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good morning. AP Stylebook brought big news to the journalism world on Friday. They say that health care can now be described in one word: “health care.” “I cried, I screamed, I threw up,” one STAT employee said on Slack. “Ihatate,” another person wrote. We’re obviously still processing all our emotions and we’ll let you know soon where we end up.
About the situation of the new coronavirus 6 years from now
In 2020 and 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 virus killed an estimated 15 million people worldwide. Six years later, it has become almost a political football. Over the past two years, the flu has affected more people than the coronavirus. So what happened? STAT’s Helen Branswell spoke with experts about the evolving coronavirus situation, including the latest information on immunity, deaths, booster shots and more.
“The pattern indicates that the new strain has a relatively high ability to overcome the human immune response, but the outcome of infection is milder,” virologist Vineet Menachery wrote in an email. Some experts believe the coronavirus has evolved into more of a nuisance than a dangerous threat, but not everyone agrees. Read on to learn more.
ICYMI: Psychedelics, AI vs. Doctors in Utah
I’d like to take a look at some of the news from last weekend and the weekend.
STAT’s Megan Molteni got the scoop yesterday. Christine Blanche, an integrative medicine physician and wife of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, has been appointed to the NIH advisory board. This is the first such appointment in more than a year. On Saturday, Helen wrote about the passing of Nancy Cox, a CDC veteran and a leading figure in global influenza research.
From last week: Health tech startup Doctronic gained national attention earlier this year when it launched a trial with the state of Utah that uses an AI system to update existing prescriptions without clinician oversight. In a letter released Friday, the Utah Medical Licensing Board said it learned about it only after the pilot began and asked the state to halt the plan. Read more from STAT’s Mario Aguilar.
And finally, more news about psychedelics. The FDA will accelerate its review of drugs from three companies as part of the Trump administration’s plan to increase access to controversial but promising medicines, the agency announced Friday. Priority review coupons will be awarded to Compass’ psilocybin product for treatment-resistant depression, Usona’s similar drug for major depressive disorder, and Transcend’s MDMA-like treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Read more from three STAT reporters.
44%
That’s the percentage of NIH-funded research papers that analyze or report data by gender, according to a study published this morning in Nature Communications Medicine. In 2015, the NIH introduced broad guidelines requiring researchers to consider gender as a biological variable in study design, analysis, and reporting. The lack of research following these guidelines makes it difficult to know whether certain scientific findings apply equally to people of all genders. STAT’s Anil Oza and Annalisa Meleri have more.
A hat to treat depression?
Scientists have been zapping the brain to alleviate depression for decades through a method called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Startup Motif Neurotech wants to take its technology beyond baseball caps. The idea is that each morning, the hat activates a blueberry-sized device implanted in the skull that sends electrical pulses to the brain.
“Think of it like charging your phone,” Motif co-founder and CEO Jacob Robinson told STAT’s O. Rose Broderick. Read their conversation to learn more about the science, and also Robinson’s interesting comments about how he would feel if he gave this device to his children or enrolled them in a clinical trial.
What is the real risk of eating disorders due to GLP-1?
As GLP-1 weight loss drugs proliferate, the potential for users to develop eating disorders remains in the public consciousness and is largely unaddressed beyond occasional media coverage. Although actual research is scant, an analysis of medical records shows that of the more than 60,000 people taking GLP-1, 1.28% were diagnosed with an eating disorder within two years.
In a NEJM opinion published over the weekend, physician Amanda Banks estimated that if about 1 in 8 Americans took GLP-1, more than 420,000 people could develop an eating disorder. “Physicians, clinical trialists, regulators, policy makers, and drug developers are unprepared for this coming wave,” Banks wrote.
She argued that patients should be tested for eating disorders before being prescribed these drugs. Further research is also needed into the risk of eating disorders mediated by GLP-1 and how the drug could be used as a potential treatment, especially given what Banks points to as “overlapping mechanisms in the underlying biology” of obesity and anorexia.
$7,500
One day, as Sarah Cady reviewed her employment contract for her job as a psychiatric nurse, she was shocked to see how much she would have to pay for each patient she left if she left the hospital.
That moment was a turning point for Caddy. “In too many private mental health practices, patients are treated as proprietary assets to be held, priced, and controlled, rather than as autonomous human beings engaged in fragile therapeutic relationships,” she writes in a new First Opinion essay. And patients often don’t even know this is happening. Read Cady’s story about what she believes patients have a duty to do in situations like this.
what we are reading
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While advising President Kennedy, aides held more than $25 million in stock in wellness company The New York Times
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Menopause compensation bill faces mixed fate in state legislatures, news from the US
- I am a fourth year medical student and have only learned about one historical example of medical racism: STAT.
- FTC ramps up targeting of transgender rights, Wired
