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Police departments nationwide have started teaming up officers with therapists in situations involving the mentally ill, largely in the hope of avoiding the type of incident that recently landed a New York Police Department sergeant on trial for murder. The move to create what some departments call “co-response teams” of officers and clinicians has been adopted or expanded in recent years in Salt Lake City, Houston, Los Angeles and elsewhere. Officials in these cities say clinicians can bring meaningful insight to delicate situations, and can help prevent mentally ill people from harming themselves or others. (Kanno-Youngs, 3/9)

Thousands of years ago, a special child was born in the Sahara. At the time, this was not a desert; it was a green belt of savannas, woodlands, lakes and rivers. Bands of hunter-gatherers thrived there, catching fish and spearing hippos. A genetic mutation had altered the child’s hemoglobin, the molecule in red blood cells that ferries oxygen through the body. It was not harmful; there are two copies of every gene, and the child’s other hemoglobin gene was normal. The child survived, had a family and passed down the mutation to future generations. (Zimmer, 3/8)

The sole influenza vaccine made in cell culture in the United States may have worked about 20 percent better this flu season than the standard vaccines made in eggs, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Thursday. Gottlieb revealed that figure in a hearing of the congressional subcommittee on oversight and investigations, called to explore this year’s severe flu season and why flu vaccines did not appear to protect especially well. (Branswell, 3/9)

A cluster of cases of a progressive lung disease occurred among dentists and other dental workers treated at one Virginia care center, according to Thursday's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of nine patients, referred to as a cluster, seven died during the reported 16-year period. The disease, called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, is a chronic, progressive lung disease with a poor prognosis. The cause is unknown. (Scutti, 3/8)

Does talking on a cellphone increase your risk of getting a brain tumor? Many health experts say it’s unlikely, and if it is possible, the increase is probably small. Yet there has been just enough research over the years to keep the debate alive. Last month, the U.S. government released results from the largest government study to date on the question. And the findings, from the National Toxicology Program, were…. a mixed bag. (Knutson, 3/8)

Federal health officials this week allowed a genetic testing firm to sell kits to consumers to test whether they carry gene mutations that put them at higher risk for breast and ovarian cancer. The action, part of a broader regulatory shift, is the first time the Food and Drug Administration has allowed a company—in this case 23andMe Inc.—to market such a cancer-risk test directly to the public. (Burton, 3/9)

As drug makers struggle to get medicines out the door, executives involved in the process say that it’s taking more time than ever to get mid-stage and late-stage clinical trials up and running. The average amount of time from identifying useful study sites to launching a Phase 2 or Phase 3 trial now takes 31.4 weeks, or nearly eight months, which is one month longer than a decade ago, according to a survey conducted by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. (Silverman, 3/8)

Michael Robertson was on his summer vacation a few years ago and had just proposed to the woman who would become his wife when he decided he needed to see a doctor. "I'd been having symptoms for a few months but it was during an intense work period, drinking too much coffee, not getting enough sleep, so I kind of chalked it up to that," Robertson says. Unfortunately, the doctor had a more dire diagnosis: stage 4 rectal cancer. Robertson was only 35 at the time — unusually young for this diagnosis. (Harris, 3/9)

The main rationale has been that fiber is made up of undigestible bulk that prevents people from eating unhealthy food — and helps keep the digestive tract regular. But new research suggests that dietary fibers actually play a critical role in feeding the trillions of microbes that reside in our bodies, known collectively as the microbiome. And that specifically for people with type 2 diabetes, a high-fiber diet along with a favorable gut microbiome can keep patients’ blood sugar and body weight under control. (Keshavan, 3/8)

Last Saturday, while I was visiting Fatty's Tattoos and Piercings, a college-aged woman in a hoodie walked in and asked for a tattoo, her first, right on the spot."I want a red-tailed hawk feather," she told the artist on duty at the Washington, D.C., tattoo parlor. He peppered her with questions: How big? What style? She alternated between a blank stare and a furrowed brow: "I ... have a photo on my phone of the feather that I like, I could show you that?" (Wilhelm, 3/8)