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Good morning! It is cold outside and dry dry dry inside at the office here at the Stat-headquarters. It’s so bad that I almost thought about lubrication bovet All over my face. (During the preparation of this newsletter, an editor has already asked me not to do this. For the sake of clarity: I am kidding! But it really is true So dry.)
WHO responds to critical essay in Stat
Molly Ferguson for Stat
Last week, Arts and former COVID-19 Response coordinator of the White House, Ashish JHA, wrote a First Opinion-Eessay about his conviction that the World Health Organization needs ‘in-depth reforms’, but that leaving the organization is not the way to the necessary change. (On Monday, Trump announced through an executive order that he intended to withdraw.)
Yesterday Maria van Kerkhove of the WHO wrote a letter to the editor of Stat, in response to Jha’s criticism of the organization. “The scarce evidence that he quotes, simplifies complex scientific issues enormously and completely ignores the comprehensive multi -year response that the WHO led,” wrote Van Kerkhove. Read the entire letter here.
In emergency situations, distance ensures that diseases become stronger
People who live further from the Emergency Department have a greater chance of more complex medical problems when they finally arrive there, according to a study that was published yesterday in Jama network opened. The study analyzed data from more than 190,000 adults in Florida and California who went to first aid for five common surgical problems, including appendix inflammation, hernias and intestinal obstruction.
People in the study that were more than an hour away from a clinic had a greater chance of surgery, a hospital admission, a longer stay or a transfer to a clinic other than those who lived closer. They also collected larger accounts.
The study suggests that timeliness can be considered as one of the “essential components of access to health care,” the authors write. It is an urgent problem like rural hospitals keep closing All over the country. The authors added that future research in these areas might be better off by using travel time to measure access than postcodes.
New guidelines could be an example of the Indian diets
If you have followed Liz Cooney’s reports about the Voeding Guidelines of 2025, then you know that the experts have pointed to vegetable food as an important part of healthy eating. For generations, many indigenous communities have already lived in this way, trusting what some people call the ‘Three Sisters’: corn, beans and pumpkin. These vegetables in particular were treated as second-class foods in earlier food guidelines, former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez argues in a new First Opinion essay.
That could finally change. A scientific report from the committee that advises on the new guidelines gives special attention to vegetable sources, especially when it comes to proteins. NEZ argues that codifying this change can rectify the historical injustice that is affected by indigenous communities and improve the federal food policy for everyone. And it is not just about symbolism: the guidelines are used as the basis for many federal nutritional programs, which influence the foods to which people throughout the country have access. Read more.
The new ‘gold rush’ of cancer therapy
Adobe
In recent years, immune checkpoin tribeers have been the MVP of cancer drugs. For example, Keytruda van Merck has been used in millions of patients against tens of different cancer, making it the best -selling medicine in the world. But experts say that there is a new player in the city who could eventually challenge the dominance of these treatments of the first generation.
Drugs such as Keytruda help to recognize and destroy the cancer immune system more aggressively. But a certain type of bi-specific antibody-designed to grab two different antigens at the same time-seems to have a crucial combination of cancer goals, PD-1 and VEGF. The exact biology is not yet clear, but scientists say that the approach is promising.
Read more by Angus Chen van Stat, who explains the science behind this new approach.
Women with a disorder in the use of opioids do not get that much contraception
Women who are being treated for a disorder in the use of opioids have less chance of prescribing contraception than women in the general population, according to a study published yesterday in Jama Internal Medicine. Researchers analyzed data on commercial insurance claims from cisgender women aged 18 to 44 between 2016 and 2021.
While the number of contraceptives among women in the US has generally increased in the course of the period, from approximately 17% to 27%, the number of regulations under the prescribed medicines for opioid user disorders, just over 12% in 2016 to 11 , 6% in 2021. It is a sign that people who struggle with an addiction do not receive integrated, patient -oriented contraceptive guidance, as recommended by professional organizations, write the authors.