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Good morning. I’m again on the publication beat immediately whereas Theresa’s on vacation, however I’m off to Chicago quickly to cowl the American Coronary heart Affiliation’s scientific periods. Ping me for those who’ll be following the convention, too.
Anti-vaccine views threaten U.S. kids, Biden administration well being leaders warn
Two senior well being officers within the Biden administration expressed their fears yesterday that new management impressed by ant-vax sentiment will ship the nation backward — and youngsters can pay the worth. Talking at two completely different occasions, the top of the CDC and the director of the FDA’s Heart for Biologics Analysis and Analysis answered questions on remarks made by Florida Surgeon Common Joseph Ladapo, who known as earlier this yr for the nation to cease utilizing mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, and in regards to the agenda pushed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose affect on the second Trump administration may reshape public well being.
“I believe now we have a really quick reminiscence of what it’s like to carry a baby who has been paralyzed with polio or to consolation a mother who’s misplaced her child from measles,” CDC’s Mandy Cohen (above) informed an viewers on the Milken Institute’s Way forward for Well being Summit in Washington, D.C. “Nobody needs to see a baby paralyzed, a baby die from one thing that we will stop.”
“I wish to be respectful of individuals’s opinions, however to me, this isn’t an opinion problem. It’s simply black and white,” FDA’s Peter Marks stated on the twelfth Worldwide mRNA Well being Convention in Boston. “We all know what the security profile of those vaccines are. We all know what number of lives they saved, and I believe we’re simply going to should reiterate that and let individuals make their decisions.”
Learn extra from STAT’s Helen Branswell and Anil Oza.
Plan B’s efficacy for individuals with larger BMI is a matter of debate
Final week’s election outcomes have spurred many Individuals to top off on emergency contraception and abortion drugs, in line with reproductive well being firms like Cadence OTC and Wisp that promote them. Whereas getting ready on this approach might allay some fears, different troubling questions have been effervescent up in social media discourse about whether or not the medication are much less efficient for individuals at larger weights.
The medical proof is way from conclusive, with conflicting outcomes for various medication at completely different weights. “The science isn’t clear. There haven’t been any research which have been sufficiently big and correctly designed to reply this query,” Kelly Cleland, president of the American Society for Emergency Contraception, informed STAT’s Timmy Broderick.
That doesn’t imply individuals at larger weights shouldn’t take emergency contraception, she and different well being consultants make clear — nevertheless it’s a niche in data that highlights the methods this inhabitants can get left behind, in each analysis and follow. Learn extra.
U.S. drug overdose deaths might dip under 100,000
Drug overdose deaths within the U.S. fell to 93,087 in the course of the 12-month interval ending in June, in line with new CDC statistics launched this week. That just about 17% drop will doubtless ship the yearly toll under 100,000 deaths for the primary time since 2020. Fentanyl, the potent illicit opioid that now dominates the U.S. illicit drug provide, is chargeable for a big share of the 111,615 deaths attributed to overdoses in 2023.
The decline might be a blip within the information, however CDC Director Mandy Cohen stated in any other case yesterday throughout a panel on the Milken Institute’s Way forward for Well being Summit in Washington, D.C. She cited the elevated use of harm-reduction sources like fentanyl take a look at strips, in addition to instantly connecting individuals who survive overdoses to longer-term dependancy care. STAT’s Lev Facher has extra.
It’ll take greater than social media bans to ease teen psychological well being disaster
Et tu, Strava? The health tracker isn’t the primary social media app that involves thoughts when contemplating the injury Instagram, TikTok, and others can do to some teenagers’ psychological well being. However any discussion board that invitations individuals to match themselves to others can amp up the stress younger individuals really feel, Harvard social scientist Emily Weinstein and Indiana College social psychologist Sara Konrath be aware in a STAT First Opinion. Nonetheless, “One factor is obvious: We will’t pin all of the blame for teen psychological well being on social media, and faculty cellphone bans can’t repair it.”
Of their nationwide survey of over 1,500 American teenagers, they discovered that greater than half reported destructive stress to grind out a recreation plan for all times. They pointed to academics, steerage counselors, coaches, and different faculty adults; themselves; and their mother and father and relations as the highest three sources of that stress to attain. Social media got here in fourth — not even making the rostrum.
“Social media will be like gasoline on the fires which can be burning some teenagers out,” they write. “However to repair psychological well being developments, we additionally have to widen our lens past Instagram and TikTok: to different applied sciences, and even to the Strava-fication of faculty within the type of academic expertise platforms that frequently stress college students and oldsters with infinite efficiency updates.” Learn extra.
An extended take a look at lengthy Covid (and different mysteries)
Ever since lengthy Covid emerged within the pandemic’s first yr, individuals affected by different post-infection syndromes have been clamoring for severe consideration to their sicknesses, too, somewhat than the skepticism and stigma which have so usually greeted myalgic encephalomyelitis/power fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), long-term Lyme illness, or different unexplained situations. A brand new problem of Science Translational Drugs revealed yesterday considers these usually debilitating syndromes collectively, whether or not leaders of federal well being companies are describing the NIH’s RECOVER initiative (criticized for its sluggish progress), immunobiologists are intercourse variations in susceptibility, or infectious illness clinicians are making the case for sustained funding to review these power sicknesses, individually and along with lengthy Covid.
Right here’s what they are saying:
- “Like medical mysteries of the previous, this one too will likely be solved by science. How briskly that happens is determined by continued consideration and strong and rigorous scientific pursuit.”— NIH’s Jeanne Marrazzao, NHLBI’s Gary Gibbons, and NINDS’s Walter Koroshetz
- “Regardless of their potential to considerably contribute to our scientific understanding of [post-acute infection syndromes, or PAIS] and autoimmune illnesses, present analysis has but to extensively give attention to the event of PAISs in transgender people, a gaggle disproportionately with PAISs and one uniquely positioned to light up the interaction between organic intercourse variations and the impression of intercourse hormones on illness outcomes.”— Julio Silva and Akiko Iwasaki
- “The dangers of conflating lengthy Covid and ME/CFS go each methods; though there’s hope that lengthy Covid analysis will present a number of the solutions wanted to totally perceive ME/ CFS, this could not come on the expense of funding in efforts to review pre-2020 ME/CFS, which can nonetheless be pushed by distinct biology” — Michael Peluso, Maureen Hanson, and Steven Deeks
Toddler mortality is steady. So are disparities
Good morning. I am again on the publication beat immediately whereas Theresa’s on vacation, however I am off to Chicago quickly to cowl the American Coronary heart Affiliation’s scientific periods. Ping me for those who’ll be following the convention, too.
Anti-vaccine views threaten U.S. kids, Biden administration well being leaders warn
Two senior well being officers within the Biden administration expressed their fears yesterday that new management impressed by ant-vax sentiment will ship the nation backward — and youngsters can pay the worth. Talking at two completely different occasions, the top of the CDC and the director of the FDA’s Heart for Biologics Analysis and Analysis answered questions on remarks made by Florida Surgeon Common Joseph Ladapo, who known as earlier this yr for the nation to cease utilizing mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, and in regards to the agenda pushed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose affect on the second Trump administration may reshape public well being.
“I believe now we have a really quick reminiscence of what it’s like to carry a baby who has been paralyzed with polio or to consolation a mother who’s misplaced her child from measles,” CDC’s Mandy Cohen (above) informed an viewers on the Milken Institute’s Way forward for Well being Summit in Washington, D.C. “Nobody needs to see a baby paralyzed, a baby die from one thing that we will stop.”
“I wish to be respectful of individuals’s opinions, however to me, this isn’t an opinion problem. It’s simply black and white,” FDA’s Peter Marks stated on the twelfth Worldwide mRNA Well being Convention in Boston. “We all know what the security profile of those vaccines are. We all know what number of lives they saved, and I believe we’re simply going to should reiterate that and let individuals make their decisions.”
Learn extra from STAT’s Helen Branswell and Anil Oza.
Plan B’s efficacy for individuals with larger BMI is a matter of debate
Final week’s election outcomes have spurred many Individuals to top off on emergency contraception and abortion drugs, in line with reproductive well being firms like Cadence OTC and Wisp that promote them. Whereas getting ready on this approach might allay some fears, different troubling questions have been effervescent up in social media discourse about whether or not the medication are much less efficient for individuals at larger weights.
The medical proof is way from conclusive, with conflicting outcomes for various medication at completely different weights. “The science isn’t clear. There haven’t been any research which have been sufficiently big and correctly designed to reply this query,” Kelly Cleland, president of the American Society for Emergency Contraception, informed STAT’s Timmy Broderick.
That doesn’t imply individuals at larger weights shouldn’t take emergency contraception, she and different well being consultants make clear — nevertheless it’s a niche in data that highlights the methods this inhabitants can get left behind, in each analysis and follow. Learn extra.
U.S. drug overdose deaths might dip under 100,000
Drug overdose deaths within the U.S. fell to 93,087 in the course of the 12-month interval ending in June, in line with new CDC statistics launched this week. That just about 17% drop will doubtless ship the yearly toll under 100,000 deaths for the primary time since 2020. Fentanyl, the potent illicit opioid that now dominates the U.S. illicit drug provide, is chargeable for a big share of the 111,615 deaths attributed to overdoses in 2023.
The decline might be a blip within the information, however CDC Director Mandy Cohen stated in any other case yesterday throughout a panel on the Milken Institute’s Way forward for Well being Summit in Washington, D.C. She cited the elevated use of harm-reduction sources like fentanyl take a look at strips, in addition to instantly connecting individuals who survive overdoses to longer-term dependancy care. STAT’s Lev Facher has extra.
It’s going to take greater than social media bans to ease teen psychological well being disaster
Et tu, Strava? The health tracker isn’t the primary social media app that involves thoughts when contemplating the injury Instagram, TikTok, and others can do to some teenagers’ psychological well being. However any discussion board that invitations individuals to match themselves to others can amp up the stress younger individuals really feel, Harvard social scientist Emily Weinstein and Indiana College social psychologist Sara Konrath be aware in a STAT First Opinion. Nonetheless, “One factor is obvious: We will’t pin all of the blame for teen psychological well being on social media, and faculty cellphone bans can’t repair it.”
Of their nationwide survey of over 1,500 American teenagers, they discovered that greater than half reported destructive stress to grind out a recreation plan for all times. They pointed to academics, steerage counselors, coaches, and different faculty adults; themselves; and their mother and father and relations as the highest three sources of that stress to attain. Social media got here in fourth — not even making the rostrum.
“Social media will be like gasoline on the fires which can be burning some teenagers out,” they write. “However to repair psychological well being developments, we additionally have to widen our lens past Instagram and TikTok: to different applied sciences, and even to the Strava-fication of faculty within the type of academic expertise platforms that frequently stress college students and oldsters with infinite efficiency updates.” Learn extra.
An extended take a look at lengthy Covid (and different mysteries)
Ever since lengthy Covid emerged within the pandemic’s first yr, individuals affected by different post-infection syndromes have been clamoring for severe consideration to their sicknesses, too, somewhat than the skepticism and stigma which have so usually greeted myalgic encephalomyelitis/power fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), long-term Lyme illness, or different unexplained situations. A brand new problem of Science Translational Drugs revealed yesterday considers these usually debilitating syndromes collectively, whether or not leaders of federal well being companies are describing the NIH’s RECOVER initiative (criticized for its sluggish progress), immunobiologists are intercourse variations in susceptibility, or infectious illness clinicians are making the case for sustained funding to review these power sicknesses, individually and along with lengthy Covid.
This is what they are saying:
- “Like medical mysteries of the previous, this one too will likely be solved by science. How briskly that happens is determined by continued consideration and strong and rigorous scientific pursuit.”— NIH’s Jeanne Marrazzao, NHLBI’s Gary Gibbons, and NINDS’s Walter Koroshetz
- “Regardless of their potential to considerably contribute to our scientific understanding of [post-acute infection syndromes, or PAIS] and autoimmune illnesses, present analysis has but to extensively give attention to the event of PAISs in transgender people, a gaggle disproportionately with PAISs and one uniquely positioned to light up the interaction between organic intercourse variations and the impression of intercourse hormones on illness outcomes.”— Julio Silva and Akiko Iwasaki
- “The dangers of conflating lengthy Covid and ME/CFS go each methods; though there’s hope that lengthy Covid analysis will present a number of the solutions wanted to totally perceive ME/ CFS, this could not come on the expense of funding in efforts to review pre-2020 ME/CFS, which can nonetheless be pushed by distinct biology” — Michael Peluso, Maureen Hanson, and Steven Deeks
Toddler mortality is steady. So are disparities
After rising between 2021 and 2022, toddler mortality has plateaued, new nationwide information from the CDC present. Trying previous the general figures, variations amongst racial and ethnic teams additionally didn’t budge considerably, as this chart exhibits. Geography appears completely different, too. State by state, the speed of deaths per 1,000 dwell births ranged from 3.32 in Massachusetts to 9.11 in Mississippi. Mortality charges declined in New Mexico (5.88) and West Virginia (7.32) however elevated in Nevada (4.49) and Washington (4.34).
What we’re studying
After rising between 2021 and 2022, toddler mortality has plateaued, new nationwide information from the CDC present. Trying previous the general figures, variations amongst racial and ethnic teams additionally didn’t budge considerably, as this chart exhibits. Geography appears completely different, too. State by state, the speed of deaths per 1,000 dwell births ranged from 3.32 in Massachusetts to 9.11 in Mississippi. Mortality charges declined in New Mexico (5.88) and West Virginia (7.32) however elevated in Nevada (4.49) and Washington (4.34).
What we’re studying