Trump wins, abortion loses in Florida

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Good morning! I hope you got some sleep last night. It’s Wednesday, let’s get straight to it.

A second Trump presidency

Donald Trump is declared the winner of the election. As STAT’s Sarah Owermohle writes, Trump’s second term as president could have enormous implications for a range of health issues, from the Affordable Care Act to abortion policy and gender-affirming care.

Depending on how control of Congress expands, lawmakers could also attempt to amend the Inflation Reduction Act, which for the first time allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Advocates are particularly concerned about what a Trump administration could mean for public health and health agencies, especially now that Trump is empowering Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine activist who called for its removal in the final days of the campaign of fluoride from drinking. water.

We’ll see more of what races are called, and what they can do for health, throughout the day on STAT.

What a Republican Senate means for health care

Republicans will also take control of the Senate next year, with at least 51 seats in the House in January. This means that Republican lawmakers will chair plum committees, and a new group will gain power and influence as Congress deals with some major health care issues. Read STAT’s Rachel Cohrs Zhang on the top Republican lawmakers poised for influence in health care when the party takes power.

Abortion loses in Florida elections

A huge push to unite voters around reproductive rights took its first big hit last night. Florida rejected a ballot initiative that would have rolled back a six-week abortion ban and protected access to the procedure until a fetus’s viability. It is the first state abortion rights initiative to fail since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. But Florida is a unique case: the state requires 60% of voters to approve changes to the state constitution, as opposed to the simple majority requirement in the constitution. many other states.

Nine other states voted Tuesday on abortion rights, including Arizona, which passed an initiative to protect abortion in its constitution until the viability of the fetus. Read more from Sarah about what we know.

Genetics can determine how you feel right now

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, here’s something that may or may not help: Did you know that your political stress may be genetic? On today’s episode of the First Opinion Podcast, Torie Bosch speaks with Kevin Smith, a professor and researcher who focuses on the intersection of political attitudes, biology, and evolution. It’s a fascinating conversation about human nature and ideology that I highly recommend. Listen.

For a deep dive into all the election results so far, read DC Diagnosis. If you don’t subscribe yet, today’s special issue will hit the site later this morning.

18.5 million

That’s the estimated number of people worldwide who will die from cancer by 2050, according to a study published yesterday JAMA network opened. It would be an increase of almost 90% from the estimated 9.7 million people who died in 2022. The pandemic and armed conflicts around the world have presented challenges in cancer prevention and care, the authors wrote. (Last month, the New York Times published a heartbreaking story about cancer patients in Gaza.)

Countries with a low “Human Development Index” scores – a combination of indicators such as life expectancy, education and income – will be particularly hard hit, experiencing a threefold increase in cancer cases and deaths, the authors estimate. They point to expanding universal health insurance and improving access to primary health care worldwide as promising strategies to reduce inequalities and improve cancer outcomes.

New research for the ‘burnout of healthcare providers’ files

You may have already seen the story in the Wall Street Journal this weekend about a generational divide between younger doctors who want a better work-life balance and older doctors who say long hours are part of the job. “We need to take care of ourselves so we can take care of other people,” a 40-year-old doctor told WSJ. Burnout is a hot topic among people in the profession. Two new studies in JAMA Network Open added to the study:

• Burnout is associated with poorer patient safety, increased hospital-acquired infections, medication errors and adverse events systematic review of 85 studies involving more than 288,000 nurses. Previous research shows that 11 to 56% of nurses suffer from burnout.
• Physician burnout decreased when they felt their primary care teams were efficient and their own use of electronic health records was proficient, according to a study. observational research including more than 10,300 general practitioners. Collaborating with registered nurses was associated with greater team efficiency, and collaborating with PAs was associated with a greater likelihood of physicians feeling less burdened by the amount of EHR work they have to do at home.

15.8%

That’s the percentage of U.S. adults who had diabetes (diagnosed or undiagnosed) between August 2021 and 2023, according to new data from the CDC. National Center for Health Statistics. The prevalence was higher among men than women, and decreased as people’s education levels increased.

If you missed it last week, read Liz Cooney’s story about how limiting sugar in childhood is linked to less diabetes and high blood pressure in adulthood.

What we read

• A brilliant cure, but we lost the patient, Believer

• Supreme Court justices appear divided over a more than $9 billion hospital payment program, STAT

• I don’t throw away my black plastic spatula, Slate

• Sutter Health CEO donates to Harris, whose investigation led to 2019 antitrust settlement STAT
• How we talk about harmful chemicals in the environment, Nature
• Ways to Respond When You’re Stressed and Someone Tells You ‘Don’t Stress’ New Yorker