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good morning. You have until 9pm ET tonight to vote in the final round of STAT Madness! Make your voice heard, then be sure to read Sarah Todd’s excellent article on the Fanny Dooley reversal attitude that RFK Jr. and others seem to be taking on peptides vs. vaccines.
12%
How much does the White House want Congress to cut spending for the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the 2027 federal budget proposal released Friday? This is largely similar to what the administration proposed last year, including deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the elimination of health research agencies and the creation of a new agency dedicated to chronic diseases called the Administration for a Healthy America.
STAT’s Chelsea Siluzzo and John Wilkerson outline the proposal and how likely Congress is to agree to it. Megan Molteni and Anil Oza tell us more about NIH.
Ethical questions remain over Guinea-Bissau’s HEP B trial
The University of Southern Denmark is seeking help in evaluating the ethics of a clinical trial that some scientists are proposing to conduct in Guinea-Bissau using CDC funding. Health Sciences Dean Ole Scott told STAT on Sunday that the university had asked the European Network of Research Ethics Committees whether it would be willing to conduct or advise on an independent ethical review of the proposed research. EUREC has not yet responded. The WHO and others have deemed the trial unethical, prompting the university to put it on hold while it investigates the criticisms. Both the Danish National Health Research Ethics Committee and the WHO Research Ethics Review Board said they had no authority to make such an assessment.
In the proposed trial, infants would be randomized to receive a first dose of hepatitis B vaccine at birth or at two months of age, which is the current standard of care in Guinea-Bissau. (The country plans to adopt the WHO-recommended birth administration strategy in 2028.) The aim is to see if there are any previously undetected adverse effects of administering the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine at birth. This vaccine has been used in infants for more than 40 years and is considered safe and highly effective in preventing chronic hepatitis B infection in young children, a condition that puts them at high risk of liver disease and early death. — Helen Branswell
Big companies are pushing AI in a big way
UnitedHealth Group is hiring. Among the hundreds of openings are AI positions related to cybersecurity, claims review and editing, fraud detection, “provider digital technology team” roles, and more. Those in these roles will join the 22,000 software engineers the company already has around the world, more than 80% of whom are using AI to write code and build new agents.
Such rapid changes are occurring across American healthcare. In a new STAT study, lead investigative reporter Casey Ross reveals the potential benefits of such a panoramic introduction of AI, as well as the risks for patients who may not be fully aware of what’s going on. “It’s become an algorithm war, and we’ve forgotten that there’s life in the middle of it,” Grace Cordovano, an advocate for terminally ill cancer patients, told Casey. read more.
RFK Jr. has boosted the effectiveness of peptides, but is skeptical about vaccines. why?
Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his supporters prefer to make health choices that feel natural, believe in “eating real food,” and place an overall emphasis on nutrition and vitamins over vaccines. But one of President Kennedy’s favorite interventions is different from others. It’s an experimental drug known as a peptide.
Mainstream public health experts have warned that peptides’ effectiveness and potential side effects, including cancer risks, have not been adequately studied. Meanwhile, Kennedy said he has used them himself and suggested the FDA would make them more available. STAT’s Sarah Todd dug into this apparent contradiction. Read her talk about medical liberalism, powerful podcast allies, folk pharmacology, and more. Not sure exactly what a peptide is? Sara has you covered.
Mentally ill children need more help
When Liz Koch’s 13-year-old son became mentally ill, the medical care he received often felt more like a temporary transfer of responsibility than treatment. And the direction of the transfer consistently shifted from experts and specialists to her. “Asking parents to come up with a solution after all known options have been exhausted is not partnership,” Koch writes in a new first-opinion essay. “This is a system failure disguised as cooperation.”
Read more about Koch’s frustrating and frightening experience in a flawed pediatric health care system and what she thinks needs to change.
Law Firm finally announces recall
Remember last week when I talked about raw milk farms denying any link to E. coli outbreaks? The FDA asked Raw Farms to recall unpasteurized cheese products for several weeks while the agency investigated the outbreak. The farm refused until last Thursday. The recall focuses on cheddar cheese products after federal health officials said last year’s raw milk should no longer be on store shelves.
“This voluntary recall is being conducted under protest,” the company’s announcement, posted by the FDA on Friday, said. Scroll through Raw Farm’s Instagram stories and you’ll see they mean it. The company continues to share posts from customers who have purchased products (other than cheese). On Friday, a political cartoon was also reposted depicting a clumsy, sweaty man wearing an “FDA employee” pin inspecting a block of raw cheese while a gas truck was unloading an orange Kraft Heinz “pasteurized cheese product” full of wrenches, screws and forks in the background. An undercover journalist labeled both Ars Technica and “schooling media” takes notes by the truck.
what we are reading
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How gender-affirming care is becoming a political test for top medical organizations, Part 19
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Endless Farewell, Atlantic
- How FDA’s four-month delay forced a small biotech company out of business, STAT
- Tax season brings surprise for some ACA subsidy recipients, KFF Health News
- First opinion: “Medical Nutrition” helps my son and many other people stay healthy. But insurance won’t cover it, STAT.
