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This morning we have wonderful news about rewards. Yesterday, my colleague and friend Jason Mast won the 2024 Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for his reporting on the intersection of medical science, business, and human life. I asked Jason if there was a STAT story he was most proud of and he shared this heartbreaking story from last summer, when the first genetic treatment was approved for 4- and 5-year-old boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
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We also learned that over the weekend, the glorious Usha Lee McFarling won the AAJA Award for Excellence in Science/Environment/Health Reporting for stories covering fitness disparities among Asian Americans.
Earlier this year, Change Healthcare paid $22 million to hackers after a cyberattack wreaked havoc on the entire healthcare formula and compromised the personal data of a “substantial portion” of Americans. And for us, it was not an isolated event. Between 2016 and 2021, the number of such attacks in the healthcare sector more than doubled.
The growing number of cyber incidents shows that patient care is at the mercy of the double-edged sword of technology, STAT’s Brittany Trang reports. She interviewed more than a dozen cybersecurity experts, current and former federal public officials, researchers and hospital leaders to further understand how healthcare formula defends itself from cyber threats. One key problem: Decades of legislation have focused on bad actors in patient records, ignoring potential mechanisms to minimize harm in the event of formula failures.
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Learn more at STAT about how healthcare is a gold mine for hackers.
Todd Wagner is best known as co-owner of Magnolia Pictures (responsible for blockbuster films like this year’s “Thelma” and 2009’s “Food, Inc”) with businessman and “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban. But now he has a new company: FoodFight USA, an advocacy organization focused on ultra-processed foods that is catching the attention of some of the toughest people in Washington. Wagner says he has already met with the White House, the FDA’s Robert Califf and dozens of congressional lawmakers.
“I need other people to be angry,” Wagner told STAT’s Nick Florko. “This is an indictment of food corporations who have contaminated our food supply. “
Nick sat down with Wagner for an in-depth interview about the food system, regulatory hurdles like the “generally safe” loophole, Hollywood, and much more. Read the interview.
When the New England Journal of Medicine published a study noting that aspirin was as effective as injectable blood thinners in preventing life-threatening blood clots after surgery, the authors believed that hospitals would immediately update their practices to reflect those results. Providing aspirin to other people would improve physical equity (it’s cheaper) and quality of life (pills > injections).
But that was last January and adjustments take time to take place. In a new paper published in First Opinion, those same doctor-scientists argue that doctors want to maintain fairness in decision-making, not just hospital policies and old habits.
“Not every single change in medicine has to be a big step,” they write. Learn more about how small adjustments can have big effects on equitable care.
Older adults who drink more are at a higher risk of dying than those who drink only occasionally, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. People whose alcohol consumption was classified during the study as high-risk (based on grams fed with the day) had an increase consistent with all-cause mortality, cancer, and cardiovascular mortality. But even low-risk alcohol consumption was linked to a consistent increase in mortality when other people also faced socioeconomic or health-related risk factors.
The findings are based on UK Biobank data from more than 135,000 people aged over 60 who drink. Preference for wine and drinking only with food is associated with a lower risk of mortality, but the authors write that more studies are needed to determine this. whether those possible options simply reflect a healthier lifestyle or other factors.
(Related: Earlier this summer, STAT’s Isa Cueto and Emory Parker wrote a detailed article about drinking behavior in the United States and how it affects our health. )
The FDA and the US Department of Agriculture hoped to get an answer to this in a new circular testing advertisements for dairy products that included butter, ice cream, and pasteurized and unpasteurized cheeses purchased in several states. Of the 167 pieces purchased, 23 were raw milk cheeses purchased in Idaho, Minnesota, Ohio, North Carolina and Texas.
But a recently published preprint (a study that has not yet been published) reports that the agencies cannot yet give a definitive answer, since none of the raw milk cheeses purchased tested positive for the virus. Some of the processes were supposed to For example, according to FDA rules, raw milk cheeses sold in all states will have to have been aged for at least 60 days. “Since there was no evidence of viruses in the cheese, we cannot draw any conclusions about whether the existing aging requirements of 60 days are sufficient to inactivate viable viruses,” the FDA and USDA authors said, adding that they More studies were needed. Traces of the virus have been discovered in some cheeses made from pasteurized milk, but subsequent tests have shown that it is an inactivated virus.
– Helen Branswell
Over the weekend, we learned that the journal Psychopharmacology was retracting 3 articles on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, just days after the FDA rejected the closely monitored remedy for PTSD.
The retractions were due to “violations of protocol that constitute unethical conduct,” i. e. , a Phase 2 trial at the test site in Canada, Psychopharmacology said. It was at this site that an unlicensed therapist was charged with sexual assault in civil court through a gambler at trial.
Read on STAT+ by Meghana Keshavan.
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