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It’s Pride Weekend here in New York City. To everyone else celebrating this June, gays, a big hello! Stay hydrated!
Did President Trump use Eli Lilly’s obesity drug? Democrats are asking
The fallout from STAT reporter Lizzie Lawrence’s scoop continues.
Democratic lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration on whether the man is the president by publicly questioning a 79-year-old patient who received a special dose of Eli Lilly’s experimental obesity drug ritartide in April.
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D.N.H.) yesterday sent a letter to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. requesting the patient’s identity, while Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) suggested in a press conference that the drug’s “side effects” may have led to President Trump’s decision not to sign the bipartisan housing bill.
Lizzy made the bombshell Tuesday that Lilly and the Food and Drug Administration provided letaltortide through the FDA’s “compassionate use” program to patients with similar age and health demographics to the president. read more.
Supreme Court rules on herbicide cancer case
In a blow to the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the makers of the herbicide Roundup cannot be sued in state court for failure to warn because federal regulations do not require it to carry a warning label because the drug has a low link to cancer.
The ruling announced yesterday is expected to block thousands of lawsuits alleging that pesticide maker Bayer failed to warn people that the product could cause cancer. The company, which is fighting cancer claims, previously set aside $16 billion in settlements and earlier this year offered a $7.25 billion class action settlement. Glyphosate has also been removed as an ingredient from Roundup in the United States.
This victory is in line with the Trump administration’s public opinion, but it also exposes the rift between the MAGA and MAHA movements, which have called for curbs on pesticide use. read more.
An interesting month for the “Baby Designer” crowd
New genome editing tools used in early embryos are revealing the role of critical genes that oversee the first stages of human development, adding to the ongoing debate about whether such tools can and should be used to make babies.
The new study, published yesterday in the journal Nature, reveals that next-generation genome editing tools are more precise and less destructive than earlier, innovative CRISPR technology, and suggests that embryos can survive the editing and develop to the point where they can be implanted in the womb.
This is ethically difficult, to say the least.
We have not yet reached the all-brake, no-gas moment of gene editing. There are several technical hurdles that scientists must overcome. But STAT’s Megan Molteni and Andrew Joseph have experts detailing the new paper and several others in recent weeks that have reignited the long-standing ethical debate over embryonic gene editing. read more.
Alarming drug withdrawal problems popping up one after another in prisons
The nation’s illegal opioid supply has begun to include fentanyl as a powerful tranquilizer, and prisons are struggling to cope with the drug’s excruciatingly complex withdrawal symptoms.
Prisons already have a poor track record of protecting prisoners who escape after being incarcerated. They now face the added challenge of medetomidine withdrawal, which may require complex treatment with both oral and intravenous drugs, some of which are so tightly controlled that they are only available in intensive care units. Additionally, rapid urine toxicology panels are not designed to detect medetomidine.
Medetomidine, also known as “dex,” has been detected in drug samples at 20 facilities, with prevalence highest in the Northeast and lowest in the West, according to the CDC. Read more about this new drug and the fight to treat withdrawal.
Trump administration focuses on strengthening political control over CDC in new office
Political appointees may soon have more control over the information and research coming out of the CDC, based on a proposal to add a separate scientific branch above the CDC.
In April, the agency published a notice seeking contractors to help create a management advisory, scientific and operations department. The new office will review scientific publications such as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for peer-reviewed journals and the director’s briefings on preparedness activities.
The transaction has not yet been completed as funds have not been found. But if the agency were to discover funding, it would continue the Trump administration’s efforts to control information from the CDC. Read more about the inside scoop on the agency from STAT’s Chelsea Cirruzzo.
New vaccine committee charter takes shape
Speaking of increased political control, there’s finally a new charter for the committee that advises the CDC on vaccine use. The Charter was dramatically restructured to downplay the role of committees in recommending the use of new vaccines and give them responsibility for evaluating alternatives for disease prevention.
The new version, posted Thursday on the CDC’s website, specifies that the entire committee should represent a balanced range of scientific, clinical, and public health expertise, and that people with little experience with vaccines or vaccination policy could likely fall within that range.
Public health experts say the new document clears the way for President Kennedy to avoid a court challenge to his reconstitution of the commission, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Read more about the new charter from STAT’s Helen Branswell and Anil Oza.
what we are reading
- White House, RFK Jr. tried to oust third-party candidate in close House race, Washington Post
- Cassidy proposes bill to rein in $340 billion drug discount system STAT
- Medical students are using popular research tools to publish misleading research, Science
- In BIO 2026, industry wrestled with Washington politics to improve AI capabilities (STAT)
- ‘Everyone with a cervix is at risk’: Transgender people often miss cervical cancer screening, CIDRAP
