A bottle of oxycodone. Photo: Education Images/UIG via Getty Images
New research in JAMA Network Open finds the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid to more low-income people did not significantly change painkiller prescriptions, and may have increased access to a drug that helps with opioid addiction.
The bottom line: Medicaid expansion is still not the cause of the opioid crisis.
Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios
Photo: Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
An "infodemic" of misinformation and disinformation has helped cripple the response to the novel coronavirus.
Why it matters: High-powered social media accelerates the spread of lies and political polarization that motivates people to believe them. Unless the public health sphere can effectively counter misinformation, not even an effective vaccine may be enough to end the pandemic.