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As for Mr. Fauci’s testimony, keep these questions in mind
Anthony Fauci will appear before a Senate committee this morning to once again answer questions about the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s former top infectious disease expert was subpoenaed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has clashed with Fauci in public hearings and repeatedly called for him to be jailed.
Anticipating such political outrage, former President Biden pre-emptively pardoned Fauci before leaving office. But Mr. Paul and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have indicated that today’s testimony could create new opportunities for criminal charges. Some questions we’re thinking about here at STAT: How carefully will Mr. Fauci answer Paul’s questions? Will his temper trip him up? And how do Democrats position themselves here? Read more about what’s next from our talented team of STAT reporters.
How a fugitive built a career in biotechnology
As politicians call for Fauci to be jailed, STAT’s Adam Feuerstein has published an extensive follow-up on the biotech company’s most wanted fugitive. After being convicted of sexual assault in 2005, Ronald Fisher continued to work for more than 20 years, using a false name, a fake resume, and a yacht to escape persecution.
“He wasn’t very nice,” recalled an industry recruiter who spoke to Mr. Fisher about multiple job openings. “When I started looking into his medical oncology credentials to see if he was qualified for the job, he got really mad at me and said, ‘Have you seen where I went to school?'” Read Adam’s article on how the convicted perpetrator hid in plain sight.
Impact of visa restrictions on American science
This year, the Department of Homeland Security will end a decades-old policy that allowed international students to remain in China for the duration of their education, no matter how long it took. Under the new policy, students with nonimmigrant visas must apply to DHS for an extension after four years, a particularly onerous period for biomedical doctoral candidates. A student’s training typically takes five to six years.
The Trump administration claims the changes are necessary to eradicate fraud in the form of “permanent students.” But immigration experts, academics, and advocates for students and postdocs told STAT’s Jonathan Worthen that toughening the policy would undermine the country’s scientific standing. “These people are already the most regulated group of nonimmigrant visa holders in this country,” said immigration attorney Elizabeth Goss. “I think it’s just an excuse.” Read more about the potential impact here.
Can and should doctors trust clinical AI?
Hundreds of thousands of physicians in the United States use clinical large-scale language models from companies such as OpenEvidence, Doximity, and UpToDate as an alternative to mainstream hallucination-prone models. But as STAT’s Katie Palmer reports, few studies have actually compared clinical tools to the typical Big Tech model. This summer, researchers at New York University conducted a first-hand study. As Katie said, the result rang out like a gunshot.
“Some of the tensions that are happening in the industry right now are not even between companies,” said Daniel Nadler, founder and CEO of OpenEvidence. “It’s an issue between academia and doctors.” The stakes are high, and the debate over the study’s results reflects that. Learn more about what the data actually tells you.
Ignored issues in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities
In 2024, more than 9,000 pedestrians and cyclists will be killed on U.S. roads, a 65% increase from 2010. A July report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office cited blind spots created by larger passenger vehicles and common design features as potential risk factors affecting driver visibility. The Congressional Oversight Agency recommended that the Department of Transportation establish a method to analyze the visibility of passenger cars and commercial vehicles and specifically analyze and address the associated risks.
The agency agreed with the first recommendation but disagreed with the second. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is adamantly opposed to what he calls “DEI bike lanes,” and his agency has removed bicycling safety resources and tools from federal websites.
Here in Boston, where cyclist and bicycle safety advocate Louisa Gag was recently killed by a truck, blind spots were the focus of early discussions before details of the accident were known. “As a car driver, I am very aware of right-turn blind spots, so I double and triple-check before making a right turn,” one Boston Globe reader wrote in the paper. “I’m scared to death of being hit by an invisible bicycle.”
what we are reading
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The Destruction of Anthony Fauci, The Atlantic
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For-profit hospitals have cut costs. Then a patient froze to death on the roof, Mother Jones
- OPINION: Prolonged hospitalization can lead to children becoming isolated. We need to change, STAT.
- FDA officials say food supply is safe as cyclosporosis cases rise, New York Times
- American Diabetes Association faces calls for resignation, asks for patience, STAT
