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GGood morning! Healthcare challenges like antimicrobial resistance have long provided narrative tension for shows like Grey’s anatomy. But what about one whole musical about it? Ask and you shall receive.
The wheels on the anti-pharmaceutical bus…reflect the GOP’s talking points
A new dark money group called Americans for Pharma Reform wants to raise awareness of what they call bad behavior by the pharmaceutical industry. How do they do this? A multi-state bus tour of the country’s electoral battlegrounds. In Green Bay, Wisc., the bus parked outside a Packers football game. Group members handed out free coffee and donuts, while supporters signed their names on the outside of the bus.
The basic idea is not unusual: more than 60% of Americans have a negative view of the pharmaceutical industry. But the group’s website also includes references to more extreme positions, such as reinstating liability for vaccine manufacturers and the idea that gender-affirming care benefits the industry. And whoever funds the group is working hard to keep their identities secret, STAT’s Rachel Cohrs Zhang reports. Read more about the bus.
Is bird flu spreading in Missouri? Here’s what we know
A second health care worker developed respiratory symptoms from milk after caring for a person hospitalized in Missouri with H5N1 bird flu, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday. The person was not tested for the flu because health officials only learned about the symptoms after the person had recovered, meaning it was too late.
For those keeping track, this is the second time possible cases linked to the confirmed case have come to light long after the fact. Earlier this month it was announced that a household contact of the confirmed case and a healthcare worker who had cared for the individual had also been ill. That first healthcare worker tested negative for influenza. Read more from STAT’s Helen Branswell on the latest news.
Does the Hatch-Waxman Act Need an Overhaul at Age 40?
Earlier this month, I learned about the Hatch-Waxman Act from an explainer video from my colleague Anna Yeo. You may already know this, but essentially the 1984 bill reshaped the pharmaceutical landscape to bring more affordable, generic drugs to the market. Lawmakers juggled two competing priorities: expanding access to affordable generic drugs and preserving incentives for companies to develop new drugs.
The bill has long been hailed as a successful balancing act, but not everyone agrees. In a First Opinion essay, two experts focused on lowering drug prices and monitoring political influence argue that the Hatch-Waxman Act “has become a monopoly-expanding machine that prioritizes pharmaceutical profits over public health.” ”
Is it time to take action and reshape the system? “A 40th birthday is a good opportunity for everyone to reconsider where their lives are headed – and major legislation is no exception,” the authors of the essays write. Read more.
Drugmakers and the FDA are failing Americans who want to quit smoking
About 15 million Americans tried to quit smoking in 2022 – most of them failed. Each year, seven times as many people in the US make the attempt than are diagnosed with cancer. Yet no new class of drugs has been approved for smoking cessation in nearly two decades.
For the most part, pharmaceutical companies prefer to focus on making cancer drugs. Experts say the FDA’s drug center has delayed approval of two potential new treatment options in the past five years alone.
“Maybe after I die they will pick up some of those ideas,” said Olivier George, a psychology professor who has researched a nicotine-blocking enzyme. Read more in Nick Florko’s latest story for STAT.
Early research: Black patients with aggressive breast cancer are less likely to receive immunotherapy
Black people with triple negative breast cancer (a particularly aggressive form that disproportionately affects black women) received significantly less immunotherapy than white patients, according to a study with data from more than 10,000 patients. The results will be presented at an American Association for Cancer Research event conference Health disparities this week showed that black patients received 11% less immunotherapy compared to white patients between 2017 and 2021. Socioeconomic factors such as participation in Medicare and receiving care in community programs as opposed to academic centers may have played an important role. influence, the researchers found.
More research is needed to understand the differences. And the stakes are high: Immunotherapy has quickly become a standard treatment for this type of cancer after it hit the market in 2019. In 2017, only 4.2% of patients with early-stage TNBC received immunotherapy. By 2021, that number had risen to 48%.
What if we tried to starve cancer?
More cancer news: just like you and me, cancer cells have to eat. But they’re not feasting on instant ramen or egg and cheese sandwiches; instead, they have a preference for glucose. Previous attempts to prevent cancer cells from digesting the simple sugar, which allows them to grow, have been ineffective. But in a study published Friday in Science Advances, researchers found that this may be because cancer cells simply find others when you take away one favorite food. In this case: glutamine and lactate.
To effectively starve cancer cells, at least two of these three nutrients must be blocked, the researchers found. STAT’s Angus Chen spoke with two study authors about the potential for new therapies that could starve tumors. Read more.
What we read
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They rallied around ‘our boys’ as they insisted on a Duchenne treatment. Where have the girls gone? STAT
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Doctors ‘fight like crazy’ against second Trump administrator: ‘Elections are important for your health’ Politics
- New HHS rules fail to address the leading driver of research misconduct, STAT
- The power of a smaller chest, New York Times
- The human cost of ghost networks, NPR