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good morning. Today we have an item from STAT’s new AAAS Media Fellow, Lauren Chan. She will be reporting with us this summer. Scroll down to read her report on sugary soda research.
Diabetes leaders apologize for expulsion
Less than a week after five American Diabetes Association members were removed from their annual meeting, the organization’s CEO has offered an apology to them and the broader diabetes community.
“We recognize the impact that experience has had on each of you,” ADA Executive Charles Henderson said in the video. “We are deeply sorry for the hurt, frustration and pain that has resulted.” Read more from Elizabeth Cooney on the group’s next steps after the incident.
Justice Department charges another medical school with discrimination
Yesterday, the Department of Justice accused the University of California, Davis, of discriminating against white and Asian applicants. The report follows similar accusations made at the University of California, Los Angeles and Yale University. The letter is part of a broader campaign against efforts to diversify the physician and biomedical research workforces. But experts previously told STAT that these reports allege a focus on bias and test scores, ignoring the large shift medical schools are making toward more holistic admissions practices. The University of California, Davis said in a statement yesterday that it “strongly opposes any finding that the University’s admissions practices are discriminatory or in violation of applicable law.”
Click here for more information on responses to the first two letters. You can also revisit a 2023 article written by our former colleague Usha Lee McFarling about how UC Davis became a “remarkably” diverse university without considering race. — Anil Oza
HHS responds to paper on alcohol risks
As you may recall, on Tuesday, a group of researchers published a study warning of the potential risks of even light drinking. The results of that study were commissioned by the Trump administration ahead of the new dietary guidelines, but were not made public. Since then, HHS officials have sought to distance themselves from the entire matter, telling STAT that the paper was “not commissioned, reviewed, approved, or cleared” by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. While it’s true that the final study published this week was not approved by HHS and was peer-reviewed by the journal, much of the research was done with taxpayer money and was overseen by federal health officials. The paper contains many of the same findings as a draft report to be published in 2025.
Amid all this, the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday passed an HHS spending bill that would prohibit the SAMHSA committee that conducted the alcohol study from “investigating, analyzing, considering, and reporting” on adult drinking as part of efforts to prevent underage drinking. — Isabella Cueto
Scientists at odds over new NIH proposal
Researchers at elite academic institutions have long had an advantage in the fiercely competitive system for winning NIH grants. One proposal that has repeatedly surfaced to address that inequity, including during the first Trump administration, is to cap the number of grants that individual researchers can receive from government agencies.
Now it’s back again. The NIH issued a “request for information” this week seeking input from the scientific community on the idea. STAT’s Anil Oza spoke with scientists about the proposal. Many see promise in the idea, but don’t trust the Trump administration to implement it fairly. Click here to learn more about reactions.
ACOG creates its own vaccine lecture for pregnancy
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists yesterday released its own recommended vaccine schedule for pregnant women that differs from the CDC’s advice under the Trump administration.
Expert groups recommend that four vaccines be given regularly during pregnancy, and several other vaccines are recommended under certain circumstances. (The CDC’s current recommended schedule includes only two vaccines: Tdap and RSV.) For a refresher on which vaccinations ACOG recommends for pregnant women and the federal furor that prompted the group to issue separate recommendations, see Helen Branswell’s article.
New study shows link between sugary drinks and liver cancer
In the battle between real and artificial sweeteners in soda and other beverages, sugar may pose the bigger risk. A new meta-analysis (studies that analyze the results of other studies) published yesterday in JAMA Network Open assessed whether consumption of sugary and artificially sweetened beverages is associated with new cases of liver cancer.
Researchers reviewed 11 studies (including 1.5 million participants) and concluded that drinking one artificially sweetened beverage per day was not associated with an increased risk of liver cancer. However, daily consumption of sugary drinks was associated with increased incidence of two primary liver cancer subtypes: intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and hepatocellular carcinoma.
Ani Kardashian, a hepatologist at Keck Medicine at the University of Southern California, notes that this is consistent with her clinical guidance. She told STAT, “This supports my current practice of advising patients to reduce their intake of sugar-sweetened beverages.”
Of note, results were mixed in individual studies, which the authors attributed to confounding factors such as diabetes and obesity rates. Most of the studies analyzed collected participants’ beverage consumption patterns only once, and thus long-term drinking patterns were missing. Infectious diseases such as hepatitis can cause liver cancer, and consumption of sweetened beverages can also cause liver cancer. changeable Risk factors for liver health. — lauren chan
$12,850
That’s the amount a group of researchers paid Nature Medicine to publish their research in the journal this spring. At the same time last year, publishing was free. The new fees include publisher open access fees, a step many researchers are now taking to comply with the NIH’s policy of providing immediate, free access to articles resulting from federally funded research. “The journals I used to recommend to my trainees are now unaffordable,” writes professor and epidemiologist Elizabeth Selvin in a new First Opinion essay. Click here for more information about the assignment.
what we are reading
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Associated Press Health researchers monitor disease threat during World Cup
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US Ebola response unit sparks anger, protests, political crisis in Kenya, New York Times
- Exclusive: Private Medicare plans to erect barriers to rehabilitation care for profit, federal investigators find, STAT
- Big Tobacco made us addicted to ultra-processed foods. It could tell us how to cut back, NPR
- Opinion: How long has the coronavirus scientific impasse made it politically erasable, STAT
