Get the health information and medications you need every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here.
good morning. As a former teenage girl and a reporter, I was fascinated by this profile of teenage life in America. I laughed out loud when a teenager asked his friend, the subject of this story, still Are you going to have an interview? ”
What the FDA has lost
Last year, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid off about 3,500 FDA employees. He is currently looking to hire more than 3,200 people, including reviewers and researchers. However, replacing the many people lost will not be easy. Some of them have worked for the agency for decades, spanning multiple administrations.
STAT’s Lizzie Lawrence interviewed six of these former employees about their most difficult responsibilities and experiences at the agency. “I’m not leaving the FDA,” said Richard Pazdur (pictured above), a longtime oncology regulator. “The FDA left me behind.”
Read Lizzie’s story. This article details how much expertise government agencies have lost. In addition to Pazdur, she spoke with former regulators including AI policy expert Tara Fakhouri, drug safety expert Mary Ross Southworth, and former Center for Biologics and Vaccines leader Julie Tierney.
one-tenth
That’s the number of LGBTQ+ youth who have attempted suicide in the past year, according to The Trevor Project’s seventh annual survey, which includes more than 16,000 LGBTQ+ people between the ages of 13 and 24 in the United States. Gay youth have long faced a higher risk of mental health problems, but as the Trump administration continues to seek restrictions on gender-affirming care, the survey shows transgender and non-binary respondents lack access. People who were likely to attempt suicide were almost twice as likely to attempt suicide under the influence of hormones.
Gender identity data has essentially been erased from federal surveillance efforts, including the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, since President Trump issued his executive order on “gender ideology,” which seeks to define biological sex in a binary manner. That makes The Trevor Project one of the few organizations that continues to collect data on transgender youth.
If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. For TTY users: Use your preferred relay service or dial 711 then 988.
In memory of the “father of modern cardiology”
For Larry Altman, a physician and former medical reporter, it’s difficult to overstate the influence of cardiologist Eugene Braunwald, who died last month at age 96. Altman frequently referred to the medical literature edited by Braunwald and always found him helpful in interviews. In a new First Opinion essay, Altman writes movingly about how Braunwald changed the practice of modern medicine, even as scandals enveloped his laboratory.
Early in his career, Braunwald told Altman that he had two big visions for the future. First, he wanted to find a practical way to prevent heart attacks and minimize damage to the heart muscle after an attack begins. He also dreamed of expanding Harvard Medical School’s campus here in Boston, but in the early ’80s even heart transplants hadn’t even been done yet. Read more about Braunwald’s vast legacy.
Hospital shootings have steadily increased since 2000
JAMA network open
An analysis of more than 300 news articles published this week in JAMA Network Open found that while hospital shootings have increased in recent years, nearly a third of them could have been prevented with weapons tests. Large hospitals, urban hospitals, and hospitals in the South had the most incidents.
As the graph above shows, shootings increased from about 6 per year in 2000 to 34 in 2024. Hospitals have largely struggled to adapt to the growing threat of violence, and researchers focused specifically on testing as a potential solution. Another survey of hospital security leaders found that 48% use metal detectors at some hospital entrances, with far less comprehensive use.
Why hantavirus is not the next pandemic
You have probably seen many media reports, including this newsletter, about hantavirus outbreaks on cruise ships anchored off the west coast of Africa. It’s no surprise that the situation, with people trapped on a ship carrying a potentially deadly disease, triggers flashbacks to the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. But as STAT’s Helen Branswell reassured some STAT staff, this is not a revisit to the Diamond Princess.
Still, scientists and public health experts are monitoring the situation closely. There is much to learn about how hantaviruses spread. However, scientific and public health importance does not imply widespread risk. Read more about what experts think about this outbreak from STAT’s Helen Branswell.
What the discovery of “dark protein” means
Since ribosome profiling was invented in 2009, scientists have used the method to understand the inner workings of model organisms such as bacteria, yeast, and mice. Over the years, many of them have come across never-before-seen mini-proteins that can be traced back to parts of the genome that were not thought to produce proteins. Scientists generally dismissed these “dark proteins” as cellular noise. But several researchers who used the method on human tissue samples had a hunch that there was more to it.
One of those researchers, systems biologist Sebastian van Heesch, is now part of a team that has discovered thousands of mini-proteins and is beginning to decipher what they actually do. In a paper published yesterday, his team reports that some are involved in important roles such as cell division and DNA repair, while others are unique to cancer cells that appear on their surfaces. STAT’s Megan Molteni details this possible discovery.
what we are reading
-
Babies bleed to death after parents refuse vitamin shots given at birth, ProPublica
-
In a breakthrough for ALS, the New York Times reported that treatment is showing improvement in some patients.
- The Trump administration’s drug strategy is inconsistent with recent actions on funding, policy, and STAT
- RFK Jr. opens the door to underage tanning bed use, much to the dismay of dermatologists, Los Angeles Times
- Why FDA approves fruit-flavored vapes, STAT
