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Morning Briefing

Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

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Tuesday, Mar 14 2023

Full Issue

'Havana Syndrome' Experiments: Pentagon's Use Of Animals Protested

The Department of Defense is performing radiation experiments on ferrets and monkeys even though the intelligence community recently rejected that theory behind the illness, Politico reports. Also in the news: Mitch McConnell, Patricia Schroeder, and Marilyn Goldwater.

A prominent animal rights group is calling on the Pentagon to halt 鈥渄isturbing鈥 research exposing ferrets and monkeys to pulsed radiation to try to recreate symptoms of 鈥淗avana Syndrome.鈥 On Thursday, POLITICO first reported that the Defense Department began funding experiments last September on ferrets to try to determine whether radio frequency waves could be the source of the mysterious ailment that has plagued more than 1,000 U.S. government personnel for years. POLITICO also reported that DoD has recently conducted these tests on primates. (Seligman, 3/13)

The idea that a foreign power 鈥 say, Russia 鈥 could launch a global campaign of 鈥渄irected pulsed radio frequency energy鈥 is hardly farfetched. Not only is this the conclusion that others, such as the National Academy of Sciences, have come to. But it wouldn鈥檛 even be the first time the Kremlin has launched such a campaign. (Michel, 3/10)

In other health news from Capitol Hill 鈥

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) was discharged from the hospital Monday after suffering a concussion last week when he tripped and fell at a private dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in downtown Washington. 聽McConnell, who is 81, is not expected to return to the Senate this week. (Bolton, 3/13)

Patricia Schroeder, a trailblazing feminist legislator who helped redefine the role of women in American politics and used her wit to combat egregious sexism in Congress, died on Monday. She was 82. ... She was a driving force behind the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which guaranteed women and men up to 18 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a family member. She helped pass the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which barred employers from dismissing women because they were pregnant and from denying them maternity benefits. (Seelye, 3/14)

Marilyn R. Goldwater, an emergency-room nurse by training who served 24 years in the Maryland House of Delegates, where she became known as an advocate for improving and expanding health care across the state, died Jan. 7 at her daughter鈥檚 home in Manhattan Beach, Calif. She was 95. The cause was complications from Parkinson鈥檚 disease, said her daughter, Diane 鈥淒ee鈥 Goldwater. (Langer, 3/13)

This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
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