Get the health information and medications you need every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here.
good morning. Yesterday, I was so engrossed in Katie Weaver’s article detailing her epic exploration of the country’s best free restaurant bread that I almost ran late for a meeting. For other Massachusetts millennials, Mr. Bertucci (and us converts) certainly drew praise.
AI could test heart risk scans if someone paid for them
Every year, patients undergo 19 million general chest CT scans to check for lung cancer, investigate coughs, and more. The radiologist will then often flag any coronary artery calcium that they find, even if it’s not what they were looking for. The more calcium you have, the higher your risk of heart attack and stroke. However, an estimated 20% to 40% of that incidental calcium is not reported. As experts look for ways to catch more of these patients, AI has emerged as a potential solution.
“On a daily basis, patients can be screened for heart disease without anyone having to lift a finger,” said Nish Khandwala, CEO of Bunker Hill, one of many companies with FDA-approved algorithms to detect incidental calcium on existing chest CT scans. However, few health systems are taking advantage of these tools. For more on the challenges of this type of opportunistic screening, see Katie Palmer’s article at STAT.
Trump Justice Department report finds Biden administration mistreated anti-abortion protesters
The Justice Department’s Weaponization Task Force, described as an apolitical effort to eliminate politically motivated actions within the Justice Department, released a report yesterday alleging that the Biden administration improperly enforced the Free Clinic Admissions Act (FACE) by largely prosecuting anti-abortion demonstrators while working with abortion clinics and pro-abortion groups. The law, enacted in 1994, prohibits the use of physical force or obstruction or threats to prevent someone from obtaining an abortion or exercising their First Amendment right to religious freedom.
One key finding notes that the Biden administration is demanding higher average sentences for “peaceful, pro-life defendants” (26.3 months) compared to “violent pro-abortion defendants” (12.3 months). The report claims the Biden Justice Department “downplayed” attacks on crisis pregnancy centers and places of worship, but critics say the report ignores important context.
An analysis in a new report by the legal journal Just Security notes that many of the lawsuits against these “peaceful” pro-life protesters involved acts such as incendiary bombings, arson, bomb threats, and coordinated blockades. As a 2024 article from the Southern Poverty Law Center states, “one of the anti-abortion movement’s most effective weapons is terrorism.”
What would happen if medical schools stopped teaching health equity?
It wasn’t until 2015 that formal accreditation requirements for medical schools to teach about health disparities and equity were established. More than a decade later, and under increasing political pressure, major certifying agencies have removed that language from their standards, focusing instead on “structural capacity.”
“This change is not trivial,” internist Uche Blackstock writes in a new first opinion essay. “LCME has made it easier to de-prioritize content at a time when understanding it remains essential to clinically competent care.” Read more about the everyday emergency room encounter where Blackstock illustrates the importance of this training.
Hundreds of people have contracted tetanus since 2009 despite effective vaccines
A new CDC analysis of tetanus cases and deaths in the United States highlights the fact that people are still putting people at risk from this dangerous and ubiquitous bacteria by failing to vaccinate or maintain immunity with recommended boosters.
Between 2009 and 2023, at least 402 cases of tetanus were reported in the United States. Of those, 37 died. Although many of the records were incomplete, it appears that a significant portion of the cases were in people who had not been vaccinated against tetanus, had not completed their first vaccination series, or had exceeded the recommended 10 years without booster shots. None of the deaths involved people who had received three or more doses of a tetanus-containing vaccine.
Most patients should have been offered a tetanus vaccine when they sought treatment for their wounds, and about three-quarters should have been offered tetanus immune globulin, according to the report published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. However, such care was provided in only a small number of cases. The report suggests that health care providers could benefit from increased appropriate response in cases of potential tetanus. — Helen Branswell
Expressing Concern about a Journal’s Expression of Concern
If an academic journal publishes a warning in a digital forest and no one around notices it, is it actually an effective and transparent warning? This question, although posed in a less complicated way than the one I just attempted, is at the heart of Ed Silverman’s latest Pharmalot column. The warning in question was issued last fall by the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
The journal published an “expression of concern” regarding a controversial 2001 study on widely prescribed antidepressants. The study was also withdrawn. However, as Ed explains, the research itself was easier to find online than to raise concerns. That was until he contacted the journal and publisher. Read more about Ed’s journey down this rabbit hole and what it means for academic publishing more broadly.
what we are reading
-
State changes custody law to keep detained immigrant children out of foster care, KFF Health News
-
You should be more scared of shingles, Wired
- Listen: MAHA, Public Health and STAT Host an ‘Intellectual Wrestling Match’
- The problem with thinking you’re part Neanderthal, MIT Technology Review
