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We have a hurricane-focused newsletter for you this morning. I’m writing this hours before Milton makes landfall – stay safe, everyone.
Hospitals are giving patients Gatorade instead of IVs to stretch supplies…
Hospitals across the country are conserving their supplies of IV fluids after a Baxter plant in North Carolina, which produces more than half of the nation’s IV solutions, closed in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Some doctors use Gatorade instead of IVs to compensate for this and wait longer to replace IV bags.
The episode is the latest in a series of weather disruptions that highlight the country’s fragile medical supply chain. Several medical factories in the southeastern US and Puerto Rico have been damaged by tornadoes and hurricanes in recent years.
Further complications may arise as a result of Hurricane Milton. A plant of B. Braun, the nation’s second-largest supplier of IV solutions, is in the expected path of the storm. The disruption of IV production and shipping could also delay elective medical procedures for the foreseeable future. Hospitals may have to do that mixing their own liquids to temporarily alleviate the shortage. Read more about Usha Lee McFarling’s situation.
…And should IV hydration bars be closed?
There’s one simple solution to saving IV fluids, says family physician Andrew Pasternak. Elective IV hydration bars and spas should suspend operations until the shortage subsides.
The shortage is affecting Pasternak’s patients at his Reno clinic, who need IV fluids for cancer chemotherapy or surgery. The doctor himself is having elective neck surgery this winter and isn’t sure if his hospital will have enough IVs by then.
During this IV emergency, he argues, it’s frankly a waste to help someone with a hangover feel better, while seriously ill patients may experience delays in care. Although there aren’t that many IV bars in the United States – just under 500By one estimate, every drop counts at a time like this. Read more.
Fewer PhD students are fleeing academia for biotechnology
The long-standing trend of aspiring life scientists turning away from academia for lucrative industry jobs is finally slowing down. Less biomedical Ph.D. Graduates are choosing the sector amid a rough job market, new data shows.
The latest figures from the Survey of Earned Doctorates show that 61.6% of biomedical scientists with a job lined up were heading into industry in 2023 – a significant drop from 66.5% in 2022. turnaround breaks a decade of near-continuous annual increases in the percentage of graduates moving into the private sector. Graduates entering academia are more likely to obtain non-tenure track positions than in the past. Read more from Jonathan Wosen.
Bill Nye on the rare neurological disease that runs in his family
In what is sure to be a tough ask for millennials, Bill Nye the Science Guy is temporarily in the process of a rebrand. But there’s a good reason for that: the professional science celebrity wants to be known as “Bill Nye, the Ataxia Advocate Guy,” to raise awareness about a brain disease that has affected his family for generations.
Nye has spoken before about ataxia, a genetic condition that makes it difficult for people with the condition to control their muscles and often leads to problems walking and talking. He said he didn’t have children because he worried about passing the disease on to them. Anil Oza spoke with Nye about his history with the disease and why he wanted to talk about it more publicly.
Is AI all hot air?
Aravind Narayan and Sayash Kapoor have built a reputation throw cold water to at least some claims about how AI will change people’s lives. Colleagues at Princeton University have released a new book on this topic, ‘AI Snake Oil.’ STAT’s Anil Oza spoke to Kapoor about the new book and why, despite their continued skepticism, academics are cautiously optimistic about the future of healthcare technology.
“It’s easy to look at all the flaws and abuses of chatbots and conclude that the world has gone crazy for being so crazy about a technology that is so prone to failure,” they write. “But that conclusion would be too simplistic.” Read more about Kapoor’s thoughts on his new book.