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good morning. It’s a good time to be a soccer fan in the United States. Still, I appreciate Defector’s take on this commercial hydration break.
$360,000
That’s the amount the United States spent from January 2025 to March 2026 to stockpile millions of dollars worth of contraceptives intended for international aid, according to a recommendation released last week by USAID’s Office of the Inspector General. (Meanwhile, monthly storage costs increased from more than $17,000 to $24,000.)
Birth control was originally meant to be provided to low-income countries in Africa, but was left in Belgium after the Trump administration slashed USAID last year. Of the $9.7 million worth of family planning supplies, only about $1.7 million is usable and is stored in a temperature-controlled facility. However, the expiration date from April 2028 is approaching. Meanwhile, family health programs across Africa are in crisis, sources told CNN this spring.
Pandora’s Box of Medicare-Funded Weight Loss
Starting next month, GLP-1 drugs for weight loss will be available on Medicare for adults 65 and older for the first time, thanks to a supposedly temporary government program. But as STAT’s John Wilkerson reports, it’s easier to call something temporary than to actually end aid.
Here’s the problem. Medicare leaders wanted to encourage private Medicare insurers to voluntarily cover drugs in a three-year program that would begin after a short transition period. However, insurance companies did not take the bait, and the government instead decided to extend the transitional protection program until the end of next year. Conveniently for insurance companies, taxpayers pay for the transition program. Read John’s article to learn what this means for seniors and future taxpayers.
Data on the lower limits of Utah’s drunk driving regulations
In 2018, Utah became the first state in the United States to lower the legal blood alcohol concentration limit for driving from 0.08 g/dL to 0.05 g/dL. A new study published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine finds that after the law went into effect, Utah experienced a significant drop in drunk driving-related deaths compared to surrounding states. While drunk driving fatalities decreased overall from 2018 to 2023, interestingly, the greatest decrease occurred in crashes where the driver’s BAC was between 0.01 and 0.05.
“These results demonstrate that Utah’s 0.05 BAC law had a strong deterrent effect on alcohol-related fatalities,” the authors concluded. This result is consistent with progress seen in other countries overseas, such as Australia and France, which have also adopted lower limits. More than six U.S. states, including Washington, New York and Michigan, are considering similar legislation this year.
Conflict of Interest Questions After 10 Years of HCA
Within the International Human Cell Atlas Consortium, Alexandra-Chloé Villani is known for pioneering the use of single-cell techniques to understand the immune system and how it responds to certain drugs. She is hosting a major conference the group is holding in Boston this week and is widely expected to be among the people to take over the leadership role at the end of the year. What is less well known is that her husband is a senior executive at 10x Genomics, a company that develops technology critical to the consortium’s work and serves as the conference’s top corporate sponsor.
In this rapidly changing field of biology, it is not uncommon for close relationships to exist between academia and industry. Still, STAT’s Megan Molteni interviewed scientists involved with HCA who said they were unaware of the connection and said it was something that should be disclosed to the community. Read more about the connections underlying the complex and expensive research that HCA scientists contribute to.
How has supplement use changed over the decades?
Supplement use among American adults has increased significantly since the beginning of the 2000s, according to a new study in JAMA Network Open. According to a new study in JAMA Network Open, 51% of adults were taking supplements in 1999, compared to 60% in 2023.
Researchers analyzed annual data from the nationally representative CDC Health Survey, which included interviews with participants about supplement use. They found that use of these products began in earnest after 2009-2010, especially among older adults. The use of immune and anti-inflammatory products such as zinc, elderberry, and ashwagandha has increased over time and throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Although vitamin usage has increased, multivitamin and multimineral usage has actually decreased, which the researchers propose is related to a growing preference for personalized medicine.
How an Alzheimer’s disease expert overlooked his own father’s disease
The biology of Alzheimer’s disease begins 15 to 20 years before families begin to notice anything abnormal. Neurologist Elizabeth Bevins knows this, but she still missed the early signs of her father’s quiet illness. “It wasn’t for lack of training,” she writes in a new first opinion essay. “But I’ve been trained to wait for the obvious decline before acting.”
That’s the wrong lesson, she argues. Bevins recognizes the need for fundamental changes in the way brain health is treated, including earlier risk identification, long-term monitoring, and intervention before irreversible damage occurs. Read more about when to act sooner and the risks associated with such a strategy.
what we are reading
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Kratom civil war rages on, MAHA wired to take sides
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High inflation forces older women on fixed incomes to make difficult choices, Part 19
- FDA approves Colorado plan to import cheaper drugs from Canada, STAT
- They are uninsured after Obamacare became too expensive. And they’re never alone, KFF Health News
- COVID-19 vaccination reduces risk of adverse cardiac events, large study finds, STAT
