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The Abstract
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> By Torie Ludwin and Steven Scarborough, Arnold Ventures
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Steven Scarborough writes this week on the bipartisan EQUAL Act:
When Terrance Stanton was 26 years old, he was arrested for intending to sell roughly 10 ounces of drugs and was given life in prison. His sentence was exceptionally harsh because he was accused of dealing crack cocaine, which under federal law carries a much more severe minimum sentence than powder cocaine.
Under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the punishment for crack is 18 times more severe than that for powder cocaine, even though there is no scientific proof supporting a discrimination between the two drugs. What we do have is undeniable evidence that this policy propagates racial inequality. As of 2019, 6% of people sentenced for selling crack cocaine were white while 77% were Black.
There is growing hope, though, that a solution is on the horizon. The EQUAL Act aims to eliminate the three-decades-old crack-cocaine sentencing disparity and reduce the sentences of thousands of people serving time for crack-related crimes. Last year, the House passed the EQUAL Act, and earlier this month the bill received the support of 11 Republican senators, giving it a filibuster-proof base in the Senate.
The reforms proposed by the bill aren’t just popular among Democrats, Republicans, and law enforcement, they are also widely supported by the American public. New polling from Justice Action Network released this week shows wide majorities of both Democrats (82%) and Republicans (66%) support treating crack and powder cocaine equally.
Passing the EQUAL Act would reduce the sentences of tens of thousands of people in prison — 91% of whom are Black — by an average of six years, allowing them to reenter society and rejoin their families sooner.
April is Second Chances Month, a particularly fitting time to recognize that people serving unnecessarily punitive sentences should be extended more opportunity. Advocating for the passage of the EQUAL Act, Stanton's wife Sagan says it best: “Second chances are deserved for those who reverse their way of thinking and display ethical behavior. Terrance’s record shows that he is civilized, not a threat to the community, and he has learned his lesson. Being corrected is what correctional facilities are for. Now it’s time to correct an unfair law and give Terrance a second chance.”
— Steven Scarborough, communications manager
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Getting 'The Pill' When You Can't Get to the Doctor
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By Alex Fulton, AV contributor
Of the many barriers to contraceptive care — financial, geographic, linguistic, discriminatory — one issue that involves many of them is the doctor’s office. For those in need of transportation, child care, language services, Medicaid providers, or all of the above, it’s an often unseen struggle.
What’s Happening: Three emerging distribution channels in various stages of development aim to simplify the process of obtaining and continuing oral contraception by eliminating the necessity of an in-person clinic visit.
Why it Matters: Increasing access to contraception gives people the freedom to decide when and how they want to start a family. When people have more than one way to access birth control, there is a greater likelihood they can get it — and keep taking it.
What’s Next: There’s hope for new ways to obtain birth control. National health organizations continue to advocate for FDA approval for over-the-counter birth control, as two pharmaceutical companies seek clearance to make the pill much more widely available without prescription. The issue has received strong bipartisan support. In addition, implementation is getting underway for pharmacist-prescribed birth control, with legislation having passed in 24 states including Washington, D.C.
Read the story >
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How The Trace Transformed
Gun Violence Journalism
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By Rhiannon Collette, communications manager
Gun violence has become an epidemic in America. The mass shooting on the New York subway this week captured headlines and filled social media with images of panicked commuters fleeing bloodshed — but this latest round of gun tragedy is just one data point in a greater trend. The New York shooting was the 19th mass shooting in April alone.
With gun violence so interwoven into the national fabric, it can be tempting to become myopic, focusing on singular incidents without connecting the dots to paint a broader picture. Nonprofit news outlet The Trace has not only resisted that temptation, it has reframed the way gun violence gets written about in America, sharpening and deepening journalism about gun violence to illustrate the magnitude of the problem and the failures that have led to this moment.
Why it Matters: Established in 2015, The Trace has played a vital role in explaining the gun violence crisis and documenting solutions in an area of policy that has long lacked adequate research and data to shape debate. While traditional media coverage tends to peak around mass shootings and fade shortly thereafter (despite the fact that mass shootings are just a fraction of deaths from firearms), The Trace has committed to exclusively reporting on gun violence with an aim to educate, increase accountability, and identify scalable and evidence-based policy solutions to drive meaningful change.
What's Next: The Trace's work comes at an important time — the past two years have seen historic surges in gun violence, reinforcing the importance of journalism that provides necessary context and data to understand the magnitude of the problem and a path forward. With support from Arnold Ventures and other philanthropies, the Trace's singular focus on guns in America has helped serve as a catalyst for more well-informed conversations and decisions. "If the understanding of a problem is that it’s intractable and nothing can be done, that lets people in power off the hook because there’s not anything they can do about it," said James Burnett, the founding editor and managing director of The Trace. "But if you point to what can be done, then you have the ingredients of accountability.”
Read the story >
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How to Restore Confidence
in FDA Standards
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By Rhiannon Colette, communications manager
A final decision last week by the federal government to limit coverage for an expensive and unproven new Alzheimer's drug reignited a debate that has been simmering since the summer. That's when the FDA approved aducanumab, pictured above, despite evidence that it causes brain bleeding, despite a lack of evidence of clinical improvements in patient cognition, and despite the fact that the FDA's own independent advisory committee recommended against approval.
That controversial FDA decision in June 2021 was a flashpoint in the conversation about the standards the FDA takes into account when considering a drug under the Accelerated Approval Program, raising questions about patient safety, evidence standards, and whether the pharmaceutical industry is taking advantage of the pathway to reap financial rewards.
Why it Matters: With the Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services now affirming that it will only approve payment for aducanumab for patients enrolled in clinical studies, it's time for policymakers to take heed. The Accelerated Approval Program was created to strike a delicate balance of giving patients access to promising therapies as soon as possible, while working to obtain evidence that confirms the benefit of those therapies later down the road.
However, the saga of this Alzheimer's drug has revealed deeper problems with the process. And if the public and the medical community are expected to trust the value of drugs that get approved, then Congress must take action to limit government spending on expensive drugs that don't have a corresponding benefit in clinical value. It also must strengthen the evidentiary standards by which the FDA approves drugs through the Accelerated Approval Program.
Read more about improving FDA evidence standards for drugs approved under the Accelerated Approval Program.
Related: STAT explores the legal repercussions following Medicare’s decision to restrict coverage of the Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm.
Related: The New York Times describes the extensive campaign waged by Biogen and the Alzheimer’s Association to get Medicare coverage for Aduhelm. |
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- Three leaders in the criminal legal system in New York's Dutchess County: Jonathan Heller, principal probation officer; Mary Ellen Still, director of the Office of Probation and Community Corrections; and Kathy McQuade, probation supervisor for pretrial services, about the promise and challenge of implementing the state's bail reform law beyond New York City — and the importance of stakeholder buy-in.
"For one, we have a criminal justice council that has all local agencies involved," Still said. "We also have legislators and our county executive’s office on it. We have citizens who sit on the council. And it brings everybody together."
Read the Q&A >
- Leading health care expert Dr. Amol Navathe, assistant professor of health policy at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and commissioner of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. Our current fee-for-service payment system reimburses health care providers based on the volume and type of services they perform, rather than on whether they improve care for patients. Dr. Navathe’s work focuses on how to achieve better patient outcomes and cost savings in our health care system by adopting alternative payment models.
“Payment reform is moving from its early childhood years into adolescence.We have some early evidence on what does and does not work, but we do not yet have systematic, national participation in alternative payment models across clinical settings, physician typs, organizations, or payers," said Navathe.
Read the Q&A >
- Renaldo Hudson, director of education at the Illinois Prison Project. Hudson spent 37 years incarcerated before receiving clemency in 2020. Today, he’s working to tell the stories of people who are incarcerated and advocate for a system that practices restorative, rather than punitive, justice. Hudson discusses how providing second chances for people involved with the criminal legal system is the just and rational thing to do.
“It is no one else's responsibility to get me to success,” said Hudson, “but at least give me a chance to see what I can strive for.”
Read the Q&A >
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Criminal Justice
- The LA Times outlines a report from the National Collaborative for Gun Violence Research showing that people who live with gun owners, even if they themselves do not own a gun, are twice as likely to die by homicide.
- Vital City writes about the need for more evidence on what crime prevention strategies are most effective.
- Democrats may be shifting away from support for crime and police reform in preparation of the midterm elections and in the wake of the national increase in homicides, Politico reports.
- An op-ed in the Los Angeles Times details why electronic monitoring ankle bracelets can be overly invasive.
- Harris County, Texas is now mandating that the for-profit bail bond industry take an upfront fee of at least 10%. This new regulation follows a Houston Chronicle investigation that found bondsmen were undercutting judges’ settings in violent felony cases after reforms slashed the use of cash bail in misdemeanor courts.
Health Care
- Small companies are bracing for health insurance price increases of over 10-15% this year, reports STAT.
Contraceptive Choice & Access
- A Pennsylvania state legislator introduces a bill to increase contraceptive access by closing the loophole in the Affordable Care Act allowing employers to be exempt from providing birth control to employees if they object due to moral or religious reasons, reports the Times Observer. “Contraception is health care, and employers should not be allowed to decide what medical care a woman has the right to receive. Access to health care is inextricably linked to economic mobility, and basic preventative care like birth control should not be a luxury that is only available to some,” wrote Democratic state Rep. Leanne Krueger. “As legislators, we should be reducing barriers to health care, not creating more.”
- The Seattle Times’ editorial board champions the work of U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, who continues to advocate for the restoration of Title X funds for Washington state without gag rules, which had been imposed with the previous Administration, were lifted by the Biden Administration, and are being raised again as a possibility by some lawmakers. The federal Title X Family Planning Program grants funds to states for low-income patients to receive family planning and reproductive health services. Said Murray, “We’re talking about basic, life-saving health care, like cancer screenings. Or the birth control that so many patients depend on …. So to me, it’s just unthinkable that you wouldn’t support this program.”
Higher Education
- NPR reports that internal documents from the U.S. Department of Education show gross mismanagement of income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which are designed to be adjustable student loan repayment programs that cancel after 20-25 years.
- The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP) releases policy recommendations on programs with low return on investment. Included in its seven principles of accountability is the need for program-level as opposed to institution-level accountability in decisions, weighing both the benefits and costs of programs.
- Following the passage of the Postsecondary Student Success Grant Program in the FY2022 spending bill, New America highlights the importance of evidence-based college completion programs like ASAP and their subsequent expansions, and advocates for continued support of them.
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Ken Burns’ two-hour, four-part documentary on Benjamin Franklin gives an example of how one man worked toward improvement of both society and the self. Watch the trailer here.
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- Listen to “How Long” from the sold-out musical “SUFFS” about activist Alice Paul, one of the leaders of the campaign for the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote; she was also the author of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 (which has yet to be ratified federally). Inspiring in more ways than one, Paul has been the subject of three musicals in as many years.
- Meet the 13 valedictorians of Bellaire High School in Houston, Texas, who maintained a 5.0 GPA during the difficulties and stress of online school during the COVID-19 pandemic. The group surpasses last year’s record-breaking year of nine valedictorians.
- While his parents were being interviewed on television, Astros rookie Jeremy Peña hit his first career home run last week in Anaheim against the Angels. “You don't plan that,” said Peña. “So when they told me they got that on camera, it was awesome to see.”
- In a tribute to Ukraine, consider upping your Easter egg-dying game by making pysanky, or Ukrainian batik-style patterned dyed eggs. They’re also popular in Poland.
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Have an evidence-based week,
– Torie and Steven
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Torie Ludwin develops communications for several Arnold Ventures portfolios, including higher education, contraceptive choice and access, evidence-based policy, democracy, climate, and organ donation.
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Steven Scarborough develops communications for Arnold Ventures' criminal justice and health care teams.
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