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Custom Gene Edited Drugs 4 All
In recent years, my esteemed colleague Jason Mast wrote: a lot The story is about a boy named KJ Muldoon who is given a gene-editing drug created by a large team of scientists to repair a unique mutation that causes a life-threatening liver disease. What if that could happen to everyone?
ARPA-H, the US health research “moonshot” organization, announced yesterday that it will spend up to $160 million to advance custom gene editing treatments for a growing number of rare diseases. Seven different teams pursue different conditions that affect different organ systems.
Will it work? Well, it’s hard to say. Saving KJ’s life required new genetic tools, a large team, and a company willing to amortize the enormous costs. It also wasn’t something that could be scaled up quickly.
Federal officials say it’s worth a try. Jason explains more about the team and program.
Second day of largest nursing strike in Massachusetts history
The largest nurses’ strike in Massachusetts history has ended. But the drama isn’t over yet.
On Thursday, nurses and hospital staff clashed outside Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Hundreds of people gathered at the entrance, demanding to be put on shift. Members were then notified by security that they could return on Monday as the hospital hired temporary nurses to maintain patient care. The hospital said all its wards were running smoothly, but nurses said the emergency department failed to adequately respond to a woman who had a medical emergency outside the hospital.
The clash occurred after Gov. Maura Healey summoned both sides to the state Capitol for talks on Wednesday. Opinions between the two sides remain markedly different over pay. read more.
FDA quietly postpones electric shock ban deadline
In May, the Food and Drug Administration missed a self-imposed deadline to decide whether to ban electrical stimulation devices that have been used for decades for people with intellectual disabilities and autism. It quietly updated its agenda with a new deadline of November.
The device, called a form of “torture” by U.N. officials, has largely fallen out of favor in the United States, except in one institution, the Judge Rothenberg Center in Massachusetts. The FDA even banned the practice in 2020 before a federal judge overturned the agency’s decision.
Read my story last month to learn more about the decades-long effort to end this practice and close the centers.
What is the cure for the male loneliness epidemic?
If girls just want to have fun, boys just want friends.
While there has rightly been a lot of attention focused on the crisis of young boys, who grapple with mental health issues, academic performance, and a sense of identity at higher rates than ever before, the secret to their mental health may lie in a 150-year-old organization, the Boys Club of New York.
The facility takes in 2,500 boys from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds and has found that one way to reduce “risk factors” in childhood is to provide children with spaces of connection.
Much ink has been spilled in the media about the effects of the male loneliness crisis in the United States. If you’re looking for solutions, why not check out Annalisa Merelli’s great feature on Boys Clubs?
The paradox of the primary care crisis
Primary care has been successful for years. But in the United States, there is a growing theory that the health crisis can be solved by increasing investment in primary care. This shows how much we misdiagnosed the problem, the two surgeons wrote.
A recent report on Medicare payment policy submitted to Congress by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission found that primary care scores very high. Almost all Medicare beneficiaries have a primary care provider. More than three-quarters were able to access these providers within two weeks. It also allows patients in rural areas to receive timely care. Primary care physician compensation is rising faster than in other fields.
So why is life expectancy decreasing? Read more about articles by Christopher P. Childers, a surgeon at the University of Washington, and Thomas C. Tsai, a general and gastrointestinal surgeon and medical director of health policy research at the American College of Surgeons.
what we are reading
- My quest to find a psychiatric bed in an overburdened medical system, KFF Health News
- The White House canceled RFK Jr.’s ad campaign. He can blame Kristi Noem, NOTUS
- Suspected Ebola patients detained in Equatorial Guinea hotel with other deportees from US, lawyers say AP
- According to the report, cancer cases around the world are expected to rise sharply in the coming decades. According to the Washington Post, the reason is
- More workers are taking mental health leave, but bosses aren’t happy, Bloomberg
