Daily Rounds: How Broccoli May Kill Health Law; Restored Pleasure For Mutilation Victims; More Surgeries Under Health Reform; Fixing Alzheimer's Care

How Broccoli Landed On Supreme Court Menu (The New York Times) — "If the court strikes down the health care law — which many constitutional experts on both the right and left long doubted it would do — many lawyers say they believe one reason may be the role of broccoli in shaping the debate. It turns out that broccoli did not spring from the mind of Justice Scalia. The vegetable trail leads backward through conservative media and pundits. Before reaching the Supreme Court, vegetables were cited by a federal judge in Florida with a libertarian streak; in an Internet video financed by libertarian and ultraconservative backers; at a Congressional hearing by a Republican senator; and an op-ed column by David B. Rivkin Jr., a libertarian lawyer whose family emigrated from the former Soviet Union when he was 10...“I have some grudging admiration for them,” said Akhil Amar, a professor of law and political science at Yale and author of a book on the Constitution. “All the more so because it’s such a bad argument. They have been politically brilliant. They needed a simplistic metaphor, and in broccoli they got it.”

Surgery Restores Sexual Function In Women With Genital Mutilation (NPR) — "Now, French researchers report in a new paper that a reconstructive surgery they used to try to repair the clitorises of 2,938 women in France between 1998 and 2009 has helped many of them experience sexual pleasure. The researchers say that one-third of the women they interviewed a year after their surgery said they could achieve a full or "restricted" orgasm with their new clitorises. None of those women had had an orgasm before the surgery. Half the women who said they'd had a "restricted" orgasm before the surgery reported experiencing a regular orgasm after it."

Study Finds Massachusetts Health Reform leads To Increased Surgical Inpatient Procedures (Medical Xpress) — "Researchers from Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, along with the VA Boston Healthcare System and Harvard Medical School, have found inpatient medical procedures increased more among non-elderly, lower- and medium- income populations, Hispanics and whites, after health care reform went into effect in Massachusetts. The findings, which currently appear in Medical Care, suggest improved access to outpatient care for vulnerable subpopulations since health care reform took effect."

Bill Seeking Alzheimer's, Dementia Care Standards Advances (The Boston Globe) — "A proposal to create minimum standards for Alzheimer’s and dementia care in Massachusetts nursing homes is one step closer to becoming law...A loophole in current Massachusetts law allows nursing homes to advertise specialized Alzheimer’s and dementia care units, even though their workers may have such no training. “This legislation will protect some of the most vulnerable of our population,” James Wessler, president and chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Association of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, said in a statement."