacles that keep some in the lower-income communties of color in Tampa from developing healthy diet and exercise habits.</p>

<p>A wide disparity exists between the large number of people on transplant lists, waiting for vital organs, such as a kidney, liver, heart, lung or pancreas, and the limited availability of those organs. Why is that? And can anything be done to close the imbalance? For my project in the National Health Journalism Fellowship program, I'm delving into the subject of organ donation. My geographic focus will be the Greater Los Angeles region. Given the demographic diversity of this region, I will concentrate on organ donation among Latinos, African Americans, Asians and Native Americans.

<p>I'm in the most recent round of national health fellows, which means I just returned from a terrific week in Los Angeles. I loved my fellow fellows! Also full to the brim with new story ideas and resources.&nbsp;Now back to the&nbsp;world of&nbsp;daily journalism, where I've been&nbsp;writing about&nbsp;researchers from our local medical school who helped&nbsp;develop a microbicide that women can use to block the AIDS virus, hospital mergers and a profile on a&nbsp;trauma surgeon.&nbsp;</p>