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good morning. We have prepared some fun programming notes for you. “First Opinion Podcast” is back! This season focuses on the intersection of culture and medicine, starting with an episode about sports betting.
Also, to spice things up around here, we’re rolling out new layouts for certain articles, starting with this morning’s great article by Jason Mast.
20 Years of Quest and Duchenne’s Progress
Debra Miller’s son Hawken was 7 years old when he was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. A year later, she learned about a new treatment for the disease known as exon skipping. She began devoting her time to supporting research, raising funds, and even flying to Europe with Hawken to have him participate in clinical trials. But it never seemed like it would work out for her family or for the drug companies trying this approach. Exon skipping sparked a civil war within the FDA, with top officials overturning the reviewers’ opinion that the company had failed to create anything more than a “scientifically elegant placebo.”
Through all of this, Miller and her son waited. Although he lost the ability to walk, he became friends with God. At the age of 27, thanks to his mother’s fundraising efforts, he finally went to trial for exon-skipping drugs. As Hawken said, the results were miraculous. STAT’s Jason Mast beautifully explains the science and humanity behind this two-in-one drug.
What do you think of MAHA these days?
Like many others, I first learned about the “Make America Healthy Again” movement in October 2024 from STAT’s Isabella Cueto, who wrote a prescient feature on Casey and Carrie Means. However, the movement has changed significantly since then. A new Politico poll of more than 3,800 people found some interesting results.
- Almost three-quarters of adults who identify as MAGA supporters now also identify as MAHA supporters. Half of respondents who voted for Trump in 2024 consider themselves MAHA.
- 42% of MAHA supporters say vaccines are a core issue of the movement.
- While there are different ideas about where the movement should go, the majority of MAHA believers see the basic principles as eliminating ultra-processed foods from people’s diets, removing artificial colors from food, permanently reducing the impact of chemicals, limiting the purchase of junk food through SNAP, and limiting the use of pesticides.
- A less popular view among MAHA supporters is also interesting. 39% say making GLP-1 more affordable is a core principle. Another 35% say access to abortion should be restricted. 29% said banning mobile phone use in schools was central to MAHA, and 28% said banning children from using social media was important.
Missed opportunity for cancer treatment
Many cancer patients do not receive genomic testing to guide treatment, according to a study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open. That means they never learn whether they might benefit from new, more targeted treatments.
“The fact that half of patients still do not have genomic testing is very worrying,” breast physician Igor Maclin told STAT’s Angus Chen. “Testing rates have increased over time, but they haven’t kept pace with standard of care anyway.” Read Angus’ article to find out why this is happening.
How to deal with AI scribes and rising costs
Health systems and insurance companies communicate this differently, but as STAT’s Brittany Tran reports, they agree on the basic premise: AI scribes are driving up health care costs. What no one seems to be able to agree on is what to do about it.
That’s a problem. Health economists have warned that this “AI coding arms race,” facilitated by AI scribes and autonomous coding tools that maximize code on the one hand, and insurance company algorithms that seek to minimize payments on the other, is a zero-sum game that could do great harm to vulnerable healthcare providers and, by extension, vulnerable patients. Read Brittany’s article that explains exactly how AI scribes will drive up healthcare costs, the impact on the entire healthcare system, and what happens next.
10%
This is the share of U.S. carbon emissions that comes from healthcare, which is approximately 5 million tons per year. Another big number is that 30% of waste comes from the operating room. In a new First Opinion essay, two Stanford University medical students write about what American hospitals can learn from India to reduce these patient numbers. They had also traveled to the country to study sustainability practices in local hospitals as part of a summer research project. Read more about their findings and how specific changes will be implemented in the US
