Samhsa, TB transmission, Doula Care, HIV -Schot

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Hello everyone, This is Allison Deangelis, who fills in your morning rounds Maven Theresa Gaffney.

Yesterday Theresa revealed a new problem: the potential disappearance of sour cream and onions – potato chips. I am here to burst her bubble. I wanted to spoil a little on Saturday and while I was at Walgreens to grab some household items, I went to the snack area looking for funyuns. (Don’t judge me. They have a great crunch and taste.) Come discover that my classic funyuns have been replaced by one Sour cream and onion version! Apparently Frito-Lay recently launched the new taste.

I hope this hot tip helps you get through Wednesday. Now, on the news …

The vaccine criticism of CDC -nominated Weldon grew over the past two decades

Photo -illustration: Stat; Photo: Wikimedia Commons

When President Trump announced last November that he had tapped David Weldon to lead the CDC, it was surprised. Reporting from Sarah Overmohle discovered that his name at the top of the shortlist of the administration for CDC directors rose after a push from the team of Robert F. Kennedy.

On Thursday, Weldon will be the first CDC candidate to go through the confirmation process of the Senate, a new requirement that was implemented in 2023.

Weldon is a doctor who served in congress from 1995 to 2009 and has since held a low profile. Documents investigated by Stat showing how the theories of the former representative about vaccines and autism grew in the early 2000s, and the Bouwpushback that he received from health officers and the scientific community.

A HIV shot once a year?

It is possible that HIV can be prevented by an annual shot – at least, that is what new data from Gilead suggests. The pharmaceutical company has developed a new HIV medication called Lenacapavir, which has been tested only twice a year so far. Scientists have adjusted the formulation of the drug and recently found in a test of 40 people that led one form to higher levels of the medicine in blood flows of volunteers, which lasted at least 56 weeks.

To be clear, the test did not test the new version of Lenacapavir’s efficacy in preventing HIV, writes Jason Mast. But it caused a commotion, in which one expert said that the data “crushing a glass ceiling.”

Gilead still selects which version of Lenacapavir will develop it further. The company plans this year a phase 3-test with the version to start once a year.

Insight into diseases transferred by air

Stat’s First Opinion Podcast is back for a new season and it starts with a conversation with science writer Carl Zimmer.

Zimmer, who is currently a columnist for The New York Times, discusses his latest book “Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe.” The book dives into Covid and the history of aerobiology, or the transfer of particles through the air. In particular, Zimmer delves into why it is so difficult to learn how diseases spread in this way. “There is just so much work that needs to be done there, and there is not really much research going on, what is going on with bird flu that floating around is quite striking,” he said.

You can listen to the episode Apple Podcasts” SpotifyOr where you get your podcasts.

A new type of doula

Katrina Zimmerman for Stat

Spiritual people often guide people through many of the most important moments of life. In a moving video for Stat produced by Hyacinth Empinado, says Rev. Beth Stotts about a new way in which she helps her congregants: as an end-life doula.

End of life or dead Doulas offer advanced care planning and other non-medical services to support the dying and their loved ones. For Stotts, that means talking about funeral schemes, advising family members, fix loose ends or goals and discussing small details about their last moments. Do they want music? Maybe a candle? “I think it is actually very empowerment for individuals to be able to say:” I don’t want this or I want that, “said Stotts.” You feel less victim until the end of your life. “

It can be an unknown role today, but Doula’s at the end of the lifespan are increasingly common. The number of certified doula’s on the end of life has grown considerably after the pandemic, from around 250 in 2019 to more than 1500 in 2024.

Samhsa employees describe an agency in mess

The Trump government has cut around 100 employees, or about 10%, of the federal agency that supervises mental and behavioral health – a movement that could endanger efforts to curb suicide and deaths from drugs, Rose Broderick reports.

Mainly a subsidies agency with a budget of $ 8 billion, channels Samhsa funds and training that the federal government spends on service providers on the ground. The organization deals with ‘life and death issues’, a former employee notes.

The deaths due to overdoses of drugs have fallen in recent years, but still the top 80,000 annually, according to Provisional Centers for sickness control and prevention data. The mental health crisis of the country is disturbing in the same way: the suicide figure raised by approximately 30% from 2002 to 2022.

A genetic indication in TBCRANSMISSEMENT

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have identified genes on which the tuberculous bacteria trust to survive and distribute – genes that may be useful when cure the disease or stopping it.

Until now, very little was known about how tuberculous bacteria temperature changes, oxygen levels, humidity and other environmental factors survived during the journey of the lungs from one person to another. “Now we have a feeling, because of these genes, of the tools that tuberculosis uses to protect themselves,” said Dr. Lydia Bourouibawho was the co-senior author of the paper, which was published in Pnas.

What we read

• His daughter was the first death of America in a decade, The Atlantic Ocean
• Federal science hammered by the limit of Doge’s credit card spending, Unkoord
• The women’s health sector is about to be a crucial transformation, stat
• RFK says that most vaccine advisers have conflicts of interest. A report shows that they don’t do that, NPR
• Will the mother mortality of Texas be judged by the mother of the mother of the Texas’s mother? The Texas Tribune