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Happy Friday. If I ever have children, I want them to be treated at the newly named Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital in Tennessee. What is Dolly’s favorite song?My “My Tennessee Mountain Home.”
He’s an action figure. He’s a milk-drinking rave fan. Is he…the US Secretary of Health?
Compared to his predecessors, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s social media strategy is unique and provocative. Many of the videos he posts from his official account are AI-generated and depict Kennedy in all sorts of ways, including wrestling with artificial red dye at school lunches, sporting a tattoo on his face like boxer Mike Tyson, and doing pull-ups shirtless at an airport.
President Trump is known for his active use of social media, but President Kennedy’s tactics stand out. These appear to be part of a strategy to generate enthusiasm around Kennedy and his policies, with MAHA leaders hoping to strengthen ties with President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement as the midterm elections approach.
Is it working? Learn more from STAT’s DC duo of Daniel Payne and Chelsea Siluzzo, including the identity of the Gen Z digital communications director behind at least some of the videos.
Kansas’ new ID law could impact transgender people’s health
Approximately 1,700 transgender people in Kansas had their driver’s licenses revoked this week after a new law went into effect that bans people from showing a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth on their ID cards. The bill, passed by the Republican supermajority in Congress, would require transgender people to get a new license or face six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.
States are already tightening restrictions on whether people can receive lifesaving gender-affirming care, but Kansas’ new law could further complicate everyday health needs and wreak havoc on the type of care transgender people in the state receive.
For example, let’s say a transgender person is about to undergo a colonoscopy at the hospital. Experts say if the gender marker on your new ID doesn’t match the gender marker in your hospital system or health insurance, you could be denied coverage or denied treatment altogether. These denials come on top of the harassment and violence that transgender people can face in medical settings, as well as the difficulty they have in getting preventative screening for things like cancer compared to their cisgender counterparts.
“It’s not a question of, ‘Do I like what’s on my driver’s license?’ It’s a question of, ‘Can the system recognize me and interact with the system to ensure I get the care I need?’ And when the answer is ‘or not,’ it has life and death implications for people,” said Kellan Baker, senior health policy advisor at the Movement Advancement Project, an independent think tank focused on equality and opportunity for all.
CMS: No new suppliers of durable medical equipment
If you’re planning to start a company that sells durable medical equipment to Medicare beneficiaries, there’s a good chance you’ll do it if you have STAT readers. — Unfortunately, you will have to wait. The Trump administration on Wednesday announced a nationwide moratorium on new suppliers in the sector in an effort to crack down on what it says is rampant fraud, waste and abuse.
These companies sell a variety of supplies, including gauze, wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, and urinary catheters, and have recurring problems with fraud. Previous federal investigations have found that Medicare improperly paid suppliers $34 million from 2015 to 2017 and $22.7 million from 2018 to 2024.
“The amount of fraud[in South Florida]is so high that it’s easier to open one of these providers than it is to open a bank account,” Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, quipped at a press conference.
Are you a DMEPOS supplier? We would like to speak with you. Read more from me.
Beware of Brown County Beer Coolers
Can ice in coolers cause a salmonella outbreak? That was the question infectious disease researchers posed to ChatGPT after 13 people who attended the 2024 Brown County Fair in Mount Sterling, Illinois, contracted food poisoning.
Investigators initially investigated food vendors, but four of the people who fell ill did not eat at all at the fair. So detectives zeroed in on the only remaining suspect: the fair’s beer tent.
Unfortunately, the investigation began a week after the fair ended, so there was no way to test the ice, water, and coolers in question. Enter ChatGPT. The detectives presented a riddle to the AI chatbot, which suggested that the riddle was likely caused by ice contamination.
I was skeptical when I got to this part of the report. Does ice really act as a pollution vector? And as we’ve reported extensively in STAT, AI chatbots aren’t the most reliable source of health information. But in this case, the bot’s hypothesis is probably correct.
The report states, “Some of the participants interviewed were reluctant to provide details because they did not want to involve other members of the community. One patient, who had been tested and diagnosed with salmonellosis, reported observing leftover food stored in an ice cooler overnight on August 1st.”
God bless the people of the Midwest. We wholeheartedly recommend reading the full report. It’s the perfect true crime mystery.
The U.S. government needs to invest more in research into male contraceptives and sexually transmitted disease prevention.
Many programs and policies designed to control sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies often focus on women. Kenneth Mayer, director of medical research and co-chair of the Fenway Institute, wrote that now is the time to include men in interventions and increase sexual and reproductive health research targeting the other half of the world’s population.
Scientists have been researching hormonal male contraception since the 1970s, but only in recent years have they begun to crack the code. A viable male hormonal contraceptive could be on the market by 2030. Options for STI prevention are also evolving.
Read Mayer’s article to find out where the field stands on advances in men’s reproductive health.
what we are reading
- If home birth doesn’t go well, hospitals can create more complications, NBC News
- Two threats and trade-offs to immigration health care
- Cigna expands into prescription drugs, acquires STAT, a major pharmacy used by hospitals
- Senate Leaders Warn Defense Department About Generic Drug Procurement Overseas, ProPublica
- FDA investigates internal Prasad complaints with outside help, endpoint
